So cowardly: and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.

WH

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

CLARENCE 'AND BRAKENBURY. BRAK. HY looks your Grace fo heavily to-day?

Clar. O, I have pass'd a miserable night, So full of ugly fights, of ghafly dreams, That zus I am a Chriftian faithful man, I would not fpend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days; So full of dismal terror was the time.

Brak. What was your dream, my Lord? I pray you

tell me.

CLAR. Methought that I had broken from the tow'r, And was imbark'd to cross to Burgundy, And in my company my

brother Glo'ster; Who from

my

cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd tow?rd England, And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster, That had befall'n us. As we pass'd along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, Methought that Glo'fter stumbled, and in falling Struck me (that sought to stay him) over-board, Into the tumbling billows of the main.

Lord, Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise of waters in What fights of ugly death within mine eyes! I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks ; X2

A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels;
Some lay in dead men's sculls ; and in those holes
Where

eyes

did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in fcorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo'd the simy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

BRAK. Had you such leisure in the time of death, To gaze upon the secrets of the deep ?

Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wand'ring air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

Brak. Awak'd you not with this fore agony?

CLAR. No, no; my dream was lengthen'd after life ; O then began the tempest to my soul: I pafs’d, methought, the melancholy flood, With that grim ferryman which poets write of, Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. The first that there did greet my stranger-soul, Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick, Who cry'd aloud-" What scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?" And so he vanish’d. Then came wand'ring by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood, and he shriek'd out aloud. “ Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, That ftabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury; Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments !”.

With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Inviron'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling wak'd; and for a feason after
Could not believe but that I was in hell:
Such terrible impression made my dream.

BRAK. No marvel, Lord, that it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

CLAR. Ah! Brakenbury, I have done those things That now give evidence against my soul, For Edward's fake; and see how he requites me ! O God ! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds, Yet execute thy wrath on me alone: O spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children! I pr’ythee, Brakenbury, stay by me: My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

SHAKESPEAR.

OTHEN I fee Queen Mab hath been with you,

She is the fancy's midwife, and the comes
In fhape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman;
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover of the wings of grasshoppers ;
The traces of the smalleft fpider's web;
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams;
X 3

Her

Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' caach-makers.
And in this state she gallops, night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies strait :
O'er lawyers' fingers, who strait dream on fees;
O’er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit :
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parson as he lies asleep;
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Solnetimes the driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes;
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two;
And sleeps again.

SHAKESPEAR.

А р о т н Е с A R Y.

ID

DO remember an apothecary,

And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,

Culling

Culling of fimples ; meagre were his looks ;
Sharp Misery had worn him to the bones :
And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
An alligator stuff?d, and other skins
Of ill-fhap'd fishes; and about his fhelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes ;
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses
Were thinly scatter'd to make up a fhow.
Noting this penury, to myself I said,
An' if a man did need a poison now,
Whose fale is present death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
Oh, this fame thought did but fore-run my need,
And this same needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this hould be the house.

SHAKESPEAR.

C H A P.

XXV.

O DE

E V E N IN G.

то

IR

Faught of oaten stop, or paftoral song,
May hope, chafte Eve, to footh thy modest ear,

Like thy own solemn springs,

Thy springs, and dying gales,
O Nymph reserv’d, while now the bright hair'd fun
Sits on yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts

With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed :
Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short frill shrieks Aits by on leathern wing,