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My fault is paft. But, oh! what form of prayer
Can ferve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder.
That cannot be, fince I am ftill poffefs'd

Of thofe effects for which I did the murder;
My crown, my own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice;
And oft 'tis feen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the laws. But 'tis not fo above.
There is no fhuffling: there, the action lies
In its true nature, and we ourselves compell'd,
Ev'n to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What refts?-
Try what repentance can.-What can it not ?—
Yet, what can it, when one cannot repent?-
Oh wretched ftate !-Oh bofom black as death!-
Oh limed foul, that, struggling to be free,

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Art more engag'd!-Help, angels !—Make affay! Bow, ftubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of fteel, Be foft as finews of the new-born babe!

All may be well.

XII. Soliloquy of Hamlet on Death.

To be or not to be that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to fuffer
The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a sea 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 thousand natural 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,

Muft give us paufe.-There's the refpect,

That makes calamity of fo long life:

For, who would bear the whips and fcorns of timeTh' oppreffor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, of defpis'd love, the law's delay,

The pang

The infolence of office, and the fpurns

That

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes-
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin! Who would fardels bear,
Το and fweat under a weary life,
groan
But that the dread of something after death
(That undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear thofe ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus confcience does make cowards of us all :
And thus the native hue of refolution

Is fickly'd o'er with the pale caft of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

XIII. Falstaff's Encomiums on Sack.

A GOOD fherris-fack hath a two-fold operation in it.-It afcends me into the brain: dries me there, all the foolish, dull, and crudy vapours which environ it; makes it apprehenfive, quick, inventive; full of nimble, fiery, and delectable fhapes; which, delivered over to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The fecond property of your excellent fherris, is the warming of the blood; which, before, cold and fettled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pufillanimity and cowardice. But the fherris warms it, and makes it courfe from the inwards to the parts extreme. It illuminateth the face; which, as a beacon, gives warning to all the reft of this little kingdom, man, to arm and then, the vital commoners, and inland petty fpirits, mufter me all to their captain, the heart; who, great, and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage and this valour comes of fherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without fack, for that fets it awork; and learning a mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till fack commences it, and fets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant; for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, fteril, and bare land, manured, hufbanded, and tilled, with drinking good, and good ftore of fertile herris.—If I had a thousand fons, the first human prin

eiple I would teach them, fhould be-To forfwear thin potations, and to addiet themfelves to fack.

XIV. Prologue to the Tragedy of Cato.

TO wake the foul by tender strokes of art,

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To raise the genius, and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each fcene, and be what they behold
For this the tragic muse first trode the stage,
Commanding tears to ftream through every age:
Tyrants no more their favage nature kept,
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they wept.
Our author fhuns by vulgar fprings to move; i
The hero's glory, or the virgin's love:
In pitying love we but our weakness show,
And wild ambition well deferves its woe.
Here tears fhall flow from a more generous cause
Such tears as patriots fhed for dying laws &
He bids your breast with ancient ardours rise,
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyes:
Virtue confefs'd in human fhape he draws,
What Plato thought, and god-like Cato was :
No common object to your fight difplays,
But what with pleasure Heav'n itself surveys;
A brave man ftruggling in the ftorms of fate,
And greatly falling with a falling ftate!
While Cato gives his little fenate laws,
What bofom beats not in his country's caufe?
Who fees him act, but envies ev'ry deed?

Who hears him groan, and does not wish to bleed?
Ev'n when proud Cæfar, 'midft triumphal cars,
The fpoils of nations, and the pomp of wars,
Ignobly vain, and impotently great,

Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in ftate;
As her dead father's rev'rend image past,
The pomp was darken'd, and the day o'ercaft,
The triumph ceas'd-tears gufh'd from ev'ry eye;
The world's great victor paft unheeded by:
Her last good man dejected Rome ador'd,
And honour'd Cæfar's, lefs than Cato's fword.
Britons attend. Be worth like this approv'd;
And fhow you have the virtue to be mov'd.

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With honeft fcorn the first fam'd Cato view'd
Rome learning arts from Greece, whom fhe fubdu'd :
Our scene precariously fubfifts too long

On French tranflation, and Italian fong.

Dare to have sense yourselves: affert the stage:
Be juftly warm'd with your own native rage.
Such plays alone fhould please a British ear,
As Cato's felf had not disdain'd to hear.

XV. Cato's Soliloquy on the Immortality of the Soul. IT must be fo-Plato, thou reafon'ft well!

Elfe, whence this pleafing hope, this fond defire,
This longing after immortality?

Or, whence this fecret dread, and inward horrour,
Of falling into nought? Why fhrinks the foul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that ftirs within us:

'Tis Heaven itfelf, that points out an Hereafter,
And intimates Eternity to man.

Eternity!-thou pleafing-dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untry'd being,

Through what new fcenes and changes muft we pafs!
The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me ;
But fhadows, clouds, and darknefs, reft upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Pow'r above us,
(And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works) He muft delight in virtue;
And that which He delights in must be happy.

But, when? or where? This world-was made for Cæfar,
I'm weary of conjectures-this must end them.-

[Laying his hand on his fword.

Thus I am doubly arm'd. My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This, in a moment, brings me to an end;
But this informs me I fhall never die."
The foul, fecur'd in her exiftence-fmiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.-
The ftars fhall fade away, the fun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature fink in years:
But thou fhalt flourish in immortal youth;
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.

XVI. Lady Randolph's Soliloquy, lamenting the Death of her Hufband and Child.

YE woods and wilds! whofe melancholy gloom
Accords with my foul's fadnefs, and draws forth
The voice of forrow from my bursting heart-
Farewel a while. I will not leave you long :
For, in your fhades, I deem fome spirit dwells;
Who, from the chiding ftream, or groaning oak,
Still hears, and answers to Matilda's moan.
Oh, Douglas! Douglas! if departed ghofts
Are e'er permitted to review this world,
Within the circle of that wood thou art;
And, with the paffion of immortals, hear'ft
My lamentation; hear'ft thy wretched wife
Weep, for her husband flain, her infant loft.
My brother's timeless death I feem to mourn,
Who perifh'd with thee on this fatal day.
To thee I lift my voice; to thee addrefs
The plaint, which mortal ear has never heard..
Oh! difregard me not. Though I am call'd
Another's now, my heart is wholly thine.
Incapable of change, affection lies

Buried, my Douglas, in thy bloody grave."

XVII. Speech of Henry Vth to his Soldiers at the Siege of Harfleur.

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with the English dead.

In peace, there's nothing fo becomes a man

As modeft ftillness and humility:

But when the blaft of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the finews, fummon up the blood,
Difguife fair nature with hard-favour'd rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry o'er the portage of the head
Like the brafs cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
And fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wafteful ocean,.
Now fet the teeth, and ftretch the noftril wide;

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