A great man should decline? Nay, and you weep, I am fallen indeed. Crom. How does your grace? Why, well; A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me, A load would sink a navy, too much honor: O'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden, Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven. Crom. I am glad, your grace has made that right use of it. (Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,) To endure more miseries, and greater far, Crom. The heaviest, and the worst, Is your displeasure with the king. Wol. God bless him! Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor in your place. Wol. That's somewhat sudden: But he's a learned man. May he continue Crom. That Cranmer is return'd with welcome, Install'd lord archbishop of Canterbury. Wol. That's news indeed. Last, that the Lady Anne, Whom the king hath in secrecy long married, This day was view'd in open, as his queen, Only about her coronation. Wol. There was the weight that pull'd me down. O Cromwell, The king has gone beyond me, all my glories In that one woman I have lost for ever: No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors, Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell; I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now To be thy lord and master: Seek the king; That sun I pray may never set! I have told him What, and how true thou art; he will advance thee; (I know his noble nature,) not to let Thy hopeful service perish too: Good Cromwell, 1 The chancellor is the general guardian of orphans, Neglect him not, make use now, and provide Crom. Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention 1 Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee; Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not: Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king; And,-Pr'ythee, lead me in: There take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny; 'tis the king's; my robe, And my integrity to heaven, is all I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, I served my king, he would not in mine age Crom. Good sir, have patience. So I have. Farewell The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell. Henry VIII., Act III. Scene II. QUEEN MAB, THE QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES.3 O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you. 1 Ambition here means a criminal and inordinate ambition, that endeavors to obtain honors by dishonest means. 2 This sentence was really uttered by Wolsey. 3 "The imagery which Shakspeare has employed in describing the persons, manners, and occupations of the Fairies, will be deemed not less his peculiar offspring, nor inferior in beauty, novelty, and wildness of painting, to that which the magic of his pencil has diffused over every other part of the visionary world."-Drake. In shape no bigger than an agate-stone Romeo and Juliet, Act I. Scene IV. LIFE AND DEATH WEIGHED. To be, or not to be, that is the question :--- And, by opposing, end them? To die,-to sleep,- The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks Devoutly to be wish'd. To die;-to sleep ; To sleep!-perchance to dream;-ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, 1 Swords made of Spanish steel were thought the best. That is, drinking deeply each other's health. When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,' For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, Hamlet, Act III. Scene I MERCY. The quality of mercy is not strain'd; Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render Merchant of Venice, Act IV. Scene I. ACTIVITY NECESSARY TO KEEP FAME BRIGHT.3 Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: 1 Turmoil, bustle. 2 There's the consideration. * This admirable speech of Ulysses to Achilles, to induce him to leave his tent, and come again into the field of action, though not much read, is scarcely inferior to any thing in Shakspeare. Those scraps are good deeds past: which are devour'd As fast as they are made, forgot as soon As done: Perseverance, dear my lord, Keeps honor bright: To have done, is to hang In monumental mockery. Take the instant way; Where one but goes abreast: keep then the path; That one by one pursue: If you give way, Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank, Lie there for pavement to the abject rear, ·O'er-run and trampled on: Then what they do in present, For time is like a fashionable host, That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand; Grasps in the comer: Welcome ever smiles, And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek For beauty, wit, High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,- The present eye praises the present object: Then marvel not, thou great and complete man, Since things in motion sooner catch the eye Than what not stirs. The cry went once on thee, If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive, And case thy reputation in thy tent; Whose glorious deeds, but in these fields of late, Made emulous missions2 'mongst the gods themselves, Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Scene II. THE COMMONWEALTH OF BEES. So work the honey bees; 1 Dust that is a little gilt, means, ordinary performances ostentatiously displayed, and lauded by the favor of friends. Gilt o'er-dusted, means, splendid actions of preceding ages, the remembrance of which is weakened by time 2 Emulous missions refers to the machinery of Homer, which makes the deities descend from heaven to engage on either side. 8 Law. 4 That is, of different degrees. |