My mercy dried their water-flowing tears:
I have not been desirous of their wealth,

Nor much oppressed them with great subsidies,
Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'd.

DYING SPEECH OF THE EARL OF WARWICK.

'FROM THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH.'

Ah, who is nigh? come to me, friend or foe,
And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?
Why ask I that? my mangled body shows,

My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,
That I must yield my body to the earth,

And by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,

Whose top-branch over-peer'd Jove's spreading tree,
And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.
These eyes, that now are dimn'd with death's black
veil,

Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,

To search the secret treasons of the world:

The wrinkles in my brows now fill'd with blood,
Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres;

For who lived king, but I could dig his grave?
And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?
Lo, now my glory smeared in dust and blood!

My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and, of all my lands,
Is nothing left me but my body's length!

KING HENRY THE SIXTH'S REFLECTIONS

ON A SHEPHERD'S LIFE.

Methinks it were a happy life

To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,

To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;

So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade

To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy,
To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery?
O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
His viands sparkling in a golden cup-
His body couched in a curious bed,

When care, mistrust, and treason, wait on him.

PROPHECY OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH, IN RELATION TO THE DUKE OF GLOSTER, AFTERWARDS RICHARD THE THIRD,

'FROM THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH.'

Many a thousand,

Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear;
And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
And many an orphan's water-standing eye;
Men for their sons', wives for their husbands' fate;
And orphans for their parents' timeless death.—
Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, 'boding luckless time;
Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees;

The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top;
And chattering 'pies in dismal discords sung.
Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope;
To wit, an indigested deformed lump,

Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.

Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born, To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world.

ASTROLOGY.

" FROM THE PLAY OF KING LEAR.'

"This is the excellent foppery of the world! that, when we are sick in fortune, (often the surfeit of our own behaviour,) we make guilty of our disasters, the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools, by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.'

Shakspere appears to be anxious to vindicate the moral government of the supreme Being. The poet does not believe in planetary influence: it is 'foppery' with him, and as the rest of the passage shows, an 'admirable evasion' of man to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star.' It is not unlikely

that at the period in which the above lines were written, the science of astrology had many supporters amongst men of high character and education, and, in consequence, the clever, satirical speech, so strongly opposed to the principles of astrology, may be considered as far in advance of the times in which our great poet flourished.

"A science," says an eminent scholar, the late Doctor Adam Clarke, "which cashiers divine Providence from the universe; and pretends to govern the world, direct, counteract, and variously influence all human actions, by Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, and the moon, the very deities of Pagan Rome and Greece, acknowledged as possessing the very same powers which quondam heathenish idolaters ascribed to them, is, in my opinion, worthy of the execration of every person who believes there is a God, and that he governs the heavens and the earth. In short, the whole system appears to me to be an artful revival of a part of the old Pagan idolatry."

Absurd notions in relation to judicial astrology have destroyed the happiness of thousands. It has been supposed that the characters and destinies of men were fixed by the appearance of certain stars, or the meeting of certain planets at the time of birth. It is true, planetary bodies may affect the earth, but what influence can they have on the qualities of the mind, or how can they affect the operations of moral causes?