To sell and mart your offices for gold

To undeservers.

Cas. I an itching palm!

You know that you are Brutus that speak this,
Or, by the gods! this speech were else your last.
Bru. The name of Cassius honours this corruption,
And chastisement doth therefore hide its head.

Cas. Chastisement!

Bru. Remember March, the Ides of March remember! Did not great Julius bleed for justice' sake?

What! shall one of us,

That struck the foremost man of all this world
But for supporting robbers—shall we now
Contaminate our fingers with base bribes,
And sell the mighty space of our large honours
For so much trash as may be grasped thus ?
I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,
Than such a Roman.

Cas. Brutus, bay not me:

I'll not endure it. You forget yourself,
To hedge me in; I am a soldier

Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Bru. Go to! you are not, Cassius.
Cas. I am.

Bru. I say you are not,

Cas. Urge me no more; I shall forget myself: Have mind upon your health; tempt me no farther.

Bru. Away, slight man!

Cas. Is't possible?

Bru. Hear me, for I will speak.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?

Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

Cas. Must I endure all this?

Bru. All this! ay, more. Fret till your proud heart

Go, show

And make

break:

your

slaves how choleric you are, your bondmen tremble. Must I budge? Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch

Under your testy humour? By the gods!
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you; for from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish.

Cas. Is it come to this?

Bru. You say you are a better soldier: Let it appear so; make your vaunting true, And it shall please me well.

For mine own part,

I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Cas. You wrong me every way-you wrong me, Brutus :

I said an elder soldier, not a better.

Bru. If you did, I care not.

Cas. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me,

Bru. Peace, peace; you durst not so have tempted him. Cas. I durst not?

Bru. No.

Cas. What! durst not tempt him?
Bru. For your life you durst not.

Cas. Do not presume too much upon my love,

I do that I shall be sorry for,

may

Bru. You have done that you should be sorry There is no terror, Cassius in

your

threats;

For I am arm'd so strong in honesty,

That they pass by me as the idle wind

Which I respect not.

I did send to you

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;
For I can raise no money by vile means.

By heavens! I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring

From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash,
By any indirection. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions,

for.

Which you denied me! Was that done like Cassius? Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,

To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods! with all your thunderbolts
Dash him in pieces.

Cas. I denied you not.

Bru. You did.

Cas. I did not: he was a fool

That brought my answer back. Brutus hath rived my heart;

A friend should bear a friend's infirmities;

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
Bru. I do not. Still you practise them on me.
Cas. You love me not.

Bru. I do not like your faults.

Cas. A friendly eye could never see such faults. Bru. A flatterer's would not, though they did appear As huge as high Olympus.

Cas. Come Antony! and young Octavius, come: Revenge yourself alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is a-weary of the world

Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
Check'd like a bondman; all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learn'd and conn'd by rote,
To cast into my teeth. Oh, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes!-There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast-within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold;
If that thou need'st a Roman's, take it forth!
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart.
Strike as thou didst at Cæsar, for I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him better
Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Bru. Sheathe your dagger,

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope:
Do what you will, dishonour shall be humour.
O Cassius, you are yoked with a man

That carries anger as the flint bears fire,
Who, much enforced, shows a hasty spark,

And straight is cold again.

Cas. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood ill-temper'd vexeth him?
Bru. When I spoke that, I was ill-temper'd too.
Cas. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.
Bru. And my heart too. (Embracing.)

Cas. O Brutus!

Bru. What's the matter?

Cas. Have you not love enough to bear with me, When that rash humour which

Makes me forgetful?

my mother

gave me

Bru. Yes, Cassius: and, from henceforth, When you are over-earnest with your Brutus, He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

THE YOUNG HUSBAND'S COMPLAINT.
GEORGE BENNETT.

Oн, how I wish that crochet work
Had never been invented!
No ease I find for heart or mind,
I seem like one demented.

My home is not the same home now;
Where ease and quiet cheer?
My pretty wife is not the "life"

Whose love would once endear.

I get home weary, business-worn,
She scarce my presence heeds:
O'er patterns bent, with gaze intent,
Her mystic scroll she reads.
In vain I murmur my complaints,
And at such treatment quibble,
She says again," one plain, six-chain,
Long stitch, and then three treble."

On sofa or on easy-chair,

I never dare recline me,

Like fish in net, I fast am set,

And meshes strong confine me.

And hark! "That Gorgon head of thine-
Anti-macassar's ruin-

Why, I shall faint, 'twould try a saint
To bear with such a bruin."

My wardrobe has no warder now,
Vests, socks, and ties all droop;
And if to mend she condescend,
The rent is "crosier'd" up.
While, one by one, like falling leaves,
The buttons leave each shirt-
She never heard that horrid word
But she was 66 so much hurt!"

But, oh! my bedroom, what a scene
Of covers, doylies, spreads:
The counterpane is double-chain,
The hangings open threads;
The window curtains, wove as fine
As fair Titania's veil;

The toilet things like insects' wings,
Transparent, filmy, frail.

All this might suit some gentle youths,
Of the lily-handed type:
Who'd pause and gaze, select and praise,
With taste matured and ripe;

But I, a toiling scribbler, need
To rub off ink and dust,

My "mortal coil" will stain and soil,
And wash, alas! I must.

Thus day by day with galling links
My crochet chain is wove;
I'm looped, and bound, and netted round,
And crossed in life and love:

My pattern wife has used me up,

I've neither hope nor pride;

Her needles crook'd have drawn and hook'd Dead stitches in my side.

(Contributed.)