7

That fools should be so deep-contemplative;
And I did laugh, sans intermission,

An hour by his dial.-O noble fool!

A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear.
Duke S. What fool is this!

Jaq. O worthy fool!-One that hath been a courtier; And says, if ladies be but young and fair,

They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,—

Which is as dry as the remainder biscuit

After a voyage,—he hath strange places cramm'd
With observation, the which he vents

In mangled forms.

A TENDER PETITION.

But whate'er you are,

That in this desert inaccessible,

Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days,

If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;

If ever sat at any good man's feast;

If ever from your eye-lids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied;
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.

THE SEVEN AGES.

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school; and then, the lover;

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eye-brow. Then, a soldier ;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden* and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth: And then, the justice;
In fair round belly, with good capon lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern† instances,

And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;

With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well served, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything!

INGRATITUDE. A SONG.

Blow, blow, thou wintry wind,

Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh, ho sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly; Then, heigh, ho, the holly!

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,

That dost not bite so nigh

As benefits forgot:

* Violent.

Trite, common.

+ Unnatural.

Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friends remember'd* not.

Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly;
Then, heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.

OLIVER'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS DANGER WHEN SLEEPING.

Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age,
And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back; about his neck
A green and gilded snake had wreath'd itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly,
Seeing Orlando, it unlink'd itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush: under which bush's shade
A lioness with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with cat-like watch,
When that sleeping man should stir; for 'tis

The royal disposition of that beast

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.

LOVE.

Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.

It is to be all made of sighs and tears;

It is to be all made of faith and service :

It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes;

All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance.

*Remembering.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

MAN'S PRE-EMINENCE.

There's nothing, situate under Heaven's eye,
But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky:
The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls,
Are their males' subject, and at their controls:
Men, more divine, the masters of all these,
Lords of the wide world, and wild watery seas,
Endued with intellectual sense and souls,
Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,
Are masters to their females, and their lords :
Then let your will attend on their accords.

LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.

ON STUDY.

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun,

That will not be deep-search'd with saucy looks;

Small have continual plodders ever won,
Save base authority from others' books.
These earthly godfathers of heaven's lights,
That give a name to every fixed star,

Have no more profit of their shining nights,

Than those that walk, and wot not what they are. Too much to know, is to know naught but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

A MERRY MAN.

A merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal:
His eye begets occasion for his wit;
For every object that the one doth catch,
The other turns to a mirth-moving jest:
Which his fair tongue (conceit's expositor)
Delivers in such apt and gracious words,
That aged ears play truant at his tales,
And younger hearings are quite ravished;
So sweet and voluble in his discourse.

SELF-DENIAL.

Brave conquerors!-for so you are,
That war against your own affections,
And the huge army of the world's desires.

HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF LOVE.

O! And I, forsooth, in love? I, that have been love's

A very beadle to a humorous sigh;

A critic; nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o'er the boy,

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