aass_^l__ _i— Book -4 7 -7 THE m ORATORICAL ®&&S3a2ftD®QL$ PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION V- SIMPLIFIED AND ILLUSTRATED BY SUITABLE EXAMPLES: IKTEKDED EOK IKE USE OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SEMINARIES. By A. M. HARTLEY, TEACHER $F ELOCUTION". <&lassxiU): KINTED BY JAMES HEDDERWICK AND SON, • LLMERS AND COLLINS, GLASGOW; VAUGH AND INNES, EDINBURGH ; R. M. TIMS, DUBLIN ; . AND W. B. WHITTAKER, LONDON. 1824. *'*^" ,' \N ^ ^s TO THE REV. RALPH WARDLAW, D. D. Reverend Sir, Fully aware that you aspire to no other distinction than what arises from a faithful discharge of the duties of your sacred office, and, even if you did, that any complimentary effusions from me, could add but little to your fortune or your fame, I refrain from descanting on these virtues and talents which command the esteem and xudmiration of all who know you— and shall simply state, that my chief motives for dedicating the following Compilation to you, are, because I consider you at once an accurate judge of the merits of such a performance, and in many respects a model of that science whose principles t professes to inculcate and explain. I am, Reverend Sir, With the most sincere respect and esteem, Your very obedient Servant, A. M. HARTLEY. PREFACE. Elocution seems at length to have obtained its proper rank in public opinion, and to be reckoned, not merely an ornamental, but a necessary and useful branch of polite education: and, indeed, it seems not a little surprising — in a country where all other literary pursuits are so eagerly and so successfully cultivated, where the pages of philo- phers, historians, orators, and poets, vie with the most splendid productions of Greece and Rome, — that this art, so essential, to public speakers at least, should have re- mained so long neglected, while its utility is universally acknowledged: more especially, in a country, which, in every respect, affords more scope for the display of ora- tory, than any other kingdom in Europe. We do not deny that " Loquendi recte, sapere est et principium et \ fons;" yet, while we grant this, we maintain that no man has ever so much as approached the perfection of oratory, without having paid the most minute attention to his Bfeery: — but as we have sufficiently expressed our sen- ents concerning this subject, in the following " Intro- duction," we shall not provoke the impatience of our readers, by reiterating them here. As, in this work, our ambition is, to be thought rather useful than original, we have endeavored to profit by every thing that has been already written on the subject by any VI PREFACE. author of note, particularly by the celebrated Mr. Walker, to whose single exertions we confess ourselves more in- debted, for any knowledge we possess of the science of speaking, than to all that has been said upon it by all other authors put together. We have taken the liberty to alter the words in many parts of some of the extracts, where the language appeared to us inelegant or ungrammatical, when we could do so without perverting the author's meaning: and we trust it will be seen, that we have not been indifferent to the principles that may be imbibed by a frequent perusal of the lessons. We think it unnecessary to state the reasons that in- duced us to publish the following Compilation. It is sufficient, that we considered something of the kind still wanted, notwithstanding the numerous Selections already in use. We cannot be accused of more vanity or more partiality than our neighbors, tho we claim the privilege of thinking more of our own than of any thing of the kind now before the public. Of its merits, however, the public will, of course, judge for themselves; and to them we cheerfully commit our claims, — fully convinced of their impartial decision. 8, George-Street, Glasgow. CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction, ---------l PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. The voice, --------- 9 Articulation, --------- 10 Modulation, --------- 10 Tones, ----------11 Inflexions, --------- 14, Table" of Inflexions, - - - - - * - - -17 Praxis on Inflexions, -------- 18 General Rules, - - - - - - - - -19 Exercises on the Preceding Rules, ----- 20 Series, -----------31 Circumflex, --------- 33 Monotone, - - - -.- - - - - -34? Eliptical Member, -------- 34 Repetition, - -- - - - - - - -35 Harmonic Inflexion, -------- 36 Climax, ----------37 Emphasis, --------- 44, MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. On Benevolence, ------- Hume, 50 Discontent, the common Lot of all Mankind, - - Rambler, 51 Sun- Set, - - - - - Lights <$* Shadows, fyc. 53 On the Love of Fame, _ - - - - W. Irvine, 54 Christianity Defended against Scepticism, - - Lord Lyttleton, 55 On the Elocution of the Pulpit, - Rev. J, Fordyce, 61 ^The Old Major and the Young Officer, - < - - Taller, 62 «marks of a Sceptic on the Majesty of the Scriptures, Rousseau, 63 ' On the comparatively small Influence of Religion on t}ie mere natural Mind, when opposed by Worldly Temptation, Foster, 65 The Bashful Man, - Anon. 67 Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1717, - Bishop Berkeley, 72 On Mr. (now Sir Walter) Scott's Vision of Don Roderick, Edinburgh Review, 75 The Fair and Happy Milk-Maid, - - -Sir T. Overbury, 76 Description of the World,' - W. Irvine, 77 On the relative Value of good Sense and Beauty in the Female Sex, Literary Gazette, 79 Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE The Story of a disabled Soldier, - Goldsmith, 81 Remarks on Homer, the Bible, Dante, and Ossian, - Hazlitt, 85 On Genius and Fame, ------ Ibid* 89 Letter on Punning, ------ Anon. 91 The Gamester, ------- Godwin, 92 On the Importance of the Purity of the Female Character to the general Interests of Society, - Edin. Review, 93 On Calumny, - - - - - - -- Brown, 94? The Veteran Profligate, ------- Ibid. 95 On Education, -------- Ibid. 96 The most Horrible Battle ever recorded in Poetry or Prose ; with the Heroic Exploits of Peter the Headstrong, - W. Irvine, 98 The Advantages of a Taste for the Beauties of Nature, Dr. Percival, 105 Visit to the Field of Waterloo in 1815, - - John Scott, 106 The Widow's Retinue, - W* Irvine, 108 Character of Napoleon Bonaparte, - C. Phillips, 110 Every Man the Architect of his own Fortune, - Macdiarmid, 1 12 Nature, -------- Keate, 116 The Death of Altamont, Br. Young, 118 The Female Character, ----- Edin. Review, 121 American in England, ---•--•--.. W. Irvine, 123 Reflections on the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, - - Simpson, 124 Contrast betwen the Duke of Bedford and Mr. Burke, Burke, 127 The Attempted Assassination of the Queen of France in 1789, Ibid. 128 Burke's Account of his Son, ----- Ibid. 131 The Voyage, W.Irvine, 133 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. Rural Funerals, -------- W, Irvine, 136 The Broken Heart, Ibid. 138 The Pride of the Village, - - - - Ibid. 141 Tht Story of Mary Watson, - Attic Stories, 149 Liberty and Slavery, ------ Sterne, 153 Comal and Galvina, ------ Ossian, 154 The Elder's Death-bed, Wilson, 156 Reyno and Alpin, ------- Ossian, 159 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. Character of Queen Elizabeth, - Hume, 161 Character of Mary Queen of Scots, - Robertson, 163 Character of Hannibal, ------ Livy, 164 Character of Cato, ------ Middleton, 165 Character of Julius Csesar, ------ Ibid. 166 | Character of King Alfred, ----- Hume, 16 Character of Mr. C. J. Fox, Hazlitt, 168 Character of the Earl of Chatham, - - - - Ibid. 170 * Comparison of Burke with the Earl of Chatham, - - Ibid. 171 Kosciusko, -------- Anon. 172 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. The Death of Christ, Finlayson, 178 On the Evil of Infidel Writings, - - Rev. Dr. Muir, 178 On the Deluding Influence of the World, - - Kir wan, 180 Infatuation of Mankind, with regard to the Things of Time, Ibid. 182 The Power of Habit, a useful Principle to Man, - Horsley, 183 CONTENTS. IX PAGE Insignificance of this World, - Chalmers, 185 Christian Benevolence looks forward to Futurity, - - Ibid, 187 The Hatefulness of War, ------ Ibid, 190 On the Death of Christ, Blair, 193 Infidelity, ------ Andrew Thomson, 196 On the same subject, ------- Ibid, 198 Appeal in favor of the Heathen Nations, *• - Henry Grey, 200 Danger of Delay in Matters of Religion, - - Logan, 203 Religion, the distinguishing Quality of our Nature, - Ibid, 205 On the Threatened Invasion in 1803, - Hall, 206 On the same subject, ------ Alison, 209 The Inquisition, Burgh, 211 Joseph and his Brethren, Bible, 212 Nathan's Parable, Ibid, 215 The Song of Deborah and Barak, .... Ibid, 216 Jeremiah lamenteth the Jews, &c Ibid, 217 Paul's Defence before Agrippa, . . . New Testament, 219 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. The Oration of iEschines against Demosthenes, on the Crown, . 222 The Answer of Demosthenes, ...... 225 Demosthenes to the Athenians, exciting them to prosecute the War against Philip, 230 Cicero against Verres, 235 Galgacus to the Caledonian Army, 238 Hannibal to his Soldiers, Livy, 242 Caius Marius to the Romans, 244 MODERN ELOQUENCE. Mr. Pitt on the African Slave Trade, April 27, 1792, On the same subject, Lord Mansfield on the Delays of Justice, Sir G. Saville, on the Liberty of the Subject, Grattan on the Address to His Majesty. — 1782, Grattan on the National Grievances.-— 1788, Burke on the Debts of the Nabob of Arcot.— 1785, Quarrel between Flood and Grattan, Invective against Hastings, Curran in Defence of Mr. Finnerty, • Description of an Informer, .... Liberty of the Press, On Catholic Emancipation, .... Tribute to Scotland, &c. Lord Erskine in favor of Hardy, .... Lord Erskine on the Trial of John Stockdale, . Lord Erskine on the same subject, Lord Erskine on the same subject, . Lord Erskine in Defence of Captain Baillie, Lord Erskine' s Speech on the Age of Reason, Mr. Pitt's Reply to Horace Walpole, • Lord Chatham on the American War, Sir James Macintosh in Defence of Peltier, On the Manner of Reading Verse, 247 Pitt, 250 252 254 256 258 259 Sheridan, 265 . 267 Curran, 273 . Ibid, 274 Ibid, 276 . Ibid, 278 281 . 283 286 . 289 290 . 293 298 . 299 . 302 312 X CONTENTS. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. page Lines Written on Visiting a Scene in Argyleshire, - Campbell, 313 The Soldier's Dream, ----- - Ibid. 314 Glenara, -------- - Ibid. 315 The Star of Bethlehem, H. K. White, 316 On Prayer, ------ Montgomery, 316 The Voice of Praise, - - - - Mary M. Mitford, 317 Genius, -------- Anon. 319 The Dying Soldier, - - - - - - Anon. 319 The Evening Cloud, Wilson, 320 The Contrast, - - - - - - - Anon. 321 The Mariner's Dream, ----- Dimond, 322 Hymn to Nature, ------ Brandon, 324 The Orphans, ------- Anon. 324? Love of Country, - - - - - Sir W. Scott, 327 The Maniac, Bloomfield, 328 Address to the Ocean, ------ Procter, 330 On the Downfal of Poland, ----- Campbell, 331 On the Dissolution of Nature, - Milman, 332 Enumeration of Sweets, ------ Byron, 334 The Battle of Hohenlinden, ----- Campbell, 335 The Storm, Byron, 336 The Maid of the Inn, ------ Southey, 337 Hymn on Modern Greece, ------ Byron, 340 Lord Ullin's Daughter, ----- Campbell, 342 Fitz-James and Rhoderick Dhu, - - - Sir W. Scott, 344 Modern Greece, - • % - - - - - - Byron, 347 Imitation of the Preceding Passage, - - - - Anon. 348 On Sleep, -------- Byron, 349 The Fate of Macgregor, ------ Hogg, 349 The Battle of Morgarten, Edin. Mag. 352 The Lyre, ------- Montgomery, 355 Summer Hymn, ------- Anon. 357 Lochinvar, - - - - - - - Sir W. Scott, 359 The Field of Waterloo, Byron, 360 Lord William, ------ - Southey, 362 Outalissi, ------- Campbell, 366 A Beth Gelert, ------- Spencer, 368 The Road to Happiness open to all Men, - - - Pope, 370 The Field of Morat, Byron, 371 Thunder- Storm among the Alps, - - - - Ibid. 373 The Present Aspect of Greece, - - - - - Ibid. 374 Jupiter's Address to the Inferior Deities, - - - Pope, 375 On the Fall of Algiers, - - - - - M'GUl, 376 Battle of Albuera, ------- Byron, 378 Bull-Baiting, Ibid. 379 Clitumnus, -------- Ibid. 380 The Gladiator, - Ibid. 382 Address to the Ocean, ------ Ibid. 383 Zuleika, Ibid. 384 The Prisoner of Chillon, Ibid. 386 Alp, Ibid. 388 Conrad, Ibid. 390 Ode to Eloquence, ------- Anon. 390 Alexander's Feast, ------ Dryden, 392 The Passions, - ------- Collins, 396 CONTENTS. XI EXTRACTS IN BLANK VERSE. page The Fallen Planet, Hogg, 399 Darkness, . Byron, 401 Marcelia, Procter, 403 Crazy Kate, Coivper, 404 Belial dissuading from War, Milton, 405 Satan's Address to the Sun, Ibid, 407 On Procrastination, ...... Young, 409 Celadon and Amelia, ...... Thomson, 410 DRAMATIC SPEECHES. Richmond Encouraging his Soldiers, - - Shakespeare, 412 Marcellus to the Mob, - - - - - - Ibid. 412 Henry V. at Harfleur, Ibid. 413 Mark Antony's Oration, ------ Ibid. 414 Cassius against Caesar, ------ Ibid. 416 Junius Brutus over the Dead Body of Lucretia, - - Payne, 418 Marcus Brutus on the Death of Caesar, - - Shakespeare, 419 Rolla to the Peruvians, ----- Sheridan, 420 Shylock justifying his meditated Revenge, - - Shakespeare, 421 SOLILOQUIES. Cato on the Immortality of the Soul, - Addison, 422 Hamlet on his Mother's Marriage with his Uncle, Shakespeare, 423 Hamlet on the Immortality of the Soul, - - - Ibid. 423 The King in Hamlet, Ibid. 424 Macbeth to the Dagger, ------ Ibid. 425 Sir Peter Teazle on his Marriage, - - - - Sheridan, 426 DIALOGUES. From "The Fall of Jerusalem," - Mttlman, 427 Ditto ditto, Ibid. 430 Brutus and Cassius, - -. - - - - Shakespeare, 434 King Henry IV. Northumberland, and Hotspur, - Ibid. 438 Cato ? s Senate, ------ Addison, 441 Coriolanus and Aufidius, - - - - Shakespeare, 445 Norval and Glenalvon, ------ Home, 448 Lochiel's Warning, Campbell, 451 Priuli and Jaffier, Otway, 453 Pierre and Jaffier, Ibid. 455 Lady Randolph and Douglas, ..... Home, 459 Lady Townly and Lady Grace, .... Goldsmith, 462 COMIC EXTRACTS. Law, Steven, 468 The Farmer's Wife and the Gascon, . New Mon. Mag. 470 Jenkins and the Smuggler, ...... Ibid. 472 The Ladies' Petition to Dr. Moyes, .... Anon. 475 He and She Dandies, Anon. 476 The Barber's Revenge, Anon. 477 The Village Spectre, Anon. 480 Modern Logic, Anon. 4S2 The Country Bumpkin and Razor- Seller, . Peter Pindar, 483 INTRODUCTION. When we reflect how much the study of elocution is now encouraged, and cultivated, it may seem an idle waste of words to insist on its importance and utility. Such an objection, however, can be made only by those who patronize the art, but does not apply to those who prac- tise it : and this work is intended almost solely for the latter. Not to enlarge on the advantages derived from an acquaintance with those causes on which the effects of elocution necessarily depend, as well as with the properties of voice, articulation, inflexion, &c. which are to consti- tute our leading topics, it is enough, if, by commemorat- ing the names, the labors, and the triumphs of the most celebrated masters of delivery, interest and enthusiasm be awakened in the learner; for, in these pursuits, to wall is almost to accomplish. All those causes, then, to which the powers of elocution are owing, have been generalized into what is termed natural language. This, tho inferior perhaps to artificial language, or words, in conveying descriptions, still renders such depictions more plain and vivid, and assuredly transmits emotion with a power and a delicacy, of which words, unassisted, are in- capable. We need not go far for proofs of its significance. Tbe voice (but of this more hereafter) is, without doubt, the most efficient instrument in delivery; but even with- out its aid, and by gesture alone, the dumb can converse intelligibly with each other; and the ancient mimes, not only made their hearers at once comprehend the whole stoiy of the drama, but even agitated them with various Ipassions. Such is its power, that a look has electrified a Kvhole theatre, and a cry of wo has wrung the heart with ■more acute grief than the most pathetic writing ever ex- Pcited. 4 INTRODUCTION. night." Lord Mansfield is said to have been in the habit y when young, of reciting Demosthenes's Orations, on his native mountains, and to have practised before Mr. Pope, as his corrector; accordingly, his melodious voice, and graceful action, seem to have made as deep an impression as the beauties of his style, and obtained him the appel- ation of "the silver-tongued Murray." When he first spoke in the Senate, Sir Robert Walpole said, " It was an address, which would have done honor to Cicero," — " Yes," added Pulteney, " and so also would the manner in which it was delivered." It is said, that Dean Kirwan, who was perhaps the most celebrated of our pulpit orators, and who, in several of his discourses for charitable pur- poses, obtained collections to the amount of seven or eight hundred pounds, was so deeply convinced of the im- portance of manner, as an instrument of persuasion in preaching, that he carefully studied and prepared every tone and gesture : and, in the after-effects, his well-modu- lated and commanding voice, his striking attitudes, and his varied emphatic action, mightily aided his " winged words," in melting, inflaming, terrifying, and overwhelm- ing his audience. It is agreed by all the contemporaries of Lord Chatham # , that no description could represent him adequately; that, to comprehend the force of his eloquence, it was necessaiy to see the man. All that Tufly included under the word "actio" was his. — " Et vocis et spiritus, et totius corporis, et ipsus linguae motus," were all such as to make the orator a part of his own eloquence. His mind was to be viewed in his counte- nance. So embodied was it in every look and gesture, that his words were rather to be felt than followed. They invested his hearers. The weapons of his opponents dropped from their hands. He spoke with the air and vehemence of inspiration ; and the very atmosphere flamed around him. As a proof of the expressiveness of his eye, we are told that Secretary Fox, his regular opponent, and surely not a man very likely to be subject to nervous alarms, was often seen, after the more important debates, walking with his hands in his pockets, all absorbed in reverie, and muttering to himself, — " that eye, that eye I" * See the British Review for June, 1822. INTRODUCTION. 5 The high tones of his voice, were the most striking and heart-thrilling, and by his peculiar manner of pronouncing the single little word whig, he is said to have again and again electrified the house. Dr. Franklin has justly ob- served of the celebrated Whitefield*, that it would have been fortunate for his reputation, if he had left no written works ; his talents would then have been estimated by the effect which they are known to have produced ; for on this point, there is the evidence of witnesses, whose credibility cannot be disputed. Whitefield's writings of eveiy kind, are certainly below mediocrity. They afford the measure of his knowledge and of his intellect, but not of his genius as a preacher. His elocution was perfect. Sometimes he would set before his congregation the agony of our Savi- our, as though the scene were actually before them. " Look yonder ! " he would say, stretching out his hand, and pointing while he spoke, " what is it that I see? It is my agonized Lord! Hark, hark! do you not hear? O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done ! " This he introduced frequently in his sermons; and one who lived with him, says, the effect was not destroyed by repetition : even to those who knew what was coming, it came as forcibly as if they had never heard it before. A man at Exeter stood with stones in his pocket, and one in his hand ready to throw at him; but he dropped it before the sermon was far advanced, and going up to him after the preaching was over, he said: — " Sir, I came to hear you, with an intention to break your head ; but God, through your ministry, has given me a broken heart." A ship- builder was once asked what he thought of him. " Think I" he replied, " I tell you sir, every Sunday that I go to my parish church, I can build a ship from stem to stern under the sermon; but, were it to save my soul, under White- field I could not lay a single plank." Hume pronounced him the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard; and said it was worth while to go twenty miles to hear him. But, perhaps, the greatest proof of his persuasive powers was, when he drew from Franklin's pocket, the money which that clear cool reasoner had determined not to give : See Southey's Life of Wesley. b INTRODUCTION. it was for the orphan-house at Savannah. " I did not," says the American philosopher, >" disapprove of the design; but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and work- men, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built it at Philadelphia, and brought the children to it. This I advised, but he was resolute in his first pro- ject, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to con- tribute. I happened soon after, to attend one of his ser- mons, in the course of which, I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and con- cluded to give the copper; another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pockets wholly into the collector's dish — gold and all." We have a signal instance of what can be accomplished by assiduity and perseverance, in the celebrated Irish ora- tor, Curran. According to all accounts, he had as many natural impediments to overcome, as the celebrated orator of antiquity. His enunciation was naturally so precipitate and confused, that he was denominated, among his com- panions, " Stuttering Jack Curran." So little promise was there at one time, of his shining as a public speaker, that one of his most intimate and confidential friends said to him, " that he had the highest opinion of his capacity, and that, if he would confine himself to the study of the law, he would, to a certainty, become a very eminent chamber counsel; but he might depend upon it, nature never intended him for an orator." Fortunately, however, for his fame, this advice was disregarded : he persevered against all opposition. His voice was shrill, and his ac- cent strongly provincial, or, to use his own words, in a state of nature; to surmount these defects, he set apart a portion of every day, for the purpose of reading and re- citing aloud, slowly and distinctly, some of the most eloquent extracts in the language; carefully observing to imitate, as much as he could, the tones and manner of the most beautiful speakers he had heard. The success of this exercise was so complete, that, among his most; INTRODUCTION. 7 unrivalled excellencies as an orator, were the clearness of his articulation, and a peculiar uninterrupted, graduated intonation, which, whatever was the subject, whether tender or impassioned, melodised every sentence. His person was naturally without dignity or grace — short, slender, and inelegantly proportioned. He used to say himself, that the only inheritance he could boast of from his poor father, was the veiy scanty one of an unattractive face and person like his own. In order to attain an action that might conceal as much as possible these defects, he declaimed frequently before a mirror, and selected the gesticulation that he thought best adapted to his imperfect stature. We shall conclude these observations, with an extract from Austin's Chironomia, a work, incomparably the ablest treatise on delivery in general, that has yet ap- peared in our language. " With respect to the delivery of an orator, in all its refinement and necessary circumstances, the fact appears to be, that it belongs to no particular people, to the ex- clusion of others ; and that it is not the gift of nature more than other high acquirements ; but that it is the reward of arduous labor, under the guidance of consummate art. We admit the French to have more facility in learning this art than ourselves; the French allow the same supe- riority to the Italians, the Italians to the Greeks ; but, in truth, the gift is not gratuitous to any people. Gracchus labored incessantly, Cicero labored incessantly, Hortentius labored, Demosthenes, Eschines, Isocrates labored; — which of all the celebrated orators has not labored? or which of them can be said to owe his fame merely to the gift of nature, as the indigenous produce of the soil from which he sprung? If a standard of comparison could be found, hardly would the British actors, whose excellence is chiefly confined to this one branch of eloquence — delivery, — lose in comparison with either moderns or ancients of other nations; and what the talents, the industry, and the professional acquirements of our actors have accomplished, can we doubt would be ac- complished with equal success by our orators, if they brought into action equal industry, and equal professional learning? 8 INTRODUCTION. " It is not because the British orators are incapable of the most consummate perfection in the art of delivery, that this perfection is hardly to be seen among them; it is because perfection in this, as in all other arts, is a work of labor and of time. ,, THE PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION- PART L THE VOICE. The voice is the organ of eloquence, and has the entire dominion of one sense. All that articulate language and tones can effect to influence the understanding, and to win the affections, depend on the power of the voice ad- dressed to the ear. The countenance and gesture, ad- dress their mute language to the eye. The very name of eloquence is derived from the exertions of the voice, and where the voice fails, eloquence ceases to have living ex- istence, and may be found only in the dead letter. The qualities and the management of the voice, therefore, are of the highest importance to the public speaker: the for- mer are principally the gift of nature ; the latter, chiefly depends on art. That a voice decidedly imperfect, can by any art be so improved, as to answer every effort of oratory, is altogether hopeless ; but of whatever description the power or quali- ties of the voice may be, provided it be moderately good, and that the ear be not wholly depraved, they may be im- proved to a great extent by due cultivation. With proper management, few voices are so bad as not to be rendered capable of discharging tolerably the functions of public speaking in our assemblies; and few are to be found so perfect, as not to require some attention, or which may not derive some benefit from the observance of some gen- eral rules for the proper management of that organ. 10 PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. ARTICULATION. Purity of articulation is not only essential to a public speaker, but is of the utmost importance even in private conversation. The person who mumbles out his words in confused and broken accents, presents his hearer with only fragments of his meaning, and very frequently drives him to the disagreeable nonplus of interrupting his indis- tinct narrator, with a — " Sir?" — " I beg your pardon, Sir! will you please to repeat that, Sir?" — or some such significant expression. Almost every one is aware of the exquisite sensation which these puny interruptions occa- sion in both the speaker and the hearer. If, then, a clear distinct articulation be so very important in private con- versation, in a public speaker it becomes absolutely indis- pensable: indeed, its absence cannot be supplied or ex- cused, by any other qualification whatever. Without it, pathos and sublimity sink into ridicule, and passion into a confused jumble — a chaos of unintelligible sound. The want of this faculty is the less pardonable, because almost every person may, with proper attention, make himself master of it. A few perhaps may have some unconquer- able natural defect, but I am thoroughly convinced, that in at least ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a bad artic- ulation is the result of habit, — contracted in youth, — strengthened and confirmed by practice. In the course of my professional practice, I have met with numerous instances of this vice in speaking (as every person in my line must do), and I can safely assert, that I have never yet met with any one, who, when he firmly resolved to get free of it, and employed the proper means, has not succeeded, even though opposed by some organic defect* MODULATION. The modulation of the voice is the proper management of its tones, so as to produce grateful melpdies to the ear. Upon the modulation of the voice, depends that variety which is so pleasing, and so necessary to refresh and PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 11 relieve the ear in a long oration. The opposite fault is monotony, which becomes at last so disagreeable, as to defeat altogether the success of a public speaker (as far as to please is any part of his object), by exciting the utmost impatience and disgust in his audience. To the variety so grateful to the ear, not only change of tones is requisite, but also change of delivery. The force and rapidity of utterance ought to vary in compliance with the nature of the subject. Narration should proceed equably, the pathetic slowly, instruction authoritatively, argumentation with intensity, determination with vigor, and passion with force and rapidity. The art of varying the tones of the voice> not only affords pleasure and relief to the hearer, but, by the alter- nation of labor, relieves the speaker. The voice must be adapted to the subject and the feelings of the mind, so as not to be at variance with the expressions: — This is the great art TONES*. It was necessary to society, and to the state of human nature in general, that the language of the animal pas- sions, of man at least, should be fixed, self-evident, and universally intelligible; and it has accordingly been im- pressed, by the unerring hand of nature, on the human frame. All the affections and emotions, therefore, belong- ing to man in his animal state, are so distinctly character- ized, by certain marks, that they cannot be mistaken; and this language of the passions carries with it the stamp of its Almighty Artificer, — utterly unlike the poor work- manship of imperfect man; as it is not only understood by all the different nations of the world, without pains or study, but excites also similar emotions, or corresponding effects, in all minds alike. Thus, the tones expressive of soitow, lamentation, mirth, joy, hatred, anger, love, pity, &c. are the same in all nations, and, consequently, can excite emotions in us analogous to those passions, when accompanying words which we do not understand: nay, * See Sheridan's Lecture on Tones. 12 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION* the very tones themselves, independent of words, will produce the same effects, as has been amply proved by the power of musical instruments. And though these tones are usually accompanied by words, in order that the understanding may, at the same time, perceive the cause of these emotions, by a communication of the par- ticular ideas which excite them ; yet that the whole energy, or power of exciting analogous emotions in others, lies in the tones themselves, may be known from this, — that, whenever the force of these passions is extreme, words give place to inarticulate sounds. Sighs, murmurings, in love; sobs, groans, and cries, in grief; half-choked sounds, in rage ; and shrieks, in terror, — are then the only language heard. And the experience of mankind may be appealed to, whether these have not more power in exciting sym- pathy, than any thing that can be done by mere words. Nor has this language of the passions been confined to man only; for, in that respect, he seems to be included in the general law, given to all animals that are not mute, or wholly incapable of uttering any sound; as they also express their passions by certain tones, which, striking the auditory nerves of those of the same species, always produce corresponding effects ; inasmuch as their kindred organs are invariably tuned by the hand of nature, in uni- son to those sounds. But it is to be o'bserved, that each species of animals seem to have a language of their own, not at all understood, or felt, by the rest. The lowing of the cow affects not the lamb ; nor does the calf regard the bleating of the sheep. The neighing of the steed calls up all the attention of the horse kind; they gaze towards the place whence the sound comes, and answer it, or run that way, if the steed be not in view; whilst the cows and the sheep raise not their heads from the ground, but continue to feed, utterly unmoved. The organs of hearing, in each species, are tuned only to the sounds of their own ; and whilst the roaring of the lioness makes the forest tremble, it is the sweetest music to the ears of her young. As the passions and emotions of the several kinds of animals are very different, according to their different natures, so is there an equal diversity of tones, by which these several passions and emotions are expressed: — from the horrible roarings of the lion, to the gentle bleatings of PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 13 the lamb; from the loud bellowings of the wild bull, to the low punings of the domestic cat. But, as there is no passion or emotion whatsoever, in the whole animal world, which is not to be found in man, so, equally comprehen- sive is the language of his passions, which are all mani- fested by suitable tones. The roaring of the lion is not more terrible than the voice of his anger; nor the cooings of the pigeon more soft than the murmurs of his love. The crowing of the morning cock is not so clear and sprightly, as the notes of his joy; nor the melancholy mournings of the turtle, so plaintive as those of his wo. The organs of hearing, therefore, in man, are so con- structed as not to be indifferent to any kind of tone, either in his own species, or in the animal world, that is expressive of emotion or passion: from all, they receive either pleasure or pain, as they are affected with sympathy or antipathy. But, extensive as are the powers of the human ear, those of the human voice do not fall short of them, but are exactly suited to them in degree and com- prehension. There is no tone which the ear can dis- tinguish, that the voice, by pains and practice, is not capable of uttering. Hence it comes to pass, that, as man understands the language of the different tribes of animals, so he can make himself understood by them. The horse rejoices in the applauding tones of his rider's voice, and trembles when he changes them to those of anger. What blandishments do we see in the dog, when his master soothes him in kind notes ! what fear, and even what shame, when he changes them to those of chiding! By those the waggoner directs his team, and the herdsman his flock. Even animals of the most savage nature, are not proof against the collective powers of the human voice ; and the shouts of a multitude will put wild beasts to flight, who can hear without emotion the roarings of the thunder. This far, we find that man, in his animal capacity, is furnished like all other animals, by nature herself, with a language, which requires neither study, art, nor mutation ; which spontaneously breaks out in the exactest expressions, nicely proportioned to the degrees of his inward emotions; and which is not only universally understood, but felt by those of the same species, as also, in some degree, by the rest of the animal world. c 14 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. But when we come to examine the power of each, in their full extent, Ave shall find, that, though words are limited to their peculiar office, and never can supply the place of tones; yet tones, on the other hand, are not con- fined to their province, hut often supply the place of words, as marks of ideas. And tho the ease and dis- tinctness witli which our ideas are marked hy articulate sounds, has made all mankind agree to use them in dis- course, yet that tones are capable, in a great measure, of supplying their place, is clear from this ; that the Chinese language is chiefly made up of tones, and the same indi- vidual word shall have sixty different meanings, according to the different tones in which it is pronounced. Here, then, it is clear, that fifty-nine of the sixty ideas, are marked hy tones; for the same individual word, pro- nounced exactly in the same manner, cannot possibly, by itself, be a clear and distinct mark for more than one idea. Beside the use of tones, in the exertion of his animal and intellectual faculties, there is another part of man's nature which seems to be the link that joins the other two, a great part of whose exertions ^have their very essence, so far as they are communicated by the voice, in tones ; — I mean fancy. To one branch of this part of his frame, nature herself has furnished matter for a language, different in its land from all other, and peculiar to man — I mean, risibility ; and this matter, according to the ex- ertions of fancy, is to be modified into an infinity of shapes. There is a laugh of joy, and a laugh of ridicule ; there is a laugh of anger, and a laugh of contempt. Nay, there are few of our passions to winch fancy cannot adapt and associate this language. And should we trace it through all its several modifications and degrees, from the loud burst of joy, to the tones belonging to the dry sneer of contempt, we should find, that an extensive and expressive language, independent of words, belongs to this faculty alone. INFLEXIONS OF THE VOICE. The difference between speaking and musical sounds, i* ? that the latter remain for some specified time on one PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 15 particular note, and leaps from one part of the scale to the other, thus, m •; while the former, instead of dwelling any time on the note they commence with, are perpetually sliding either upwards or downwards, thus, » ^A^. t From the ever- varying and rapid motion of speaking sounds, it was thought impossible by almost every one who attempted to illustrate the subject, before the time of the late celebrated Mr. Walker, to give any such distinct relation of them, as could be of any material advantage to the student of elocution. Mr. Walker, however, in his Elements of Elocution, has given a com- plete analysis of these sounds, and reduced them to two simple modifications, a downward and an upward slide, termed by him inflexions of the voice. He has also proved that, in many cases (always in the case of emphasis), these slides, or inflexions, have a most intimate connection with sense, and that the author's meaning may be absolutely perverted by the application of a wrong inflexion*. The tones of the passions are qualities of sound, oc- casioned by certain vibrations of the organs of speech, independent of high, low, loud, soft, quick, slow, forcible, or feeble: which last may very properly be called different quantities of sound. Though all the variety, force, beauty, and harmony, which a good reader is capable of throwing into composi- tion, when he enters into the spirit of his author, can be acquired by no other means than the force of example, influencing the imitative faculties of the learner; yet, when we consider, that, whether words are pronounced swiftly or slowly, forcibly or feebly, with the tone of the passion or without it, they must be pronounced sliding either up- wards or downwards, or in a monotonef, or song; — when we consider this, we shall find, that the primary division of speaking sounds, is into the upward and downward slides of the voice ; or a combination of the two, termed the circumflex £ ; and that, whatever other diversity of * See the Article on Emphasis, annexed to this compilation, f See Monotone. $ See Circumflex. 16 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION* time, tone, or force, is added to speaking, it must neces- sarily be conveyed by these slides, or inflexions. These inflexions, therefore, are the axis on which the variety of speaking turns, and may be termed the outlines of pronunciation; and these outlines bear the same pro- portion to delivery, that the rough, but correct sketch of a picture bears to the finished painting. The rising inflexion, is that upward turn of the voice which we generally use at a comma, to imply a continua- tion of sense; or in asking a question beginning with a verb: as, "Do you leave town to-day?"* The falling inflexion is generally used at the semicolon and colon, to imply a conclusion of sense; we would also make use of it in answer to the former question; as, " No: I do not." * The acute accent (') denotes the rising, and the grave accent £x) the falling inflexion; a combination of both is used to denote the cir- cumflex (k). 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PRAXIS ON THE INFLEXIONS. What is done cannot be undone. He who is good before invisible witnesses, is emi- nently so before the visible. There is a material difference between giving and for- giving. I shall always make reason, truth, and nature, the measures of praise and dispraise. Religion raises men above themselves ; irreligion sinks them beneath the brutes. This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. The riches of the prince must increase or decrease in proportion to the number and riches of his subjects. He that compares what he has done with what he has left undone, will feel the effect which must always follow the comparison of imagination with reality. In this species of composition plausibility is much more essential than probability. Lucius Cataline was expert in all the arts of simula- tion and dissimulation. In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in the proportion or disproportion which the affection seems to bear to the cause or object which excites it, consist the propriety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the con- sequent action. Grief is the counter passion of joy. The one arises from agreeable, the other from disagreeable events, — the one from pleasure, the other from pain, — the one from good, the other from evil. The wise man is happy when he gains his own appro- bation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him. Alfred seemed born not only to defend his bleeding country, but even to adorn humanity. His care was to polish the country by arts, as he had protected it by arms. A friend cannot be known in prosperity, and an enemy cannot be hidden in adversity. The difference between a madman and a fool, is, that the former reasons justly from false data ; and the latter, erroneously from just data. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 19 The foulest stain and scandal of our nature Became its boast. One murder makes a villain, Millions a hero. War its thousands slays, Peace its ten thousands. Passions are winds to urge us o'er the wave, Reason the rudder to direct and save ; This without those, obtains a vain employ, Those without this, but urge us to destroy. He raised a mortal to the skies, She drew an angel down. RULES. I. Questions commencing with verbs, adopt the rising inflexion. II. Questions commencing with pronouns or adverbs, adopt the falling inflexion. III. Antithetic* questions require opposite inflexions. IV. When questions are followed by answers, the ques- tion should be pronounced in a high tone of voice, and, after a suitable pause, the answer returned in a low and firm tone. V. Negative sentences, and members of sentences, a- dopt the rising inflexion.-)- VI. A concession should end with the rising inflexion. VII. The first principal division of a direct period (or compact sentence), should end with the rising inflexion, and a smart percussion of the voice. VIII. The first member of an antithesis should have the rising, and the opposite the falling inflexion. IX. Members forming perfect sense within themselves, generally adopt the falling inflexion. X. A parenthesis must always be pronounced differently from its relative sentence, generally quicker and lower. \ * Antithesis means opposition of words or sentences — contrast. \ Sometimes a positive assumes the form of a negative sentence : it then, of course, adopts the falling inflexion; as, " Thou shalt not steals' ' \ When the language in the parenthesis is more impassioned than the rest of the sentence, the pronunciation ought, of course, to be equally impassioned, as, " A ball now hisses through the airy tides, (Some fury wings it, and some demon guides,) Parts the fair locks, her graceful head that deck'd, &c. 20 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. Exercises on the Preceding Rules. Rule I. Can the rush grow up without mire ? can the flag grow without water ? Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt? can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burnt? Is it not a sure sign of intolerable arrogance and vene- mous envy, where the tongue is continually exercised in perverting, slandering, defacing, deriding, and condemn- ing other people's words and works ? Do you think that Themistocles, and the heroes who were killed in the battles of Marathon and Platea; do you think the very tombs of your ancestors will not send forth groans, if you crown a man, who, by his own con- fession, has been for ever conspiring with barbarians to ruin Greece ? But did you, Oh! (what title shall I give you!) did you betray the least shadow of displeasure against me, when I broke the chords of that harmony in your presence, and dispossessed the commonwealth of the advantages of that confederacy, which you now magnify so much, with the loudest strains of your theatrical voice? did you ascend the rostrum ? did you denounce, or once explain those crimes, with which you are now pleased to charge me? What was the part of a faithful citizen ? of a prudent, an active, and honest minister ? Was he not to secure Eubea, as our defence against all attacks by sea ? Was he not to make Beotia our barrier on the midland side ? The cities bordering on Peloponnesus, our bulwark on that quarter ? Was he not to attend with due precaution to the importation of corn, that this trade might be protected throughout all its progress up to our own harbours ? Was he not to cover those districts which we commanded, by seasonable detachments, as the Preconesus, the Cherso- nesus, and Tenedos ? To exert himself in the assembly for this purpose ? While, with equal zeal, he labored to gain others to our interest and alliance, as Byzantium, Abydus, and Eubea? Was he not to cut off the best and most important resources of our enemies, and to sup- ply those in which our country was defective ? — And all this you gained by my counsels and my administration. