or an over-bold defence. And let not the counsel at the bar chop' with the judge, nor wind himself into the handling of the cause anew, after the judge hath declared his sentence; but, on the other side, let not the judge meet the cause half way, nor give occasion to the party to say his counsel or proofs were not heard.

Thirdly, for that that concerns clerks and ministers.

5

The place

4

of justice is a hallowed place; and therefore not only the bench, but the footpace and precincts, and purprise thereof, ought to be preserved without scandal and corruption; for, certainly, grapes (as the Scripture saith) "will not be gathered of thorns or thistles," neither can justice yield her fruit with sweetness among the briers and brambles of catching and polling clerks and ministers. The attendance of courts is subject to four bad instruments: first, certain persons that are sowers of suits, which make the court swell, and the country pine: the second sort is of those that engage courts in quarrels of jurisdiction, and are not truly "amici curiæ," but "parasiti curiæ," ," in puffing a court up beyond her bounds for their own scraps and advantages: the third sort is of those that may be accounted the left hands of courts, persons that are full of nimble and sinister tricks and shifts, whereby they pervert the plain and direct courses of courts, and bring justice into oblique lines and labyrinths and the fourth is the poller and exacter of fees, which justifies the common resemblance of the courts of justice to the bush, whereunto while the sheep flies for defence in weather, he is sure to lose part of the fleece. On the other side, an ancient clerk, skilful in precedents, wary in proceedings, and understanding in the business of the court, is an excellent figure of a court, and doth many times point the way to the judge himself.

Fourthly, for that which may concern the sovereign and estate. Judges ought, above all, to remember the conclusion of the Roman Twelve Tables, "Salus populi suprema lex;" and to know that laws, except they be in order to that end, are but things captious, and oracles not well inspired: therefore it is a happy thing in a state, when kings and states do often consult with judges: and again, when judges do often consult with the king and state: the one, where there is matter of law intervenient 10 in business of state; the other, when there is some consideration of state intervenient in matter of law; for many times the things deduced to judgment may 5 Plundering. 7 Plunderer.

1 To bandy words. 2 A lobby. 3 Enclosure. 4 Matt. vii. 16.
"Friends of the court," but "parasites of the court."
Of great experience.
10 Intervening.

"The safety of the people is the supreme law."

be "meum" and "tuum," when the reason and consequence thereof may trench to point of estate: I call matter of estate, not only the parts of sovereignty, but whatsoever introduceth any great alteration or dangerous precedent: or concerneth manifestly any great portion of people; and let no man weakly conceive that just laws, and true policy, have any antipathy; for they are like the spirits and sinews, that one moves with the other. Let judges also remember, that Solomon's throne was supported by lions on both sides: let them be lions, but yet lions under the throne; being circumspect, that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty. Let not judges also be so ignorant of their own right as to think there is not left them, as a principal part of their office, a wise use and application of laws; for they may remember what the apostle saith of a greater law than theirs, "Nos scimus quia lex bona est, modo quis ea utatur legitime." 3

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon in April, 1564, and died April 23, 1616. It is evident that his townsmen and most of his contemporaries had no idea of his future greatness, and scarcely any accounts of his youth or of the beginning of his literary career have come down to us. It is surprising that all personal recollections of such a man should have disappeared with his generation, and that from the pen of so prolific a writer only his will and three other autographs now remain. Criticism and research have probably done their utmost, and we must be content to study the life of our greatest poet in his works. The only important facts respecting him, which do not rest in part on conjecture, are, that he was educated in the grammar school of his native town, was detected once in deer stealing in the neighboring park of the Lucys, was married while still in his minority, — that he appeared in early manhood as an actor, dramatist, and afterwards manager, in London, where he enjoyed the friendship of Ben Jonson, Drayton, and other men of letters, that he acquired a competency, and retired to Stratford, where he died. He was careless of his fanie, and took little pains to have his plays correctly printed, to defend his claims to his own productions, or to disavow the authorship of inferior works falsely attributed to him by booksellers. No specimens of his plays are given in this volume, for reasons stated in the preface. A few sonnets only have been selected; but even these would be sufficient to establish his claim to high rank among poets.

The student can have his choice among many excellent editions of Shakespeare. Two very admirable editions have appeared in this country, one edited by Richard Grant White, the other by Rev. H. N. Hudson.

[Selected Sonnets.]

XVIII.

SHALL I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate :
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

1 "Mine" and "thine."

2 1 Kings x. 20.

"We know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully."-1 Tim. i. 8.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

XXIX.

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least ;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate:
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

XXX.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanéd moan,
Which I new pay, as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

XXXIII.

Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace.
Even so my sun one early morn did shine,
With all triumphant splendor on my brow;
But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine,
The region cloud hath masked him from me now.

Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

Suns of the world may stain, when heaven's sun staineth.

LII.

So am I as the rich, whose blesséd key

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming, in the long year set
Like stones of worth they thinly placéd are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.

Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, being lacked, to hope.

LV.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth: your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity,

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

LXXIII.

-

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, -
Bare, ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest;
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

LXXVI.

Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside

To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,'

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?

O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent:
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love, still telling what is told.

1 Well-known garb. Weed anciently meant clothing in general; it is modern usage that has limited it to mourning.