To cast into my teeth. There is my dagger, And here my naked breast- -within, a heart When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov'dst him better Than ever thou loy'dst Cassius. Bru. Sheath your dagger, Be angry when you will, it shall have scope, Cas. Hath Cassius liv'd To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus, Cas. O Brutus ! Bru. What's the matter? Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When the rash humour which my mother gave me, Makes me forgetful? Bru. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth, When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, II-SPEECHES AND SOLILOQUIES. I.-Hamlet's Advice to the Players. 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 your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig 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 the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not 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 off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, 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 abominably. II.-Douglas' Account of Himself. My name is Norval. On the Grampian hills To follow to the field some warlike lord; And heaven soon granted what my sire denied. A band of fierce barbarians, from the hills, Sweeping our flocks and herds. The shepherds fled With bended bow, and quiver full of arrows, Hover'd about the enemy, and mark'd The road he took; then hastened to my friends, I met advancing. The pursuit I led, Till we o'ertook the spoil-encumber'd foe. We fought and conquer'd. Ere a sword was drawn, I left my father's house, and took with me III-Douglas' Account of the Hermit. BENEATH a mountain's brow, the most remote And inaccessible, by shepherds trod, In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand, Who was the wonder of our wand'ring swains. Did they report him; the cold earth his bed, For he had been a soldier in his youth; His speech struck from me, the old man would shake Then, having show'd his wounds, he'd sit him down, IV.-Sempronius' Speech for War. MY voice is still for war. Gods! Can a Roman senate long debate, May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage. Or share their fate. The corpse of half her senate Manure the fields of Thessaly, while we Sit here, deliberating in cold debates, If we should sacrifice our lives to honour, V.-Lucius' Speech for Peace. MY thoughts, I must confess, are turn'd on peace ; "Tis time to sheath the sword, and spare mankind. Our vain attempts. To urge the foe to battle That drew our swords, now wrests them from our hands, And bids us not delight in Roman blood Unprofitably shed. What men could do, Is done already. Heaven and earth will witness, VI.-Hotspur's Account of the Fop. MY liege, I did deny no prisoners. And, 'twixt his finger and his thumb, he held 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, Betwixt the wind and his nobility." With many holiday and lady terms He question'd me; among the rest, demanded I then, all smarting with my wounds, being gall'd He should or should not; for he made me mad, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman, Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (heaven save the marký Was spermaceti for an inward bruise; Betwixt my love, and your high Majesty. VII-Hotspur's Soliloquy on the contents of 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 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 Fool, 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 cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lackbrain is this! Our plot is as good a 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-spirited rogue is this! 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 would 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 Douglasses? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in |