Mr. Frampton. Recollection is feldom of use to our friends, though it may fometimes be ferviceable to ourselves.

FRAM. Take advantage of your own expreffion, my lord, and recollect yourself. Born and educated as I have been, a gentleman, how have you injured both you felf and me, by admitting and uniting in the fame confidence, your rafcally fervant!

LD. EUST. The exigency of my fituation is a fufficient excufe to myself, and ought to have been so to the man who called himself my friend.

FRAM. Have a care, my lord, of uttering the leaft doubt upon that subject; for could I think you once mean enough to suspect the fincerity of my attachment to you, it must vanish at that inftant.

LD. EUST. The proofs of your regard have been rather painful of late, Mr. Frampton..

FRAM. When I fee my friend upon the verge of a precipice, is that a time for compliment? Shall I not rudely. rush forward, and drag him from it? Juft in that ftate you are at prefent, and I will ftrive to fave you. Virtue may languish in a noble heart, and suffer her rival, vice, to ufurp her power; but bafeness-muft not enter, or she flies for ever. The man who has forfeited his own efteem, thinks all the world has the fame consciousness, and therefore is what he deferves to be, a wretch.

LD. EUST. Oh, Frampton ! you have lodged a dagger in my heart.

FRUM. No, my dear Euftace, I have faved you from one, from your own reproaches, by preventing your being guilty of a meannefs, which you could never have forgiven yourself.

LD. EUST. CAN you forgive me, and be ftill my friend?

-But

FRAM. As firmly as I have ever been, my lord. le: us, at prefent, haften to get rid of the mean business we are engaged in, and forward the letters we have no right to detain.

SCHOOL FOR RAKES

С Н А Р.

IX.

DUKE AND LO R D.

DUKE. NOW, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril, than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The feafon's difference; as the icy phang,
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind;
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I fhrink with cold, I fmile, and fay,
This is no flattery; thefe are counsellors,
That feelingly perfuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adverfity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head:

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in ftones, and good in every thing.

Come, shall we go, and kill us venifon!

And yet it irks me, the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should, in their own confines, with forked heads
Have their round haunches gor❜d.

LORD. Indeed, my Lord,

The

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that;

And in that kind fwears you do more ufurp

Than doth your brother that hath banished you.
To day my Lord of Amiens, and myself,

Did fteal behind him, as he lay along

Under an oak, whofe antique root peeps out
Upon the brook that crawls along this wood;
To the which place a poor fequeftered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
Did come to languish; and, indeed, my Lord,
The wretched animal heav'd forth fuch groans
That their discharge did ftretch his leathern coat
Almoft to bursting; and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nofe
In piteous chafe; and thus the hairy fool
Much marked of the melancholy Jaques,
Stood on th' extremeft verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears.

DUKE. But what faid Jaques ?

Did he not moralize this spectacle?
LORD. Oyes, into a thousand fimilies,

First, for his weeping in the needlefs stream ;
Poor Deer, quoth he, thou mak'st. a teftament
As worldlings do, giving thy fum of more
To that which had too much. Then being alone,
Left and abandon'd of his velvet friends;
"Tis right, quoth he, thus mifery doth part
The flux of company. Anon a careless herd,
Full of the pasture, jumps along by him,
And never ftays to greet him: Ay, quoth Jaques,
Sweep on, you fat and greafy citizens,

Tis juft the fashion: wherefore do you look

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?.
Thus moft invectively he pierceth through
The body of the country, city, court,
Yea, and of this our life; fwearing, that we
Are mere ufurpers, tyrants, and what's worse,
To fright the animals, and to kill them up
In their affign'd and native dwelling-place.

DUKE. And did you leave him in this contemplations? LORD. We did, my Lord, weeping and commenting Upon the fobbing deer.

DUKE. Show me the place;

I love to cope him in thefe fullen fits,

For then he's full of matter.

LORD. I'll bring you to him ftraight.

SHAKSPEARL.

CHA P.

X.

DUKE AND JAQUE S.

HY, how now, Monfieur, what a life i

DUKE. WHY,

this,

That your poor friends must woo your company?

What? you look merrily.

JAQ. A fool, a fool;-I met a fool i' th' foreft,

A motley fool; a miferable varlet !

As I do live by food, I met a fool,,

Who laid him down and bafk'd him in the fun,
And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms,

In good fet terms, and yet a motley fool.
Good morrow, fool, quoth I; No, Sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till Heaven hath fent me fortune;
And then he drew a dial from his poak,

And

And looking on it with lack-luftre eye,

Says very wifely, It is ten o'clock;

Thus may we fee, quoth he, how the world wags :
'Tis but an hour ago fince it was nine,

And after one hour more 'twill be eleven ;
And fo from hour to hour we ripe and ripe,^
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot,.
And thereby hangs a tale. When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools fhould be fo deep contemplative ::
And I did laugh, fans intermiffion,
An hour by his dial. O noble fool,

A worthy fool! motley's the only wear?
DUKE. What fool is this..

JAQ. O worthy fool! one that hath been a courtier,

And fays, if ladies be but young and fair,

They have the gift to know it: and in his brain,

Which is as dry as the remainder-bisket

After a voyage, he hath ftrange places cramn'd
With obfervations, the which he vents,

In mangled forms. O that I were a fool!
I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE. Thou fhalt have one.

JHQ. It is my only fuit;

Provided that you weed your better judgments
Of all opinion, that grows rank in them,
That I am wife. I muft have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please; for fo fools have,
And they that are moft galled with my folly

They moft muft laugh. And why, Sir, muft they fo?