Bot. First, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats on; then read the names of the actors; and so grow on to a point. Quin. Marry, our play is-The most lamentable comedy, and the most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby. Bot. A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry.—Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll.-Masters, spread yourselves. Quin. Answer as I call you.-Nick Bottom, the weaver. Bot. Ready. Name what part I am for, and proceed. Quin. You, Nick Bottom, are set down for Py ramus. Bot. What is Pyramus? a lover, or a tyrant? Quin. A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love. Bot. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure. To the rest :-yet my chief humour is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split. "The raging rocks And shivering shocks, And make and mar The foolish fates." This was lofty!-Now name the rest of the players. -This is Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein; a lover is more condoling. Quin. Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Flu. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You must take Thisby on you. Flu. What is Thisby? a wandering knight? Quin. It is the lady that Pyramus must love. Flu. Nay, faith; let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming. Quin. That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will. Bot. An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby, too: I'll speak in a monstrous little voice;—"Thisne, Thisne," "Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! thy Thisby dear! and lady dear!" Quin. No, no; you must play Pyramus:—and, Flute, you Thisby.' Bot. Well, proceed. Quin. Robin Starveling, the tailor. Star. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. Robin Starveling, you must play Thisby's mother. Tom Snout, the tinker. Snout. Here, Peter Quince. Quin. You, Pyramus's father; myself, Thisby's father; Snug, the joiner, you, the lion's part :—and, I hope, here is a play fitted. Snug. Have you the lion's part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Quin. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Bot. Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make the duke say, "Let him roar again, Let him roar again." Quin. An you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies, that they would shriek; and that were enough to hang us all. All. That would hang us, every mother's son. Bot. I grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you an 'twere any nightingale. Quin. You can play no part but Pyramus; for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man; a proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus. Bot. Well, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in ? Quin. Why, what you will. Bot. I will discharge it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-ingrain beard, or your French-crown-colour beard, your perfect yellow. Quin. Some of your French crowns have no hair at all, and then you will play barefaced. But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you, and desire you, to con them by to-morrow night; and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company, and our devices known. In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you, fail me not. Bot. We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely and courageously. Take pains; be perfect: adieu. Quin. At the duke's oak we meet. Bot. Enough; hold or cut bow-strings. [Exeunt. RESIGNATION.-(Longfellow.) There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, But has one vacant chair! The air is full of farewells to the dying, The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Let us be patient! These severe afflictions But oftentimes celestial benedictions Assume this dark disguise. We see but dimly through the mists and vapours; Amid these earthly damps. What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers, May be heaven's distant lamps. There is no death! What seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but a suburb of the life elysian, She is not dead,—the child of our affection,- Where she no longer needs our poor protection, In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion, Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution, Day after day we think what she is doing In those bright realms of air; Year after year, her tender steps pursuing, Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken, Not as a child shall we again behold her; In our embraces we again enfold her, But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion, And beautiful with all the soul's expansion And though at times, impetuous with emotion, The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean, We will be patient, and assuage the feeling We may not wholly stay, By silence sanctifying, not concealing, NATIONAL EDUCATION. He paused, as if revolving in his soul "O for the coming of that glorious time |