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How could communities,

Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commérce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: The bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,

And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or, rather, right and wrong
(Between whose endless jar justice resides)
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite, a universal wolf,

So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce a universal prey,

And, last, eat up himself.

EXPECT NOT GRATITUDE FOR PAST FAVOURS: ULYSSES

EXHORTS ACHILLES TO QUIT HIS RETIREMENT.

TIME hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes :

Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devour'd

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done: Perséverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery.

Take the instant way,

For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;

For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost ;-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,

D

Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'er-run and trampled on.

Then what they do in present,

Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:
For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,
Grasps-in the comer: Welcome ever smiles,
And Farewell goes out sighing.

O, let not virtue seek

Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,—
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gawds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,

More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object:
Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;
Since things in motion sooner catch the eye,
Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might; and yet it may again,
If thou would'st not entomb thyself alive,
And case thy reputation in thy tent;

Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,
Made emulous missions 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drove great Mars to faction.

THERSITES'S HUMOROUS ACCOUNT OF AJAX.

Ther. A wonder!

Achil. What?

Ther. Ajax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.

Achil. How so?

Ther. He must fight singly to-morrow with Hector; and is so prophetically proud of an heroical cudgelling, that he raves in saying nothing.

Achil. How can that be?

Ther. Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock,—a

stride, and a stand: ruminates, like an hostess, that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say,There were wit in this head, an 't would out; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' the combat, he'll break it himself in vainglory. He knows not me: I said, "Good-morrow, Ajax;" and he replies, "Thanks, Agamemnon." What think you of this man, that takes me for the general? He is grown a very land-fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! a man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin.

CORIOLANUS.

MENENIUS RELATES HIS FABLE OF THE BELLY AND THE LIMBS TO THE MUTINOUS CITIZENS.

Men There was a time when all the body's members Rebell'd against the belly; thus accused it :That only like a gulf it did remain

I' the midst o' the body, idle and inactive,

Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing

Like labour with the rest; where the other instruments

Did see, and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,

And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answered,-
"True is it, my incorporate friends,
That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon and fit it is;
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body: But if you do remember,

I send it through the rivers of your blood,

Even to the court, the heart,—to the seat o' the brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,

The strongest nerves, and small inferior veins,

From me receive that natural competency

Whereby they live: And though that all at once, You my good friends," (this says the belly,) mark me,— 1 Cit. Ay, Sir; well, well.

Men.

"Though all at once cannot

See what I do deliver out to each;
Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flour of all,
And leave me but the bran." What say ye to 't?
1 Cit. It was an answer: How apply you this?
Men. The senators of Rome are this good belly,
And you the mutinous members: For examine
Their counsels, and their cares; digest things rightly,
Touching the weal o' the common; you shall find,
No public benefit which you receive,

But it proceeds, or comes, from them to you,
And no way from yourselves.

BRUTUS THUS SPEAKS OF CORIOLANUS.

ALL tongues speak of him, and the bleared sights
Are spectacled to see him: Your prattling nurse
Into a rapture lets her baby cry,

While she chats him: the kitchen malkin pins
Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck,

Clambering the walls to eye him: stalls, bulks, windows,
Are smother'd up, leads fill'd, and ridges horsed
With variable complexions; all agreeing

In earnestness to see him: seld-shown flamens
Do press among the popular throngs, and puff
To win a vulgar station: our veiled dames
Commit the war of white and damask, in
Their nicely-gawded cheeks, to the wanton spoil
Of Phoebus' burning kisses: such a pother,
As if that whatsoever god, who leads him,
Were slyly crept into his human powers,
And gave him graceful posture.

JULIUS CÆSAR.

RE-ENTER CESAR, AND HIS TRAIN.

Bru. The games are done, and Cæsar is returning. Cas. As they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve; And he will, after his sour fashion, tell

you

What hath proceeded, worthy note, to-day.
Bru. I will do so :-But, look you, Cassius,

The angry spot doth glow on Cæsar's brow,
And all the rest look like a chidden train :
Calphurnia's cheek is pale; and Cicero
Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes
As we have seen him in the capitol,
Being cross'd in conference by some senators.
Cas. Casca will tell us what the matter is.
Cæs. Antonius.

Ant. Cæsar.

Cæs. Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Ant. Fear him not, Cæsar, he's not dangerous;
He is a noble Roman, and well given.

Caes. 'Would he were fatter:-But I fear him not: Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much;
He is a great observer, and he looks

Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays,
As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music :
Seldom he smiles; and smiles in such a sort,
As if he mock'd himself, and scorn'd his spirit
That could be moved to smile at any thing.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease,
Whiles they behold a greater than themselves;
And therefore are they very dangerous.
I rather tell thee what is to be fear'd,
Than what I fear, for always I am Cæsar.
Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,
And tell me truly what thou think'st of him.

BRUTUS SOLILOQUIZES ON THE NECESSITY OF PUTTING
CÆSAR TO DEATH.

Ir must be by his death: and, for my part,
I know no personal cause to spurn at him,
But for the general. He would be crown'd :—

How that might change his nature, there's the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder;

And that craves wary walking. Crown him?—That ;And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,

That at his will he may do danger with.

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