Sharp misery had worn him to the bones: And in his needy shop a tortoise hung, An alligator stuff''d and other skins Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves A beggarly account of empty boxes,
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds, Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of roses, Were thinly scatter'd to make up a show.
These lines remind us of Shakspere's delineation of Pinch in the Comedy of Errors, which, as exhibiting to no small extent the poet's descriptive powers, may be here introduced.
DESCRIPTION OF A JUGGLER.
A hungry lean-faced villain, A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller; A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch, A living dead man: this pernicious slave, Forsooth, took on him as a conjurer; And, gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse, And with no face, as 'twere, outfacing me, Cries out, I was possess'd.
![[blocks in formation]](https://books.google.ae/books/content?id=ZKENAAAAQAAJ&hl=ar&output=html_text&pg=PA205&img=1&zoom=3&q=Murd&cds=1&sig=ACfU3U18kSLg_thIzLChk81CzC46fLNcwQ&edge=0&edge=stretch&ci=235,186,481,106)
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you: She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate-stone On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep; Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs; The cover of the wings of grasshoppers; The traces of the smallest spider's web; The collars of the moonshine's wat'ry beams; Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film; Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat, Not half so big as a round little worm Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid; Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut, Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub, Time out of mind the fairies' coachmakers. And in this state she gallops night by night Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love; O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight; O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues, Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are. Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, Tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice; Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, Of breaches, ambuscades, Spanish blades, Of healths five fathoms deep; and then, anon Drums in his ear; at which he starts and wakes; And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again.
Methought that I had broken from the Tower, And was embarked to cross to Burgundy;
And in my company my brother Gloster; Who from my cabin tempted me to walk Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England, And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befallen us. As we paced along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling, Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard, Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O then methought what pain it was to drown! What dreadful noise o" waters in mine ears! What sights of ugly death within mine eyes! Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems, That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep, And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by. And often did I strive To yield the ghost: but still the envious flood Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth To seek the empty, vast, and wandering air; But smothered it within my panting bulk, Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
CLARENCE'S DREAM CONTINUED.
My dream was lengthened after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul: I passed, methought, the melancholy flood With that grim ferryman which poets write of, Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick! Who cried aloud,-" What scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?" And so he vanished: Then came wandering by A shadow like an angel with bright hair Dabbled in blood; and he shrieked out aloud,- "Clarence is come,-false, fleeting, perjured Clarance,
That stabbed me in the field by Tewkesbury ;- Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torment!" With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends Environed me, and howled in mine ears Such hideous cries, that with the very noise I trembling waked, and, for a season after, Could not believe but that I was in hell; Such terrible impression made my dream. O, Brackenbury, I have done those things, That now give evidence against my soul, For Edward's sake; and see how he requites me. O Heaven! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone;
O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children.
FROM RICHARD THE THIRD.'
The following lines in which the Duke of Clarence remonstrates with his murderers, one of which is touched with remorse, by reason of which the parley is prolonged, evince such ingenious argument, and touching earnest entreaty, that we would not withold them from our readers. After those bloody men had disclosed their wicked design, Clarence thus proceeds:
Are you call'd forth from out a world of men, To slay the innocent? What is my offence? Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?
« السابقةمتابعة » |