The Wanity of Worldly Glory.

Ah, race of mortal men,
How as a thing of naught
I count ye, though ye live;
For who is there of men
That more of blessing knows,
Than just a little while

To seem to prosper well,

And, having seemed, to fall?

Who can count man's prosperity as great,
Or small and lowly, or of no account?

None of all this continues in one stay.

SOPHOCLES, Edipus the King, l. 1187.

BUT yesterday the word of Cæsar might

Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. 2, 1. 123.

RENOWNED WARWICK DYING.

Warwick. Ah, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe,

And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?

Why ask I that? my mangled body shows,

My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,

THE VANITY OF WORLDLY GLORY.

That I must yield my body to the earth
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.

Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,

Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,

Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.
These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's black veil,
Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,

To search the secret treasons of the world:

The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,

Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres ;

For who lived king, but I could dig his grave?
And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?
Lo, now my glory smear'd in dust and blood!

My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me, and of all

my lands Is nothing left me but my body's length.

Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?

And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

167

Third Part of King Henry VI., Act v. Sc. 2, 1. 5.

RICHARD II., MORALIZING AFTER THE LOSS OF HIS CROWN.

Of comforts no man speak :

Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs:

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills;
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings:

How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives; some sleeping kill'd ;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?

King Richard II., Act iii. Sc. 2, l. 144.

The Benefits of Adversity.

I grieve not that I once did grieve,
In my large joy of sight and touch
Beyond what others count for such,
I am content to suffer much.

I know is all the mourner saith,

-

Knowledge by suffering entereth ;
And Life is perfected by Death.1

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, A Vision of Poets.

I have known a luxuriant vine swell into irregular twigs and bold excrescences, and spend itself in leaves and little rings, and afford but trifling clusters to the wine-press, and a faint return to his heart which longed to be refreshed with a full vintage: but when the lord of the vine had caused the dressers to cut the wilder plant, and made it bleed, it grew temperate in its vain expense of useless leaves, and knotted into fair and juicy branches, and made accounts of that loss of blood by the return of fruit. JEREMY TAYLOR.

Duke. Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. - John

xii. 24.

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The seasons' difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
'This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.'
Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head :

And this our life exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in every thing.

I would not change it.

Cardinal Wolsey. Farewell! a long farewell, to all my

greatness!

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,