In the Days of Shakespeare

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A.S. Barnes, 1905 - 288 pages

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Page 34 - Gentle breath of yours my sails Must fill, or else my project fails, Which was to please : Now I want Spirits to enforce, art to enchant ; And my ending is despair, Unless I be reliev'd by prayer ; Which pierces so, that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free.
Page 170 - Like to the senators of the antique Rome, With the plebeians swarming at their heels, Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in : As, by a lower but loving likelihood, Were now the general of our gracious empress, As in good time he may, from Ireland coming, Bringing rebellion broached on his sword, How many would the peaceful city quit, To welcome him ! much more, and much more cause, Did they this Harry.
Page 67 - But all the story of the night told over, And all their minds transfigured so together, More witnesseth than fancy's images, And grows to something of great constancy ; But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
Page 95 - Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils. Let him, that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators.
Page 208 - tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life...
Page 203 - Wolsey's house, and certain cannons being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff, wherwith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground.
Page 192 - ... t; these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages — so they call them — that many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither.
Page 95 - ... notes, but the general effect of the work is weakened. The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principal subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book which he has too diligently studied. Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design and in its true proportions; a close approach shows the smaller...
Page 61 - Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth. And ere a man hath power to say, — Behold ! The jaws of darkness do devour it up : So quick bright things come to confusion.
Page 211 - And thou oppos'd, being of no woman born, Yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield : lay on, Macduff ; And damn'd be him that first cries,

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