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Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that wait thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy Country's,

Thy God's, and Truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the King-
And prithee lead me in――

There take an invent'ry of all I have,
To the last penny, 'tis the King's.
And my integrity to Heav'n, are all
I dare now call my own.

My robe,

O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my King, he would not in nine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies!

Crom. Good Sir, have patience.

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BLOW winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow!
You cataracts, and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulph'rous and thought-executing fires,

Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' th' world:

Crack Nature's mould, all germins spill at once,
That make ungrateful man!

Rumble thy bellvfull, spit fire, spout rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, ye elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdoms, call'd you children;
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand your brave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despis'd old man;

But yet I call you servile ministers,

That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. Oh! oh! 'tis foul.
Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pudder o'er our heads,
Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,

Unwhipp'd of Justice! Hide thee, thou bloody hand:
Thou perjure, and thou simular of virtue,
That art incestuous! caitiff, shake to pieces,
That, under cover of convivial seeming,

Hast practis'd on man's life.-Close pent up guilts,
Rive your concealing continents, and ask

Those dreadful summoners grace!—I am a man
More sinn'd against, than sinning.

SHAKSPEARE

CHAP. XVI.

MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle tow'rd my hand? come, let me clutch thee.-
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which I now draw.——

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' th' other senses,
Or else worth all the rest-I see thee still;
And on the blade o' th' dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.-There's no such thing.-
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead, and wicked Dreams abuse

The curtain'd Sleep; now Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings: and wither'd Murder,
(Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch,) thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, tow'rd his design
Moves like a ghost.-Thou sound and firm-set earth
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my whereabout;
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it.-While I threat, he lives→→→→
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan! for it is a knell,

That summons thee to Heaven or to Hell!

SHAKSPEARE,

Macd.

CHAP. XVII.

MACDUFF, MALCOLM, AND ROSSE.

SEE who comes here?

Malc. My countryman; but yet I know him not.
Macd. My ever gentie cousin, welcome hither.

Malc.

I know him now.

Good God! betimes remove

The means that makes us strangers!

Rosse.

Macd.

Sir, Amen.

Stands Scotland where it did?

Rosse. Alas! poor country,

Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot

Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;

Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rend the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstacy; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce ask'd for whom and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps;
Dying or e'er they sicken.

Macd. Oh, relation

Too nice, and yet too true!

Malc. What's the newest grief

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker. Each minute teems a new one.

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Macd. The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
Rosse. No; they were at peace when I did leave 'em.
Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes
Rosse. When I came hither to transport the tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour
Of many worthy fellows that were out,
Which was to my belief witness'd the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot.

Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, and make women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

Malc. Be't their comfort

We're coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men;
An older, and a better soldier, none
That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. Would I could answer

This comfort with the like; but I have words,
That would be howl'd out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not catch them.
Macd. What concern they?

The gen'ral cause? or is it a free grief,
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind that's honest,

But in it shares some wo; though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

Macd. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound,

That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Hum! I guess at it.

Rosse. Your castle is surpris'd, your wife and babes Savagely slaughter'd! to relate the manner,

Were on the quarry of these murder'd deer
To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful Heav'n!

What, man! ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words, the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?--

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all that could be found.
Macd. And I must be from thence! my wife kill'd too?

Rosse.

Malc.

I've said.

Be comforted.

Let's make us med'cines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones!
Did you say all? what, all? oh, hell-kite! all?
Malc. Endure it like a man.

Macd. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man.

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me.

Did Heav'n look on,

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls. Heav'a rest them now!
Malc. Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief
Convert to wrath; blunt not the heart, enrage it!

Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle Heav'n!
Cut short all intermission: front to front

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him, if he 'scape,
Then Heav'n forgive him too!

Malc. This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the King, our pow'r is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the pow'rs above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;
The night is long that never finds the day.

SHAKSPEARE.

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