Ham. CCXXXII. HAMLET. ACT III. SCENE II.-A Hall in the Castle. Enter HAMLET and Players. PEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it outherods Herod : pray you, avoid it. First Play. I warrant your honour. Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor : suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it pro The Rwose that decked her Breast. 383 fanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. First Play. I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir. Ham. O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready. CCXXXIII. W. Shakespeare. THE RWOSE THAT DECKED HER BREAST. OOR Jenny wer her Robert's bride An' zoo the wold vo'k* meäde her come Vorseäken, to her maïden hwome. But Jenny's merry tongue wer dumb; She walked alwone wi' eye-balls wet, The jilliflower, an' noddèn pink, An' rwose that touched her soul to think Ov woone * Wold vo'k, old folk. + Spike, lavender. Wcone, one. Vor at her weddèn, just avore An' then her cheäk wi' youthvul blood A little beäby wi' his feäce To smile an' nestle in the pleäce Wher the rwose did deck her breast. W. Barnes. CCXXXIV. EVENING. Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. St. Luke, xxiv. 29. IS gone, that bright and orbéd blaze, In darkness and in weariness Sun of my soul! Thou Saviour dear, * Thik, that. t'Tis peale's, 'tis as pale as. Oh may no earth-born cloud arise When round Thy wondrous works below Or by the light Thy words disclose When with dear friends sweet talk I hold, When the soft dew of kindly sleep Abide with me from morn till eve, Thou Framer of the light and dark, Steer through the tempest Thine own ark: Amid the howling wintry sea We are in port if we have Thee. The Rulers of this Christian land, 'Twixt Thee and us ordained to stand,— Guide Thou their course, O Lord, aright, Let all do all as in Thy sight, сс Oh! by Thine own sad burthen, borne Teach Thou Thy priests their daily cross If some poor wandering child of Thine Watch by the sick : enrich the poor Come near and bless us when we wake, We lose ourselves in Heaven above. 7. Keble. CCXXXV. TO A CHILD. OME, my beauty, come, my bird; Of a garden and a child, When the fresh elms are first in bud, Clasp that short-reaching arm about a neck Stript of a deeper love's more close embrace, And with the softness of thy baby-cheek Press roses on a care-distainéd face. |