And oftentimes excusing of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.1
King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.

We cannot hold mortality's strong hand.
Make haste; the better foot before.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news.
Another lean unwashed artificer.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Make deeds ill done!

Mocking the air with colours idly spread.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Act v. Sc. 1

'Tis strange that death should sing.

I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,2
And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings

His soul and body to their lasting rest.

Sc. 7.

Now my soul hath elbow-room.

Ibid.

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.

Ibid.

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.

Old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster.

Ibid.

King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 1.

In

rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Ibid.

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.

Sc. 3.

Truth hath a quiet breast.

All places that the eye of heaven visits

Ibid.

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.

Ibid.

1 Qui s'excuse, s'accuse (He who excuses himself accuses himself). GABRIEL MEURIER: Trésor des Sentences. 1530-1601.

8 See page 63, note 2.

O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
O, no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

King Richard II. Act i. Sc. 3.

The tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony.

The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,

Act ii. Sc. 1.

Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,—

Ibid.

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Ibid.

Ibid.

The ripest fruit first falls.

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor.

Eating the bitter bread of banishment.

Fires the proud tops of the eastern pines.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

O, call back yesterday, bid time return!
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs.

Sc. 3.

Act iii. Sc. 1.

Sc. 2.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall- and farewell king!

He is come to open

The purple testament of bleeding war.
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave.

Gave

His body to that pleasant country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.
A mockery king of snow.

As in a theatre, the eyes of men,

After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious.

As for a camel

To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.1

So shaken as we are, so wan with care.

Ibid

Sc. 3.

Ibid.

Act iv. Sc. 1.

Ibid.

Act v. Sc. 2.

Sc. 5.

King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 1In those holy fields

Over whose acres walked those blessed feet

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd

For our advantage on the bitter cross.

Ibid.

Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of

the moon.

Sc. 2.

Old father antic the law:

Ibid.

1 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich

man to enter into the kingdom of God. - MATT. xix. 24.

I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought.

King Henry IV. Part I. Act i. Sc. 2. Thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint.

Ibid.

And now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked.

Ibid.

"T is my vocation, Hal; 't is no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.

He will give the devil his due.1

Ibid.

Ibid.

Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd

Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
He was perfumed like a milliner,

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose and took 't away again.

Sc. 3.

And telling me, the sovereign'st thing on earth
Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.

Ibid.

1 THOMAS NASH; Have with you to Saffron Walden. DRYDEN: Epilogue to the Duke of Guise.

The blood more stirs

To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

King Henry IV. Part I. Act 1. Sc. 3.

By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honour by the locks.

I know a trick worth two of that.

Ibid.

Act . Sc. 1.

If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged.

Sc. 2.

It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.

Ibid.

Falstaff sweats to death,

And lards the lean earth as he walks along.

Ibid.

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

Sc. 3.

Brain him with his lady's fan.

Ibid.

A Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy.

Sc. 4.

Ibid.

A plague of all cowards, I say.

There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat and grows old.

Ibid.

Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing!

I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.

Ibid.

Ibid.

I have peppered two of them: two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face; call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward: here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me

Three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green.

Ibid.

Ibid.