Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Fie on't! oh fie! 'tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed: things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely.-That it should come to this!—
But two months dead!-nay, not so much; not two!—
So excellent a king! that was, to this,

Hyperion to a satyr: so loving to my mother,
That he would not let the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly.-Heaven and earth!
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him,
As if increase of appetite had grown

By what it fed on: yet, within a month,—
Let me not think-Frailty, thy name is woman!
A little month! or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body,
Like Niobé, all tears-why she, even she,
Married mine uncle, my father's brother,

But no more like my father, than I to Hercules.-
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.-

But, break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.—

SHAKSPEARE.

6.-MACBETH'S SOLILOQUY BEFORE MURDERING DUNCAN.

Go, bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,
She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

[Exit Servant.

The handle toward 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 that which now I draw.

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

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;
And on thy blade and 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 curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered Murder,
Alarmed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
Towards his design

Moves like a ghost.-Thou sure 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,

CA bell rings.

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.

COMIC EXTRACTS.

1.-PROLOGUE TO THE FARCE OF THE APPRENTICE.

TO-NIGHT no smuggled scenes from France we show ;
'Tis English-English, sirs, from top to toe.
Our hero is a youth-by fate designed

For culling simples-but whose stage-struck mind
Nor fate could rule-nor his indentures bind.-
A place there is, where such young Quixotes meet;
'Tis called the Spouting-club—a glorious treat!
Where prenticed kings alarm-the gaping street!
There, Brutus starts and stares, by midnight taper,
Who, all the day, enacts-a Woollen-draper!
There, Hamlet's ghost stalks forth, with doubled fist;
Cries out, with hollow voice, "List, list! O list!"
And frightens Denmark's prince-a young Tobacconist!
The spirit too, cleared from his deadly white,

Rises-a Haberdasher to the sight!

Not young Attorneys have this rage withstood;

But change their pens for truncheons, ink for blood;
And (strange reverse)!-die for their country's good!
To check these heroes, and their laurels crop,
o bring them back to reason—and their shop,

Our author wrote. O you, Tom, Dick, Jack, Will,
Who hold the balance, or who gild the pill;
Who wield the yard, and, simpering, pay your court,
And, at each flourish, snip an inch too short!
Quit not your shops: there thrift and profit call;
While, here, young gentlemen are apt to fall.
But, hark! I'm called. Be warned by what you see.
O, spout no more!-Farewell! "Remember me."

GARRICK.

2.-A CONTEST BETWEEN THE NOSE AND THE EYES.

BETWEEN Nose and Eyes a strange contest arose,
The spectacles set them unhappily wrong;
The point in dispute was, as all the world knows,
To which the said spectacles ought to belong.

So the Tongue was the lawyer, and argued the cause
With a great deal of skill, and a wig full of learning,
While chief-baron Ear sat to balance the laws,

So famed for his talent in nicely discerning.

In behalf of the Nose, it will quickly appear,

And your Lordship, he said, will undoubtedly find,
That the Nose has had spectacles always in wear,
Which amounts to possession time out of mind.

Then, holding the spectacles up to the court-
Your Lordship observes they are made with a straddle,
As wide as the ridge of the Nose is, in short,
Designed to sit close to it, just like a saddle.

Again, would your Lordship a moment suppose
('Tis a case that has happened, and may be again),
That the visage or countenance had not a Nose,
Pray who would or who could wear spectacles then?
On the whole it appears, and my argument shows,
With a reasoning the court will never condemn,
That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose,
And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.

Then shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how,
He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes ;
But what were his arguments few people know,

For the court did not think they were equally wise.

So his Lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone,
Decisive and clear, without one if or but,
That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on,

By day-light or candle-light-Eyes should be shut.

COWPER.

3.--LODGINGS FOR SINGLE GENTLEMEN.

WHO has e'er been in London, that overgrown place,
Has seen Lodgings to Let" stare him full in the face.
Some are good and let dearly; while some, 'tis well-known,
Are so dear, and so bad, they are best let alone.—

WILL WADDLE, whose temper was studious and lonely,
Hired lodgings that took Single Gentlemen only;
But WILL was so fat, he appeared like a tun,—
Or like two SINGLE GENTLEMEN rolled into ONE.

He entered his rooms, and to bed he retreated;
But, all the night long, he felt fevered and heated ;
And, though heavy to weigh, as a score of fat sheep,
He was not, by any means, heavy to sleep.

Next night 'twas the same!-and the next! and the next!
He perspired like an ox; he was nervous, and vexed;
Week past after week, till by weekly succession,
His weakly condition was past all expression.

In six months his acquaintance began much to doubt him ;
For his skin, "like a lady's loose gown,” hung about him.
He sent for a Doctor, and cried, like a ninny,

"I have lost many pounds-make me well-there's a guinea.”

The Doctor looked wise :-" a slow fever," he said;
Prescribed sudorifics,—and going to bed.
"Sudorifics in bed," exclaimed WILL, "are humbugs!
"I've enough of them there, without paying for drugs!"

WILL kicked out the Doctor:-but when ill indeed,
E'en dismissing the Doctor don't always succeed;
So, calling his host-he said-" Sir, do you know,
"I'm the fat SINGLE GENTLEMAN, six months ago?

" Look ye, Landlord, I think," argued WILL with a grin,
"That with honest intentions you first took me in:
"But from the first night-and to say it I'm bold-
"I've been so very hot, that I'm sure I caught cold!"

Quoth the landlord,-" Till now, I ne'er had a dispute;
"I've let lodgings ten years,—I'm a baker to boot;
"In airing your sheets, sir, my wife is no sloven;
"And your bed is immediately-over my ovEN."
"The OVEN!!!"-says WILL;-says the host,
passion?

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In that excellent bed died three people of fashion.

[ocr errors]

Why this

Why so crusty, good sir?"-" Zounds !" cried WILL in a

taking,

"Who would not be crusty, with half a year's baking?”

WILL paid for his rooms :-cried the host, with a sneer,

68

Well, I see you've been going away half a year."

"Friend, we can't well agree ;-yet no quarrel”—WILL said :"But I'd rather not perish, while you make your bread."

COLMAN.

4.-TOBY TOSSPOT.

ALAS! what pity 'tis, that regularity,
Like Isaac Shove's, is such a rarity.

But there are swilling wights in London town
Termed-Jolly dogs,-Choice spirits-alias swine,
Who pour, in midnight revel, bumpers down,
Making their throats a thoroughfare for wine.
These spendthrifts, who life's pleasures thus run on,
Dozing with headaches till the afternoon,
Lose half men's regular estate of sun,

By borrowing too largely of the moon.

One of this kidney,-Toby Tosspot hight-
Was coming from the Bedford, late at night:
And being Bacchi plenus,-full of wine,
Although he had a tolerable notion

Of aiming at progressive motion,

'Twasn't direct

-'twas serpentine.

He worked with sinuosities, along,

Like Monsieur Corkscrew, worming through a cork,

Not straight, like Corkscrew's proxy, stiff Don Prong, a fork.

At length, with near four bottles in his pate,

He saw the moon shining on Shove's brass plate,

When reading, "Please to ring the bell,"

And being civil beyond measure,

[ocr errors]

Ring it!" says Toby-" Very well;

"I'll ring it with a deal of pleasure.”

« ПредишнаНапред »