Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/242

212 I am a king, that find thee: and I know, 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The enter-tissu'd robe of gold and pearl, The farsed title running 'fore the king, The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp That beats upon the shore of the world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, Not all these, laid in bed majestical, Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave; Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind, Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread, Never sees horrid night, the child of hell: But, like a lacquey, from the rise to set, Sweats in the eye of Phæbus, and all night Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn, Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse; And follows so the ever-running year With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep, Has the forehand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country's peace, Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots, What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages."

Most of these passages are well known: there is one, which we do not remember to have seen noticed, and yet it is no whit inferior to the rest in heroic beauty. It is the account of the deaths of York and Suffolk.

"Exeter. The duke of York commends him to your majesty.