1 Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.

Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns, speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous; and shews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.

We shall now present our readers with a number of passages which we believe will be considered as a digression not at all unwelcome.

In the Second Part of the Play of King Henry the Sixth the following lines expressive of the blessings of a good conscience are spoken by that pious monarch after he had beheld with the utmost grief, the murdered body of the good duke Humphrey. Our poet very properly put those lines into the mouth of the guiltless King, whose suspicions doubtless were raised against the actual murderers.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

The wise man tells us that 'a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches;' and again that, ‘a good name is better than precious ointment.' How

far do the utterances of Shakspere agree with those sentiments? We quote the following lines from the Play of King Richard the Second.

The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is-spotless reputation; that away,

Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.

We must not omit likewise to quote the well-known, beautiful passage which is to be found in the Play of Othello. It is uttered by the treacherous Iago in a conversation with his master, the noble, warlike, and generous Othello.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name,

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

Honour and patriotism in the pages of Shakspere are not forgotten. Hence in the Play of Troilus and Cressida, Hector exclaims:

Mine honour keeps the weather of my fate:
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man
Holds honour far more precious dear than life.

The Play of Julius Cæsar furnishes us with the following patriotic sentiments. In an interview with

Cassius, the eagerness which Brutus felt to be employed for what he esteemed to be the 'general good,' he thus expresses:

What is it you would impart to me?

If it be aught toward the general good,
Set honour in one eye, and death i' the other,
And I will look on both indifferently:

For, let the gods so speed me, as I love
The name of honour more than I fear death.

The vanity of trust in man is strongly expressed in the Third Act of the Play of King Richard the Third. Lord Hastings is condemned, and in the prospect of death exclaims as follows:

O momentary grace of mortal men,

Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast:
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

In the Fourth Act of the Play of Coriolanus, the instability of human friendship is thus forcibly expressed:

O, world, thy slippery turns!

sworn,

Friends now fast

Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart,

Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal, and exercise, Are still together, who twin, as 'twere in love Unseparable, shall within this hour,

On a dissension of a doit, break out

To bitterest enmity: so, fellest foes,

Whose passions and whose plots have broke their sleep

To take the one the other, by some chance,

Some trick not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends, And interjoin their issues.

In the Second Part of the Play of King Henry the Fourth, the inconstancy of fortune is most truthfully and efficiently exhibited by the unhappy monarch himself:

Will fortune never come with both hands full,
But write her fair words still in foulest letters?
She either gives a stomach and no food,—
Such are the poor in health; or else a feast,
And takes away the stomach,—such are the rich
That have abundance, and enjoy it not.

The following lines from the Second Act of the Comedy of Errors, show that the best of mankind are subject to the evils of defamation.

I see the jewel, best enamelled,

Will lose his beauty; and though gold bides still,
That others touch, yet often touching will
Wear gold; and so no man, that hath a name,
But falsehood and corruption doth it shame.

And again, in the Play of Cymbeline, slander is exhibited with equal power and beauty in the following language:

'Tis slander,

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.

It is Shakspere who says:

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
Thou shalt not escape calumny.

Again:

Beauty, wit, high birth, desert of service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subject all
To envious and calumniating time,

And yet again:

No might nor greatness in mortality

Can censure 'scape: back wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong,
Can tie the gall up in the sland'rous tongue?

We are not to judge of value or merit by mere outward appearance. How beautifully is this sentiment expressed in the Fourth Act of the Taming of the Shrew!

For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honour peereth in the meanest habit.

M