M. Gri. O, I must get rid of this fellow! Was there ever such a provoking scamp? He will kill me with vexation. Away with you, Sir! Out of my sight!

20 BALTHAZAR AND THE QUACK.-John Tobin. Born, 1770; died, 1804

Balthazar. And now, thou sketch and outline of a man Thou thing, that hast no shadow in the sun!

Thou eel in a consumption, eldest born

Of Death on Famine! thou anatomy

Of a starved pilchard!·

Quack. I do confess my leanness. I am spare,
And therefore spare me! Man, you know, must live!
Balt. Yes; he must die, too.

Quack. For my patients' sake!

Balt. I'll send you to the major part of them.

The window, Sir, is open;

come, prepare.

Quack. Pray, consider, Sir,

I may hurt some one in the street.

Balt. Why, then,

Whilst I, with this good small-sword for a lancet,

Let thy starved spirit out, for blood thou hast none,
And nail thee to the wall, where thou shalt look

Like a dried beetle with a pin stuck through him.
Quack. Consider my poor wife!

Balt. Thy wife!

Quack. My wife, Sir.

Balt. Hast thou dared to think of matrimony, too?

No conscience, and take a wife!

Quack. I have a wife, and three angelic babes,

Who, by those looks, are well-nigh fatherless!

་

Balt. Well, well, your wife and children shall plead for you.

Come, come, the pills! where are the pills? produce them.
Quack. Here is the box.

Balt. Were it Pandora's, and each single pill

Had ten diseases in it, you should take them.

Quack. What, all?

Balt. Ay, all; and quickly, too; —come, Sir, begin'

That's well; - another.

Quack. One's a dose!

Balt. Proceed, Sir.

Quack. What will become of me?

I do beseech you let me have some drink,

Some cooling liquid, Sir, to wash them down'

Balt. O, yes-produce the vial!
Quack. Mercy on me!

Balt. Come, Sir, your new invented patent draught
You've tried it on a dog; so there's no danger.
Quack. If you have any mercy think of me!
Balt. Nay, no demur!

Quack. May I entreat to make my will first?

Balt. No; you have naught but physic to bequeath,
And that no one will take, though you should leave it.
Quack. Just to step home, and see my wife and children
Balt. No, Sir.

Quack. Let me go home and set my shop to rights,
And, like immortal Cæsar, die with decency!

Balt. Away, and thank thy lucky star I have not
Brayed thee in thine own mortar, or exposed thee
For a large specimen of the lizard genus.

Quack. Would I were one! for they can feed on air.
Balt. Home, Sir, and be more honest!
Quack. If I am not,

I'll be more wise, at least! [Exit.]

[Exit.]

21. BRUTUS AND TITUS.-Nathaniel Lee.

There are some noble touches in the following dialogue, from Lee's tragedy of “Luctus Junius Brutus," although from the pen of a poet who mingled the extravagance of a madman with the inspirations of genius. Lee was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1651, and died in 1692. He was for some time confined in a mad-house, being for nearly four years a raving

manjac.

Brutus. Well, Titus, speak; how is it with thee now?

I would attend a while this mighty motion,

Wait till the tempest were quite overblown,
That I might take thee in the calm of nature,
With all thy gentler virtues brooding on thee:

So hushed a stillness, as if all the gods

Looked down and listened to what we were saying:
Speak, then, and tell me, O my best beloved,
My son, my Titus! is all well again?

Titus. So well, that saying how must make it nothing.

So well, that I could wish to die this moment,

For so my heart, with powerful throbs, persuades me

That were indeed to make you reparation;

That were, my Lord, to thank you home- to die'

And that, for Titus, too, would be most happy.

Brutus. How's that, my son? would death for thee be happy
Titus. Most certain, Sir; for in my grave I 'scape

All those affronts which I, in life, must look for;
All those reproaches which the eyes, the fingers,
And tongues of Rome, will daily cast upon me,
From whom, to a soul so sensible as mine,

Each single scorn would be far worse than dying.
Besides, I 'scape the stings of my own conscience,
Which will forever rack me with remembrance,
Haunt me by day, and torture me by night,
Casting my blotted honor in the way,
Where'er my melancholy thoughts shall guide me.
Brutus. But, is not death a very dreadful thing?
Titus. Not to a mind resolved. No, Sir; to me
It seems as natural as to be born.

Groans and convulsions, and discolored faces,
Friends weeping round us, crapes, and obsequies,
Make it a dreadful thing; the pomp of death
Is far more terrible than death itself.

