The multitude, which cannot one thing long Like, or dislike, being cloy'd with vanity,
Will hate their own delights; though wisdom do not, Ev'n weariness at length, will give 'em eyes.
Haft thou not feen the ragged multitude, Whofe ftupid brains are stuff'd with nothing elfe But their mechanick skill; whose highest strain Of cunning, is to get fome musty meat To feed the hungry maw, or ragged cloaths To cover nakednefs, proclaim us bloody tyrants? These are they
Whofe ftrange diftractions guided by the voice Of two or three, proclaim a traitor's death: Now fave him frait; and now nor fave, nor kill, Nor yet release him: fuch their frantick will.
W. Hemmings's Jews Tragedy.
But this rough tide, the meeting multitude, If we oppofe, we make our voyage long; Yet when we with it row, it is fubdu'd;
And we are wife, when men in vain are strong. Then to the people fue; but hide your force; For they believe the strong are ftill unjuft: Never to armed fuitors yield remorse ;
And where they fee the pow'r, the right distrust.
Affault their pity, as their weakest part;
Which the first plaintiff never fails to move; They fearch but in the face to find the heart; And grief in princes, more than triumph love. Sir W. Davenant's Gondiberts The giddy multitude, who never fear A threatning danger, till they fee it near, Do fondly from their own protection fly, And juft affiftance to their king deny. Oppos'd by fome, forfaken by the reft; All will be conquer'd, rather than oppreft: N 6
But when deftruction on themfelves they bring, They then revenge their follies on their king.
Crown's Charles VIII. of France. MURDE
Horror pursues the homicide's fad foul,
Fear hunts his confcience with an hue and cry, That drinks the blood of men in murder's bowl; Sufpicious thoughts do reft in life deny ; Hate feldom fuffers him in peace to die:
By heav'n's inviolate doom it is decreed,
Whofe hands fhed blood, his heart in death should bleed. Mirror for Magiftrates.
Let not light fee my black and deep defires; The eye wink at the hand! yet, let that be, Which the eye fears, when it is done, to fee.
Shakespear's Macbeth. She muft die; else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then, put out the light; If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light reftore,
Should I repent: but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'it pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat, That can thy light relumine.- When I have pluck'd thy rofe,
I cannot give it vital growth again;
It needs muft wither.-I'll fmell thee on the tree; Oh balmy breath, that doth almost persuade
Juftice to break her fword!one more; one more; Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, And love thee after.One more, that's the last ; So fweet, was ne'er fo fatal! I muft weep, But they are cruel tears this forrow's heav'nly; It ftrikes, where it doth love.-
1. O horror! horror! horror!
Nor tongue, nor heart, cannot conceive, nor name thee.
1. Confufion now hath made his mafter-piece; Moft facrilegious murder hath broke ope
The lord's anointed temple, and stole thence The life o'th' building.
See, how the blood is fettled in his face!
Oft have I feen a timely-parted ghost,
Of afhy femblance, meager, pale, and bloodlefs; Being all defcended to the lab'ring heart,
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death, Attracts the fame for aidance 'gainst the enemy; Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er returns To blush and beautify the cheek again. But fee, his face is black and full of blood; His eye-balls further out, than when he liv'd; Staring full-ghaftly, like a strangled man ; His hair uprear'd, his noftrils ftretch'd with ftruggling: His hands abroad difplay'd, as one that grafp'd And tugg'd for life, and was by itrength fubdu'd. Look on the sheets; his hair, you fee, is sticking; His well-proportion'd beard, made rough and rugged, Like to the fummer's corn by tempeft lodg'd: It cannot be, but he was murder'd here: The leaft of all these figns are probable.
Skakefpear's Second Part of King Henry VI. Who finds the heifer dead, and bleeding fresh, And fees faft by a butcher with an ax,
But will fufpect, 'twas he that made the flaughter? Who finds the partridge in the puttock's neft, But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite foar with unbloody'd beak? Ev'n fo fufpicious is this tragedy.
Blood though it fleep a time, yet never dies : The gods on murd'rers fix revengeful eyes.
When murd'rers fhut deeds close, this curfe does feal them; If none disclose them, they themselves reveal them. Tourneur's Revenger's Tragedy.
Murder is open-mouth'd; and as the sea Whose cov'tous waves imprifon'd by the land, Bellow for grief, and roar upon the fand: So from the earth it cries, and like a child, Wrong'd by his careless nurfe, will not be still'd.. Mafon's Muleaffes. There's great fufpicion of the murder; But no found proof who did it: for my part, I do not think the hath a foul fo black
To act a deed fo bloody; if she have,
As in cold countries husbandmen plant vines, And with warm blood manure them; even fo, One fummer she will bear unfav'ry fruit; And ere next spring, wither both branch and root. Webfter's White Devil.
Murder itself is past all expiation, The greatest crime that nature doth abhor : Not being, is abominable to her ;
And when we be, make others not to be, 'Tis worse than beftial: and we did not fo, When only we by nature's aid did live. A het'rogeneous kind, as femi-beasts; When reafon challeng'd fearce a part in us ; But now doth manhood and civility
Stand at the bar of justice, and there plead
How much they're wronged; and how much defac'd When man doth dye his hands in blood of man. Judgment itself would scarce a law enact Against the murd'rer, thinking it a fact That man 'gainst man would never dare commit; Since the worst things of nature do not it.
Blood hath ftrange organs to difcourfe withal; It is a clam'rous orator, and then
Ev'n nature will exceed herself, to tell
A crime, fo thwarting nature
Gomerfall's Lodovick Sforza:
Who by blood offends,
By his own, facrific'd must make amends.
And those who to themselves lov'd life deny ; Want feldom pow'r to aid their will,
When they would others kill.
Sir W. Davenant's Siege of Rhodes. SELF-MURDER.
To be, or not to be? that is the question.- Whether 'tis nobler in the mind. to fuffer The flings and arrows of outragious fortune; Or to take arms against a fea of troubles,
And by oppofing, end them? to die, to fleep- No more; and by a fleep, to fay, we end The heart-ach, and the thoufand nat❜ral fhocks That flesh is heir to ; 'tis a confummation Devoutly to be wifh'd. To die-to fleep--
To fleep? perchance, to dream; ay, there's the rub→→ For in that fleep of death what dreams may come, When we have fhuffled off this mortal coil,
-There's the refpect,
That makes calamity of fo long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppreffor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of defpis'd love, the law's delay, The infolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes; When he himself might his quietus make, With a bare bodkin? Who would fardells bear, Το groan and fweat under a weary life? But that the dread of fomething after death, (That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne No traveller returns) puzzles the will; And makes us rather bear thofe ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of
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