Ld. Eust. That you have forfeited Fram. Since it is not in my power to pre vent your committing an error, which you ought for ever to repent of, I will not be a witness of it. There are the letters.

Ld. Eust. You may, perhaps, have cause to repent your present conduct, Mr. Frampton, as much as I do our past attachment.

Fram. Rather than hold your friendship upon such terms, I resign it for ever. Farewell, my lord.

Re-enter FRAMPTON.

Fram. Il treated as I have been, my lord, I find it impossible to leave you surrounded by difficulties:

Ld. Eust. That sentiment should have operat ed sooner, Mr. Framptom: Recollection is seldom of use to our friends, though it may sometimes be serviceable to ourselves.

Fram. Take advantage of your own expres sion, my lord, and recollect yourself. Born and educated, as I have been, a gentleman, how have you injured both yourself and me, by admitting and uniting, in the same confidence, your rascally servant!

Ld. Eust. The exigency of my situation is a sufficient exeuse to myself, and ought to have been so to the man who called himself my friend.

Fram. Have a care, my lord, of uttering the least doubt upon that subject; for could I think you once mean enough to suspect the sincerity of my attachment to you, it must vanish at that instant.

Ld. Eust. The proofs of your regard have been rather painful of late Mr. Framptor. Fram. When I see my friend upon the verge

Book vj. of a precipice, is that a time for compliment? Shall I not rudely rush forward, and drag him from it! Just in that state you are at present, and I will strive to save you. Virtue may languish in a noble heart, and suffer her rival, vice, to usurp her power; but baseness must not enter, or she flies for ever. The man who has forfeited his own esteem, thinks all the world has the same consciousness, and therefore is, what he deserves to be, a wretch.

Ld. Eust. Oh, Frampton! you have lodged a dagger in my heart.

Fram. No, my dear Eustace, I have saved you from one, from your own reproaches, by preventing your being guilty of a meanness, which you could never have forgiven yourself. Ld. Eust. Can you forgive me, and be still my friend?

Fram. As firmly as I have ever been, my lord.-- But let us, at present, hasten to get rid of the mean business we are engaged in, and forward the letters we have no right to detain. SCHOOL FOR RAKES,

CHA P. I X.

Duke and Lord.

Duke. Now my co-mates, and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The season's difference; as the icy phang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,
This is no flattery; these are councellors,
That feelingly persuade me what I am.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
Come, shall we go, and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools
Being native burgers of this desert city,
Should, in their own confines, with forked heads,
Have their round haunches gor❜d.

Lord. Indeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves much at that;
And in that kind swears you do more usurp
Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To-day my lord of Amiens, and myself,
Did steal behind him as he lay along

Under an oak, whose antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that brawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish! and, indeed, my lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose
In piteous chase; and thus the hairy fool,
Much mark'd of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on th' extremest verge of the swift brook
Augmenting it with tears..

Duke. But what said Jaques ?
Did he not moralize this spectacle?

Lord. O yes, into a thousand similies; First, for his weeping in the needless stream; Poor deer, quoth he, thou mak'st a testament As worldlings do, giving thy sum of more To that which had too much. Then being alone Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends: 'Tis right, quoth he, thus misery doth part The flux of company. Anon a careless herd,

you

look

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never stays to greet him: Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens,
'Tis just the fashion: wherefore do
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?
Thus most invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we
Are mere usurpers, tyrants,
and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up
In their assign'd and native dwelling place.
Duke. And did you leave him in this contem
plation?

Lord. We did, my lord, weeping and comment. ing Upon the sobbing deer.

Duke. Show me the place;

I love to cope him in these sullen fits,
For then he's full of matter.

Lord. I'll bring you to him straight.

Duke. W

ΕΠΑΡ. Χ.

SHAKESPEARE

Duke and Jaques.

how now, Monsieur, what a

life is this,

That your poor

friends must woo your company?

What? you look merrily.

Jaq. A fool, a fool;—I met a fool i' th' forest; A motley fool; a miserable varlet!

As I do live by food, I met a fool,

Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun
And rail'd on lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms, and yet a motley fool.

Good morrow, fool, quoth I; No, Sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till Heaven hath sent me fortune;
And then he drew a dial from his poak,
And looking on it with lack lustre eye
Says very wisely, It is ten o'clock ::

Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags:
"Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven ;
And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot
And thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep contemplative:
And I did laugh, sans intermission
An hour by his dial. O noble fool,
A worthy fool! motley's the only wear.
Duke. What fool is this?

Jaq. O worthy fool! one that hath been courtier,

And says, if ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,
Which is as dry as the remainder-biscuit

After a voyage,.
he hath strange places cramm'd
With observations, the which he vents
In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.
Dake. Thou shalt have one.

Jaq. It is my only suit;

Provided that you weed your better judgments
Of all opinion, that grows rank in them,
That I am wise. I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for so fools have,
And they that are most galled with my folly
They most must laugh. And why, Sir, must they

so ?

The why is plain, as way to parish-church;
He whom a fool does very wisely hit,
Doth very foolishly, although he smart,
Not to seem senseless of the bob. If not,
The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd
Even by the squandering glances of a fool.
Invest me in my motley, give me leave

To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,