THE

BEAUTIES OF SHAKSPEARE.

PART I.----COMEDIES.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

ACT I.

Advice.

Be thou blest, Bertram ! and succeed thy father In manners, as in shape! thy blood, and virtue, Contend for empire in thee; and thy goodness Share with thy birth-right! Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy Rather in power, than use; and keep thy friend Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence, But never tax'd for speech.

Too ambitious Love.

I am undone; there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it, he is so above me : In his bright radiance and collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his sphere. The ambition in my love thus plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by the lion, Must die for love. 'Twas pretty, though a plague, To see him every hour; to sit and draw

His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls,
In our heart's table ;* heart, too capable
Of every line and trick+ of his sweet favour :
But now he's gone, and my idolatrous fancy
Must sanctify his relics.

Cowardice.

I know him a notorious liar,

Think him a great way fool, solely a coward:
Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him,

That they take place, when virtue's steely bones
Look bleak in the cold wind.

The Remedy of Evils generally in Ourselves.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky
Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull,
Our slow designs, when we ourselves are dull.
Character of a noble Courtier.

In his youth

He had the wit, which I can well observe
To-day in our young lords; but they may jest
Till their own scorn return to them unnoted,
Ere they can hide their levity in honour.
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awaked them; and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and at this time,
His tongue obey'd his hand :§ and who below him
He used as creatures of another place :

And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,

*Helena considers her heart as the tablet on which his resemblance was pourtrayed.

Peculiarity of feature.
§ His is put for its.

Countenance.

Making them proud of his humility.

Such a man

Might be a copy to these younger times.

ACT II.

Honour due to personal Virtue only, not to Birth.
From lowest place when virtuous things proceed,
The place is dignified by the doer's deed :
Where great additions* swell, and virtue none,
It is a dropsied honour: good alone

Is good, without a name; vileness is so :†
The property by what it is should go,
Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair;
In these to nature she's immediate heir;
And these breed honour; that is honour's scorn,
Which challenges itself as honour's born,
And is not like the sire: Honours best thrive,
When rather from our acts we them derive
Than our foregoer's: the mere world's a slave,
Debauch'd on every tomb; on every grave,
A lying trophy, and as oft is dumb,

Where dust and damn'd oblivion is the tomb
Of honour'd bones indeed.

ACT III.

Self-accusation of too great Love.

Poor lord! is't I

That chase thee from thy country, and expose
Those tender limbs of thine to the event

Of the non-sparing war? and is it I

That drive thee from the sportive court, where thou Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark

Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers,

*Titles.

† Good is good independent of any worldly distinction, and so is vileness vile.