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DESCRIPTION OF A LOVER.

FROM AS YOU LIKE IT.'

O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily:
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved:

Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
Thou hast not loved:

Or if thou hast not broke from company
Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,
Thou hast not loved.

LOVE.

FROM THE 'MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.'

Things base and vile holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled;

As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy love is perjured every where.

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For aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth:

But either it was different in blood;

Or else misgraffed in respect of years;
Or else it stood upon the choice of friends:
Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
Making it momentary as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream;
Brief as the light'ning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.

IMAGINATION.

FROM THE 'MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.’

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;
That is the madman; the lover all as frantic,

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt;

The poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven: And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

One other citation from the above Comedy, equal to those already produced, must not be omitted.

SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.

Fair Hermia, question your desires;
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun;
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice blessed they, that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd

Than that, which, withering on the virgin thorn,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness.

Lor.

LORENZO AND JESSICA.

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.'

The moon shines bright:-In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,

And they did make no noise; in such a night, Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls, And sigh'd his soul toward the Grecian tents, Where Cressid lay that night.

Jes. In such a night

Did This be fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
And ran dismay'd away.

Lor. In such a night

Stood Dido with a willow in her hand

Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love,

To come again to Carthage.

Jes. In such a night

Medea gather'd the enchanted herbs,

That did renew old son.

Lor. In such a night

Did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew;

And with an unthrift love did run from Venice As far as Belmont.

Jes. In such a night

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well; Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,

And ne'er a true one.

Lor. In such a night

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew
Slander her love, and he forgave it her.

PARTING LOVERS.

FROM CYMBELINE.'

Imogen. Thou shouldst have made him
As little as a crow, or less, ere left

To after-eye him.

Pisanio. Madam, so I did.

Imogen. I would have broke mine eye-strings; crack'd them, but

To look upon him, till the diminution

Of space had pointed him sharp as my

needle;

Nay, followed him, till he had melted from

The smallness of a gnat to air; and then

Have turn'd mine eye and wept.-But, good Pisanio, When shall we hear from him?

Pisanio. Be assured, madam,

With his next vantage.

Imogen. I did not take my leave of him, but had
Most pretty things to say, ere I could tell him
How I would think on him, at certain hours,

Such thoughts and such; or I could make him swear
The shes of Italy should not betray

Mine interest and his honour; or have charged him, At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight,

To encounter me with orisons; for then

I am in Heaven for him: or, ere I could

Give him that parting kiss, which I had set
Betwixt two charming words, comes in my father,

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