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Glen. The Heav'ns were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

Hot. O, then the earth shook to see the Heav'ns on fire! And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; and the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd,
By the impris'ning of unruly wind

Within her womb, which, for enlargement striving,
Shakes the old beldame earth, and topples down
High tow'rs and moss-grown steeples. At your birth,
Our grandam earth with this distemperature
In passion shook.

Glen. Cousin, of many men

I do not bear these crossings: give me leave
To tell you once again, that at my birth
The front of Heav'n was full of fiery shapes;
The goats ran from the mountains; and the herds
Were strangely clam'rous in the frighted fields:
These signs have mark'd me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show,

I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipt in with the sea

That chides the banks of England, Wales, or Scotland,
Who calls me pupil, or hath read to me?

And bring him out, that is but woman's son,
Can trace me in the tedious ways of art,

Or hold me pace in deep experiments.

Hot. I think there is no man speaks better Welsh.
Glen. I can speak English, Lord, as well as you;

For I was train'd up in the English court,

Where, being young, I framed to the harp

Many an English ditty lovely well,

And gave the tongue a helpful ornament;

A virtue that was never seen in you.

Hot. Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart;

I'd rather be a kitten, and cry mew!

Than one of these same metre-balladmongers!

I'd rather hear a brazen candlestick turn'd,

Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree,

And that would nothing set my teeth on edge,

Nothing so much as mincing poetry;
"Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag.-
Glen. I cau call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hot. Why so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come, when you do call for them?
Glen. Why, I can teach thee to command the devil.
Hot. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil,
By telling truth; Tell truth, and shame the devil.-
If thou hast pow'r to raise him, bring him hither,
And I'll be sworn I've pow'r to drive him bence.
O, while you live, Tell truth, and shame the devil.
SHAKSPEARE.

66

CHAP. XIX.

HOTSPUR READING A LETTER.

BUT for my own part, my Lord, I could be well con"tented to be there in respect of the love I bear your "house." He could be contented to be there; why is he not then? "In respect of the love he bears our house?" He shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. "The pur

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pose you undertake is dangerous." Why, that is certain: it is dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink but I tell you, my Lord fool, out of this nettle danger we pluck this flower safety. "The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain, the time "itself unsorted, and your whole plot too light for the "counterpoise of so great an opposition." Say you so! say you so! I say unto you again, you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lackbrain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant; a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue this is! Why, my lord of York commends the plot, and the general course of the action. By this hand, if I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Are there not my father, my uncle, and myself, lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York, and

Owen Glendower? Is there not, besides, the Douglas? Have I not all their letters, to meet me in arms by the ninth of next month? And are there not some of them set forward already. What a Pagan rascal is this! an infidel! Ha! you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart will he to the King, and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself, and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honourable an action. Hang him, let him tell the King. We are prepared, I will set forward to night. SHAKSPEARE.

BOOK VII.

Descriptive Pieces.

66

CHAP. I.

SENSIBILITY.

DEAR Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows! thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw, and it is thou who liftest him up to Heaven. Eternal Fountain of our feelings! It is here I trace thee, and this is thy divinity which stirs within me not, that in some sad and sickening moments, 'my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction"-mere pomp of words!-but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself—all comes from thee, great, great Sensorium of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our head but falls upon the ground, in the remotest desert of thy creation. Touched with thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when I languish; hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou givest a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains. He finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock. This mo

ment I behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it.-Oh! had I come one moment sooner!-it bleeds to death-his gentle heart bleeds with it.

Peace to thee, generous swain! I see thou waikest off

with anguish-but thy joys shall balance it; for happy is thy cottage, and happy is the sharer of it, and happy are the lambs which sport about you.

STERNE.

CHAP. II.

LIBERTY AND SLAVERY.

DISGUISE thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change- -no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron- -with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious Heaven! grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.-

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow-creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me

I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had seen

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