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This day was viewed in public, as his queen,

Going to chapel; and the voice is now

Only about her coronation.

Wol. There was the weight that pulled me down. O Cromwell, The king has gone beyond me: all my glories

In that one woman I have lost forever:

No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors,

Or gild again the noble troops that waited

Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell;

I am a poor, fallen man, unworthy now

To be thy lord and master. Seek the king;

That sun, I pray, may never set! I have told him
What and how true thou art: he will advance thee;
Some little memory of me will stir him,

(I know his noble nature,) not to let

Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell,
Neglect him not; make use now, and provide
For thine own future safety.

Crom. O, my lord,

Must I then leave you? Must I needs forego
So good, so noble, and so true a master?

Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,
With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord;
The king shall have my service, but my prayers
For ever and for ever shall be yours.

Wol. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.

Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull, cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee;
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me.
Cromwell, I charge thee fling away ambition;
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?

Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not;
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,

Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;

And,-pr'ythee, lead me in.

There, take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny; 't is the king's my robe,
And my integrity to Heaven, is all

I dare now call my own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal

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The hopes of court! my hopes in heaven do dwell.

SHAKSPEARE.

LESSON CI.O

CHARACTER OF CARDINAL WOLSEY.

Queen Catherine. Didst thou not tell me, Griffith. as thou led'st me, That the great child of honor, Cardinal Wolsey,

Was dead?

Griffith. Yes, madam; but, I think, your grace,

Out of the pain you suffered, gave no ear to 't.

Q. Cath. Pr'ythee, good Griffith, tell me how he died: If well, he stepped before me, happily,

For my example.

Grif.

Well, the voice goes, madam:

For, after the stout Earl Northumberland

Arrested him at York, and brought him forward (As a man sorely tainted) to his answer,

He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill,

He could not sit his mule.

Q. Cath. Alas! poor man!

Grif. At last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
Lodged in the Abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent, honorably received him;
To whom he gave these words,-"O, father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye;
Give him a little earth for charity!"
So went to bed; where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight, (which he himself
Foretold should be his last), full of repentance,
Continued meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honors to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.

Q. Cath. So may he rest; his faults lie gently on him!
Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak him,
And yet with charity. He was a man

Of unbounded stomach, ever ranking

Himself with princes; one, that by suggestion
Tied all the kingdom; simony was fair play;
His own opinion was his law; in the presence,*
He would say untruths, and be ever double,

*In the presence of the king.

Both in his words and meaning. He was never,
But where he meant to ruin, pitiful;
His promises were, as he was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is, nothing.
Grif. Noble Madam,

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good, now?

Q. Cath. Yes, good Griffith;

I were malicious else.

Grif.

This cardinal,

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly
Was fashioned to much honor.

From his cradle

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading;
Lofty and sour, to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer;
And, though he were unsatisfied in getting,
(Which was a sin,) yet, in bestowing, Madam,
He was most princely. Ever witness for him
Those twins of learning, that he raised in you,
Ipswich and Oxford: one of which fell with him,
Unwilling to outlive the good that did it;
The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,
So excellent in art, and still so rising,
That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.
His overthrow heaped happiness upon him;
For then, and not till then, he felt himself,
And found the blessedness of being little;
And, to add greater honors to his age

Than man could give him, he died fearing God.

Q. Cath. After my death, I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,

To keep mine honor from corruption,

But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.

Whom I most hated living, thou hast made me,

With thy religious truth and modesty,

Now in his ashes, honor. Peace be with him!

SHAKSPEARE.

LESSON CII. 02

CHARACTER OF LOUIS FOURTEENTH.

1. CONCERNING Louis the Fourteenth, the world seems, at last, to have formed a correct judgment. He was not a great general; he was not a great statesman; but he was, in one sense of the word, a great king. Never was there so consummate a master

of what James the First of England called king-craft; of all those arts which most advantageously display the merits of a prince, and most completely hide his defects.

