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SHAKESPERE.

RS. QUICKLY. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

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Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, And we must yearn therefore.

Bard. Would I were with him, wheresome 'er he is, either in heaven or in hell!

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Quick. Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any Christom child; 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. "How now, Sir John ?" quoth I. What, man! be of good cheer." So 'a cried out" God, God, God!" three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

HE genius of Shakespere was an innate universality; wherefore he laid the achievements of human intellect prostrate beneath his indolent and kingly gaze; he could do easily men's utmost.

Soul of the age,

KEATS.

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespere, rise!

Shine forth, thou star of poets; and with rage,

Or influence, chide, or cheer, the drooping stage; Which since thy flight from hence hath mourned the night,

And despairs day, but for thy volume's light.

BEN JONSON.

Him, whose insight makes all others dim;
A thousand poets pried at life,

And only one amid the strife

Rose to be Shakespere.-ROBERT BROWNING.

And Shakespere, thou, whose honey-flowing vaine (Pleasing the world) thy praises doth obtaine; Whose Venus and whose Lucrece (sweete and chaste)

Thy name in fame's immortall booke hath plac't; Live ever you, at least in fame live ever:

Well may the bodye dye, but fame dies never!

RICHARD BARNEFIELD.

He went before all men and stands in the array of human intellect like the sun in the system, single and unappropriated.

FELICIA HEMANS.

ILL with forgetfulness! There are, there are Voices whose music I have loved too well

Eyes of deep gentleness; but they are far

Never! oh never, in my home to dwell!

Take their soft looks from off my yearning soul— Fill high th' oblivious bowl!

Yet pause again! With memory wilt thou cast
The undying hope away, of memory born?
Hope of reunion, heart to heart at last,

No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn?
Wouldst thou erase all records of delight.

That make such visions bright?

Fill with forgetfulness, fill high!-yet stay-
'Tis from the past we shadow forth the land
Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way,
And the soul's friends be wreath'd in one bright
band.

Pour the sweet waters back on their own rill-
I must remember still.

For their sake, for the dead-whose image naught
May dim within the temple of my breast—
For their love's sake, which now no earthly thought

May shake or trouble with its own unrest,

Though the past haunt me as a spirit—yet
I ask not to forget.

UCH writings as those of Mrs. Hemans at once afford evidence of the advance

of our race, and are among the most important means of its further purification and progress. The minds which go forth from their privacy, to act with strong moral power upon thousands of other minds, are the real agents in advancing the character of man, and improving his condition. PROFESSOR NORTON.

She is like a lamp whose oil is consumed by the very light which it yields.-MISS JEWSBURY.

Few have entwined the genuine fresh thoughts and impressions of their own minds so intimately with their poetical fancies as Mrs. Hemans did. She may have fallen short of some of her predecessors in vigour of mind-of some of her contemporaries in variety of fancy; but she surpassed them all in the use of language, in the employment of a rich, chaste, and glowing imagery, and in the perfect music of her versification.

H. F. CHORLEY.

She has the most perfect skill in her science; nothing can be more polished than her versification. Every poem is like a piece of music, with its eloquent pauses, its rich combinations and its swelling chords. L. E. LANDON.

ROBERT BROWNING.

THERS mistrust, and say, "But time escapes!

"Live now or never!"

He said, "What's time leave now for dogs and apes!

"Man has for ever."

That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it, and does it.

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one,

His hundred's soon hit;

This high man aiming at a million

Misses an unit.

That has the world here-should he need the next,

Let the world mind him;

This throws himself on God, and unperplexed

Seeking shall find him.

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