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If ever been where bells have knoll❜d to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;
If ever from your eye-lids wip'd a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity, and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.

THE SEVEN AGES.

All the world's a stage.

And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant
Muling and puking in the nurse's arms;

And then, the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creepnig like snail
Unwillingly to school; And then, the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier;
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden* and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin❜d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modernt instances,
And so he plays his part: The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon;
With spectacle on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness, and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
INGRATITUDE. A SONG.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind

As man's ingratitude;

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Thy tooth is not so keen,

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.

Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh, ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp

As friends remember'd* not

Heigh, ho! sing, heigh, ho! &c.

ACT III.

A SHEPHERD'S PHILOSOPHY.

I know, the more one sickens, the worse at ease he is; and that he that wants money, means, and content, is without three good friends:-That the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn: That good pasture makes fat sheep; and that a great cause of the night, is lack of the sun. That he, that hath learned no wit by nature or art, may complain of good breeding, or comes of a very dull kindred.

CHARACTER OF AN HONEST AND SIMPLE SHEPHERD

Sir, I am a true labourer; I earn that I eat, get that I wear; owe no man hate, envy no man's hap piness; glad of other men's good, content with my harm; and the greatest of my pride is, to see my ewes graze, and my lambs suck.

DESCRIPTION OF A LOVER.

A lean cheek; which you have not; a blue eye, and sunken; which you have not: an unquestionable spirit;t 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 bro ther's revenue: Then your hose should be ungarter * Remembering.

† A spirit averse to conversation + Estate

ed, your bonet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and every thing about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man: you are rather point-device in your accoutrements; as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other.

REAL PASSION DISSEMBLED.

Think not I love him, though I ask for him; 'Tis but a peevisht boy: yet he talks well; But what care I for words? yet words do well, When he that speaks them pleases those that hear, It is a pretty youth: not very pretty:

But. sure, he's proud; and yet his pride becomes

him:

He'll make a proper man: The best thing in him
Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
He is not tall; yet for his years he's tall;
His leg is but so, so; and yet 'tis well:
There was a pretty redness in his lip;
A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix'd in his cheek; 'twas just the differ

ence

Betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask.
There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him
In parcels as I did, would have gone near
To fall in love with him: but, for my part,
I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
For what had he to do to chide at me ?

He said, mine eyes were black, and my hair black;
And, now I am remember'd, scorn'd at me:

I marvel, why I answer'd not again:
But that's all one; omittance is no quittance.

ACT IV.

THE VARIETIES OF MELANCHOLY.

I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; + Silly.

* Over-exact.

nor the courtiers, which is proud; nor the soldier's, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice;* nor the lover's, which is all of these

MARRIAGE ALTERS THE TEMPER OF BOTH SEXES.

Say a day, without the ever: No, no,, Orlando, men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen; more clamorous than a parrot against rain; more new-fangled than an ape; more giddy in my desires than a monkey; I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep.

CUPID'S PARENTAGE.

No, that same wicked bastard of Venus, that was begot of thought,† conceiv'd of spleen, and born of madness; that blind rascally boy, that abuses every one's eyes, because his own are out, let him be. judge, how deep I am in love.

OLIVER'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS DANGER WHEN

SLEEPING.

Under an oak, whose boughs were moss'd with age, And high top bald with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o'ergrown with hair,
Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck

A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself,
Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach'd
The opening of his mouth; but suddenly
Seeing Orlando, it unlinked itself,
And with indented glides did slip away
Into a bush: under which bush's shade
A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching, head on ground, with catlike watch,
When that the sleeping man should stir; for 'tis
The royal disposition of that beast

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.

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ACT V.

LOVE.

Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;

It is to be all made of faith and service;

It is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion, and all made of wishes;
All adoration, duty, and observance,

All humbleness, all patience, and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance.

COMEDY OF ERRORS.

ACT II.

MAN'S PRE-EMINENCE.

THERE'S nothing, situate under heav'ns eye, But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky: The beasts, the fishes, and the winged fowls, Are their males' subject, and at their controls: Men, more divine, the masters of all these, Lords of the wide world, and wild wat'ry seas, Indued with intellectual sense and souls, Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls, Are masters to their females, and their lords: Then let your will attend on their accords.

PATIENCE EASIER TAUGHT THAN PRACTISED

Patience, unmov'd, no marvel though she pause; They can be meek, that have no other cause. A wretched soul, bruis'd with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;

But were we burden'd with like weight of pain, Aз much, or more, we should ourselves complain.

DEFAMATION.

I see, the jewel, best enamelled,

Will lose his beauty; and though gold 'bides still,
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold; and so no man, that hath a name,
But falsehood and corruption doth it shame.

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