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 21 Rule II. Who yet has been able to comprehend and describe the nature of the soul ? — its connexion with the body, or in what part of the frame it is situated ? Oh, why is it possible that this greatest inhabitant of every place where men are living, should be the last whose society they seek, or of whose being constantly near them they feel the importance ? Why is it possible to be surrounded with the intelli- gent Reality, which exists wherever we are, with attri- butes that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other things, winch may be attempting to press on our minds and affect their character, as if they retained with diffi- culty their shadows of existence, and were continually on the point of vanishing into nothing ? Why is this stupendous Intelligence so retired and si- lent, while present over all the scenes of the earth, and in all the paths and abodes of men ? Why does he keep his glory invisible behind the shades and visions of the material world ? Why does not this latent glory sometimes beam forth with such a manifestation as could never be forgotten, nor ever be remembered without an emotion of religious fear? Why is it possible for feeble creatures to maintain their little dependent beings fortified and invincible in sin, a- midst the presence of divine purity ? Why does not the thought of such a being strike through the mind, with such intense antipathy to evil, as to blast with death every active principle that is beginning to per- vert it, and render gradual additions of depravity, grow- ing into the solidity of habit, as impossible, as for perish- able materials to be raised into structures amidst the fires of the last day ? How is it possible to forget the solicitude, which should accompany the consciousness that such a being is continu- ally darting upon us the beams of observant thought ? WTio is it that causes tins river to rise in the high moun- tains, and to empty itself in the ocean ? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in the summer ? Who is it that rears up the shade of those lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure ? — The same Being who 22 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. gave to you a country on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us, — and by this title we will defend it. How is a tribunal, whose whole jurisdiction is founded upon the solemn belief and practice of what is here denied as falsehood, and reprobated as impiety, to deal with such an anomalous defence ? Upon what principle is it even offered to the court, whose authority is contemned and mocked at ? If the religion proposed to be called in ques- tion, is not previously adopted in belief, and solemnly act- ed upon, what authority has the court to pass any judg- ment at all of acquittal or condemnation ? Why am I now, or upon any other occasion, to submit to his lord- ship's authority ? Why am I now, or at any other time, to address twelve of my equals, as I am now addressing you, with reverence and submission ? Rule III. Shall we, in your person, crown the author of the public calamities, or shall we destroy him ? Is the goodness or wisdom of the Divine Being more manifested in this his proceeding ? Had you rather Csesar were living, and die all slaves ; than that Csesar were dead, to live all freemen? But should these credulous infidels, after all, be in the right, and this pretended revelation be all a fable, from believing it, what harm could ensue ? Would it render princes more tyrannical, or subjects more ungovernable ? The rich more insolent, or the poor more disorderly? Would it make worse parents or children ; husbands or wives ; masters or servants ; friends or neighbours ; or % would it not make men more virtuous, and, consequently, more happy in every situation ? Rule IV. Art thou poor ? show thyself active and in- dustrious, peaceable, and contented : art thou wealthy ? show thyself beneficent and charitable, condescending and humane. * In the former parts of this passage, or is used conjunctively, and is equivalent to and ; each member, therefore, must terminate with the rising inflexion. The latter part (commencing with — or would it not make men more virtuous], is antithetic to the former, consequently, the voice changes from the rising to the falling inflexion. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 23 You have obliged a man ; very well ! is not the con- sciousness of doing good a sufficient reward? Searching every kingdom for the man who has the least comfort in life, where is he to be found ? — In the Royal Palace. What ! his Majesty ? — Yes : especially if he be despotic. How shall those vacant spaces, those unemployed in* tervals, which, more or less, occur in the life of every one, be filled iip ? How* can we contrive to dispose of them in any way that shall be more agreeable in itself, or more consonant to the dignity of the human mind, than in the entertainments of taste, or the study of polite literature ? Rule V. It is not by starts of application, or by a few years' preparation of study, afterwards discontinued, that eminence can be attained. No ; it can be attained only by means of regular industry grown up into a habit, f and ready to be exerted on eveiy occasion that calls for in- dustry. Virtue is of intrinsic value and good desert ; not the creature of will, but necessary and immutable ; not local or temporary, but of equal extent and antiquity with the divine mind; not a mode of sensation, but everlasting truth ; not dependent on power, but the guide of all power. All is magnificent in the objects of religion. All her views comport with the highest faculties of our nature. Her features awaken our most lively sensibility. Delici- ous sentiments mingle themselves with the grand thoughts she inspires. She displays her celestial origin, her celes- tial destination. It is not to small portions of time, a few years, a few generations, a few ages, that our speculations are here limited ; they embrace eternity. They are not finite beings like ourselves, with whom we hold inter- course. It is with a being, who has for attributes, abso- lute perfection; for limits, immensity itself. It is no longer the assemblage of a few objects, frivolous, uncer- tain, and of dubious quality, that we seek. It is happi- ness complete, solid, perfect in its nature, and infinite in its duration, like God himself. * In this sentence, the latter part is evidently an answer to the former, f The positive part of the sentence, of course, adopts the falling in- flexion. 24 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. Rule VI. One may be a speaker, both of much repu- tation and much influence, in the calm argumentative man- ner ; to attain the pathetic and the sublime of oratory, re- quires those strong sensibilities of mind, and that high power of expression, which are given to few. Reason, eloquence, and every art, which has ever been studied among mankind, may be abused, and may prove dangerous in the hands of bad men ; but it were perfectly childish to contend, that, upon this account, they ought to be abolished. Were there no bad men in the world to vex and distress the good, the good might appear in the light of harmless innocence ; but they could have no opportunity of dis- playing fidelity, magnanimity, patience, and fortitude. Rule VII. As, in speaking, we generally use that tone of voice, which is most expressive of our passion and emotion,* so, in reading, we ought as much as possible, to imitate the variety of speaking, by taking eveiy oppor- tunity of altering the voice according to the sense. As, while hope remains, there can be no full and posi- tive misery ; so, while fear is yet alive, happiness is in- complete. As the greater and more irreparable the evil that is done, the resentment of the sufferer runs naturally the higher ; so does likewise the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, as well as the sense of guilt in the agent. As the rude and untaught multitude are no way wrought upon more effectually, than by seeing public punishments and executions ; so, men of letters and education feel their humanity most forcibly exercised, when they attend the obsequies of men who had arrived at any perfection in liberal accomplishments. If our language, by means of the simple arrangement of its words, possesses less harmony, less beauty, and less force than the Greek or Latin ; it is, however, in its mean- ing, more obvious and plain. * A direct period always consists of two principal divisions, neces- sarily depending on each other for sense ; and these divisions are fre- quently, though not always, joined together by corresponding con- junctions. PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 25 Whether we consider poetry in particular, and discourse in general, as imitative or descriptive ; it is evident, that their whole power, in recalling the impressions of real objects, is derived from the significancy of words. When the mountains shall be dissolved; when the foundations of the earth and the world shall be destroy- ed ; when all sensible objects shall vanish away ; he will still be the everlasting God ; he will be when they exist no more, as he was when they had no existence at all. If impudence prevailed as much in the forum and courts of justice, as insolence does in the country and places of less resort, Aulus Cecina would submit as much to the impudence of Sextus Ebutius in this cause, as he did before to his insolence when he assaulted him.* Rule VIII. Homer was the greater genius ; Virgil the better artist : in the one, we most admire the man ; in the other, the work. Homer hurries us with a command- ing impetuosity ; Virgil leads us with an attractive ma- jesty. Homer scatters with a generous profusion ; Vir- gil bestows with a careful magnificence. Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a sudden overflow; Vir- gil, like a river in its banks, with a constant stream. Compare the one's impatience with the other's mild- ness; the one's insolence with the other's submission; the * The only exception to this rule, is, when a concession is implied in the first division, and an appeal is made to the conscience in the second. In that case, the first member adopts the falling, and the second the ris- ing, inflexion. Examples. If we have regard for religion in youth x , we ought to have some re- gard for it in age'. If we have no regard for our own x character, we ought to have some regard for the character of others'. In each of these sentences, the speaker, after yielding to his opponent in the former part, appeals to his conscience in the latter; as, "I grant that he is so depraved as to have no regard to his own character, but I appeal to your conscience whether he ought not to have some regard to the character of others." If these sentences had been so constructed as to make the latter mem- ber a mere inference from, or consequence of the former, the general rule would have taken place; as, If we have no regard for religion in youth', we have seldom any regard for it in age v . If we have no regard for our own' character, it can scarcely be expected L that we could have any for the character of others^. D 26 PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. one's humility with the others indignation; and tell me> whether he that conquered seemed not rather confounded, than he that yielded any thing discouraged; or, set the one's triumph against the other's captivity, loss against vic- tory, feasts against wounds, a crown against fetters, and the majesty of courage will appear in the overthrown. Rule IX. Human affairs are in continual motion and fluctuation, altering their appearance every moment,* and passing into some new form. The scenes which present themselves at our entering upon the world, are commonly flattering. Whatever they be in themselves, the lively spirit of the young gilds every opening prospect. The field of hope appears to stretch wide before them. Pleasure seems to put forth its blos- soms on eveiy side. Impelled by desire, forward they rush with inconsiderate ardor; prompt to decide and to choose ; averse to hesitate or to inquire ; credulous, be- cause untaught by experience ; rash, because unacquaint- ed with danger ; headstrong, because unsubdued by dis- appointment : hence arise the perils to which they are exposed ; and which, too often, from want of attention to faithful admonition, precipitate them into ruin irretrievable.. He who is of a cowardly mind, is, and must be, a slave to the world. He fashions his whole conduct according to its hopes and fears. He smiles, and frowns, and be- trays from abject considerations of personal safety. He is incapable of either conceiving or executing any great design. He can neither stand the clamor of the multi- tude, nor the frowns of the mighty. The wind of popular favor, or the threats of power, are sufficient to shake his most determined purpose. The world always knows where to find him ; he may pretend to have principles ; but on every trying occasion, it will be seen, that his pretended principles bend to convenience and safety. Rule X. If envious people were to ask themselves, whether they would exchange their situations with the persons envied (I mean, their minds, passions, notions* as well as their persons, fortunes, and dignities), I believe * The penultimate member should always have the rising inflexion. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 27 the self-love common to human nature, would generally make them prefer their own condition. Notwithstanding all this care of Cicero, history informs us that Marcus proved a mere blockhead; and that na- ture (who, it seems was even with the son for her prodi- gality to the father), rendered him incapable of improving, by all the rules of eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his own endeavors, and the most refined conversation in A'thens. Ye know how we exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you (as a father does his children), that you would walk worthy of God, who hath called you into his kingdom and glory. Promiscuous Exercises on the preceding Rules* She was attended, on one hand, by a troop of cooks and bacchanals ; and, on the other, by a train of wanton youths and damsels, who danced half-naked to the softest musical instruments: Her name was Intemperance. She waved her hand, and thus addressed the crowd of diseases: Give way, ye sickly band of pretenders, nor dare to vie with my superior merits in the service of this great mo- narch (Death). Am I not your parent? the author of your beings? Do you not derive the power of shorten- ing human life almost wholly from me? The first and most important female quality, is sweet- ness of temper. Heaven did not give to the female sex insinuation and persuasion, in order to be surly; it did not make them weak, in order to be imperious ; it did not give them a sweet voice, in order to be employed in scolding; it did not provide them with delicate features, in order to be disfigured with anger. As a great part of your happiness is to depend on the connexions which you form with others, it is of high im- portance that you acquire betimes the temper and the manners which will render such connexions comfortable. Where can any object be found so proper to kindle our affections, as the Father of the universe, and the author of all felicity? Unmoved by veneration, can you contem- plate that grandeur and majesty which his works every where display? Untouched by gratitude, can you view that profusion of good, which his beneficent hand pours around you? 28 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION, The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid ; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Drydens page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, and diver- sified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation ; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Drydens fire the blaze is brighter; of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent asto- nishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. As there is a worldly happiness, which God perceives to be no other than disguised miseiy ; as there are worldly honors, which, in his estimation, are reproach; so there is a worldly wisdom, which, in his sight, is foolishness. Is it credible, is it possible, that the mighty soul of a Newton should share exactly the same fate with the vilest insect that crawls upon the ground; that after having laid open the mysteries of nature, and pushed its discoveries almost to the very boundaries of the universe, it should, on a sudden, have all its lights at once extinguished, and sink into everlasting darkness and insensibility? The wise ministers and brave warriors who flourished during her reign, share the praise of her success ; but, in- stead of lessening the applause due to her, they make great addition to it. If our language, by reason of the simple arrangement of its words, possess less harmony, less beauty, and less force than the Greek or Latin;" it is, however, in its meaning, more obvious and plain. Owe heaven a death! — 'Tis not due yet; and I would be loth to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter— honor pricks me on. But how if honor prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word honor? Air. — A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 29 that died on Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No, Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honor is a mere 'scutcheon — and so ends my catechism. At the same time that I think discretion the most use- ful talent that a man can be master of, I look upon cun- ning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds. Discretion points out the noblest ends to us, and pursues the most proper and laudable methods of attain- ing them ; cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed: Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of short-sightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance. The opera (in which action is joined with music, in or- der to entertain the eye at the same time with the ear), I must beg leave (with all due submission to the taste of the great) to consider as a forced conjunction of two things which nature does not allow to go together. Do the perfections of the Almighty lie dormant? Does he possess them as if he possessed them not? Are they not rather in continual exercise? An elevated genius employed in little things, appears (to use the simile of Longinus) like the sun in his evening declination ; he remits his splendor, but retains his mag- nitude ; and pleases more, though he dazzles less. To measure all reason by our own, is a plain act of in- justice ; it is an encroachment on the common rights of mankind. Who are the persons that are most apt to fall into peevishness and dejection? that are continually complain- ing of the world, and see nothing but wretchedness around them? Are they those whom want compels to toil for their daily bread? who have no treasure but the labor of their hands? who rise with the rising sun to expose them- selves to all the rigors of the seasons, unsheltered from the winters cold, or unshaded from the summer's heat? No. The labors of such are the veiy blessings of their condi- tion. 30 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. It is idle, as well as absurd, to impose our opinions upon others. The same ground of conviction operates differently on the same man, in different circumstances, and on different men, in the same circumstance, I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest de- pressions of melancholy. On the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite glad- ness, prevents us from falling into any depth of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity. Think not that the influence of devotion is confined to the retirement of the closet, and the assemblies of the saints. Imagine not, that, unconnected with the duties of life, it is suited only to those enraptured souls, whose feelings, perhaps, you deride, as romantic and visionary. It is the guardian of innocence, — it is the instrument of virtue, — it is a mean by which every good affection may be formed and improved. What is the blooming tincture of the skin, To peace of mind and harmony within? What the bright sparkling of the finest eye, To the soft soothing of a calm reply? Can comeliness of form, or shape, or air, With comeliness of words, or deeds, compare? No: those at first, the unwary heart may gain; But these — these only, can the heart retain. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 31 «ww»iw fmm yw(M M> i +* PART II. fWWWW W W KWW * SERIES Denotes an enumeration of particulars. A commencing series begins, but does not end, a sentence. A concluding series is that which ends a sentence, whether it begins it or not. A series consisting of one word in each particular, is called a simple series. A series, where each member is compounded of seve- ral words, is called a compound series. Rule XI. The ultimate member of a commencing series should end with the rising inflexion, and a smart percussion of the voice : the preceding members should be varied according to the taste of the reader. Rule XII. The penultimate member of a concluding series should have the rising inflexion; the preceding ones should be varied according to the taste of the reader. Examples of the Commencing Series. Joy, grief, love, admiration, devotion, are all of them passions which are naturally musical. Hatred, shyness, discords, seditions, and wars, are created by ambition. The presence, knowledge, power, wisdom, and good- ness of God, must all be unbounded. Next then, you authors, be not you severe; — Why, what a swarm of scribblers have we here! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, All in one row, and brothers of the pen. 32 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. Discomposed thoughts, agitated passions, and a ruffled temper, poison every pleasure of life. The verdant lawn, the shady grove, the variegated landscape, the boundless ocean, and the starry firmament, are contemplated with pleasure by every beholder. A contemplation of God's works, a voluntary act of justice to our own detriment, a generous concern for the good of mankind, tears shed in silence for the misery of dthers, a private desire of resentment broken and subdued, an unfeigned exercise of humility, or any other virtue, are such actions as denominate men great and reputable. To acquire a thorough knowledge of our own hearts and characters, to restrain every irregular inclination, to subdue every rebellious passion, to purify the motives of our conduct, to form ourselves to that temperance which no pleasure can seduce, to that meekness which no pro- vocation can ruffle, to that patience which no affliction can overwhelm, and that integrity which no interest can shake; this is the task which is assigned to us, — a task which cannot be performed without the utmost diligence and care. The brightness of the sky, the lengthening of the days, the increasing verdure of the spring, the arrival of any little piece of good news, or whatever carries with it, the most distant glimpse of joy, is frequently the parent of a social and happy conversation. Examples of the Concluding Series, Mankind are besieged by war, famine, pestilence, vol- cano, storm, and fi v re. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Mr. Locke's definition of wit, with this short explica- tion, comprehends most of the species of wit; as meta- phors, enigmas, mottos, parables, fables, dreams, visions, dramatic writings, burlesque, and all the methods of allusion. Sincerity is to speak as we think, to do as we pretend and profess, to perform and make good what we promise, and really to be what we would seem and appear to be. No blessing of life is any way comparable to the enjoy- ment of a discreet and virtuous friend; it eases and un- PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 33 loads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life. Should the greater part of people sit down and draw up a particular account of their time, what a shameful bill it would be! So much in eating, drinking, and sleeping, beyond what nature requires; so much in revelling and wantonness ; so much for the recovery of last night's in- temperance; so much in gaming, plays, and masquerades; so much in paying and receiving formal and impertinent visits ; so much in idle and foolish prating, in censuring and reviling of our neighbours; so much in dressing out our bodies, and in talking of fashions ; and so much wasted and lost in doing nothing at all. True gentleness teaches us to bear one another's bur- dens; to rejoice with those who rejoice; to weep with those who weep ; to please every one his neighbour for his good; to be kind and tender-hearted; to be pitiful and courteous; to support the weak; and to be patient towards all men. CIRCUMFLEX. Rule XIII. The rising circumflex begins with the falling and ends with the rising inflexion on the same syllable; and seems, as it were, to twist the voice up- wards; as, To mediate for the queen? — You undertook? Most courteous tyrants :— Romans ! — rare patterns of humanity ! Rule XIV. The falling circumflex begins with the rising, and ends with the falling inflexion on the same syllable. So, then, you are the author of this conspiracy against me? — It is to you that I am indebted for all the mischief that has befallen me. Madam, you have my father much offended*. * Both these inflexions are used in ironical reproach. 34 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION* MONOTONE. Rule XV. Monotone, in the strictest application of the term, implies a continued sameness of sound, similar to that produced by repeatedly striking a bell. Such a sound may have degrees of loudness or softness, but con- tinues exactly in the same pitch. It is chiefly used to denote something awful or sublime. Examples. O when he comes, Roused by the cry of wickedness extreme To heaven ascending from some guilty land, Now ripe for vengeance ; when he comes arrayed In all the terrors of Almighty wrath ; Forth from his bosom plucks his lingering arm, And on the miscreants pours destruction down, Who can abide his coming? Who can bear His whole displeasure? But ah! what means that ruinous roar? why fail These tottering feet? Earth to its centre feels The Godhead's power, and trembling at his touch Through all its pillars, and in every pore, Hurls to the ground with one convulsive heave, Precipitating domes, and towns, and towers, The work of ages*. ELIPTICAL MEMBER. Rule XVI. Is a part of a sentence equally related to two parts of an antithesis; and is pronounced in a feeble tone, accompanied with the inflexion of voice belonging to that part of the antithesis immediately preceding it. * There are three kinds of monotony, against the practice of which, we warn every person who wishes to become an elegant reader. The first is, a continual perseverance in the same modulation of voice; the second, a too great resemblance in the close of periods ; the third, a too frequent repetition of the same inflexion. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 35 Examples. Shall we, in your person, crown the author of the public calamities, or shall we destroy him? Shall we, in your person, crown, or shall we destroy the author of the public calamities. In the above sentence, " crown" and " destroy" are the two governing words; — in the first example, the eliptical member (the author of the public calamities) is pronounced in a feeble tone, and with the rising inflexion, as belonging to the governing word (" crown") immediately before it. For the same reason, it adopts the falling inflexion in the second example, as belonging to the governing " destroy.'* Examples. A good man will love himself too well to lose, and his neighbour too well to win, an estate by gaming. It would be in vain to inquire whether the power of imagining things strongly proceeds from any greater per- fection in the soul, or from any nicer texture in the brain, of one man than of another. REPETITION. Rule XVII. The repeated word should be pronounced with the rising inflexion, accompanied with some degree of animation, and distinguished by a suitable pause. Example. With " mysterious reverence" I forbear to descant on those serious and interesting rites, for the more august and solemn celebration of which Fashion nightly convenes these splendid myriads to her more sumptuous temples. Rites'! which, when engaged in with due devotion, ab- sorb the whole soul, and call every passion into exercise, except those indeed of love and peace, and kindness, and gentleness. Inspiring' rites! which stimulate fear, rouse hope, kindle zeal, quicken dulness, sharpen discernment, exercise memory, inflame curiosity! Rites'! in short, in the due performance of which, all the energies and atten- tions, all the powers and abilities, all the abstractions and 36 ' PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. exertion, all the diligence and devotedness, all the sacri- fice of time, all the contempt of ease, all the neglect of sleep, all the oblivion of care, all the risks of fortune (half of which, if directed to their true objects, would change the very face of the world), all these are concentrated to one point: a point'! in which the wise and the weak, the learned and the ignorant, the fair and the frightful, the sprightly and the dull, the rich and the poor, the patrician and the plebeian, meet in one common uniform equality : an equality'! as religiously respected in these solemnities, in which all distinctions are levelled at a blow, and of which the very spirit is therefore democratical, as it is combated in all other instances. HARMONIC INFLEXION, OR GENERAL EMPHASIS. Rule XVIII. This kind of emphasis is regulated solely by the taste and feelings of the reader; and therefore ad- mits of no particular rule. It is susceptible of various de- grees of energy in the delivery, according to the force and animation of the sentiments ; and consists in a reciprocal application of the rising and falling inflexions, producing on the ear a very pleasing and forcible variety. It some- times takes place at the beginning, sometimes in the mid- dle, but most frequently near the conclusion of a sentence. Examples. Since I have mentioned this unaccountable zeal which appears in atheists and infidels ; I must farther observe, that they are likewise in a most particular manner pos- sessed with the spirit of bigotry. They are wedded to opinions full of contradiction and impossibility, and, at the same time, look upon the smallest difficulty in an article of faith as a sufficient reason for rejecting it. We may learn from this observation, which we have made on the mind of man, to take particular care, when we have once settled in a regular course of life, how we too frequently indulge ourselves in any, the most innocent diversions and entertainments; since the mind may insen- PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 37 sibly fall off from the relish of virtuous actions, and by degrees exchange that pleasure, which it takes in the per- formance of its duty, for delights of a much more inferior and unprofitable nature. There was a time, my fellow-citizens, when the Lacede- monians were sovereign masters both by sea and land ; when their troops and forts surrounded the entire circuit of At- tica; when they possessed Eubea, Tanagra, the whole Beo- tian district, Megara, Egina, Cleone, and the other islands, while this state had not one ship — no, not one' wall\ Produces fraud, and cruelty, and strife, And robs the guilty world of Cato's life. What men could do, Is done already: heaven and earth will witness, If Rome s must fall', that we are innocent. CLIMAX. Rule XIX. A climax is a gradual amplification of the sense, the strength increasing as the sense proceeds. It requires a gradually increasing swell of the voice on each succeeding member, accompanied with a degree of ani- mation corresponding with the force of the sentiment. Examples. Since concord was lost, friendship was lost, fidelity was lost, liberty was lost, all was lost. Would you pardon him, whom the senate hath con-' demned, whom the people of Rome have condemned, whom all mankind have condemned. There is no enjoyment of property, without a govern- ment; no government, without a magistrate; no magi- strate, without obedience ; no obedience, where every one acts as he pleases. Add to your faith, virtue ; and to virtue, knowledge ; and to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, pa- tience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly-kindness; and to brotherly-kindness, charity. It is pleasant to be virtuous and good, because that is to excel many others ; it is pleasant to grow better, be- E 38 PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. cause that is to excel ourselves ; it is pleasant to mortify and subdue our lusts, because that is victory; it is plea- sant to command our appetites and passions, and to keep them in due order, within the bounds of reason and reli- gion, because that is empire. I conjure you by that which you profess, (Howe'er you come to know it) answer me: Tho you untie the winds and let them fight Against the churches; tho the yesty waves Confound and swallow navigation up; Tho bladed corn be lodg'd and trees blown down; Tho castles topple on their warder's heads; Tho palaces and pyramids do slope Their heads to their foundations ; tho the treasure Of nature's germins tumble altogether, Even till destruction sicken, answer me To what I ask you. The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself; Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve ; And, like the baseless fabric of a vision, Leave not a wreck behind. Exercises on the Rules of Part II Gratian very often recommends the line taste as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man. As this word arises very often in conversation, I shall endeavor to give some account of it ; and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may acquire that fine taste of writing which is so much talked of among the polite world. The child is a poet, when he first plays at hide-and-seek, or repeats the story of Jack the Giant-killer; the shep- herd-boy is a poet, when he first crowns his mistress with a garland of flowers; the countryman, when he stops to look at the rainbow; the city-apprentice, when he gazes after the Lord Mayor s show; the miser, when he hugs his gold; the savage, who paints his idol with blood; the slave, who worships a tyrant, or the tyrant, who fancies himself a god; — the vain, the ambitious, the proud, the choleric man, the hero and the coward, the beggar and the king, the rich and the poor, the young and the old; PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 39 all live in a world of their own making ; and the poet does no more than describe, what all the others think and act. If his art is folly and madness, it is folly and madness at second-hand. " There is warrant for it. " And tells of witching rhymes And evil spirits ; of the death-bed call To Mm who robb'd the widow, and devour'd The orphan's portion ; of unquiet souls Risen from the grave to ease the heavy guilt Of deeds in life conceal'd ; of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of hell around the murderer's bed. But it is foolish in us to compare Drusus Africanus and ourselves, with Clodius; all our other calamities were tolerable, but no one can patiently bear the death of Clodius. I do not so much request, as demand, your attention. Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate ; and whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. From the first hint that wakens the fancy, to the hour of actual execution, all is improvement and progress, triumph and felicity. Every hour brings additions to the original scheme, suggests some new expedient to secure success, or discovers consequential advantages not hitherto fore- seen. While preparations are made and materials accu- mulated, day glides after day through Elysian prospects^ and the heart dances to the song of hope. I knew when seven justices could not make up a quar- rel; but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If; as if you said so, then I said so : O ho ! did you say so ? So they shook hands and were sworn brothers. Leviculus was so well satisfied with his own accom- plishments, that he determined to commence fortune- hunter; and when he was set at liberty, instead of begin- ning, as was expected, to walk the Exchange with a face of importance, or of associating himself with those who were most eminent for their knowledge of the stocks, he 40 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. at once threw off the solemnity of the counting-house? equipped himself with a modish wig and a splendid coat, listened to wits in the coffee-houses, passed his evenings behind the scenes in the theatres, learned the names of beauties of quality, hummed the last stanzas of fashionable songs, talked with familiarity of high play, boasted of his achievements upon drawers and coachmen, told with ne- gligence and jocularity of bilking a tailor, and now and then let fly a shrewd jest at a sober citizen. If we would have the kindness of others, we must en- dure their follies. He who cannot persuade himself to withdraw from society, must be content to pay a tribute of his time to a multitude of tyrants ; — to the loiterer, who makes appointments he never keeps; — to the consulter, who asks advice which he never takes; — to the boaster, who blusters only to be praised; — to the complainer, who whines only to be pitied; — to the projector, whose hap- piness is to entertain his friends with expectations which all but himself knows to be vain; — to the economist, who tells of bargains and settlements; — to the politician, who predicts the consequence of deaths, battles, and alliances; — to the usurer, who compares the state of the different funds; — and to the talker, who talks only because he loves to be talking. I am persuaded, that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- ture, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In the path to glory, Christians, you are compassed about with a great cloud of witnesses, who are at once the spectators and the examples of your virtue. Newton was a christian! Newton! whose mind burst forth from the fetters cast by nature on our finite concep- tions — Newton, whose science was truth, and the founda- tion of whose knowledge of it was philosophy ; not those visionary and arrogant presumptions which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting on the basis of mathema- tics, which, like figures, cannot lie — Newton! who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which, no doubt, all created matter is held together and exists. PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 41 For, if you pronounce, that, as my public conduct hath Hot been right, Ctesiphon must stand condemned, it must fee thought that yourselves have acted wrong, not that you owe your present state to the caprice of fortune. But it cannot be. No, my countrymen! it cannot be you have acted wrong, in encountering danger bravely, for the li- berty and safety of Greece! No! by those generous souls of ancient times, who were exposed at Marathon! by those who stood arrayed at Platea! by those who encountered the Persian fleet at Salamis! who fought at Artemesium! By all those illustrious sons of Athens, whose remains lie deposited in the public monuments! All of whom re- ceived the same honorable interment from their country: Not those only who prevailed, not those only who were victorious. And with reason. What was the part of gal- lant men they all performed; their success was such as the Supreme Director of the world dispensed to each. As trees and plants necessarily arise from seeds, so are you, Anthony, the seed of this most calamitous war. — You mourn, O Romans, that three of your armies have been slaughtered — they were slaughtered by Anthony: You lament the loss of your most illustrious citizens — they were torn from you by Anthony: the authority of this order is deeply wounded-— it is wounded by Anthony: — in short, all the calamities we have ever since beheld, (and what calamities have we not beheld!) have been entirely owing to Anthony. As Helen was of Troy, — so the bane, the misery, the destruction of this state is— Anthony! But the deceit is short, is fruitless. The amazed spirit is about to dislodge. Who shall speak its terror and dis- may? Then he cries out in the bitterness of his soul; — " what capacity has a diseased man, what time has a dy- ing man, what disposition has a sinful man, to acquire good principles, to unlearn false notions, to renounce bad practices, to establish right habits, to begin to love God, to begin to hate sin! How is the stupendous concern of salvation to be worked out by a mind incompetent to the most ordinary concerns!" — The infinite importance of what he has to do — the goad- ing conviction that it must be done — the utter inability of doing it — the dreadful combination in his mind of both the necessity and incapacity — the despair of crowding the 42 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. concerns of an age into a moment — the impossibility of be- ginning a repentance which should have been completed — of setting about a peace which should have been conclud- ed — of suing for a pardon which should have been ob- tained; — all these complicated concerns — without strength, without time, without hope, with a clouded memory, a disjointed reason, a wounded spirit, undefined terrors, re- membered sins, anticipated punishment, an angry God, an accusing conscience, all together, intolerably augment the sufferings of a body which stands in little need of the insupportable burthen of a distracted mind to aggravate its torments. "What think you 'twas set up The Greek and Roman name in such a lustre, But doing right in stem despite of nature, Shutting their ears tc all her little cries. When great august and godlike justice call'd. At Aulis one pour'd out a daughter s life, And gain'd more glory than by all his wars; Another slew a sister in just rage ; A third — the theme of all succeeding times, — Gave to the cruel axe a darling son : Nay, more, for justice some devote themselves, As he at Carthage, an immortal name ! Yet there is one step left above them all, Above their history, above their fable ; A wife, bride, mistress, unenjoyd! Do that, and tread upon the Greek and Roman glory* 'Tis list'ning fear and dumb amazement all, When to the startled eye the sudden glance Appears far south, eruptive through the cloud; And following slower in explosion vast, The thunder raises his tremendous voice. At first heard solemn o'er the verge of heaven, The tempest growls : but as it nearer comes, And rolls its awful burden on the wind, The lightnings flash a larger curve, and more The noise astounds ; till over head a sheet Of livid flame discloses wide; then shuts And opens wider; shuts and opens still, Expansive, wrapping ether in a blaze : Follows the loosen'd aggravated roar, PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 43 Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal Crush'd horrible, convulsing heaven and earth. In this our day of proof, our land of hope, The good man has his clouds that intervene ; Clouds that may dim his sublunary day, But cannot darken; even the best must own, Patience and resignation are the pillars Of human peace on earth. *Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd. Boastful and rough, your first son is a squire : The next a tradesman, meek and much a liar : Tom struts a soldier, open, bold, and brave ; Will sneaks a scrivener, an exceeding knave. Is he a churchman? then he's fond of power; A quaker? sly; a presbyterian? sour; A smart freethinker? All things in an hour. See what a grace was seated on this brow: Hyperion's curls ; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command ; A station like the herald Mercury New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man. At thirty, man suspects himself a fool ; Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan; At fifty, chides his infamous delay; Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve, In all the magnanimity of thought ! Resolves, and re-resolves, then — dies the same. A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling state. 44 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. PART III. EMPHASIS. Rule XX. Emphasis is an earnest, vehement, or ex- press signification of one's mind: it is a form of speech that indicates more than is expressed by words, and can be comprehended only from some peculiar and significant manner of pronunciation. An assemblage of words in a sentence does not express the author's meaning individually ', but collectively. We must generally employ a number of words to express one idea; and upon finding out the principal word in that number, and placing the principal accent upon it, wholly depends the developement of the true idea. Example. " O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the pro- phets have written concerning me." If, in reading this sentence, the emphasis be placed on " believe," the meaning conveyed will be — that Christ called them fools for believing. If the emphasis be re- moved to " all" " O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets, &c." the meaning implied will be — that it was folly in the disciples to believe all. The sense is equally perverted by placing the emphasis on "prophets." " O fools, and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have written, &c." This would imply that the prophets were in no respects worthy of belief. The true meaning is expressed by placing the principal accent on the word " slow" " O fools, and slow of heart (that is — backward) to believe, &c." After the proper emphatic word is ascertained, the next tiling to be discovered, is the particular inflexion of PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 45 voice which should accompany that word; for, as the meaning is absolutely perverted by placing the emphasis on a wrong word, so is it equally perverted by putting a wrong inflexion on the right word. Examples. 