BRAK. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you

tell me.

CLAR. Methought that I had broken from the tow'r, And was embark'd to cross to Burgundy,

And in my company my brother Glo'fter;

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd tow'rd England, And cited up a thousand heavy times,

During the wars of York and Lancaster,

That had befall'n us. As we pafs'd along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Glo'fter ftumbled, and in falling
Struck me (that fought to flay him) overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

Lord, Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown!

What dreadful noife of waters in my ears!
What fights of ugly death within my eyes!
I thought I faw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Ineftimable stones, unvalued jewels;

Some lay in dead men's fculls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in fcorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo'd the flimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
BRAK. Had you fuch leifure in the time of death,
To gaze upon the fecrets of the deep?

CLAR. Methought I had; and often did I ftrive
To yield the ghoft; but ftill the envious flood
Kept in my foul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vaft, and wand'ring air;
But fmother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the fea.

BRAK. Awak'd you not with this fore agony ?

CLAR

CLAR. No, no; my dream was lengthen'd after life; O then began the tempeft to my foul:

I pafs'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my ftranger-foul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cry'd aloud" What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?"
And fo he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by
A fhadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he fhriek'd out aloud-
"Clarence is come, falfe, fleeting, perjur'd Clarence,
That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
1 trembling wak'd; and for a season after
Could not believe but that I was in hell:
Such terrible impreffion made my dream.

BRAK. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you; I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

CLAR. Ah! Brakenbury, I have done those things That now give evidence againft my foul,

For Edward's fake; and fee how he requites me!
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,

Yet execute thy wrath on me alone :

O fpare my guiltless wife, and my poor children!
I pr'ythee, Brakenbury, ftay by me :

My foul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

SHAKESPEARE.

CHAP. XXIII.

QUEEN MA B.

ΤΗΕΝ I fee Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fancy's midwife, and she comes
In fhape no bigger than an agate-ftone
On the fore-finger of an alderman;
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's nofes as they lie afleep:
Her waggon fpokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover of the wings of grafshoppers;
The traces of the smallest spider's web;
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half fo big as a round little worm,
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this ftate fhe gallops, night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtfies strait :
O'er lawyers' fingers, who ftrait dream on fees:
O'er ladies lips, who ftrait on kiffes dream:
Sometimes the gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of fmelling out a fuit :
And fometimes comes fhe with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parfon as he lies asleep;
Then dreams he of another benefice.

Sometimes fhe driveth o'er a foldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon

Drums

Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes;
And being thus frighted, fwears a prayer or two,
And fleeps again.
SHAKESPEARE.

CHAP. XXIV.

APOTHECARY.

I Do remember an apothecary,

And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of fimples; meagre were his looks;
Sharp Mifery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy shop a tortoife hung,
An alligator fluff'd, and other fkins
Of ill-fhap'd fishes; and about his shelves
A beggarly account of empty boxes ;

Green earthen pots, bladders, and mufty feeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rofes
Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show.
Noting this penury, to myself I faid,
An' if a man did need a poison now,
Whofe fale is prefent death in Mantua,

Here lives a caitiff wretch would fell it him.

Oh, this fame thought did but fore-run my need,
And this fame needy man must fell it me.

As I remember, this fhould be the house.

SHAKESPEARE.

CHAP. XXV.:

ODE TO EVENING.

IF aught of oaten ftop, or pastoral song,

May hope, chafte Eve, to footh thy modeft ear
Like thy own folemn (prings,

Thy fprings, and dying gales,

10 Nymph

O Nymph referv'd, while now the bright-hair'd fun
Sits on yon western tent, whofe cloudy skirts
With brede ethereal wove,

O'erhang his wavy bed:

Now air is hufh'd, fave where the weak-eyed bat,
With short shrill skrieks flits by on leathern wing,
Or where the beetle winds

His fmall but fallen horn,

As oft he rifes 'midft the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedlefs hum:
Now teach me, maid compos'd,

To breathe fome foften'd ftrain,

Whose numbers stealing through thy dark'ning vale,
May not unfeemly with its ftillness fuit,
As mufing flow, I hail

Thy genial lov'd return!

For when thy folding ftar arifing fhews
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
The fragrant Hours, and Elves

Who flept in flow'rs the day,

And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with fedge,
And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier still,
The penfive Pleasures sweet
Prepare thy fhadowy car.

Then lead, calm Vot'refs, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or fome time-hallowed pile,
Or up-land fallows grey
Reflect its last cool gleam.

But when chill bluft'ring winds or driving rain,
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut,
That from the mountain's fide,

Views wilds and fwelling floods,

And hamlets brown, and dim difcover'd fpires,
And hears their fimple bell, and marks o'er all