To hedge me in; I am a soldier, I,
Older in practice, abler than yourself
To make conditions.

Brutus. Go to! you're not, Cassius.
Cassius. I am.

Brutus. I say you are not.

Cassius. Urge me no more: I shall forget myself; Have mind upon your health: tempt me no further. Brutus. Away, slight man!

Cassius. Is't possible!

Brutus. Hear me, for I will speak.

Must I give way and room to your rash choler?
Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

Cassius. O ye gods! ye gods! Must I endure all this? Brutus. All this! ay, more: fret till your proud heart break.

Go, show your slaves how choleric you are,

And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?
Must I observe you? Must I stand and crouch
Under your testy humor? By the gods,
You shall digest the venom of your spleen,
Though it do split you! for, from this day forth,
I'll use you for my mirth; yea, for my laughter,
When you are waspish.

Cassius. Is it come to this?

Brutus. You say you are a better soldier:

Let it appear so; make your vaunting true,

And it shall please me well. For mine own part,

I shall be glad to learn of noble men.

Cassius. You wrong me; every way you wrong me, Brutus;

I said, an elder soldier, not a better.

Did I say, better?

Brutus. If you did, I care not.

Cassius. When Cæsar lived, he durst not thus have moved me.

Brutus. Peace, peace! you durst not so have tempted

him.

Cassius. I durst not!

Brutus. No.

Cassius. What! Durst not tempt him?

Brutus. For your life, you durst not.

Cassius. Do not presume too much upon my love; I may do that I shall be sorry for.

Brutus. You have done that you should be sorry for. There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats;

For I am armed so strong in honesty,

That they pass by me as the idle wind,

Which I respect not. I did send to you

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me;-
For I can raise no money by vile means:

By heaven, I had rather coin my heart,

And drop my blood for drachmas, than to wring
From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash
By any indirection. I did send

To you for gold to pay my legions;

Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?
Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,
To lock such rascal counters from his friends,
Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts;
Dash him to pieces!

Cassius. I denied you not.

Brutus. You did.

Cassius. I did not;-he was but a fool

That brought my answer back.-Brutus hath rived my

heart:

A friend should bear a friend's infirmities,

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

Brutus. I do not, till you practice them on me.
Cassius. You love me not.

Brutus. I do not like your faults.

Cassius. A friendly eye could never see such faults, Brutus. A flatterer's would not, though they do appear

As huge as high Olympus.

Cassius. Come, Antony, and young Octavius, come! Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius;

For Cassius is a-weary of the world—

Hated by one he loves; braved by his brother;
Checked like a bondman; all his faults observed,
Set in a note-book, learned, and conned by rote,
To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep
My spirit from mine eyes!-There is my dagger,
And here my naked breast; within, a heart
Dearer than Plutus' mine, richer than gold:
If that thou be 'st a Roman, take it forth;
I, that denied thee gold, will give my heart:
Strike, as thou didst at Cæsar; for, I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lovedst him

better

Than ever thou lovedst Cassius.

Brutus. Sheathe your dagger:

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope;
Do what you will, dishonor shall be humor.
O Cassius, you are yokéd with a lamb,
That carries anger, as the flint bears fire;
Who, much enforcéd, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again.

Cassius. Hath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,
When grief and blood, ill-tempered, vexeth him?

Brutus. When I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too. Cassius. Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.

Brutus. And my heart too.

Cassius. O Brutus!

Cassius. Have you not love enough to bear with me,

When that rash humor which my mother gave me,
Makes me forgetful?

Brutus. Yes, Cassius; and from henceforth,
When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,
He'll think your mother chides, and leave you so.

SHAKESPEARE'S Julius Cæsar.

44. ASTROLOGY.

1. The stars were formerly believed to govern the fate of a person in life. The temper was said to be good or bad; the nature, grave or gay, according to the planet that was in the ascendant, as it was called, at a person's birth. We still speak of a disaster, which means, literally, the stroke or blast of an unlucky star. We call an unlucky person "ill-starred."

2. Grave and gloomy people are called saturnine; because those born under the planet Saturn were said to be so disposed. Merry people are called jovial, which literally means, born under the planet Jupiter, or Jove.

3. Active and sprightly people are called mercurial, that is, born under the planet Mercury. Mad people are called lunatics, that is, those who are born under the influence of the Moon. It was formerly believed that the actions of the insane were influenced by the changes of the moon. The sun, moon, and stars were all thought to be fixed to the great heaven, because it seemed to be a great arch heaved up over the flat earth.

4. Astrologers were persons that pretended to tell fortunes by observing the condition of the heavens. Educated people no longer believe these absurd superstitions, but many illiterate persons are still imposed on by astrologers and fortune-tellers.

Adapted from CLODD,

1. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston, in 1803, and died in Concord, Mass., in 1882. For five years. after leaving Harvard College he assisted an elder brother in teaching a school for girls, but the occupation was distasteful. He then studied divinity and became the pastor of a church in Boston.

2. In a few years he resigned the position, and, after traveling in Europe, retired to the quiet village of Concord, whence he went forth to lecture in different parts of the land. No other man has rendered such continuous service in this field.

3. His writings stir the mind and awaken in it a desire to act the manly part and to put forth all its