And hear the wild and melancholy winds
Moan through their drooping banners, nevermore
To wave above your race. Ay, then call up
Shadows, dim phantoms from ancestral tombs,
To people that cold void. And when the strength
From your right arm hath melted, when the blast
Of the shrill clarion gives your heart no more
A fiery wakening, if at last you pine

For the glad voices and the bounding steps
Once through your home re-echoing, and the clasp
Of twining arms, and all the joyous light

Of eyes that laughed with youth, and made your board
A place of sunshine-when those days are come,
Then, in your utter desolation, turn

To the cold world-the smiling, faithless world,
Which hath swept past you long-and bid it quench
Your soul's deep thirst with fame-immortal fame.
Fame to the sick of heart! A gorgeous robe-
A crown of victory unto him that dies

I' the burning waste for water!

Gonz. This from thee!

Now the last drop of bitterness is poured.
Elmina, I forgive thee.

Aid me, Heaven,

From whom alone is power. Oh, thou hast set
Duties so stern of aspect in my path

They almost to my startled gaze assume
The hue of things less hallowed. Men have sunk
Unblamed beneath such trials. Doth not He
Who made us know the limits of our strength?
My wife! my sons! Away! I must not pause
To give my heart one moment's mastery thus!

+

SCENE FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. Portia. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

Nerissa. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries

were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Por. Good sentences and well pronounced.

Ner. They would be better if well followed.

Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions. I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps over a cold decree; such a hare is madness, the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel, the cripple. But this reasoning is not in the fashion to choose me a husband. Oh me! the word choose! I may neither choose whom I would, nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I can not choose one, nor refuse none?

Ner. Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations; therefore the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver, and lead (whereof who chooses his meaning, chooses you), will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly, but one whom you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection toward any of these princely suitors that are already come?

Por. I pray thee overname them; and, as thou namest them, I will describe them; and, according to my description, level at my affection.

Ner. First, there is the Neapolitan prince.

Por. Ay, that's a colt, indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse; and he makes it a great appropriation to his own good parts that he can shoe him himself.

Ner. Then there is the County Palatine.

Por. He doth nothing but frown, as who should say, "And you will not have me choose;" he hears merry tales and smiles not; I fear he will prove the weeping philoso

pher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth. I had rather be married to a death'shead with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

Ner. How say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon? Por. God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker; but he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's; a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palatine. He is every man in no man; if a throstle sing he falls straight a capering; he will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him; for if he love me to madness, I should never requite him.

Ner. What say you, then, to Faulconbridge, the young baron of England?

Por. You know I say nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him; he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian; and you will come into the court and swear that I have a poor pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man's picture; but, alas! who can converse with a dumb show? How oddly he is suited; I think he bought his doublet in Italy, his round-hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behavior every where.

Ner. What think you of the Scottish lord, his neighbor? Por. That he hath neighborly charity in him, for he borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able. I think the Frenchman became his surety, and sealed under for another.

Ner. How like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony's nephew.

Por. Very vilely in the morning, when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon, when he is drunk; when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast; and the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift to go without him.

Ner. If he should make offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you would refuse to perform your father's will if you should refuse to accept him.

Por. Therefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket; for, if the devil be within, and that temptation without, I know he will choose it. I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.

Ner. You need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords; they have acquainted me with their determinations, which is, indeed, to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit, unless you may be won by some other sort than your father's imposition, depending on the caskets.

Por. If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will. I am glad this parcel of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I pray God grant them a fair departure.

Ner. Do you not remember, lady, in your father's time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?

Por. Yes, yes; it was Bassanio; as I think, so he was called.

Ner. True, madam; he, of all the men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. Por. I remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

Enter a Servant.

How now! what news?

Serv. The four strangers seek for you, madam, to take their leave; and there is a forerunner come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the prince, his master, will be here to-night.

Por. If I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach; if he have the condition of a saint, and the complexion of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me.

Come, Nerissa. Sirrah, go before.

While we shut the door upon one wooer, another knocks

at the door.

[Exeunt.

SCENE FROM THE RIVALS.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN.*

ACT II. SCENE 1.

Enter Sir Anthony.

Sir, I am delighted to see you here, and looking so well; your sudden arrival at Bath made me apprehensive for your health.

Sir Anthony. Very apprehensive, I dare say, Jack. What! you are recruiting here, hey?

Capt. Absolute. Yes, sir, I am on duty.

Sir A. Well, Jack, I am glad to see you, though I did not expect it; for I was going to write to you on a little matter of business. Jack, I have been considering that I grow old and infirm, and shall probably not trouble you long.

Capt. A. Pardon me, sir, I never saw you look more strong and hearty, and I pray fervently that you may continue so.

Sir A. I hope your prayers may be heard, with all my heart. Well, then, Jack, I have been considering that I am so strong and hearty, I may continue to plague you a long time. Now, Jack, I am sensible that the income of your commission, and what I have hitherto allowed you, is but a small pittance for a lad of your spirit.

Capt. A. Sir, you are very good.

Sir A. And it is my wish, while yet I live, to have my boy make some figure in the world. I have resolved, therefore, to fix you at once in a noble independence.

Capt. A. Sir, your kindness overpowers me. Yet, sir, I presume you would not wish me to quit the army? Sir A. Oh! that shall be as your wife chooses.

Capt. A. My wife, sir!

Sir A. Ay, ay, settle that between you-settle that between you.

*The scene of the comedy is laid in Bath. Sir Anthony is a high-spirited, kind-hearted old gentleman, and Captain Absolute is his nephew, whom he pets and scolds. The lady that Sir Anthony proposes for his nephew is really the lady that the captain loves, but he, in ignorance of that fact, rejects the proposition with determination.