Which make such wanton gambols with the wind,
Upon supposed fairness, often known

To be the dowry of a second head,

The skull that bred them, in the sepulchre.
Thus ornament is but the guiled shore

To a most dangerous sea: the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.

Merchant of Venice. Act iii. Scene 2,

MENTAL ENDOWMENTS MORE PRECIOUS THAN PHYSICAL.

Petruchio.

"Tis the mind that makes the body rich;

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,

So honour peereth in the meanest habit.

What, is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or, is the adder better than the eel,

Because his painted skin contents the eye?
Oh no!

Taming of the Shrew. Act iv. Scene 3.

PAST SORROWS.

SHOULD NOT BURDEN THE PRESENT.

Prospero. Let us not burden our remembrances

With a heaviness that's gone.

Tempest. Act v. Scene 1.

Proteus. Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lamentest.

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

Paulina.

Should be past grief.

Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act iii. Scene 1.

What's gone, and what's past help,

Winter's Tale. Act iii. Scene 2.

York. Things past redress, are now with me past care.

King Richard II. Act ii. Scene 3.

Duke. When remedies are past, the griefs are ended; By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,

Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

What cannot be preserv'd when Fortune takes,

Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robb'd, that smiles, steals something from the thief; He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.

Othello. Act i. Scene 3.

PATERNAL LOVE.

Prospero.*

Oh! a cherubim

Thou wast, that did preserve me! Thou did smile,
Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have deck'd the sea with drops full salt;
Under my burden groan'd; which rais'd in me

An undergoing stomach, to bear up

Against what should ensue.

Tempest. Acti. Scene 1.

PATIENCE.

Iago. How poor are they, that have not patience!— What wound did ever heal, but by degrees?

Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time.

Though other things grow fair against the sun,
Yet fruits that blossom first, will first be ripe.

Othello. Act ii. Scene 3.

*(Addressing his daughter Miranda, and alluding to the time of her infancy, when with her he was tossing on the wide ocean, in a crazy boat, abandoned by his friends and by the world.)

PRESERVATION OF SELF AND

OFFSPRING.

Clifford. To whom do lions cast their gentle looks? Not to the beast that would usurp their den. Whose hand is that, the forest-bear doth lick? Not his, that spoils her young before her face. Who 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting? Not he that sets his foot upon her back. The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on, And doves will peck, in safeguard of their brood.

Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,

Who hath not seen them, (even with those wings
Which sometime they have used with fearful † flight)
Make war with them that climb'd unto their nest,
Offering their own lives in their young's defence
For shame, my liege-make them your precedent!
3rd part King Henry VI. Act ii. Scene 2.

* Creatures not endowed with reason.

+ Timorous.

PHILOLOGY AND PHRASEOLOGY.

USE AND ABUSE OF WORDS.

Viola, (disguised as Cesario.) Thy reason, man? Clown. Troth, Sir, I can yield you none, without words; and words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them.

Twelfth Night. Act iii. Scene 1.

Juliet. What's in a name? that which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.

Romeo and Juliet. Act ii. Scene 2.

RATHER odd that Shakspere should have put into the mouth of a clown, the identical complaint that has been vented in such ludicro-pathetic terms by so many of our modern metaphysicians!

Now, there are some clowns-(I beg their pardons, I mean metaphysicians) of our own days, who use almost precisely the same hard words against language that occur in the passage extracted from Twelfth Night. The following sweeping attack is contained in a late work of important character, and written by a man apparently of no mean talent or learning.