The one sudden flash of the old nobleness which he has shewn in pardoning Shimei, he himself stultifies with his dying lips by a mean command to Solomon to entrap and slay the man whom he has too rashly forgiven.

Answer Shimei when he curses you and you will echo his profanity.

But he, though bad, is follow'd by a worse, The wretch who Heaven's anointed dared to curse; Shimei, whose youth did early promise bring Of zeal to God and hatred to his king, Did wisely from expensive sins refrain, And never broke the Sabbath but for gain; Nor ever was he known an oath to vent, Or curse, unless against the government.

During his office treason was no crime; The sons of Belial had a glorious time: For Shimei, though not prodigal of pelf, Yet loved his wicked neighbour as himself.

600 When two or three were gather'd to declaim Against the monarch of Jerusalem, Shimei was always in the midst of them; And if they cursed the king when he was by, Would rather curse than break good company.

"Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which they take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times worse than t'other fellow.

"Ananias" keeps still and winks to "Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper which they take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times worse than t'other fellow.

If you meddle with "Shimei," he steps out, and next week appears "Rab-shakeh," an unsavory wretch; and now, at any rate, you find out what good sense there was in Hezekiah's "Answer him not."No, no,keep your temper.

Besides, I had a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant images and gentle words than with sharp sayings, which will only afford a text, if anybody repeats them, for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. Ananias, Shimei, and Rab-sha-keh.

However, it makes a more piquant and dramatic picture to represent Shimei as a type of the wretch of insolence and servility compact, with a tongue ever ready to be loosed against the unfortunate, and a knee ever ready to be bent to the strong.

] "There is not a character in the world which has so bad an influence upon it as this of Shimei.

While power meets with honest checks, and the evils of life with honest refuge, the world will never be undone; but thou, Shimei, hast sapped it at both extremes: for thou corruptest prosperity, and 'tis thou who hast broken the heart of poverty.

Go where you will, in every quarter, in every profession, you see a Shimei following the wheels of the fortunate through thick mire and clay.

Haste, Shimei, haste!

Shimei girdeth up his loins and speedeth after him.

Shimei doubles his speed; but 'tis the contrary way: he flies like the wind over a sandy desert....

Stay, Shimei! 'tis your patron, your friend, your benefactor, the man who has saved you from the dunghill.

'Tis all one to Shimei.

Shimei is the barometer of every man's fortune; marks the rise and fall of it, with all the variations from scorching hot to freezing cold upon his countenance that the simile will admit of.

See, it hangs over Shimei's brow!

Look not into the Court Calendar, the vacancy is filled in Shimei's face.

Art thou in debt, though not to Shimei?

What, then, Shimei, is the fault of poverty so black?

And though the sermon ends in orthodox fashion, with an assurance that, in spite of the Shimeis by whom we are surrounded, it is in our power to "lay the foundation of our peace (where it ought to be) within our own hearts," yet the preacher can, in the midst of his earlier reflections, permit himself the quaintly pessimistic outburst: "O Shimei!

In the sixteenth sermon, the one on Shimei, we find: "There is no small degree of malicious craft in fixing upon a season to give a mark of enmity and ill will: a word, a look, which at one time would make no impression, at another time wounds the heart, and, like a shaft flying with the wind, pierces deep, which, with its own natural force, would scarce have reached the object aimed at.