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النشر الإلكتروني

What is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?

Or is the adder better than the eel,

Because his painted skin delights the eye?
O, no, good Kate; neither art thou the worse
For this poor furniture and mean array.

The mind therefore must be cultivated with that diligence and application which its immense value requires. Thus in the Fourth Act of Hamlet, the young prince exclaims:

What is a man,

If his chief good, and market of his time,
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast no more.
Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before, and after, gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To rust in us unused.

And is not the improvement of time inculcated with no little tenderness and earnestness in the following lines?

O, Gentlemen, the time of life is short;

To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial's point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

Doctor Young says that 'Procrastination is the thief of time.' With this consideration, the following lines which are to be found in the Fifth Act of the Play of All's Well that Ends Well,' sufficiently merit our approval.

Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrecs,
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.

And thus, in the Fourth Act of the Play of Julius Cæsar, when Brutus discovers that his enemies increase, he grows impatient for the fight, and declares ; There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

In the Second Act of the Play of King Richard the Third, the Marquis of Dorset in a remonstrance to the Duchess of York, thus teaches us submission to Heaven.

Comfort, dear mother; God is much displeased
That you take with unthankfulness his doing:
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt,
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent;
Much more to be thus opposite with Heaven,
For it requires the royal debt it lent you.

In the Fourth Act of the Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, the young prince, afterwards Henry the

Fifth, with great judgment, gives utterance to his reflections on an earthly crown,

O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound, and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow, with homely *biggen bound,
Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,

That scalds with safety.

In the same Act, King Henry the Fourth utters the following reflections on the cares and toils attendant on the achievement of gold:

How quickly nature falls into revolt

When gold becomes her object!

For this the foolish over-careful fathers

Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains

with care,

Their bones with industry;

For this they have engross'd and piled up
The canker'd heaps of strange-achieved gold;
For this they have been thoughtful to invest
Their sons with arts and martial exercises:
When, like the bee, culling from every flower
The virtuous sweets;

Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey, * A Night-cap.

We bring it to the hive: and, like the bees,
Are murder'd for our pains.

Ungodly pastors may receive instruction from the following lines which are spoken by Ophelia to her brother Laertes. The latter had offered the young lady some excellent advice. Ophelia replies as follows:

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,

As watchman to my heart: but, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven:
Whilst like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.

In the Second Act of the Merchant of Venice we are taught that honour should only be conferred on the deserving.

For who shall go about

To cozen fortune, and be honourable

Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume
To wear an undeserved dignity.

O that estates, degrees, and offices

Were not derived corruptly; and that clear honour
Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
How many then should cover that stand bare!
How many be commanded that command!

How much low peasantry would then be glean'd

From the true seed of honour! and how much honour Pick'd from the chaff and ruin of the times,

To be new varnish'd!

In Act the Second of the Comedy of All's Well that Ends Well, our poet shows that honour is due to personal virtue, not to birth. We may possess the privilege of the latter without any, the smallest degree of merit, on our part. In the above Play the following wise utterances are addressed by the King of France to Bertram. The latter rejects an excellent young lady because she is untitled and lowly-born,

Honour due to virtue only.

From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed;
Where great additions swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour. Good alone

Is good without a name: vileness is so;
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;

In these to nature she's immediate heir;
And these breed honour: that is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: honours thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoers: the mere word's a slave,
Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave,
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb,

Where dust, and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed.

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