Shakespeare Commentaries, Volume 1

Front Cover
Smith, Elder & Company, 1883 - 955 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page xlii - This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it), Like to a tenement, or pelting farm: England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds: That England, that was wont to conquer others, Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Page 191 - Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell : It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with -love's wound, And maidens call it Love-in-idleness.
Page 212 - For nought so vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give ; Nor aught so good, but, strain'd from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse : Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime 's by action dignified.
Page 706 - Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream : The genius, and the mortal instruments, Are then in council; and the state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an insurrection.
Page 460 - And for that riches where is my deserving? The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting, And so my patent back again is swerving. Thyself thou gav'st, thy own worth then not knowing Or me, to whom thou gav'st it, else mistaking ; So thy great gift, upon misprision growing, Comes home again, on better judgment making. Thus" have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
Page 96 - ... 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; the censure of the which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others.
Page 573 - Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When honour's at the stake.
Page 897 - What, in ill thoughts again ? Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither : Ripeness is all : Come on.
Page 800 - I' the commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things ; for no kind of traffic Would I admit ; no name of magistrate ; Letters should not be known : riches, poverty, And use of service, none ; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none : No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil : No occupation ; all men idle, all ; And women too ; but innocent and pure : No sovereignty : — Seb.
Page 4 - Though I, once gone, to all the world must die : The earth can yield me but a common grave. When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie. Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read ; And tongues to be, your being shall rehearse, When all the breathers of this world are dead ; You still shall live (such virtue hath my pen) Where breath most breathes, — even in the mouths of men.

Bibliographic information