ARTHUR'S PATHETIC SPEECHES TO HUBERT,

FROM THE PLAY OF KING JOHN.'

Methinks nobody should be sad but I:
Yet, I remember, when I was in France,
Young gentlemen would be as sad as night,
Only for wantonness. By my christendom,
So I were out of prison, and kept sheep,
I should be as merry as the day is long.

Have you the heart?

When your head did but ache,
I knit my handkerchief about your brows,
(The best I had, a princess wrought it me)
And I did never ask it you again :

And with my hands at midnight held your head,
And like the watchful minutes to the hour,
Still and anon cheer'd up the heavy time;
Saying, what lack you? and where lies your grief?
Or, what good love may I perform for you?
Many a poor man's son wonld have lain still,
And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you;
But you at your sick service had a prince.
Nay, you may think my love was crafty love,
And call it cunning: do, and if you will—
If heaven be pleased that you must use me ill,
Why, then you must.-Will you put out mine eyes?
These eyes that never did, and never shall,
So much as frown on you?

Alas, what need you be so boist'rous rough?

*

I will not struggle; I will stand stone-still.
For heaven's sake, Hubert, let me not be bound!
Nay, hear me, Hubert! drive these men away,
And I will sit as quiet as a lamb;

I will not stir, nor wince, nor speak a word,
Nor look upon the iron angerly;

Thrust but these men away, and I'll forgive you,
What ever torment you do put me to.

Is there no remedy?

Hubert. None but to lose your eyes.

Arthur. O heaven! that there were but a mote in

yours,

A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wand'ring hair,

Any annoyance in that precious sense!

Then, feeling what small things are boisterous there, Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.

NEWS BEARERS.

"FROM THE PLAY OF KING JOHN.'

Old men, and beldams, in the streets,
Do prophesy upon it dangerously:

Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths :
And when they talk of him they shake their heads,
And whisper one another in the ear:

And he that speaks, doth gripe the hearer's wrist, Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,

With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool;
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet),
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent:
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

FALCONBRIDGE TO KING JOHN.

All Kent hath yielded, nothing there holds out
But Dover Castle: London hath received,
Like a kind host, the Dauphin and his powers;
Your nobles will not hear you, but are gone
To offer service to your enemy,

And wild amazement hurries up and down
The little number of your doubtful friends.
But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear, and sad distrust,
Govern the motion of a Kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener, and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes
That borrow their behaviours from the great,

Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away; and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,

And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
O, let it not be said! Forage, and run
To meet displeasure further from the doors;
And grapple with him ere he comes so nigh.

HOTSPUR'S DESCRIPTION OF A FINICAL FOP.

FROM THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY THE FOURTH.

But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress'd,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble land at harvest home:
He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He

gave his nose, and took't away again;—
Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff;-and still he smiled, and talk'd;
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; among the rest demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds, being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popingjay,
Out of my grief-and my impatience,

Answered, neglectingly, I know not what:

He should, or he should not ;—for he made me mad, To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman;

Of guns and drums, and wounds, (God save the mark!)
And telling me the sovereign'st thing on earth,
Was spermaceti for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villanous saltpetre, should be digg'd
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.

Some of our readers will remember our poet's character of Sir John Falstaff, who, like the lord above described, relished neither 'villanous saltpetre,' nor 'vile guns, and whose sentiments in relation to 'honour,' and its duration, may now be aptly introduced.