She shall be lov'd, and fear'd; Her own shall bless

her: Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, And hang their heads with sorrow: Good grows

with her: In her days, every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours: God shall be truly known; and those about her From her shall read the perfect ways of honour, And by those claim their greatness, not by blood. Nor shall this peace sleep with her: But as when The bird of wonder dics, the maiden phænix, Her ashes new create another heir As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one, (When heaven shall call her from this cloud of dark

ness) Who, from the sacred ashes of her honour, Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, And so stand fix'd: Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, That were the servants to this chosen infant, Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him; Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine, His honour, and the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations: He shall flourish, And, like a mountain cedar, reach his branches To all the plains about him:- Our children's

children Shall see this, and bless heaven.

15

BEAUTIES

OF

SHAKS PEARE.

PART III.

TRAGEDIES.

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

ACT I.

LOVE THE NOBLENESS OF LIFE. LET Rome in Tiber melt! and the wide arch of the rang'd empire fall! Here is my space; Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man: the nobleness of life, Is, to do thus; when such a mutual pair,

[Embracing And such a twain can do't, in which, I bind, On pain of punishment, the world to weet.* We stand up peerless, Why did he marry Fulvia, and not love her? I'll seem the fool I am not; Antony Will be himself. Ant.

But stirr'd by Cleopatra, Now, for the love of Love, and her soft hours.

ANTONY'S VICES AND VIRTUES. I must not think, there are Evils enough to darken all his goodness His faults, in him, seem as the spots of heaven, More fiery by night's blackness; hereditary, Rather than purchas'd;t what he cannot change, Than what he chooses. • Know.

† Procured by his own fault

Cæs. You are too indulgent: Let us grant it is not Amiss to tumble on the bed of Ptolemy; To give a kingdom for a mirth; to sit And keep the turn of tippling with a slave; To reel the streets at noon, and stand the buffet With knaves that smell of sweat: say, this becomes

him, (As his composure must be rare indeed, Whom these things cannot blemish,) yet must

Antony
No way excuse his soils, when we do bear
So great weight in his lightness.* If he fillod
His vacancy with his voluptuousness,
Full surseits, and the dryness of his bones,
Call on himf for't: but, to confoundt such time,
That drums him from his sport, and speaks as loud
As his own state, and ours, 'tis to be chid
As we rate boys; who, being mature in knowledge,
Pawn their experience to their present pleasure,
And so rebel to judgment.
Antony,
Leave thy lascivious wassals. When thou once
Wast beaten from Modena, where thou slew'st
Hirtius and Panda, consuls, at thy heel
Did farne follow; whom thou fought'st against,
Though daintily brought up, with patience more
Than savages could suffer: Thou didst drink
The stalell of horses, and the gilded puddle Ti
Which beasts would cough at: thy palate then did

deign
The roughest berry on the rudest hedge;
Yea, like the stag, when snow the pasture sheets,
The barks of trees thou browsed'st; on the Alps
It is reported, thou did'st eat strange flesh,
Which some did die to look on: and all this
(It wounds thine honour, that I speak it now,)
Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek
So much as lank'd not.

Levity. † Visit him. * Consume. $ Feastings: in the old copy it is vaissailes, i. e. vassals. i Urine.

Stagnant, slimy water.

ANTONY.

O Charmian, Where thinkst thou he is now? Stand's he, or sits he? Or does he walk? or is he on his horse? O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony! Do bravely, horse! for wot'st thou whom thou

mov'st? The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm And burgonet* of men.-He's speaking now, Or murmuring Where's my serpent of old Nile? For so he calls me: Now I feed myself With most delicious poison :- Think on me, That am with Phoebus' amorous pinches black, And wrinkled deep in time? Broad-fronted Cesar, When thou wast here above the ground, I was' A morsel for a monarch: and great Pompey Would stand, and make his eyes grow in my brow: There would he anchor his aspect, and die With his looking on his life.

ACT II.

THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.

We, ignorant of ourselves, Begin often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit, By losing of our prayers. DESCRIPTION OF CLEOPATRA SAILING DOWN THE

CYDNUS. The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnd on the water: the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were love-sick with them: the oars wero

silver; Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, It beggar'd all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, (cloth of gold, of tissue,)
O’er picturing that Venus, where we see,
The fancy out-work nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupide,
With diverse coloured fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid, did. *
Agr.

0, rare for Antony.
Eno. ller gentlewoman, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes,
And made their bends adornings. at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yearly frames the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her; and Antony,
Enthron'd in the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,
And made a gap in nature.

CLEOPATRA'S INFINITE POWER IN PLEASING, Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety: Other women Cloy the appetites they feed; but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. For vilest things Become themselves in her; that the holy priests Bless her, when she's riggish. I

THE UNSETTLED HUMOURS OF LOVERS. Enter CLEOPATRA, CHARMIAN, Îras, and ALEXAS

Cleo. Give me some music; music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.
Attend.

The music, ho!
Enter Mardian.
Cleo. Let it alone; let us to billiards:
Come, Charmian.

Char. My arm is sore, best play with Mardian.

Cleo. As well a woman with an eunucn play'd As with a woman:--Come you'll play with me, sir!