1. He would not hurt aj#y. | 2. He would not hurt &fly s . The meaning conveyed by the first method of pronounc- ing the above sentence is, not that the person alluded to, was incapable of hurting any, or a more noxious creature, but that he would not hurt so innocent a creature as &Jly 9 at least. If the reader wished to convey the idea of a per- son possessed of unbounded humanity and benevolence, he would adopt the second method. The meaning then con- veyed would be, that the person was incapable of hurting any creature : for he would surely never hurt a creature of more importance, when he would not hurt so insignifi- cant a creature as a fly. The antithesis suggested by Ex. 1. is a more noxious creature; and the paraphrase of it would be as follows. u However he might deal with a more noxious animal, he would not hurt so imiocent a creature as a fly, at least." The antithesis to Ex. 2. is a man, or any other crea- ture superior to a fly; paraphrased thus: "He would not only not hurt a man, but he would not hurt even a to" The distinction between the two emphatic inflexions is, that what is affirmed of the emphasis with the rising in- flexion, is left doubtful with regard to the antithesis; while the emphasis with the falling inflexion is positive, and affirms the same thing of the antithesis, that is af- firmed of the emphasis; as may be seen by a careful ex- amination of the above paraphrases. Ex. III. Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord! for in thtf sight no man liv- ing can be justified Ex. IV. Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord! for in thy" sight no man liv- ing can be justified. If the falling, in place of the rising inflexion, be put on the last "thy" in the above sentence, instead of paying 46 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. any awful or superior deference to the Almighty, it would be the greatest reproach that could possibly be cast upon him; as the falling inflexion on the word thy, would im- ply meanness or insignificancy. Paraphrases of the above passage. Ex. IV. Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord! for, not only in the sight of superior, or more enlight- ened creatures, but even in thy s sight, — -insignificant and short-sighted as thou art — even in thine, no man living can be justified. Ex. III. Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord! for, however, men may be regarded in the sight of o- ther, or inferior creatures; in thy' sight, which is all- piercing, and can spy the smallest blemish, no man living, can be justified. Example V> By the joys Which yet my soul has uncontrol'd pursued, I would not turn aside from my least pleasure, Tho all thy' force were arm'd to bar my way. In this example, the antithesis to the emphatic part " thy force/ 1 is, the force of others: — the emphasis with the rising inflexion on the word "thy," implying that, " However Lothario might be restrained by the force of others (superior), Horatio's force, at least, was too insig- nificant to control him." If the falling inflexion be put on the emphatic word " thy," instead of contempt or sneer, a very high compliment will be paid to Horatio and his force; for it would be equivalent to saying, " I would not turn aside from my least pleasure, not only tho common force, but even tho thy force, great as it is, were armed to bar my way." Promiscuous Examples on Emphasis. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would bluslt at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that time ivas his estate; an estate indeed, which will produce no- PRINCIPLES OP ELOCUTION. 47 thing without cultivation, but will always abundantly re- pay the labors of industry, and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negli- gence, to be overrun with noxious plants, or laid out for show, rather than for use. And think not to say within yourselves, " We have Abraham to our father;" for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones^ to raise up children unto Abraham. The bell strikes one. We take no note of time, But from its loss. To give it then a tongue, Is wise in man. As if an angel" spoke, I feel the solemn sound. Yet, if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the seeds! of judgment in their mind. 'Twas base and poor, unworthy of a man\ % To forge a scroll so villanous and loose, And mark it with a noble lady's name ! To reign is worth ambition, tho in hell. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven y . With the talents of an angel"* a man may be a fool. I would die K sooner than mention it. * It lias been contended, by a late eminent compiler (see Elocutionist, by J. S. Knowles, Esq. page 28), that the emphasis with the rising in- flexion has no antithesis; and he has adduced this example in support of his argument. I beg it may not be imputed to any malevolence, arising from professional rivalship, on my part, when I dissent from this princi- ple. Mr. K. observes, that:—" In reasoning upon this example, Mr. Walker, by the most palpable contradiction, refutes his own theory. He says, * this inflexion intimates, that something is affirmed of the emphatic, which is not denied of the antithetic object;' and this posi- tion he thus illustrates, or proves — Unworthy of a man, though not unworthy of a brute. Is this affirming, or not denying, of the subject brute, what is affirmed of the subject man? Is the alleged act unworthy of both the brute and the man? Assuredly not ! The implied antithetic subject, brute, is here po- sitively excluded; and Mr Walker has absolutely attributed to the weak emphasis, what he asserts to be the sole — the characteristic property of the strong emphasis ! Nothing less could be expected. His premiss was false. All emphasis has not an antithesis either expressed or under- stood, or else the rising and the falling emphasis are the same; or, if not the same, the former has no antithesis*' 3 These remarks, so far as they are applicable to the paraphrase of this sentence, are perfectly correct, but they do not affect the sentence itself* Mr. Walker, by inadvertently admitting the adverb not into this para- phrase, has rendered the assertion 2)ositive with respect to the antithetic subject brute, — whereas the peculiar characteristic of the emphasis with $he rising inflexion, is, as I have already stated (see p. 45), that what is 48 PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION, Exercises on Emphasis.j A man of a polite imagination, is let into a great many pleasures that the vulgar are not capable of receiving; he can converse with a picture, and find an agreeable com- panion in a statue* If God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; how much less will he spare the wicked, who walk after the flesh in the lusts of uncleanness. We know the passions of men: we know how danger- ous it is to trust the best of men with too much power. Oh! you and I have heard our fathers say, there was a Brutus once, that would have the infernal devil to keep his state in Home, as easily as a king. affirmed of the emphasis is left doubtful of the antithesis. The truth is, that the seeming deviation in this example, from Walker's general rule, arises altogether from the clashing nature of the two negatives ; which, in English, are equal to an affirmative- This may easily be seen from the following paraph: " However worthv it was of a brute, it was w?? worth v of a man\ at least." *•' It might be worthy of a brute, but . worthy of a man', at least." " Whether it was, or was not. worthy of a brute, I will not say; but I positively affirm, that it was unworthy of a man', at least." It will readily be perceived by any one who has but even a superficial knowledge of the nature of inflexions, that, in each of the above para- phrases, what is positively affirmed of the emphatic object man, is nei- ther affirmed or denied positively of the antithetic object brute : the reader is left to draw what inference he pleases. So, we may conclude that Walker's "premiss" is strictly correct: — That all emphasis has an an- tithesis, either expressed or understood — that the rising and the falling emphasis are not the same; and though not the same, the former as well as the latter has an antit f The are designed for tests of the pupil's know": emphatic inflexion. The emphatic words are printed in Italics ; and the learner, by way of exerci-insr his skill, should be required by his teacher to point out the proper irmexion : this may easily be ascertained by at- tending to the following rule: — JFhen the emphatic word will admit the adverb mrmm before it, then it should invariably have the falling, when ruot, it should have the rising inflexion. To this rule there is no excep- tion. It may not here be improper to remark that, — whenever a word occurs requiring the strong emphasis, and, of course, the falling inflexion, it destroys the force of any other rule : it forms an exception to all— to itself there is no exception— it is supreme* PRINCIPLES OF ELOCUTION. 49 My voice is still for war. Gods ! can a Roman senate long debate which of the two to choose, slavery or death ! Thou talk st it well: no leader of our host in sounds more lofty talks of glorious war. Greece in her single heroes strove in vain: now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain. I would rather be the first man in that village than the second in Rome. Exceptions To Rule I. Since those days wherein the Son of God acted and taught, and his Evangelists recorded, what has been the increase of the everlast- ing Gospel? Hath that righteousness, which is intended to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, made much progress during the last fifteen centuries ? Hath it made any^ ? Is the number, even of nominal Christians, greater now than it was in the fourth century? Of all this, there is sufficient reason to doubt. To Rule X. Had I, when speaking in the assembly, been absolute and independent master of affairs, then your other speakers might call me to account. But if ye were ever present, if you were all in general invited to propose your sentiments, if ye were all agreed that the mea- sures then suggested were really the best ; if you, Eschines, in particular, were thus persuaded, (and it was no partial affection for me that prompted you to give me up the hopes, the applause, the honors, which attended that course I then advised, but the superior force of truth, and your utter inability to point out any more eligible^ course), if this was the case, I say, is it not highly cruel and unjust to arraign those measures now, when you could not then propose any better? His spear' (to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great admiral, were but a wand>) He walked with to support uneasy steps Over the burning marie. MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. On Benevolence* The veiy softness and tenderness of this sentiment, its engaging endearments, its fond expressions, its delicate at- tentions, and that flow of mutual confidence and regard which enters into a warm attachment of love and friend- ship, being delightful in themselves, are necessarily com- municated to the spectators, and melt them into the same fondness and delicacy. The tear naturally starts in our eye, on the apprehension of a warm sentiment of this na- ture. Our breast heaves, our heart is agitated, and every humane, tender principle of our frame is set in motion, and gives us the purest and most satisfactory enjoyment. No qualities are more entitled to the general good-will and approbation of mankind, than beneficence and hu- manity, friendship, and gratitude, natural affection and public spirit, or whatever proceeds from a tender sympathy with others, and a generous concern for our kind and spe- cies. These, wherever they appear, seem to transfuse themselves, in a manner, into every beholder; and to call forth, in their own behalf, the same favorable and affec- tionate sentiments which they excite in all around. The species of self-love which displays itself in kind- ness to others, you must allow to have great influence over human actions, and even greater, on many occasions, than that which remains in its original shape and form ; for how few are there, who, having a family, children, and rela- tions, do not spend more on the maintenance and educa- tion of these than on their own pleasures ! This, indeed, may proceed from their self-love; since the prosperity of their family and friends is one, or the chief, of their plea- sures, as well as their honor. Be yov> also one of these MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 51 selfish men, and you are sure of every one's good opinion and good- will: the self-love of every one, and mine among the rest, will then incline us to serve you, and speak well of you.* Hume. Discontent, the common Lot of all Mankind* Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment, that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust. Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. From the first hint that wakens the fancy, to the hour of actual execution, all is improvement and progress, triumph and felicity. Every hour brings additions to the original scheme, suggests some new expedient to secure success, or discovers con- sequential advantages not hitherto foreseen. While pre- parations are made and materials accumulated, day glides after day through Elysian prospects, and the heart dances to the song of hope. Such is the pleasure of projecting, that many content themselves with a succession of visionary schemes, and wear out their allotted time in the calm amusement of contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute. Others, not able to feast their imagination with pure ideas, advance somewhat nearer to the grossness of action, with great diligence collect whatever is requisite to their design, and, after a thousand researches and consultations, are snatched away by death, as they stand waiting for a proper opportunity to begin. If there were no other end of life, than to find some adequate solace for every day, I know not whether any condition could be preferred to that of the man who in- volves himself in his own thoughts, and never suffers ex- perience to show him the vanity of speculation; for no sooner are notions reduced to practice, than tranquillity and confidence forsake the breast; every day brings its * The inflexions on these lessons, are intended, not so much to distin- guish accented or emphatic words, as to assist the learner in acquiring a variety of modulation, and a thorough command of his voice. 52 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS* task, and often without bringing abilities to perform it : difficulties embarrass, uncertainty perplexes, opposition retards, censure exasperates, or neglect depresses. We proceed, because we have begun; we complete our design, that the labor already spent may not be vain: but as ex- pectation gradually dies away, the gay smile of alacrity disappears, we are necessitated to implore severer powers, and trust the event to patience and constancy. When once our labor has begtin, the comfort that en- ables us to endure it is the prospect of its end ; for tho in eveiy long work there are some joyous intervals of self- applause, when the attention is recreated by unexpected facility, and the imagination soothed by incidental excel- lencies not comprised in the first plan, yet the toil with which performance struggles after idea, is so irksome and disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting be- low that perfection which we imagined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavours than a painful conviction of his defects, and a continual resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to gratify. So certainly is weariness and vexation the concomitant of our undertakings, that every man, in whatever he is engaged, consoles himself with the hope of change. He that has made his way by assiduity and vigilance to pub- lic employment, talks among his friends of nothing but the delight of retirement: he whom the necessity of solitary application secludes from the world, listens with a beating heart to its distant noises, longs to mingle with living be- ings, and resolves, when he can regulate his hours by his own choice, to take his fill of merriment and diversions, or to display his abilities on the universal theatre, and en- joy the pleasures of distinction and applause. Every desire, however innocent or natural, grows dan- gerous, as by long indulgence it becomes ascendant in the mind. When we have been much accustomed to consider any thing as capable of giving happiness, it is not easy to restrain our ardor, or to forbear some precipitation in our advances and irregularity in our pursuits. He that has long cultivated the tree, watched the swelling bud, and open- ing blossom, and pleased himself with computing how much every sun and shower added to its growth, scarcely MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 53 stays till the fruit has obtained its maturity, but defeats his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we have diligently labored for any purpose, we are willing to believe that we have attained it, and, because we have already done much, too suddenly conclude that no more is to be done. All attraction is increased by the approach of the at- tracting body. We never find ourselves so desirous to finish, as in the latter part of our work, or so impatient of delay, as when we know that delay cannot be long. Part of this unseasonable importunity of discontent may be justly imputed to langor and weariness, which must always oppress us more as our toil has been longer con- tinued; but the greater part usually proceeds from fre- quent contemplation of that ease which we now consider as near and certain, and which, when it has once flattered our hopes, we cannot suffer to be longer withheld. Rambler. Sun- Set " This is the evening on which, a few days ago, we agreed to walk to the Bower at the Waterfall, and look at the perfection of a Scottish sim-set. Every thing on earth and heaven seems at this hour as beautiful as our souls could desire it." They reached the Bower just as the western heaven was in all its glory. To them, while they stood together gazing on that glow of fire that burns without consuming, and in whose mighty furnace the clouds and the mountain-tops are but as embers, there seemed to exist no sky, but that region of it in which their spirits were entranced. Their eyes saw it, — their souls felt it; but what their eyes saw, or their souls felt, they knew not in the mystery of that magnificence. The vast black bars, — the piled-up masses of burnished gold, — the beds of softest saffron and richest purple, lying sur- rounded with continually fluctuating dyes of crimson, till the very sun himself was for moments unheeded in the gorgeousness which his light had created, — the show of storm, but the feeling of calm over all that tumultuous yet settled world of cloud that had come floating silently and 54 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. majestically together, and yet, in one little hour", was to be no more; — what might not beings endowed with a sense of beauty, and greatness, and love, and fear, and terror, and eternity feel, when drawing their breath toge- ther, and turning their steadfast eyes on each other's faces, in such a scene as this? On the Love of Fame. Extract from a Letter from Mustapha Rub-a-Dub Keli Khan, to Asem Hacchem, Principal Slave-driver to His Highness the Bashaw of Tripoli. Among the variety of principles by which mankind are actuated, there is one\ my dear Asem, which I scarcely know whether to consider as springing from grandeur and nobility of mind, or from a refined species of vanity and egotism. It is that singular, although almost universal, desire of living in the memory of posterity; of occupying a share of the world's attention, when we shall long since have ceased to be susceptible either of its praise or censure. Most of the passions of the mind are bounded by the grave; — sometimes, indeed, an anxious hope or trembling fear, will venture beyond the clouds and darkness that rest upon our mortal horizon, and expatiate in boundless futurity; but it is only this active love of fame which steadily contemplates its fruition, in the applause or gratitude of future ages. Indignant at the narrow limits which circumscribe existence, ambition is for ever strug- gling to soar beyond them; to triumph over space and time, and to bear a name, at least, above the inevitable oblivion in which every thing else that concerns us must be involved. It is this, my friend, which prompts the patriot to his most heroic achievements; which inspires the sublimest strains of the poet, and breathes ethereal fire into the productions of the painter and the statuary. For this, the monarch rears the lofty column; the laurelled conqueror claims the triumphal arch; while the obscure individual, who moved in an humbler sphere, askk but a plain and simple stone to mark his grave, and bear to the next generation this important truth, that he was born, died, and was buried. It was this passion which once erected the vast Numidian piles, whose ruins we MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 55 have so often regarded with wonder, as the shades of evening — fit emblems of oblivion — gradually stole over and enveloped them in darkness. It was this which gave being to those sublime monuments of Saracen magnifi- cence, which nod in mouldering desolation, as the blast sweeps over our deserted plains. How futile are all our efforts to evade the obliterating hand of time! As I traversed the dreary wastes of E v gypt, on my journey to Grand Cairo, I stopped my camel for a while, and con- templated in awful admiration, the stupendous pyramids. An appalling silence prevailed around — such as reigns in the wilderness when the tempest is hushed, and the beasts of prey have retired to their dens. The myriads that had once been employed in rearing these lofty mementos of human vanity, whose busy hum once enlivened the soli- tude of the desert, had all been swept from the earth by the irresistible arm of death — all were mingled with their native dust — all were forgotten ! Even the mighty names which these sepulchres were designed to perpetuate, had long since faded from remembrance : history and tradition afforded but vague conjectures, and the pyramids imparted a humiliating lesson to the candidate for immortality. — Alas ! alas ! said I to myself, how mutable are the founda- tions on which our proudest hopes of future fame are reposed! He who imagines that he has secured to him- self the meed of deathless renown, indulges in deluding visions, which only bespeak the vanity of the dreamer. The storied obelisk — the triumphal arch — the swelling dome — shall crumble into dust, and the names they would preserve from oblivion shall often pass away before their own duration is accomplished. Washington Irvine. Christianity defended against Scepticism. Locke and Bayle. Bayle. — Yes; we both were, philosophers; but my philosophy was the deepest. You dogmatised; I doubted. Locke — Do you make doubting a proof of depth in philosophy? It may be a good beginning of it; but it is a bad ending. 56 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. Bayle. — No; the more profound our researches are into the nature of things, the more uncertainty we shall find; and the most subtle minds see objections and diffi- culties in every system, which are overlooked or undis- coverable by ordinary understandings. Locke. — It would be better, then, to be no philosopher, and to continue in the vulgar herd of mankind, that one may have the convenience of thinking that one knows something. I find that the eyes which nature has given me, see many things very clearly, though some are out of their reach, or discerned but dimly. What opinion ought I to have of a physician who should offer me an eye- water, the use of which would at first so sharpen my sight, as to cany it farther than ordinary vision; but would, in the end, put out my eyes? Your philosophy to the eyes of the mind, is what I have supposed the doctor's nostrum to be to those of the body. It actually brought your own excellent understanding, which was by nature quick- sighted, and rendered more so by art and subtilty of logic peculiar to yourself — it brought, I say, your very acute understanding to see nothing clearly; and enveloped all the great truths of reason and religion in the mists of doubt. Bayle. — I own it did ; but your comparison is not just. I did not see well, before I used my philosophic eye- water: I only supposed I saw well; but I was in error with all the rest of mankind. The blindness was real, the perceptions were imaginary. I cured myself first of those false imaginations, and then I laudably endeavoured to cure other men. Locke. — A great cure indeed! — and do you not think that, in return for the service you did them, they ought to erect you a statue? Bayle. — Yes; it is good for human nature to know its own weakness. When we arrogantly presume on a strength we have not, we are always in great danger of hurting ourselves, or at least of deserving ridicule and contempt by vain and idle efforts. Locke. — I agree with you that human nature should know its own weakness; but it should also feel its strength, and try to improve it. This was my employ- ment as a philosopher. I endeavoured to discover the MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 57 r&al powers of the mind, to see what it could do, and what it could not; to restrain it from efforts beyond its ability; but to teach it how to advance as far as the faculties given to it by nature, with the utmost exertion, and most proper culture of them, would allow it to go. In the vast ocean of philosophy, I had the line and the plummet always in my hands. Many of its depths I found myself unable to fathom ; but by caution in sound- ing, and the careful observations I made in the course of my voyage, I found out some truths of so much use to mankind, that they acknowledge me to have been their benefactor. JBayle, — Their ignorance makes them think so. Some other philosopher will come hereafter, and show those truths to be falsehoods. He will pretend to discover other truths of equal importance. A later sage will arise, per- haps among men now barbarous and unlearned, whose sagacious discoveries will discredit the opinions of his admired predecessor. In philosophy, as in nature, all changes its form, and one thing exists by the destruction of another. Locke. — Opinions taken up without a patient investi- gation, depending on terms not accurately defined, and principles begged without proof, like theories to explain the phenomena of nature, built on suppositions instead of experiments, must perpetually change and destroy one another. But some opinions there are, even in matters not obvious to the common sense of mankind, which they have received on such rational ground of assent, that they are as immoveable as the pillars of heaven; or (to speak more philosophically), as the laws of nature, by which, under God, the universe is sustained. Can you seriously think, that, because the hypothesis of your countryman Descartes, which was nothing but an ingenious, well- imagined romance, has been lately exploded, the system of Newton, which is built on experiments and geometry, the two most certain methods of discovering truth, will ever fail; or that, because the whims of fanatics and the divinity of schoolmen, cannot now be supported, the doctrines of that religion, which I, the declared enemy of all enthusiasm and false reasoning, firmly believed and maintained, will ever be shaken? 58 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. Bayle. — If you had asked Descartes, while he was in the height of his vogue, whether his system would ever be confuted by any other philosophers, as that of Aristotle had been by his, what answer do you suppose he would have returned? Locke. — Come, come, you yourself know the difference between the foundations on which the credit of those systems, and that of Newton is placed. Your scepticism is more affected than real. You found it a shorter way to a great reputation (the only wish of your heart), to object, than to defend; to pull down, than to set up. And your talents were admirable for that kind of work. Then your huddling together in a critical dictionary, a pleasant tale, or obscene jest, and a grave argument against the Christian religion, a witty confutation of some absurd author, and an artful sophism to impeach some respectable truth, was particularly commodious to all our young smarts and smatterers in free-thinking. But what mischief have you not done to human society! You have endeavored, and with some degree of success, to shake those foundations on which the whole moral world, and the great fabric of social happiness, entirely rest. How could you as a philosopher, in the sober hours of reflec- tion, answer for this to your conscience; even supposing you had doubts of the truth of a system, which gives to virtue its sweetest hopes, to impenitent vice its greatest fears, and to true penitence its best consolations ; which restrains even the least approaches to guilt, and yet makes those allowances for the infirmities of our nature, which the stoic pride denied to it, but which its real imperfec- tion, and the goodness of its infinitely benevolent Creator, so evidently require? Bayle The mind is free; and it loves to exert its freedom. Any restraint upon it is a violence done to its nature, and a tyranny against which it has a right to rebel. Locke The mind, though free, has a governor within itself, which may, and ought to limit the exercise of its freedom. That governor is reason. Bayle. — Yes; but reason, like other governors, has a policy, more dependent on uncertain caprice, than upon any fixed laws. And if that reason which rules my mind or yours, has happened to set up a favorite notion, it not MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 59 only submits implicitly to it, but desires tbat the same respect should be paid to it by all the rest of mankind. Now, I hold that any man may lawfully oppose this desire in another; and that, if he is wise, he will use his utmost endeavors to check it in himself. Locke, — Is there not also a weakness of a contrary nature to this you are now ridiculing? Do we not often take a pleasure in showing our own power, and gratifying our own pride, by degrading notions set up by other men, and generally respected. JBayle. — I believe we do ; and by this means it often happens, that, if one man builds and consecrates a temple to folly, another pulls it down. Locke. — Do you think it beneficial to human society, to have all temples pulled down? JBayle. — I cannot say that I do. Locke. — Yet I find not in your writings any mark of distinction to show us which you mean to save. JBayle. — A true philosopher, like an impartial historian, must be of no sect. Locke. — Is there no medium between the blind zeal of a sectary, and a total indifference to all religion? Bayle. — With regard to morality, I was not indifferent. Locke. — How could you then be indifferent with regard to the sanctions which religion gives to morality? How could you publish what tends so directly and apparently to weaken in mankind the belief of those sanctions? Was not this sacrificing the great interests of virtue to the little motives of vanity? Bayle. — A man may act indiscreetly, but he cannot do wrong, by declaring that which, on a full discussion of the question, he sincerely thinks to be true. Locke. — An enthusiast, who advances doctrines preju- dicial to society, or opposes any that are useful to it, has the strength of opinion, and the heat of a disturbed ima- gination, to plead in alleviation of his fault. But your cool head and sound judgment, can have no such excuse. I know very well there are passages in all your works, and those not a few, where you talk like a rigid moralist. I have also heard that your character was irreproachably good. But when, in the most labored parts of your writings, you sap the surest foundations of all moral duties; what avails it 60 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. that in others, or in the conduct of your life, you appeared to respect them? How many, who have stronger passions than you had, and are desirous to get rid of the curb that restrains them, will lay hold of your scepticism, to set themselves loose from all obligations of virtue. What a misfortune it is to have made such a use of such talents! It would have been better for you, and for mankind, if you had been one of the dullest of Dutch theologians, or the most credulous monk in a Portuguese convent. The riches of the mind, like those of fortune, may be employed so perversely, as to become a nuisance and pest, instead of an ornament and support, to society. JBayle. — You are veiy severe upon me. But, do you count it no merit, no service to mankind, to deliver them from the frauds and fetters of priestcraft, from the deliriums of fanaticism, and from the terrors and follies of supersti- tion? Consider how much mischief these have done to the world! Even in the last age, what massacres, what civil wars, what convulsions of government, what confu- sion in society, did they produce ! Nay, in that we both lived in, though much more enlightened than the former, did I not see them occasion a violent persecution in my own country? And can you blame me for striking at the root of these evils? Locke — The root of these evils, you well know, was false religion; but you struck at the true. Heaven and hell are not more different, than the system of faith P de- fended, and that which produced the horrors of which you speak. Why would you so fallaciously confound them together in some of your writings, that it requires much more judgment, and a more diligent attention, than ordi- nary readers have, to separate them again, and to make the proper distinctions? This, indeed, is the great art of the most celebrated free-thinkers. They recommend themselves to warm and ingenuous minds, by lively strokes of wit, and by arguments really strong, against superstition, enthusiasm, and' priestcraft. But, at the same time, they insidiously throw the colors of these upon the fair face of true religion ; and dress her out in their garb, with a malignant intention to render her odious or despicable, to those who have not penetration enough to discern the impious fraud. Some of them may have thus MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 61 deceived themselves, as well as others. Yet it is certain, no book that ever was written by the most acute of these gentlemen, is so repugnant to priestcraft, to spiritual tyranny, to all absurd superstitions, to all that can tend to disturb or injure society, as that gospel they so much affect to despise. JBayle. — Mankind are so made, that when they have been overheated, they cannot be brought to a proper temper again, till they have been overcooled. My scep- ticism might be necessary, to abate the fever and frenzy of false religion. Locke. — A wise prescription, indeed, to bring on a paralytical state of the mind (for such a scepticism as yours is a palsy, which deprives the mind of all vigor, and deadens its natural and vital powers), in order to take off a fever, which temperance, and the milk of the evangelical doctrines, would probably cure. Bayle. — I acknowledge that those medicines have a great power. But few doctors apply them untainted with the mixture of some harsher drugs, or some unsafe and ridiculous nostrums of their own. Locke. — What you now say is too true. God has given us a most excellent physic for the soul in all its diseases; but bad and interested physicians, or ignorant and conceited quacks, administer it so ill to the rest of mankind, that much of the benefit of it is unhappily lost. Lord Lyttleton. On the Elocution of the Pulpit. I cannot forbear regretting here, that a matter of such vast importance to preaching as delivery, should be so generally neglected or misunderstood. A common ap- prehension prevails, indeed, that a strict regard to these rules would be deemed theatrical; and the dread perhaps of incurring this imputation, is a restraint upon many. But is it not possible to attain a just and expressive man- ner, perfectly consistent with the gravity of the pulpit, and yet quite distinct from the more passionate, strong, and diversified action of the theatre? And is it not possible, to hit off this manner so easily and naturally, as to leave no room for just reflection? An affair this, it must be G 62 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. owned, of the utmost delicacy; in which we shall probably often miscarry, and meet with abundance of censure at first. But still, I imagine, that through the regulations of taste, the improvements of experience, the corrections of friendship, the feelings of piety, and the gradual mel~ lowings of time — such an elocution may be acquired, as is above delineated; and such as, when acquired, will make its way to the hearts of the hearers, through their ears and eyes, with a delight to both, that is seldom felt ; whilst, contrary to what is commonly practised, it will appear to the former, the very language of nature, and present to the latter, the lively image of the preacher s souL Were a taste for this kind of elocution to take place, it is difficult to say how much the preaching art would gain by it. Pronunciation would be studied, an ear would be formed, the voice would be modulated, every feature of the face, every motion of the hands, every posture of the body, would be brought under right management. A graceful, and correct, and animated expression in all these would be ambitiously sought after; mutual criticisms and friendly hints would be universally encouraged; light and direction would be borrowed from every quarter, and from every age. The best models of antiquity would in a particular manner be admired, surveyed, and imitated. The sing-song voice, and the see-saw gestures, if I may be allowed to use those expressions, would, of course, be exploded; and in time, nothing would be admitted, at least approved among performers, but what was decent, manly, and truly excellent in the kind. Even the people themselves would contract, insensibly, a growing relish for such a manner; and these preachers would at last be in chief repute with all, who followed nature, overlooked themselves, appeared totally absorbed in the subject, and spoke with real propriety and pathos, from the immediate impulse of truth and virtue. Rev. James Fordyce* TJie Old Major and the Young Officer. When I was a young man about this town, I frequented the Ordinary of the Black Horse in Holbor?i, where the person that usually presided at the table was a rough old-* MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 63 fashioned gentleman, who, according to the customs of those times, had been the Major and Preacher of a regi- ment. It happened one day that a noisy young officer, bred in France, was venting some new-fangled notions, and speaking, in the gaiety of his humor, against the dis- pensations of Providence. The Major at first only desired him to talk more respectfully of one for whom all the company had an honor ; but finding him run on in his ex- travagance, began to reprimand him after a more serious manner. Young man, said he, do not abuse your Bene- factor whilst you are eating his bread. Consider whose air you breathe, whose presence you are in, and who it is that gave you the power of that very speech which you make use of to his dishonor. The young fellow, Avho thought to turn matters into a jest, asked him, if he was going to preach? But, at the same time, desired him to take care what he said, when he spoke to a man of honor. A man of honor, says the Major, thou art an infidel and a blasphemer, and I shall use thee as such. In short, the quarrel ran so high, that the Major was desired to walk out. Upon their coming into the garden, the old fellow advised his antagonist to consider the place into which one pass might drive him ; but finding him grow upon him to a degree of scurrility, as believing the advice proceeded from fear; Sirrah, says he, if a thunderbolt does not strike thee dead before I come at thee, I shall not fail to chas- tise thee for thy profaneness to thy Maker, and thy sauci- ness to his* servant. Upon this he drew his sword, and cried out with a loud voice, The sivord of tlie Lord and of Gideon! which so terrified his antagonist, that he was immediately disarmed, and thrown upon his knees. In this posture he begged his life ; but the Major refused to grant it, before he had asked pardon for his offence in a short extemporary prayer, which the old gentleman dic- tated to him upon the spot, and which his proselyte re- peated after him in the presence of the whole Ordinary, that were now gathered about him in the garden. Tatler. Remarks of a Sceptic on the Majesty of the Scriptures. I will confess that the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity of the gospel hath its 64 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. influence on my heart. Peruse the works of our philoso- phers with all their pomp of diction: how mean, how contemptible are they, compared with the Scriptures ! Is it possible, that a book, at once so simple and so sublime, should be merely the work of man? Is it possible, that the sacred personage, whose history it contains, should be himself, a mere man? Do we find that he assumed the tone of an enthusiast or ambitious sectary? What sweet- ness, what purity in his manner! What an affecting gracefulness in his delivery! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind, what subtlety, what truth in his replies! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, and so die, without weakness, and without ostenta- tion? When Plato described his imaginary good man, loaded with all the shame of guilt, yet meriting the highest rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ ; the resemblance was so striking, that all the fathers perceived it. What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to com- pare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What an infinite disproportion there is between them ! Socrates dying without pain or ignominy, easily supported his char- acter to the last : and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted, whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a vain sophist. He invented, it is said, the theory of morals. Others, however, had before put them in practice ; he had only to say, therefore, what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precepts. Aristides had been just, be- fore Socrates had defined justice: Leonidas had given up his life for his country, before Socrates declared pa- triotism to be a duty: The Spartans were a sober people, before Socrates recommended sobriety; before he had even defined virtue, Greece abounded in virtuous men. But where could Jesus learn, among his competitors, that pure and sublime morality, of which he only hath given both precept and example. The greatest wisdom was made known amongst the most bigotted fanaticism, and the simplicity of the most heroic virtues did honor to the vilest people on earth. The death of Socrates, peace- MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 65 &bly philosophizing with his friends, appears the most agreeable that could be wished for; that of Jesus, expir- ing in the midst of agonizing pains, abused, insulted, and accursed by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed indeed the weeping executioner who administered it ; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating tortures, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes! if the life and death of So- crates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God ! Shall we suppose the evangelic his- tory a mere fiction? Indeed it bears not the marks of fiction ; on the contrary, the history of Socrates, which nobody presumes to doubt, is not so well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such a supposition, in fact, only shifts the difficulty, without obviating it; it is more inconceiv- able, that a number of persons should agree to write such a history, than that one only should furnish the subject of it. