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Rotten opinion, which hath writ me down
After my seeming. Though my tide of blood
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity till now;
Now doth it turn and ebb to the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of Parliament;
And let us chuse such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go
In equal rank with the best govern'd nation;
That war or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us,
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
Our coronation done, we will accite
(As I before remember'd) all our state,
And (Heav'n consigning to my good intents)
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,
Heav'n shorten Harry's happy life one day.

SHAKSPEARE.

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CHAP. XII.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY AND BISHOP OF ELY.

Cant. MY Lord, I'll tell you that self bill is urg'd, Which in the eleventh year o' th' last King's reign, Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, But that the scrambling and unquiet time

Did push it out of further question.

Ely. But how, my Lord, shall we resist it now? Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,

We lose the better half of our possession :

For all the temporal lands which men devout

: )

By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us; being valu'd thus;
As much as would maintain to the King's honour,
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;

And to relief of lazars and weak age

Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houses right well supply'd;
And to the coffers of the king, beside,

A thousand pounds by th' year.

Ely. This would drink deep.

Thus runs the bill.

Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all.

Ely. But what prevention ?

Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.

Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not;

The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortify'd in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration, like an angel came,
And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
T' envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady current, scouring faultse
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this King.

Ely. We're blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the King were made a prelate.
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You'd say, it had been all in all his study.
List his discourse of war, and you shall heas
A fearful battle rendered you in music -

Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter. When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still;
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences:
So that the act and practice part of life,
Must be the mistress to this theorique.

Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain;
His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequesteration

From open haunts, and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive, and ripen best, Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, Grew like the summer-grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so for miracles are ceas'd: And therefore we must needs admit the means, How things are perfected.

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SHAKSPEARE.

CHAP. XIII,

HAMLET AND HORATIΟ.

HOR. HAIL to your Lordship!
HAM. I am glad to see you well,

Horatio or I do forget myself.

HOR. The same, my Lord, and your poor servant ever. HAM. Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with

you:

And what makes you from Whittenburg, Horatio ?
HOR. A truant disposition, good, my Lord.
HAM. I would not hear your enemy say so;

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
To make it truster of your own report
Against yourself. I know you are no truant;
But what is your affairs in Elsinoor?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HOR. My Lord, I came to see your father's funeral.
HAM. I pr'thee do not mock me, fellow-student;
I think it was to see my mother's wedding.
HOR. Indeed, my Lord, it follow'd hard upon.
HAM. Thrift, thrift, Horatio ; the funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I have met my dearest foe in heav'n,
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio !
My father-Methinks I see my father.
HOR. Oh where, my Lord?

HAM. In my mind's eye, Horatio.
Hor. I saw him once, he was a goodly King.
HAM. He was a man take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again.

HOR. My Lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAM. Saw! who?

HOR. My Lord, the King your father.

HAM. The King my father!

HOR. Season your admiration but a while,

With an attentive ear; till I deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.

HAM. For Heaven's love, let me hear.
HOR. Two nights together had these gentlemen,

Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead waste and middle of the night,

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Been thus encounter'd: A figure like your father,
Arm'd at all points exactly, cap-a-pee,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them; thrice he walk'd
By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon's length; whilst they (distill'd
Almost to jelly with th' effect of fear)
Stand dumb, and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did,
And I with them the third night kept the watch:
Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.

HAM. But where was this?

HOR. My Lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. HAM. Did you not speak to it?

Нок. My Lord, I did;

But answer made it none.

Yet once methought

It lifted up its head, and did address

Itself to motion, like as it would speak,

But even then the morning cock crew loud;

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,

And vanish'd from our sight.

HAM. 'Tis very strange.

HOR. As I do live, my honour'd Lord, 'tis true;

And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.

HAM. Indeed, indeed, sir, but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch to-night?

HOR. We do, my Lord.

HAM. Arm'd, say you?

HOR. Arm'd my Lord.

HAM. From top to toe?

HOR. My Lord, from head to foot.

HAM. Then saw you not his face ?

HOR. O, yes, my Lord; he wore his beaver up.

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