Of woeful ages, long ago betid :*

And ere thou bid good night, to quit their grief,
Tell thou the lamentable fall of

me,

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.

Bolingbroke coming into London.

Then, as I said, the duke, great Bolingbroke,--
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

Which his aspiring rider seem'd to know,—
With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,
While all tongues cried-God save thee, Bolingbroke
You would have thought the very windows spake,
So many greedy looks of young and old
Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imagery, had said at once,-
Jesu preserve thee! welcome, Bolingbroke !
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus,-I thank you, countrymen:
And thus still doing, thus he pass'd along.

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; no man cried, God save him;
No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home:
But dust was thrown upon his sacred head;
Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,—
His face still combating with tears and smiles,
The badges of his grief and patience,

* Long passed away.

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steel'd The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted, And barbarism itself have pitied him.

Violets.

Who are the violets now,

That strew the green lap of the new-come spring?

Richard's Soliloquy in Prison.

I have been studying how I may compare
This prison, where I live, unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it ;-yet I'll hammer it out.
My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
My soul, the father: and these two beget
A generation of still breeding thoughts,

And these same thoughts people this little world:*
In humours, like the people of this world,
For no thought is contented.

Thoughts tending to content, flatter themselves,
That they are not the first of fortune's slaves,
Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggars,
Who, sitting in the stocks, refuge their shame,-
That many have, and others must sit there:
And in this thought they find a kind of ease,
Bearing their own misfortune on the back
Of such as have before endured the like.
Thus play I, in one person, many people,
And none contented: sometimes am I a king;
Then treason makes me wish myself a beggar,
And so I am: then crushing penury

* His own body.

R

Persuades me I was better when a king:
Then am I king'd again: and, by and by,
Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,
And straight am nothing.-But, whate'er I am,
Nor I, nor any man, that but man is,
With nothing shall be pleas'd, till he be eas'd
With being nothing.

Bolingbroke's Remorse at Richard's Death.

4

They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer-love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour;
With Cain go wander through the shade of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.
Come, mourn with me for what I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent :*
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.
March sadly after; grace my mournings here,
In weeping after this untimely bier.

-000—

KING HENRY IV.-Part 1.

The king is about to depart for the Holy Land, when he is stayed by intelligence of the defeat of Mortimer, Earl of March,

* Forthwith.

by Owen Glendower, and by disturbances in the northern parts of his kingdom, where Hotspur, son of the Earl of Northumberland, has defeated Archibald, Earl of Douglas, and taken certain prisoners, whom he refuses to deliver up to the king. This incenses the king against Hotspur, the more so as the latter has pleaded strongly for the ransom of Mortimer, whom the king declines to redeem. Hotspur thus rendered indignant, joins with the Earl of Northumberland, the Earl of Worcester, and others, to dethrone the king. The rebel forces advance to Shrewsbury, where a great battle is fought, in which the king obtains a signal victory. Hotspur is slain by Henry, Prince of Wales (afterwards Henry the Fifth), who throughout the battle has greatly distinguished himself. The serious parts of the play are relieved by the eccentricities of the Prince of Wales and his boon companions, Sir John Falstaff, Poins, and Bardolph. Speaking of the first and second parts of Henry the Fourth, Dr. Johnson says-"No two plays are more read than these; and perhaps no author ever produced two which afforded so much delight. The great events are interesting, for the fate of kingdoms depends on them; the light occurrences are diverting; the incidents are multiplied with a wonderful felicity of invention, and the characters diversified with the utmost nicety of discernment, and the profoundest skill in the nature of man."

Аст І.

Peace after Civil War.

So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenc'd in stronds* afar remote.
No more the thirsty Erinnys + of this soil

Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood:
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowrets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces: those opposed eyes,

Which,-like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,

Shall now, in mutual, well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way: and be no more oppos'd
Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies:
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master.

In

King Henry's Character of Percy, and of his Son
Prince Henry.

Yea, there thou mak'st me sad, and mak'st me sin, envy that my Lord Northumberland

Should be the father of so bless'd a son;

A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,
Amongst a grove, the very straitest plant;
Who is sweet fortune's minion, and her pride;
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow
Of my young Harry.

Prince Henry's Soliloquy.

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok'd humour of your idleness;
Yet herein will I imitate the sun;

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder'd at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work