What is this,

That rises like the issue of a king,

And wears upon his baby-brow the round

And top of sovereignty?

MACBETH iv. I.

WH

HEN they came to Bethlehem, and the star pointed them to a stable, they entered in: and being enlightened with a divine ray, proceeding from the face of the Holy Child, and seeing through the cloud, and passing through the scandal of His mean lodging and poor condition, they bowed themselves to the earth; then they made offering of their gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, protesting their faith of three articles by the symbolical oblation: by gold, that He was a king; by incense, that He was a god; by myrrh, that He was a man.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

SEE how from far, upon the eastern road,
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:
O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,
And lay it lowly at His blessed feet;

Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out His secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

MILTON.

And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith.

I KING HENRY IV. iii. I.

F I durst be bold to tell so sad a man a merry

IF

tale, I would tell him of the friar, that as he was preaching in the country, spied a poor wife of the parish whispering with her pew-fellow, and he falling angry thereto, cried out unto her aloud, 'Hold thy babble, I bid thee, thou wife in the red hood.' Which when the housewife heard, she waxed as angry again, and suddenly she start up and cried out unto the friar again, that all the church rang thereon: 'Marry, sir, I beshrew his heart that babbleth most of us both. For I do but whisper a word with my neighbour here, and thou hast babbled there all this hour.'

THOMAS MORE.

JUDGE not the preacher, for he is thy judge:
If thou mislike him, thou conceiv'st him not.
God calleth preaching folly. Do not grudge
To pick out treasures from an earthen pot.
The worst speak something good: if all want
sense,

God takes a text, and preacheth patience.

GEORGE HERBERT.

Be clamorous, and leap all civil bounds
Rather than make unprofited return.

TWELFTH NIGHT i. 4.

ONSIDER, for example, that great Hat, seven

CONS

feet high, which now perambulates London Streets: which my Friend Sauerteig regarded justly as one of our English notabilities; the topmost point as yet,' said he, 'would it were your culminating and returning point, to which English Puffery has been observed to reach!' The Hatter in the Strand of London, instead of making better felt hats than another, mounts a huge lath-andplaster Hat, seven feet high, upon wheels; sends a man to drive it through the streets; hoping to be saved thereby.

CARLYLE.

WHAT mean dull souls in this high measure

To haberdash

In earth's base wares, whose greatest treasure
Is dross and trash;

The height of whose enchanting pleasure
Is but a flash?

Are these the goods that thou suppliest
Us mortals with? Are these the highest?

Can these bring cordial peace? False world,

thou liest.

QUARLES.

I think good thoughts, while others write good words, And, like unletter'd clerk, still cry' Amen.'

SONN. LXXXV.

IN many other points she came on exceedingly

well, for though she could not write sonnets she brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte of her own composition, she could listen to other people's performance with very little fatigue.

JANE AUSTEN.

WHAT more felicity can fall to creature
Than to enjoy delight with liberty,

And to be lord of all the works of nature,

To range in th' air from th' earth to highest sky, To feed on flowers and weeds of glorious feature, To take whatever thing doth please the eye? Who rests not pleased with such happiness, Well worthy he to taste of wretchedness.

SPENSER.

Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all: all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?

'S

2 KING HENRY IV. iii. 2.

UPPOSE the worst to happen,' I said, addressing a portly jeweller from Cheapside; 'suppose even yourself to be the victim; il n'y a pas d'homme nécessaire. We should miss you for a day or two upon the Woodford branch: but the great mundane movement would still go on, the gravel walks of your villa would still be rolled, dividends would still be paid at the Bank, omnibuses would still run, there would still be the old crush at the corner of Fenchurch Street.' All was of no avail. Nothing could moderate, in the bosom of the great English middle class, their passionate, absorbing, almost bloodthirsty, clinging to life.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

AND fear not lest Existence, closing your Account and mine, shall know the like no more; The eternal Sáki from that Bowl has pour'd Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

FITZGERALD'S Omar Khayyám.