And like the tyrannous breathing of the north,
Shakes all our buds from growing.

RELUCTANCE OF LOVERS TO PART.

SCENE BETWEEN ROMEO AND JULIET.'

Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale and not the lark,
That pierc'd the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops:
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Jul. Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:

It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch-bearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua: Therefore, stay yet, thou need'st not to be gone. Rom. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I'll say, yon grey is not the morning's eye, 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: I have more care to stay, than will to go;

Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so!How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day. Jul. It is, it is; hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us:

Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes; O, now, I would they had chang'd voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunts-up to the day; O now be gone; more light and light it grows. Rom. More light and light!-more dark and dark our woes!

GLOSTER

DREAMS OF THE CROWN, AND DESCANTS ON HIS DEFORMITY.

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

I'll make my heaven in a lady's lap, And deck my body in gay ornaments, And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks. O miserable thought! and more unlikely Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns! Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb: And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub; To make an envious mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size:
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be beloved?

O, monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!
Then since this earth affords no joy to me,
But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
As are of better person than myself,

I'll make my heaven-to dream upon the crown!
And whilst I live, to account this world but hell!
Until my mis-shap'd trunk that bears this head
Be round impaled with a glorous crown!
And yet I know not how to get the crown;
For

many lives stand between me and home: And I,-like one lost in a thorny wood

That rends the thorns, and is rent with the thorns;
Seeking a way, and straying from the way;
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,—
Torment myself to catch the English crown!
And from that torment I will free myself,
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder whilst I smile;
And cry content to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears;

And frame my face to all occasions.

I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;

I'll play the orator as well as Nestor;

Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school:
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut! were it further off, I'll pluck it down.

Were it not to exhibit the genius of our poet, and to prepare our readers for what follows in relation to this character, either as Gloster, or Richard the Third, we should scarcely have ventured to quote the above speech, so powerfully descriptive, as it certainly is, of a monster of wickedness. May we not hope that the ugliness of vice, as here depicted, will lead not a few to admire and cling to virtue, whether such be found amongst those who inhabit the lowly cottage, or the magnificent palace.

GLOSTER'S LOVE FOR LADY ANNE.

FROM RICHARD THE THIRD.'

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,
Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops:
These eyes which never shed remorseful tear,—
Not, when my Father York and Edward wept,
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made,
When black-faced Clifford shook his sword at him:
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,

Told the sad story of my father's death;
And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,
Like trees bedash'd with rain: in that sad time,
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear;

And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.
I never sued to friend or enemy;

My tongue could never learn sweet soothing words;
But now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,

My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

GLOSTER'S UTTERANCES AFTER HIS

SUCCESSFUL ADDRESSES.

FROM RICHARD THE THIRD.

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

I'll have her,—but I will not keep her long.
What! I that kill'd her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate;
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness of her hatred by;

With God, her conscience, and these bars against me, And I no friends to back my suit withal,

But the plain devil and dissembling looks,

And yet to win her,—all the world to nothing!
Ha!