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Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again. Well, believe this:
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel, should it then be thus?
No! I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law, And you but waste your words.

Isab. Alas! alas!

Why all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the 'vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang. Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother:
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him ;-he must die to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow? Oh, that's sudden! Spare him, spare him! He's not prepared for death! Even for our kitchens We kill the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister

To our gross selves! Good, good, my lord, bethink you: Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many have committed it.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept; Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first man that did the edict infringe
Had answered for his deed: now, 'tis awake;
Take note of what is done; and, like a prophet,
Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils
(Either now, or by remissness new-conceived,
And so in progress to be hatched and born,)
Are now to have no successive degrees,
But, where they live, to end.

Isab. Yet show some pity!

Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice; For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismissed offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied:

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isub. So you must be the first that gives this sentence, And he, that suffers! Oh, it is excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.-Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,
For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.
Merciful heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt

Split'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,

Than the soft myrtle:-But man, proud man.
Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,!
His glassy essence,-like an angry ape,

Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.

We cannot weigh our brother with ourself:

Great men may jest with saints: 'tis wit in them,
But, in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Ang.Why do you put these sayings upon me?

Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself.

Go to your bosom:

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That's like my brother's fault; if it confess

A natural guiltiness, such as is his,

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother's life.

Ang. [Aside.] She speaks, and 'tis

Such sense, my sense breeds with it. [To her.] Fare you well. Isab. Gentle, my lord, turn back.

Ang. I will bethink me.-Come again to-morrow.

Isab. Hark how I'll bribe you! Good, my lord, turn back. Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you. Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

Or stones, whose rates are either rich or poor,
As fancy values them: but with true prayers,
That shall be up at heaven, and enter there,
Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls,
From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang. Well; come to me

To-morrow.

Isab. Heaven keep your honor safe!
Ang. Amen.

TROUBLE YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR OWN AFFAIRS.

ELIZA COOK.

You all know the burden that hangs to my song,
Like the bell of St. Paul's, 'tis a common ding-dong;
I don't go to college for classical tools,

For Apollo has now set up national schools.

Oh! mine is a theme you can chant when you may,

Fit for every age and for every day;

And if rich folks say, "Poor folks, don't give yourselves airs!"
Bid them "trouble their heads with their own affairs."

Oh! how hard it appears to leave others alone,
And those with most sin often cast the first stone;
What missiles we scatter wherever we pass,

Though our own walls are formed of most delicate glass!
Let the wise one in “nature's walk," pause ere he shoot
At scampering folly in harlequin suit;

He'd find "motley," no doubt, in what he himself wears,
If he'd "trouble his head with his own affairs."

Our acquaintance stand up with reproving advice,
Where the friend of our soul would be sparingly nice;
But people will see their own farthing-dip shine,
Though they stick it right under a gunpowder mine.
Faults and errors choke up like a snow-storm, I ween,
But we each have a door of our own to sweep clean;
And 'twould save us a vast many squabbles and cares,
If we'd "trouble our heads with our own affairs."

The "Browns" spend the bettermost part of the day
In watching the "Greens," who live over the way;
They know about this, and they know about that,
And can tell Mr. Green when he has a new hat.
Mrs. Brown finds that Mrs. Green's never at home;
Mrs. Brown doubts how Mrs. Green's money can come;
And Mrs. Brown's youngest child tumbles down stairs
Through not "troubling her head with her own affairs."

Mr. Figgins, the grocer, with sapient frown,
Is forsaking the counter to go to "the Crown;"
With his grog and his politics, mighty and big,
He raves like a tory, or swears like a whi:

He discusses the church, constitution, and state,

Till his creditors also get up a debate;

And a plum of rich color is lost to his heirs

Through not "troubling his head with his own affairs."

Let a symptom of wooing and wedding ce found,
And full soon the impertinent whisper goes round;

The fortune, the beauty, the means, and the ends,
Are all carefully weighed by our good-natured friends.
"Tis a chance if the lady is perfectly right,

She must be a flirt, if she is not a fright:

Oh, how pleasant 'twould be if the meddlesome bears
Would but "trouble their heads with their own affairs!"

We are busy in helping the far-away slave;

We must cherish the Pole, for he's foreign and brave;
Our alms-giving record is widely unrolled-

To the east and the west we send mercy and gold;
But methinks there are those in our own famous land
Whose thin cheeks might be fattened by charity's hand;
And when John Bull is dealing his generous shares,
Let him "trouble his head with his own affairs."

We abuse without limit the heretic one

While he bends to the image, or kneels to the sun;
We must interfere with all other men's creeds,

From the Brahmin's white bull to the Catholic's beads;
But Heaven, like Rome, may have many a road
That leads us direct to the wished-for abode;
And a wise exhortation, in Christian prayers,

Would be-" Trouble your head with your own affairs."

TRIUMPHS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.

J. GILBOURNE LYONS.

Now gather all our Saxon bards-let harps and hearts be strung,

To celebrate the triumphs of our own good Saxon tongue! For stronger far than hosts that march with battle-flags unfurled,

It goes with freedom, thought, and truth to rouse and rule the world.

Stout Albion hears its household lays on every surf-worn shore,

And Scotland hears its echoing far as Orkney's breakers roar; It climbs New England's rocky steeps as victor mounts a throne;

Niagara knows and greets the voice, still mightier than its own;

It spreads where winter piles deep snows on bleak Canadian

plains;

And where, on Essequibo's banks, eternal summer reigns.

It tracks the loud, swift Oregon, through sunset valleys rolled,

And soars where California brooks wash down their sands of gold.

It kindles realms so far apart that while its praise you sing, These may be clad with autumn's fruits, and those with flowers of spring.

It quickens lands whose meteor lights flame in an Arctic sky, And lands for which the southern cross hangs orbit fires on high.

It goes with all that prophets told and righteous kings de sired;

With all that great apostles taught and glorious Greeks ad mired;

With Shakspeare's deep and wondrous verse, and Milton's lofty mind:

With Alfred's laws and Newton's lore, to cheer and bless mankind.

Mark, as it spreads, how deserts bloom, and error flees away, As vanishes the mist of night before the star of day!

Take heed, then, heirs of Saxon fame-take heed, nor once disgrace,

With recreant pen or spoiling sword, our noble tongue and race!

Go forth, and jointly speed the time, by good men prayed for long,

When Christian states, grown just and wise, will scorn revenge and wrong;

When earth's oppressed and savage tribes shall cease to pine or roam,

All taught to prize these English words-FAITH, FREEDOM, HEAVEN, and HOME.

"THE MORNING ARGUS" OBITUARY DEPARTMENT.

MAX ADELER.

A rather unusual sensation has been excited in the village by The Morning Argus within a day or two; and while most of the readers of that wonderful sheet have thus been supplied with amusement, the soul of the editor has been filled with gloom and wrath and despair. Colonel Bangs recently determined to engage an assistant to take the place made vacant by the retirement of the eminent art-critic, Mr. Murphy, and he found in one of the lower counties of the State a person who appeared to him to be suitable. The name of the new

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