Ecclesiastes xii. 5.

Man goeth to his long home,

And the mourners go about the streets.

Job iii. 17.

There the wicked cease from troubling,
And there the weary be at rest.

Habakkuk iii. 17.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom,
Neither shall fruit be on the vines-

Though the labour of the olive tree shall fail
And the fields shall yield no food,

Though the flock shall be cut off from the fold
And there shall be no herd in the stalls,
Yet will I rejoice in Jehovah ;

I will joy in the God of my salvation!

Philippians iv. 8.

Whatsoever things are true,
Whatsoever things are honest,
Whatsoever things are just,

Whatsoever things are pure,

Whatsoever things are lovely,

Whatsoever things are of good report

If there be any virtue,

If there be any praise,

Think on these things.

And what you have learned and received and

heard

Those things do ye.

T. MARSHALL.

[In Percy's Reliques.]

The sturdy rock for all his strength
By raging seas is rent in twain ;
The marble stone is pierced at length
With little drops of drizzling rain;
The ox doth yield unto the yoke ;
The steel obeyeth the hammer stroke.

The stately stag, that seems so stout,
By yelping hounds at bay is set;
The swiftest bird that flies about

Is caught at length in fowler's net;
The greatest fish in deepest brook
Is soon deceived by subtle hook.

Yea, man himself, unto whose will
All things are bounden to obey,
For all his wit and worthy skill,

Doth fade at length and fall away : There is nothing, but time doth waste The heavens, the earth, consume at last.

But Virtue sits triumphing still

Upon the throne of glorious fame Though spiteful Death man's body kill, Yet hurts he not his virtuous name; By life or death, whatso betides, The state of virtue never slides.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

["Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,

Warble his native wood-notes wild."-Milton's L'Allegro.]

HAMLET ON HIS FATHER.

Act I. Scene 2.

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again!

HAMLET'S SOLILOQUY

Act III. Scene 1.

To be, or not to be, that is the question :-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them?-To die,-to sleep,--
No more ; and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die,-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect,

That makes calamity of so long life :

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;
But that the dread of something after death,—

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action,

HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS.

Act III. Scene 2.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the towncrier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwigpated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-hereds Herod : Pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you

o'erstep not the modesty of nature for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to shew virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which, one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others. praise, and that highly,-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

And let those, that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them, that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous; and shews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.