'When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,

And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whoo;

To-whit, to-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot,'

ADAGES AND APOTHEGMS.

Fat paunches have lean pates; and dainty bits make rich the ribs, but bank'rout quite the

wits.

Every man with his affects is born,

God defend the right,

Beauty is bought by judgment of the eye, not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues.

All pride is willing pride,

Short-liv'd wits do wither as they grow.

Good wits will be jangling.

Where fair is not, praise cannot mend the brow.

Truth is truth.

F

Society is the happiness of life.

One drunkard loves another of the name.

Where is any author in the world teaches such

beauty as a woman's eye?

A light heart lives long.

A heavy heart bears not a humble tongue. To wail friends lost, is not by much so wholesome, profitable, as to rejoice at friends but newly found.

Honest, plain words best pierce the ear of grief. A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it.

Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.

Sow'd cockle reap'd no corn.

There's no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown. Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

All delights are vain; but that most vain which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE.

NATURAL CHARACTER.

There is a kind of character in thy life,
That, to the observer, doth thy history
Fully unfold: thyself and thy belongings
Are not thine own so proper, as to waste
Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee.
Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do;
Not light them for themselves for if our

virtues

Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not.

touch'd,

Spirits are not finely

But to fine issues: nor nature never lends
The smallest scruple of her excellence,
But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines
Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use.

DANGER OF Excess.

As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint: our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin down their proper bane)
A thirsty evil; and when we drink, we die.

TEMPTATION.

'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall. I not deny,

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May, in the sworn twelve, have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try: What's open made
to justice,

That justice seizes.

What know the laws,

That thieves do pass on thieves? 'Tis very

pregnant,

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it, Because we see it; but what we do not see,

We tread upon, and never think of it.

THE BEAUTY OF MERCY.

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,

The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one half so good a grace
As mercy does.

THE ABUSE OF POWER.

Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet,

For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder; nothing but thunder.

Merciful Heaven!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt,

Splitt'st the unwedgeable and gnarled oak, Than the soft myrtle :-0, but man, proud

man!

Drest in a little brief authority;

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence,—like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,
As make the angels weep; who, with our
spleens,

Would all themselves laugh mortal.