er! There's more gold; cut-throats;
All that you meet are thieves! To Athens, go,
Break open shops! Nothing can you steal
But thieves do lose it!"_

Jaques, in the forest of Arden, discourses to the exiled Duke of the fools
of fortune, and the nature of man.

"_A fool, a fool!--I met a fool in the forest
A motley fool;--a miserable world!
As I do live by food, I met a fool;
Who laid him down and basked him in the sun,
And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms.
In good set terms,--and yet a motley fool.
Good morrow, fool, quoth I. No, sir, quoth he,
Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune;
And then he drew a dial from his poke;
And looking on it with lack-luster eye
Says very wisely: It is ten o'clock;
Thus may we see, quoth he, how the world wags;
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;
And after an hour more, 'twill be eleven;
And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then from hour to hour, we rot and rot,
And thereby hangs a tale! When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep contemplative;
And I did laugh sans intermission,
An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
A worthy fool! Motley is the only wear!"_

* * * * *

_"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits, and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and pewking in the nurse's arms;
And then the whining school boy, with his satchel,
And shining, morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwilling to school; and then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow; then a soldier;
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth; and then the justice;
In fair, round belly, with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances,
And so, he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon;
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side;
His youthful hose well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and h