Seeking the bubble reputation

Ev'n in the cannor's mouth: And then, the Justice;

In fair roand belly, with good capon lined,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances,

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And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd Pantaloon;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well-saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

SHAKSPEARE.

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LIFE.

..REASON thus with life,

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, (Servile to all the skyey influences,)

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That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st,
Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run'st toward him still: Thou art not noble ;
For all the accommodations that thou bear'st,
Are nursed by baseness: Thou art by no means valiant;
For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

Of a poor worm: Thy best of rest is sleep,

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And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st
Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself;
For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust: Happy thou art not;
For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get;
And, what thou hast, forget'st: Thou art not certain;
For thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon: If thou art rich, thou art poor; 20
For, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee: Friend hast thou none;
For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,
The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

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[age;

For ending thee no sooner: Thou hast nor youth, nor But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,

Dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth

Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old, and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this, That bears the name of life? Yet in this life

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Lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear, 35 That makes these odds all even.

SHAKSPEARE.

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

CLARENCE AND BRAKENBURY.

Brak. WHY looks your grace so heavily to-day? Clar. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,

That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of dismal terror was the time.

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Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you, tell me.

Clar. Methought, that I had broken from the Tower, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy;

And in my company my brother Glo'ster,
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

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Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought, that Glo'ster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that sought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!
What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept (As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems,

That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.

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Brak. Had you such leisure, in the time of death,

To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

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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 seek the empty, vast, and wandering air; But smother'd it within my panting bulk, Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. Brak. Awaked you not with this sore agony? Clar. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after life; O, then began the tempest to my soul! I pass'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, renown'd Warwick; Who cried aloud, "What scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?" And so he vanish'd: Then came wandering 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 stabb'd me in the field by Tewkesbury; Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!" With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears Such hideous cries, that with the very noise I trembling waked, and for a season 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. O, Brakenbury, I have done these things,

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That now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites me!
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:

O, spare my guiltless wife, and my poor children!
I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me;

My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

SHAKSPEARE.

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CATO'S SOLILOQUY.

Ir must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well!-
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?
"T is the Divinity that stirs within us;
"T is Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

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Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

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Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a power above us,
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue
And that which he delights in, must be happy.
But when! or where!-This world was made for Cæsar.
I am weary of conjectures-this must end them.

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