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality contained in the gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking and inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing character than the hero. Rousseau. On the comparatively small Influence of Religion on the mere natural Mind, ivhen opposed by Worldly Temptations. In recounting so many influences that operate on man, it is grievous to observe that the incomparably noblest of all religion is counteracted with a fatal success by a per- petual conspiracy of almost all the rest, aided by the in- trinsic predisposition of our nature, which yields itself with such consenting facility to every impression tending to estrange it still farther from God. It is a cause for wonder and sorrow, to see millions of rational creatures growing into their permanent habits, under the conforming efficacy of every thing which they ought to resist, and receiving no part of those habits from impressions of the Supreme Object. They are content that a narrow scene of a diminutive world, with its atoms and evils, should usurp, and deprave, and finish their educa- tion for immortality, while the Infinite Spirit is here, whose 66 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS . transforming companionship would exalt them into his sons, and, in defiance of a thousand malignant forces at- tempting to stamp on them an opposite image, lead them into eternity in his likeness. Oh, why is it so possible that this greatest inhabitant of every place where men are living, should be the last whose society they seek, or of whose being constantly near them, they feel the impor- tance? Why is it possible to be surrounded with the in- telligent Reality which exists wherever we are, with at- tributes that are infinite, and not feel respecting all other things which may be attempting to press on our minds and affect their characters, as if they retained with diffi- culty their shadows of existence, and were continually on the point of vanishing into nothing? Why is this stu- pendous Intelligence so retired and silent, while present over all the scenes of the earth, and in all the paths and abodes of men? Why does he keep his glory invisible behind the shades and visions of the material world? Why does not this latent glory sometimes beam forth with such a manifestation as could never be forgotten, or never be remembered without an emotion of religious fear? And why, in contempt of all that he has displayed to excite either fear or love, is it still possible for a ra- tional creature so to five, that it must finally come to an interview with him in a character completed by the full assemblage of those acquisitions which have separately been disapproved by him through every stage of the ac- cumulation? Why is it possible for feeble creatures to maintain their little dependent beings, fortified and invin- cible in sin, amidst the presence of divine purity? Why does not the thought of such a Being strike through the mind with such intense antipathy to evil, as to blast with death every active principle that is beginning to pervert it, and render gradual additions of depravity, growing into the solidity of habit, as impossible, as for perishable ma- terials to be raised into structures amidst the fires of the last day? How is it possible to forget the solicitude which should accompany the consciousness, that such a Being is continually darting upon us the beams of observant thought (if we may apply such a term to Omniscience), that we are exposed to the piercing inspection, compared to which the concentrated attention of all the beings in the universe MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. &J besides, would be but as the powerless gaze of an infant? Why is faith, that faculty of spiritual apprehension, so absent, or so incomparably more slow and reluctant to receive a just perception of the grandest of its objects, than the senses are adapted to receive the impressions of theirs? While there is a Spirit pervading the universe with an infinite energy of being, why have the few particles of dust which enclose our spirits the power to intercept all sensible communication with it, and to place them as in a vacuity, where the sacred essence had been precluded or extinguished? The reverential submission with which you ought to contemplate the Omnipotent Benevolence forbearing to exert the agency which could assume an instantaneous ascendancy in every mind over the causes of depravation and ruin, will not avert your compassion from the unhappy persons who are practically " without God in the world." And i£ by some vast enlargement of thought, you could comprehend the whole measure and depth of disaster con- tained in this exclusion (an exclusion under which, to the view of a serious mind, the resources and magnificence of the creation would sink into a mass of dust and ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope into disgust and despair), you would feel a strange emotion at each recital of a life in which religion had no share ; and you would be tempted to wish that some spirit from the other world, possessed of eloquence that might threaten to alarm the slumbers of the dead, would throw himself in the way of this one mor- tal, and this one more, to protest, in sentences of lightning and thunder, against the infatuation that can at once ac- knowledge there is a God, and be content to forego every connexion with him, but that of danger. You would wish they should rather be assailed by the " terror of thq Lord," than retain the satisfaction of carelessness till the day of his mercy be past. Foster. The Bashful Man. I labor under a species of distress, which, I fear, will at length drive me utterly from that society in which I am most ambitious to appear; but I shall give you a short 68 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. sketch of my origin and present situation, by which you will be enabled to judge of my difficulties. My father was a farmer of no great property, and with no other learning than what he had acquired at a charity- school; but my mother being dead, and I an only child, he determined to give me that advantage which he fancied would have made me happy, — that is, a learned educa- tion. I was sent to a country grammar-school, and from thence to the university, with a view of qualifying me for holy orders. Here, having but a small allowance from my father, and being naturally of a timid and bashful dis- position, I had no opportunity of rubbing off that native awkwardness which is the fatal cause of all my unhappi- ness, and which I now begin to fear, can never be amended. You must know, that in my person I am tall and thin, with a fair complexion and light flaxen hair; but of such extreme susceptibility of shame, that on the smallest subject of confusion, my blood all rushes into my cheeks, and I appear a perfect full-blown rose. The conscious- ness of this unhappy failing made me avoid society, and I became enamored of a college life, particularly when I re- flected that the uncouth manners of my father's family were little calculated to improve my outward conduct. I therefore had resolved on living at the university, and tak- ing pupils, when two unexpected events greatly altered the posture of my affairs, viz. my father's death, and the arrival of an uncle from the Indies. This uncle I had very rarely heard my father mention; and it was generally believed that he was long since dead, when he arrived in England only a week too late to close his brother's eyes/' I am ashamed to confess, what I be- lieve has been often experienced by those whose education has been better than that of their parents, that my poor father's ignorance and vulgar language had often made me blush to think I was his son; and, at his death, I was not inconsolable for the loss of that which I was not unfre- quently ashamed to own. My uncle was but little af- fected, for he had been separated from his brother more than thirty years, and in that time he had acquired a for- tune which he used to brag would make a nabob happy: in short, he had brought over with him the enormous sum of thirty thousand pounds, and upon this he built his hopes MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 69 of never-ending happiness. While he was planning schemes of greatness and delight, whether the change of climate might affect him, or what other cause I know not, but he was snatched from all his dreams of joy by a short illness, of which he died, leaving me heir to all his property. And, now Sir, behold me, at the age of twenty-five, well stocked with Latin, Greek, and mathematics, possessed of an ample fortune, but so awkward and unversed in any gentlemanlike accomplishment, that I am pointed at by all who see me, as the wealthy learned clown. I have lately purchased an estate in the country, which abounds with what is called a fashionable neighborhood ; and when you reflect on my parentage and uncouth man- ners, you will hardly think how much my company is courted by the surrounding families, especially by those who have marriageable daughters. From these gentlemen I have received familiar calls, and the most pressing in- vitations; and though I wished to accept their offered friendship, I have repeatedly excused myself, under the pretence of not being quite settled; for the truth is, that when I have rode or walked, with full intention to return their several visits, my heart has failed me as I approached their gates, and I have frequently returned homewards, resolving to try again to-morrow. However, I at length determined to conquer my timi- dity, and three days ago accepted of an invitation to dine this day with one, whose open easy manner left me no room to doubt a cordial welcome. Sir Thomas Friendly, who lives about two miles distant, is a baronet, with an estate of about two thousand pounds a-year, joining to that which I purchased. He has two sons and five daughters, all grown up, and living with their mother, and a maiden sister of Sir Thomas's, at Friendly-Hall, dependent on their father. Conscious of my unpolished gait, I have for some time past taken private lessons from a professor, who teaches " grown-up gentlemen to dance;" and altho I at first found wondrous difficulty in the art he taught, my know- ledge of mathematics was of prodigious use in teaching me the equilibrium of my body, and the due adjustment of the centre of gravity to the five positions. Having now acquired the art of walking without tottering, and learned to make a bow, I boldly ventured to accept the Baronet's 70 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. invitation to a family dinner, not doubting but my new acquirements would enable me to see the ladies with tol- erable intrepidity ; but, alas ! how vain are all the hopes of theory when unsupported by habitual practice! As I approached the house, a dinner-bell alarmed my fears lest I had spoiled the dinner by want of punctuality. Impressed with this idea, I blushed the deepest crimson, as my name was repeatedly announced by the several livery- servants, who ushered me into the library, hardly knowing whom or what I saw. At my first entrance, I summoned all my fortitude, and made my new-learned bow to Lady Friendly ; but unfortunately bringing back my left foot into the third position, I trod upon the gouty toe of poor Sir Thomas, who had followed close at my heels to be the nomenclator of the family. The confusion this occasioned in me is hardly to be conceived, since none but bashful men can judge of my distress ; and of that description, the number is, I believe, very small. The Baronet's politeness, by degrees, dissipated my concern; and I was astonished to see how far good-breeding could enable him to suppress Ins feelings, and to appear with perfect ease after so pain- ful an accident. The cheerfulness of her ladyship, and the familiar chat of the young ladies, insensibly led me to throw off my re- serve and sheepishness, till at length I ventured to join in the conversation, and even to start fresh subjects. The library being richly furnished with books in elegant bind- ings, I conceived Sir Thomas to be a man of literature ; and ventured to give my opinion concerning the several editions of the Greek classics, in which the Baronet's ideas exactly coincided with my own. To this subject I was led by observing an edition of Xenophon, in sixteen vo- lumes, which (as I had never before heard of such a thing) greatly excited my curiosity, and I rose up to examine what it could be. Sir Thomas saw what I was about, and (as I supposed) willing to save me trouble, rose to take down the book, which made me more eager to pre- vent him, and hastily laying my hand on the first volume, I pulled it forcibly; but lo! instead of books, a board, which, by leather and gilding, had been made to look like sixteen volumes, came tumbling down, and unluckily pitched upon a Wedgwood ink-stand on the table under MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. *]\ it. In vain did Sir Thomas assure me there was no harm. I saw the ink streaming from an inlaid table on the Turkey carpet, and scarce knowing what I did, attempted to stop its progress with my cambric handkerchief. In the height of this confusion, we were informed that dinner was served up ; and I with joy then understood that the bell which at first had so alarmed my fears, was only the half-hour din- ner-bell. In walking through the hall and suite of apartments to the dining-room, I had time to collect my scattered senses, and was desired to take my seat betwixt Lady Friendly and her eldest daughter at the table. Since the fall of the wooden Xenophon, my face had been continually burning like a fire-brand ; and I was just beginning to recover my- self, and to feel comfortably cool, when an unlooked-for accident rekindled all my heat and blushes. Having set my plate of soup too near the edge of the table, in bowing to Miss Dinah, who politely complimented the pattern of my waistcoat, I tumbled the whole scalding contents into my lap. In spite of an immediate supply of napkins to wipe the surface of my clothes, my black silk breeches were not stout enough to save me from the painful effects of this sud- den fermentation, and for some minutes my legs and thighs seemed stewed in a boiling caldron; but recollecting how Sir Thomas had disguised his torture, when I trod upon his toes, I firmly bore my pain in silence, and sat with my lower extremities parboiled, amidst the stifled giggling of the ladies and the servants. I will not relate the se- veral blunders which I made during the first course, or the distresses occasioned by my being desired to carve a fowl, or help to various dishes that stood near me, spilling a sauce-boat, and knocking down a salt-cellar; rather let me hasten to the second course, where fresh disasters quite overwhelmed me. I had a piece of rich sweet pudding on my fork, when Miss Louisa Friendly begged to trouble me for some of a pigeon that stood near me. In my haste, scarce knowing what I did, I whipped the pudding into my mouth, hot as a burning coal: it was impossible to conceal my agony; my eyes were starting from their sockets. At last, in spite of shame and resolution, I was obliged to drop the cause of my torment on my plate. Sir Thomas and the 72 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. ladies all compassionated my misfortune, and each ad- vised a different application. One recommended oil, another water, but all agreed that wine was the best for drawing out the heat; and a glass of sherry was brought me from the side-board, which I snatched up with eager- ness: but oh! how shall I tell the sequel? Whether the butler, by accident, mistook, or purposely designed, to drive me mad, he gave me the strongest brandy, with which I filled my mouth, already flayed and blistered. Totally unused to every kind of ardent spirits, with my tongue, throat, and palate, as raw as beef, what could I do? I could not swallow; and clapping my hands upon my mouth, the cursed liquor squirted through my nose and fingers, like a fountain, over all the dishes, and I was crushed by bursts of laughter from all quarters. In vain did Sir Thomas reprimand the servants, and Lady Friendly chide her daughters; for the measure of my shame and their diversion was not yet complete. To relieve me from the intolerable state of perspiration which this acci- dent had caused, without considering what I did, I wiped my face with that ill-fated handkerchief, which was still wet, from the consequences of the fall of Xenophon, and covered all my features with streaks of ink in every direc- tion. The Baronet himself could not support this shock, but joined his lady in the general laugh; while I sprung from the table in despair, rushed out of the house, and ran home in an agony of confusion and disgrace, which the most poignant sense of guilt could not have excited. Anon. Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in 1717. In the year 1717, in the middle of April, with much difficulty I reached the top of Mount Vesuvius, in which I saw a vast aperture full of smoke, that hindered me from seeing its depth and figure. I heard within the hor- rid guuy extraordinary sounds, which seemed to proceed from the^ bowels of the mountain, and, at intervals, a noise like that of thunder or cannon, with a clattering like the falling of tiles from the tops of houses into the streets* Sometimes, as the wind changed, the smoke grew thin- ner, discovering a veiy ruddy flame, and the circumference MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 73 of the crater streaked with red and several shades of yel- low. After an hour's stay, the smoke being moved by the wind, we had short and partial prospects of the great hollow, in the flat bottom of which, I could discern two furnaces almost contiguous ; that on the left seeming about three yards over, glowing with ruddy flame, and throwing up red-ho.t stones, with a hideous noise, which, as they fell back, caused the clattering already taken notice of. May 8th, in the morning, I ascended the top of Vesu- vius a second time, and found a different face of things. The smoke ascending upright, afforded a full view of the crater, which, as far as I could judge, was about a mile in circumference, and a hundred yards deep. Since my last visit, a conical mount has been formed in the middle of the bottom. This has been made by the stones thrown up and fallen back again into the crater. In this new hill, remained the two furnaces already mentioned. The one was seen to throw up every three or four minutes, with a dreadful sound, a vast number of red-hot stones, at least three hundred feet higher than my head ; but as there was no wind, they fell perpendicularly back into the place whence they had been discharged. The other was filled with red-hot liquid matter, like that in the furnace of a glass-house, raging and working like the waves of the sea, with a short abrupt noise. This matter sometimes boiled over, and ran down the sides of the conical hill, appearing at first red hot, but changing color as it hardened and cooled. Had the wind set towards us, we should have been in no small danger of being stifled by the sulphurous smoke, or killed by the masses of melted mineral that were shot from the bottom. But as the wind was favorable, I had an opportunity of surveying this amazing scene for above an hour and a-half together. On the 5th of June, after a horrid noise, the mountain was seen at Naples to work over; and about three days after, its thunders were renewed, so that not only the windows in the city, but all the houses shook. Front that time, it continued to overflow, and sometimes, at bright, exhibited columns of fire shooting upward from its sum- mit. On the 10th, when all was thought to be over, the mountain again renewed its terrors, roaring arid raging most violently. One cannot form a juster idea of the 74 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. noise, in the most violent fits of it, than by imagining a mixed sound made up of the raging of a tempest, the murmur of a troubled sea, and the roaring of thunder and artillery, confused all together. Though we heard this terrible noise at the distance of twelve miles, yet we re- solved to approach nearer to the mountain: and accord- ingly three or four of us entered a boat, and. were set ashore at a little town, situated at the foot of the moun- tain. From thence we rode about four or five miles be- fore we came to the torrent of fire that was descending from the side of the volcano, and here the roaring grew exceedingly loud and terrible. I observed a mixture of colors in the cloud above the crater— green, yellow, red, blue. There was likewise a ruddy, dismal light, in the air over that tract where the burning river flowed. These circumstances, set off and augmented by the horror of the night, formed a scene the most uncommon and astonishing I ever saw, which still increased as we approached the burning river. A vast torrent of liquid fire rolled from the crater down the sides of the mountain, and with irre- sistible fury bore down and consumed vines, olives, and houses, and divided into different channels, according to the inequalities of the mountain. The largest stream seemed at least half a mile broad, and five miles long. I walked before my companions so far up the mountain, along the side of the river of fire, that I was obliged to retire in great haste, the sulphurous steam having sur- prised me, and almost taken away my breath. During our return, which was about three o'clock in the morning, the roaring of the mountain was heard all the way; while we observed it throwing up huge spouts of fire and burn- ing stones, which, falling, resembled the stars in a rocket. Sometimes I observed two or three distinct columns of flame, and sometimes one only that was large enough to fill the whole crater. These burning columns and fiery stones, seemed to be shot a thousand feet perpendicular above' the summit of the volcano. In this manner, the mountain continued raging for six or eight days after. On the 18th of the same month, the whole appearance ended, and Vesuvius remained perfectly quiet, without any visi- ble smoke or flame. Bishop Berkeley* MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 7& On Mr. (noio Sir Walter) Scott's Vision of Don Roderick. We are not very apt to quarrel with a poet for his po- litics; — and really supposed it next to impossible that Mr Scott should have given us any ground of dissatisfaction on this score, in the management of his present theme. Lord Wellington and Ms fellow-soldiers have well deserved the laurels they have won ; — nor is there one British heart, we believe, that will not feel proud and grateful, for all the honors with which British genius can invest their names. In the praises which Mr Scott has bestowed, therefore, all his readers will sympathise; but for those which he has withheld, there are some that will not so readily forgive him. And, in our eyes, we will confess, it is a sin not easily to be expiated, that in a poem written substantially for the purpose of commemorating the brave, who have fought or fallen in Spain and Portugal, — and written by a Scotchman, — there should be no mention of the name of Moore! — of the only commander-in-chief who has fallen in this memorable contest;- — of a com- mander, who was acknowledged as the model and pattern of a British soldier, when British soldiers stood most in need of such an example; — and was, at the same time, distinguished not less for every manly virtue and generous affection, than for skill and gallantry in his profession. A more pure, or a more exalted character, certainly has not yet appeared upon that scene which Mr Scott has sought to illustrate with the splendor of his genius; and it is with a mixture of shame and indignation, that we find him grudging a single ray of that profuse and readily-yielded glory to gild the grave of his lamented countryman. To offer a lavish tribute of praise to the living, whose task is still incomplete, may be generous and munificent ; — but, to departed merit — it is due in strictness of justice. Who will deny that Sir John Moore was all that we have now said of him? — or who will doubt that his untimely death in the hour of victory, would have been eagerly seized upon by an impartial poet, as a noble theme for generous lamentation and eloquent praise? — But Mr Scott's poli- tical Mends have fancied it for their interest to calumniate the memory of this illustrious and accomplished person; — 76 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. and Mr Scott has permitted the spirit of party to stand in the way, not only of poetical justice, but of patriotic and generous feeling. It is this for which we grieve, and feel ashamed : — this hardening and deadening effect of political animosities, in cases where politics should hare nothing to do; — this ap- parent perversion, not merely of the judgment, but of the heart; — this implacable resentment, which war not only with the living, but with the dead : — and think it a reason for defrauding a departed warrior of his glory, that a po- litical antagonist has been zealous in his praise. These things are lamentable; and they cannot be alluded to, without some emotions of sorrow and resentment. But they affect not the fame of him, on whose account these emotions are suggested. The wars of Spain, and the merits of Sir John Moore, will be commemorated in a more impartial, and a more imperishable record, than the Vision of Don Roderick; — and his humble monument in the citadel of Corunna, will draw the tears and the ad- miration of thousands, who concern not themselves about the exploits of his more fortunate associates. Edinburgh Review. The Fair and Happy Milh-Maid. A fair and happy milk-maid is a country wench that is so far from making herself beautiful by art, that one look of hers is able to put all face-physic out of countenance. She knows a fair look is but a dumb orator to commend virtue, therefore minds it not. All her excellencies stand on her so silently, as if they had stolen upon her without her knowledge. The lining of her apparel (which is her- self) is far better than outsides of tissue; for altho she is not arrayed in the spoil of the silk-worm, she is decked in innocency, a far better wearing. She doth not, with lying long in bed, spoil both her complexion and her con- dition. Nature hath taught her, too immoderate sleep is rust to the soul: she rises therefore with chanticleer, her dame's cock, and at night makes the lamb her curfew. Her breath is her own, which scents all the year long of June, like a new-made haycock. She makes her hand MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 77 hard with labor, and her heart soft with pity; and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel), she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune. She doth all things with so sweet a grace, it seems ignorance will not suffer her to do ill, being her mind is to do well. She bestows her year's wages at next fair; and in choosing her garments, counts no bravery in the world like decency. The garden and bee-hive are all her physic and chirur- gery, and she lives the longer for it. She dares go alone, and unfold sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none: yet, to say the truth, she is never alone, for she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones; yet they have their efficacy, in that they are not palled with en- suing idle cogitations. Lastly, her dreams are so chaste, that she dare tell them ; only a Friday's dream is all her superstition; that she conceals for fear of anger. Thus lives she; and all her care is, that she may die in the spring-time, and to have store of flowers stuck upon her winding-sheet. Sir Thomas Overbury. Description of the World. Professor Von Poddingcoft (or Puddinghead, as the name may be rendered into English) was long celebrated in the University of Leyden, for profound gravity of de- portment, and a talent at going to sleep in the midst of examination, to the infinite relief of his hopeful students, who thereby worked their way through college with great ease and little study. In the course of one of his lectures, the learned professor, seizing a bucket of water, swung it round his head at arm's length: the impulse with which he threw the vessel from him, being a centrifugal force, the retention of his arm operating as a centripetal power, and the bucket, which was a substitute for the earth, describing a singular orbit round about the globular head and ruby visage of Professor Von Poddingcoft, which formed no bad representation of the sun. All of these particulars were duly explained to the class of gaping students around him. He apprized them, moreover, that the same principle of gravitation, which 78 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. retained the water in the bucket, restrains the ocean from flying from the earth in its rapid revolutions ; and he fur- ther informed them that, should the motion of the earth be suddenly checked, it would incontinently fall into the sun, through the centripetal force of gravitation; a most ruinous event to this planet, and one which would also obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish, the solar luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those vagrant geniuses, who seem sent into the world, merely to annoy worthy men of the puddinghead order, desirous of ascertaining the correctness of the experiment, suddenly arrested the arm of the professor, just at the moment that the bucket was in its zenith, which immediately descended with astonishing precision upon the philosophic head of the instructor of youth. A hollow sound, and a red hot hiss, attended the contact; but the theoiy was in the am- plest manner illustrated, for the unfortunate bucket per- ished in the conflict; but the blazing countenance of Professor Von Poddingcoft, emerged from amidst the waters, glowing fiercer than ever with unutterable indig- tion — whereby the students were marvellously edified, and departed considerably wiser than before. It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a pains-taking philosopher, that nature often re- fuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that, after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverse- ness to act in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favourite positions. This is a manifest and un- merited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is unques- tionably correct, but to the waywardness of dame Nature, who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continu- ally indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all" philosophical rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. Thus it happened with respect to the foregoing satisfac- tory explanation of the motion of our planet. It appears that the centrifugal force long since ceased to operate, while its antagonist remains in undiminished potency; the world, therefore, according to the theoiy as it originally MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. J9 stood, ought, in strict propriety, to tumble into the sun; pliilosophers were convinced that it would do so, and waited in anxious impatience the fulfilment of their prog- nostics. But the untoward planet pertinaciously continued her course, notwithstanding that she had reason, philoso- phy, and a whole university of learned professors opposed to her conduct. The philosophers took this in very ill part, and it is thought they never would have pardoned the slight and affront which they conceived put upon them by the world, had not a good-natured professor kindly of- ficiated as mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation. Finding the world would not accommo- date itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accom- modate the theory to the world: he therefore informed his brother philosophers, that the circular motion of the earth round the sun, was no sooner engendered by the conflicting impulses above described, than it became a regular revolution, independent of the causes which gave it origin. His learned brethren readily joined in the opinion, being heartily glad of any explanation that would decently extricate them from their embarrassment — and ever since that memorable era, the world has been left to take her own course, and to revolve around the sun in such orbit as she thinks proper, Washington Irvine, On the relative Value of good Sense and Beauty in tJie Female Sex. Notwithstanding the lessons of moralists, and the de- clamations of philosophers, it cannot be denied that all mankind have a natural love, and even respect, for external beauty. In vain do they represent it as a thing of no value in itself, as a frail and perishable flower; in vain do they exhaust all the depths of argument, all the stores of fancy, to prove the worthlessness of this amiable gift of Nature. However persuasive their reasonings may appear, and however we may for a time fancy ourselves convinced by them, we have in our breasts a certain instinct, which never fails to tell us, that all is not satisfactory, and tho we may not be able to prove that they are wrong, we feel a conviction that it is impossible they should be right. 80 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. They are certainly right in blaming those who are ren- dered vain by the possession of beauty, since vanity is at all times a fault ; but there is a great difference between being vain of a thing, and being happy that we have it; and that beauty, however little merit a woman can claim to herself for it, is really a quality which she may reason- ably rejoice to possess, demands, I think, no very labored proof. Every one naturally wishes to please. To this end we know how important it is, that the first impression we produce should be favorable. Now this first impression is commonly produced through the medium of the eye; and this is frequently so powerful, as to resist, for a long time, the opposing evidence of subsequent observation. Let a man of even the soundest judgment be presented to two women, equally strangers to him, but the one ex- tremely handsome, the other without any remarkable ad- vantages of person, and he will, without deliberation, at- tach himse^ first to the former. All men seem in this to be actuated by the same principle as Socrates, who used to say, that when he saw a beautiful person, he always expected to see it animated by a beautiful soul. The la- dies, however, often fall into the fatal error of imagining that a fine person is, in our eyes, superior to every other accomplishment, and those who are so happy as to be en- dowed with it, rely, with vain confidence, on its irresistible power, to retain hearts as well as to subdue them. Hence the lavish care bestowed on the improvement of exterior and perishable charms, and the neglect of solid and dur- able excellence ; hence the long list of arts that administer to vanity and folly, the countless train of glittering accom- plishments, and the scanty catalogue of truly valuable ac- quirements, which compose, for the most part, the modern system of fashionable female education. Yet so far is beauty from being in our eyes an excuse for the want of a cultivated mind, that the women who are blessed with it, have, in reality, a much harder task to perform, than those of their sex who are not so distinguished. Even our self-love here takes part against them; we feel ashamed of having suffered ourselves to be caught like children, by mere outside, and perhaps even fall into the contrary ex- treme. Could " the statue that enchants the world," — the Venus de Medicis, at the prayer of some new Pyg- MISCELLANEOUS EXTRxVCTS. 81 malion, become suddenly animated, how disappointed would lie be, if she were not endowed with a soul, an- swerable to the inimitable perfection of her heavenly form? Thus it is with a fine woman, whose only accomplishment is external excellence. She may dazzle for a time, but when a man lias once thought, " what a pity that such a master- piece should be a walking statue," her empire is at an end. On the other hand, when a woman, the plainness of whose features prevented our noticing her at first, is found, upon nearer acquaintance, to be possessed of the more solid and valuable perfections of the mind, the pleasure we feel in being so agreeably undeceived, makes her ap- pear to still greater advantage; and as the mind of man, when left to itself, is naturally an enemy to all injustice, we, even unknown to ourselves, strive to repair the wrong we have involuntarily done her, by a double portion of attention and regard. If these observations be founded in truth, it will appear that, tho a woman with a cultivated mind, may justly hope to please, without even any superior advantages of person, the loveliest creature that ever came from the hand of her Creator, can hope only for a transitory empire, unless she unite with her beauty the more durable charm of intellec- tual excellence. The favored child of nature, who combines in herself these united perfections, may be justly considered as the masterpiece of the creation, as the most perfect image of the Divinity here below. Man, the proud lord of the creation, bows willingly his haughty neck beneath her gentle rule. Exalted, tender, beneficent, is the love that she inspires. Even Time himself shall respect the all- powerful magic of her beauty. Her charms may fade, but they shall never wither; and memory still, in the evening of fife, hanging with fond affection over the blanched rose, shall view, through the veil of lapsed years, the tender bud, the dawning promise, whose beauties once blushed before the beams of the morning sun. Literary Gazette. The Story of a disabled Soldier. I was born in Shropshire ; my father was a laborer, and died when I was five years old; so I was put upon the 82 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. parish. As he had been a wandering sort of a man, the parishioners were not able to tell to what parish I belonged, or where I was born; so they sent me to another parish, and that parish sent me to a third. I thought in my heart, they kept sending me about so long, that they would not let me be born in any parish at all; but at last, however, they fixed me. I had some disposition to be a scholar, and was resolved, at least, to know my letters ; but the master of the workhouse put me to business as soon as I was able to handle a mallet; and here I lived an easy kind like those of the artisan, but of grace, — and, in addition to those bodily movements, a training of the mind to a due command of certain graceful forms of expression — to which, in a few happier cases, is added the knowledge, more or less extensive and accurate, of the most striking truths of science. When all this is performed, education is thought to be complete. To express this completion, by the strongest possible word, the individual is said to be accomplished; and if graceful motions of the limbs, and motions of the tongue, in well-turned phrases of courteous elegance, — and a knowledge of some of the brilliant ex- pressions of poets, and arts, and orators, of different coun- tries, — of a certain number of the qualities of the masses or atoms which surround him, were sufficient to render man what God intended him to be, — the parent who had taken every necessary care for adorning his child with these bodily and mental graces, might truly exult in the consciousness that he had done his part to the generation which was to succeed, by accomplishing at least one in- dividual, for the noble duties which he had to perform in it. But if the duties, which man has to perform, whatever ornament they may receive from the corporeal and intellectual graces that may flow around them, imply the operation of principles of action of a very different kind— if it is in the heart that we are to seek the source of the feelings which are our noblest distinction, — with which, we are what even God may almost approve, and without which, we are worthy of the condemnation even of beings frail and guilty as ourselves; and, if the heart require to be protected from vice, with far more care than the understanding itself, fallible as it is, to be protected from error, — can he, indeed, lay claim to the praise of having discharged the parental office of education, who has left the heart to its own passions, while he has con- tented himself with furnishing to those passions, the means of being more extensively baneful to the world than, with less accomplished selfishness, they could have been? How many parents do we see, who, after teaching their sons, by example, every thing which is licentious in man- ners, and lavishing on them the means of similar licen^ K 98 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. tiousness, are rigid only in one point — in the strictness of that intellectual discipline, which may prepare them for the worldly stations, to which the parental ambition has been unceasingly looking for them, before the filial ambi- tion was rendered sufficiently intent of itself! — how many, who allow to the vices of the day full liberty, if the lesson of the day be duly meditated; and who are content that those whose education they direct, should be knaves and sensualists, if only they be fitted, by intellectual culture, to be the leaders of other knaves, and the acquirers of wealth, that may render their sensuality more delicately luxurious! To such persons, the mind of the little crea- ture, whom they are training to worldly stations for worldly purposes, is an object of interest only as that, without which it would be impossible to arrive at the dignities expected. It is a necessary instrument for becoming rich and powerful ; and, if he could become powerful, and rich, and envied, without a soul, — exhibit the same spectacle of magnificent luxury, and be capable of adding to the means of present pomp, what might furnish out a luxury still more magnificent — they would scarcely feel that he was a being less noble than now. In what they term education, they never once thought, that the virtues were to be included as objects ; and they would truly feel some- thing very like astonishment, if they were told, that the first and most essential part of the process of educating the moral being, whom Heaven had consigned to their charge, was yet to be begun — in the abandonment of their own vices, and the purification of their own heart, by better feelings than those which had corrupted it, — without which primary self-amendment, the very authority that is implied in the noble office which they were to exercise, might be a source, not of good, but of evil, to him who was unfor- tunately born to be its subject. Brown. The most Horrible Battle ever recorded in Poetry or Prose; with the Heroic Exploits of Peter the Headstrong. " Now had the Dutchmen snatched a huge repast," and finding themselves wonderfully encouraged and animated thereby, prepared to take the field. Expectation, says the writer of the Stuyvesant manuscript — Expectation now MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 99 stood on stilts. The world forgot to turn round, or rather stood still, that it might witness the affray; like a fat round-bellied alderman, watching the combat of two chival- ric flies upon his jerkin. The eyes of all mankind, as usual in such cases, were turned upon Fort Christina. The sun, like a little man in a crowd at a puppet-show, scampered about the heavens, popping his head here and there, and endeavoring to get a peep between the unmannerly clouds that obtruded themselves in his way. The historians filled their inkhoms — the poets went without their dinners, either that they might buy paper and goose-quills, or because they could not get any thing to eat. Antiquity scowled sulkily out of its grave, to see itself outdone — while even Posterity stood mute, gazing in gaping ecstasy of retro- spection on the eventful field. The immortal deities who whilom had seen service at the " affair " of Troy — now mounted their feather-bed clouds, and sailed over the plain, or mingled among the combatants in different dis- guises, all itching to have a finger in the pie. Jupiter sent off his thunderbolt to a noted coppersmith, to have it furbished up for direful occasion. Venus swore by her chastity, she'd patronize the Swedes, and in sem- blance of a blear-eyed trull, paraded the battlements of Fort Christina, accompanied by Diana, as a Serjeant's wi- dow, of cracked reputation. The noted bully, Mars, stuck two horse-pistols into his belt, shouldered a rusty firelock, and gallantly swaggered at their elbow, as a drunken corporal — while Apollo trudged in their rear, as bandy-legged fifer, playing most villanously out of tune. On the other side, the ox-eyed Juno, who had gained a pair of black eyes over night, in one of her curtain lec- tures with old Jupiter, displayed her haughty beauties on a baggage-waggon. Minerva, as a brawny gin-suttler, tucked up her skirts, brandished her fists, and swore most heroically, in exceeding bad Dutch (having but lately studied the language), by way of keeping up the spirits of the soldiers; while Vulcan halted as a club-footed black- smith, lately promoted to be a captain of militia. All was silent horror, or bustling preparation: War reared his horrid front, gnashed loud his iron fangs, and shook his direful crest of bristling bayonets. And now the mighty chieftains marshalled out their hosts. Here stood stout 100 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. Risingh, firm as a thousand rocks — incrusted with stock- ades, and entrenched to the chin in mud batteries. His artillery, consisting of two swivels and a carronade, loaded to the muzzle, the touch-holes primed, and a whiskered bombardier stationed at each, with lighted match in hand, waiting the word. His valiant infantry lined the breast- work in grim array, each having his mustachios fiercely greased, and his hair pomatumed back, and queued so stiffly, that he grinned above the ramparts like a grisly death's head. Then came On the intrepid Peter — his brows knit, his teeth set, his fists clenched, almost breathing forth volumes of smoke, so fierce was the fire that raged within his bo- som. His faithful squire, Van Corlear, trudged valiantly at his heels, with his trumpet gorgeously bedecked with red and yellow ribands, the remembrances of his fair mis- tresses at the Manhattoes. Then came waddling on the sturdy chivalry of the Hudson, with a host of worthies, whose names are too crabbed to be written, or if they could be written, it would be impossible for man to utter — all fortified with a mighty dinner, and to use the words of a great Dutch poet, " Brimful of wrath and cabbage!" For an instant the mighty Peter paused in the midst of his career, and mounting on a stump, addressed his troops in eloquent low Dutch, exhorting them to fight like duyvels, and assuring them, that, if they conquered, they should get plenty of booty — if they fell, they should be allowed the unparalleled satisfaction, while dying, of reflecting that it was in the service of their country — and after they were dead, of seeing their names inscribed in the temple of re- nown, and handed down, in company with all the other great men of the year, for the admiration of posterity. Finally, he swore to them, on the word of a governor (and they knew him too well to doubt it for a moment), that if he caught any mother's son of them looking pale, or play- ing craven, he would curry his hide till he made him run out of it, like a snake in spring-time. Then lugging out his trusty sabre, he brandished it three times over his head, ordered Van Corlear to sound a tremendous charge, and shouting the word " St. Nicholas and the Manhattoes!" courageously dashed forwards. His warlike followers, MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, 101 who had employed the interval in lighting their pipes, in- stantly stuck them in their mouths, gave a furious puff, and charged gallantly, under cover of the smoke. And now commenced the horrid din, the desperate struggle, the maddening ferocity, the frantic desperation, the con- fusion and self-abandonment of war. Dutchman and Swede commingled, tugged, panted, and blowed. The heavens