Page images
PDF
EPUB

BANISHMENT.

All places that the eye of heaven vifits
Are to a wife man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reafon thus:
There is no virtue like necessity.
Think not the king did banish thee,
But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier fit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.
Go say, I fent thee forth to purchase honour,
And not the king exil'd thee. Or suppose
Devouring peftilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look what thy foul holds dear, imagine it
To lie that way thou go'st, not whence thou com'st.
Suppose the finging birds, muficians;

'The grafs whereon thou tread'st, the prefence floor;
'The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more
Than a delightful measure, or a dance:
For gnarled forrow hath less pow'r to bite

The man that mocks at it, and fets it light.

King Richard II. A. 1. Sc. 3.

BASTARDY.

Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound: wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
'The courtesy of nations to deprive me,
For that I am fome twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why baftard? wherefore baje?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as gen'rous, and my thape as true,
As honeft Madam's issue? Why brand they us.
With base, with baseness, bastardy, base, base,
Who, in the lufty stealth of nature, take
More compofition and fierce quality,
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to creating a whole tribe of fops,

Got 'tween a-fleep and wake? King Lear, A. 1. Sc. 6.
BATCHELOR'S RESOLUTION.

I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviour to love, wil, after after he hath laugh'd at such shallow follies in others, hecome the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love: and fucha man is Claudio. I have known when there was no mufic with him but the drum and the fife; and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe: I have known when he would have walked ten miles afoot to fee a good armour; and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain, and to the purpose, like an honest man and a foldier; and now is he turned orthographer; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be fo converted, and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not; I will not be sworn, but Love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me fuch a fool. One woman is fair; yet I am well: another is wife; yet I am well: but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wife, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it pleases God.

Much Ado about Nothing, A 2. Sc. 3.

BATCHELOR'S RECANTATION.

I did never think to marry:-I must not seem proud:--happy are they that hear their detractions, and can put them to mending. They say, the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness: and virtuous; - 'tis so, I cannot reprove it: and wife-but for loving me:- By my troth, it is no addition to her wit; nor no great argument of her folly; for I will be horribly in love with her.-I may chance have fome odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on-me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth, that he cannot endure in his age:-shall quips and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain, awe a man from the career of his humour? No: the world must be peopled. When I faid I would die a batchelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

B6

Ibid.

BAWD.. BAWD.

The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live. Dost thou but think
What 'tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back,
From fuch a filthy vice? Say to thyself,
From their abominable and beastly touches
I drink, I eat, array myself, and live.
Canft thou believe thy living is a life?

So stinkingly depending! Go, mend! mend!

Measure for Measure, A. 3. Sc. 2.

BEAUTIFUL BOY.

Dear lad, believe it;

For they shall yet belie thy happy years,

That say thou art a man: Diana's lip

Is not more fmooth and rubious; thy small pipe

is, as the maiden's organ, shrill and found;

And all is semblative a woman's part.

Twelfth Night, A. 2. Sc. 4.

BEAUTY.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:

If the ill spirit have so fair a house,

Good things will strive to dwell with't.

Tempest, A. 1. Sc. 2.

As You Like It, A. 1. Sc. 3.

Beauty provoketh thieves fooner than gold.

"Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on. Lady, you are the cruellest she alive,

If you will lead these graces to the grave,

And leave the world no copy.

Twelfth Night, A. 1. Sc. 5.

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye,

Not utter'd by base fale of chapman's tongues.

Love's Labour Loft, A. 2. Sc. 1.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night,

Like a rich jewel in an Æthiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.

Romeo and Juliet, A. 1. Sc. 4.

BEDLAM BEGGAR.

Whiles I may 'scape,

I will preserve myself, and am bethought
To take the basest and the poorest shape,
That ever Penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast. My face I'll grime with filth;
Blanket my loins; elfe all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness, out-face
The winds and perfecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
-Strike, in their numb'd and mortify'd bare arms,
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cots, and mills,
Sometimes with lunatic bans, sometimes with prayers,
Inforce their charity.

King Lear, A. 2. Sc. 8.

BENEVOLENCE.

Oh, you Gods! think I, what need we have any friends if we should never have need of 'em? They would most resemble sweet instruments hung up in cases, that keep their founds to themselves. Why, I have oft wish'd myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits. And what better or properer can we call our own, than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort 'tis to have fo many, like brothers commanding one another's fortunes! O joy, e'en made away ere't can be born; mine eyes cannot hold water. I drink to you.

Timon of Athens, A. 1. Sc. 5.

BLESSING.

May he live

Longer than I have time to tell his years!
Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be!
And when old time shall lead him to his end,

Goodness and he fill up one monument!

King Henry VHI. A. 2. Sc. 2.

BLUNTNESS.

This is fome fellow,

Who, having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
A faucy roughness; and conftrains the garb,
Quite from his nature. He can't flatter, he!
An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth;
An they will take it, fo; if not, he's plain.
These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
Harbour more craft, and more corrupter ends,
Than twenty filly ducking obfervants,

That stretch their duties nicely.

King Lear, A. 2. Sc. 6.

BRAGGARTS.

-I know them, yea,

And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple:
Scambling, out-facing, fashion-mong'ring boys,
That lye, and cog, and flout, deprave and flander,
Go antickly, and show an outward hideousness,
And fpeak off half a dozen dangerous words,
How they might hurt their enemies, if they durft;
And this is all.. Much Ado about Nothing, A. 5. Sc. 4.

What art thou? Have not. I

An arm as big as thine? a heart as big?

Thy words, I grant, are bigger: for I wear not

My dagger in my mouth..

1

BRUTUS.

Cymbeline, A. 4. Sc. 3.

This was the noblest Roman of them all;

All the confpirators, save only he,

Did that they did in envy of great Cafar;
He only, in a generous, honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them..
His life was gentle; and the elements

So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up,

And fay to all the world, This was a man!

Julius Cæfar, A. 5. Sc. laft.

CALUMNY.

No might nor greatness in mortality
Can cenfure 'scape: back-wounding Calumny

The

« PreviousContinue »