Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father, Armed at point exactly, cap-à-pié, Appears before them, and with solemn march Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd Ham. By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes, Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distill'd Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me In dreadful secrecy impart they did; And I with them the third night kept the watch: Form of the thing, each word made true and good, But where was this? Mar. My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd. Hor. Ham. My lord, I did; But answer made it none: yet once methought Itself to motion, like as it would speak; But even then the morning cock crew loud, 'Tis very strange. Ham. Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me. Ham. Then saw you not his face? Hor. Oh, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up. Ham. What, look'd he frowningly? Hor. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger. Ham. Pale or red? Hor. Nay, very pale. Ham. Hor. Most constantly. Ham. And fix'd his eyes upon you? I would I had been there. Hor. It would have much amazed you. Ham. Very like, very like. Stay'd it long? Hor. While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. Hor. It was, as I have seen it in his life, Ham. A sable silver'd. I will watch to-night; Perchance 't will walk again. I warrant it will. Hor. I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape I'll visit you. DEFINITIONS.-Tru'ant, wandering from business, loitering. Trust'er, a believer. At-těnt', attentive, heedful. De-liv'er, to communicate, to utter. Căp-a-pïe' (from the French, pro. kåp-äpee'), from head to foot. Trůn'çheon (pro. trůn'shun), a short staff, a baton. Bea'ver, a part of the helmet covering the face, so constructed that the wearer could raise or lower it. Těn'a-ble, capable of being held. NOTES.-What make you from Wittenberg? i. e., what are you doing away from Wittenberg? Wittenberg is a university town in Saxony, where Hamlet and Horatio had been school-fellows. Elsinore is a fortified town on one of the Danish islands, and was formerly the seat of one of the royal castles. It is the scene of Shakespeare's "Hamlet." Hard upon; i. e., soon after. Funeral baked meats. This has reference to the ancient custom of funeral feasts. My dearest foe; i. e., my greatest foe. A common use of the word "dearest" in Shakespeare's time. Or ever; i. e., before. Season your admiration; i. e., restrain your wonder. Armed at point; i. e., armed at all points. Did address itself to motion; i. e., made a motion. Give it an understanding, etc.; i. e., understand, but do not speak of it. I will requite your loves, or, as we should say, I will repay your friendship. CX. DISSERTATION ON ROAST PIG. Charles Lamb (b. 1775, d. 1834) was born in London. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, where he was a school-fellow and intimate friend of Coleridge. In 1792 he became a clerk in the India House, London, and in 1825 he retired from his clerkship on a pension of £441. Lamb never married, but devoted his life to the care of his sister Mary, who was at times insane. He wrote "Tales founded on the Plays of Shakespeare," and several other works of rare merit; but his literary fame rests principally on the inimitable "Essays of Elia" (published originally in the "London Magazine "), from one of which the following selection is adapted. 1. MANKIND, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. 2. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his "Mundane Mutations," where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cooks' Holiday. The manuscript goes on to say that the art of roasting, or rather broiling (which I take to be the elder brother), was accidentally discovered in the manner following: 3. The swine-herd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son, Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who, being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion till it was reduced to ashes. 4. Together with the cottage, -a sorry, antediluvian make-shift of a building, you may think it,-what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-born pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods we read of. 5. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labor of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils unlike any scent which he had before experienced. 6. What could it proceed from? Not from the burnt cottage, he had smelt that smell before, indeed, this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same |