were darkened with a tempest of missives. Bang ! went the guns — whack ! struck the broad- swords — thump ! went the cudgels — crash! went the musket-stocks — blows — kicks — cuffs — scratches — black eyes and bloody noses swelling the horrors of the scene! Thick -thwack, cut and hack helter-skelter, higgledy-pigledy, hurly-burly, head over heels, rough and tumble! — Dunder and blexum! swore the Dutchman — splitter and splutter! cried the Swedes — storm the works ! shouted Hardkoppig Peter — fire the mine! roared stout Risingh — Tartara-ra-ra! twang- ed the trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear — until all voice and sound became unintelligible — grunts of pain, yells of fury, and shouts of triumph comminged in one hideous clamor. The earth shook as if struck with a paralytic stroke — trees shrunk aghast, and withered at the sight — rocks burrowed in the ground like rabbits, — and even Christina Creek turned from its course, and ran up a mountain in breath- less terror! But what, oh muse! was the rage of the gal- lant Peter, when from afar, he saw his army yield? With a voice of thunder did he roar after his recreant warriors, put- ting up such a war-whoop as did the stern Achilles, when the Trojan troops were on the point of burning all his galleys. The men of the Manhattoes plucked up new courage, when they heard their leader — or rather they dreaded his fierce displeasure — of which they stood in more awe than of all the Swedes in Christendom — but the daring Peter, not waiting for their aid, plunged, sword in hand, into the thickest of the fo. Then did he display some such in- credible achievements as have never been known since the miraculous days of the giants. Wherever he went, the enemy shrunk before him; with fierce impetuosity, he pushed forward, driving the Swedes, like dogs, into their own ditch; but as he fearlessly advanced, the foe thronged upon his rear, and hung upon his flank with fearful peril. One crafty Swede, advancing warily on one side, drove 102 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. his dastard sword full at the hero's heart; but the pro- tecting power that watches over the safety of all great and good men, turned aside the hostile blade, and directed it to a side-pocket, where reposed an enormous iron to* bacco-box, endowed, like the shield of Achilles, with su- pernatural powers — no doubt, in consequence of its being piously decorated with a portrait of the blessed St. Ni- cholas. Thus was the dreadful blow repelled, but not with- out occasioning to the great Peter a fearful loss of wind. Like as a furious bear, when gored by worrying curs, turns fiercely round, gnashes his teeth, and springs upon the fo, so did our hero turn upon the treacherous Swede, The miserable varlet sought in flight for safety — but the active Peter, seizing him by an immeasurable queue that dangled from his head — " Ah, whoreson caterpillar," roared he, " here is what shall make dog's meat of thee ! " So say- ing, he whirled his trusty sword, and made a blow that would have decapitated him, had he, like Briareus, half a hundred heads, but that the pitying steel struck short, and shaved the queue for ever from his crown. At this very moment, a cunning arquebusier, perched on the summit of a neighbouring mound, levelled his deadly in- strument, and would have sent the gallant Stuyvesant a wailing ghost to haunt the Stygian shore, had not the watch- ful Minerva, who had just stopped to tie up her garters, saw the great peril of her favorite chief, and despatched old Boreas with his bellows, who, in the very nick of time, just as the direful match descended to the pan, gave such a lucky blast, as blew all the priming from the touch-hole. Thus waged the horrid fight, when the stout Risingh, surveying the battle from the top of a little ravelin, perceived his faithful troops banged, beaten, and kicked by the invincible Peter. Language cannot describe the choler with which he was seized at the sight — he only stopped for a moment to disburthen himself of five thou- sand anathemas; and then drawing his immeasurable falchion, straddled down to the field of combat, with some such thundering strides, as Jupiter is said by Hesiod to have taken, when he strode down the spheres, to hurl his thunderbolts at the Titans. No sooner did these two rival heroes come face to face, than they each made a prodigious start, such as is made by your most experienced stage i MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 103 champions. Then did they regard each other for a mo- ment with bitter aspect, like two furious ram-cats on the very point of a clapper-clawing. Then did they throw themselves in one attitude, then in another, striking their swords on the ground, first on the right side, then on the left — at last at it they went with incredible ferocity. Words cannot tell the prodigies of strength and valor dis- played on this direful encounter — an encounter, compared to which, the far-famed battles of Ajax with Hector, of Eneas with Tumus, Orlando with Rodomont, Guy of Warwick with Colbrand the Dane, or of that renowned Welsh Knight, Sir Owen of the mountains, with the giant Guylon, were all gentle sports and holiday recreations. At length, the valiant Peter, watching his opportunity, aimed a fearful blow, with the full intention of cleaving his adversary to the very chine ; but Risingh, nimbly rais- ing his sword, warded it of so narrowly, that glancing on one side, it shaved away a huge canteen that he always carried swung on one side ; thence pursuing its trenchant course, it severed off a deep coat-pocket, stored with bread and cheese— all which dainties rolling among the armies, occasioned a fearful scrambling between the Swedes and Dutchmen, and made the general battle to wax ten times more furious than ever. Enraged to see his military stores thus wofully laid waste, the stout Risingh, collecting all his forces, aimed a mighty blow full at the hero's crest. In vain did his fierce little cocked hat oppose its course; the biting steel clove through the stubborn ram-beaver, and would infallibly have cracked his crown, but that the skull was of such adamantine hardness, that the brittle weapon shivered into pieces, shedding a thousand sparks, like beams of glory, round his grisly visage. Stunned with the blow, the valiant Peter reeled, turned up his eyes, and beheld fifty thousand suns, besides moons and stars, dancing about the firmament ; at length, missing his footing, by reason of his wooden leg, down he came on his seat of honor, with a crash that shook the surround- ing hills, and would infallibly have wracked his anatomical system, had he not been received into a cushion softer than velvet, which Providence, or Minerva, or St. Nicholas, or some kind cow, had benevolently prepared for his recep- tion. 104 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. The furious Risingh, in despite of that noble maxim, cherished by all true knights, that " fair play is a jewel," hastened to take advantage of the hero's fall; but just as he was stooping to give the fatal blow, the ever vigilant Peter bestowed him a sturdy thwack over the sconce with his wooden leg, that set some dozen chimes of bells ring- ing triple bob-majors in his cerebellum. The bewildered Swede staggered with the blow ; and, in the meantime, the wary Peter, espying a pocket-pistol lying hard by (which had dropped from the wallet of his faithful squire and trumpeter, Van Corlear, during his furious encounter with a drummer), discharged it full at the head of the reeling Risingh. Let not my reader mistake — it was not a mur- derous weapon, loaded with powder and ball, but a little sturdy stone bottle, charged to the muzzle with a double dram of true Dutch courage, which the knowing Van Corlear always carried about him, by way of replenish- ing his valor. The hideous missive sung through the air, and true to its course, as was the mighty fragment of a rock discharged at Hector by bully Ajax, encountered the huge head of the gigantic Swede with matchless vio- lence. This heaven-directed blow decided the eventful battle. The ponderous pericranium of General Jan Risingh sunk upon his breast; his knees tottered under him; a death-like torpor seized upon his Titan frame ; and he tumbled to the earth with such tremendous violence, that old Pluto started with affright, lest he should have broken through the roof of his infernal palace. His fall was the signal of defeat and victory — the Swedes gave way — the Dutch pressed forward; the former took to their heels, the latter hotly pursued — some entered with them, pell-mell, through the sally-port — others stormed the bastion — and others scrambled over the curtain. Thus, in a little while, the impregnable fortress of Fort Christina, which, like another Troy, had stood a siege of full ten hours, was finally carried by assault, without the loss of a single man on either side. Victory, in the like- ness of a gigantic ox-fly, sat perched upon the cocked hat of the gallant Stuyvesant, and it was universally declared, by all the writers whom he hired to write the history of his expedition, that on this memorable day, he gained a MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 105 sufficient quantity of glory to immortalize a dozen of the greatest heros in Christendom! Washington Irvine* i The advantages of a Taste for the Beauties of Nature. That perception of, and sensibility to beauty, which, when cultivated and improved, we term taste, is most general and uniform, with respect to those objects which are not liable to variation from accident, caprice, or fashion. The verdant lawn, the shady grove, the variegated land- scape, the boundless ocean, and the starry firmament, are contemplated with pleasure by even' beholder. But the emotions of different spectators, though similar in kind, differ widely in degree ; for, to relish with full delight the enchanting scenes of nature, the mind must be uncor- rupted by avarice, sensuality, or ambition; quick in her sensibilities, elevated in her sentiments, and devout in her affections. If this enthusiasm were cherished by every individual, in that degree which is consistent with the indispensible duties of his station, the felicity of human life would be considerably augmented. From this source the refined and vivid pleasures of the imagination are almost entirely derived. The elegant arts owe their choicest beauties to a taste for the contemplation of nature. Painting and sculpture are express imitations of visible objects: and where would be the charms of poetry, if divested of the imagery and embellishments which she borrows from rural scenes? Painters, statuaries, and poets, therefore, are always ambitious to acknowledge themselves the pupils of nature; and as their skill increases, they grow more and more delighted with every view of the animal and vegetable world. The scenes of nature contribute powerfully to inspire that serenity which heightens then beauties, and is neces- sary to our full enjoyment of them. By a secret sympathy the soid catches the harmony which she contemplates; and the frame within assimilates itself to that without. In this state of sweet composure, we become susceptible of virtuous impressions from almost every surrounding object. The patient ox is viewed with generous compla- 106 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. cency; the guileless sheep with pity; and the playful lamb with emotions of tenderness and love. We rejoice with the horse in his liberty and exemption from toil, while he ranges at large through enamelled pastures. We are charmed with the songs of birds, soothed with the buzz of insects, and pleased with the sportive motions of fishes, because these are expressions of enjoyment; and, having felt a common interest in the gratifications of inferior be- ings, we shall be no longer indifferent to their sufferings, or become wantonly instrumental in producing them. But the taste for natural beauty is subservient to higher pur- poses than those which have been enumerated. The cul- tivation of it not only refines and humanizes, but dignifies and exalts the affections. It elevates them to the admi- ration and love of that Being, who is the author of all that is fair, sublime, and good in the creation. Scepticism and irreligion are scarcely compatible with the sensibility of heart which arises from a just and lively relish of the wis- dom, harmony, and order subsisting in the world around us. Emotions of piety must spring up spontaneously in the bosom that is in union with all animated nature. Actuated by this beneficial and divine inspiration, man finds a fane in every grove; and glowing with devout fervor, he joins his song to the universal chorus, or muses the praises of the Almighty in more expressive silence. Dr. PercivaL Visit to the Field of Waterloo in 1815. The first visit to a field of battle, made by one totally unaccustomed to scenes of this description, throws him perhaps more out of his ordinary habits of mind, than any other conceivable novelty would. He is now about to see what it is not very likely he ever should see, — such places being much out of the course of the inhabitants of these islands at least. The great cause of excitement, however, lies in his being on the point of converting into a visible reality, what had previously existed in his mind as a shadowy, uncertain, but awful fancy. In this respect, it may rank next to leaving this world altogether, to realize our doubtful, but anxious ideas of the next. The shapings of the imagination will usually appear to have been formed MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 107 on a scale of more prominent magnitude, and to include more of the external signs of the surprising, than the truth bears out; but there is something in unexpected simplicity of appearance, and an unassuming aspect, when contrasted with prodigious actions, and important results, which is perhaps, on the whole, more touching than visible " gor- gons or chimeras dire." In this way certainly, I was struck by the plain of Waterloo. No display, I think, of car- nage, violence, and devastation, could have so pathetic an effect, * as the quiet orderly look of its fields, brightened with the sunshine, but thickly strewed with little heaps of upturned earth, which no sunshine could brighten. On these, the eye instantly fell, — and the heart, having but a slight call made upon it from without, pronounced with more solemnity to itself, the dreadful thing that lay below, scarcely covered with a sprinkling of mould. On a closer inspection, the ravages of the battle were very apparent, — but neither the battered walls, splintered doors, and torn roofs of the farm-houses of La Haye Sainte, astounding as they certainly were, nor even the miserably scorched relics of what must have been the beautiful Hougomont, with its wild orchard, its parterred flower-garden, its gently dignified chateau, and its humble offices, now confounded and overthrown by a visitation, which, from its traces, seemed to have included every possible sort of destruction, — not all these harsh features of the contest had, to my mind at least, so direct and irresistible an ap- peal, as the earthy hillocks which tripped the step on cross- ing a hedge-row, dealing a fence, or winding along among the grass that overhung a secluded pathway. In some spots they lay in thick clusters and long ranks ; in others, one would present itself alone; betwixt these, a black scathed circle told, that fire had been employed to con- sume as worthless refuse, what parents cherished, friends esteemed, and women loved. The summer wind that shook the branches of the trees, and waved the clover and gaudy heads of the thistles, brought along with it a foul stench, still more hideous to the mind than to the offended sense. The foot that startled the small bird from its rest amidst the grass, disturbed at the same time, some poor remnant of a human being, — either a bit of his showy ha- biliment, in which he took pride, — or of his warlike ac- 108 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. coutrements, which were his glory, — or of the frame-work of his body itself, which he felt as comeliness and strength, the instant before it became a mass of senseless matter. John Scott. The Widow's Retinue. In giving an account of the arrival of Lady Lillycraft at the Hall, I ought to have mentioned the entertainment which I derived from witnessing the unpacking of her carriage, and the disposing of her retinue. There is some- thing extremely amusing to me in the number of factitious wants, the loads of imaginary conveniences, but real in- cumbrances, with which the luxurious are apt to burthen themselves. I like to watch the whimsical stir and dis- play about one of petty progresses. The number of ro- bustious footmen and retainers of all kinds bustling about with looks of infinite gravity and importance, to do almost nothing. The number of heavy trunks, and parcels, and band-boxes, belonging to my lady; and the solicitude ex- hibited about some humble, odd-looking box, by my lady's maid; the cushions piled in the carriage, to make a soft seat still softer, and to prevent the dreaded possibility of a jolt; the smelling-bottles, the cordials, the basket of biscuit and fruit; the new publications; all provided to guard against hunger, fatigue, or ennui; the led horses to vary the mode of travelling; and all this preparation and parade to move, perhaps, some very-good-for-nothing personage about a little space of earth. I do not mean to apply the latter part of these observa- tions to Lady Lillycraft, for whose simple kind-hearted- ness I have a very great respect, and who is really a most amiable and worthy being. I cannot refrain, however, from mentioning some of the motley retinue she has brought with her; and which, indeed, bespeak the over- flowing kindness of her nature, which requires her to be surrounded with objects on which to lavish it. In the first place, her ladyship has a pampered coach- man, with a red face, and cheeks that hang down like dew-laps. He evidently domineers over her a little, with respect to the fat horses; and only drives out when he thinks proper, and when he thinks it will be " good for the cattle." MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 109 She has a favorite page to attend upon her person; a handsome boy of about twelve years of age, but a mis- chievous varlet, very much spoiled, and in a fair way to be a good for nothing. He is dressed in green, with a profusion of gold cord and gilt buttons about his clothes. She always has one or two attendants of the kind, who are replaced by others as soon as they grow to fourteen years of age. She has brought two dogs with her also, out of a number of pets which she maintains at home. One is a fat spaniel, called Zephyr — though heaven defend me from such a zephyr! He is fed out of shape and comfort; his eyes are nearly strained out of his head; he wheezes with corpulency, and cannot walk without great difficulty. The other is a little, old, gray, muzzled curmudgeon, with an unhappy eye, that kindles like a coal, if you only look at him ; his nose turns up ; his mouth is drawn into wrinkles, so as to show his teeth; in short, he has altogether the look of a dog far gone in misanthropy, and totally sick of the world. When he walks, he has his tail curled up so tight, that it seems to lift his feet from the ground; and he seldom makes use of more than three legs at a time, keeping the other drawn up as a reserve. This last wretch is called Beauty. These dogs are full of elegant ailments unknown to vulgar dogs; and are petted and nursed by Lady Lilly- craft with the tenderest kindness. They are pampered and fed with delicacies by their fellow minion, the page; but their stomachs are often weak and out of order, so that they cannot eat; tho I have now and then seen the page give them a mischievous pinch, or thwack over the head, when his mistress was not by. They have cushions for their express use, on which they lie before the fire, and yet are apt to shiver and moan, if there is the least draught of air. When any one enters the room, they make a most tyrannical barking that is absolutely deafening. They are insolent to all the other dogs of the establish- ment. There is a noble stag-hound, a great favorite of the squire's, who is a privileged visitor to the parlour; but the moment he makes his appearance, these intruders fly at him with furious rage; and I have admired the sovereign indifference and contempt with which he seems to look L 110 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. down upon his puny assailants. When her ladyship drives out, these dogs are generally carried with her to take the air; when they look out of each window of the carnage, and bark at all vulgar pedestrian dogs. These dogs are a continual source of misery to the household; as they are always in the way, they eveiy now and then get their toes trod on, and then there is a yelping on their part, and a lamentation on the part of their mistress, that fills the room with clamor and confusion. Lastly, there is her ladyship's waiting-woman, Mrs. Hannah, a prim, pragmatical old maid ; one of the most intolerable intolerant virgins that ever lived. She has kept her virtue by her, until it has turned sour, and now every word and look smacks of verjuice. She is the very opposite to her mistress, for one hates, and the other loves, all mankind. How they first came together I cannot imagine; but they have lived together for many years; and the abigail's temper being tart and encroaching, and her ladyship's easy and yielding, the former has got the complete upper hand, and tyrannizes over the good lady in secret. Lady Lillycraft now and then complains of it, in great confidence to her friends, but hushes up the sub- ject immediately, if Mrs. Hannah makes her appearance. Indeed, she has been so accustomed to be attended by her, that she thinks she could not do without her; tho one great study of her life is to keep Mrs. Hannah in good humour, by little presents and kindnesses. Master Simon has a most devout abhorrence, mingled with awe, for this ancient spinster. He told me the other day, in a whisper, that she was a cursed brimstone— in fact, he added another epithet, which I would not repeat for the world. I have remarked, however, that he is al- ways extremely civil to her when they meet. Washington Irvine. Character of Napoleon Bonaparte. Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount — space no opposition that he did not spurn; and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or Polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity ! The whole continent of Europe trembled at beholding the MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. Ill audacity of his designs, and the miracles of their execu- tion. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his perform- ances; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for explana- tion, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became common-places in his contem- plation; kings were his people — nations were his out- posts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignataries of the chessboard! Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as ada- mant. It mattered little whether in the field or the draw- ing-room, — with the mob or the levee, — wearing the jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown, — banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburg, — dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic, — he was still the same military despot ! Cradled in the camp, he was to the last hour the darling of the army; and whether in the camp or the cabinet, he never forsook a friend, or forgot a favor. Of all his soldiers, not one abandoned him till affection was useless, and their first stipulation was for the safety of their favorite. They knew well, that if he was lavish of them, he was prodigal of himself; and that if he exposed them to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For the soldier, he subsidized every body; to the peo- ple, he made even pride pay tribute. The victorious ve- teran glittered with his gains; and the capital, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affecta- tion of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of the press, he affected the patronage of letters, — the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy, — the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the protection of learning! — the assassin of Palin, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England.* Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time * Sir H. Davy. 112 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character. A Royalist — a Republican, and an Em- peror — a Mahometan — a Catholic, and a patron of the Synagogue — a Subaltern and a Sovereign — a Traitor and a Tyrant — a Christian and an Infidel, — he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original, — the same mysterious incomprehensible self,- — the man without a model, and without a shadow. Hi» fall, like his life, baffled all speculation; in short, his whole history was like a dream to the world, and no man can tell how or why he was awaked from the reverie. Such is a faint and feeble picture of Napoleon Bonaparte. That he has done much evil, there is little doubt; that he has been the origin of much good, there is just as little. Through his means, intentional or not, Spain, Portugal, and France, have risen to the blessings of a free constitu- tion ; superstition has found her grave in the ruins of the Inquisition; and the feudal system, with its whole train of tyrannic satellites, has fled for ever. Kings may learn from him that their safest study, as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people; the people are taught by him that there is no despotism so stupendous against which they have not a resource; and to those who would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson, that if ambi- tion can raise them from the lowest station, it can also prostrate them from the highest. C Phillips* Every Man the Architect of his own Fortune. " But chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is his own hands." Lord Bacon. " Fortune a goddess is to fools alone, The wise are always master of their own." Pope. It is wittily remarked by a French writer, that, while the Portuguese sailors, before engaging in battle, are prostrate upon deck, imploring their saints to perform miracles in their favors, the British tars are manning their guns and working miracles for themselves. This remark, when rightly interpreted, contains a lively satire upon a species of superstition which misleads the multitude more MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 113 than any other, and engenders indolence and apathy, under the specious names of contentment and resignation. There may be some errors, common to the vulgar, more prepos- terous than this, but few more pernicious, since there is none in which the transition from speculation to conduct is so easy and unavoidable. To believe, for example, that there once were witches, who made a cockle-shell serve the purpose of a ship, and substituted a broomstick for a balloon; or that there still are fairies, who hold their gam- bols at midnight, among the romantic glens of Scotland, is quite a harmless superstition, whose worst effect can be to make the gossips draw closer round the winter fire, or the farmer more brief in his potations when at market. But a blind belief in fatalism or destiny, acts as a powerful stimulus to indolence and indecision, and makes men sit down with then arms folded, in Turkish apathy, expect- ing to obtain, by supernatural means, what Providence has wisely reserved as the reward of virtuous exertions. It cannot, therefore, be too early or deeply instilled into the minds of the youthful and inexperienced, that there are few difficulties which wisdom and perseverance can- not conquer ; that the means of happiness, and even riches, are, in some degree, in every man's power, and that mis- fortune is frequently, if not generally, only another name for misconduct. Nothing is more common, in the world, than for people to flatter their self-esteem, and to excuse their indolence, by referring the prosperity of others to the caprice or par- tiality of fortune. Yet few, who have examined the mat* ter with attention, have failed to discover, that success is as generally a consequence of industry and good conduct, as disappointment is the consequence of indolence and indecision. Happiness, as Pope remarks, is truly our be- ing's end and aim, and almost every man desires wealth as a means of happiness. But, in wishing, mankind are nearly alike, and it is chiefly the striking incongruity that exists betwixt their actions and thoughts, that chequers society, and produces those endless varieties of character and sit- uation which prevail in human life. Some men, with the best intentions, have so little fortitude, and are so fond of present ease or pleasure, that they give way to every temptation; while others, possessed of greater strength of 114 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. mind, hold out heroically to the last, and then look back with complacency on the difficulties they have overcome, and the thousands of their fellow travellers that are lag- ging far behind, railing at fate, and dreaming of what they might have been. This difference in the progress which men make in life, who set out with the same prospects and opportunities, is a proof, of itself, that more depends upon conduct than fortune. And it would be good for man, if, instead of envying his neighbours lot and deplor- ing his own, he would begin to inquire what means others have employed that he has neglected, and whether it is not possible, by a change of conduct, to secure a result more proportioned to his wishes. Were individuals, when unsuccessful, often to institute such an inquiry, and im- prove the hints it would infallibly suggest, we would hear fewer complaints against the partiality of fortune, and wit- ness less of the wide extremes of riches and poverty. But the great misfortune is, that few have courage to under- take, and still fewer candor to execute, such a system of self-examination. Conscience may perhaps whisper that they have not done all which their circumstances permitted ; but his whispers are soon stifled amidst the plaudits of self-esteem, and they remain in a happy ignorance of the exertions of others, and a consoling belief in the immu- tability of fortune. Others who may possess candor and firmness to undertake this inquiry^ are quite appalled at the unwelcome truths it forces upon their notice. Their own industry, which they believed to be great, and their own talents, which they fancied were unequalled, are found to suffer by a comparison with those of others, and they betake themselves in despair to the refuge of indo- lence, and think it easier, if not better, to want wealth, than encounter the toil and trouble of obtaining it. Thus do thousands pass through life, angry with fate when they ought to be angry with themselves. Too fond of the com- forts and enjoyments which riches procure ever to be happy without them, and too indolent and unsteady ever to per- severe in the use of those means by which alone they are obtainable. Probably one frequent cause of disappointment in the young, may be traced to that overweening confidence in their own powers, which leads them to trust more to their MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 115 own romantic anticipations, than the tried and experi- mental knowledge of their seniors. While the progress of learning, and the refinements of education, confer upon the present race an elegance and polish unknown to their fathers, they are too apt to magnify this merit, and regard their elders as beings of an inferior capacity. They forget completely, that a taste for literature and the arts differs widely from that sober and experimental knowledge which can be brought to bear upon the real business of life, and enable its possessor to preserve his place in that great crowd, where every individual is constantly endeavoring to press forward by jostling his neighbour. Even a man of very ordinary parts, who has lived long in the world, and probably, after a thousand blunders, learned to con- duct himself with ability and prudence, is better qualified for imparting instruction to others, than those who in other respects are most remarkable for their talents and attainments. Experience in this, as in every thing else, is the great mistress of wisdom, and were men guided by her safe, though often unwelcome counsels, in preference to their own fond imaginations, there would be a mighty diminution of that misery with which ignorance and ob- stinacy are constantly filling the world. There is little new under the sun, and the walks of life, numerous and diversified as they appeal', are filled both with beacons that warn of the fate of the imprudent, and monuments that record the triumphs of the successful. That so many fail, therefore, in a task apparently so simple and easy, can only be accounted for by the false confidence which men repose in their own powers, which disposes them to slight instruction, and neglect the assistance of those charts and descriptions which have been furnished by the industry of preceding travellers. Another circumstance that marks the danger of the young neglecting the counsel of the old, is that revolution, which experience and the progress of knowledge neces- sarily produces in the opinions and impressions of every human being. He must have little acquaintance with books, and less with life, who has not remarked this of others as well as of himself. Man is not the same being to-day that he was yesterday. His mind, like his body, is in a constant state of revolution. The discovery of a 116 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. new truth, or the adoption of a new opinion, often pro- duces a total change in his views and sentiments, and gives a new turn to his most ordinary actions. This he feels and perceives, but seldom anticipates. It is the great error of his life, constantly to overrate Ins present knowledge and attainments; and altho, at every new ad- dition to them, he discovers his former deficiency, he still secretly flatters himself that he has at last reached perfec- tion. Like the torrent that rushes from the mountains, he begins his course, filled with a thousand impurities, and it is not till his knowledge has passed through the filters of the world, that error and prejudice sink to the bottom, and truth assumes its native transparency. To this cause, we must ascribe that striking diversity of feel- ing and sentiment which so often prevails between the pupil and preceptor, and which makes the former believe that to adopt the opinions of the latter, were to doubt the evi- dence of his senses. To the cool and experienced, the world and its concerns have lost the master charm of nov- elty; and hence the young find it as difficult to enter into the feelings of the old, as to read with their spectacles, or walk upon their crutches. But they should remember, that these hoary advisers were once young and romantic like themselves, and that it is from a knowledge of the errors into which feelings are apt to betray us — they cau- tion us to be on our guard against their influence. We would not, however, be understood as asserting that there are no prejudices peculiar to age, or that the young are never in danger of being misled by their instructors: — this would be hazarding too much; and it is sufficient for every purpose of instruction, to affirm, that the instances in which the old are apt to feel biased, are precisely those in which the prejudices of the young run strongest in a contrary direction; and that, at all events, there is infi- nitely more danger to be apprehended from their paying too little than too much deference to the opinion of others. Macdiarmid, Nature. Whoever hath passed any length of time at the places of public resort, by the sea-side, must have remarked that MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 117 there is constantly a flux and reflux of the company who frequent them; and that the shores have their revolutions and changes, as well as the element that flows along their sides. I often, as I pace up and down the Parade, miss faces I have been accustomed to meet in my daily walks, and am stared at by others that are totally new to me; nor is it a small pleasure to me, who am looking after Nature at every step, to observe features tinged with the hue of returning health, which a few weeks before I had seen overcast with langor; and limbs beginning to move with freedom, which were lately contracted by pain and disease. — How sweet is thy return, O Health! thou rosy cherub ! — my soul leaps forward to meet thee, whose true value thy absence can only teach us! When thou comest with healing on thy wings, — when every part, and nerve, and artery, are obedient to their office, — and when this complicated machine is so perfectly harmonized, that we perceive not that we have any part, or nerve, or artery belonging to us, — how sweetly is the mind then attuned to receive pleasures from every inlet of sense. God of my life, who numberest my days, teach me to meet with gratitude, or patience, the good, or ill, which, in the tide of time, shall float down with them ! — but never withdraw from me those native spirits which have been the cheering companions of my existence, and have spread a gilding on every thing around me, that I may continue to view, with rapture, the inexhaustible volume of Nature that is thrown open before me, on every page of which is charactered the impression of thy omnipotent hand ! As I often indulge a meditating disposition on the old bench upon the Fort, where I am now seated, it is a mat- ter of amusement to consider the immense variety that a short space of time produces in the same natural objects; every change of light, every alteration in the atmosphere, gives them a different appearance. I have just been con- templating the wide scene of waters before me, that hath lately been darkened by some clouds which overhang it. I see it emerging into new day, I perceive its green hue warming into purple tints. As I direct my eye as far as it can stretch, I view the sun, from behind a veil that conceals it, shooting down its rays on a limited cir- cumference, and brightening all the edges of the waves. 118 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. And now its broad orb appears in full glow, descending almost level with the sea — the whole western canopy is illuminated. It trembles a little while on the extremity of the horizon, and at last plunges from the sight. Those who may be disposed to contrast the works of Nature with the most boasted labors of art, will find the first ever new and permanent; while the latter, the instant they have attained their limited perfection, approach to- wards a slow but sure decline. The pride of a potent monarch may be gratified in erecting some magnificent temple to his god ; he may perpetuate the remembrance of his ancestors by superb mausoleums ; he may command the daring pyramid to shoot upward to the skies — may inscribe his victories on the trophied column, or register his triumphs on the sculptured arch! but even tho no ac- cident should abridge their duration, yet the revolving seasons soon sully their beauty; and the silent power of Time gradually shakes their foundations, and at last levels them with the dust — -while thy works, O Nature, remain uninjured, ever changing and ever reviving; thou shinest unconscious of decay — still bright in immortal youth! And yet more lovely far dost thou appear, when thou commandest our attention in thy active scenes, and beam- est from the mind with all those irradiations of virtue, honor, and benevolence, which dignify humanity. These may be deemed the sunshine of the moral world, that warms, that brings forward, and ripens the soul to perfec- tion. And if sometimes, in contemplating the pictures of real life, one sees with pain the canvass darkened with worthless characters, they should be viewed but as deep shades, which, however they may interrupt thy native brightness, yet by their contrast more forcibly impress the amiableness of thy lustre. Keate. The Death ofAltamont. — By Dr. Young ^ who was present at the Melancholy Scene, The sad evening before the death of the noble youth, whose last hours suggested the most solemn and awful reflections, I was with him. No one was present but his physician, and an intimate whom he loved, and whom he MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 119 had ruined. At my coming in, he said, " You and the physician are come too late. I have neither life nor hope. You both aim at miracles. You would raise the dead!" Heaven, I said, was merciful — " Or," exclaimed he, " I could not have been thus guilty. What has it not done to bless, and to save me ! I have been too strong for Om- nipotence! I have plucked down ruin." — I said, the blessed Redeemer. — " Hold! hold! you wound me! That is the rock on which I split: — I denied his name!" Refusing to hear any tiling from me, or take any thing from the physician, he lay silent, as far as sudden darts of pain would permit, till the clock struck: Then with ve- hemence he exclaimed, " Oh! time! — time! is it fit thou shouldst thus strike thy murderer to the heart ! How art thou fled for ever! — A month! — Oh, for a single week!— I ask not for years ! tho an age were too little for the much I have to do." On my saying, we could not do too much: that heaven was a blessed place — " So much the worse — 'Tis lost! 