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Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear

In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me 40 Out of thy honest truth to play the woman.

Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell; And,-when I am forgotten, as I shall be;

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention Of me more must be heard of,--say, I taught thee; 45 Say, Wolsey,-that once trod the ways of glory,

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,—
Found thee a way, out of his wrack, to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.
50 Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?

Love thyself last cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

55 Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not :
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;

60 And,-Prithee, lead me in:

There take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 't is the king's: my robe,

And my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,

65 Had I but served my God with half the zeal I serv'd my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies.

67. Naked, defenceless, like Lat. nudus.

C.-TRAGEDIES.

From HAMLET.

59. Hamlet's Soliloquy on Death.-Act III. Sc. 1.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question :
Whether 't is nobler in the mind, to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

5 And by opposing end them?-To die,-to sleep,-
No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die,-to sleep ;--

10 To sleep! perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life:

15 For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
20 When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
25 No traveller returns, puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;

3. Outrageous, violent. Outrage is merely the Fr. outre (Lat. ultra) with termination appended.

4. This line has been subjected to much hostile criticism, on the ground that it contains a rather absurd mixed metaphor. If, however, the word sea be taken in the sense simply of a vast host, the metaphor having come practically to be lost sight of, there is nothing objectionable in the passage.

12. Coil, generally meant tumult, noise, in Shakespeare. Here, however, there seems to be added a notion of impediment, obstruction-something that wraps round.

13. Respect, consideration, the way of looking at a thing; fr. Lat. respicio. 18. Spurns. The literal meaning of spurn, O. E. spurnan, was to kick.

20. Quietus; a legal term meaning the official discharge of an account in the Court of Exchequer.

21. Bodkin, a small dagger. Fardels, bundles, burdens, Sp. fardillo Fr. fardeau.

24. Bourn, boundary, Fr. borne, a corrupt form of bonne, which is the same word as Eng. bound.

28. Cowards. A coward (Fr. couard, It. codardo) is a man who turns tail (Lat. cauda, It. coda) (Diez).

"A

And thus the native hue of resolution

30 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

metaphor from the proverbial timidity
of the hare, which was called couard
from its short tail" (Wedgwood).

30. Cast, "A shade or tendency to

any colour." (Dr. Johnson).
32. With this regard: when regarded,
or looked at, in this way.

From KING LEAR.

60. Why the Shakespeare Cliff at Dover is so called.—Act IV. Sc. 6. Enter GLOSTER, and EDGAR dressed like a Peasant.

Glo. When shall I come to the top of that same hill?
Edg. You do climb up it now: look, how we do labour.
Glo. Methinks the ground is even.

Edg.

Hark! do you hear the sea?

Glo.

5

Edg.

Horrible steep.

No, truly.

Why, then your other senses grow imperfect

By your eyes' anguish.

Glo.

So may it be, indeed.

Methinks thy voice is alter'd; and thou speak'st

In better phrase, and matter, than thou did'st.

Edg. Y' are much deceiv'd: in nothing am I chang'd,

10 But in my garments.

Glo.

Methinks y' are better spoken.

Edg. Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still:-how fearful,
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eye so low !

The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air,
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
15 Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks, he seems no bigger than his head.

14. Gross, large, Fr. gros: thus to engross is to write out in a large, fair hand; engrossers of grain are men who accumulate grain in order that they may increase the price; a grocer, Fr.

marchand grossier, is properly one who sells goods in large quantities.

15. Samphire, Fr. Herbe de Sainte Pierre, a marine plant (Wedgwood).

The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,

Appear like mice; and yond' tall anchoring bark,
Diminish'd to her cock; her cock, a buoy,

20 Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,
That on th' unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes,
Cannot be heard so high.-I'll look no more;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.

25

Glo.

Set me where you stand.

Edg. Give me your hand; you are now within a foot Of th' extreme verge for all beneath the moon

Would I not leap upright.

Glo.

Let go my hand.

Here, friend, is another purse; in it a jewel

Well worth a poor man's taking: fairies, and gods, 30 Prosper it with thee! Go thou farther off;

Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
Edg. Now fare you well, good sir.
Glo.

With all my heart.

Edg. Why I do trifle thus with his despair,

Is done to cure it.

Glo.

Oh, you mighty gods! 35 This world I do renounce, and in your sights

An

18. Anchoring, lying at anchor. other illustration of the facility with which English verbs pass from a transitive to an intransitive signification.

19. Cock: the word cockboat is one of those double forms so common in our language, whose vocabulary is made up of so many varying elements, the Celtic cwch, which supplies the first syllable, itself meaning boat. It is also found in this sense in cockswain. Compare reindeer (rein, N. hreinn, Lappish hran, and E. deer, both meaning simply animal), Hampton, Downhill, Daily journal, &c.

21. Unnumber'd, innumerable: the suffix ed gives a variety of significations to the words to which it is attached. Thus delighted in Othello ("delighted beauty") means delightful; in Measure for Measure ("delighted spirit"), ac

customed to delights; starred in Milton is equivalent to "turned into a star;" dogged in King John is "dog-like;" and unremoved in "Paradise Lost" is irremovable. Many other instances might be adduced.

27. Upright, straight up, vertically, lest I might not light on exactly the same spot. Or perhaps, as upright once was used in the sense of supine, it might here mean horizontally.

29. Fairies: a fairy is a being who fixes the destinies (Lat. fata) of men, L. L. fataria. So prairie comes from prataria.

31. Farewell: O. E. faran, to go, is the source of fare (a payment for going), ford, fare, to prosper, fyrd, O. E. national muster, &c.

Shake patiently my great affliction off:
If I could bear it longer, and not fall
To quarrel with your great opposeless wills,
My snuff, and loath'd part of nature, should
40 Burn itself out. If Edgar live, Oh, bless him!
Now, fellow, fare thee well.

Edg.

Gone, sir: farewell.[GLOSTER leaps and falls headlong.

39. Snuff was a term of contempt, the most worthless part of anything.

From TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

61. Ulysses and Achilles.-Act III. Sc. 3.

Ulyss. Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion ;

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes :

Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devoured 5 As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done. Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright: to have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; 10 For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast; keep, then, the path,
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: if you give way,
Or edge aside from the direct forthright,
15 Like to an entered tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,

6. Dear my lord. In early times a tendency had set in to make the pronoun my an inseparable prefix of lord (milord), as has actually become the case with Fr. monsieur, madame, &c. See First Book of Kings, xviii. 7. "Art thou that my lord Elijah ?"

9. Instant, immediate, used both of space and time.

12. Emulation. This word often means

malicious rivalry in Shakespeare. Compare line 44, "emulous missions.'

14. Forthright, straight path, Gk. άтраrós. In The Tempest "forthrights" are contrasted with "meanders."

15. Tide, O. E. tid, hour, time, Ger. zeit, got its modern meaning from the regularity of the ebb and flow of the

sea,

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