This bodiless creation ecstasy

Is very cunning in.

HAMLET. Ecstasy!

My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place;
Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.

ACT IV.

Hamlet's Irresolution.

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! what is a man
If his chief good, and market* of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,+
Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on the event,—

A thought which quarter'd hath but one part wisdom
And, ever, three parts coward,—I do not know
Why yet I live to say, "This thing's to do;"
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me.

* Profit.

+ Capacity.

‡ Moulder.

Sorrows rarely single.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions!

The Divinity of Kings.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king, That treason can but peep to what it would, Acts little of his will.

ACT V.

Hamlet's Reflections on Yorick's Skull.

GRAVE-DIGGER. A pestilence on him for a mad rogue! he poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, Sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

HAMLET. This?

GRAVE-DIGGER. E'en that.

HAMLET. Alas poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio ; a fellow of infinite jest; of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour* she must come ; make her laugh at that.

Ophelia's Interment.

Lay her i' the earth;

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,

* Condition.

May violets spring -I tell thee, churlish priest,
A minist'ring angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

Melancholy.

This is mere madness;

And thus a while the fit will work on him:
Anon, as patient as the female dove,

When that her golden couplets are disclosed,
His silence will sit drooping.

Providence directs our Actions.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

·000·

JULIUS CÆSAR.

Brutus and Cassius, noble Romans, envious of the popularity of Cæsar, conspire with Casca, Decius, and others to assassinate him. Cæsar is warned by his wife Calphurnia and a soothsayer against attending the Capitol; he however disregards their admonitions, and is killed by the conspirators at the foot of Pompey's statue. In the commotion which ensues Brutus harangues the citizens, and wins them over to his side, but Mark Antony (called in the play Marcus Antonius), who is a strong adherent of Cæsar's, afterwards addresses the populace, and excites in them a desire to avenge the death of Cæsar. Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, march with an army against Brutus and Cassius, who have fled from Rome and await with their forces the attack of Antony and his confederates. A quarrel ensues between Brutus and Cassius in the tent of the former, prior to the battle which is to decide their fates; their differences, however, are soon healed, and they meet the hostile army at Philippi where they are defeated, and, rather than fall into the hands of their foes, kill themselves. Portia, the

wife of Brutus, has, prior to this period, ended her life by poison. An eloquent tribute from Octavius and Antony to the character of Brutus ends the play.

Аст І.

Patriotism.

WHAT is it that you would impart to me?
If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently.

For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.

Contempt of Cassius for Cæsar.

CASSIUS. I was born free as Cæsar; so were you. We both have fed as well; and we can both Endure the winter's cold as well as he.

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing with her shores,
Cæsar said to me, "Dar'st thou, Cassius, now,
Leap in with me into this angry flood,

And swim to yonder point?" Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,

And bade him follow: so, indeed, he did.
The torrent roar'd; and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside,
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point propos'd,
Cæsar cried, "Help me, Cassius, or I sink."
I, as Æneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cæsar: And this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him.

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And, when the fit was on him, I did mark
How he did shake; 'tis true, this god did shake:
His coward lips did from their colour fly;

And that same eye, whose bend doth awe the world,
Did lose its lustre: I did hear him groan:

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,
Alas! it cried, "Give me some drink, Titinius,”
As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone.

BRUTUS. Another general shout!

I do believe that these applauses are

[Shouts.

For some new honours that are heap'd on Cæsar. CASSIUS. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus; and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Cæsar: What should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.
Now in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,

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