"The play's the thing
Wherewith to touch the conscience of the king."

So he pours forth from his "Unpublished Play" a choice tirade against
the royal play of human ninepins:--

"And then a battle, too--no doubt it is
A right fine thing; or rather to have been there.
But all things have their price; and this, methinks,
Is rather dear sometimes. Oh! glory's but
The tatter'd banner in a cobwebb'd hall,
Open'd not once a-year--a doubtful tomb,
With half the name effaced. Of all the bones
Have whiten'd battle-fields, how many names
Live in the chronicle? and which were in the right?
One murder hangs a man upon a rope,
A hundred thousand maketh him a god,
And builds him up a temple in the air
Out of men's skulls. A loving mother bears
A thousand pangs to bring into the world
One child; your warrior sends a thousand out,
Then picks his teeth."

JOHN BELL--_Unpublished Play_.

Such was Shakspeare's momentary humour, when he put it into Falstaff's
mouth to ask what honour is "to him that died o' Wednesday." It is a
humour that won't last--'tis against nature--man is more than half
belligerent, and has a "murder" in him (to give it a bad name) "that