HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FOP.

W. SHAKSPEARE.

BUT, I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap'd
Show'd like a stubble land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box which ever and anon

He gave his nose, and took't away again ;—
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there
Took it in snuff: and still he smiled, and talk'd;
And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; among the rest demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds, being cold
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience,

Answer'd, neglectingly, I know not what;

He should, or he should not; for he made me mad

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman

Of

guns, and drums, and wounds (God save the
mark!)

And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,

That villainous saltpetre should be digg'd

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.

MERCY.

W. SHAKSPEARE.

THE quality of mercy is not strain'd; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown: His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above the sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

ADVICE TO A SON GOING TO TRAVEL.

W. SHAKSPEARE.

GIVE thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatcb'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but being in,

ANTONY'S FUNERAL ORATION ON CESAR.

261

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thv
judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all,-To thine ownself be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

ANTONY'S FUNERAL ORATION ON CÆSAR. W. SHAKSPEARE.

FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.
The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest
(For Brutus is an honourable man ;
So they are all, all honourable men),
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: