My people suffer. I will take that scroll For such a lie its proper place is there. (Dashes paper on the floor and stamps on it.) There is a trust placed in my hand by God; Crom. If we be hirelings, we do not flee When the wolf cometh. Yea, we shall stand fast. Of English liberty. Thou art the patch On our new garment Beware, or we shall hew that keystone out; (Puts on his hat.) (CROMWELL sullenly uncovers.) Under our favour, sir, you have spoken much, I think I know, I should not shrink from it. One, who if once our dynasty should wane, A scourge, the Commons' plait to lash themselves; Crom. Charles Stuart! Thyself shalt bear this message back. (IRETON beckons on Soldiers.) King. Traitor! Is this thy faith? (Draws his sword.) King. (Throwing down his sword.) I am alone! and will not call my friends. Which of you touches his anointed King? (Soldiers hold back.) Crom. (Drawing.) In God's name, that will I. Enter the QUEEN. Queen. (Waving her handkerchief.) God save the King! Enter HUNTLY and strong force of Cavaliers. Cavaliers. God save the King! [CROMWELL and his Soldiers form on one side, HUNTLY and his Cavaliers on the other. (By permission of the Author.) THE REPROACH OF CHARLES THE FIRST TO HIS BETRAYER. W. G. WILLS. [See p. 386.] [MORAY approaches with downcast head, and gradually sinks on his knee before the KING, during his speech. I SAW a picture once by a great master, 'Twas an old man's head. Narrow and evil was its wrinkled front- It is a score of years since then, my lord. [CHARLES turns to CROMWELL. Sir, you demand my sword. I yield it you! (By permission of the Author.) SPEECHES AND SOLILOQUIES. DRAMATIC. HAMLET'S ADVICE TO THE PLAYERS. SHAKSPEARE. [See page 312.] SPEAK 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) 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. 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 anything 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 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 profanely, 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 them, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. Ŏ! 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 meantime 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. OTHELLO'S ADDRESS TO THE SENATE. SHAKSPEARE. [See page 312.] MOST potent, grave, and reverend signiors, The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more. Řude am Ï in my speech, In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration, and what mighty magic (For such proceeding I am charged withal), I won his daughter. I do beseech you, Send for the lady to the Sagittary, And let her speak of me before her father: The trust, the office, I do hold of you, Not only take away, but let your sentence Even fall upon my life. Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place. And, till she come, as truly as to heaven I do confess the vices of my blood, So justly to your grave ears I'll present Her father loved me; oft invited me; I ran it through, even from my boyish days, Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach ; And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence, And portance. In my traveller's history (Wherein of antres vast, and desarts idle,* Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak), such was my process;— And of the Cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear But still the house affairs would draw her thence; That my youth suffered. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore,-In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful : She wished she had not heard it; yet she wished That heaven had made her such a man: she thanked me: And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: And I loved her that she did pity them. HOTSPUR'S ACCOUNT OF THE FOP. [See page 312.] My liege, I did deny no prisoners. But I remember, when the fight was done, And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held * Sterile, barren. |