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And on thy blade, and dudgeon,* goutst of blood,
Which was not so before.-There's no such thing;
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world,
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus, with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.-Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time,

Which now suits with it.-Whiles I threat, he lives
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

I

go, and it is done; the bell invites me.

Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell

That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

LESSON CXCV.

Dialogue from Macbeth.-SHAKSPEARE.

;

SCENE.-MALCOLM and MACDUFF, in the king's palace in England
Enter Rosse from Scotland.

Macduff. See, who comes here?

Malcolm. My countryman; but yet I know him not.
Macd. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove
The means that make us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, Amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?

Rosse. Alas, poor country;

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave: where nothing
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile ;

Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead men's knell

Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,

Dying, or ere they sicken.

*Haft, handle. + Drops. [gouttes, French.] "Gut for drop is still used in Scotland by physicians."-Johnson. The diphthong ou in gouts has the sound of oo, as in croup and group.

Macd. O, relation,

Too nice, and yet too true!

Mal. What is the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. How does my wife?

Rosse. Why, well.

Macd. And all my children?

Rosse. Well too.

Macd. The tyrant has not battered at their peace?

Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them.
Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes it?
Rosse. When I came hither to transport the tidings,
Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumor

Of many worthy fellows that were out;
Which was to my belief witnessed the rather,
For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot:
Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
To doff their dire distresses.

Mal. Be it their comfort,

We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men ;
An older, and a better soldier, none

That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howled out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch* them.
Macd. What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,†
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind, that's honest,

But in it shares some wo; though the main part

Pertains to you

alone.

Macd. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me; quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever, Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound

That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Humph! I guess at it.

* Catch.

+ A grief that has a single owner.

This interjection, implying doubt and deliberation, and more correctly written hum, is sounded inarticulately, with the lips closed.

Rosse. Your castle is surprised; your wife and babes
Savagely slaughtered: to relate the manner,
Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer,
To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful heaven!

What! man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all
That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence!

My wife killed too!

Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted:

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones?
Did you say, all ?—O, hell-kite !—All?

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.

Macd. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me.-Did heaven look on
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls:-Heaven rest them now!
Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue !-But, gentle heaven,
Cut short all intermission; front to front,

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Mal. This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth
Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above
Put on their instruments.
The night is long, that never finds the day.

Receive what cheer you may;
[Exeunt.

LESSON CXCVI.

The Passions.-An Ode.-COLLINS.

WHEN Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possessed beyond the Muse's painting;
By turns, they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined:
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round,
They snatched her instruments of sound;
And, as they oft had heard apart,
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each, for madness ruled the hour,
Would prove his own expressive power.
First Fear, his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid;
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed; his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings,
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,

And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair—

Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled:-
A solemn, strange, and mingled air :—
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope! with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And băde the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still through all her song:
And where her sweetest theme she chose,

A soft responsive voice was heard at every close,
And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair.

And longer had she sung-but, with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose.

He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look,

The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,

Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of wo;
And, ever and anon, he beat

The doubling drum with furious heat:

And though, sometimes, each dreary pause between,
Dejected Pity at his side,

Her soul-subduing voice applied,

Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,

While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.

Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed;

Sad proof of thy distressful state :

Of differing themes the veering song was mixed:

And, now it courted Love; now, raving, called on Hate

With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,

Pale Melancholy sat retired;

And, from her wild sequestered seat,

In notes, by distance made more sweet,

Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul:

And, dashing soft from rocks around,

Bubbling runnels joined the sound:

Through glades and glooms, the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some haunted streams with fond delay,

(Round a holy calm diffusing,

Love of peace, and lonely musing)

In hollow murmurs died away.

But, O! how altered was its sprightlier tone, When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue, Her bow across her shoulder flung,

Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,

Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thicket rung!-
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known.

The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,

Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green :

Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear,

And Sport leaped up, and seized his beechen spear.

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