NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

held,

That valor is the chiefest virtue, and

Most dignifies the haver: if it be, The man I speak of cannot in the world

Be singly counterpoised. At sixteen years,

When Tarquin made a head for
Rome, he fought
Beyond the mark of others: our
then dictator,

Whom with all praise I point at, saw him fight

When with his Amazonian chin he drove

The bristled lips before him: he bestrid

An o'erpressed Roman, and in the consul's view

Slew three opposers: Tarquin's self he met,

And struck him on his knee: in that

day's feats,

When he might act the woman in the scene,

He proved best man of the field, and for his meed

Was brow-bound with the oak. His pupil age

List his discourse of war, and you shall hear

A fearful battle rendered you in music:

Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,

The air, a chartered libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;

So that the air and practic part of life

Must be the mistress to this theoric: Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,

Since his addiction was to courses vain:

His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow;

His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,

And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity. SHAKSPEARE.