'tis lost! — Heaven is to me the severest part of hell!" Soon after, I proposed prayer. — " Pray you that can. — I never prayed. — I cannot pray — nor need I. Is not heaven on my side already? It closes with my con- science. Its severest strokes but second my own." Ob- serving that his friend was much troubled at this, even to tears, — (who could forbear-? I could not) — with a most affectionate look, he said, " Keep those tears for thyself. I have undone thee. — Dost thou weep for me? That is cruel. What can pain me more?" Here his friend, too much affected, would have left him — " No, stay — thou still mayest hope ; therefore hear me. How madly have I talked ! How madly hast thou listened, and believed! but look on my present state as a full answer to thee and to myself. Tins body is all weak- ness and pain ; but my soul, as if strung up by torment to greater strength and spirit, is full powerful to reason; full mighty to suffer — and that which thus triumphs within the jaws of immortality, is doubtless immortal. — And, as for a Deity, nothing less than an Almighty could inflict what I feel." I was about to congratulate this passive, involuntary confessor, on his asserting the two prime articles of his creed, extorted by the rack of nature, when he thus very 120 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, passionately exclaimed: — " No, no! let me speak on. I* have not long to speak. — My much- injured friend, my soul, as my hody, lies in ruins; in scattered fragments of broken thought. — Remorse for the past throws my thought on the future. — Worse dread of the future strikes it back on the past. I turn, and turn, and find no ray. Didst thou feel half the mountain that is on me, thou wouldst struggle with the martyr for his stake, and bless heaven for the flames ! — that is not an everlasting flame ; that is not an unquenchable fire." How were we struck! yet soon after, still more. With what an eye of distraction, what a face of despair, he cried out! " My principles have poisoned my friends; my ex- travagance has beggared my boy! myunkindness has mur- dered my wife! — And is there another hell? Oh, thou blasphemed, yet indulgent Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from thy frowns!" Soon after, his understanding failed. His terrified imagination uttered horrors not to be repeated, or ever forgotten. And ere the sun (which, I hope, has seen few like him) arose, the gay, young, noble, ingenious, accomplished, and most wretched Altamont, expired! If this is a man of pleasure; what is a man of pain? How quick, how total, is the transit of such persons ! In what a dismal gloom they set for ever! How short, alas! the day of their rejoicing! — For a moment they glitter — they dazzle! In a moment, where are they? Oblivion covers their memories! Ah! would it did! Infamy snatches them from oblivion. In the long-living annals of infamy, their triumphs are recorded. Thy sufferings, poor Altamont! still bleed in the bosom of the heart-stricken friend — for Altamont had a Mend. He might have had many. His transient morning might have been the dawn of an immortal day. His name might have been glori- ously enrolled in the annals of eternity. His memory might have left a sweet fragrance behind it, grateful to the surviving friend, salutary to the succeeding generation. With what capacity was he endowed ! with what advan- tages, for being greatly good ! But with the talents of an angel, a man may be a fool. If he judges amiss in the supreme point, judging right in all else but aggravate his folly; as it shows him wrong, tho blessed with the best capacity of being right. Dr. Young. MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 121 The Female Character. In the portraiture of deep and tragic passion men may possibly excel women; and surely it is a fact, and no fancy, that women understand better, and pencil out more grace- fully, those finer and more fugitive impressions which come under the description of sentiment. Even the country- men of Rousseau are apt to recommend some of their fair writers, as the best models of the sentimental style. They find in them more truth, nature, gentleness ; less of exag- geration and mannerism, sensibilities less morbid, and lan- guage refined without bordering, on effeminacy. It would be a very interesting inquiry, whether this power of susceptibility in the female mind, a power made up as we have mentioned it to be, is original, or formed by circumstances? We certainly do believe it to be in a great measure original; and yet there are many things in the situation of women, in the .ground in which they oc- cupy in society, that seem to assist nature in the produc- tion of the effect described. Their conscious inferiority of personal strength, must, of itself, dispose them to a cul- tivation of the finer and lovelier feelings ; and this disposi- tion is much aided by exemption from those employments which hackney the minds of the other sex, and have a tendency to wear down all the minuter feelings. In con- sequence, too, of their domestic life, that reciprocation of social kindness, which is only a recreation to men, is to women, in some sense, a business. It is their field duty, from which, household cares are their repose. Men do not seek the intercourse of society as a friend to be cultivated, but merely throw themselves on its bosom to sleep. Wo- men, on the contrary, resort to it with recollections un- distracted, and curiosity all alive. Thus, that which we enjoy and forget, keeps their attention and their feelings in constant play, and gradually matures their perceptions into instinct. To similar causes the softer sex owe their exquisite acquaintance with life and manners; their fine discern- ment of those smaller peculiarities of character which throw so much light and shade over the surface of ordinary society. Of the deeper varieties of the mind they know little, because they have not been accustomed to watch M 122 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. its movements when agitated by the vexing disquietudes of business, or ploughed up into frightful inequalities by the tempests of public life. It is human nature in a calm, or ruffled only into gentle undulation; it is the light restless- ness of the domestic and the social passions ; it is the fire- side character of mankind, which forms their chief study, and with which, of course, they are perfectly intimate. Consider also that class of domestic occupations which concerns the care of children. Peace be to those wretched votaries of dissipation, if indeed they can find peace, who, all selfishness, resign their offspring to fortune, apparently not as pledges, but as presents. Of these we say nothing; but with respect to the majority of the middling class, there can be no question that, either as mothers, or as elder sisters, the female sex are infinitely more conversant with children than the other. Trace the effects naturally produced on their minds by this sort of society — for surely it may be honored with that appellation — what habits of quick and intelligent observation must be formed by the employment of watching over interesting helplessness, and construing ill-explained wants! How must the per- petual contemplation of unsophisticated nature, reflect back on the dispositions of the observer a kind of simplicity and ingenuousness! What an insight into the native constitu- tion of the human mind must it give, to inspect it in the very act of concoction? It is as if a chemist should examine " Young diamonds in their infant dew." Not that mothers will be apt to indulge in delusive dreams of the perfection of human nature and human society. They see too much of the waywardness of infants, to imagine them perfect. They neither find them nor think them angels, tho they often call them so. But whatever is bad or good in them, they behold untrammelled and undisguised. All this must, in some degree, contribute to form those peculiarities in the female character, of which we are attempting to follow out the natural history. The same peculiarities may, in part perhaps, be traced up to the system of European manners, which allows to women a free association with the world, while it enjoins on them the condition of an unimpeachable strictness of conduct. However loosely the fulfilment of this condi- tion may be exacted in some countries of Europe, the MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 123 system is still pretty extensively acted upon; and it doubt- less tends to produce in the sex a habit of circumspection, an alarmed sense of self-respect, and a scrupulous tender- ness of that feeling-, winch is to conscience what decorum is to virtue. But these qualities seem to be intimately allied to delicacy of perception and of mind. In fact, in the western world, bienseance has become (if we may use a very hard and workmanlike -term) the professional virtue of the fair, and it is therefore that they excel in it. On the whole, if it should be asked, why women are more re- fined than men? it may be asked in return, why civilized men are more refined than barbarians? It is society which has polished the savage. It is the task of presiding over the society of society, the more civilized part of civilized life, which has so highly polished, and thrown so fine a finish over women. Edinburgh Review* American in England. England is as classic ground to an American as Italy is to an Englishman; and old London teems with as much historical association as mighty Rome. Indeed, it is dif- ficult to describe the whimsical medley of ideas that throng upon Ins mind on landing among" English scenes. He, for the first time, sees a world about which he has been read- ing and thinking in every stage of his existence. The recollected ideas of infancy, youth, and manhood; of the nursery, the school, and the study, come swarming at once upon him: and his attention is distracted between great and little objects; each of which, perhaps, awakens an equally delightful train of remembrances. But what more especially attracts his notice, are those peculiarities which (nstinsruish an old country and an old state of society from a new one. I have never yet grown familiar enough with the crumbling monuments of past ages, to blunt the intense interest with which I at first beheld them. Accustomed always to scenes where his- tory was, in a manner, in anticipation ; where every thing in art was new and progressive, and pointed to the future rather than the past ; where, in short, the works of man gave no ideas but those of young existence, and prospective 124 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. improvement ; there was something inexpressibly touching in the sight of enormous piles of architecture, grey with antiquity, and sinking to decay. I cannot describe the mute but deepfelt enthusiasm with which I have contem- plated a vast monastic ruin, like Tintern Abbey, buried in the bosom of a quiet valley, and shut up from the world, as tho it had existed merely for itself; or a warrior pile, like Conway Castle, standing in stern loneliness on its rocky height, a mere hollow yet threatening phantom of departed power. They spread a grand, and melancholy, and, to me, an unusual charm over the landscape; I, for the first time, beheld signs of national old age, and em- pire's decay, and proofs of the transient and perishing glories of art, amidst the ever-springing and reviving fer- tility and nature. But, in fact, to me every thing was full of matter; the footsteps of history were every where to be traced; and poetry had breathed over and sanctified the land. I experienced the delightful freshness of feeling of a child, to whom every thing is new. I pictured to myself a set of inhabitants and a mode of life for eveiy habitation that I saw, from the aristocratical mansion, amidst the lordly repose of stately groves and solitary parks, to the straw-thatched cottage, with its scanty garden and its cherished woodbine. I thought I never could be sated with the sweetness and freshness of a country so com- pletely carpeted with verdure; where every air breathed of the balmy pasture, and the honeysuckled hedge, I was continually conning upon some little document of poetry in the blossomed hawthorn, the daisy, the cowslip, the primrose, or some other simple object that has received a supernatural value from the muse. The first time that I heard the song of the nightingale, I was intoxicated more by the delicious crowd of remembered associations, than by the melody of its notes; and I shall never forget the thrill of ecstasy with which I first saw the lark rise, al- most from beneath my feet, and wing its musical flight up into the morning sky. Washington Irvine. Reflections on the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815. It is the finest feature of the victory of Waterloo, tlrat the future security of Europe is now advanced incalcula- bly from where it was left last year by the combinations MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 125 of Leipsic. If a single power has withstood the utmost efforts of France, that power itself will in future go far to keep her in check. To none of the powers was it of more real consequence that this fortune should fall, than to Great Britain, the nearest and most active neighbour of France. The blood which it has cost, — blood which has not sunk into the barren sand, — might have been poured out less profusely had the Prussian army come up in the morning, rather than in the evening; but the moral effect on mens estimates of the result, and especially on the French themselves, would have been immeasurably less favorable to the future equilibrium, and consequent peace of Europe. Moral reflections on the grand interposition of Waterloo, are for ever conflicting in the mind, and in- juring its power of discriminate and satisfactory considera- tion. The thought by far the most prominent, is the speed of the course which has been run, — " the fell swoop," which in an instant, like the judgments of Heaven when punishing by miracle, has made such an enemy to vanish, and wrought such a change in the face of human affairs. What has been effected? A few short days before, Eu- rope entire was dazzled with the spectacle of the throne of Napoleon Bonaparte again erected, as if by enchant- ment, more towering than ever, the ascent crowded with the princes of his dynasty, and captains of his host ; that host in countless numbers, encircling its chief, enthusiastic in his cause to desperation and frenzy, and conducting the electrical ardor to sympathising, applauding, undoubting millions around; armies on armies rolling on to the scene; and oaths and shouts from a people, whose power had often shaken Europe to its extremes, astounding the world, and making the stoutest heart to fear for the issue of the con- flict about to be renewed. A few moments before, and language had no terms of sufficient confidence, defiance, and vengeance. " We shall not soon hear again of the Prussians; and as for the English, we shall now see what will become of them. The Emperor is here." Where is the Emperor now! Where is his mighty army! Where is the beautiful, the invincible, the sacred France! Never was there so short a time between the highest presumption and the lowest prostration; between 126 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. an attitude which was the terror, and a humiliation which is the byeword of nations. It is no vain glory when Eng- land, who dealt a blow, exults; as would have been the shout of France, had the victory been hers. It is no tri- umph over an unfortunate and virtuous people. England rejoices because sound principle is vindicated, and the times restored when justice has again some chance of making her voice heard in the world. Last of all, has England, with one blow, launched from his pinnacle, the almost deified captain of the long invin- cible soldiery of France ; and forced him, with a scrap of sentiment about Themistocles in his mouth, to bow his head to her grandeur, and mendicate his life from her mercy! No part of the denouement of the wondrous drama has more astonished the French people, and exalted England in their eyes, than that charm of hers, that spell of her power, which has drawn the god of their senses and imaginations, their Emperor, by something like superna- tural fascination and fatality, absolutely into her own hands, to fix his destiny for ever. Had all been reversed, — had France overwhelmed England, language is in vain searched for a term to qua- lify the injury such a melancholy event would have pro- duced to the great cause of humanity. The thought cannot be endured for a moment! — the victory of France over England !— the triumph once more, and the reign for generations, of profligacy and cruelty, gilded over by fine sentiment, arrayed in the words, without a meaning, of most exalted virtue ; while honor and principle, driven to a doubtful, at least permanent struggle, for their own ex- istence, were losing rank and estimation every hour among mankind! No interposition of the god of battles could have bestowed such a gift on humanity, as the reunion of power with right; the heart-reviving combination of real military and national glory, with the less ostentatious, but more substantial virtues, which morals and religion re- commend; and which have shown that they can neither be talked, nor laughed, nor fought out of fashion ; — a com- bination from which France herself, as most she needs, will yet most benefit, when the ruffian violence, the knavery, and the pretensions of her Revolution, are remembered only as a dreadful -warning to mankind. Simpson. MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 127 Contrast between the Duke of Bedford and Mr, Burke. % % % From Burkes Letters to a Noble Lord, on the attacks made on him in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale. I was not, like his Grace .of Bedford, swaddled, and rocked, and dandled, into a Legislator: " Nitor in ad' versum" is the motto for a man like me. I possessed not one of the qualities, nor cultivated one of the arts that recommend men to the favor and protection of the great* I was not made for a minion or a tool. As little did I follow the trade of winning the hearts, by imposing on the understandings of the people. At every step of my pro- gress in life (for in every step I was traversed and op- posed), and at every turnpike I met, I was obliged to show my passport, and again and again to prove my sole title to the honor of being useful to my country, by a proof that I was not wholly unacquainted with its laws, and the whole system of its interest both abroad and at home. Otherwise no rank, no toleration even for me. I had no arts, but manly arts. On them I have stood, and please God, in spite of the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, to the last gasp will I stand. I know not how it has happened, but it really seems, that, whilst his Grace was meditating his well-considered censure upon me, he fell into a sort of sleep. Homer nods; and the Duke of Bedford may dream; and as dreams (even his golden dreams) are apt to be ill-pieced and incongruously put together, his Grace preserved his idea of reproach to me, but took the subject-matter from the crown-grants to his own family. This is " the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way of putting things together, his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the house of Russel were so enormous, as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst " he lies floating many a rood/' he is still a creature. His ribs, his fins, his whalebone, his blubber, the very spiracles through which he spouts a torrent of brine against his origin, and covers me all over 128 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. with the spray, — every thing of him and about him is from the throne. — Is it for him to question the dispensa- tion of royal favor? I really am at a loss to draw any sort of parallel between the public merits of his Grace, by which he justifies the grants he holds, and these services of mine, on the favor- able construction of which I have obtained, what his Grace so much disapproves. In private life I have not at all the honor of acquaintance with the noble Duke. But I ought to presume, and it costs me nothing to do so, that he abundantly deserves the esteem and love of all who live with him. But as to public service, why truly it would not be more ridiculous for me to compare myself in rank, in fortune, in splendid descent, in youth, strength, or figure, with the Duke of Bedford, than to make a parallel between his services, and my attempts to be useful to my country. — - It would not be gross adulation, but uncivil irony, to say, that he has any public merit of his own, to keep alive the idea of the services by which his vast landed pensions were obtained. My merits, whatever they are, are ori- ginal and personal; his are derivative. It is his ancestor, the original pensioner, that has laid up this inexhaustible fund of merit, which makes his Grace so very delicate and exceptious about the merit of all other grantees of the crown. Had he permitted me to remain quiet, I should have said, — 'tis his estate; that's enough. It is his by law; what have I do with it or its history? He would natur- ally have said, on his side, " 'tis this man's fortune. — He is as good now, as my ancestor was two hundred and fifty years ago. I am a young man with very old pensions; he is an old man with very young pensions, — that's all." JBurke. The Attempted Assassination of the Queen of France, in 1789. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October, 1789, the King and Queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge na- ture in a few hours of respite and troubled melancholy repose. From this sleep, the Queen was first startled by MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 129 the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by flight — that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give — that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the Queen, and pierced with a hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted woman had but just time to fly, almost naked, and, through ways unknown to the murderers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment. The King, to say no more of him, and this Queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people), were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and muti- lated carcases. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter, which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who com- posed the King's body-guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives, who followed in the train, were slowly moved along, a- midst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles, protracted to six hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings. ***** I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great lady, the other object of the triumph, has borne that day (one is inter- ested that beings made for suffering should suffer well), and that she bears all the succeeding days, that she bears the imprisonment of her husband, and her own captivity, 130 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS, and the exile of her friends, and the insulting adulation of addresses, and the whole weight of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene patience, in a manner suited to her rank and race, and becoming the offspring of a sove- reign, distinguished for her piety and her courage ; that, like her, she has lofty sentiments ; that she feels with the dignity of a Roman matron; that in the last extremity, she will save herself from the last disgrace; and that, if she must fall, she will fall by no ignoble hand. It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles ; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, — glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a re- volution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate, without emotion, that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace, concealed in that bosom ; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cava- liers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity; which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness. jte Burke. MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 131 On Innovation. It cannot at this time be too often repeated, line upon line, precept upon precept, until it come into the currency of a proverb, to innovate, is not to reform. The French revolutionists complained of every thing; they refused to reform any thing; and they left nothing, no, nothing at all unchanged. The consequences are before us, — not in re- mote history; not in future prognostication; they are about us; they are upon us. They shake the public security; they menace private enjoyment; they dwarf the growth of the young; they break the quiet of the old. If we travel, they stop our way. They infest us in town; they pursue us to the country. Our business is interrupted ; our repose is troubled; our pleasures are saddened; our very studies are poisoned and perverted, and knowledge is rendered worse than ignorance, by the enormous evils of this dreadful innovation. The revolution harpies of France, sprung from night and hell, or from that chaotic anarchy, which generates equivocally " all monstrous, all prodigious things," cuckoo-like, adulterously lay their eggs, and brood over, and hatch them in the nest of every neigh- bouring state. These obscene harpies, who deck them- selves in, I know not what divine attributes, but who in reality are foul and ravenous birds of prey (both mothers and daughters), flutter over our heads, and souse down upon our tables, and leave nothing unrent, unrifled, un- ravaged, or unpolluted with the slime of their filthy offal. Burke. Burkes Account of his Son. Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I should have been, according to my medio- crity, and the mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of founder of a family; I should have left a son, who, in all the points in which personal merit can be viewed, in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honor, in ge- nerosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, and every liberal accomplishment, would not have shown himself inferior to the Duke of Bedford, or to any of those whom he traces in his line. His Grace very soon 132 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. would have wanted all plausibility in his attack upon that provision which belonged more to mine than to me. He would soon have supplied every deficiency, and symme- trized every proportion. It would not have been for that successor to resort to any stagnant wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, living spring, of generous and manly action. Every day he lived, he would have repurchased the bounty of the crown, and ten times more, if ten times more he had re- ceived. He was made a public creature, and had no en- joyment whatever, but in the performance of some duty. At this exigent moment, the loss of a finished man is not easily supplied. But a Disposer, whose power we are little able to re- sist, and whose wisdom it behoves us not at all to dispute, has ordained it in another manner, and (whatever my querulous weakness might suggest) a far better. The storm has gone over me; and I lie like one of those old oaks, which the late hurricane has scattered about me. I am stripped of all my honors : I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth ! There, and prostrate there, I most unfeignedly recognize the divine justice, and in some degree submit to it. But whilst I humble myself before God, I do not know that it is forbidden to repel the attacks of unjust and inconsiderate men. The patience of Job is proverbial. After some of the convulsive strug- gles of our irritable nature, he submitted himself, and re- pented in dust and ashes. But even so, I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his, who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate. Indeed, my Lord, I greatly deceive myself, if in this hard season I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honor in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury; it is a privilege; it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain, and poverty, and disease. It is an instinct; and under the direction of reason, instinct is always in the right. I live in an inverted order. They who ought to have succeeded MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 133 me, are gone before me. They who should have been to me as posterity, are in the place of ancestors. I owe to the dearest relation (which ever must subsist in memoiy) that act of piety, which he would have performed to me; I owe it to him to show, that he was not descended, as the Duke of Bedford would have it, from an unworthy parent. Burke. The Voyage. I said that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the wonders^f the deep, and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter rail- ing, or climb to the main-top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summers sea; — to gaze upon the piles of golden clouds just peering above the horizon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people them with a creation of my own; — to watch the gentle undulating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to die away on those happy shores. There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols. Shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow of the ship; the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the sur- face ; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters tbat lurk among the very foundations of the earth ; and of those wild phantasms that swell the tales of fishermen and sailors. Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence. What a glorious monument of human invention! that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the world into com- munion; has established an interchange of blessings, pour- 134 MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. ing into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has diffused the light of knowledge and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between which nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier. We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of the suiTOunding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. There was no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months ; clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, is the crew? Their struggle has long been over — they have gone down amidst the roar of the tem- pest— -their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence — oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that ship; what prayers of- fered up at the deserted fireside of home ! How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep. How has expectation darkened into anxiety — anxiety into dread — and dread into despair! Alas! not one momento shall ever return for love to cherish. All that shall ever be known, is, that she sailed from her port, " and was never heard of more!" In the evening, the weather, which had hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, and gave indica- tions of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. The storm increased with the night. The sea was lashed into tremendous confusion. There was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves, and broken surges. Deep called unto deep. At times the black volume of clouds over head seemed rent asunder by flashes of lightning that quivered along the foaming billows, and made the succeeding dark- ness doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by the MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. 135 mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering and plung- ing among these roaring caverns, it seemed miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water: her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Sometimes an impending surge appeared ready to overwhelm her, and nothing but a dex- terous movement of the helm preserved her from the shock. When I retired to my cabin the awful scene still fol- lowed me. The whistling of the wind through the rigging sounded like funereal waitings. The creaking of the masts, the straining and groaning of bulk heads, as the ship la- bored in the weltering sea, were frightful. As I heard the waves rushing along the side of the ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed as if Death were raging round this floating prison, seeking for his prey: the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a seam might give him entrance. A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favoring breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to flight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening influence of fine weather and fair wind at sea. When the ship is decked out in all her canvass, every sail swelled, and careering gaily over the curling waves, how lofty, how gallant she appears — how she seems to lord it over the deep ! I might fill a volume with the reveries of a sea voyage, for with me it is almost a continual reverie — but it is time to get to shore. Washington Irvine. PATHETIC EXTRACTS. Rural Funerals. The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms, tho every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, tho to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved ; when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal; would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? — No, the love which survives the tomb is one of the noblest attributes of the soul. If it has its woes, it has likewise its delights; and when the over- whelming burst of grief is calmed into the gentle tear of recollection; when the sudden anguish and the convulsive agony over the present ruins of all that we most loved, is softened away into pensive meditation on all that it was in the days of its loveliness — who would root out such a sorrow from the heart? Tho it may sometimes throw a passing cloud over the bright hour of gayety; or spread a deeper sadness over the hour of gloom; yet who would exchange it, even for a song of pleasure, or the burst of revelry? No, there is a voice from the tomb sweeter than song. There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. Oh the grave ! — the grave! — It buries every error — covers every defect — extinguishes every resentment? From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, i PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 137 and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with the poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him! But the grave of those we loved — what a place for me- ditation! There it is that we call up in long review the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us almost unheeded in the daily intercourse of intimacy — there it is that we dwell upon the tenderness ; the solemn, awful tenderness of the parting scene. The bed of death, with all its stifled griefs — its noiseless attendance — its mute, watchful as- siduities. The last testimonies of expiring love! The feeble, fluttering, thrilling — oh! how thrilling! — pressure of the hand. The last fond look of the glazing eye, turn- ing upon us even from the threshold of existence! The faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection ! Aye ! go to the grave of buried love, and meditate ! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past be- nefit unrequited — every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being, who can never — never — never return to be soothed by thy contrition! If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the silvered brow of an affectionate parent — if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth — if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee — if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that time heart which now lies cold and still be- neath thy feet; — then be sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, eveiy ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul — then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrow- ing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear; more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing. Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beau- ties of nature about the grave ; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of re- gret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy con- 138 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. trite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living. Washington Irvine. The Broken Heart Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E , the Irish patriot, it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young — so intelligent — so generous— so brave — so eveiy thing that we are apt to like in a young man. His con- duct under trial too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his country — the eloquent vindication of his name — and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation — all these entered deeply into every ge- nerous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution. But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer for- tunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and inte- resting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish bar- rister. She loved him with the disinterested fervor of a woman's first and early love. When eveiy worldly maxim arrayed itself against him ; when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his veiy sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy, even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her whose whole soul was occupied by his image ! Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth — who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, from whence all that was most lovely and loving had de- parted. rJut then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so dishonored! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that could soothe the pang of separation — none of those tender, tho melancholy circumstances that endear the parting scene — nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 139 tears, sent, like the clews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parching hour of anguish. To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by fa- milies of wealth and distinction. She was led into so- ciety, and they tried all kinds of occupation and amuse- ment to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her lover. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul — that penetrate to the vital seat of happiness — and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never ob- jected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but she was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude. She walked about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward wo that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and " heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay — to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and wo- begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and looking about for some time with a va- cant air, that showed her insensibility to the garish scene, she began, with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd mute and silent around her, and melted every one into tears. 140 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. The story of one so true and tender, could not but ex- cite great interest In a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, how- ever, persisted in his suit. He solicited not her tender- ness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and de- pendent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends. In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, tho with the solemn assurance, that her heart was unalterably another's. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an ef- fort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart. It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines : She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers around her are sighing: But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, For her heart in his grave is lying. She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains, Every note which he lov'd awaking — Ah ! little they think, who delight in her strains, How the heart of the minstrel is breaking! He had lived for his love — for his country he died, They were all that to life had entwined him — Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried, Nor long will his love stay behind him! Oh! make her a grave where the sun-beams rest, When they promise a glorious morrow; They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west, From her own lov'd island of sorrow ! Washington Irvine. PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 141 The Pride of the Village. May no wolfe howle : no screech owle stir A wing about thy sepulchre ! No boysterous winds or stormes come hither, To starve or wither Thy soft sweet earth ! but, like a spring, Love keep it ever flourishing. Herrick. In the course of an excursion through one of the remote counties of England, I had struck into one of those cross roads that lead through the more secluded parts of the country, and stopped one afternoon at a village, the situa- tion of which was beautifully rural and retired. There was an air of primitive simplicity about its inhabitants, not to be found in the villages which he on the great coach roads. I determined to pass the night there, and having taken an early dinner, strolled out to enjoy the neighbour- ing scenery. My ramble, as is usually the case with travellers, soon led me to the church, which stood at a little distance from the village. Indeed, it was an object of some curiosity, its old tower being completely overrun with ivy, so that only here and there a jutting buttress, an angle of grey wall, or a fantastically carved ornament, peered through the verdant covering. It was a lovely evening. The early part of the day had been dark and showery, but in the afternoon it had cleared up ; and tho sullen clouds still hung over head, yet there was a broad tract of golden sky in the west, from which the setting sun gleamed through the dripping leaves, and lit up all nature into a melancholy smile. It seemed like the parting hour of a good Chris- tian, smiling on the sins and sorrows of the world, and giving, in the serenity of his decline, an assurance that he will rise again in glory. I had seated myself on a half-sunken tomb-stone, and was musing, as one is apt to do at this sober-thoughted hour, on past scenes, and early friends — on those who were distant, and those who were dead — and indulging in that kind of melancholy fancying, which has in it some- thing sweeter even than pleasure. Every now and then, ' the stroke of a bell from the neighbouring tower fell on my ear ; its tones were in unison with the scene, and, in- 142 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. stead of jarring, chimed in with my feelings ; and it was some time before I recollected, that it must be tolling the knell of some new tenant of the tomb. Presently I saw a funeral train moving across the vil- lage green; it wound slowly along a lane; was lost, and re-appeared through the breaks of the hedges, until it passed the place where I was sitting. The pall was sup- ported by young girls, dressed in white; and another, about the age of seventeen, walked before, bearing a chaplet of white flowers ; a token that the deceased was a young and unmarried female. The corpse was followed by the parents. They were a venerable couple of the better order of peasantry. The father seemed to repress his feelings; but his fixed eye, contracted brow, and deeply -furrowed face, showed the struggle that was pass- ing within. His wife hung on his arm, and wept aloud with the convulsive bursts of a mother's sorrow. I followed the funeral into the church. The bier was placed in the centre aisle, and the chaplet of white flowers, with a pair of white gloves, were hung over the seat which the deceased had occupied. Every one knows the soul-subduing pathos of the fu- neral service: for who is so fortunate as never to have followed some one he has loved to the tomb? but when performed over the remains of innocence and beauty, thus laid low in the bloom of existence — what can be more af- fecting? At that simple, but most solemn consignment of the body to the grave — " Earth to earth — ashes to ashes — dust to dust!" the tears of the youthful com- panions of the deceased flowed unrestrained. The father still seemed to struggle with his feelings, and to comfort himself with the assurance, that the dead are blessed which die in the Lord; but the mother only thought of her child as a flower of the field cut down and withered in the midst of its sweetness: she was like Rachel, " mourning over her children, and would not be comforted.' , On returning to the inn, I learnt the whole story of the deceased. It was a simple one, and such as has often been told. She had been the beauty and pride of the village. Her father had once been an opulent farmer, but was re- duced in circumstances. This was an only child, and brought up entirely at home, in the simplicity of rural PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 143 life. She had been the pupil of the village pastor, the favorite lamb of his little flock. The good man watched over her education with paternal care; it was limited, and suitable to the sphere in which she was to move; for he only sought to make her an ornament to her station in life, not to raise her above it. The tenderness and indul- gence of her parents, and the exemption from all ordinary occupations, had fostered a natural grace and delicacy of character, that accorded with the fragile loveliness of her form. She appeared like some tender plant of the garden, blooming accidentally amid the hardier natives of the fields. The superiority of her charms was felt and acknow- ledged by her companions, but without envy; for it was surpassed by the unassuming gentleness and winning kindness of her manners. It might be truly said of her, " This is the prettiest low-born lass, that ever Ran on the green-sward: nothing she does or seems, But smacks of something greater than herself; Too noble for this place." The village was one of those sequestered spots, which still retain some vestiges of old English customs. It had its rural festivals and holy-day pastimes, and still kept up some faint observance of the once popular rites of May. These, indeed, had been promoted by its present pastor; who was a lover of old customs, and one of those simple Christians that think their mission fulfilled by promoting joy on earth and good-will among mankind. Under his auspices the May-pole stood from year to year in the centre of the village green; on May-day it was decorated with garlands and streamers ; and a queen or lady of the May was appointed, as in former times, to preside at the sports, and distribute the prizes and rewards. The pic- turesque situation of the village, and the fancifulness of its rustic fetes, would often attract the notice of casual visitors. Among these, on one May-day, was a young officer, whose regiment had been recently quartered in the neighbourhood. He was charmed with the native taste that pervaded this village pageant; but, above all, with the dawning loveliness of the queen of May. It was the village favorite, who was crowned with flowers, and blushing and smiling in all the beautiful confusion of girlish 144 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. diffidence and delight. The artlessness of rural habits enabled him readily to make her acquaintance; he grad- ually won his way into her intimacy; and paid his court to her in that unthinking way in which young officers are too apt to trifle with rustic simplicity. There was nothing in his advances to startle or alarm. He never even talked of love: but there are modes of making it more eloquent than language, and which con- vey it subtilely and irresistibly to the heart. The beam of the eye, the tone of voice, the thousand tendernesses which emanate from every word, and look, and action — these form the true eloquence of love, and can always be felt and understood, but never described. Can we wonder that they should readily win a heart, young, guileless, and susceptible? As to her, she loved almost unconsciously; she scarcely inquired what was the growing passion that was absorbing every thought and feeling, or what were to be its consequences. She, indeed, looked not to the fu- ture. When present, his looks and words occupied her whole attention; when absent, she thought but of what had passed at their recent interview. She would wander with him through the green lanes and rural scenes of the vicinity. He taught her to see new beauties in nature; he talked in the language of polite and cultivated life, and breathed into her ear the witcheries of romance and poetry. Perhaps there could not have been a passion, between the sexes, more pure than this innocent girl's. The gallant figure of her youthful admirer, and the splendor of his military attire, might at first have charmed her eye; but it was not these that had captivated her heart. Her at- tachment had something in it of idolatry. She looked up to him as to a being of a superior order. She felt in his society the enthusiasm of a mind naturally delicate and poetical, and now first awakened to a keen perception of the beautiful and grand. Of the sordid distinctions of rank and fortune, she thought nothing; it was the differ- ence of intellect, of demeanor, of manners, from those of the rustic society to which she had been accustomed, that elevated him in her opinion. She would listen to him with charmed ear and downcast look of mute delight, and her cheek would mantle with enthusiasm,; or if ever she ventured a shy glance of timid admiration, it was as PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 145 quickly withdrawn, and she would sigh and blush at the idea of her comparative un worthiness. Her lover was equally impassioned ; but his passion was mingled with feelings of a coarser nature. He had begun the connexion in levity; for he had often heard his brother officers boast of their village conquests, and thought some triumph of the kind necessary to his reputation as a man of spirit. But he was too full of youthful fervor. His heart had not been rendered sufficiently cold and selfish by a wandering and a dissipated life: it caught fire from the very flame it sought to kindle; and before he was aware of the nature of his situation, he became really in love. What was he to do? There were the old obstacles which so incessantly occur in these heedless attachments. His rank in life — the prejudices of titled connexions — his dependence upon a proud and unyielding father — all for- bade him to think of matrimony; — but when he looked down upon this innocent being, so tender and confiding, there was a purity in her manners, a blamelessness in her life, and a beseeching modesty in her looks, that awed down every licentious feeling. In vain did he try to for- tify himself by a thousand heartless examples of men of fashion; and to chill the glow of generous sentiment, with that cold derisive levity with which he had heard them talk of female virtue ; whenever he came into her presence, she was still surrounded by that mysterious, but impassive charm of virgin purity, in whose hallowed sphere no guilty thought can live. The sudden arrival of orders for the regiment to repair to the continent, completed the confusion of his mind. He remained for a short time in a state of the most pain- ful irresolution; he hesitated to communicate the tidings, until the day for marching was at hand ; when he gave her the intelligence in the course of an evening ramble. The idea of parting had never before occurred to her. It broke in at once upon her dream of felicity; she looked upon it as a sudden and insurmountable evil, and wept with the guileless simplicity of a child. He drew her to his bosom, and kissed the tears from her soft cheek; nor did he meet with a repulse; for there are moments of jmaingled sorrow and tenderness, which hallow the caresses 146 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. of affection. He was naturally impetuous; and the sight of beauty, apparently yielding in his arms ; the confidence of his power over her; and the dread of losing her for ever; all conspired to overwhelm his better feelings — he ventured to propose that she should leave her home, and be the companion of his fortunes. He was quite a novice in seduction, and blushed and faltered at his own baseness ; but so innocent of mind was his intended victim, that she was at first at a loss to com- prehend his meaning; and why she should leave her na- tive village, and the humble roof of her parents? When at last the nature of his proposal flashed upon her pure mind, the effect was withering. She did not weep — she did not break forth into reproach — she said not a word — but she shrunk back aghast as from a viper; gave him a look of anguish that pierced to his very soul; and clasp- ing her hands in agony, fled, as if for refuge, to her fa- ther's cottage. The officer retired, confounded, humiliated, and re- pentant. It is uncertain what might have been the re- sult of the conflict of his feelings, had not his thoughts been diverted by the bustle of departure. New scenes, new pleasures, and new companions, soon dissipated his self-reproach, and stifled his tenderness ; yet, amidst the stir of camps, the revelries of garrisons, the array of ar- mies, and even the din of battles, his thoughts would sometimes steal back to the scene of rural quiet and vil- lage simplicity — the white cottage — the footpath along the silver brook and up the hawthorn hedge, and the little village maid loitering along it, leaning on his arm, and listening to him with eyes beaming with unconscious af- fection. The shock which the poor girl had received, in the destruction of all her ideal world, had indeed been cruel. Faintings and hysterics had at first shaken her tender frame, and were succeeded by a settled and pining mel- ancholy. She had beheld from her window the march of the departing troops. She had seen her faithless lover borne off, as if in triumph, amidst the sound of drum and trumpet, and the pomp of arms. She strained a last aching gaze after him, as the morning sun glittered about his figure, and his plume waved in the breeze; he passed PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 147 away like a bright vision from her sight and left her all in darkness. It would be trite to dwell on the particulars of her after-story. It was, like other tales of love, melancholy* She avoided society, and wandered out alone in the walks she had most frequented with her lover. She sought, like the stricken deer, to weep in silence and loneliness, and brood over the barbed sorrow that rankled in her soul. Sometimes she would be seen late of an evening sitting in the porch of the village church; and the milkmaids, re- turning from the fields, would now and then overhear her, singing some plaintive ditty in the hawthorn walk. She became fervent in her devotions at church ; and as the old people saw her approach, so wasted away, yet with a hectic bloom, and that hallowed air which melancholy diffuses round the form, they would make way for her, as for something spiritual, and, looking after her, would shake their heads in gloomy foreboding. She felt a conviction that she was hastening to the tomb, but looked forward to it as a place, of rest. The silver cord that had bound her to existence was loosed, and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the sun. If ever her gentle bosom had entertained resentment against her lover, it was extinguished. She was incapable of angry passions; and in a moment of saddened tenderness, she penned him a farewell letter. It was couched in the sim- plest language ; but touching from its very simplicity. She told him that she was dying, and did not conceal from him that his conduct was the cause. She even depicted the sufferings which she had experienced ; but concluded with saying, that she could not die in peace, until she had sent him her forgiveness and her blessing. By degress her strength declined, that she could no longer leave the cottage. She could only totter to the window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her en- joyment to sit all day and look out upon the landscape. Still she uttered no complaint, nor imparted to any one the malady that was preying on her heart. She never even mentioned her lover's name ; but would lay her head on her mother's bosom and weep in silence. Her poor parents hung, in mute anxiety, over this fading blossom of their hopes, still flattering themselves that it might again 148 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. revive to freshness, and that the bright unearthy bloom which sometimes flushed her cheek might be the promise of returning health. In this way she was seated between them one Sunday afternoon; her hands were clasped in their's, the lattice was thrown open, and the soft air that stole in, brought with it the fragrance of the clustering honeysuckle which her own hands had trained round the window. Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible : it spoke of the vanity of worldly things, and of the joys of heaven; it seemed to have diffused comfort and serenity through her bosom. Her eye was fixed on the distant village church; the bell had tolled for the evening service; the last villager was lagging into the porch; and every thing had sunk into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents were gazing on her with yearn- ing hearts. Sickness and sorrow, which pass so roughly over some faces, had given to hers the expression of a seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. — Was she thinking of her faithless lover? — or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered? Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard — a horseman galloped to the cottage — he dismounted before the win- dow — the poor girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk back in her chair; — -it was her repentant lover! He rushed into the house, and flew to clasp her to his bosom; but her wasted form — her death-like countenance — -so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation, — smote him to the soul, and he threw himself in an agony at her feet. She was too faint to rise — she attempted to extend her trembling hand — her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was articulated — she looked down upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, — and closed her eyes for ever! Such are the particulars which I gathered of this village story. They are but scanty, and I am conscious have little novelty to recommend them. In the present rage also for strange incident and high-seasoned narrative, they may appear trite and insignificant, but they interested me strongly at the time ; and, taken in connexion with the affecting ceremony which I had just witnessed, left a deeper impression on my mind than many circumstances PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 149 of a more striking nature. I have passed through the place since, and visited the church again, from a better motive than mere curiosity. It was a wintry evening; the trees were stripped of their foliage; the churchyard looked naked and mournful, and the wind rustled coldly through the dry grass. Evergreens, however, had been planted about the grave of the village favorite, and osiers were bent over it to keep the turf uninjured. The church door was open, and I stepped in. There hung the chaplet of flowers and the gloves, as on the day of the funeral: the flowers were withered, it is true, but care seemed to have been taken that no dust should soil their whiteness. I have seen many monuments, where art has exhausted its powers to awaken the sympathy of the spectator; but I have met with none that spoke more touchingly to my heart, than this simple, but delicate me- mento of departed innocence. Washington Irvine* The Story of Mary Watson. It was on one of those nights which to the sad and solitary heart, seems to sympathise more kindly in its sorrows than all the glare of sunshine, or the glory of summer, that Miss Watson wandered forth, unobserved as she imagined, to look upon a world now desolate and dreary as her own bosom. Mr. W , who was now unusually disposed to solitude and melancholy, was seated at a window of the castle, which commanded a long and narrow prospect up the glen, through which ran a moun- tain stream, bursting, at one time, over a tremendous pre- cipice; at another, gliding smoothly through the green and living pastures; now forcing its way among grey rocks, and raging against the huge stones that opposed its course ; then mingling from afar and near its rushing with the roar of the tempest. Pensive and even sad for a while, his eye ranged over the confused and darkening prospect; while an emotion allied to both pleasure and pain, seemed to control his mind, and stretch it beyond its usual powers of comprehension. From thoughts so full and so large, and excursions so wide and so varied, we would suppose the mind could not be easily withdrawn; yet so high and 150 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. so haughty is the dominion of the affections, that a small object which claims in these a deep, and strong, and in- dividual interest, will call down the senses from the most exquisite enjoyment, and the intellect from the most ab- struse speculation. From this mental reverie, full of storms, torrents, mists, and clouds, the figure of Miss Watson, wandering alone, now attracted the ardent gaze of Mr. W 's eye, and the collected powers of his in- tellect and imagination. Up the side of the stream, now swelled into a rapid torrent, a narrow path had been artificially cut, which winded round the edges of rocks and precipices, tracing the rivulet's course through the whole length of the glen, in all its bold and broken scenery, and amidst its softer sweeps and gentler meanderings. It was along this path that Miss Watson bent her way, — her figure occasionally seen on the green and level sward, and again lost behind the points of rocks over which she wandered. She proceeded forward, amidst the confusion of sounds and scenes, the rushing of torrents, the sweeping of clouds, and the lash- ing of rains. She paused on the brink of a waterfall, to look down on the abyss below, till she was totally lost amidst the mists and vapors that enveloped the Vale of Inisfalla. He continued to gaze long after she had van- ished from his view; for his deluded sense still saw her mingling with the clouds, and flitting among the wreck in which she was shrouded. When the illusion was gone, he recollected what it was that occupied his attention; and hurrying down stairs, and away from the castle, he began to trace her footsteps. There is a state of mind bordering on insanity, which Mr. W now experienced. While it prevails, the senses lose their power, and are incapable of reflecting back the images impressed on them ; the lightning glares idly on the fixed eye-ball, and the thunders roll above, and break beneath, unheard. No object had sufficient in- fluence to call off the determined attention of Mr. W— , or strike him with such force as to cause a single sense to waver. Far up the glen he pursued his course, till he beheld the object of his search, standing like a spirit of the storm, wrapped in the folds of a dense cloud, on a steep cliff overlooking a cascade that bounded over the PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 151 rugged rocks, and flung its spray among the brown hazels that embraced them. It would have been no difficult matter to approach unseen and unheard, amidst the deaf- ening roar of storms and cataracts : for she stood wrapped in her own meditations, and was even lost for the moment to her habitual reflections and sorrows. He continued his path breathless and exhausted: nor was he yet duly aware of his own wishes and determinations. As he approached, Miss Watson recognised him through the deep grey haze ; it was lucky, for a sudden surprise might have now ter- minated her life and her sorrows. On advancing nearer, he was about to stammer out an apology in his usual po- lite, and distant, and worldly manner; but here was a sit- uation, his worldly passions could not overcome. He felt that the poor and friendless governess was dearer to him than all the empty titles of birth, the splendor of rank, and the glory of the world; and he willingly acknowledged her the arbiter of his life, his happiness, and his destiny. It would be vain to repeat the often-told tale, of vows, and pledges, and long, and warm, and stolen interviews, and rapturous meetings, and reluctant partings. These we can well suppose. But when the young and dying lady related her story to me, she had forgotten all these, and was only bestowing and asking forgiveness. She who is inclined to blame Miss Watson's conduct, so far as I have yet related her history, may lay her hand on her heart, and pause before she pronounce the sentence. In an evil hour Miss Watson consented to a marriage with Mr. W , unsanctioned by any of those formali- ties which legalise and bind the parties in the eye of the world; where nothing was sought or given but the con- sent of two hearts, and none but the Almighty witnessed the obligation. To her the consequences were terrible. If no power had ever counteracted his wishes, her hus- band might never have forsaken her: contented and happy together, they might have glided down the stream of life, had no storm ever crossed its current. But to brave a fa- ther's wrath, and the contumely of a world he should have despised, was far above Mr. W 's pitch of character. It was easier, he now thought, to violate an engagement he had made with an unprotected woman, than to be stripped of his worldly rank and enjoyments: it was easier 152 PATHETIC EXTRACTS, to be rich and infamous, than to be poor and upright. She too might have lived in splendid misery, had her heart been less tender, and her affections less pure. But the fountain from whence they flowed had never been sullied ; and as the flames of love and life had glowed, so they languished and expired together. It was in a cottage, if it deserved so comfortable a name, in the suburbs on the south-east side of the city, in a small chamber, distinguished more for the manner than the matter of its arrangement, that I first visited Mary Wat- son. It was clean and white-washed; and as the bed where she lay fronted the only window* it commanded a view of the River, and the Green with all its moving sceneiy. The park and the trees, she said, reminded her of Moscow and her father s dwelling. Curiosity leads me sometimes to inquire after such scenes, and such unfor- tunate strangers. There was little more passed at our first interview than some few inquiries after her health. I saw she was dying; and I hinted that if there were any earthly comforts she might want, I knew a source from whence they would cheerfully be supplied. To her cheek, from which the hectic flush had just faded, and which was now resting cold and white on her hand, there rushed an over- flowing tide of blood ; and so bright did it glow and rapid did it circle, and so full of life was the glance of her eye, that for a moment I was deceived, and thought that all might yet be well. But I had mistaken the feeling that now animated her feeble frame. In health, it would have been indignation and disdain; in death, it was an emotion for which we have not yet found a name. " Tell him!" she said; — and the tide began to ebb with the same ra- pidity it had flowed ; — " Tell him ! " — and she sank away lifeless and exhausted on the pillow. I could not leave the house till she recovered; when an explanation fol- lowed, that led her to reveal to me the story of her life. The last time I had the melancholy pleasure of hearing her talk, was on the evening before her death. She was sitting up in her bed, or rather leaning on her elbow, her face bent downwards in the attitude of grief. I could per- ceive that something extraordinary occupied her thoughts, from the agonizing sobs, and deep drawn sighs that she uttered. " Oh! thy father!" she said; "had he but PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 153 known the heart of his Mary! She had no other object in the world to love than him ; and but that it is broken, this heart would have been transferred to thee!" She then pressed the infant to her bosom, as if she would have forced it to enter and take possession of that heart, deso- late and broken as it was. Another sigh followed, and a shower of tears came to her relief. She offered the babe to its nurse; and the cherub smiling, leaped into her arms. " Oh had thy father!" she said again; — and raising her eyes, she saw me — " It will soon be all over," she add- ed; and taking my hand, she directed my attention to her infant, by a motion which I could not fail to under- stand. Our interview was short, as I saw she was ex- hausted. — Early next morning she expired. Attic Stories. Liberty and Slavery. Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and tho thousands, in all ages, have been made to drink of thee, thou art not less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess ! whom all, in public or in private, worship ; whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till Nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy man- tle, or chemic power turn thy sceptre into iron. With thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch; from whose court thou art ex- iled. Gracious heaven! grant me but health, thou great bestower of it! and give me but this fair goddess as my companion! and shower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them! Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table; and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow- creatures, born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and that the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me — I took a single captive ; and having first 154 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expecta- tion and confinement; and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it is which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale snd feverish. In thirty years, the western breeze had not once fanned his blood — he had seen no sun, no moon, in all that time — nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lat- tice. His children — but here my heart began to bleed — and I was forced to go on with another part of the por- trait. He was sitting upon the ground, upon a little straw in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little kalendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of these little sticks in his hand; and, with a rusty nail, he was etching another day of misery, to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door — then cast it down — shook his head — and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle — he gave a deep sigh — I saw the iron enter into his soul — I burst into tears.— I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. Sterne* Comal and Galvina. " Mournful is thy tale, son of the car," said Carril of other times. — " It sends my soul back to the ages of old, and to the days of other years Often have I heard of Comal, who slew the friend he loved; yet victory at- tended his steel; and the battle was consumed in his presence. " Comal was the son of Albion; the chief of a hundred hills. — His deer drank of a thousand streams. — A thousand rocks replied to the voice of his dogs. — His face was the mildness of youth. — His hand the death of heroes. — One was his love, and fair was she ! the daughter of mighty Conloch. — She appeared like a sun-beam among women. — PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 155 Her hair was like the wing of the raven. — Her dogs were taught to the chase. — Her bow-string sounded on the winds of the forest. — Her soul was fixed on Comal Often met their eyes of love. — Their course in the chase was one. — Happy were their words in secret. — But Gor- mal loved the maid, the dark chief of the gloomy Ard- ven. — He watched her lone steps in the heath; the foe of unhappy Comal! " One day, tired of the chase, when the mist had con- cealed their friends, Comal and the daughter of Conloch met, in the cave of Ronan. — It was the wonted haunt of Comal. — Its sides were hung with his arms. — A hundred shields of thongs were there ; a hundred helms of sound- ing steel. — < Rest here,' he said, ' my love, Galvina; thou light of the cave of Ronan! A deer appears on Mora's brow. — I go ; but I will soon return.' — < I fear/ she said, ' dark Gormal my foe; he haunts the cave of Ronan! I will rest among the arms; but soon return, my love.' " He went to the deer of Mora. — The daughter of Con- loch would needs try his love. — She clothed her white sides with his armor, and strode from the cave of Ronan! — He thought it was his foe. — His heart beat high. — His color changed, and darkness dimmed his eyes. — He drew the bow. — The arrow flew. — Galvina fell in blood! — He ran with wildness in his steps, and called the daughter of Conloch. — No answer in the lonely cave — ' Where art thou, O my love?' — He saw, at length, her heaving heart beating around the feathered arrow ' O Conloch's daughter, is it thou?' — He sunk upon her breast. — " The hunters found the hapless pair. He afterwards walked the hill — but many and silent were his steps round the dark dwelling of his love. — The fleet of the ocean came. — He fought; the strangers fled. — He searched for death along the field — But who could slay the mighty Comal! — He threw away his dark-brown shield. — An ar- row found his manly breast. — He sleeps with his loved Galvina, at the noise of the sounding surge ! — Their green tombs are seen by the mariner, when he bounds o'er the waves of the north." Ossian. 156 PATHETIC EXTRACTS, The Elders Death-bed. " Jamie, thy own father has forgotten thee in thy in- fancy, and me in my old age ; but, Jamie, forget not thou thy father, nor thy mother; for that, thou knowest and feelest, is the commandment of God." The broken-hearted boy could give no reply. He had gradually stolen closer and closer unto the loving old man, and now was lying, worn out with sorrow, drenched and dissolved in tears, in his grandfathers bosom. His mo- ther had sunk down on her knees, and hid her face with her hand. " Oh! if my husband knew but of this — he would never, never desert his dying father! " And I now knew, that the Elder was praying on his death-bed for a disobedient and wicked son. At this affecting time, the Minister took the Family Bible on his knees, and said, " Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, part of the fifteenth psalm;" and he read, with a tremulous and broken voice, those beautiful verses, " Within thy tabernacle, Lord, Who shall abide with thee ? And in thy high and holy hill, Who shall a dweller be? " The man that walketh uprightly, And worketh righteousness, And as he thinketh in his heart, So doth he truth express." Ere the psalm was yet over, the door was opened, and a tall, fine-looking man entered, but with a lowering and dark countenance, seemingly in sorrow, in misery, and remorse. Agitated, confounded, and awe-struck by the melancholy and dirge-like music, he sat down on a chair, and looked with a ghastly face towards his fathers bed. When tfie psalm ceased, the Elder said, with a solemn voice, " My son — thou art come in time to receive thy father's blessing. May the remembrance of what will happen in this room, before the morning again shine over the Hazelglen, win thee from the error of thy ways ! Thou art here to witness the mercy of thy God and thy Saviour, whom thou hast forgotten." The Minister looked, if not with a stern, yet with an upbraiding countenance, on the young man, who had not PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 157 recovered his speech, and said, " William! for three years past your shadow has not darkened the door of the house of God. They who fear not the thunder, may tremble at the still small voice — now is the hour for repentance — that your father's spirit may carry up to heaven tidings of a contrite soul saved from the company of sinners 1" The young man, with much effort, advanced to the bed- side, and at last found voice to say, " Father — I am not without the affections of nature — and I hurried home the moment I heard that the minister had been seen riding towards our house. I hope that you will yet recover, and, if I have ever made you unhappy, I ask your forgiveness— for though I may not think as you do on matters of reli- gion, I have a human heart. Father! I may have been unkind, but I am not cruel. I ask your forgiveness.'' " Come near to me, William; kneel down by the bed- side, and let my hand feel the head of my beloved son — for blindness is coming fast upon me. Thou wert my first-bora, and thou art my only living son. All thy brothers and sisters are. lying in the churchyard, beside her whose sweet face thine own, William, did once so much resemble. Long wert thou the joy, the pride of my soul, — aye, too much the pride, for there was not in all the parish such a man, such a son, as my own William, If thy heart has since been changed, God may inspire it again with right thoughts. I have sorely wept for thee — aye, William, when there was none near me — even as David wept for Absalom — for thee, my son, my son!" A long deep groan was the only reply; but the whole body of the kneeling man was convulsed; and it was easy to see his sufferings, his contrition, his remorse, and his despair. The Pastor said, with a sterner voice, and au- sterer countenance than were natural to him, " Know you whose hand is now lying on your rebellious head? But what signifies the word father to him who has denied God the Father of us all?" " Oh! press him not too hardly," said his weeping wife, coming forward from a dark corner of the room, where she tried to conceal herself in grief, fear, and shame. " Spare, Oh! spare my husband — he has ever been kind to me;" and with that she knelt down beside him, with her long soft white arms mournfully, and affectionately laid across his neck. " Go thou, like- p ]58 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. wise, my sweet little Jamie," said the Elder, " go even out of my bosom, and kneel down beside thy father and thy mother, so that I may bless you all at once, and with one yearning prayer." The child did as the solemn voice commanded, and knelt down somewhat timidly by his fathers side; nor did the unhappy man decline encircling with his arm, the child too much neglected, but still dear to him as his own blood, in spite of the deadening and debasing influence of infidelity. " Put the word of God into the hands of my son, and let him read aloud to his dying father the 25th, 26th, and 27th verses of the eleventh chapter of the gospel accord- ing to St. John." The Pastor went up to the kneelers, and, with a voice of pity, condolence, and pardon, said, " There was a time when none, William, could read the Scriptures better than couldst thou — can it be that the son of my friend hath forgotten the lessons of his youth ?" He had not forgotten them — there was no need for the repentant sinner to lift up his eyes from the bed-side. The sacred stream of the gospel had worn a channel in his heart, and the waters were again flowing. With a choked voice he said, " Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: And whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this? She said unto him, Yea, Lord: I believe thou art the Christ, the son of God, which should come into the world." " That it is not an unbeliever's voice," said the dying man, triumphantly; " nor, William, hast thou an unbe- lievers heart. Say that thou believest in what thou hasl; now read, and thy father will die happy!" " I do be- lieve; and as thou forgivest me, so may I be forgiven by my Father who is in heaven." The Elder seemed like a man suddenly inspired with a new life. His faded eyes kindled — his pale cheeks glowed — his palsied hands seemed to wax strong — and his voice was clear as that of manhood in its prime. " Into thy hands, O God! I com- mit my spirit;" and, so saying, he gently sunk back on his pillow; and I thought I heard a sigh — There was then a long deep silence, and the father, the mother, and the child, rose from their knees. The eyes of us all were turned towards the white placid face of the figure now PATHETIC EXTRACTS. 159 stretched in everlasting rest ; and, without lamentations, save the silent lamentations of the resigned soul, we stood around the Death-bed of the Elder. Wilson. Reyno and Alpin. Reyno. The wind and rain are over; calm is the noon of day. The clouds are divided in heaven; over the green hill, flies the inconstant sun; red, through the stony vale, comes down the stream of the hill. — Sweet are thy mur- murs, O stream! but more sweet is the voice I hear. — It is the voice of Alpin, the son of song, mourning for the dead. — Bent is his head of age, and red his tearful eye- — Alpin, thou son of song, why alone on the silent hill? Why complainest thou as a blast in the wood — as a wave on the lonely shore? Alpin. My tears, O Reyno! are for the dead — my voice for the inhabitants of the grave. Tall thou art on the hill; fair among the sons of the plain — but thou shalt fall like Morar; and the mourner shall sit on thy tomb. The hills shall know thee no more, thy bow shall lie in the hall unstrung. — Thou wert swift, O Morar! as a roe on the hill — terrible as a meteor of fire. — Thy wrath was as the storm — thy sword, in battle, as lightning in the field. — Thy voice was like a stream after rain — like thun- der on distant hills. — Many fell by thy arm — they were consumed in the flames of thy wrath. But when thou didst return from war, how peaceful was thy brow! Thy face was like the sun after rain — like the moon in the si- lence of night — calm as the breast of the lake, when the loud wind is hushed into repose. — Narrow is thy dwelling now — dark the place of thine abode. With three steps I compass thy grave, O thou who wast so great before! Four stones, with their heads of moss, are the only me- morial of thee. A tree, with scarce a leaf— long grass whistling in the wind — mark to the hunter's eye, the grave of the mighty Morar. — Morar! thou art low in- deed: thou hast no mother to mourn thee; no maid with her tears of love: dead is she that brought thee forth; fallen is the daughter of Morglan Who, on his staff, is this? who this, whose head is white with age, 160 PATHETIC EXTRACTS. whose eyes are galled with tears, who quakes at every step? — It is thy father, O Morar! the father of no son, but thee. — Weep, thou father of Morar! weep; but thy son heareth thee not. Deep is the sleep of the dead — low their pillow of dust. No more shall he hear thy voice — « no more awake at thy call. — When shall it be morn in the grave, to bid the slumberer awake ? Farewell thou bravest of men: thou conqueror in the field: but the field shall see thee no more ; nor the gloomy wood be lightened with the splendor of thy steel. — Thou hast left no son — but the song shall preserve thy name, Ossian. BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, Character of Queen Elizabeth. There are few personages in history, who have been more exposed to the calumny of enemies, and the adula- tion of friends, than Queen Elizabeth; and yet there is scarce any whose reputation has been more certainly de- termined by the unanimous consent of posterity. The unusual length of her administration, and the strong fea- tures of her character, were able to overcome all preju- dices; and obliging her detractors to abate much of their invectives, and her admirers somewhat of their panegyrics, have at last, in spite of political factions, and, what is more, of religious animosities, produced a uniform judgment with regard to her conduct. Her vigor, her constancy, her magnanimity, her penetration, vigilance, and address, are allowed to merit the liighest praises, and appear not to have been surpassed by any person who ever filled a throne. A conduct less rigorous, less imperious, more sincere, more indulgent to her people, would have been requisite to form a perfect character. By the force of her mind, she controlled all her more active and stronger qua- lities, and prevented them from running into excess. Her heroism was exempted from all temerity, her frugality from avarice, her friendship from partiality, her enterprise from turbulency, and a vain ambition. She guarded not herself with equal care, or equal success, from less infirmities ; the rivalship of beauty, the desire of admiration, the jealousy of love, and the sallies of anger. Her singular talents for government were founded equally on her temper, and on her capacity. Endowed with a great command over herself, she soon obtained an uncontrolled ascendant over the people; and while she merited all their esteem, by her real virtues, she also en- gaged their affections, by her pretended ones. 162 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. Few sovereigns of England succeeded to the throne in more difficult circumstances ; and none ever conducted the government with such uniform success and felicity. Tho unacquainted with the practice of toleration, the true se- cret of managing religious factions, she preserved her people by her superior prudence, from those confusions, in which theological controversy had involved all the neighbouring nations. And, tho her enemies were the most powerful princes in Europe, the most active, the most enterprising, the least scrupulous, she was able, by her vigor, to make deep impressions on their state. Her own greatness, in the mean time, remained untouched and unimpaired. The wise ministers and brave warriors, who flourished during her reign, share the praise of her success; but in- stead of lessening the applause due to her, they make great addition to it. They all owed their advancement to her choice. They were supported by her constancy; and with all their ability, they were never able to acquire any undue ascendant over her. In her family, in her court, in her kingdom, she re- mained equally mistress. The force of the tender passions was great over her, but the force of her mind was still superior; and the combat, which her victory visibly cost her, serves only to display the firmness of her resolutions, and the loftiness of her ambitious sentiments. The fame of this princess, tho it has surmounted the prejudices both of faction and of bigotry, yet lies still ex- posed to another prejudice, which is more durable, be- cause more natural, and which, according to the different views in which we survey her, is capable either of exalting beyond measure, or diminishing the lustre of her character. This prejudice is founded in the consideration of her sex. When we contemplate her as a woman, we are apt to be struck with the highest admiration of her qualities and ex- tensive capacity; but we are also apt to require some more softness of disposition, some greater lenity of temper, some of those amiable weaknesses, by which her sex is distin- guished. But the true method of estimating her merit is, to lay aside all these considerations, and to consider her merely as a rational being, placed in authority, and intrusted with the government of mankind. We may find it difficult to BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 163 reconcile our fancy to her, as a mistress ; but her qualities as a sovereign, tho with some considerable exceptions, are the object of undisputed applause and admiration. Hume, The Character of Mary Queen of Scots. To all the charms of beauty, and the utmost elegance of external form, Mary added those accomplishments which render their impression irresistible. Polite, affable, insin- uating, sprightly, and capable of speaking and of writing with equal ease and dignity. Sudden, however, and vio- lent in all her attachments, because her heart was warm and unsuspicious. Impatient of contradiction, because she had been accustomed from her infancy to be treated as a queen. No stranger, on some occasions, to dissimulation; which, in that perfidious court where she received her education, was reckoned among the necessaiy arts of go- vernment. Not insensible of flattery, or unconscious of that pleasure, with which almost every woman beholds the influence of her own beauty. Formed with the qua- lities that Ave love, not with the talents that we admire; she was an agreeable woman rather than an illustrious queen. The vivacity of her spirit, not sufficiently tem- pered with sound judgment, and the warmth of her heart, which was not at all times under the restraint of discre- tion, betrayed her both into errors and into crimes. To say that she was always unfortunate, will not account for that long and almost uninterrupted succession of calami- ties which befel her; we must likewise add, that she was often imprudent. Her passion for Darnley was rash, youthful, and excessive. And tho the sudden transition to the opposite extreme was the natural effect of her ill- requited love, and of his ingratitude, insolence, and bru- tality; yet neither these, nor Bothwell's artful addresses and important services, can justify her attachments to that nobleman. Even the manners of the age, licentious as they were, are no apology for this unhappy passion; nor can they induce us to look on that tragical and infamous scene which followed it, with less abhorrence. Humanity will draw a veil over this part of her character, which it cannot approve, and may, perhaps, prompt some to im- 164 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, pute her actions to her situation, more than to her dispo- sition ; and to lament the unhappiness of the former, ra- ther than accuse the perverseness of the latter. Mary's sufferings exceed, both in degree and in duration, those tragical distresses which fancy has feigned to excite sor- row and commiseration ; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties, we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears, as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue. No man, says Brantome, ever be- held her person without admiration and love, or will read her history without sorrow. Robertson. The Character of Hannibal. Hannibal being sent to Spain, on his arrival there at- tracted the eyes of the whole army. The veterans be- lieved Hamilcar was revived and restored to them : they saw the same vigorous countenance, the same piercing eye, the same complexion and features. But in a short time his behaviour occasioned this resemblance of his fa- ther to contribute the least towards his gaining their favor. And, in truth, never was there a genius more happily formed for two things, most manifestly contrary to each other — to obey and to command. This made it difficult to determine, whether the general or soldiers loved him most. Where any enterprise required vigor and valor in the performance, Asdrubal always chose him to command at the executing of it; nor were the troops ever more con- fident of success, or more intrepid, than when he was at their head. None ever showed greater bravery in under- taking hazardous attempts, or more presence of mind and conduct in the execution of them. No hardship could fatigue his body, or daunt his courage: he could equally bear cold and heat. The necessary refection of nature, not the pleasure of his palate, he solely regarded in his meals. He made no distinction of day and night in his watching, or taking rest; and appropriated no time to sleep, but what remained after he had completed his duty; he never sought for a soft, or a retired place of repose; but was often seen lying on the bare ground, wrapt in a BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 165 soldier's cloak, amongst the sentinels and guards. He did not distinguish himself from his companions by the magnificence of his dress, but by the quality of his horse and arms. At the same time, he was by far the best foot and horse soldier in the army; ever the foremost in a charge, and the last who left the field after the battle was begun. These shining qualities were however balanced by great vices; inhuman cruelty; more than Carthaginian treachery; no respect for truth or honor, no fear of the gods, no regard for the sanctity of oaths, no sense of reli- gion. With a disposition thus chequered with virtues and vices, he served three years under Asdrubal, without ne- glecting to pry into, or perform any thing, that could con- tribute to make him hereafter a complete general. Livy* The Character of Cato. If we consider the character of Cato without prejudice, he was certainly a great and worthy man; a friend to truth, virtue, liberty ; yet, falsely measuring all duty by the absurd rigor of the stoical rule, he was generally dis- appointed of the end which he sought by it, the happiness both of his private and public life. In his private conduct he was severe, morose, inexorable ; banishing all the softer affections, as natural enemies to justice, and as sug- gesting false motives of acting, from favor, clemency, and compassion: in public affairs he was the same; had but one rule of policy, to adhere to what was right, without regard to time or circumstances, or even to a force that could control him; for, instead of managing the power of the great, so as to mitigate the ill, or extract any good from it, he was urging it always to acts of violence by a perpetual defiance ; so that, with the best intentions in the world, he often did great harm to the republic. This was his general behaviour; yet, from some particular facts, it appears that his strength of mind was not always impreg- nable, but had its weak places of pride, ambition, and party zeal; which, when managed and flattered to a cer- tain point, would betray him sometimes into measures contrary to his ordinary rule of right and truth. The last act of his life was agreeable to his nature and philosophy: 166 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, when he could no longer be what he had been ; or when the ills of life overbalanced the good, which, by the prin- ciples of his sect, was a just cause for dying; he put an end to his life with a spirit and resolution which would make one imagine, that he was glad to have found an oc- casion of dying in his proper character. On the whole, his life was rather admirable than amiable; fit to be praised, rather than imitated, Middleton. The Character of Julius Ccesar. Csesar was endowed with every great and noble quality, that could exalt human nature, and give a man the ascend- ant in society: formed to excel in peace, as well as in war; provident in counsel; fearless in action; and executing what he had resolved with amazing celerity; generous beyond measure to his friends; placable to his enemies; and for parts, learning, eloquence, scarce inferior to any man. His orations were admired for two qualities, which are seldom found together, strength and elegance ; Cicero ranks him among the greatest orators that Rome ever bred; and Quintilian says, that he spoke with the same force with which he fought; and if he had devoted himself to the bar, would have been the only man capable of rival- ling Cicero. Nor was he a master only of the politer arts ; but conversant also with the most abstruse and critical parts of learning; and, among other works which he pub- lished, addressed two books to Cicero, on the analogy of language, or the art of speaking and writing correctly. He was a most liberal patron of wit and learning, wheresoever they were found; and out of his love of those talents, would readily pardon those who had employed them against himself; rightly judging, that by making such men his friends, he should draw praises from the same fountain from which he had been aspersed. His capital passions were ambition, and love of pleasure; which he indulged in their turns to the greatest excess; yet the first was always predominant; to which he could easily sacri- fice all the charms of the second, and draw pleasure even from toils and dangers, when they ministered to his glory. For he thought Tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS.. 167 goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth a verse of Euripides, which expressed the image of his soul, that if right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose of his life ; the scheme that he had formed from his early youth; so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subver- sion of the republic. He used to say, that there were too things necessary, to acquire and to support power — sol- diers and money; which yet depended mutually upon each other; with money therefore he provided soldiers, and with soldiers extorted money; and was, of all men, the most rapacious in plundering both friends and