HUBERT AND ARTHUR.

BY SHAKSPEARE.

Hubert. If I talk to him, with his innocent prate He will awake my mercy which lies dead: Therefore I will be sudden, and despatch. [Aside. Arthur. Are you sick, Hubert? you look pale to-day:

In sooth, I would you were a little sick :
That I might sit all night, and watch with you:
I warrant, I love you more than you do me.

Hub. His words do take possession of my bosom.
Read here, young Arthur (Showing a paper)
How now, foolish rheum!

Turning dispiteous torture out of door!
I must be brief, lest resolution drop

Out at mine eyes, in tender womanish tears.
Arth. Only you do lack

That mercy which fire, and iron, extends,
Creatures of note for mercy-lacking uses.

Hub. Well, see to live; I will not touch thine

eyes

For all the treasure that thine uncle owes :

Yet I am sworn and I did purpose, boy,

With this same very iron to burn them out.

Arth. O, now you look like Hubert! all this

Hub. Peace: no more. Adieu :
Your uncle must not know but you are dead:
I'll fill these dogged spies with false reports.
And, pretty child, sleep doubtless, and secure,
That Hubert, for the wealth of all the world,
Will not offend thee.

CLEMENCY SUPERIOR TO REVENGE

BY SHAKSPEARE.

Prospero. SAY, my spirit,

How fares the king and his followers?

Ariel. Confined together

In the same fashion as you gave in charge;
Just as you left them, sir; all prisoners
In the lime-grove which weather-fends your cell
They cannot budge, till your release. The king,
His brother, and yours, abide all three distracted;
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow, and dismay; but chiefly
Him you term'd, sir, "The good old lord,
Gonzalo ;"

His tears run down his beard, like winter drops From eaves of reeds: your charm so strongly works them

That if you now beheld them, your affections

Would become tender.

Prosp. Dost thou think so, spirit?

Ari. Mine would, sir, were I human.
Prosp. And mine shall.

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions? and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the
quick,

Yet, with my nobler reason, 'gainst my fury,
Do I take part: the rarer action is

In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further: Go, release them, Ariel; My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore, And they shall be themselves.

Spider! thou need'st not run in fear about
To shun my curious eyes:

I won't humanely crush thy bowels out-
Lest thou should'st eat the flies;

Nor will I roast thee with a damn'd delight

Thy strange instinctive fortitude to see,
For there is one who might

One day roast me.

Southey,

A SOLDIER'S PARDON.

BY JOANNA BAILLIE.

Basil. I KNOW thee well, I know thou fearest not death;

On scaffold or in field, with dauntless breast,
Thou wilt engage him: and if thy proud soul,
In sullen obstinacy scorns all grace,

E'en be it so. But if with manly gratitude,
Thou truly canst receive a brave man's pardon,
Thou hast it freely.

Frederick. It must not be. I've been thine enemy

I've been unjust to thee

Bas, I know thou hast ;

But thou art brave, and I forgive thee all.

Fred. My lord! my general! O, I cannot speak!

I cannot live and be the wretch I am?

Bas. But thou canst live and be an honest man, From error turn'd,-canst live and be my friend. Raising Fred. from the ground. Forbear, forbear! see where our friends advance: They must not think thee suing for a pardon; That would disgrace us both.

PATRIOTISM.

Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside,
His home the spot of earth supremely blest-
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

Montgomery