Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountains' tops.
-Reafon thus with life:
If I do lafe thee, I do lofe a thing
That none but fools would reck. A breath thou art,
Servile to all the skiey influences
That do this habitation, where thou keep'ft,
Hourly afflict merely thou art Death's fool;
For him thou labour'it by thy flight to fhun,
And yet runn'ft toward him ftill.
For all th' accommodations, that thou bear'st,
Are nurs'd by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant ; For thou doft fear the soft and tender fork
Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,
And that thou oft provok'ft; yet grossly fear'ft
Thy death, which is no more. Thou'rt not thyself:
For thou exiit'ft on many thousand grains,
That iffue out of duft. Happy thou art not;
For what thou haft not, still thou striv'ft to get;
And what thou haft, forgett'ft. Thou art not certain ;
For thy complexion fhifts to ftrange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor;
For like an afs, whofe back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'ft thy heavy riches but a journey,
And Death unloadeth thee. Friend thou hast none;
For thy own bowels, which do call thee Sire,
The mere effufion of thy proper loins,
Do curfe the Gout, Serpigo, and the Rheum,
For ending thee no fooner. Thou haft nor youth,
But, as it were, an after-dinner's fleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy bleffed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palfied eld; and when thou'rt old and rich,
Thou haft neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleafant. What's yet in this,
That bears the name of life? Yet death we fear,
That makes thefe odds all even.
Meafure for Meafure, A. 3. Sc. 1.
-She fhould have dy'd hereafter:
There would have been a time for fuch a word-
Tomorrow-and to-morrow-and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the laft fyllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dufty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking fhadow; a poor player,
That ftruts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an ideot, full of found and fury,
Signifying nothing.
After life's fitfull fever he fleeps well:
Treafon has done his worft; nor steel, nor poifon,
Malice domeftic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further.
Their going hence, ever as their coming hither ;
-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 feven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurfe's arms:
And then the whining fchool-boy with his fatchel,
And fhining morning face, creeping like fnail
Unwillingly to fchool. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his miftrets' eyebrow. Then, a soldier;
Full of frange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, fudden and quick in quarrel;
Seeking the bubble reputation,
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the juftice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes fevere, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wife faws and modern inftances;
And fo he plays his
The fixth
part.
Into the lean and flipper'd pantaloon,
With fpectacles on nofe, and pouch on fide;
His youthful hofe well fav'd, a world too wide
For his fhrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his found. Last scene of all,
That ends this ftrange eventful history,
Is fecond childishness, and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, fans eyes, fans tafte, fans every thing.
As You Like It, A, 2. Sc. 5.
Blood hath been fhed ere now, i'the olden time,
Ere human statute purg'd the gentle weal;
Aye, and fince too, murders have been perform'd
Too terrible for the ear: but now, they rife again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools.
It will have blood, they fay; blood will have blood: Stones have been known to move, and trees to speak; Augurs, and understood relations, have
By maggot pies, and choughs, and rooks, brought forth, The fecret'ft man of blood.
Methought, I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder fleep; the innocent fleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd fleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, fore labour's bath,
Balin of hurt minds, great nature's fecond course,
Chief nourisher in life's feaft-
Still it cry'd, Sleep no more, to all the house.
Glamis hath murder'd fleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall fleep no more; Macbeth fhall fleep no more.
The image of a wicked heinous fault
Lives in his eye; that close aspect of his,
Does fhew the mood of a much-troubled breast.
And I do fearfully believe 'tis done,
What we fo fear'd he had a charge to do.
'Tis good; tho' music oft hath fuch a charm To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
Measure for Measure, A. 4. Sc. 1.
Let mufic found, while he doth make his choice;
Then, if he lofe, he makes a fwan-like end,
Fading in mufic. That the comparison
May ftand more juft, my eye fhall be the stream
And wat❜ry death-bed for him. He may win;
And what is mufic then? Then music is
Even as the flourish when true subjects bow
To a new-crowned monarch: fuch it is
As are thofe dulcet founds in break of day,
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear,
And fummon him to marriage.
The Merchant of Venice, A. 3.
I'm never merry, when I hear sweet mufic.
The reafon is, your fpirits are attentive;
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
(Which is the hot condition of their blood)
If they perchance but hear a trumpet found,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You fhall perceive them make a mutual ftand ;
Their favage eyes turn'd to a modeft gaze,
By the fweet power of mufic. Therefore, the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, ftones, and floods;
Since nought fo ftockish, hard, and full of rage,
But mufic for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no mufic in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of fweet fourds,
Is fit for treafons, ftratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his fpirits are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus :
Let no fuch man be trusted.
The Merchant of Venice, A. 5. Sc. 1.
If mufic be the food of love, play on;
Give me excefs of it; that, furfeiting,
The appetite may ficken, and fo die.
That train again;-it had a dying fall:
O, it came o'er my car, like the sweet south,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing, and giving odour.
Twelfth Night, A. 1. Sc. 1.
How four sweet music is,
When time is broke, and no proportion kept!
So is it in the mufic of men's lives.
And here have I the daintinefs of ear,
To check time broke in a disorder'd ftring;
But, for the concord of my ftate and time,
Had not an ear, to hear my true time broke.
King Richard II. A. 5. Sc. 4
AFFECTION.
O! fhe, that hath a heart of that fine frame,
Το pay this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden fhaft
Hath kill'd the flock of all affections elfe
That live in her? when liver, brain, and heart,
Thefe fov'reign thrones, are all supply'd, and fill'd,
(Her sweet perfections) with one felf-fame King!
The Twelfth Night, A. 1. Sc. 1.
NEWS-TELLER S.
I faw a fmith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilft his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth fwallowing a taylor's news;
Who with his fhears, and measure in his hand,
Standing on flippers, which his nimble hafte
Had falfely thruft upon contrary feet,
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent.
Another lean, unwash'd artificer
Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.
The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.
Lovers, to bed! 'tis almoft fairy time.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, A. 5. Sc. 1.
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