h into blank verse.

"If we helde our peace (my sonne) and determined not to speake, the state
of our poore bodies, and present sight of our rayment, would easely bewray
to thee what life we haue led at home, since thy exile and abode abroad.
But thinke now with thy selfe, howe much more unfortunately then all the
women liuinge we are come hether, considering that the sight which should
be most pleasaunt to all other to beholde, spitefull fortune hath made
most fearfull to us: making my selfe to see my sonne, and my daughter
here, her husband, besieging the walles of his natiue countrie. So as that
which is the only comfort to all other in their adversitie and miserie, to
pray unto the goddes, and to call to them for aide, is the onely thinge
which plongeth us into most deepe perplexitie. For we cannot (alas)
together pray, both for victorie, for our countrie, and for safety of thy
life also: but a worlde of grievous curses, yea more than any mortall
enemie can heappe uppon us, are forcibly wrapt up in our prayers. For the
bitter soppe of most harde choyce is offered thy wife and children, to
foregoe the one of the two: either to lose the persone of thy selfe, or
the nurse of their natiue contrie. For my selfe (my sonne) I am determined
not to tarrie, till fortune in my life time doe make an ende of this
warre. For if I cannot persuade thee, rather to doe good unto both
parties, then to ouerthrowe and destroye the one, preferring loue and
nature before the malice and calamitie of warres: thou shalt see, my
sonne, and trust unto it, thou shalt no soner marche forward to assault
thy countrie, but thy foote shall tread upon thy mother's wombe, that
brought thee first into this world."

The length of this quotation will be excused for its curiosity; and it
happily wants not the assistance of a Comment. But matters may not always
be so easily managed:--a plagiarism from Anacreon hath been detected:

The Sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast Sea. The Moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the Sun.
The Sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The Moon into salt tears. The Earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stol'n
From gen'ral excrements: each thing's a thief.

"This," says Dr. Dodd, "is a good deal in the manner of the celebrated
_drinking Ode_, too well known to be inserted." Yet it may be alleged by
those who imagine Shakespea