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9. LOCAL ASSOCIATIONS. -To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iōna. Johnson.

ΕΙ

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Hamlet. WHAT have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune, that she sends you to prison hither?

Guildenstern. Prison, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Rosencrantz. Then is the world one.

Ham.

A goodly one; in which there are many con'fines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark being one of the worst. Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then 't is none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one; 't is too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. .. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear, a halfpenny.EL Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, come; deal justly with me; come come; nay, speak.

Guil. What should we say, my lord?

Ham. Anything; but to the purpose You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks, which your

modesties have not craft enough to color; I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

Ros. To what end, my lord?
Ham. That you must teach me.

But let me conjure

you,

by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with me, whether ye were sent for, or no?

Ros. What say you? [To GUILDENSTERN.]

Ham. Nay, then I have an eye of you; [Aside.] if you love me, hold not off.

Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile prom'ontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majesti cal roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the păr agon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? . . Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands. You are welcome; but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

Guil. In what, my dear lord?

Ham. I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand-saw.

ANOTHER SCENE WITH THE SAME.

Guil. Good, my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Ham. Sir, a whole history.

Guil. The king, sir,

Ham. Ay, sir, what of him?

Guil. Is, in his retirement, marvellous distempered.

Ham. With drink, sir?

Guil. No, my lord, with choler

Ham. Your wisdom should show itself more richer, to signify this to the doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would, perhaps, plunge him into more choler.

Guil.

Good, my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start not so wildly from my affair.

Ham. I am tame, sir; pronounce.

Guil.

The queen your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

Ham. You are welcome.

Guil. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

Ham. Sir, I cannot.

Guil. What, my lord?

Ham. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit 's diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother; therefore no more, but to the matter. My mother, you say,

Ros. Then thus she says: Your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.

Ham. O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration ? Impart.

Ros. She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.

Ham. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?

Ros. My lord, you once did love me.

Ham. And do still, by these pickers and stealers! [Showing his fingers.]

Ros. Good, my lord; what is your cause of distemper? You do surely but bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.

Ham. Sir, I lack advancement.

Ros. How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?

Ham. Ay, sir, but, "While the grass grows," — the proverb is something musty. [Enter the Players, with recorders.] 0, the recorders: - let me see one. To withdraw with you: [To Guil.] Why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

Guil. O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

Ham. I do not well understand that.

this pipe?

Guil. My lord, I cannot.

Ham. I pray you.

Will you play upon

Guil. Believe me, I cannot.

Ham. I do beseech you.

Guil. I know no touch of it, my lord.

Ham. Tis as easy as lying; govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Guil. But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.

Ham. Why, look you, now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me ;121 you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; —and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. Why, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

SHAKSPEARE

THERE was not, on that day, a speck to stain
The azure heaven; the blessed Sun alone.
In unapproachable divinity,

Careered, rejoicing in his fields of light.
How beautiful, beneath the bright blue sky,
The billows heave! one glowing green expanse,
Save where along the bending line of shore
Such hue is thrown as when the peacock's neck
Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst,
Embathed in emerald glory. All the flocks
Of Ocean are abroad; like floating foam,
The sea-gulls rise and fall upon the waves;
With long, protruded neck, the cormorants
Wing their far flight aloft, and round and round
The plovers wheel, and give their note of joy.
It was a day that sent into the heart

A summer feeling: even the insect swarms
From their dark nooks and coverts issued forth,
To sport through one day of existence more;
The solitary primrose on the bank

Seemed now as though it had no cause to mourn

Its bleak autumnal birth; the rocks and shores,
The forest, and the everlasting hills,
Smiled in that joyful sunshine,
The universal blessing.

they partook

2. AN AMERICAN AUTUMNAL SCENE. - Anon.

Standing upon this mountain-side, you look
Far down and round on forest beyond forest,
Sweeping through vales profound and up steep hills,
Where every leaf by Autumn's alchemy

Is changed to some rich gem. The maple here
Shoots up its ruby spire, and there the oak
Stands all transmuted into burnished gold.
The woodbine hangs festoons of purple there
Around the yellow sycamore, and here
A shower of amethysts and sapphires bright
Suspended glitters on the drapery

Of the majestic elm. How glorious all
Beneath this unobscured October sun!
And now a breeze sets every tint in motion.
Lakes, cataracts, and streams of painted leaves,
Are heaving, flowing in the admiring light!
The wild birds sing as if their sense partook
The rapture of the poet, and his speech
Essays to utter the unspeakable!

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapory air,
Ere o'er the frozen earth the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,

And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,

And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,

Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.

Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee

Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,

The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,

And man delight to linger in thy ray.

Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear

The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

4. HOPE AMID DECAY.

O'er the wild waste the autumnal leaf careers;
Nor vale nor mountain now is ripe with flowers;
Nature's fair brow the snow of winter sears,

And all but Hope hath fled her once green bowers, – Hope, with her sunny. 7. hair.