Page images
PDF
EPUB

26

CHILDREN.CLERGY.-CONFIDENCE.

If that be true, I shall see my boy again;
For, since the birth of Cain, the first male-child,
To him that did but yesterday suspire,
There was not such a gracious creature born.

O Lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son ;
My life, my joy, my soul, my all the world;
My widow's comfort, and my sorrow's care!

CLERGY.

Love and meekness, Lord,
Become a churchman better than ambition;
Win straying souls with modesty again,
Cast none away.

But you misuse the reverence of your place;
Employ the countenance and grace of heaven,
As a false favorite doth his prince's name,
In deeds dishonorable.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Shew me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own road.

CONFIDENCE.

Set on your foot;

And, with a heart new fir'd, I follow you,
To do I know not what: but it sufficeth,
That Brutus leads me on.

I took him for the plainest, harmless't creature,
That breath'd upon the earth a christian;
Made him my book, wherein my. soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts.

CONSCIENCE.

Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Their great guilt,

Like poison given to work a great time after,
Now gins to bite the spirits.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;:
And thus the native hue of resolution

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

I feel within me

A peace above all earthly dignities,
A still and quiet conscience.

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.

Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,

Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstacy.

O! I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a christian faithful man,

28

CONSCIENCE. CONSIDERATION.

I would not spend another such a night, Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days; So full of dismal terror was the time.

O, it is monstrous! monstrous! Methought, the billows spoke and told me of it; The winds did sing it to me; and the thunder, That deep and dreadful organ-pipe, pronounc'd The name of Prosper.

O, Brackenbury, I have done these things,-
That now give evidence against my soul.

Leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

The colour of the king doth come and go
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.

O, Hamlet, speak no more :
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very
soul;
And there I see such black, and grained spots,
As will not leave their tinct.

Give me another horse,---bind up my wounds,-
Have mercy, Jesu! Soft; I did but dream.-
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me !
The lights burn blue.-It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? myself?

CONSIDERATION.

Consideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him; Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.

CONSPIRACY.

O conspiracy!

Sham'st thou to show thy dangerous brow by night, When evils are most free? O, then, by day, Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough,.

To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspi

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough,
To hide thee from prevention.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing,
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius, and the mortal instruments,
Are then in council; and the state of a man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection.

CONTEMPT.

As in a theatre, the eyes of men,
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
Are idly bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious:

Even so, or with much more contempt, men's eyes
Did scowl on Richard.

Hold, Clifford; do not honor him so much,
To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart:
What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his foot away?

CONTENT.

I swear, 'tis better to be lowly born,
And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistering grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.

Poor, and content, is rich and rich enough;
But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

Best state, contentless,
Hath a distracted and most wretched being,
Worse than the worst, content.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not deck'd with diamonds, and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: my crown is called content; A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy.

Most miserable
Is the desire that's glorious: blessed be those,
How mean soe'er, that have their honest wills,
Which seasons comfort.

He that commends me to mine own content,
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.

CORPULENCE.

Would he were fatter:-But I fear him not:

Yet if my name were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius.

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

« PreviousContinue »