QUIN AND FOOTE.

He died, the sword in his mailed hand,
On the holiest spot of the Blessed Land,

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Where the cross was damp'd with his dying breath, When blood ran free as festal wine,

And the sainted air of Palestine

Was thick with the darts of death.

Wise with the lore of centuries,
What tales, if there be "tongues in trees"
Those giant oaks could tell,

Of beings born and buried here;
Tales of the peasant and the peer,
Tales of the bridal and the bier,
The welcome and farewell,

Since on their boughs the startled bird
First, in her twilight slumbers, heard
The Norman's curfew-bell.

X.-QUIN AND FOOTE.

As Quin and Foote,

One day walked out

In

To view the country round,

merry mood

They chatting stood,

Hard by the village-pound.

Foote from his poke

A shilling took,

And said, "I'll bet a penny,

In a short space

Within this place

I'll make this piece a guinea."

Upon the ground,

Within the pound,

The shilling soon was thrown :

Behold," says Foote,

"The thing's made out,

For there is one pound one."

ANONYMOUS

THE quality of mercy is not strain'd;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings ;
But mercy is above his sceptered sway,

It is enthroned in the heart's of kings,

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

XII-FROM HENRY V.

SHAKSPEARE

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man,

As modest stillness, and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage;

SLEEP.

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded* base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height!

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Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why, rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds; and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;

And in the visitation of the winds

Who take the ruffian billows by the top

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamors, in the slippery clouds,
That with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest, and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

* Worn.

XIV.-SOLILOQUY OF MACBETH.

SHAKSPEARE

If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: If the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch,
With his surcease, success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,—
We'd jump the life to come. But, in these cases,
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which being taught, return
To plague the inventor: This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust :
First as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking off:
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, hors'd
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.

I have no spur

XV.-VENICE AND AMERICA.

Oн Venice, Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be

A cry of nations, o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!

BYRON

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VENICE AND AMERICA.

If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do ?-anything but weep:
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers—as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing springtide foam

That drives the sailor shipless to his home,

Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.

Oh! agony-that centuries should reap

No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years
Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum,
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats
The echo of thy tyrant's voice along
The soft waves, once all musical to song,

That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng
Of gondolas—and to the busy hum

Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,

And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.
The name of Commonwealth is past and gone
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time,
For tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeathed a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand