The world is still a merry world, and this a merry time; And sack is sack, Sir John, Sir Jack! though in it tastes the lime. The watery eye of Sir John Falstaff twinkled with exquisite delight as he filled himself a cup of sack and responded, There's nothing extant, Sir Toby, but cant. A plague of all cowards! Here, Bardolph, my Trigon! You and I will repent, GADSHILL & PETO. Sweet wag! take our veto. FALSTAFF. CLOWN. FALSTAFF. SHALLOW. Motley too My cockscomb to you! Good Justice Shallow I'm true to you, "Tallow!" Sir Andrew, Sir Hugh SIR ANDREW & SIR HUGH. We'll drink as you brew! Poins joins! Hal shall! Dame Partlet the hen! Doll! Francis ! FALSTAFF. FALSTAFF. The lawyer's head, and the shark's head, Are all very well For a shot or a shell; Exceedingly fit To fill up a pit ! But the head that was rear'd When Christmas cheer'd In the rollicking, frolicking days of yore, When the Lord of Misrule, The Friar and Fool, With Robin and Marian, led the brawl, And the hobby-horse frisk'd in the old-fashion'd hall, Was the wassailing Head of the bristly Boar ! FALSTAFF, NYM, GADSHILL, PETO, AND BARDOLPH. We are minions of the moon, Doughty heroes, hot for fight! And help us to a purse to-night. Angels, watches, rings unfob M 5 PRINCE AND POINS. Up with staves, and down with braves We true men the robbers rob! TOUCHSTONE. Mistress Audrey, in the dance, With your love-lorn swain advance. As when trips the sprightly fay, CHORUS. Shout for the Head of the bristly Boar ! Did merrily bound while the cup went round Sing O the green holly! sing O the green holly! The room now seemed to extend in width and in length; the sounds of revelry ceased, and other characters appeared upon the scene. Lady Mac The "Ma beth, her eyes bending on vacancy, her lips moving convulsively, her voice audible, but in fearful whispers, slept her last sleep of darkness, guilt, and terror. The Weird Sisters danced round their magic caldron, hideous, anomalous, and immortal! The noble Moor ended "life's fitful season," remorseful and heartbroken. jesty of buried Denmark" revisited "the pale glimpses of the moon." Ariel, dismissed by Prospero, warbled his valedictory strain, and flew to his bright dwelling, "under the blossom that hangs on the bough." The chiefs and sages of imperial Rome swept along in silent majesty. Lear, on his knees, bareheaded, with heavenward eye, quivering lip, and hands clasped together in agony, pronounced the terrible curse, and in his death realised all that can be imagined of human woe. Shylock, the representative of a oncedespised and persecuted race, pleaded his cause before the senate, and lost it by a quibble. Oberon, Puck, and the ethereal essences of a Midsummer Night's Dream flitted in the moonbeams. Benedick and Beatrice had their wars of wit and combats of the tongue. The Lady Constance, alternately reproachful, despairing, and frenzied, exhibited a matchless picture of maternal tenderness. Juliet breathed forth her sighs to the chaste stars. Isabella read a lesson to haughty authority, when she asks her brother's forfeited life at the hands of the Duke, worthy of holy seer or sage1; and Ophelia, in her distraction, was simple, touching, and sublime. Though these soul-stirring scenes were perfectly familiar to Uncle Timothy, and from youth to age had been his morning study and his nightly dream, they had never been invested with such an absorbing 1 An eminent dignitary of the Church of England was once discoursing with the author on the morality of Shakspere. He regretted that the Bard had not spoken on that most glorious of all subjects, Man's Redemption, beyond a few lines (exquisitely beautiful) in the first scene of Hamlet. The author immediately pointed out the following terse, but transcendant passage from "Measure for Measure." "Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And HE that might the 'vantage best have took, It would pass the bounds of the most exalted eulogy to record the prelate's answer, and how deeply affected he was whilst making it. |