PORTRAITS.- PERSONAL.-PICTURES. NEBUCHADNEZZAR. THERE was a king that much might, GOWER: Confessio Amantis. Most dignifies the haver: if it be, The man I speak of cannot in the world Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years, When Tarquin made a head for Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight When with his Amazonian chin he drove The bristled lips before him: he bestrid An o'erpressed Roman, and in the consul's view Slew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met, And struck him on his knee: in that Cor. Ha! Measureless liar, thou hast made my heart Too great for what contains it. Boy! O slave! Pardon me, lords, 'tis the first time that ever I was forced to scold. Your judg ments, my grave lords, Must give this cur the lie: and his own notion (Who wears my stripes impressed on him; that must bear My beating to his grave) shall join to thrust The lie unto him. Cut me to pieces, Volsces; men and lads, Stain all your edges on me.- Boy! False hound! If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, That like an eagle in a dove-cote, I Fluttered your Volsces in Corioli: Alone I did it. - Boy! List his discourse of war, and you shall hear 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; that, when he speaks, The air, a chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences; So that the air and practic part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric: Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain: His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow; His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports, And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity. SHAKSPEARE. |