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From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate
To nothing temporal.

Ang. Well; come to me to-morrow.
Lucio. Go to; it is well; away!
Isab. Heaven keep your honor safe!
Ang. Amen! for I

Am that way going to temptation,
Where prayers cross.

Isab. At what hour to-morrow

Shall I attend your lordship?
Ang. At any time 'fore noon.

Isab. Save your honor!

[Aside to Isabel.

[Exeunt Lucio and Isabel.

Ang. From thee; even from thy virtue!

What's this? what's this? Is this her fault, or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most? Ha!
Not she; nor doth she tempt; but it is I,

That, lying by the violet, in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary,

And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!

What dost thou? or what art thou, Angelo?

O, let her brother live!

Thieves for their robbery have authority,

When judges steal themselves. What! do I love her

That I desire to hear her speak again,

And feast upon her eyes? What is 't I dream on?

O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,

With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.

LESSON XXXI.

Cause and Effect. — LATIMER.

[The following short extract from the works of a somewhat distinguished martyr of the sixteenth century very happily satirizes the propensity to form hasty judgments of cause and effect, without due consideration. As an exercise in reading, it affords a good opportunity

for the display of the imitative powers of the voice, in the shrill and piping tones of imbecile old age.]

1. MASTER MORE was once sent in commission into Kent, to help to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of Goodwin sands, and the shelf that stopped up Sandwich haven. Thither cometh Master More, and calleth the country before him, such as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could of likelihood best certify him of that matter concerning the stopping of Sandwich haven.

2. Among others came in before him an old man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little less than a hundred years old. When Master More saw this aged man, he thought it expedient to hear him say his mind in this matter; for, being so old a man, it was likely that he knew most of any man in that presence and company.

3. So Master More called this old aged man unto him, and said, "Father, tell me, if ye can, what is the cause of this great rising of the sands and shelves here about this haven, the which stop it up, so that no ships can arrive here? Ye are the eldest man that I can espy in all this company; so that, if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of likelihood can say most of it, or, at leastwise, more than any man here assembled."

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4. "Yea, forsooth, good master," quoth this old man; "for I am well-nigh a hundred years old, and no man here in this company anything near unto my age.". Well, then," quoth Master More, "how say you in this matter? What think ye to be the cause of these shelves and flats that stop up Sandwich haven ?"

5. "Forsooth, sir," quoth he, "I am an old man; I think that Tenderden-steeple is the cause of Goodwin sands; for I am an old man, sir," quoth he, "and I may remember the building of Tenderden-steeple, and I may remember when there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenderden-steeple was in building, there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands that stopped the haven; and therefore I think that Tenderden-steeple is the cause of the destroying and decay of Sandwich haven."

*The Goodwin or Godwin sands are large sand-banks, about seven miles from the coast of Kent, in England, near the harbor of Sandwich. They were said to have been part of the estate of the Earl of Goodwin, which, from neglect in preserving the dykes, were washed into the sea.

LESSON XXXII.

The Parent and the Teacher. - SIR ROGER ASCHAM.*

1. Ir is pity that commonly more care is had, and that among very wise men, to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. To the one they will gladly give a stipend of two hundred crowns by the year, and loth to offer the other two hundred shillings. God, that sitteth in heaven, laugheth their choice to scorn, and rewardeth their liberality as it should; for he suffereth them to have tame and well-ordered horses but wild and unfortunate children.

2. One example, whether love or fear doth work more in a child for virtue and learning, I will gladly report; which may be heard with some pleasure, and followed with more profit. Before I went into Germany, I came to Broadgate, in Leicestershire, to take my leave of that noble Lady Jane Grey, to whom I was exceeding much beholden.

3. Her parents, the duke and the duchess, with all the household, gentlemen and gentlewomen, were hunting in the park. I found her in her chamber, reading Plato in Greek, and that with as much delight as some gentlemen would read a merry tale in Bocace.

4. After salutation and duty done, with some other talk, I asked her why she would lose such pastime in the park? Smiling, she answered me, "I wisst all their sport in the park is but a shadow to that pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas! good folk, they never felt what true pleasure meant.”—“ And how came you, madam," quoth I, "to this deep knowledge of pleasure? And what did chiefly allure you unto it, seeing not many women, but very few men, have attained thereunto."

5. "I will tell you," quoth she, "and tell you a truth which, perchance, ye will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me is, that he sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster.

6. 66 For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be

*Sir Roger Ascham was tutor to Queen Elizabeth of England, in the year 1548. This piece is written in the style of that early age. + Wiss is a word not now in use, but very common in the days of A scham. It means think.

merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world, or else 1 am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea, presently, sometimes, with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways, which I will not name for the honor I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in misery till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer; who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing, whiles I am with him.

7. "And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because, whatever I do else, but learning, is full of grief, trouble. fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that, in respect of it, all other pleasures. in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me."

LESSON XXXIII.

Times go by Turns. -R. SOUTHWELL.*

-

1. THE loppéd tree in time may grow again,
Most naked plants renew both fruit and flower;
The sorriest wight may find release of pain,
The driest soil suck in some moistening shower;
Time goes by turns, and chances change by course,
From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

2. The sea of fortune doth not ever flow;

go;

She draws her favors to the lowest ebb :
Her tides have equal times to come and
Her loom doth weave the fine and coarsest web :
No joy so great but runneth to an end,
No hap so hard but may in fine amend.

3. Not always fall of leaf, nor ever spring:
Not endless night, yet not eternal day:
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus, with succeeding turns, God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, yet fear to fall.

*He lived in the middle of the sixteenth century.

4. A chance may win that by mischance was lost;
That net that holds no great, takes little fish;
In some things all, in all things none are crossed;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish.
Unmingled joys here to no man befall;

Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all.

LESSON XXXIV.

Story Telling-STEELE.*

1. I HAVE often thought that a story-teller is born, as well as a poet. It is, I think, certain that some men have such a peculiar cast of mind that they see things in another light than men of grave dispositions. Men of a lively imagination and a mirthful temper will represent things to their hearers in the same manner as they themselves were affected with them; and whereas serious spirits might perhaps have been disgusted at the sight of some odd occurrences in life, yet the very same occurrences shall please them in a well-told story, where the disagreeable parts of the images are concealed, and those only which are pleasing exhibited to the fancy.

2. Story-telling is therefore not an art, but what we call a "knack;" it doth not so much subsist upon wit as upon humor; and I will add, that it is not perfect without proper gesticulations of the body, which naturally attend such merry emotions of the mind. I know very well that a certain gravity of countenance sets some stories off to advantage, where the hearer is to be surprised in the end. But this is by no means a general rule; for it is frequently convenient to aid and assist by cheerful looks and whimsical agitations.

3. I will go yet further, and affirm that the success of a story very often depends upon the make of the body, and the formation of the features, of him who relates it. I have been of this opinion ever since I criticised upon the chin of Dick Dewlap. I very often had the weakness to repine at the prosperity of his conceits, which made him pass for a wit with the widow at the coffee-house, and the ordinary mechanics that frequent it; nor could I myself forbear laughing at them most

* Born 1665; died 1729.

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