Oh, 'tis a burden, Cromwell, 'tis a burden
Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven!

Go get thee from me, Cromwell;

I am a poor fallen man, unworthy now
To be thy lord and master. Seek the King.
(That sun I pray may never set,) I've told him
What, and how true thou art; he will advance thee,
Some little memory of me will stir him

(I know his noble nature) not to let

Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,
Neglect him not; make use now and provide
For thine own future safety.

Crom.
O my Lord!
Must I then leave you? Must I needs forego
So good, so noble, and so true a master?
Bear witness all that have not hearts of iron,
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.
The King shall have my service, but my prayers
For ever, and for ever, shall be yours.

Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries, but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman-
Let's dry our eyes; and thus far hear me, Cromwell,
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me must more be heard, say then I taught thee;
Say Wolsey, that once rode the waves of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then
(Though th' image of his Maker) hope to win by 't?
Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be at thy country's,

Thy God's and Truth's; then if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr !

Lead me in, and take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny, 'tis the King's. My robe,
And my integrity to Heav'n, is all

I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my King, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies!

DESCRIPTION OF MERCY.-(" Merchant of Venice," Act 4.)
THE quality of mercy is not strain'd:

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd,—
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown :
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

BEES.-("Henry V.,” Act 1.)

So work the honey bees;

Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds ;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home,
To the tent-royal of their emperor :
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone.

SOLITUDE AND ADVERSITY.—(“As You Like It," Act 2.)

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp?

Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,

The seasons' difference; as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,
"This is no flattery; these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am."
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head :

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

HENRY THE FOURTH'S SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.
("Henry IV." Part 2, Act 3.)

How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O gentle Sleep!
Nature's soft nurse how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch
A watch-case for a common larum bell?

Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
And, in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deafening clamours in the slippery shrouds,
That, with the hurly, Death itself awakes-
Canst thou, O partial Sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then, happy, low lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

MORNING.

FULL many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy,
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.

PROPER USE OF TALENTS.-("Measure for Measure," Act 1.)

HEAVEN doth with us, as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not.

Spirits are not finely touched,

But to fine issues; nor nature never lends

The smallest scruple of her excellence,

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

A GOOD CONSCIENCE.—(From "Henry VI.," Part 2, Act 6.)
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 VOICE OF THE DYING.—(" Richard II.," Act 2.)
THE tongues of dying men

Enforce attention, like deep harmony.

Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain :
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say, is listen'd more

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men's ends mark'd, than their lives before :
The setting sun, and music at the close,

As the last taste of sweets is sweetest last;
Writ in remembrance, more than things long past.

MILTON.

MILTON was born in London in 1608, and died in 1674. During a great part of his life he was engaged in discharging the active duties of a political secretary. His youthful poems, such as L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and the Comus, exhibit varied fancy and great tenderness of feeling. But his greatest work is the Paradise Lost, written after his retirement from public life, and which is unequalled for the grandeur and dignity of its conception, and the majesty of its language. During the latter portion of his life he was

afflicted with blindness.

EVENING." Paradise Lost," B. 2.)

Now came still Evening on, and Twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad ;