LESSONS BY QUOTATION,

FROM THE OLD ENGLISH DRAMA.

MEMORANDA FROM SHAKSPEARE.-Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

When clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Hold it cowardice to rest mistrustful where noble heart hath pawned an open hand in sign of love.

Our very eyes are sometimes, with our judgments, blind.

We cite our faults that we may hold excused our lawless lives.

All places that the eye of heaven visits, are to a good man, ports and happy havens.

Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

An honest man is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. The labour we delight in, physics pain.

When levity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentlest gamester is the soonest winner.

Headstrong liberty is lashed with woe.

Beware of entrance into a quarrel, but being in, bear it so that the opposer may beware of thee.

In religion, what damned error, but some sober brow will bless it and approve it with a text.

Let still the woman take an elder than herself; so wear she to him. A woman impudent and mannish grown, is not more loathed than an effeminate man in time of action.

What worst, as oft hitting a grosser quality, is cried up for our best act.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer.

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it.

How often, even in a republican country, when a public functionary betrays his trust, can we not say after a certain William Shakspeare,

"The name of Cassius honours this corruption,

And chastisement doth therefore hide its head."

Ford's extraordinary piece entitled "The Sun's Darling, a Moral Masque," in which the seasons and the great luminary are so ingeniously and elegantly personified, The final speech of the Sun, which closes the play, possesses great moral as well as poetical beauty.

"Here, in this mirror,

Let man behold the circuit of his fortunes:
The season of the Spring dawns like the Morning,
Bedewing Childhood with unrelish'd beauties
Of gaudy sights: The Summer, as the Noon,
Shines in delight of Youth, and ripens strength
To Autumn's Manhood; here the Evening grows,
And knits up all felicity in folly :

Winter at last draws on the Night of Age;
Yet still a humour of some novel fancy
Untasted or untried, puts off the minute

Of resolution, which should bid farewell
To a vain world of weariness and sorrows.

The powers, from whom man does derive his pedigree
Of his creation, with a royal bounty

Give him Health, Youth, Delight, for free attendants

To rectify his carriage: to be thankful

Again to them, man should cashier his riots,

His bosom's whorish sweetheart, idle Humour ;
His Reason's dangerous seducer, Folly:

Then shall, like four straight pillars, the four Elements
Support the goodly structure of mortality;
Then shall the four Complexions, like four heads
Of a clear river, streaming in his body,
Nourish and comfort every vein and sinew,
No sickness of contagion, no grim death

Or deprivation of Health's real blessings,

Shall then affright the creature built by Heaven,
Reserv'd to immortality. Henceforth
In peace go to our altars, and no more
Question the power of supernal greatness,
But give us leave to govern as we please
Nature and her dominion, who from us

And from our gracious influence, hath both being
And preservation; no replies, but reverence!

Man hath a double guard, if time can win him,
Heaven's power above him, his own peace within him.”

The following picture, truly historical, of the luxury and extravagance of the rich Romans, is drawn by Ben Jonson in his "Cataline."

"It doth strike my soul,

And who can 'scape the stroke, that hath a soul;
Or but the smallest air of man within him?
To see them swell with treasure, which they pour
Out in their riots, eating, drinking, building,
Ay, in the sea! planing of hills with valleys,
And raising valleys above hills! whilst we
Have not to give our bodies necessaries.

They have their change of houses, manors, lordships;

They buy rare Attic statues, Tyrian hangings,

Ephesian pictures, and Corinthian plate,

Attalic garments, and now new found gems,

Since Pompey went for Asia, which they purchase
At price of provinces! the river Rhasis

Cannot afford them fowl, nor Lucrine lake

Oysters enow: Circei too is search'd,
To please the witty gluttony of a meal!
Their ancient habitations they neglect,
And set up new; then, if the echo like not

In such a room, they pluck down those, build newer,
Alter them too; and by all frantic ways,

Vex their wild wealth, as they molest the people,
From whom they force it! Yet they cannot tame,

Or overcome their riches! not by making
Baths, orchards, fish pools, letting in of seas

Here and then there forcing them out again

With mountainous heaps, for which the earth hath lost
Most of her ribs, as entrails; being now

Wounded no less for marble, than for gold!!!

The healthy and the wise will, at the fine seasons, follow the advice of the old dramatist Massinger

"-rise before the sun,

Then make a breakfast of the morning dew,
Served up by Nature, on some grassy hill;
You'll find it nectar."

How beautiful and impressive is the sentiment of the same author—

"Look on the poor,

With gentle eyes, for, in such habits, often,

Angels desire an alms."

The old dramatist Ford, makes Autumn speak thus

"Whate'er the wanton spring

When she doth diaper the ground with beauties,

Toils for, comes home to Autumn; Summer's sweats

Either in pasturing her furlongs, reaping

The crop of bread, ripening the fruits for food,

Autumn's garners house them. Autumn's jollities
Feed on them: I alone, in every land,

Traffic my useful merchandise; gold and jewels,
Lordly possessions, are for my commodities

Mortgag'd and lost: I sit chief moderator

Between the cheek-parch'd Summer and the extremes
Of Winter's tedious frost; nay, in myself

I do contain another teeming Spring.”

The same poet assigns the following language to Winter

"Do not scorn

My age; nor think if I appear forlorn,

I serve for no use: 'tis my sharper breath
Does purge gross exhalations from the earth;
My frosts and snows do purify the air

From choking fogs, make the sky clear and fair :
And though by nature cold and chill I be

Yet I am warm in bounteous charity

And can, good sirs, by grave and sage advice
Bring you to the happy shades of paradise."

In one of Shirley's plays-The Coronation-an attendant addresses a dethroned heroine thus

Madame, you are too passionate, and lose
The greatness of your soul with the expense
Of too much grief, for that which Providence
Hath eas'd you of, the burden of a state
Above your tender bearing-"

To which the Princess answers

"Thou art a fool,

And canst not reach the spirit of a lady
Born great as I was, and made only less

By a too cruel destiny.

Above our tender bearing! What goes richer

To the composition of man, than ours?

Our soul's as free and spacious, our heart's

As great, our will as large, each thought as active,
And in this only man more proud than we,
That would have us less capable of empire:
But search the stories, and the name of queen
Shines bright with glory, and some precedents
Above man's imitation."

A Smoker in one of Ford's plays, sings these verses

"They that will learn to drink a health in hell,

Must learn on earth to take Tobacco well.

For in hell they drink nor wine, nor ale, nor beer,
But fire and smoke and stench as we do here."