Which having been must ever be, In the faith that looks through death, And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks, which down their channels fret, . The clouds that gather round the setting sun EXERCISE CXCII. PORTIA'S DESCRIPTION OF HER WOOERS. Portia and Nerissa. Shakspeare. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is a-weary of this great world. Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are: and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. Por. Good sentences, and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree: such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. — But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband: -O me, the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none? Ner. Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations; therefore, the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead, (whereof who chooses his meaning, chooses you,) will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one whom you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come? Por. I pray thee over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection. Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince. Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed; for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts, that he can shoe him himself. Ner. Then, is there the county Palatinate. Por. He doth nothing but frown; as who should say, An' if you will not have me, choose. He hears merry tales, and smiles not. I fear, he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death's head, with a bone in his mouth, than to either of these. Defend me from these two! @ Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon? Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker. But, he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad habit of frowning than the count Palatine: he is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight a capering he will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I shall never requite him. Ner. What say you, then, to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England? Por. You know, I say nothing to him; for he understands not me, nor I him; he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear, that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited! I think, he bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere. Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbour? Por. That he hath a neighbourly charity in him; for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again, when he was able: I think, the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another. Ner. How like you the young German, the duke of Saxony's nephew? Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober; and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk; when he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast: an' the worst fall that ever fell, I hope, I shall make shift to go without him. Ner. If he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you would refuse to perform your father's will, if you should refuse to accept him. Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee, set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for, if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge. Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords: they have acquainted me with their determination; which is, indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit; unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets Por. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable; for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray grant them a fair departure. THE frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud, and hark, again! loud as before. · To which the living spirit in our frame, Dear babe! that sleepest, cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies, And momentary pauses of the thought, The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, EXERCISE CXCIV. CHARACTER OF HANNAH MORE. Roberts. THIS eminent woman's love of her country, and her love of her species, were without any alloy of party feelings or prejudices. To her sound and correct understanding, liberty presented itself as including, among its essential constituents, loyalty, allegiance, security, and duty. Patriotism, in this view of it, should be placed in the front of her character, since it really took the lead of every other temporal object. All the powers of her mind were devoted to the solid improvement of society. Her aims were all practical; and it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to name a writer who has laid before the public so copious a variety of original thoughts and reasonings, without any admixture of speculation or hypothesis. To keep within this tangible barrier, without contracting the range of her imagination, or denying to truth any advantage to which it is fairly entitled, of illus * The English robin retreats to the remotest seclusion, in summer, and is then exceedingly shy; but, in winter, it frequents the abodes of man, and enlivens the otherwise dreary season, with its delicate notes. In the stillness of a winter Sabbath morning, its voice is the only audible sound, in the suburbs and the villages. |