Of noble minds, is honourable meed.
Timon of Athens, A. 1. Sc. 3.
-I'll example you with thievery.
'The fun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire fhe fnatches from the fun.
The fea's a thief, whofe liquid furge refolves
The moon into falt tears. The earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a compofture ftolen
From general excrements. Each thing's a thief.
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheck'd theft. Love not yourselves: away!
Rob one another.
Ibid. A. 4. Sc. 7.
THOUGHT INEFFECTUAL.
Oh, who can hold a fire in his hand,
By thinking on the frofty Caucafus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feaft;
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic fummer's heat?
Oh no! the apprehenfion of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse ;
Fell Sorrow's tooth doth never rancle more
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the fore.
King Richard II. A. 2. Sc. 3.
Oh, gentlemen, the time of life is fhort:
To spend that fhortnefs bafely, were too long,
Tho' life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at th' arrival of an hour.
Henry IV. Part I. A. 5. Sc. 5
What! keep a week away? feven days and nights?
Eight fcore eight hours? and love's abfent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
Octavius, I have feen more days than you:
And though we lay thofe honours on this man,
To ease ourselves of divers flanderous loads,
He shall but bear them as the afs bears gold,
To groan and fweat under the business,
Either led, or driven, as he points the way;
And having brought our treasure where we will,
Then take we down his load, and turn him off,
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears,
And graze in commons.
Julius Cæfar, A. 4. Sc. 1.
TORMENT.
---Thou best know'st
What torment I did find thee in: thy groans
Did make wolves howl, and penetrate the breasts
Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment
To lay upon the damn'd, which Sycorax
Could not undo again.
The Tempeft, A. 1. Sc. 2.
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.
Were 't not affection chains thy tender days
To the fweet glances of thy honour'd love,
I rather would intreat thy company,
To fee the wonders of the world abroad,
Than (living dully fluggardiz'd at home)
Wear out thy youth with fhapelefs idleness.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A. 1. Se. 1.
TROILUS'S CHARACTER.
The youngest fon of Priam, a true knight;
Not yet mature, yet matchlefs; firm of word;
Speaking in deeds, and deedlefs in his tongue;
Nor foon provok'd, nor, being provok'd, foon calm'd:
His heart and hand both open, and both free;
For what he has, he gives; what thinks, he fhews;
Yet gives he not till judgment guide his bounty;
Nor dignifies an impair thought with breath:
Manly as Hector, but more dangerous;
For Hector in his blaze of wrath fubfcribes
To tender objects; but he in heat of action
Is more vindicative than jealous love.
They call him Troilus, and on him erect
A fecond hope, as fairly built as Hector.
Thus fays Eneas, one that knows the youth
Even to his inches; and, with private foul,
Did in great llion thus tranflate him to me.
Troilus and Creffida, A. 4. Sc. 9
TRUE LOVE.
-If thou fhalt ever love,
In the fweet pangs of it, remember me :
For fuch as I am, all true lovers are;
Unftaid and fkittish in all motions elfe,
Save in the conftant image of the creature
That is belov'd.
Twelfth Night, A. 2. Sc. 4.
---He fays he loves my daughter: I think fo too; for never gaz'd the moon Upon the water, as he'll ftand and read
As 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain,
I think there is not half a kifs to chufe
Who loves another best.
The Winter's Tale, A. 4. Sc. 3.
Almoft afraid to know itself! It cannot
Be call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once feen to fmile;
Where fighs and groans, and fhrieks, that rend the air,
Are made, not mark'd; where violent forrow seems
A modern ecstafy the dead man's knell
Is there fcarce afk'd, for whom? and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying or ere they ficken.
VALE DESCRIBED.
A barren and detefted vale, you fee, it is.
The trees, though fummer, yet forlorn and lean,
O'ercome with mofs, and baleful miffeltoe.
Here never fhines the fun; here nothing breeds
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.
And when they fhew'd me this ahhorred pit,
They told me, here, at dead time of the night,
A thousand fiends, a thousand hiffing fnakes,
Ten thousand fwelling toads, as many urchins,
Would make fuch fearful and confused cries,
As any mortal body, hearing it,
Should Araight fall mad, or elfe die fuddenly.
Titus Andronicus, A. 2. Sč. 4.
Methought he bore him in the thickest troop,
As doth a lion in a herd of neat ;
Or as a bear encompass'd round with dogs,
Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry,
The reft ftand all aloof and bark at him.
King Henry VI. Part III. A. 2. Sc. 1.
But Value dwells not in particular will;
It holds his estimate and dignity
As well wherein 'tis precious of itself
As in the prizer. 'Tis mad idolatry
To make the service greater than the god;
And the will doats, that is inclinable
To what infectiously itself affects,
Without fome image of the affected merit.
Troilus and Creffida, A. 2. Sc. 2.
VALUE OF THE WORLD I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, A ftage where every man muft play his part, And mine a fad one.
Merchant of Venice, A. 1. Sc. 1.
VANITY OF PLEASURES.
Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain,
Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain.
Love's Labour Loft, A. 1. Sc. 1.
VANITY OF POWER.
No matter where: of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make duft our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write forrow on the bofom of the earth!
Let's chufe executors, and talk of wills;
And yet not fo-for what can we bequeath,
Save our depofed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all, are Bolingbroke's;
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which ferves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's fake, let us fit upon the ground,
And tell fad ftories of the death of kings;
How fome have been depos'd, fome flain in war,
Some haunted by the ghofts they difpoffefs'd,
Some poifon'd by their wives, fome fleeping kill'd,
Richard II. A. 3.
But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,
Though lewdness court it in a fhape of heaven;
So luft, though to a radiant angel link'd,
Will fate itself in a celestial bed,
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are polluted offerings, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the facrifice.
Troilus and Creffida, A. 5. Sc. 3.
Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.
Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
Within this mile break forth an hundred springs :
The oak bears mast, the briars scarlet hips;
The bounteous housewife, Nature, on each bush
Lays her full mefs before you.-Want! Why want?
Timon of Athens, A. 4. Sc. 3.
WANTONNES.
-Fie, fie upon her!
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip;
Nay her foot fpeaks, her wanton spirits look out
At every joint and motive of her body.
O these encounterers, fo glib of tongue,
That give a coafting welcome ere it comes,
And wide unclafp the tables of their thoughts
To every ticklish reader! fet them down
For fluttish fpoils of opportunity.
Troilus and Creffida, A. 4. Sc. 5.
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