A great man should decline? Nay, and you weep,

I am fallen indeed.

Crom.

How does your grace?

Why, well;

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me,
I humbly thank his grace; and from these shoulders,
These ruin'd pillars, out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy, too much honor:

O'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden,

Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.

Crom. I am glad, your grace has made that right use of it.
Wol. I hope I have; I am able now, methinks,

(Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,)

To endure more miseries, and greater far,
Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.
What news abroad?

Crom.

The heaviest, and the worst,

Is your displeasure with the king.

Wol.

God bless him!

Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor in your place.

Wol.

That's somewhat sudden:

But he's a learned man. May he continue
Long in his highness' favor, and do justice
For truth's sake, and his conscience; that his bones,
When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings,
May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em!1
What more?

Crom.

That Cranmer is return'd with welcome,

Install'd lord archbishop of Canterbury.

Wol. That's news indeed.
Crom.

Last, that the Lady Anne,

Whom the king hath in secrecy long married,

This day was view'd in open, as his queen,
Going to chapel; and the voice is now

Only about her coronation.

Wol. There was the weight that pull'd me down. O Cromwell, The king has gone beyond me, all my glories

In that one woman I have lost for ever:

No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors,

Or gild again the noble troops that waited

Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell;

I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now

To be thy lord and master: Seek the king;

That sun I pray may never set! I have told him

What, and how true thou art; he will advance thee;
Some little memory of me will stir him,

(I know his noble nature,) not to let

Thy hopeful service perish too:

Good Cromwell,

1 The chancellor is the general guardian of orphans,

Neglect him not, make use now, and provide
For thine own future safety.

Crom.
O my lord,
Must I then leave you? Must I needs forego
So good, so noble, and so true a master?
Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.-
The king shall have my service; but my prayers
For ever, and for ever, shall be yours.

Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me
Out of thy honest truth to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And,-when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of,-say, I taught thee;
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor,-
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by't?

1

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;

And,-Pr'ythee, lead me in:

There take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's; my robe,

And my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.2

Crom. Good sir, have patience.
Wol.

So I have. Farewell

The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell.

Henry VIII., Act III. Scene II.

QUEEN MAB, THE QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES.3

O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes

1 Ambition here means a criminal and inordinate ambition, that endeavors to obtain honors by dishonest means. 2 This sentence was really uttered by Wolsey.

3 "The imagery which Shakspeare has employed in describing the persons, manners, and occupations of the Fairies, will be deemed not less his peculiar offspring, nor inferior in beauty, novelty, and wildness of painting, to that which the magic of his pencil has diffused over every other part of the visionary world."-Drake.

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm,
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers,
And in this state she gallops night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit:
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice!
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,1
Of healths five fathom deep;2 and then, anon,
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elf-locks in foul sluttish hairs
Which, once untangled, much misfortune bodes.

Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Scene IV.

LIFE AND DEATH WEIGHED.

To be, or not to be, that is the question :---
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them? To die,-to sleep,-
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;-to sleep ;

To sleep!-perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

1 Swords made of Spanish steel were thought the best.

That is, drinking deeply each other's health.

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,'
Must give us pause:-There's the respect 2
That makes calamity of so long life:

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns,-puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution

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

Hamlet, Act III. Scene I

MERCY.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above the scepter'd sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this-
That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

Merchant of Venice, Act IV. Scene I.

ACTIVITY NECESSARY TO KEEP FAME BRIGHT.3

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:

1 Turmoil, bustle.

2 There's the consideration.

* This admirable speech of Ulysses to Achilles, to induce him to leave his tent, and come again into the field of action, though not much read, is scarcely inferior to any thing in Shakspeare.

Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done: Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honor bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant way;
For honor travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path;
For emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue: If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an enter'd tide, they all rush by,
And leave you hindmost;-

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,

Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,

·O'er-run and trampled on: Then what they do in present,
Though less than yours in past, must o'ertop yours:

For time is like a fashionable host,

That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand;
And with his arms out-stretch'd, as he would fly,

Grasps in the comer:

Welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

To envious and calumniating time.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,-
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and moulded of things past;
And give to dust, that is a little gilt,1
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object:

Then marvel not, thou great and complete man,
That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;

Since things in motion sooner catch the eye

Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee,
And still it might; and yet it may again,

If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive,

And case thy reputation in thy tent;

Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late,

Made emulous missions2 'mongst the gods themselves,
And drave great Mars to faction.

Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Scene II.

THE COMMONWEALTH OF BEES.

So work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act3 of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:4

1 Dust that is a little gilt, means, ordinary performances ostentatiously displayed, and lauded by the favor of friends. Gilt o'er-dusted, means, splendid actions of preceding ages, the remembrance of which is weakened by time

2 Emulous missions refers to the machinery of Homer, which makes the deities descend from heaven to engage on either side. 8 Law. 4 That is, of different degrees.