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SHYLOCK'S SOLILOQUY AND ADDRESS. 211

SHYLOCK'S SOLILOQUY AND ADDRESS.-SHAKESPEARE.

H

́OW like a fawning publican he looks!

I hate him, for he is a Christian;
But more, for that, in low simplicity,

He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,

Even there where merchants most do congregate,
On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
Which he calls interest: cursed be my tribe,
If I forgive him!—

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft,
In the Rialto, you have rated me

About my moneys, and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug;
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe:
You call me--misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,

And all for use of that which is mine own.
Well, then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say,

66

Shylock, we would have moneys;" you say so,
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
And foot me, as you spur a stranger cur
Over your threshold; moneys is your suit.
What should I say to you? Should I not say,
"Hath a dog money? is it possible

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A cur can lend three thousand ducats? or
Shall I bend low, and in a bondsman's key,
With 'bated breath, and whispering humbleness,
Say this-

"Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last:
You spurned me such a day; another time
You called me-dog; and for these courtesies
I'll lend you thus much moneys."

212

THE TWO ROADS.

O

THE TWO ROADS.-RICHTER.

N New Year's night, an old man stood at his window, and looked, with a glance of fearful despair, up to the immovable, unfading heaven, and down upon the still, pure, white earth, on which no one was now so joyless and sleepless as he. His grave stood near him: it was covered only with the snows of age, not with the verdure of youth; and he brought with him out of a whole, rich life, nothing but errors, sins, and diseases; a wasted body; a desolate soul; a heart full of poison; and an old age full of repentance. The happy days of his early youth passed before him, like a procession of spectres, and brought back to him that lovely morning, when his father first placed him on the cross-way of life, where the right hand led by the sunny paths of virtue, into a large and quiet land, full of light and harvests; and the left plunged, by the subterranean walks of vice, into a black cave, full of distilling poison, of hissing snakes, and of dark, sultry vapors.

Alas! the snakes were hanging upon his breast, and the drops of poison on his tongue; and he now, at length, felt all the horror of his situation. Distracted, with unspeakable grief, and with face up-turned to heaven, he cried, "My father! give me back my youth! O, place me once again upon life's cross-way, that I may choose aright!" But his father and his youth were long since gone. He saw phantom-lights dancing upon the marshes, and disappearing at the church-yard; and he said, "These are my foolish days!" He saw a star shoot from Heaven, and, glittering in its fall, vanish upon the earth. "Behold an emblem of my career," said his bleeding heart, and the serpent tooth of repentance digged deeper into his wounds.

His excited imagination showed him spectres flying upon the roof, and a skull, which had been left in the charnel-house, gradually assumed his own features. In the midst of this confusion of objects, the music of the new year flowed down from the steeple, like distant church melodies. His heart began to melt. He looked around the horizon, and over the wide earth, and thought of the friends of his youth, who now, better and happier than he, were the wise of the earth, prosperous men, and the fathers of happy children; and he said, "Like you, I also might slumber,

THE WONDERFUL “ONE-HOSS SHAY."

213

with tearless eyes, through the long nights, had I chosen aright in the outset of my career. Ah, my father, had I hearkened to thy instructions I too might have been happy!”

In this feverish remembrance of his youthful days, the skull bearing his features seemed slowly to rise from the door of the charnel-house. At length, by that superstition which, in the New Year's night, sees the shadow of the future, it became a living youth. He could look no longer: he covered his eyes: a thousand burning tears streamed down and fell upon the snow. In accents scarcely audible, he sighed disconsolately: "Oh, days of my youth, return, return!" And they did return. It had only been a hɔrrible dream. But, although he was still a youth, his errors had been a reality. And he thanked God, that he, still young, was able to pause in the degrading course of vice, and return to the sunny path which leads to the land of harvests.

Return with him, young reader, if thou art walking in the same downward path, lest his dream become thy reality. For if thou turnest not now, in the spring-time of thy days, vainly, in after years, when the shadows of age are darkening around thee, shalt thou call, "Return, oh beautiful days of youth!" Those beautiful days, gone, gone forever, and hidden in the shadows of the misty past, shall close their ears against thy miserable cries, or answer thee in hollow accents, "Alas! we return no more.".

THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY."-0. W. HOLMES.

AVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay?

HA

That was built in such a logical way?

It ran a hundred years to a day,

And then, of a sudden, it-Ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened, without delay-

Scaring the parson into fits,

Frightening people out of their wits

Have you heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive-
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.

214

THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY"

That was the year when Lisbon town

Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.

It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now, in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always, somewhere, a weakest spot-
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring, or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace-lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will-
Above or below, or within or without-
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

وو

But the Deacon swore-(as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum or an "I tell yeou ")—
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry roun';

It should be so built that it couldn't break daown ;—
"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain,
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,

Is only jest

To make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split, nor bent, nor broke—
That was for spokes, and floor, and sills;
He sent for lancewood, to make the thills:

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees;
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs from logs from the "Settler's ellum "-
Last of its timber-they couldn't sell 'em-
Never an ax had seen their chips,

THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY."

And the wedges flew from between their lips,

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips:
Step and prop-iron, bólt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue
Thoroughbrace, bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide,
Found in the pit where the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, " naow she'll dew!"
Do! I tell you, I rather guess

She was a wonder and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,

Children and grandchildren-where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay,
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED-it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred, increased by ten-
"Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came-
Running as usual-much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive;

And then came fifty-and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large:
Take it. You're welcome.-No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER-the Earthquake-day.-
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay-

But nothing local, as one may say.

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