SHAKSPERE.

WOLSEY'S FAREWELL TO HIS GREATNESS.1

Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do." Í have ventured,
Like little wantons boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,

But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride4
At length broke under me and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream," that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:
I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspects of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

1. Wolsey. Thomas Wolsey (1471-1530) is said to have been the son of a butcher at Ipswich. He was educated at Oxford for the Church and distinguished himself by his learning. Having great natural ability and tact he rapidly advanced in life, becoming Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal and finally Chancellor of England. He accumulated much wealth, and his power was enormous. Foreign Sovereigns courted his influence, and Henry VIII. at one time seemed implicitly to follow his advice. His haughtiness made him many enemies, and they were most delighted when he fell under the King's displeasure because he sided with the Pope in the matter of Henry's divorce from Catherine. All his offices and his riches were taken from him, and he died at Leicester when on his way as a prisoner to the Tower. Shakspere represents him as speaking the lines here given, in the antechamber to the King's apartment, just after his disgrace.

2. Notice the beautiful simile. 3. Wanton-playful. 4. High-blown pride. The poet here keeps to his simile of the bladders. 5. A rude stream.-the current of events was then using him very roughly. 6. Vain pomp-empty show. 7. Heart new opened.-His feelings burst forth anew. 8. Sweet aspect pleasant looks;-favour. 9. Lucifer-(L.) Lux lucis, light; fero I bear; the light bearer; the angelic title of Satan.

Cromwell, 10 I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me,
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,
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals11 of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wrack,12 to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition: 13
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption 14 wins not more than honesty.
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!

And, prithee,15 lead me in:

Serve the king;

There take an inventory 16 of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's: my robe,
And my integrity 17 to heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.

10. Cromwell-Thomas Cromwell was Wolsey's Secretary. He was very faithful to his master, and defended him against his enemies. After Wolsey's death he was promoted by the King and superintended the suppression of the monasteries. He became Earl of Essex, but displeasing Henry VIII. he was accused of high treason and executed in 1540.

11. Shoals-shallows. 12. Wrack-wreck. 13. Ambition-a seeking after greatness. 14. Corruption-bribery. 15. Prithee-a corruption of "I pray thee." 16. Inventory-a list or catalogue. 17. Integrity-uprightness, faithfulness.

To be,1 or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,2
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
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 consummation3
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;4
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

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That makes calamity of so long a life;

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

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus 10 make

With a bare bodkin?11 who would fardels 12 bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn 18
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;
And thus the native hue of resolution 14

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment15
With this regard16 their currents turn awry, 17
And lose the name of action.

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10.

1. To be-to exist. 2. Outrageous fortune-an excessively hard lot. 4. The rub-the difficulty. 5. "Mortal coil"-the body, in which the spirit is enclosed. 6. Respect-reflection. 7. Calamity-misfortune. 8. Contumely-haughtiness. 9. "Insolence of office"-officious rudeness of those placed in power. Quietus-the quiet of death. 11. Bodkin-an instrument for piercing holes, a small dagger. 12. Fardels-packs or burdens. 13. Bourn-boundary. 14. Native hue of resolution-Natural flush of the blood which accompanies vigour or resolution. 15. Pith and moment-Force and value. 16. Regard-consideration, 17. Awry-aside.

SHAKSPERE.

THE ADVICE OF POLONIUS TO LAERTES.

Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou charácter. 2 Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd3 thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoptions tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

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Bear't that the opposéd may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habits 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, chief10 in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.11
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.
Farewell:
: my blessing season this in thee!

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1. These beautiful and wise words are uttered by Polonius to his son Laertes when the latter is leaving home. 2. Character-engrave or cut. This word is a verb accented on the second syllable. 3. Unproportioned-improper. 4. His-formerly used for its. 5. Adoption-choice. 6. "Dull thy palm"-do not deaden the sensitiveness of thy real friendship. 7. Censure-criticism or opinion. 8. Habit-dress. 9. "Expressed in fancy"-fanciful, foppish. 10. Chiefchiefly. 11. And borrowing &c.-Ease in borrowing is not advantageous to diligence in working.

SHAKSPERE.

HENRY IV's SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,"
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies+ of costly state,

And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god," why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell ?6
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge,7
And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billowss by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them
With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,9
That, with the hurly,10 death itself awakes ?11
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest12 night
With all appliances and means to boot,13
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

1. Soliloquy—a talking to one's self. King Henry is represented by Shakspere as being up till after one o'clock in the morning busy with affairs of state: He sends a page to the Earls of Surrey and Warwick with letters, and speaks the words given in this selection while the youth is absent. 2. Cribs confined spaces, little beds. 3. Pallets-small beds. 4. Canopies-curtains overhead; originally mosquito curtains. 5. Dull god-The god of heaviness. 6. A watch case or a common 'larum bell-In a constant state of disturbance. 7. Rude imperious surge-the rough and powerful swellings of the waves. 8. Ruffian billows--boisterous waves. 9. Deafening clamours in the slippery clouds-tremendous noise in the fleeting clouds. 10. Hurly-tumult. 11. Death itself awakes the most insensible to noise are roused. 12. Most stillest-double superlative. 13. With all appliances and means to boot-with every convenience all all things that would be likely to bring on sleep into the bargain.