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II-SPEECHES AND SOLILOQUIES.

I.-Lamlet's Advice to the Players.-
TRAGEDY OF HAMLET.

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.
MY name is Norval. On the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks, a frugal swain,
Whose constant eares were to increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself at home.
For I had heard of battles, and I long'd
To follow to the field some warlike lord;
And heaven soon granted what my sire denied.

This moon, which rose last night, round as my shield,
Had not yet fill'd her horns, when by her light,

A band of fierce barbarians, from the hills,
Rush'd like a torrent, down upon the vale,
Sweeping our flocks and herds. The shepherds fled
For safety and for succor. I alone,

With bended bow, and quiver full of arrews,
Haver'd about the enemy, and mark'd

The road he took; then hasted to my friends,
Whom, with a troop of fifty ehosen men,
I met advancing. The pursuit 1 led,
Till we o'ertook the spoil encumber'd foe.

We fought and conquer'd. Ere a sword was drawn,
An arrow from my bow, had pierc'd their chief,
Who wore that day the arms which now I wear.
Returning home in triumph, I disdain'd

The shepherd's slothful life; and having heard
That our good king had summon'd his bold peers,
To lead his warriors to the carron side,
I left my father's house and took with me
A chosen servant to conduct my steps-
Yon trembling coward, wito forsook his master.
Journeying with this intent, I pass'd these towers,
And heaven directed, came this day to do
The happy deed, that gilds my humble name..

III-Douglas' account of the Hermit-IB.
BENEATH a mountain's brow, the most remote
And inaccessible, by shepherd's trod,
In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand,
A hermit liv'd; a melancholy man,

Who was the wonder of our wand'ring swains.
Austere and lonely, eruel to himself,

Did they report him; the cold earth his bed,
Water his drink, his food the shepherd's alms.
I went to see him; and my heart was touch'd
1 With rev'rence and with pity. Mild he spake;
And, entering on discourse, such stories told,
As made me oft revisit his sad cell.

For he had been a soldier in his youth;
And fought in famous battles when the peers
Of Europe, by the bold Godfredo led,
Against the usurping infidel display'd
The blessed cross, and won the Holy Land.
Pleas'd with my admiration, and the fire

His speech struck from me, the old man would shake

His years away, and act his young encounters.
Then, having show'd his wounds, he'd sit him down,
And all the live long day discourse of war.
To help my fancy, in the smooth green turf
He cut the figures of the marshall'd hosts;
Describ'd the motions, and explain'd the use
Of the deep column and the lengthen' line,
The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm;
For all that Saracen or Christian knew

Of war's vast art, was to this hermit known.

IV.-Sempronius' speech for war.-TRAGEDY OF CATO.
MY voice is still for war.

Gods! Can a Roman senate long debate,
Which of the two to choose, slavery or death!
No-let us rise at once, gird on our swords,
And at the head of our remaining troops,
Attack the foe, break through the thick array
Of his throng'd legions, and charge home upon him.
Perhaps some arm more lucky than the rest,
May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage.
Rise, Fathers, rise; 'tis Rome demands your help:
Rise and revenge ker slaughter'd citizens,

Or share their fate. The corpse of half her senato
Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we
Sit here deliberating in cold debates,
If we should sacrifice our lives to honor,
Or wear them out in servitude and chains.
Rouse up, for shame! Our brothers of Pharsalia
Point at their wounds, and ery aloud, To batile:
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unreveng'd amongst us.

V.-Lucius' speech for peace.-IB

MY thoughts, I must confess, are turn'd on peace;
Already have our quarrels fill'd the world
With widows and with orphans: Scythia mourns
Our guilty wars, and earth's remotest regions
Lie half unpeopled by the feuds of Rome:
'Tis time to sheath the sword, and spare mankind.
'Tis not Cesar, but the gods my Fathers!
The gods declare against us, and repet
Our vain attempts. To urge the foe to battle
Prompted by blind revenge and wild despair)

Were to refute th' awards of Providence,
And not to rest in heaven's determination.
Already have we shown our love to Rome:
Now let us show submission to the gods.
We took up arms, not to revenge ourselves,
But free the commonwealth. When this end fails,
Arms have no further use. Our country's cause,
That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands,
And bids us not delight in Roman blood
Unprofitably shed. What men eauld do,

Is done already. Heaven and earth will witness,
If Rome must fall that we are innocent.

VI-Hotspur's account of the Fop-HENRY IV.
MY liege, I did deny no prisoners.

But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord; neat; trimly dress'd;
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin new reap'd,
Show'd like a stubble land, at hasvest home.
He was perfum'd like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held
A pouncet box, which, ever and anon,

He

gave his nose.

And still he smil'd and talk'd.;

And as the soldiers bare dead bodies by,
He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holliday and lady terms

He question'd me; among the rest. demanded
My prisoners, in your majesty's behalf;

I then, all smarting with wounds, being gall'd
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answer'd-negligently-I know not what-

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
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tafl fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;

And I beseech you, let not this report
Come current for an accusation,

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.

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