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eye on vacancy, and with the incorporal air do hold discourse? O, gentle son! upon the heat and flame of thy distemper, sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

Hamlet. On him! on him!-Look you, how pale he slow and deep. glares! His form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones, would make them capable.-Do not look upon me: lest, with this piteous action, you convert my stern effects: then what I have to do will want true colour; tears, perchance, for blood.

Queen. To whom do you speak this?

Hamlet. Do you see nothing there?

Queen. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
Hamlet. Nor did you nothing hear?

Queen. No, nothing, but ourselves.

Low.

quick, deep.

Hamlet. Why, look you there! look how it steals away! Middle pitch, My father, in his habit; as he lived! Look, where he goes, and strong. even now, out at the portal!

[Exit Ghost.

Queen. This is the very coinage of your brain: this bodiless creation, ecstasy is very cunning in.

Hamlet. Ecstasy! My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time, and makes as healthful music: It is not madness that I have utter'd: bring me to the test, and I the matter will re-word; which madness would gambol from. Mother! for love of grace, lay not that flattering unction to your soul, that not your trespass, but my madness speaks: it will but skin and film the ulcerous place; whiles rank corruption, mining all within, infects unseen. Confess yourself to Heaven: repent what's past; avoid what is to

come.

Queen. O Hamlet! thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Hamlet. O, throw away the worser part of it, and live slow, middle the purer with the other half. Good-night! And, when pitch. you are desirous to be bless'd, I'll blessing beg of you. So again, good night!-I must be cruel, only to be kind! Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind!-Shakspere.

(125.) FROM THE COMEDY OF "AS YOU LIKE IT." [Two speakers: ORLANDO and ROSALIND.]

Rosalind. I will speak to him like a saucy lacquey, and Low tone. under that habit play the knave with him. (Aside)—Hem! Loud. Do you hear, forester?

Quick, middle pitch.

Quick.

Moderate tone.

Middle pitch.

Middle pitch.
Middle pitch.

Middle pitch.

Slow and low.

Light, high, and quick.

Slow. Quick and high.

Slow.

Light.

Orlando. Very well; what would you?
Rosalind. I pray you. . . what is't o'clock?

Orlando. You should ask me what time o' day; there's no clock in the forest.

Rosalind. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.

Orlando. And why not the swift foot of Time? Had not that been as proper?

Rosalind. By no means, sir: Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.

Orlando. I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

Rosalind. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized: if the interim be but a se'ennight, Time's pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year. Orlando. Who ambles Time withal?

Rosalind. With a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout: for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain.

Orlando. Who doth he gallop withal?

Rosalind. With a thief to the gallows: for, though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there. Orlando. Who stays it still withal?

Rosalind. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and they perceive not how Time

moves.

Orlando. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Rosalind. With yon shepherdess, my sister; here, in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Orlando. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

Rosalind. I have been told so of many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank my stars I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.

Orlando. Can you remember any of the principal evils slower. that he laid to the charge of women?

light.

Rosalind. There were none principal; they were all Quick and like another, as halfpence are: every one fault seeming monstrous, till its fellow-fault came to match it.

Orlando. I prithee, recount some of them.

Rosalind. No, I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, slow. that abuses our young plants with carving "Rosalind" on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of “Rosalind.” If I could meet that fancy-monger, I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

Orlando. I am he that is so love-shaked; I pray you, Dejectedly. tell me your remedy.

Rosalind. There is none of my uncle's marks upon you: Laughing. he taught me how to know a man in love, in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not a prisoner.

Orlando. What were his marks?

Rosalind. A lean cheek; which you have not:-a blue eye, and sunken; which you have not;—an unquestionable spirit; which you have not;—a beard neglected; which you have not: (but I pardon you for that; for, simply, your having in beard is a younger brother's revenue :) then, your hose should be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no Change to high such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other. Orlando. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

pitch.

Rosalind. Me believe it! you may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to Laughing do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

Orlando. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he!

Rosalind. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Alternate,

and fast.

Orlando. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

Rosalind. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it—by counsel.

Orlando. Did you ever cure any so?

Rosalind. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I-being but a moonish youth-grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, high and low, and liking; proud, fantastical; apish, shallow, inconstant; full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something and for no passion truly anything—as boys and women are for the most part cattle of this colour: would now like him-now loathe him; then entertain him,-then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; . . . that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness; which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep's heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in't.

Moderate. High and quick.

Orlando. I would not be cured, youth.

Rosalind. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cot, and woo me.

Orlando. Now, by the faith of my love, I will; tell me where it is.

Rosalind. Go with me to it, and I'll show it you: and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?

Orlando. With all my heart, good youth.
Rosalind. Nay, you must call me Rosalind.

-Shakspere.

GENERAL HINTS ON PUBLIC READING.

(126.) Stand easily, with the body resting on the right foot, the shoulders thrown well back, and the head erect without stiffness. Model your position on that seen in a good portrait, and you will find every limb is there formed on a curve.

(127.) Open the mouth slightly; be quite cool and collected, and take a deep inspiration before speaking; raise the chest well and keep the lungs well supplied with air during the longest utterance, replenishing them at every available opportunity. The freest respiration is obtained by using both mouth and nostril passages together.

(128.) Always read the lesson over before attempting to read aloud, the context being the only reliable guide for accent, emphasis, and tone.

(129.) Always have the picture you are describing clearly seen in your own mind. This is of the first importance.

(130.) Endeavour, as far as you can, to identify yourself with your characters, and carry this principle out, even in the description of them.

(131.) In reading Scripture, Shakspere, Milton, and the higherclass poets, examine the thought as carefully as if translating from a foreign language, and do not attempt to read it aloud before you are sure that you have understood it.

(132.) The Bible should be read more slowly and with a weightier style than that employed in secular literature.

(133.) Always read with deliberation, and, as a general rule, slowly. Haste is the fruitful cause of nearly all blunders. Let the eye be always in advance of the word.

(134.) Let every word be (to quote the Rev. Mr. Austin) "delivered from the lips as beautiful coins newly issued from the mint deeply and accurately impressed, perfectly finished, neatly struck by the proper organs, distinct, sharp, in due succession, and of due weight." Be Accurate, Firm, Deliberate, Distinct, Fluent, remembering at the same time that no beauty of speech will atone for pedantry or affectation.

MAXIMS FOR GESTURE.

(135.) "Action is the language of the body."

(136.) First endeavour to speak sensibly and feelingly without any gesture whatever, merely standing in an easy, natural, and graceful

manner.

(137.) The position of the body as well as the expression of the features must depend greatly on the subject on which the orator is to read or speak: sedateness and ease, for calm argument; cheerfulness, where the object is to afford amusement; but in all cases

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