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CHAP. XI.

HAMLET'S INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PLAYERS.

SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town crier had spoke my lines. And do not faw the air too much with your hand, thus; but ufe all gently: for in the very torrent, tempeft,and, as I may fay, whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the foul, to hear a robusteous periwig-pated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhews and noife: I could have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'er-doing termagant; it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

BE not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this fpecial obfervance, that you o'erftep not the modefty of Nature: for any thing fo overdone is from the purpofe of playing; whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to Nature; to shew Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the Time, his form and preffure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which muft in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praife, and that highly (not to

speak

speak it profanely) that, neither having the accent of Chriflian, nor the gait of Chriftian, Pagan, nor man, have fo ftrutted and bellowed, that I have thought fome of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably.

AND let thofe that play your clowns, fpeak no more than is fet down for them: for there be of them that will themfelves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren fpectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome necessary queftion of the play be then to be confidered :--that's villainous ; and fhews a most pitiful ambition in the fool that ufes it. SHAKSPEARE.

CHAP. XII.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN

VINDICATED.

HEAVEN from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page preferib'd-their prefent ftate:
From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know,
Or who could fuffer being here below?

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day,
Had he thy reafon, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n;
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.

What

What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never IS, but always TO be bleft:
The foul, uneafy and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untator'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind;
His foul proud Science never taught to stray
Far as the Solar Walk, or Milky Way;
Yet fimple nature to his hope has given
Behind the cloud topt-hill, an humbler heav'n;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac'd,
Some happier island in the watʼry waste,
Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Chriftians thirst for gold.
To BE, contents his natural defire,

He asks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog fhall bear him company.
Go, wifer thou! and in thy fcale of fenfe
Weigh thý opinion against Providence;
Call imperfection what thou fanciest fuch,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much:
Deftroy all créatures for thy fport or guft,
Yet cry, if man's unhappy God's unjust;
If man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the GOD of GOD.
In pride, in reas'ning Pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rufh into the fkies.

Pride ftill is aiming at the bleft abodes,

Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods.`
Afpiring to be Gods, if Angels fell,
Afpiring to be Angels, Men rebel :
And who but wishes to invert the laws
Of ORDER, fins against th' Eternal Cause.

CHAP. XIII.

ON THE ORDER OF NATURE.

SEE, thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth,

All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high, progreffive life may go!
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vaft chain of Being! which from God began,
Nature æthereal, human; angel, man!
Beast, bird, fish, infect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing.-On fuperior pow're
Were we to prefs, inferior might on ours:
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great fcale's deftroy'd:
From Nature's chain whatever link you ftrike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.
And, if each fyftem in gradation roll
Alike effential to th' amazing Whole,
The leaft confufion but in one, not all
That fyftem only, but the whole must fall.
Let earth, unbalanc'd, from her orbit fly,
Planets and funs run lawless thro' the sky;

POPE.

Let

Let ruling Angels from their spheres he hurl'd,
Being on being wreck'd, and world on world;
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And Nature trembles to the throne of God.

All this dread ORDER break-for whom? for thee,
Vile worm !-Oh Madness! Pride! Impiety!
What if the foot, ordain'd the duft to tread,
Or hand, to toil, afpir'd to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin'd
To ferve mere engines to the ruling Mind?
Juft as abfurd for any part to claim
To be another, in this general frame =
Juft as abfurd to mourn the tasks or pains
The great directing MIND of ALL ordains.

All are but parts of one ftupendous whole,
Whofe body Nature is, and God the foul:
That, chang'd thro' all, and yet in all the fame,
Great in the earth, as in th' æthereal frame.
Warms in the fun, refreshes in the breeze,,
Glows in the ftars, and bloffoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unfpent;
Breaths in our foul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile Man that mourns,
As the rapt Seraph that adores and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no fmall-
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.

Ceafe then! nor ORDER Imperfection name; Our proper blifs depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.

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