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And urge them on to deeds, and not to war
With woman's weapon; but I need not urge you.
Our private wrongs have sprung from public vices,
In this I cannot call it commonwealth

Nor kingdom, which hath neither prince nor people,
But all the sins of the old Spartan state
Without its Virtues-temperance and valour.
You are met

To overthrow this monster of a state,
This mockery of a government, this spectre,
Which must be exorcised with blood, and then
We will renew the times of truth and justice,
Condensing in a fair free commonwealth
Not rash equality but equal rights,

Proportioned like the columns to the temple,
Giving and taking strength reciprocal,

And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
So that no part could be removed without
Infringement of the general symmetry.

Haply had I been what the senate sought,
A thing of robes and trinkets—they had ne'er
Fostered the wretch who stung me.

What I suffer
Has reached me through my pity for the people;
That many know, and they who know not yet
Will one day learn: meantime, I do devote,
Whate'er the issue, my last days of life-
My present power such as it is-not that
Of Doge, but of a man who has been great
Before he was degraded to a Doge,

And still has individual means and mind;
I stake my fame (and I had fame)—my breath—
(The least of all, for its last hours are nigh)
My heart-my hope-my soul-upon this cast!
Such as I am, I offer me to you

And to your chiefs, accept me or reject me,
A prince who fain would be a citizen

Or nothing, and who has left his throne to be so.

BYRON'S Doge of Venice.

5.-HENRY V.'s SPEECH AT AGINCOURT.

WHAT'S he that wishes more men from England?
My cousin Westmoreland?—No, my fair cousin :
If we are marked to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
No, no, my lord, wish not a man from England:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, throughout my host,
That he who hath no stomach to this fight
May straight depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company.
This day is called the feast of Crispian :
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and sees old age,
Will, yearly on the vigil, feast his neighbours,

And say-to-morrow is Saint Crispian :

Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars.

Old men forget, yet shall not all forget,

But they'll remember, with advantages,

What feats they did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household-words,-
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Glos'ter,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered:
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this time to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he, to-day, that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he e'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispian's day.

SHAKSPEARE.

6.-RICHARD II. TO SIR STEPHEN SCROOP ON RECEIVING THE NEWS OF THE REVOLT OF HIS SUBJECTS.

Too well, too well, thou tell'st a tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? where is Bagot?
What is become of Bushy? where is Green ?
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?

I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.

Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? terrible hell make war

Upon their spotted souls for this offence!

Of comfort no man speak;

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so,-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
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 heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed:
Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murdered: For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,
Keeps Death his court; and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp,—
Allowing him a breath, a little scene
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and, humoured thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle walls, and-farewell king!
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends: Subjected thus,

How can you say to me-I am a king?

SHAKSPEARE.

7.-HOW DOUGLAS LEARNED THE ARt of war.

BENEATH a mountain's brow, the most remote
And inaccessible by shepherds trod,

In a deep cave, dug by no mortal hand,
A hermit lived; a melancholy man,

Who was the wonder of our wandering swains.
Austere and lonely, cruel to himself,
Did they report him; the cold earth his bed,
Water his drink, his food the shepherds' alms.
I went to see him, and my heart was touched
With reverence and with pity. Mild he spake,
And, entering on discourse, such stories told,
As made me oft revisit his sad cell:

For he had been a soldier in his youth;
And fought in famous battles, when the peers
Of Europe, by the bold Godfredo led,
Against the usurping infidel displayed
The blessed cross, and won the Holy Land..
Pleased with my admiration, and the fire

His speech struck from me, the old man would shake
His years away, and act his young encounters.
Then, having showed his wounds, he'd sit him down,
And all the livelong day discourse of war.
To help my fancy, in the smooth green turf,
He cut the figures of the marshalled host:
Described the motions and explained the use
Of the deep column and the lengthened line,
The square, the crescent, and the phalanx firm:
For all that Saracen or Christian knew
Of war's vast art was to this hermit known.
Unhappy man!

Returning homewards by Messina's port,

Loaded with wealth and honours bravely won,

A rude and boisterous captain of the sea
Fastened a quarrel on him. Fierce they fought:
The stranger fell; and with his dying breath
Declared his name and lineage. Mighty God!
The soldier cried, my brother! Oh! my brother!
-They exchanged forgiveness,
And happy, in my mind, was he that died;
For many deaths has the survivor suffered.
In the wild desert on a rock he sits,

Or on some nameless stream's untrodden banks,
And ruminates all day his dreadful fate.
At times, alas! not in his perfect mind,
Holds dialogues with his loved brother's ghost;
And oft, each night, forsakes his sullen couch
To make sad orisons for him he slew.

8.-OTHELLO'S APOLOGY.

MOST potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters;
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her;
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent; no more. Rude am I in speech,
And little blessed with the set phrase of peace;
For, since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field;

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broils and battles;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your patience,
I will a round unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration, and what mighty magic,

(For such proceedings I am charged withal)

I won his daughter with.

Her father loved me, oft invited me,

Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have past.

HOME.

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