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And beat them backward home.

What is that noise?

Sey. It is the cry of women, my good lord.
Mach. I have almost forgot the taste of fears
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir

As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught'rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me. Wherefore was that cry?
Sey. The queen, my lord, is dead.

Macb. She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Enter a MESSENGER.

Thou com'st to use thy tongue; thy story quickly.

Mess. My lord,

I shall report that which I

But know not how to do it.

Macb. Well, say, sir.

say I saw,

Mess. As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I look'd toward Birnam, and anon methought The wood began to move.

Macb. Liar, and slave!

Striking.

Mess. Let me endure your wrath, if't be not so: Within this three mile may you see it coming;

I say, a moving grove.

Macb. If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,

Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost for me as much.

I pull in resolution; and begin

To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,

That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam wood
Do come to Dunsinane;-and now a wood

Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!-
If this, which he avouches, does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
I'gin to be a-weary of the sun,

And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
Ring the alarum bell:-Blow wind! come wrack!
At least we'll die with harness on our back.

[Exeunt.

NORFOLK'S REPLY TO BOLINGBROKE'S
CHARGE OF TREASON.

LET not my cold words here accuse my zeal:
"Tis not the trial of a woman's war,

The bitter clamour of two eager tongues,
Can arbitrate this cause betwixt us twain:
The blood is hot that must be cool'd for this.
Yet can I not of such tame patience boast,
As to be hush'd, and not at all to say:

SHAKSPERE.

First, the fair reverence of your highness curbs me
From giving reins and spurs to my free speech;
Which else would post, until it had return'd
These terms of treason doubled down his throat.
Setting aside his high blood's royalty,
And let him be no kinsman to my liege,

I do defy him, and I spit at him;

Call him a slanderous coward and a villain;
Which to maintain, I would allow him odds;
And meet him, were I tied to run atoot
Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,
Or any other ground inhabitable,
Wherever Englishman durst set his foot:
Meantime, let this defend my loyalty,—
By all my hopes, most falsely doth he lie.

SCENE IN THE FOREST OF ARDEN.

The banished Duke, and Friends, in the dress of Foresters.
SHAKSPERE.

Duke. Now, my co-mates, and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam-
The season's difference. As the icy fang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say-
This is no flattery: these are counsellors,
That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Amiens. I would not change it. Happy is your Grace

That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style!

Duke. Come, shall we go and kill us venison ?

And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools-
Being native burghers of this desert city-

Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored.

1st Lord.

Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;
And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To-day, my lord of Amiens and myself
Did steal behind him as he lay along
Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood:
To the which place a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heaved forth such groans,
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Coursed one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool,
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

Duke.

But what said Jaques ? Did he not moralise this spectacle?

1st Lord. Oh yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping in the needless stream:
"Poor deer," quoth he, "thou makest a testament,
As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much." Then, being alone,
Left and abandoned of his velvet friends;
""Tis right," quoth he; "thus misery doth part
The flux of company." Anon, a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,

And never stays to greet him. "Ay," quoth Jaques,
'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens;

66

'Tis just the fashion. Wherefore do you look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?"
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life; swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants, and, what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up,

In their assigned and native dwelling-place.

Duke. And did you leave him in this contemplation? 2d Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and commenting Upon the sobbing deer.

Duke.

Show me the place; I love to cope him in these sullen fits, For then he's full of matter.

FLATTERY AND FRIENDSHIP.

EVERY one that flatters thee
Is no friend in misery:
Words are easy like the wind;
Faithful friends 'tis hard to find;
Every man will be thy friend,

While thou hast wherewith to spend.
But if store of crowns be scant,
No man will supply thy want.
If that one be prodigal,
Bountiful they will him call:
If he be addict to vice,
Quickly him they will entice.
But if fortune once do frown,
Then farewell his great renown;
They that fawned on him before,
Use his company no more.
He that is thy friend indeed,
He will keep thee in thy need.
If thou sorrow he will weep;
If thou wake he cannot sleep.
Thus of every grief in heart,
He with thee doth hear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful Friend from flattering Foe.

SHAKSPERE.

GRIFFITH'S CHARACTER OF CARDINAL WOLSEY.

SHAKSPERE.

THOMAS WOLSEY, a celebrated English statesman, born at Ipswich, in Suffolk, in 1471, was the son of a butcher. He entered the church, and rose to be a Royal Chaplain and Dean of Lincoln, under Henry VII. Henry VIII., with whom he became a favourite, called him to the Privy Council, gave him several high perferments, and at last made him Archbishop of York, Chancellor of the Kingdom, and was governed by him in all things. He made a great number of enemies by his rapacity; his revenues were almost equal to those of the crown; he was, moreover, unjust and cruel in the exercise of his functions as legate, and created an ecclesiastical court, which was a second Inquisition. Wolsey attained to the height of power, and fell into the depths of disgrace. He was appointed Commissioner for the divorce of Henry VIII., and did not hasten the affair in accordance with the wishes of the monarch. He was accused before the Court of King's Bench of having exceeded his authority, was deprived of the seals and nearly all his revenues, and dismissed from the court. Being sent for to London again to answer new charges, he died on his road, at Leicester in 1530. Wolsey founded Christ Church College, Oxford.

Enter Katherine, Dowager, sick; led between Griffith and Patience.
Grif. How does your grace?

Kath.
O, Griffith, sick to death:
My legs like loaden branches, bow to the earth,
Willing to leave their burthen: reach a chair :-
So, now, methinks, I feel a little ease.

Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led'st me,
That the great child of honour, cardinal Wolsey,
Was dead?

Grif. Yes, madam: but I think your grace,
Out of the pain you suffer'd, gave no ear to 't.

Kath. Prithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died:
If well, he stepp'd before me, happily,

For my example.

Grif.

Well, the voice goes, madam:

For after the stout earl Northumberland

Arrested him at York, and brought him forward
(As a man sorely tainted) to his answer,

He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill,

He could not sit his mule.

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Grif. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
Lodg'd in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honourably receiv'd him;

To whom he gave these words,-"O, father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!"

So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold should be his last), full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

Kath. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
And yet with charity:-He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes; one, that by suggestion
Tied' all the kingdom: simony was fair play;
His own opinion was his law: I' the presence
He would say untruths; and be ever double,
Both in his words and meaning: He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful:

His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.
Of his own body he was ill, and gave

The clergy ill example.

Grif.

Noble madam,

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good now?

Kath.

I were malicious else.

Grif.

Yes, good Griffith;

This cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly

Was fashion'd to much honour from his cradle.

1 Tied. There is a great controversy amongst the commentators whether this word means limited-infringed the liberties or tithed. We have no doubt that the allusion is to the acquisition of wealth by the Cardinal.

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