II-SPEECHES AND SOLILOQUIES. I.-Lamlet's Advice to the Players.- SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you; trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoken my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hands; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of you passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robasteous, perriwig pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Pray you avoid it. Be not too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to tho action; with this special observanee, that you o'erstep nat the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end is-to hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which mast, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! There be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, that, neither having the accent of Christian, nor the gait of Christian, pagan nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abomina bly. II-Douglas' account of himself TRAGEDY OF DOUGLASS. This moon, which rose last night, round as my shield, A band of fierce barbarians, from the hills, With bended bow, and quiver full of arrews, The road he took; then hasted to my friends, We fought and conquer'd. Ere a sword was drawn, The shepherd's slothful life; and having heard III-Douglas' account of the Hermit-IB. Who was the wonder of our wand'ring swains. Did they report him; the cold earth his bed, For he had been a soldier in his youth; His speech struck from me, the old man would shake His years away, and act his young encounters. Of war's vast art, was to this hermit known. IV.-Sempronius' speech for war.-TRAGEDY OF CATO. Gods! Can a Roman senate long debate, Or share their fate. The corpse of half her senato V.-Lucius' speech for peace.-IB MY thoughts, I must confess, are turn'd on peace; Were to refute th' awards of Providence, Is done already. Heaven and earth will witness, VI-Hotspur's account of the Fop-HENRY IV. But I remember, when the fight was done, And 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held He gave his nose. And still he smil'd and talk'd.; And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by, He question'd me; among the rest. demanded I then, all smarting with wounds, being gall'd Out of my grief and my impatience, He should or should not; for he made me mad, To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman, Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (heaven save the mark!) And telling me. the sovereign'st thing on earth Was spermaceti for an inward bruise; And that it was great pity, (so it was) This villainous saltpetre should be digg'd And I beseech you, let not this report Betwixt my love, and your high Majesty. VII-Hotspur's Soliloquy on the contents of a Letter.-IE. "BUT, for mine own part my lord, I could be well con tented to be there, in respect of the love he bears our house." -He could be contented to be there! Why is he not then In respect of the love he bears our house? He shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. "The purpose you undertake is dangerous." Why, that's certain! 'tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord Feol, out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower safely. "The purpose you undertake is dangerous; the friends you have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted; and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition."-Say you so, say you so ? I say unto you again, you are a shallow, eowardly hind, and you lie. What a lackbrain is this! Our plot is a good plot as ever was laid: our friends true and constant; a good plot; good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, ve ry good friends. What a frosty spirited rouge is this! Why, my lord of York commands the plot, and the general course of the action. By this hand, if I were now by this rascal. I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglass? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? And are Ahere not some of them set forward already? What a Pagan rascal is this! An infidel!-Ha! You shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will be to the king, and lay open all our proceedings. O! I could divide myself. and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honorable an action. Hang him! Let him tell the king. We are prepared. I will set forward to night. |