Specimens of English Dramatic Poets: Who Lived about the Time of Shakespeare. With Notes

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H.G. Bohn, 1854 - English drama - 552 pages

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Page 202 - Call for the robin redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his funeral dole The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole, To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm, And (when gay tombs are robbed) sustain no harm : But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
Page 84 - There is no danger to a man, that knows What life and death is : there's not any law Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it lawful That he should stoop to any other law : He goes before them, and commands them all, That to himself is a law rational.
Page 26 - Receive them free, and sell them by the weight; Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts, Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds, Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds, And seld-seen costly stones of so great price, As one of them indifferently rated, And of a carat of this quantity, May serve, in peril of calamity, To ransom great kings from captivity...
Page 316 - Here be grapes, whose lusty blood Is the learned poet's good, Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus ; nuts more brown Than the squirrel's teeth that crack them...
Page 34 - Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ, Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer!
Page 25 - O, if thou harbour'st murder in thy heart, Let this gift change thy mind, and save thy soul ! Know that I am a king : O, at that name I feel a hell of grief ! where is my crown ? Gone, gone ! and do I [still] remain alive ? Light.
Page 35 - It strikes, it strikes ; now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to Hell. [Thunder and lightning. O soul, be changed into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean : ne'er be found.
Page 29 - Such is the subject of the Institute, And universal body of the law. This study fits a mercenary drudge, Who aims at nothing but external trash; Too servile and illiberal for me. When all is done, divinity is best: Jerome's Bible, Faustus; view it well. (Reads.) "Stipendium peccati mors est." Ha! "Stipendium," etc. The reward of sin is death: that's hard.
Page 27 - Rather had I a Jew be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty: For I can see no fruits in all their faith, But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride, Which methinks fits not their profession. Haply some hapless man hath conscience, And for his conscience lives in beggary.
Page 253 - Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit, That woman's love can win, or long inherit ; But what it is, hard is to say, Harder to hit, Which way soever men refer it, Much like thy riddle, Samson, in one day Or seven, though one should musing sit.

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