And darts its meaning from the speaking eyes: And all the passions, all the soul, is there."- Lloyd. "Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod pray you avoid it. : "Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve. . . . O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, -not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted, and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably."-Hamlet's Instruction to the Players. SELECTIONS. POETICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF PURE TONE. LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION. O'er wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule, Of Education, Patience, Love, and Hope. Love too will sink and die. Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies; Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. When overtask'd at length Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way. CRANMER'S PROPHECY. From "Henry Eighth." Let me speak, sir, For heaven now bids me; and the words I utter Let none think flattery, for they 'll find them truth. Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, Which time shall bring to ripeness. She shall be With all the virtues that attend the good, Shall still be doubled on her: truth shall nurse her, Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her: She shall be lov'd and fear'd: Her own shall bless her: Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, And hang their heads with sorrow: Good grows with her: Under his own vine, what he plants; and sing As great in admiration as herself; So shall she leave her blessedness to one, (When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,) Who from the sacred ashes of her honor, Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was, And so stand fix'd: peace, plenty, love, truth, terror, Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him; His honor, and the greatness of his name Shall be, and make new nations: He shall flourish, She shall be, to the happiness of England, An aged princess; many days shall see her, To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her." THIS WORLD IS FULL OF BEAUTY. Gerald Massey. There lives a voice within me, a guest-angel of my heart, And evermore it singeth this sweet song of songs to me This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above; And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. Night's starry tendernesses dower with glory evermore, Morn's budding, bright, melodious hour comes sweetly as of yore; But there be million hearts accurst, where no sweet sun-bursts shine, And there be million hearts athirst for Love's immortal wine. This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above; And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. If faith, and hope, and kindness pass'd, as coin, 'twixt heart and heart, How, thro' the eye's tear-blindness, should the sudden soul upstart! This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above; And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. With truth our uttered language, Angels might talk with men, The burthen'd heart should soar in mirth like Morn's young prophet lark, And Misery's last tear wept on earth, quench Hell's last cunning spark. For this world is full of beauty, as other worlds above; Lo! plenty ripens round us, yet awakes the cry for bread, And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. Dear God! what hosts are trampled 'mid this killing crush for gold! What noble hearts are sapp'd of love! what spirits lose life's hold! Yet a merry world it might be, opulent for all, and aye, With its lands that ask for labour, and its wealth that wastes away. This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above; And, if we did our duty, it might be full of love. The leaf-tongues of the forest, and the flow'r-lips of the sod- PROSE ILLUSTRATIONS OF EFFUSIVE OROTUND QUALITY. ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG. Abraham Lincoln. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation—or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated - can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our power to add or to detract. The world will very little note, nor long remember, what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated, here, to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. |