A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb, Where dust, and damned oblivion is the tomb Of honoured bones indeed. All's Well that Ends Well, ii. 3. XXX. 'Vanitas vanitatum.' (Wolsey loq.) FAREWELL, a long farewell, to all my greatness! But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride Cromwell. O, my lord, Must I then leave you? Must I needs forego King Henry VIII., iii. 2. XXXI. THE STATESMAN'S LESSON. (Wolsey log.) CROMWELL, I did not think to shed a tear In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me, And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 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. King Henry VIII., iii. 2. XXXII. GOOD ADVICE. (Leonato loq.) MEN Can counsel, and speak comfort to that grief To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Much Ado About Nothing, v. 1. XXXIII. DEATH OF THE STAG. (Hunters loq.) Duke S. 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 First Lord. Indeed, my lord, The melancholy Jaques grieves at that; And, in that kind, swears you do more usurp Did steal behind him, as he lay along Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out Stood on the extremest verge of the swift brook, 'Poor deer,' quoth he, thou makest a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much:' then, being there 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, 6 And never stays to greet him: Ay,' quoth Jaques, 'Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens: "T is just the fashion: wherefore do you look To fright the animals, and to kill them up, * As You Like It, ii. 1. XXXIV. SLEEP IN THE PALACE. (King loq.) How many thousand of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep! O gentle sleep, And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lulled with sound of sweetest melody? Second Part of King Henry IV., iii. 1. * The genuine feeling here attributed to the philosophic Jaques deserves especial notice as a solitary, or at all events almost solitary, instance of any sort of recognition of the sufferings wantonly inflicted upon the lower animal world. This was a branch of ethics apparently altogether unknown to the Christianity or civilisation of theologians, moralists, philosophers, or poets of the ages preceding the middle of the eighteenth century: nor is it too well known even to the present enlightened age. Its recognition is first adequately expressed by Thomson in The Seasons. See also The Adventurer, passim. |