sons filled with persons of the first eminence ; keep up the same heroic spirit you shew against your own countrymen; sally out at the Esquiline gate, and repulse the enemy. Or if your valour is not sufficient to enable you to do this, at least shew that you have the heroism to view from the walls, your lands wasted by fire and sword, and plundered by the irresistible army of the Æqui and Volsci !

Sneer

Remonst.

Honour.

Alarm.

Remonf.

Will any one pretend to answer to this, that it is only the public that suffers by the inroads of the enemy, and that the main of the loss will be only Rousing that of a little national honour ? Were that the case what Roman could think of it with patience? But, besides the loss of our honor, what effect, do you think, these ravages will have upon private property? Do you expect any else, than that every individual of you should quickly have accounts of what he himself has iost ? And how are those losses to be made up? Will your darling tribunes make good the damages ? They Reproach. will be active enough in inflaming you with their speeches; they will commence suits against the principal men in the state; they will gather seditious assemblies, and multiply laws on laws, and decrees on decrees. But which of you, my Remorfes, countrymen, has gained any thing by such proceedings? Has any Roman carried home to his family, from those tumultuous meetings, any thing, but hatred, quarrels, and mischiefs, public and private? The case was, in former happier times, very different, when you submitted to the rightful authority of the consuls, and were not, as now, the dupes of your tribunes; when you exerted yourselves in the field of battle, not in the forum; when your shouts of courage struck terror into your enemies; not your seditious clamours into your countrymen. Then you used to return home, enriched with spoils, and adorned with trophies; instead of which you now ingloriously suffer the enemy-and that enemy

Regreti Remonft.

Alarm.

Alarm.

Regret.

a contemptible one-to go off unmolested, and loaded with your substance. Bnt go on with your seditious assemblies, as long as you can. The time is approaching, when you will find yourselves obliged to quit them, though so agreeable to you, and to betake yourselves to what you Reproach. have the greatest reluctance to, I mean your arms. You thought it a mighty hardship to be obliged to march against the Æqui and Volsci. They have spared you that trouble. They are now at your gates. And if you don't drive them from thence, they will soon be in the city, in the capitol, and in your houses. Two years ago an order was given by authority of the senate, that levies should be made, and that the army should Reproof. march. Instead of executing this salutary order, we have been loitering at home, unemployed, except in wrangling; forgetful, while our peасе was undisturbed from abroad, that this long indolence would probably be the very cause of troubles-coming upon us from various quarters at once. I know full well, my countrymen, that there are many subjects more agreeable to you than those I have now spoken to you upon. But the necessity of the times obliges me (if I were less inclinable of myself) to lay truth before you, rather than tickle your ears. I wish I could humour your inclinations: but I had rather secure your safety, than gain your good-will. It Apology. is commonly observed, that those who address the public from selfish viers, are more acceptable than those whose sole disinterested aim is the general advantage. And I think you can hardly imagine, that those flatterers of the plebeians, who neither suffer you to rest in peace, nor in war, mean your good by continually exciting you to tumult and sedition. When they work you up to discontent and rage, they are sure to gain their avaricious or their ambitious ends. And, as in time of peace they find themselves to be of no consequence, rather than be undistin

Profeff.

Sincer.

Alarım.

Profeff.

Sincer.

Alarm.

Remonft.

Reproof.

guished, they set themselves to promote mischief.

If you are at last (as I am sure you have rea- Exciting to son to be) sick of such absurd and ruinous pro- felf-defen. ceedings, and have a mind to resume your own characters, and to act agreeably to that of your ancestors; I am myself ready now to head you, Courage. and am willing to undergo any enalty, if I do not, in a few days, force these plus derers of our lands to abandon their camp, and if I do not carry, the terror of war, which now alarms you, from our gates, 'to those of the enemy.

LXI.

DOUBTING. VEXATION. SERIOUS
REFLECTION.

Hamlet's soliloquy upon his finding that the king
his father was murdered by his uncle; in which
he considers of the consequence of pu ting an
end to a burthensome life. [Shakes. H. MLET.]

Ham. To be or not to be (1) that is the

question

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune :
Or to take arms against a host of troubles,
And by opposing, end them-*But to die-
To sleep-No more (2) And by a sleep to end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to "Tis a consummation

Anxiety.

Courage. * Deep

Thought

{| Thought. (1) Devoutly to be wish'd-To || die-To sleep I Apprehen To sleep Perchance to dream-A start

ling thought

For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may

come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,

Vexation. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

Anguish. The pangs of love despis'd, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
+ Meekness That patient † merit of the unworthy* takes;
* Aversion. When he himself might his quietus make
Courage. With a bare bodkin? Who would

Fear.

earth,

bend to

And groan and sweat under a weary life ?
But that the dread of something after death
(That undiscovered country, from whose bourne (2)
No traveller returns) puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others which we know not yet ?
Thus conscience makes corvards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with a pale cast of thought,
And enterprizes of great strength and moment,
With this regard their currents turn away,
And lose the name of action.

(1) "Devoutly to be wish'd." To be spoken wish the eyes raised earnestly to heaven. See Veneration, page 25. (2)-"Whofe bourne." That is border, or coast.

LXII.

EAGERNESS. CHIDING. INTREATING.

Ghosts of various characters press to be admitted into Charon's boat. Are repulsed by him and Mercury, on account of their coming loaded with their vices, follies, and wrong attachments. [Lucian. DIAL. MORT. CHAR. MERC.

.]

Charon

LOOK you, gentlemen and ladies,

Chiding.

this will never do. My boat is but small, and old and leaky into the bargain; so that, if it be either in the least overloaded, or not exactly trimmed, you will be among the Stygian frogs presently, every single ghost of you. You come pushing. and crowding in such shoals, and I know not how much luggage along with you, Treatening, that you are like to repent of your being in such a hurry, at least those of you who cannot swim. Intreating.

1st Ghost. But you don't consider, Mr. Ferryman, how much we are tired of dodging about here, where we have neither house nor home, where there is nothing but mud, in which we sink over shoes, over boots, nor so much as a Complaint. tree to hang a dog upon. Pray, good Charon, Intreating. push us over as fast as you can.

Exciting.
Refufing

Char. What a plague ails the brainless ghost? Chiding. Would you have me do impossibilities? Do Mercury, bear a hand a little. Push them back. Don't let above one come into the boat at a time: that you may examine them ghost by ghost, and make them strip, and leave their luggage, before they set a foot in the boat.

Merc. Ay. ay, I'll take care of that, Cha- Promifing.

ron.-Hold. Who are you?

Refufing.

2d Ghost. My name is Menippus, by trade a Submiffion cynic philosopher. And to shew you how willing I am to be conformable, look you there, away go my wallet and my staff into the Styx. And as for my cloak, I did not bring it with me.