ys:

_"Go, get thee hence, for I will not away;
What's here? a cup close in my true love's hand;
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end;
O churl! drink all; and leave me no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply, some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make me die with a restorative.
Thy lips are warm!
Yea, noise? Then I'll he brief. O happy dagger!_
(Snatches Romeo's dagger.)
_This is thy sheath, there rust and let me die!"_
(Stabs herself through the heart.)

The Prince, Capulet and Montague family soon discover all, and Friar
Laurence tells the true story, punishment follows, and the two contending
houses of Verona clasp hands over the ruin they have wrought, while the
Prince exclaims:

_"For, never was a story of more woe,
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo!"_

The drop curtain was rung down and up three times, and the storm of
applause that greeted Shakspere and Taylor, as the representatives of Romeo
and Juliet, was never equaled before at the Blackfriars.

The Queen called William and Jo to the royal box and by her own firm hand
presented a signet ring to Romeo and a lace handkerchief to Juliet!

_"What fates impose, that men must needs abide;
It boots not to resist both wind and tide!"_

CHAPTER XII.

"JULIUS CAESAR."

_"O mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low?
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils
Shrunk to this little measure?"_

The assassination of Julius Caesar by Brutus, Cassius, Casca and twenty
other Roman Senators, in the capital of the Empire in broad daylight, was
one of the most cowardly and infamous crimes recorded in the annals of
time.

The historical and philosophical friends of Brutus and Cassius have tried
to justify the conspiracy and assassination by imputing the deep design of
tyranny to Caesar, who was bent on trampling down the rights of the people
and securing for himself a kingly crown.

They say the motive of the conspirators in the deep damnation of Caesar's
"taking off" was purely patriotism. Many murderers have used the same
argument.

The facts do not justify the excuse. For more than thirty years Julius
Caesar had been a star performer on the boards of the Roman Empire, and his
family had been illustrious for five hundred years. Sylla, Marius, Cicero,
Cato, Brutus and Pompey had crossed lances with this civil and military
genius, and had all