Have children climb'd those knees, and kissed that face?

What was thy name and station, age and race ? 10. Statue of flesh--immortal of the dead !

Imperishable type of evanescence !
Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the Judgment morning,

When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning. 11 Why should this worthless tegament endure,

If its undying guest be lost forever ?
O let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue; that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
Th' immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

46. Othello and Iago. Iago. My noble lord Oth. What dost thou say, Iago ? Iago. Did Michael Cassio, when you wooed my lady, Know of your love ? 5 Oth. He did, from first to last. Why dost thou ask ?

Iago. But for a satisfaction of my thought ; No further harm.

Oth. Why of thy thought, Iago ?

Iago. I did not think, he had been acquainted with her. 10 Oth. O, yes; and went between us very oft.

Iago. Indeed ?
Oth. Indeed! ay, indeed :--Discern'st thou aught in

that?
Is he not honest ?
15 Iago. Honest, my lord ?

honest.
Iago. My lord, for aught I know.
Oth. What dost thou think?
Iago. Think, my lord ?

Oth. Think, my lord! Why, thou echo'st me,
As if there were some monster in thy thought
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something ;

Oih. Ay,

20

I heard thee say but now, “thou lik’dst not that,”.

When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like? 25 And, when I told thee, he was of my counsel

In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, “Indeed!”
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, 30 Show me thy thought.

Iago. My lord, you know I love you.
Oth. I think, thou dost :
And, for I know thou art full of love and honesty,

And weigh’st thy words before thou giv'st them breath, 35 Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more :

For such things, in a false, disloyal knave,
Are tricks of custom ; but, in a man that's just,
They are close denotements working from the heart,

That passion cannot rule.
40 Iago. For Michael Cassio,
I dare be sworn, I think that he is honest.

Oth. I think so too.

Iago. Men should be what they seem ; Or, those that be not, 'would they might seem none ! 45 Oth. Certain, men should be what they seem.

Iago. Why then, I think that Cassio is an honest man.

Oth. Nay, yet there's more in this :
I pray thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,

As thou dost ruminate ; and give thy worst of thoughts 50 The worst of words.

Iago. Good, my lord, pardon me;
Though I am bound to every act of duty,
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.

Utter my thoughts ?-Why, say, they are vile and false; 55 As where's that palace, whereinto foul things

Sometimes intrude not? Who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets, and law-days, and in sessions sit
With meditations lawful ?

Shakspeare.

47. Macduff
Macd. See, who comes here?
Mal. My countryman ; but yet I know him not.
Macd. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Mal. I know him now. Pray heaven, betimes remove 5 The means, that make us strangers !

Rosse. Sir, Amen.
Macd. Stands Scotland where it did ?

Rosse. Alas, poor country; Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot 10 Be called our mother, but our grave; where nothing,

But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile ;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not marked ; where violent sorrow seems

A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell 15 Is there scarce asked, for whom; and good men's lives

Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or e'er they sicken.

Macd. O, relation,

Too nice, and yet too true! 20 Mal. What is the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker.
Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. How does my wife ?
Rosse. Why, well.
Macd. And all

my

children?
Russe. Well too.
Macd. The tyrant has not battered at their peace ?
Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave

them. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech ; how goes it? 30 Rosse.

I have words,
That would be howled out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch them.

Macd. What concern they ?
The general cause ? or is it a fee-grief,
35 Due to some single breast ?

Rosse. No mind, that's honest,
But in it shares some woe; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.

25

Macd. If it be mine,
40 Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue forever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Ah ! I guess at it. 45 Rosse. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes

Savagely slaughtered : to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,
To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful heaven !
50 What, man ! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;

Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.

Macd. My children too ?-
Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all that could be

found. 55 Macd. And I must be from thence! my wife killed

too ?
Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted :
Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief. 60 Macd. I shall do so ;

But I must also feel it as a man.
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part ? Sinful Macduff

, 65 They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,

Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now !

Shakspeare.

48. William Teli. Gesler, the tyrant, Sarnem, his officer, and William Tell, a Swiss peasant.

Sar. Down, slave, upon thy knees before the governor, And beg for mercy.

Ges. Does he hear ?
Sar. He does, but braves thy power. [To Tell.]

Down, slave,
And ask for life.

20

5 Ges. [To Tell.] Why speakest thou not?

Tell. For Wonder.
Ges. Wonder ?
Tell. Yes, that thou shouldst seem a man.

Ges. What should I seem ? 10 Tell. A monster.

Ges. Ha! Beware !--think on thy chains.
Tell. Though they were doubled, and did weigh me

down
Prostrate - to earth, methinks I could rise up

Erect, with nothing but the honest pride 15 Of telling thee, usurper, to thy teeth,

Thou art a monster.--Think on my chains !
How came they on me?

Ges. Darest thou question me?
Tell. Darest thou answer ?
Ges. Beware my vengeance.
Tell. Can it more than kill ?
Ges. And is not that enough?

Tell. No, not enough:-

It cannot take away the grace of life-25 The comeliness of look that virtue gives

Its port erect, with consciousness of truth--
Its rich attire of honourable deeds
Its fair report that's rife on good men's tongues :-

It cannot lay its band on these, no more
30 Than it can pluck his brightness from the sun,

Or with polluted finger tarnish it.

Ges. But it can make thee writhe.

Tell. It may, and I may say,

Go on, though it should make me groan again. 35 Ges. Whence comest thou?

Tell. From the mountains.
Ges. Canst tell me any news from them ?
Tell. Ay ;-they watch no more the avalanche.

Ges. Why so ? 40 Tell. Because they look for thee. The hurricane

Comes unawares upon them ; from its bed
The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track..

Ges. What then ?