Whom now she sinks, she now exalts,
Taking old gifts and granting new.
The wisdom of the present hour

Makes up for follies past and gone:
To weakness, strength succeeds, and power
From frailty springs :- press on! press on!

4. Therefore, press on! and reach the goal,
And gain the prize, and wear the crown:
Faint not! for to the steadfast soul

Come wealth, and honor, and renown.
To thine own self be true, and keep

Thy mind from sloth, thy heart from soil:

Press on! and thou shalt surely reap

A heavenly harvest for thy toil!

LESSON CVII.

KING RICHARD'S SOLILOQUY.

SHAKSPEARE.

[Let the pupil carefully observe the varied emotions of the king, indicated by his language in this piece, and the transitions of voice necessary to their appropriate expression. Let him also do the same in regard to the speakers in all the following soliloquies, and refer to the appropriate rule or rules for reading each.]

1. Give me another horse,- bind up my wounds, –
Have mercy, Jesu! Soft; I did but dream.—
Oh, coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold, fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

What do I fear? Myself? There's none else by:

• Richard III., duke of Gloucester, and brother to Edward IV., born in 1450. He obtained the throne by murdering his nephews, Edward V., and Richard, duke of York.

I am.

Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No;- yes;
Then fly,-what, from myself? Great reason; why?
Lest I revenge. What? Myself on myself?
I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
Oh, no: alas! I rather hate myself,
For hateful deeds committed by myself.

2. I am a villain: yet I lie,—I am not.

Fool, of thyself speak well:-fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree,-
Murder, stern murder, in the dir❜st degree,—
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all,— Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul will pity me:

-

Nay, wherefore should they? since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself.

Methought the souls of all that I had murdered
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

LESSON CVIII.

SOLILOQUY OF MACBETH.-SHAKSPEARE.

1. Is this a dagger, which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand?

Come, let me clutch thee;

• Macbeth, a usurper of the Scottish crown, by the assassination of king Duncan He was slain in 1057, in the seventeenth year of his reign.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshal'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

2. Mine eyes are made the fool o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest. I see thee still;
And on thy blade, and dudgeon, gouts of blood,
Which was not so before.-There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.-Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,

And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.-Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings.]

I

go, and it is done; the bell invites me; Hear it not Duncan; for it is the knell

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

LESSON CIX.

SOLILOQUY OF CATO ON IMMORTALITY.- ADDISON.

1. It must be so: - Plato,b thou reason'st well!

Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality?

Cato, see p. 86. b Plato, see p. 131.

Or, whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction? —
"T is the divinity that stirs within us;

'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

2. Eternity!—thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes, must we pass !
The wide, the unbounded prospect, lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,-
And that there is, all nature cries aloud

Through all her works, He must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in, must be happy.

But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures,

this must end them.

[Laying his hand on his sword.]

3. Thus I am doubly armed. My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment—brings me to an end;
But this b-informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.

The dagger. b Plato's treatise.

LESSON CX.

A SCENE FROM TAMERLANE.

ROWE.

[Characters.- AXALLA, PRINCE OF TANAIS, TAMERLANE, OMAR, and BAJAZET.b- Enter TAMERLANE, AXALLA, PRINCE OF TANAIS, soldiers, and other attendants.]

Axalla. From this auspicious day, the Parthian name Shall date its birth of empire, and extend

Even from the dawning east to utmost Thule,c

The limits of its sway.

Prince. Nations unknown,

Where yet the Roman eagles never flew,

Shall pay their homage to victorious Tamerlane;
Bend to his valor and superior virtue,

And own, that conquest is not given by chance,
But, bound by fatal and resistless merit,

Waits on his arms.

Tamerlane. It is too much: you

dress me

Like an usurper, in the borrowed attributes

Of injured Heaven. Can we call conquest ours ?
Shall man, this pigmy, with a giant's pride,
Vaunt of himself, and say, Thus have I done this?
Oh, vain pretense to greatness! Like the moon,
We borrow all the brightness which we boast,-

Dark in ourselves, and useless. If that hand,

That rules the fate of battles, strike for us,

Crown us with fame, and gild our clay with honor,

"Twere most ungrateful to disown the benefit,

And arrogate a praise which is not ours.

Tamerlane, a sovereign prince of Tartary, and one of the most celebrated of the oriental conquerors. He was born in 1335, and died in 1405. b Bajazet, a Turkish emperor, and renowned warrior. He was defeated and taken prisoner by Tamerlane in 1402, and died in 1403. c Thule, the name the ancients gave to the most northern country with which they were acquainted.