but for the light of thy face, the son of utter darkness.  When thou runn’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus, or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase in money.  O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light!  Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast drunk me, would have bought me lights as good cheap, at the dearest chandler’s in Europe.  I have maintained that Salamander of yours with fire, any time this two and thirty years; Heaven reward me for it!

THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN.

[From As You Like It.]

Jacques.  All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players:  They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.  At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school:  and then, the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow:  Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like a pard, Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth:  And then the justice, In fair round belly, with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part.  The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side; His youthful hose, well-saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.  Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans[97] teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.

HAMLET’S SOLILOQUY.

  To be, or not to be, that is the question: 
  Whether ’tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
  Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
  And, by opposing, end them?  To die—­to sleep—­
  No more; and, by a sleep, to say we end
  The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
  That flesh is heir to—­’tis a consummation
  Devoutly to be wished:  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: 
  For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
  The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
  The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay,
  The insolence of office and the spurns