Yes, Sir; I call the powers of Heaven to witness,
Titus dares die, if so you have decreed ;
Nay, he shall die with joy to honor Brutus.

Brutus. Thou perfect glory of the Junian race!
Let me endear thee once more to my bosom,
Groan an eternal farewell to thy soul;
Instead of tears, weep blood, if possible; —
Blood, the heart-blood of Brutus, on his child'
For thou must die, my Titus; die, my son!
I swear, the gods have doomed thee to the grave.
The violated genius of thy country

Bares his sad head, and passes sentence on thee.
This morning sun, that lights thy sorrows on
To the tribunal of this horrid vengeance,

Shall never see thee more!

Titus.

Why art thou moved thus?

Alas! my Lord,

Why am I worth thy sorrow? Why should the godlike Brutus shake to doom me? Why all these trappings for a traitor's hearse?

The gods will have it so.

Brutus.

They will, my Titus;
Nor Heaven nor earth can have it otherwise.
Nay, Titus, mark! the deeper that I search,
My harassed soul returns the more confirmed.
Methinks I see the very hand of Jove
Moving the dreadful wheels of this affair,
Like a machine, they whirl thee to thy fate.
It seems as if the gods had preördained it,
To fix the reeling spirits of the People,
And settle the loose liberty of Rome.

'Tis fixed; O, therefore, let not fancy dupe thee!

So fixed thy death, that 't is not in the power

Of gods or men to save thee from the axe.

Titus. The axe! O, Heaven! must I, then, fall so basely

What! Shall I perish by the common hangman?

Brutus. If thou deny me this, thou giv'st me nothing. Yes, Titus, since the gods have so decreed

That I must lose thee, I will take the advantage
Of thy important fate; cement Rome's flaws,
And heal her wounded freedom with thy blood.
I will ascend myself the sad tribunal,
And sit upon my son on thee, my Titus:
Behold thee suffer all the shame of death,
The lictor's lashes, bleed before the people;
Then, with thy hopes and all thy youth upon thee,
See thy head taken by the common axe,
Without a groan, without one pitying tear
(If that the gods can hold me to my purpose),
To make my justice quite transcend example.
Titus. Scourged like a bondman! Ha! a beaten slave!
But I deserve it all; yet, here I fail;
The image of this suffering quite unmans me.
O, Sir! O, Brutus! must I call you father,
Yet have no token of your tenderness?
No sign of mercy? What! not bate me that?
Can you resolve on all the extremity

Of cruel rigor? To behold me, too;

To sit, unmoved, and see me whipped to death!
Is this a father?

Ah, Sir, why should you make my heart suspect
That all your late compassion was dissembled ?
How can I think that you did ever love me?

Brutus. Think that I love thee, by my present passion,
By these unmanly tears, these earthquakes here;
These sighs, that twitch the very strings of life;
Think that no other cause on earth could move me

To tremble thus, to sob, or shed a tear,

Nor shake my solid virtue from her point,
But Titus' death. O, do not call it shameful
That thus shall fix the glory of the world.
I own thy suffering ought to unman me thus,
To make me throw my body on the ground,
To bellow like a beast, to gnaw the earth,
To tear my hair, to curse the cruel fates
That force a father thus to kill his child!

Titus. O, rise, thou violated majesty!
I now submit to all your threatened vengeance.
Come forth, ye executioners of justice!
Nay, all ye lictors, slaves, and common hangmen,
Come, strip me bare, unrobe me in his sight,
And lash me till I bleed! Whip me, like furies!
And, when you've scourged me till I foam and fall,

For want of spirits, grovelling in the dust,

Then, take my head, and give it to his justice:
By all the gods, I greedily resign it!

23 CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON IMMORTALITY.-Addison. Born, 1672, died, 17 18
Ir must be so. -— Plato, thou reasonest well
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us,

"Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

-

Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,

And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works, He must delight in virtue •
And that which He delights in must be happy.

But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures,

this must end 'em.

Thus am I doubly armed. My death and life.

My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

23. QUARREL OF BRUTUS AND CASSIUS. -Shakspeare.

Cassius. That you have wronged me, doth appear in this You have condemned and noted Lucius Pella,

For taking bribes here of the Sardians;

Wherein my letters (praying on his side,
Because I knew the man) were slighted off.

Brutus. You wronged yourself to write in such a case.
Cas. At such a time as this, it is not meet

That every nice offence should bear its comment.
† Plato's Treatise

* The dagger.