Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death :
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For Heav'n's fake, let us fit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of Kings;
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war ;
Some haunted by the ghost they dispoffefs'd;
Some poison'd by their wives; fome sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd.-For within the hollow crown,
That rounds the mortal temples of a King,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic fits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp;
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks ;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle walls, and farewel King !
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood.
With folemn rev'rence! throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For

you have but mistook me all this while;
I live on bread like you, feel want like you;
Tafte grief, need friends, like you : subjected thus,
How can you say to me I am a King?

SHAKSPEARE

CH AP, CHAP. XIV.

HOTSPUR AND GLENDOWER.

Glen. Sit, cousin, Percy; fit, good coulin Hotspur si

Hor.

For by that name, as oft as Lancaster
Doth speak of you, his cheeks look pale! and with
A rising figh, he wisheth you in heav'n.

And
you

in hell as often as he hears
Owen Glendower spoke of..

Glen. I cannot blame him. At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning creflets : know that at my birth,
The frame and the foundation of the earth.
Shook like a coward..

Hor. So it would have done
At the same season if

your

mother's cat
Had kitten'd, though yourself had ne'er been born.-

Glen. I say, the earth did shake when I was born.

Hor. I say, the earth then was not of my mind;
If you suppose, as fearing you, it shook.

GLEN. The heav'ns were all on fire, the earth did tremble.
Hor. O! then the earth shook to see the heav'ns on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; and the teeming earth
Is with a kind of cholic pinch'd and vex’d,
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb; which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame Earth, and topples down
Steeples and moss-grown tow'rs. At your birth.

Our

Our grandam Earth, having this distemp'rature
In passion fook.

Glen. Cousin, of many men.
I do not bear these crofings; give me leave
To tell you once again, that at my birth
The front of heav’n was full of fiery Shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds.
Were strangely clam'rous in the frighted fields :
These signs have mark'd'me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do dhew,
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipt in with the sea,,
That chides the banks of England, Wales, or Scotland,
Who calls me popil, or hath read to me?
And bring him out that is but woman's fon,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,
Or hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hot. I think there is no man speaks better Welch.

Glen. I can speak English, lord, as well as you,
For I was train'd up in the English court :
Where, being young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty, lovely well,
And
gave

the tongue a helpful ornament;
A virtue that was never seen in you.
Hot. Marry! and I'm glad of it with all my

heart:
I'd rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these fame metre-ballad mongers !
I'd rather hear a brazen candlestick turn'da
Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree,
And that would nothing set my teeth on edges
Nothing so much as mincing poetry;
'Tis like the forc'd gait of a fhuffling nag.“

GLEN.

Glen. And I can call spirits from the vafty deep.

Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man: But will they come when you do call for them?

Glen. Why, I can teach thee to command the devil, Hot. And I, can teach thee, çoz, to shame the devil, By telling truth; Tell truth and shame the devil. If thou haft power to raise him, bring him, hither, And I'll be sworn, I've power to shame him hence. Oh, while you live, Tell truth and fame the devil!

SHAKSPEARE

CHAP. XV.
HOTSPUR READING A LETTER:
But

for mine own part, my Lord, I could be “ well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear

your house." He could be contented to be there; why is. he not then ? « In respect of the love he bears our house !" He shews in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me fee fome more. « The purpose you “ undertake is dangerous. Why, that is certain; it is dangerous to take a cold, to seep, to drink : but I tell you,. my Lord fool, out of this nettle Danger, we pluck this flower Safety. “ The purpose you undertake is dangerous, “ che: friends

you

have named uncertain, the time itself un“ forted, and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise " of so great an oppofition.” Say you fo, fay you fo? I fay unto you again, you are a shallow, cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this? By the Lord, 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, very good friends. What.a

frosty

frosty-spirited rogue this is ? Why, my Lord of York commends 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 Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month and are there 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 he 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 honourable an action. Hang him, let him tell the King. We are prepared; I will set forward to night.. SHAKSPEARE

CHAP: XVI.

HENRY IV.'s SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.

OW many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep? O gentle. Sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eye-lids down,
And feep my senses in forgetfulness !
Why rather, Sleep, lay'it thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And huth'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulld with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why lay'st thou with the vile
In lothsome beds, and leav's the kingly couch.

A watch