The insolence of office', and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes',
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkind?

3.

To

Who would fardelse bear,

and sweat under a weary life,
groan
But that the dread of something after' death'-
That undiscover'd country, from whose bōurn
No traveler returns'!-puzzles the will';
And makes us rather bear those ills we have',
Than fly to others that we know not of`?

4. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all':
And thus, the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action!

a RESPECT', consideration.

Lat., quiet; final rest.

burdens; packs.

b CŎN'TU ME LY, rudeness; scorn. d BŎD'KIN, ancient term for a small dagger. 'BOURN, boundary; limits.

C

QUI E'TUS, e FÄR'DELS,

LESSON XCV.

THE BACHELOR'S SOLILOQUY.
A Parody on the preceding Lesson.

[A Parody is a kind of poetical pleasantry, in which grave or serious writings are closely imitated in some trivial subject, and thereby made ludicrous. It consists in the turning of something serious into burlesque; but the imitation is more close and exact than in ordinary burlesque composition. In the present lesson, Hamlet's serious and admirable soliloquy on death is very successfully parodied by the bachelor, who applies almost the precise language of Hamlet to the subject of matrimony. The proper reading of this piece requires a mock seriousness and gravity, imitative of the original.]

1. To wed-or not' to wed!-that is the question :—
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The stings and arrows of outrageous love,
Or to take arms against the pow'rful flame,

And, by opposing', quench' it ?—To wed-to marry'—

2.

3.

No more!-and, by a marriage, say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand painful shocks
Love makes us heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.

To wed',-to marry',

To marry'!-perchance a scold!-ay, there's the rub!-
For, in that wedded life, what ills' may come',
When we have shuffled off our single state,
Must give us serious pause. There's the respect
That makes the bachelors a num'rous race;
For who would bear the dull, unsocial hours
Spent by unmarried men-cheer'd by no smile,
To sit like hermit at a lonely board

In silence?—who would bear the cruel gibes
With which the bachelor is daily teased,

When he himself might end such heartfelt griefs
By wedding some fair maid?

Oh! who would live,
Yawning, and staring sadly in the fire,
Till celibacy becomes a weary life,

But that the dread of something after' wedlock'-
That undiscover'd state from whose strong chains
No captive can get free' !-puzzles the will';
And makes us rather choose those ills we have',
Than fly to others which a wife may bring'?

4. Thus caution does make bachelors of us all':
And thus, our natural wish for matrimony
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And love-adventures of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And miss the name of wedlock!

a GIBE (jibe), scoff; expression of sarcastic scorn.
b CE LIR'A OY, single life; especially that of a bachelor.
A WRY' (a ri'), to one side; in the wrong direction.

CHARACTER OF VISION.

[Analysis.-1. What is Vision? The Book of Revelation.

Cicero's use of this figure.-2. The extract.-3. Dr. Cheever's use of this figure: Bunyan in prison.— 4. Use of Vision in the description of the eagle.-5. Use in narrative and description, etc.-6, 7. Everett's description of the voyage of the Mayflower.-S, 9, 10, 11. Everett's use of the apostrophe in the same connection.-12, 13. A portion of the same scene, as painted by Dr. Cheever.-14. What this figure of speech supposes, and on what its effect depends.-15. When this figure will be a failure. Counterfeited warmth.]

1. VISION is a figure of speech in which some past, future, absent, or fancied occurrence is represented as actually passing, in vision, before our eyes. Thus the Book of Revelation is a description of a continued vision. When Cicero, in his fourth oration against the conspirator Catiline, after portraying the horrors of the plot to liberate the prisoners, massacre the senators, and open the gates to Catiline, pictures forth the following future scene as a present reality, he makes use of this figure to inflame the imaginations of the senators and arouse them to action.

2. "I seem to myself to behold this city, the ornament of the earth, and the capital of all nations, suddenly involved in one great conflagration. I see before me the slaughtered heaps of citizens lying unburied in the midst of their ruined country. The furious countenance of Cethegus rises to my view, while with a savage joy he is triumphing in your miseries."

3. It is in the use of this figure that Dr. Cheever thus describes Bunyan, when in prison, nearly two hundred years ago.

II. BUNYAN IN PRISON.

"And now it is evening. A rude lamp glimmers darkly on the table, the tagged laces are laid aside, and Bunyan, alone, is busy with his Bible, the concordance, and his pen, ink, and paper. He writes as though joy did make him write. His pale, worn countenance is lighted with a fire, as if reflected from the radiant jasper walls of the Celestial City. He writes, and smiles, and clasps his hands, and looks

upward, and blesses God for his goodness, and then again turns to his writing. The last you see of him for the night, he is alone, kneeling on the floor of his prison;-he is alone with God."

4. For the description of absent objects, or of fancy scenes as present, we select the following from a discourse by Rev. Dr. Hopkins, of Williams College.

"See the eagle as he leaves his perch. He flaps his broad wing, and moves heavily. Slowly he lifts himself above the horizon till the inspiration of a freer air quickens him. Now there is new lightning in his eye, and new strength in his

pinions. See how he mounts! Now he is midway in the heavens. Higher he rises-still higher. Now his broad circles are narrowing to a point-he is fading away in the deep blue. Now he is a speck. Now he is gone."

5. This figure of vision, or ideal presence as it is sometimes called, is often used with happy effect in narrative and description, where the object is to raise such lively and distinct images as will give to past scenes a living reality. Thus Everett, in an oration on the Pilgrims, uses this figure in a sublime description of the tedious and perilous voyage of the Mayflower:

IV. VOYAGE OF THE MAYFLOWER.

6. "Methinks I see it now; that one solitary, adventurous vessel, freighted with the prospects of a future state, and borne across the unknown sea. I behold it pursuing, with a thousand misgivings, the uncertain, the tedious voyage. Suns rise and set, and weeks and months pass, and winter surprises them on the deep, but brings them not the sight of the wished-for shore. I see them now scantily supplied with provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their illstored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route, and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves.

7.." The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight against the staggering vessel. I see them escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after a five months' passage, on the ice-clad rocks of Plymouth-weak and weary from the voyage-poorly armed, scantily provisioned, depending on the charity of their shipmaster for a draught of beer on board, drinking nothing but water on shorewithout shelter-without means-surrounded by hostile tribes."

8. Here closes this vivid description; when the speaker,