robustious periwig-pated2 fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-Herods Herod.4 I pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his' form and pressure.

Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious

1 robustious, fat and bluster- | judgment in regard to acting was ing. notably very bad.

2 periwig-pated; i.e., his pate 4 Termagant... Herod: Termaor head covered with a periwig gant (corruption of Terragant, a or wig. Periwigs (from French Saracen deity) and Herod were perruque), in Shakespeare's time, characters in the old "miraclewere worn by actors only, and plays," remarkable for their boisnot, as later, by others. In rela- terous demeanor. tion to this and other allusions to the stage, it is interesting to bear in mind that Shakespeare was himself an actor, and the manager of the Globe Theater in London.

3 groundlings: those who stood on the ground in the pit, or lower part of the theater, and whose

5 word... word. What is the figure of speech? (See Def. 5.) 6 from, contrary to.

7 his its; the latter form being scarcely introduced into our language in Shakespeare's time.

2

grieve; the censure1 of the which one, raust in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theater of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly,—not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

71.- Washington's Sword and Franklin's Staff.

This eloquent speech was delivered by John Quincy Adams on the occasion of the presentation of Washington's sword and Franklin's staff to the United States government.

3

The Sword of Washington! The Staff of Franklin! O, sir, what associations are linked in adamant with these names! Washington, whose sword was never drawn but in the cause of his country, and never sheathed when wielded in his country's cause! Franklin, the philosopher of the thunderbolt and the printing press! What names are these in the scanty catalogue of the benefactors of human kind!

1 censure, judgment, opinion. press. "Thunderbolt" (i.e., light2 the which one; i.e., one of ning), in allusion to Franklin's whom, namely, the judicious. invention of the lightning rod. 3 linked in adamant: not to be" Printing press," in allusion to severed. "Adamant" is a Greek Franklin's improvement of the derivative, meaning not to be bro-old printing press, in the form of ken. what is still known as the Frank

Washington and Franklin! What other two men whose lives belong to the eighteenth century of Christendom, have left a deeper impression of themselves upon the age in which they lived, and upon all after time?

WASHINGTON! the warrior and the legislator. In war, contending by the wager of battle, for the independence of his country, and for the freedom of the human race, ever manifesting amidst its horrors, by precept and by example, his reverence for the laws of peace and for the tenderest sympathies of humanity; in peace, soothing the ferocious spirit of discord among his own countrymen into harmony and union, and giving to that very sword, now presented to his country, a charm more potent than that attributed in ancient times to the lyre of Orpheus.

FRANKLIN! the mechanic of his own fortune; teaching, in early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness; in the maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its terrors, the lightning of its fatal blast; and wresting from the tyrant's hand the still more afflictive scepter of oppression: while descending the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic Ocean, braving, in the dead of winter, "the battle and the breeze," bearing in his hand the Charter of Independence1 which he had contributed to form, and tendering, from the self-created nation to the mightiest monarchs of Europe, the olive branch of peace,

1 traversing ... Independence. | of that government in favor of the In the fall of 1776, Franklin was Americans. He carried with him sent as a diplomatic agent to the Declaration (Charter) of IndeFrance, in order to secure the voice pendence.

2

the mercurial wand1 of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to the man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable cruelty and merciless rapacity of war.

And finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, returning to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate of his adopted commonwealth, 8 after contributing by his counsels to that Constitution under the authority of which we, as the representatives of the North American people, are assembled to receive, in the name of them and for them, these venerable relics of the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great confederated Republic,—these sacred symbols of our golden age.

4

May they be deposited among the archives of our Government! And may every American, who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate a mingled offering of praise to that supreme Ruler of the universe, by whose tender mercies our Union has been hitherto preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolutions of this turbulent world; and of prayer for the continuance of these blessings, by the dispensations of Providence to our beloved country, from age to age, till time shall be no more!

J. Q. ADAMS.

1 mercurial wand wand of and close alliance of the United Mercury, the Roman divinity of States. commerce. He is represented as carrying a staff or wand (caduceus). 2 amulet... safety. This whole passage means that Franklin tendered to France the friendship of records and memorials.

3 adopted commonwealth; i.e., Pennsylvania, where Franklin went as a boy from his native Boston. 4 archives (är'kīvz), a repository

72.- Patriotism.

Right and wrong, justice and crime, exist independently of our country. A public wrong is not a private right for any citizen. The citizen is a man bound to know and do the right, and the nation is but an aggregation of citizens. If a man should shout, "My country, by whatever means extended and bounded; my country, right or wrong!" he merely repeats the words of the thief who steals in the street, or of the trader who swears falsely at the customhouse, both of them chuckling, "My fortune, however acquired."

Thus, gentlemen, we see that a man's country is not a certain area of land,- of mountains, rivers, and woods,but it is principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

In poetic minds and in popular enthusiasm, this feeling becomes closely associated with the soil and symbols of the country. But the secret1 sanctification of the soil and the symbol is the idea which they represent; and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the symbol, as a lover kisses with rapture the glove of his mistress and wears a lock of her hair upon his heart.

2

So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears, that his death may give life to his country. So Nathan Hale, disdaining

1 secret, real, inner.

8

3 Nathan Hale. See Lesson

2 Arnold von Winkelried. See 35, Third Reader, and Lesson 80, Lesson 92, Fourth Reader. Fourth Reader.