2. Though his internal administration was bad; though the military triumphs which gave splendor to the early part of his reign, were not achieved by himself; though his later years were crowded with defects and humiliations; though he was so ignorant that he scarcely understood the Latin of his mass-book; though he fell under the control of a cunning Jesuit, and of a more cunning old woman; he succeeded in passing himself off on his people as a being above humanity. And this is the more extraordinary, because he did not seclude himself from the public gaze, like those + Oriental + despots whose faces are never seen, and whose very names it is a crime to pronounce lightly.

see.

3. It has been said, that no man is a hero to his valet; and all the world saw as much of Louis the Fourteenth as his valet could Five hundred people assembled to see him shave and put on his clothes in the morning. He then kneeled down at the side of his bed, and said his prayers, while the whole assembly awaited the end in solemn silence, the ecclesiastics on their knees, and the laymen with their hats before their faces. He walked about his gardens, with a train of two hundred courtiers at his heels. All Versailles came to see him dine and sup. He was put to bed at night, in the midst of a crowd as great as that which had met to see him rise in the morning. He took his very emetics in state, and vomited majestically in the presence of all his nobles. Yet, though he constantly exposed himself to the public gaze, in situations in which it is scarcely possible for any man to preserve much personal dignity, he, to the last, impressed those who surrounded him, with the deepest awe and reverence.

4. The illusion which he produced on his worshipers, can be compared only to those illusions, to which lovers are proverbially subject, during the season of courtship. It was an illusion which affected even the senses. The cotemporaries of Louis thought him tall. Voltaire, who might have seen him, and who had lived with some of the most distinguished members of his court, speaks repeatedly of his majestic stature. Yet, it is as certain as any fact can be, that he was rather below than above the middle size. He had, it seems, a way of holding himself, a way of walking, a way of swelling his chest and rearing his head, which deceived the eyes of the multitude. Eighty years after his death, the royal + cemetery was violated by the revolutionists; his coffin was opened; his body was dragged out; and it appeared, that the prince whose majestic figure had been so long and loudly extolled, was in truth a little man.

5. His person and government have had the same fate. He had the art of making both appear grand and august, in spite of the clearest evidence that both were below the ordinary standard. Death and time have exposed both the deceptions. The body of the great king has been measured more justly than it was measured by the courtiers, who were afraid to look above his shoe-tie. His public character has been scrutinized by men free from the hopes and fears of Bolieau and Moliere.* In the grave, the most majestic of princes is only five feet eight. In history, the hero and the politician dwindle into a vain and feeble tyrant, the slave of priests and women, little in war, little in government, little in every thing but the art of simulating greatness.

The

6. He left to his infant successor a famished and miserable people, a beaten and humble army, provinces turned into deserts by misgovernment and persecution, factions dividing the army, a *schism raging in the court, an immense debt, an innumerable household, inestimable jewels and furniture. All the sap and nutriment of the state seemed to have been drawn, to feed one bloated and unwholesome texcrescence. The nation was withered. court was morbidly flourishing. Yet, it does not appear that the associations, which attached the people to the monarchy, had lost strength during his reign. He had neglected or sacrificed their dearest interests, but he had struck their imaginations. The very things which ought to have made him unpopular, the prodigies of luxury and magnificence with which his person was surrounded, while, beyond the inclosure of his parks, nothing was to be seen but starvation and despair, seemed to increase the respectful attachment which his people felt for him.

MACAULAY.

LESSON CIII. | O

A PETITION TO THOSE WHO HAVE THE CARE OF YOUTH.

1. I ADDRESS myself to all the friends of youth, and conjure them to direct their compassionate regards to my unhappy fate, in order to remove the prejudices of which I am the victim. There are twin sisters of us; and the eyes of man do not more closely resemble, nor are capable of being upon better terms with each other, than my sister and myself, were it not for the partiality of my parents, who make the most injurious distinctions between us.

*Pronounced Bwi-lo and Mo-le-air.

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