As he stepped in front once more, III. Then said Damfreville: " My friend, Though I find the speaking hard; France remains your debtor still. Ask to heart's content, and have! or my name's not Damfreville." IV. Then a beam of fun outbroke On the bearded mouth that spoke, Since on board the duty's done, And from Maló Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?— Since 'tis ask and have, I may Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore! V. Name and deed alike are lost; Not a pillar nor a post In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell; Not a head in white and black On a single fishing-smack, In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack All that France saved from the fight whence England bore the bell. VI. Go to Paris; rank on rank Search the heroes flung pell-mell On the Louvre, face and flank; You shall look long enough ere you come to Hervé Riel. Hervé Riel, accept my verse! In my verse, Hervè Riel, do thou once more Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore ! HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS. SHAKESPEARE. SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier had spoken my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hands, but use all gently; for, in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must beget a temperance that will give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious, periwig-pated 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. Pray you avoid it. Be not too tame, either; 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 is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the times, their form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it may make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, in your allowance, overweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there are players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that, highly, — not to speak it profanely, — who, having neither the accent of Christian, 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. MOST potent, grave, and reverend signiors, II. Rude am I in speech, And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace: And little of this great world can I speak, More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver, Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration and what mighty magic, For such proceedings I am charged withal, I won his daughter with. III. Her father loved me; oft invited me; Still question'd me the story of my life, From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, I ran it through, even from my boyish days, Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence IV. These things to hear Would Desdemona seriously incline: But still the house-affairs would draw her thence: I did consent, V. And often did beguile her of her tears, That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful : She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd VI. She thank'd me, And bade me if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake : She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used. THE SCHOLAR IN A REPUBLIC. WENDELL PHILLIPS. This extract is taken from the oration before the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard *College. STANDING on Saxon foundations, and inspired, perhaps, in some degree, by Latin example, we have done what no race, no nation, no age, had before dared even to try. We have founded a republic on the unlimited suffrage of the millions. We have actually worked out the problem that man, as God created him, may be trusted with self-government. We have shown the world that a church without a bishop, and a state without a king, is an actual, real, everyday possibility. . . We have not only established a new measure of the possibilities of the race: we have laid on strength, wisdom, and skill, a new responsibility. Grant that each man's relations to God and his neighbor are exclusively his own concern, and that he is entitled to all the aid that will make him the best judge of these relations ; that the people are the source of all power, and their measureless capacity the lever of all progress; their sense of right the court of final appeal in civil affairs; the institutions they create the only ones any power has a right to impose; that the attempt of one class to prescribe the law, the religion, the morals, or the trade of another is both unjust and harmful, and the Wycliffe and Jefferson of history mean this if they mean anything,— then, when, in 1867, Parliament doubled the English franchise, Robert Lowe was right in affirming, amid the cheers of the House, "Now the first interest and duty of every Englishman is to educate the masses masters." Then, whoever sees farther than his neighbor is that neighbor's servant to lift him to such higher level. Then, power, ability, influence, character, virtue, are only trusts with which to serve our time. Our We all agree in the duty of scholars to help those less favored |