SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS OF AMBITION.

DREAMS, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLET, A. 2, s. 2.

SHUN THE GARRULOUS AND THE COVETOUS.

AMIENS. Well, I'll end the song.-Sirs, cover the while; the duke will drink under this tree: he hath been all this day to look you.

JAQUES. And I have been all this day to avoid him. He is too dispútable for my company: I think of as many matters as he; but I give heaven thanks, and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come.

SONG.

Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i'the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,

And pleas'd with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither;

Here shall he see

No enemy,

But winter and rough weather.

AS YOU LIKE IT, A. 2, s. 5.

SIGNS FORETELL EVENTS.

K. HENRY. How bloodily the sun begins to

peer

Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale
At his distemperature.

P. HENRY.

The southern wind

Doth play the trumpet to his purposes;
And, by his hollow whistling in the leaves,
Foretells a tempest, and a blustering day.

K. HENRY IV., PART I., A. 5, s. 1.

SIGNS OF MURDER.

SEE, how the blood is settled in his face!
Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,

Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale, and bloodless,
Being all descended to the labouring heart;
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
Which with the heart there cools, and ne'er re-
turneth

To blush and beautify the cheek again.

But, see, his face is black, and full of blood;
His eye-balls further out than when he liv'd,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man:
His hair uprear'd, his nostrils stretch'd with
struggling;

His hands abroad display'd, as one that grasp'd
And tugg'd for life, and was by strength subdu'd.
Look on the sheets, his hair, you see, is sticking;
His well-proportion'd beard made rough and
rugged,

Like to the summer's corn by tempest lodg'd.
It cannot be, but he was murder'd here;
The least of all these signs were probable.

K. HENRY VI., PART II., A. 3, s. 2.

SIGNS OF SPECIAL INTERPOSITION. CASCA. Are not you mov'd, when all the sway of earth

Shakes, like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,
I have seen tempests, when the scolding winds
Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen
The ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,
To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds;
But never till to-night, never till now,
Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.
Either there is a civil strife in heaven,
Or else the world, too saucy with the gods,
Incenses them to send destruction.

CICERO. Why, saw you any thing more wonderful?

CASCA. A common slave (you know him well by sight,)

Held up his left hand, which did flame, and burn Like twenty torches join'd; and yet his hand, Not sensible of fire, remain'd unscorch'd. Besides, (I have not since put up my sword,) Against the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glar'd upon me, and went surly by, Without annoying me: and there were drawn Upon a heap a hundred ghastly women, Transformed with their fear; who swore, they

saw

Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.
And, yesterday, the bird of night did sit,
Even at noon-day, upon the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies
Do so conjointly meet, let not men say,
These are their reasons,―They are natural;
For, I believe, they are portentous things
Unto the climate that they point upon.

JULIUS CESAR, a. 1, s. 3.

SIN ENGENDERS SIN.

WE have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it;
She'll close, and be herself; whilst our poor
malice

Remains in danger of her former tooth.
But let

The frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,

Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams,
That shake us nightly: Better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our place, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstacy. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestick, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further!

SINGLENESS

MACBETH, A. 3, s. 2.

PREFERABLE WHEN

THE HEART CANNOT ACCOMPANY THE HAND.

THESEUS. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,

Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun;

For

aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage:

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,

Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.
HERMIA. So will I grow, so live, so die, my
lord,

Ere I will yield my virgin patent up
Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke
My soul consents not to give sovereignty.
THE. Take time to pause; and, by the next

new moon,

(The sealing-day betwixt my love and me,
For everlasting bond of fellowship,)
Upon that day either prepare to die,
For disobedience to your father's will,
Or else, to wed Demetrius, as he would:
Or on Diana's altar to protest,

For aye, austerity and single life.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, A. 1, s. 1.

SIN OF INGRATITUDE,

THE sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: Thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompence is slow
To overtake thee. 'Would thou hadst less
deserv'd;

That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine! only I have left to say,
More is thy due than more than all can pay.

MACBETH, A. 1, s. 4.

SLEEP.

CARE keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;