PORTIA.

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am though, for myself alone,
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you,
I would be trebled twenty times myself;

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That, only to stand high on your account,

I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account: but the full sum of me

Is sum of

something; which, to term in gross, Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpracticed: Happy in this, she is not yet so old

But she may learn; then happier in this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn ;
Happiest of all, in that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted: but now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
This house, these servants, and this same myself,
Are yours, my lord; I give them with this ring;
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love,

And be my vantage to exclaim on you.

From "The Merchant of Venice.”

QUOTATIONS FROM SHAKESPEARE.

ADVERSITY.

SWEET are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head :
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

"As You Like It."

REPUTATION.

GOOD name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls :

Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing;

"T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

FEAR OF DEATH.

"Othello."

COWARDS die many times before their death;
The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

"Julius Cæsar."

SHAKESPEARE'S POETRY.

FRANCIS JEFFREY.

Francis JEFFREY was born in Edinburgh in 1773 and died in 1850. He attended the schools of his native city and completed his education in the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford, preparing himself for the pursuit of law.

He was also a writer of essays and criticisms and attained 5 high rank as a judge and writer. He was at one time editor of the famous "Edinburgh Review.”

SHAKESPEARE alone, when the object requires it, is always keen and worldly and practical; and yet, without changing his hand or stopping his course, 10 scatters around him, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweetness, and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and freshness, and peoples them with Spirits of glorious aspect and attractive grace. He is a thousand times more full of fancy and imagery and 15 splendor than those who, in pursuit of such enchantments, have shrunk back from the delineation of character or passion, and declined the discussion of human duties and cares.

More full of wisdom and ridicule and sagacity than 20 all the moralists and satirists that ever existed, he is also more wild, airy, and inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets of all regions and ages of the world. And he has all those elements so happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties so tem- 25 perately, that the most severe reader cannot complain

of him for want of strength or of reason, nor the most sensitive for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Everything in him is in unmeasured abundance and unequaled perfection; but everything is so balanced and kept in 5 subordination, as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another.

The most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, and descriptions are given with such brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely to adorn, without loading, 10 the sense they accompany. Although his sails are purple and perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, they waft him on his voyage, not less, but more rapidly and directly than if they had been composed of baser materials. All his excellences, like those of Nature 15 herself, are thrown out together; and, instead of interfering with, support and recommend each other. His flowers are not tied up in garlands, nor his fruits crushed into baskets; but spring living from the soil, in all the dew and freshness of youth; while the grace20 ful foliage in which they lurk, and the ample branches, the rough and vigorous stem, and the wide-spreading roots on which they depend, are present along with them, and share, in their places, the equal care of their

creator.

HOME.

HENRY W. GRADY.

While a

HENRY W. GRADY was born in Georgia in 1851. student at the University of Georgia, he excelled in debate. On graduation, he determined to make journalism his life-work. As the editor of the "Atlanta Constitution," he rapidly grew into prominence as a journalist and an orator. Mr. Grady died 5

in 1889.

A FEW days later I visited a country home. A modest, quiet house sheltered by great trees and set in a circle of field and meadow, gracious with the promise of harvest; barns and cribs well filled and the old 10 smoke-house odorous with treasure; the fragrance of pink and hollyhock mingling with the aroma of garden and orchard and resonant with the hum of bees and poultry's busy clucking; inside the house, thrift, comfort, and that cleanliness that is next to godliness-the 15 restful beds, the open fireplace, the books and papers, and the old clock that had held its steadfast pace amidthe frolic of weddings, that had welcomed in steady measure the newborn babes of the family, and kept company with the watchers of the sick bed, and had 20 ticked the solemn requiem of the dead; and the wellworn Bible that, thumbed by fingers long since stilled, and blurred with tears of eyes long since closed, held the simple annals of the family and the heart and conscience of the home.

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