O, that estates, degrees, and offices,

We're not deriv'd corruptly! and that clear honour
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!
then should cover, that stand bare?

How many

How many be commanded, that command ?

How much low peasantry would then be glean'd
From the true seed of honour? and how much honour
Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,

To be new varnish'd.

MESSENGER.

With that, he gave his able horse the head,
And, bending forward, struck his armed heels
Against the panting sides of his poor jade
Up to the rowel-head, and starting so,
He seem'd in running to devour the way,
Staying no longer question.

Here is a dear and true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blount, new lighted from his horse,
Stain'd with the variation of each soil

Betwixt that Holmedon, and this seat of ours.
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.

One of my fellows had the speed of him:

Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

Than would make up his message.

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;
For ere thou canst report I will be there,
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.

I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love;
A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.

I must go send some better messenger;
I fear, my Julia would not deign my lines,
Receiving them from such a worthless post.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office; and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend.

Pr'ythee, say on;

The setting of thine eye, and cheek, proclaim
A matter from thee; and a birth indeed,
Which throes thee much to yield.

Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him, half his Troy was burn'd.

This thou would'st say,-Your son did thus, and thus ;
Your brother, thus: so fought the noble Douglas,
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop mine ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with-brother, son, and all are dead.

If thou speak'st false,

Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive;
Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.

Be gone, I will not hear thy vain excuse,

But, as thou lov'st thy life, make speed from hence.

I

go, I go; look, how I

go;

Swifter than arrow from the Tartar's bow.

MIRACLES.-MIRTH.-MISCHIEF.

MIRACLES.

Miracles are ceas'd;

And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.

MIRTH.

A merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour's talk withal,

He makes a July's day short as December;

And, with his varying childness, cures in me

Thoughts that would thick my blood.

Let me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come
And let my liver rather heat with wine,

.1

And then the old quire hold their hips and loffe.
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze,
and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.

Sweet recreation barr'd, what doth ensue,
But moody and dull melancholy,
(Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair ;)
And, at her heels, a huge infectious troop
Of pale distemperatures, and foes to life?

'Tis ever common,

That men are merriest when they are from home..

MISCHIEF.

O, mischief! thou art swift

To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!

173

MOB.

Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
And as the air blows it to me again,
Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
And yielding to another when it blows,
Commanded always by the greater gust;
Such is the likeness of you common men.

The fool multitude, that choose by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach';
Which pries not to the interior, but like the martlet
Builds in the weather on the outward wall,
Even in the force and road of casualty.

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' th' rotten fens, whose loves I prize
Asthadevapurases of unburied men,

What would you have, you curs, That like nor peace, nor war? the one affrights you,. The other makes you proud. He that trusts you,

Where he should find you lions, finds

you hares ;

Where foxes, geese: you are no surer, no,
Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,

Or hailstone in the sun.

Your affections are

A sick man's appetite, who desires most that
Which would increase his evil. He that depends
Upon your favours, swims with fins of lead,

And hews down oaks with rushes. Hang ye! Trust ye?

With every minute you do change a mind;
And call him noble, that was now your hate,
Him vile, that was your garland.

Hence; home, you idle creatures, get you home;
Is this a holiday? what! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk,
Upon a labouring day, without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

Hang ’em ! They said, they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth pro

verbs ;

That, hunger broke stone walls; that, dogs must eat; That, meat was made for mouths; that, the gods sent

not

Corn for the rich men only :-With these shreds
They vented their complainings.

For the mutable, rank-scented many,

Regard me as I do not flatter, and

let them

Therein behold themselves: I say again,

In soothing them, we nourish 'gainst our senate
The cockle of rebellion.

They'll sit by th' fire, and presume to know
What's done i' the Capitol who's like to rise,
Who thrives, and who declines: side factions, and give

out

Conjectural marriages; making parties strong,
And feebling such as stand not in their liking,
Below their cobbled shoes.

The rabble should have first unroof'd the city,
Ere so prevail'd with me: it will in time

Win upon power, and throw forth greater themes
For insurrection's arguing.

Our slippery people

Whose love is never link'd to the deserver,

Till his deserts are passed.