Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

Act III. Scene I.

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch :
Fire answers fire: and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face:

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents,
The armourers accomplishing the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets up,

Give dreadful note of preparation.*

Act Iv.-Chorus.

That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch ! You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. Act IV. Scene I.

exact words used by Shakspere. In an early edition of the poet's works, the passage is thus, "His nose was as sharpe as a pen, and a table of green fields;" and in another copy, also an early one, it is written, "His nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green frieze."

*This speech, with some variations, is incorporated with the stage version of Richard the Third (Act v., Scene 5), and is part of the soliloquy uttered by the king from his tent prior to the battle of Bosworth field.

O, hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subject to the breath of every fool,

Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing !
What infinite heart's ease must king's neglect,

If he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt

find the best king of good fellows.

Act v. Scene 2.

She is a woman; therefore to be won.*

Scene 3.

Act v.

* See also quotations from Titus Andronicus.

KING HENRY VI.-PART II.

Brave peers of England, pillars of the state,
To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief;
Your grief, the common grief of all the land.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted!
Thrice is he arm'd, that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

* The play of Richard the Third, as presented on the stage, contains many extracts from Shakspere's Henry the Sixth. In the stage play, Richmond says (Act v., Scene 1), "Thrice is he arm'd that has his quarrel just."

And in Act v., Scene 8, Richard exclaims,

"Richard is hoarse with daring thee to arms."

Many other passages too will be found quoted from one or other of the parts of Henry the Sixth. The well-known

KING HENRY VI.-PART III.

The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.

A little fire is quickly trodden out; which, being

suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.

Act IV. Scene 8.

KING HENRY. What scene of death hath Roscius

now to act?

GLOSTER, Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

exclamation in the acting play of Richard the Third (Act iv., Scene 4)

66 Off with his head! so much for Buckingham.

is not to be found in Shakspere; it is an interpolated line
by Colley Cibber; as also the oft quoted expression,
"Richard's himself again."

And all the clouds that lower'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,
And now-instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries—
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

Act 1. Scene 1.

I run before my horse to market.

Ibid.

To leave this keen encounter of our wits.

Act 1.

Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?
Was ever woman in this humour won?

Scene 2.

Ibid.

And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ,
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Act 1. Scene 3.

So wise, so young, they say, do ne'er live long.
Act III. Scene I.