A full hot horse, who being allow'd his way, Self-mettle tires him.
As you would to your friend
Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself; And so shall starve with feeding.
O, Cassius, you are yoked with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again. Julius Cæfar, A. 4. Sc. 3.
What fudden anger's this? how have I reap'd it ?
He parted frowning from me, as if ruin
Leap'd from his eyes. So looks the chafed lion Upon the daring huntsman that has gall'd him;
Then makes him nothing.
(Cleopatra's Character of him.)
His face was as the heavens; and therein stuck A fun and moon, which kept their course, and lighted The little O, the earth.
His legs bestrid the ocean: his rear'd arm Crested the world: his voice was property'd As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends; But, when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, There was no winter in't, an autumn 'twas, That grew the more by reaping. His delights Were dolphin-like; they shew'd his back above The element they liv'd in. In his living Walk'd crowns and crownets; realms and islands Were as plates dropt from his pocket. -If there be, or ever were, one such,
'Tis past the fize of dreaming. Nature wants stuff To vie strange forms with fancy; yet to imagine An Antony, were Nature's piece 'gainst fancy,
Condemning shadows quite.
Antony and Cleopatra, A. 5. Sc. last.
ΑΡΟΤHECARY.
I do remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows, Culling of fimples: meagre were his looks; Sharp mifery had worn him to the bones; And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuft, and other skins Of ill-fhap'd fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes; Green earthen pots, bladders, and mufty feeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rofes, Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show. Noting this penury, to myself I faid, And if a man did need a poifon now, Whose sale is present death in Mantua, Here lives a caitiff wretch would fell it him. Oh, this fame thought did but forerun my need, And this fame needy man must sell it me.
Romeo and Juliet, A. 1. Sc. 1.
I have heard, but not believ'd, the spirits o'th' dead May walk again: if fuch thing be, thy mother Appear'd to me last night; for ne'er was dream So like a waking. To me comes a creature, Sometimes her head on one fide, some another; I never saw a vessel of like forrow, So fill'd, and fo becoming. In pure white robes, Like very Sanctity, she did approach My cabin where I lay; thrice bow'd before me, And gafping to begin fome speech, her eyes Became two spouts. The fury spent, anon Did this break from her: "Good Antigonus,
Since fate, against thy better difpofition, "Hath made thy person for the thrower out " Of my poor babe, according to thine oath, "Places remote enough are in Bohemia, "There weep, and leave it crying; and, for the babe "Is counted loft for ever and for ever, Perdita, "I pr'ythee, call't. For this ungentle business,
"Put on thee by my Lord, thou ne'er shalt fee
Thy wife Paulina more." And fo with thrieks She melted into air.
The Winter's Tale, A. 3. Sc. 3.
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor; For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich: And, as the fun breaks through the darkest clouds, So honour peereth in the meanest habit. What, is the jay more precious than the lark, Because his feathers are more beautiful? Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
The Taming of the Shrew, A. 4. Sc. 3.
Oh, how haft thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance? Shew men dutiful?
Or feem they grave and learn'd? Come they of noble family?
Why fo didst thou. Or are they spare in diet, Free from grofs paffion, or of mirth or anger, Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, Garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, Not working with the eye without the ear, And but in purged judgment trusting neither? Such, and fo finely boulted, didst thou feem. And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, To mark the full fraught man, the best endu'd, With fome fufpicion.
As the shrouds make at sea in a stiff tempest, As loud, and to as many tunes. Hats, cloaks, Doublets, I think, flew up, and, had their faces Been loose, this day they had been loft. Such joy I never faw before. Great belly'd women, That had not half a week to go, like rams In the old time of war, would shake the press, And make 'em reel before 'em. No man living
Could say, this is my wife, there all were woven So strangely in one piece,
Believe me, Sir, had I such venture forth, The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Plucking the grass, to know where fits the wind; Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads: And every object that might make me fear Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt,
Would make me fad. The Merchant of Venice, A. 1. Sc. 1.
-No blame be to you, Sir, for all was loft, But that the heavens fought. The king himself Of his wings destitute, the army broken, And but the backs of Britons seen; all flying Through a strait lane, the enemy full-hearted, Lolling the tongue with flaught'ring, having work More plentiful than tools to do't, struck down Some mortally, fome flightly touch'd, some falling Merely through fear, that the strait pass was damm'd With dead men, hurt behind, and cowards living To die with lengthen'd shame.
ART AND NATURE.
-Nature is made better by no mean,
But Nature makes that mean: so over that Art Which, you say, adds to Nature, is an Art That Nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentler scyon to the wildest stock;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By buds of nobler race. This is an Art
Which does mend Nature, Tile Art itself is Nature.
The Winter's Tale, A. 4. Sc. 3.
ASTROLOGY RIDICULED.
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are fick in fortune (often the furfeits of our behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the fun, the moon, and the stars;
as if we were villains on necessity; fools, by heavenly compulfion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an inforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in. by a divine thrusting-on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Urfa major; fo that it follows, I am rough and lecherous. I should have been what I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. King Lear, A. 1. Sc. 3.
AUTHORITY.
Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet; For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder. Merciful heav'n! Thou rather with thy sharp fulphureous bolt Splitt'st the unwedgable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle. O, but man! proud man! Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays fuch fantastic tricks before high heav'n, As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
Measure for Measure, A. 2. Sc. 4.
Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar,
And the creature run from the cur; there,
There, thou might'st behold the great image of authorityA dog's obey'd in office
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand:
Why doft thou lash that whore?-Strip thy own back: Thou hotly luft'st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. - The usurer hangs the coz'ner. -Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate fin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags-a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
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