Lady R. And for that very reason, you know the club - was the best in the house.

Sir C. There's no such thing as talking to you. You're a base woman-I'll part with you forever, you may live here with your father, and admire his fantastical evergreens, till you grow as fantastical yourself-I'll set out for London this instant.- -[Stops at the door] The club

was not the best in the house.

Lady R. How calm you are! Well, I'll go to bed. Will you come? you had better- -Poor Sir Charles.

[Looks and laughs, then exit.]

Sir C. That case is provoking-[Crosses to the opposite door where she went out.] I tell you the diamond was not the play; and here I take my final leave of you-[Walks back as fast as he can] I am resolved upon it; and I know the club was not the best in the house.

VIII-Brutus and Cassius.-SHAKESPEARE.

Cas. THAT you have wrong'd me, doth appear in this;
You have condemn'd and noted Lucius Pella
For taking bribes here of the Sardians;
Wherein my letter (praying on his side,
Because I knew the man) was slighted of.

Bru. You wrong'd yourself to write in such a case.
Cas. At such a time as this, is it not meet

That every nice offence should bear its comment?
Bru. Yet let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemn'd to have an itching palm,
To sell and mart your offices for gold,
To undeservers.

Cus. I an itching palm?

You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods, this speech were else your last.

Bru. The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head.

Cas. Chastisement ?

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember. Did not great Julius bleed for justice sake?

What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world,

But for supporting robbers; Shall we now

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes ?

And sell the mighty space of our large honours,
For so much trash as may be grasped thus ?
I had rather be a dog and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

Cas. Brutus, bay not me:

I'll not endure it. You forget yourself
To hedge me in: I am a soldier,
Older in practice, abler than yourself,
To make conditions.

Bru. Go to! You are not, Cassius.
Cas. I am.

Bru. I say you are not.

Cas. Urge me no more: I shall forget myself? Have mind upon your health: tempt me no farther. Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is't possible!

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares ?

Cas. Must I endure all this!

Bru. All this! Ay, more. Fret till your proud heart

break:

Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,

And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humour!

You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you; for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish.

Cas. Is it to come to this?

Bru. You say you are a better soldier ;
Let it appear so; make your vaunting true;
And it shall please me well. For my own part

1 shall be glad to learn of noblemen.

Cas. You wrong me every way; you wrong me Brutus } I said an elder soldier, not a better.

Did I say better?

Bru. If you did I care not.

Cas. When Cesar liv'd he durst not thus have moved me
Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him
Cas. I durst not!

I

Bru. No.

Cas. What! durst no tempt him?

Bru. For your life you durst not.

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love. may do that I shall be sorry for.

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry for.

There is no terrour, Cassius, in your threats;
For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,

That they pass by me, as the idle wind,

Which I respect not.

denied me;

I did send to you
For certain sums of gold, which you
I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring,
From the hard hands of peasants, their vile trash,
By any indirection. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions;

Which you denied me.

Was that done like Cassius ?

Should I have answered Caius Cassius so ?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, Gods, with all your thunderbolts,
Dash him in pieces.

Cas. I denied you not.

Bru. You did.

Cas. I did not; he was but a fool

That brought my answer back, Brutus hath riv'd

heart.

A friend should bear a friend's infirmities;

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not. Still you practice them on me.
Cas. You love me not.

Bru. I do not like your faults.

my

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they did appear As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come Anthony! And young Octavius, come! Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius:

For Cassius is a weary of the world

Hated by one he loves; brav'd by his brother;
Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observ'd,
Set in a note book, learn'd and conn'd by rote-
To cast into my teeth. There is my dagger,

And here my naked breast-within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold;
If that thou need ́st a Roman's, take it forth:
I that denied thee gold will give my heart.
Strike as thou did'st at Cesar; for I know,

When thou dids't hate him worst, thou lovs't him better Than ever thou lovs't Cassius.

Bru. Sheath your dagger,

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope,
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius! you are yoked with a lamb,
That carries anger as the flint bears fire;
Who much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill temper'd vexeth him!
Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill tempered too.
Cas. Do you contess so much? Give me your hand.
Bru. And my heart tou.[Embracing

Cas. O Brutus !.

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me,
When the rash humour which my mother gave me,
Makes ne forgetful?

Bru. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,
When you are over earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

II. SPEECHES AND SOLILOQUIES.
1-Hamlet's Advice to the Players.-

TRAGEDY OF HAMLET. SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as 1 pronounced it to you; trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoken my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hands; but use all gently: For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robusteous, perriwig pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings;

who

(for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Pray you avoid it.

Be not too tame, neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action! with this special observance, that you o'er step not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end is-to hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, in your allowance o'er weigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! There be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, that, neither having the accent of Christian, nor the gait of Christian, pagan nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen, had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

II.-Douglas' Account of himself.

TRAGEDY OF DOUGLAS.
My name is Norval. On the Grampian hills
My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain,
Whose constant cares were to increase his store,
And keep his only son, myself at home.
For I had heard of battles, and I long'd
To follow to the field some warlike lord;

And Heaven soon granted what my sire denied.
This moon, which rose last night, round as my shield,
Had not yet fill'd her horns, when, by her light,
A band of fierce barbarians, from the hills,
Rush'd like a torrent down upon the vale,
Sweeping our flocks and herds. The shepherds fled
For safety and for succour. I alone,

With bended bow and quiver full of arrows,
Hover'd about the enemy, and mark'd
The road he took; then hasted to my friends,
Whom, with a troop of fifty chosen men,
I met advancing. The pursuit I led,
Till we o'ertook the spoil encumber'd foe.