foes ; sparing neither prince, nor state, nor temple, nor even private persons, who were known to possess any share of treasure. His great abilities would necessarily have made him one of the first citizens of Rome ; but disdaining the condition of a subject, he could never rest till he made himself a monarch. In acting this last part, his usual prudence seemed to fail him; as if the height to which he was mounted, had turned his head, and made him giddy: for, by a vain ostentation of his power, he destroyed the sta- bility of it: and as men shorten life by living too fast, so by an intemperance of reigning, he brought his reign to a violent end. Middleton. The Character of King Alfred. The merit of this prince, both in private and public life, may, with advantage, be set in opposition to that of any monarch or citizen which the annals of any nation or any age, can present to us. He seems indeed, to be the com- plete model of that perfect character, which, under the denomination of a sage or wise man, the philosophers have been fond of delineating, rather as a fiction of their ima- gination, than in hopes of ever seeing it reduced to prac- tice : so happily were all his virtues tempered together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully did each pre- vent the other from exceeding its proper bounds! He knew how to conciliate the boldest enterprise with the coolest moderation; the most obstinate perseverance with the easiest flexibility; the most severe justice with the 168 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS* greatest lenity; the most vigorous command with the greatest affability of deportment ; the highest capacity and inclination for science, with the most shining talents for action. His civil and military virtues are almost equally the objects of our admiration; excepting only that the former, being more rare among princes as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause. Nature also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him all bodily accomplishments: vigor of limbs, dignity of shape and air, and a pleasant, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him into that barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively colors, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is impossible he could be entirely exempted. Hume. The Character of Mr. C. J. Fox. Mr Fox excelled all his contemporaries in the extent of his knowledge, in the clearness and distinctness of his views, in quickness of apprehension, in plain, practical, common sense, in the full, strong, and absolute possession of his subject. A measure was no sooner proposed, than he seemed to have an instantaneous and intuitive percep- tion of all its various bearings and consequences; of the manner in which it would operate on the different classes of society, on commerce or agriculture, on our domestic or foreign policy; of the difficulties attending its execu- tion; in a word, of all its practical results, and the com- parative advantages to be gained, either by adopting or rejecting it. He was intimately acquainted with the in- terests of the different parts of the community, with the minute andjCjpmplicated details of political economy, with our external relations, with the views, the resources, and the maxims of other states. He was master of all these facts and circumstances which it was necessary to know, in order to judge fairly, and determine wisely; and he knew them not loosely or lightly, but in number, weight, BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 169 and measure. He had also stored his memory by reading and general study, and improved his understanding by the lamp of history. He was well acquainted with the opinions and sentiments of the best authors, with the maxims of the most profound politicians, with the causes of the rise and fall of states, with the general passions of men, with the characters of different nations, and the laws and constitution of his own country. He was a man of a capacious, powerful, and highly cultivated intellect. No man could know more than he knew; no mans know- ledge could be more sound, more plain and useful; no man's knowledge could lie in more connected and tangi- ble masses ; no man could be more perfectly master of his ideas, could reason upon them more closely, or decide upon them more impartially. His mind was full, even to overflowing. He was so habitually conversant with the most intricate and comprehensive trains of thought, or such was the natural vigor and exuberance of his mind, that he seemed to recall them without any effort. His ideas quarreled for utterance. Instead of ever being at a loss for them, he was obliged rather to repress and rein them in, lest they should overwhelm and confound, instead of informing the understandings of his hearers. If to this we add the ardor and natural impetuosity of his mind, his quick sensibility, his eagerness in the defence of truth, and his impatience of every thing that looked like trick, or artifice, or affectation, we shall be able, in some mea- sure, to account for the character of his eloquence. His thoughts came crowding in too fast for the slow and me- chanical process of speech. What he saw in an instant, he could only express imperfectly, word by word, and sentence after sentence. He would, if he could, " have bared his swelling heart/' and laid open at once the rich treasures of knowledge with which his bosom was fraught. It is no wonder that this difference between the rapidity of his feelings, and the formal round-about method of communicating them, should produce some disorder in his frame ; that the throng of his ideas should try to over- leap the narrow boundaries which confined them, and tu- multuously break down their prison-doors, instead of waiting to be let out, one by one, and following patiently at due intervals, and with mock dignity, like poor depend- Q 170 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. ents, in the train of words : — that he should express him- self in hurried sentences, in involuntary exclamations, by vehement gestures, by sudden starts and bursts of passion. Every thing showed the agitation of his mind. His tongue faltered, his voice became almost suffocated, and his face was bathed in tears. He was lost in the magnitude of his subject. He reeled and staggered under the load of feel- ing which oppressed him. He rolled like the sea beaten by a tempest. It was his union of the zeal of the patriot with the enlightened knowledge of the statesman, that gave to the eloquence of Fox its more than mortal energy; that warmed, expanded, penetrated every bosom. He relied on the force of truth and nature alone: the refine- ments of philosophy, the pomp and pageantry of the ima- gination were forgotten, or seemed light and frivolous; the fate of nations, the welfare of millions, hung suspended as he spoke; a torrent of manly eloquence poured from his heart, bore down every thing in its course, and sur- prised into a momentary sense of human feeling the breath- ing corpses, the wire-moved puppets, the stuffed figures, the flexible machinery, the " deaf and dumb" things of a court. HazlitL The Character of the Earl of Chatham. His genius, like Burke's, burned brightest at the last. The spark of liberty, which had lain concealed and dor- mant, buried under the dirt and rubbish of state intrigue and vulgar faction, now met with congenial matter, and kindled up " a flame of sacred vehemence" in his breast. It burst forth with a fury and a splendor that might have awed the world, and made kings tremble. He spoke as a man should speak, because he felt as a man should feel, in such circumstances. He came forward as the advocate of liberty, as the defender of the rights of his fellow-citi- zens, as the enemy of tyranny, as the friend of his coun- try, and of mankind. He did not stand up to make a vain display of his talents, but to discharge a duty, to maintain that cause which lay nearest to his heart, to pre- serve the ark of the British constitution from every sacri- legious touch, as the high-priest of his calling, with a pious zeal. The feelings and the rights of Englishmen were BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 171 enshrined in his heart ; and with their united force braced every nerve, possessed every faculty, and communicated warmth and vital energy to every part of his being. The whole man moved under this impulse. He felt the cause of liberty as his own. He resented every injury done to her as an injury done to himself, and every attempt to de- fend it as an insult upon his understanding. He did not stay to dispute about words, about nice distinctions, about trifling forms. He laughed at the little attempts of little retailers of logic to entangle him in senseless argument. He did not come there as to a debating club, or law court, to start questions and hunt them down; to wind and un- wind the web of sophistry; to pick out the threads, and untie every knot with scrupulous exactness; to bandy logic with every pretender to a paradox; to examine, to sift evidence; to dissect a doubt and halve a scruple; to weigh folly and knavery in scales together, and see on which side the balance preponderated; to prove that li- berty, truth, virtue, and justice, were good things, or that slavery and corruption were bad things. He did not tiy to prove those truths which did not require any proof, but to make others feel them with the same force that he did; and to tear off the flimsy disguises with which the syco- phants of power attempted to cover them The business of an orator is not to convince, but persuade ; not to in- form, but to rouse the mind; to build upon the habitual prejudices of mankind (for reason of itself will do nothing), and to add feeling to prejudice, and action to feeling. Hazlitt. A Comparison of Burke with the Earl of Chatham. What has been said of Burke, is, I think, strictly true, that " he was the most eloquent man of his time: his wisdom was greater than his eloquence." The only pub- lic man that, in my opinion, can be put in any competi- tion with him, is Lord Chatham: and he moved in a sphere so very remote, that it is almost impossible to com- pare them. But though it would perhaps be difficult to determine which of them excelled most in his particular way, there is nothing in the world more easy than to point out in what their peculiar excellencies consisted. They 172 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. were in every respect the reverse of each other. Chatham's eloquence was popular; his wisdom was altogether plain and practical. Burke's eloquence was that of the poet; of the man of high and unbounded fancy: his wisdom was profound and contemplative. Chatham's eloquence was calculated to make men act: Burke's was calculated to make them think, Chatham could have roused the fury of a multitude, and wielded their physical energy as he pleased: Burke's eloquence carried conviction into the mind of the retired and lonely student, opened the re- cesses of the human breast, and lighted up the face of na- ture around him. Chatham supplied his hearers with motives to immediate action: Burke furnished them with reasons for action which might have little effect upon them at the time, but for which they would be the wiser and better all their lives after. In search, in originality, in variety of knowledge, in richness of invention, in depth and comprehension of mind, Burke had as much the ad- vantage of Lord Chatham, as he was excelled by him in plain common sense, in strong feeling, in steadiness of purpose, in vehemence, in warmth, in enthusiasm, and energy of mind. Burke was the man of genius, of fine sense, and subtle reasoning: Chatham was a man of clear understanding, of strong sense, and violent passions. Burke's mind was satisfied with speculation: Chatham's was essentially active; it could not rest without an object. The power which governed Burke's mind was his Ima- gination: that which gave its impetus to Chatham's was Will. The one was almost the creature of pure intellect, the other of physical temperament. Hazlitt, Kosciusko. " Hope for a season bade the world farewell, And freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." Campbell. The virtuous hero of Poland, Thaddeus Kosciusko, was born in Lithuania, and educated at Warsaw. When very young, he was informed that the Americans were prepar- ing to shake off the yoke of Britain. His ardent and generous mind caught with enthusiasm the opportunity BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 173 thus afforded for aspiring genius, and from that moment he became the devoted soldier of liberty. His rank in the American army afforded him no op- portunity greatly to distinguish himself. But he was re- marked throughout his service for all the qualities which adorned the human character. His heroic valor in the field, could only be equalled by his moderation and affa- bility in the walks of private life. He was idolized by the soldiers for his bravery, and beloved and respected by the officers for the goodness of his heart, and the great quali- ties of his mind. Contributing greatly by his exertions, to the establish- ment of the independence of America, he might have re- mained and shared the blessings it dispensed, under the protection of a chief who loved and honored him, and in the bosom of a people whose independence he had so bravely fought to achieve ; but Kosciusko had other views ; he had drank deep of the principles of the American re- volution, and he wished to procure the same advantages for his native country — for Poland, which had a claim to all his efforts, to all his services. That unhappy nation groaned under a complication of evils which has scarcely a parallel in history. The mass of the people were the abject slaves of the nobles; the nobles torn into factions, were alternately the instruments and the victims of their powerful and ambitious neigh- bours. By intrigue, corruption, and force, some of its fairest provinces had been separated from the republic; and the people, like beasts, transferred to foreign despots, who were again watching a favorable moment for a second dismemberment. To regenerate a people thus debased; to obtain for a country thus circumstanced, the blessings of liberty and independence ; was a work of as much dif- ficulty as danger. But to a mind like Kosciusko's, the difficulty and danger of an enterprise served but as stimu- lants to undertake it. The annals of these times give us no detailed account of the progress of Kosciusko in accomplishing his great work, from the period of his return from America, to the adoption of the New Constitution of Poland in 1791. This interval, however, of apparent inaction, was most usefully employed to illumine the mental darkness which 174 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS, enveloped his countrymen. To stimulate the ignorant and bigotted peasantry with the hope of a future emancipation; to teach a proud but gallant nobility, that true glory is only to be found in the paths of duty and patriotism; in- terests the most opposed, prejudices the most stubborn, and habits the most inveterate, were reconciled, dissi- pated, and broken, by the ascendancy of his virtues and example. The storm which he had foreseen, and for which he had been preparing, at length burst upon Poland. A feeble and unpopular government bent before its fury, and submitted itself to the yoke of the Russian invader. But the nation disdained to follow its example; in their extremity, every eye was turned on the hero who had al- ready fought their battles; the sage who had enlightened them; and the patriot who had set the example of per- sonal sacrifices, to accomplish the emancipation of the people. Kosciusko made his first campaign as brigadier-general, under the orders of Prince John Poniatowski. In the se- cond, in 1794, he was appointed generalissimo of Poland, with unlimited powers, until the enemy should be driven from the country. Without funds, without magazines, without fortresses, Kosciusko maintained his army for nine months against forces infinitely superior. Poland then only existed in his camp. Devotedness made up for the want of resources, and courage supplied the deficiency of arms; for the ge- neral had imparted his noble character to all his soldiers. Like him, they knew no danger, they dreaded no fatigues, when the honor and liberty of Poland were depending; like him, they endeavored to lessen the sacrifices which were required of the inhabitants for national independ- ence; and their obedience to their venerated chief was the more praiseworthy as it was voluntary. He held his au- thority by no other tenure than that of his virtues. Guided by his talents, and led by his valor, his undisciplined and ill-armed militia charged with effect the veteran Russians and Prussians; the mailed cuirassiers of the great Fre- derick, for the first time, broke and fled before the cavalry of Poland. Hope filled the breasts of the patriots. After a long night, the dawn of an apparently glorious day broke upon Poland. But, to the discerning eye of Kosciusko, BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 1/5 the light which it shed was of that sickly and portentous appearance, which indicated a storm more dreadful than that which he had resisted. He prepared to meet it with firmness, but with means entirely inadequate. In addition to the advantages of numbers, of tactics, of discipline, and inexhaustible re- sources, the combined despots had secured a faction in the heart of Poland. The unequal straggle could not be long maintained, and the day at length came, which was to decide the fate of Poland and its hero. Heaven, for wise purposes, determined that it should be the last of Polish liberty. It was decided, indeed, before the battle commenced. The traitor Poniski, who covered with a detachment the advance of the Polish army, abandoned his position to the enemy, and retreated. Kosciusko was astonished, but not dismayed. The dis- position of his army would have done honor to Hannibal. The succeeding conflict was terrible. When the talents of the general could no longer direct the mingled mass of combatants, the arm of the warrior was brought to the aid of his soldiers. He performed prodigies of valor. The fabled prowess of Ajax, in defending the Grecian ships > was realized by the Polish hero. Nor was he badly se- conded by his troops. As long as his voice could guide, or his example fire their valor, they were irresistible. In this unequal contest Kosciusko was long seen, and finally lost to their view. He fell covered with wounds; and a Cossack was on the point of piercing one of the best hearts that ever warmed a virtuous bosom, when an officer intei*posed. " Suffer him to execute his purpose," said the bleeding hero; " I am the devoted soldier of my country, and will not survive its liberties." The name of Kosciusko struck to the heart of the Tartar, like that of Marius upon the Cjmbrian warrior. The uplifted weapon dropped from his hand. Kosciusko was conveyed to the dungeons of Peters- burgh; and, to the eternal disgrace of the Empress Ca- therine, she made him the object of her vengeance, when he could no longer be the object of her fears. But the Emperor Paul, on his accession to the throne, thought he could not giant the Polish nation a more acceptable favor, than to restore to liberty the hero whom they regretted. 176 BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. He himself announced to General Kosciusko, that his captivity was at an end. He wished him to accept, more- over, a present of fifty thousand ducats of Holland; but the general refused it. Kosciusko preferred rather to de- pend for subsistence on the recompence to which his ser- vices in America had entitled him. With this humble fortune, obtained in so honorable a way, he lived for a while in the United States; then in France, near Fontainbleau, in the family of Zeltner; and lastly, in Switzerland. From that time he refused to take any part in the affairs of his country, for fear of endanger- ing the national tranquillity, the offers that were made to him being accompanied with no sufficient guarantee. Bonaparte often endeavoured to draw Kosciusko from his retirement, and once issued an address to the Poles in his name; but tho the virtuous general still loved his country, he knew well that its emancipation could not be achieved under such auspices. Tho an exile from his country* the Poles still considered themselves as Ms children; and presented with just pride to other nations, that model of the virtues of their coun- try, that man so pure and upright — so great at the head of an army, so modest in private life, so formidable to his enemies in battle, so humane and kind to the vanquished, and so zealous for the glory and independence of his country. In the invasion of France in 1814, some Polish regi- ments in the service of Russia, passed through the village where this exiled patriot then lived. Some pillaging of the inhabitants brought Kosciusko from his cottage. " When I was a Polish soldier," said he, addressing the plunderers, " the property of the peaceful citizen was re- spected." " And who art thou," said an officer, " who addresses us with a tone of authority?" " I am Koscius- ko." There was magic in the word. It ran from corps to corps. The march was suspended. They gathered round him, and gazed with astonishment and awe upon the mighty ruin he presented. " Could it indeed be their hero," whose fame was identified with that of their coun- try? A thousand interesting reflections burst upon their minds ; they remembered his patriotism, his devotion to liberty, his triumphs, and his glorious fall. Their iron BIOGRAPHICAL EXTRACTS. 177 hearts were softened, and the tear of sensibility trickled down their weather-beaten faces. We can easily conceive what would be the feelings of the hero himself in such a scene. His great heart must have heaved with emotion, to find himself once more surrounded by the companions of his glory; and that he would have been upon the point of saying to them, " Behold your general come once more To lead you on to laurel' d victory, To fame, to freedom." The delusion could have lasted but for a moment. He was himself, alas! a miserable cripple; and, for them! they were no longer the soldiers of liberty, but the instru- ments of ambition and tyranny. Overwhelmed with grief at the reflection, he would retire to his cottage, to mourn afresh over the miseries of his country. Kosciusko died at Soleure, on the 15th of October* 1817. A fall from his horse, by which he was dragged over a precipice not far from Vevay, was the cause of his death. A funeral service was celebrated in honor of him, in the church of St. Roche at Paris, which was honored with the most distinguished personages of every nation, then in the French capital. The name of Kosciusko be- longs to the civilized world, and his virtues to humanity. Poland laments in him a patriot whose life was consecrated to the cause of her liberty and independence. America includes him among her illustrious defenders. France and Switzerland admired him as the man of beneficence and virtue ; and Russia, by whom his country was conquered, never beheld a man more unshaken in his principles, or firmer in adversity. Anon* PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. The Death of Christ The hour in which our Saviour fell was an hour of terror, as well as an hour of love. Offended by iniquity, the Most High had risen on his throne : his right hand, red with vengeance, was lifted up to strike; and when the sword descended on the head of his beloved Son, all nature trembled in dismay. " There was darkness over the land, the rocks were rent, the veil of the temple was divided in the midst, the earth quaked, the people smote upon their breasts and returned." These were the awful signs of wrath, and though that wrath be averted in mercy from the penitent, it is still reserved in all its horrors for the hardened worker of iniquity. For him " there re- maineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and of fiery indignation to devour the adversaries." Let the prospect of this indignation operate on our minds, and mingle its influence with the gentler and more attractive influence of love, that we may abstain from all iniquity, and " perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord." Finlayson, On the Evil of Infidel Writings. Let me request you to observe that serious responsi- bility, which men of literary eminence have often incurred, by directing their writings against the cause of religion and godliness. When Genius degrades itself into the auxiliary of scepticism and licentiousness ; and taking ad- vantage of the perpetuity which art has given to thought, is employed, not only in corrupting the present genera- tion, but in disseminating impurities for the thousands of future ages, an instrument of evil is then at work, almost as powerful as can be wrought by the enemy of human happiness; and which, in proportion to the effects arising PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY* 179 from its operations, entails on the person who has success- fully used it, the corresponding measures of criminality. Think on the mischievous effects which may flow even from a single copy of a profane and immoral writing. Observe it when it has found its way into the bosom of a family, the members of which have been reared up in the faith of religion and in the love of virtue. It seizes on the attention of one of them. It is at first read secretly and by stealth. Its specious reasonings insinuate themselves into the understanding of its victim. Its polluting maxims leave an impression on his heart. Not at once are its ar- guments yielded to. Not at once are its guilty principles tolerated. The book may even be shut at times with the feeling of aversion and fear, at the daring conclusions to which it points. But it is again opened. Curiosity, per- haps, to know the extent of its wild inferences, may tempt to another, and to a third inspection, till the repeated perusal complete the ascendancy of its bold and bad spe- culations. Then, alas! how speedily those safeguards, which wisdom and affection equally had raised against the influence of vice, are overturned — how the mind swells with the proud and foolish thought of emancipation, from what are now named idle scruples and doting prejudices, — how the look of scorn is turned even on that kind instruc- tor, the lessons of whose parental experience had formerly been received in reverence, — how the modesty and piety of the youth " remembering his Creator," are supplanted by the arrogance and scofhngs of the disputatious and blustering infidel; and falling a prey to the men " who lie in wait to deceive," how zealously he becomes, in his own circle, the promoter of irreligion and libertinism! But shall these men themselves, — shall the well-gifted sceptics whose genius has been employed to promote, over the young and inexperienced, the ascendancy of evil princi- ples, — shall they escape responsibility for that long train of ills, the origin of which is traceable to their daring spe- culations? Say, if the hopes of families, if the glory of nations, which, as with the assassin's weapon they have slain, shall never be inquired after at their hands? There is blood in their hands. They have destroyed souls. " They have gone in the way of Cain," and shall they not be brought to account? Oh! could they themselves 180 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. bring back every copy of their profane and immoral writ- ings, and obtain a recital of all that has been achieved by each for the vitiation and wretchedness of mankind; the most volatile and cold-hearted among them might surely be disposed to seriousness, and might be induced to gaze on the extended ruin which has been wrought, as the in- cendiary would on the city which he had wantonly fired, when he beheld, smoking in one promiscuous and dark heap, the dwellings and the ashes of its inhabitants! If, however, he relent at the miserable sight, will he not con- demn himself? If pity be excited in him, would not the feelings be akin to self-reproach? Yes. The conviction must smite him, that he partakes deeply of other men's sins, and that he justly shares with them in their wo. Rev. Dr. Muir. On the Deluding Influence of the World. My brethren, the true source of all our delusion, is a false and deceitful security of life. Thousands pass their accounts around us, and we are not instructed; some are struck in our very arms — our parents, our children, our friends — and yet we stand as if we had shot into the earth an eternal root. Even the most sudden transitions from life to dust, produce but a momentary impression on the dust that breathes. No examples, however awful, sink into the heart. Every instant we see health, youth, beauty, titles, reputation, and fortune, disappear like a flash. Still do we pass gaily on, in the broad and flowery way, the same busy, thoughtless, and irreclaimable beings ; panting for every pleasure as before, thirsting for riches and pre- eminence, rushing on the melancholy ruins of one another, intriguing for the employments of those whose ashes are scarce cold, nay, often, I fear, keeping an eye on the very expiring, with the infamous view of seizing the earliest moment to solicit their spoils. Great God! as if the all-devouring tomb, instead of solemnly pronouncing on the vanity of all human pursuits, on the contrary, emitted sparks to rekindle all our attach- ment to a perishable world ! Let me suppose, my breth- ren, that the number of man s days were inscribed on his brow! Is it not clear, that an awful certainty of that nature PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 181 must necessarily beget the most profound and operative reflection? Would it be possible to banish, even for a moment, the fatal term from his thoughts? The nearer he approached it, what an increase of alarm! what an in- crease of light on the folly of every thing but immortal good! Would all his views and aspirings be confined, as they now are, to the little span that intervenes between his cradle and his grave ; and care, and anxiety, and mi- serable agitation be his lot, merely to die overwhelmed with riches, and blazing with honors? No! wedded to this miserable scene of existence, our hopes are afloat to the last. The understanding, clear in every other point, casts not a ray on the nature of our condition, however desperate. Too frequently it happens, that every one around us at that awful moment, conspires to uphold this state of delusion. They shudder for us in their hearts, yet talk to us of recovery with their lips, from a principle of mistaken, or, to give it its proper name, of barbarous lenity. The most important of all truths is withheld, till it is of little use to impart it. The con- sequence is obvious. We are surprised, fatally surprised. Our eyes are only opened when they are ready to close for ever. Perhaps an instant of reflection to be made the most of; perhaps to be divided between the disposition of worldly affairs and the business of eternity ! An instant of reflection, just God! to bewail an entire life of disorder! to inspire faith the most lively, hope the most firm, love the most pure ! An instant of reflection, perhaps for a sin- ner whom vice may have infected to the very marrow of his bones, when reason is half eclipsed, and all the faculties palsied by the strong grasp of death ! Oh, my brethren, terrible is the fate of those, who are only roused from a long and criminal security, by the sword of his divine jus- tice already gleaming in their eyes. Remember, that if any truth in religion be more repeatedly pressed on us than another, it is this — that as we five, so shall we in- evitably die. Few of us, I am sure, but live in the inten- tion of throwing an interval of most serious reflection be- tween the world and the grave. But let me warn you on that point ; it is not given to man to bestow his heart and affection on the present scene, and recal them when he pleases. No; every hour will draw our chains closer. R 182 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. Those obstacles to better practice, which we find insuper- able at this moment, will be more insuperable as we go on. It is the property of years to give wide and immove- able root to all passions. The deeper the bed of the torrent, the more impossible to change its course. The older and more inveterate a wound, the more painful the remedy, and more desperate the cure. Kinvan. Infatuation of Mankind, with regard to the Things of Time. But if no danger is to be apprehended while the thunder of heaven rolls at a distance, believe me, when it collects over our heads, we may be fatally convinced, that a well-spent life is the only conductor that can avert the bolt. Let us reflect, that time waits for no man. Sleep- ing or waking, our days are on the wing. If we look to those that are past, they are but as a point. When I com- pare the present aspect of this city, with that which it exhibited within the short space of my own residence, what does the result present, but the most melancholy proof of human instability? New characters in every scene, new events, new principles, new passions, a new creation insensibly arisen from the ashes of the old ; which side soever I look, the ravage of death has nearly reno- vated all. Scarcely do we look around us in life, when our children are matured, and remind us of the grave ; the great feature of all nature, is rapidity of growth and declension. Ages are renewed, but the figure of the world passeth away. God only remains the same. The torrent that sweeps by, runs at the base of his immutability ; and he sees, with indignation, wretched mortals, as they pass along, insulting him by the visionary hope of sharing that attribute, which belongs to Him alone. It is to the incomprehensible oblivion of our mortality, that the world owes all its fascination. Observe for what man toils. Observe what it often costs him to become rich and great — dismal vicissitudes of hope and disap- pointment — often all that can degrade the dignity of his nature, and offend his God! Study the matter of the pedestal, and the instability of the statue — Scarce is it PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 183 erected, — scarce presented to the stare of the multitude — when death, starting like a massy fragment from the sum- mit of a mountain, dashes the proud colossus into dust! Where, then, is the promised fruit of all his toil? Where the wretched and deluded being, who fondly promised himself that he had laid up much goods for many years? — Gone, my brethren, to his acconnt, a naked victim, trem- bling in the hands of the living God! Yes, my brethren, the final catastrophe of all human passions, is rapid as it is awful. Fancy yourselves on that bed from which you never shall arise, and the reflection will exhibit, like a true and faithful mirror, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue. Happy they who meet that great, inevitable transition, full of days! Unhappy they who meet it but to tremble and despair! Then it is that man learns wisdom, when too late; then it is that every thing will forsake him, but his virtues or his crimes. To him the world is past; dignities, honors, pleasure, glory; past like the cloud of the morning ! nor could all that the great globe inherits, afford him, at that tremendous hour, as much consolation, as the recollection of having given but one cup of cold water to a child of wretchedness, in the name of Christ Jesus ! Kirwan. The Poioer of Habit, a useful Principle to Man. Whatever action, either good or bad, has been done once, is done a second time with more ease, and with a better liking; and a frequent repetition heightens the ease and pleasure of the performance without limit. By virtue of this property of the mind, the having done any thing once becomes a motive to the doing of it again; the hav- ing done it twice is a double motive; and so many times the act is repeated, so many times the motive to the do- ing of it once more is multiplied. To this principle habit owes its wonderful force, of which it is usual to hear men complain, and of something external that enslaves the will. But the complaint in this, as in every instance in which man presumes to arraign the ways of Providence, is rash and unreasonable. The fault is in man himself, if a prin- ciple, implanted in him for his good, becomes, by negli- 184 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. gence and mismanagement, the instrument of his ruin. It is owing to this principle that every faculty of the un- derstanding, and every sentiment of the heart, is capable of being improved by exercise. It is the leading principle in the whole system of the human constitution, modifying both the physical qualities of the body, and the moral and intellectual endowments of the mind. We experience the use of it in every calling and condition of life. By this the sinews of the laborer are hardened by toil; by this the hand of the mechanic acquires its dexterity; to this we owe the amazing progress of the human mind in the politer arts and the abstruser sciences; and an engine which it is in our power to employ to nobler and more beneficial purposes. By the same principle, when the at- tention is turned to moral and religious subjects, the un- derstanding may gradually advance beyond any limit that may be assigned, in quickness of perception and truth of judgment; and the will to conform to the dictates of con- science and the decrees of reason will be gradually height- ened, to correspond in some due proportion with the growth of the intellect. " Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him; or the son of man, that thou so re- gardest him? Thou hast made him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and honor." Destitute as he is of any original perfection, which is thy sole prerogative, who art alone in all thy qualities original, yet in the fac- ulties of which thou hast given him the free command and use, and in the power of habit which thou hast planted in the principles of his system, thou hast given him the capacity of infinite attainments. Weak and poor in his beginnings, what is the height of any creature's virtue, to which he has not the power, by a slow and gradual ascent to reach? The improvements which he shall make by the rigorous exertion of the powers he hath received from thee, thou permittest him to call his own, imputing to him the merit of the acquisitions which thou hast given him the ability to make. What, then, is the consummation of man's goodness but to co-operate with the benevolent purposes of his Maker, by forming the habit of his mind to a constant ambition of improvement, which, enlarging its appetite in proportion to the acquisitions already made, may correspond with the increase of his capacities in every PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY, 185 period of an endless existence? And to what purposes but to excite this noble thirst of virtuous proficiency — to what purpose but to provide that the object of the appe- tite may never be exhausted by gradual attainment — hast thou imparted to thy creature's mind the idea of thine own attribute of perfect uncreated goodness ? But man, alas ! hath abused thy gifts ; and the things that should have been for his peace, are become to him an occasion of falling. Unmindful of the height of thy glory to which he might attain, he has set his affections upon earthly things* Horsley. Insignificance of this World. Tho the earth were to be burned up, tho the trumpet of its dissolution were sounded, tho yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger of the Divinity has inscribed on it, were extinguished for ever — an event, so awful to us, and to every world in our vicinity, by which so many suns would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes of life and population would rush into forgetfulness. — What is it in the high scale of the Almighty's workmanship? a mere shred, which, tho scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. Tho the earth and the heavens were to disappear, there are other worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon them ; and the sky which mantles them, is garnished with other stars. Is it presumption to say, that the moral world extends to these distant and unknown regions? that they are occupied with people? that the charities of home and of neighbourhood flourish there? that the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in? that there piety has its temples and its offerings? And the richness of the divine attributes is there felt and ad- mired by intelligent worshippers? And what is this world in the immensity which teems with them; and what are they who occupy it? The uni- verse at large would suffer as little in its splendor and va- riety by the destruction of cur planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude of a forest would suffer by the fall of 186 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. a single leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which sup- ports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest accident. A breath of wind tears it from its stem, and it lights on the stream of water which passes underneath. In a moment of time, the life, which we know by the microscope it teems with, is extinguished ; and an occurrence so insigni- ficant in the eye of man, and on the scale of his observa- tion, carries in it to the myriads which people this little leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive as the destruction of a world. Now, on the grand scale of the universe, we the occupiers of this ball, which performs its little round among the suns and the systems that astronomy has un- folded — we may feel the same littleness and the same in- security. We differ from the leaf only in this circum- stance, that it would require the operation of greater elements, to destroy us. But these elements exist. The fire which rages within, may lift its devouring energy to the surface of our planet, and transform it into one wide and wasting volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter in the bowels of the earth — and it lies within the agency of known substances to accomplish this — may ex- plode it into fragments. The exhalation of noxious air from below, may impart a virulence to the air that is a- round us; it may affect the delicate proportion of its in- gredients ; and the whole of animated nature may wither and die under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and realize all the terrors which superstition has conceived of it. We cannot anticipate with precision the consequences ©f an event which every astronomer must know to lie within the limits of chance and probability. It may hurry our globe towards the sun — or drag it to the outer regions of the planetary system — or give it a new axis of revolu- tion — and the effect, which I shall simply announce, with- out explaining it, would be to change the place of the ocean, and bring another mighty flood upon our islands and continents. These are changes which may happen in a single in- stant of time, and against which nothing known in the present system of things provides us with any security. They might not annihilate the earth, but they would un- people it, and we who tread its surface with such firm and PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 187 assured footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and death, over the dominions of the world. Now, it is this littleness, and this insecurity, which make the protection of the Almighty so dear to us, and bring, with such emphasis to every pious bosom, the holy lessons of humility and gratitude. The God who sitteth above, and presides in high authority over all worlds, is mindful of man; and, tho at this moment his energy is felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we may feel the same security in his providence, as if we were the objects of his undivided care. It is not for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious agency. But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the same Being, whose eye is abroad over the whole universe, gives vegetation to every blade of grass, and motion to every particle of blood which circulates through the veins of the minutest animal; that, tho his mind takes into his comprehensive grasp, immensity and ail its wonders, I am as much known to him as if I were the single object of his attention; that he marks all my thoughts; that he gives birth to eveiy feeling and every movement within me; and that, with an exercise of power which I can neither desciibe nor comprehend, the same God who sits in the highest heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firma- ment, is at my right hand, to give me every breath which I draw, and every comfort which I enjoy. Chalmers. Christian Benevolence looks forward to Futurity. The man who considers the poor, will give his chief anxiety to the wants of their eternity. It must be evident to all of you, that this anxiety is little felt. I do not appeal for the evidence of this to the selfish part of mankind — there we are not to expect it. I go to those who are really benevolent — who have a wish to make others happy ; and it is a striking observation, how little the salvation of these others is the object of that benevolence which makes them so amiable. It will be found, that, in by far the greater number of instances, this principle is all consumed on the 188 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. accommodations of time and the necessities of the body. It is the meat which feeds them — the garment which covers them — the house which shelters them — the money which purchases all things; these, I say, are what form the chief topics of benevolent anxiety. Now, we do not mean to discourage this principle. We cannot afford it; there is too little of it ; and it forms too refreshing an ex- ception to that general selfishness which runs throughout the haunts of business and ambition, for us to say any thing against it. We are not cold blooded enough to re- fuse our delighted concurrence to an exertion so amiable in its principle, and so pleasing in the warm and comfort- able spectacle which it lays before us. The poor, 'tis true, ought never to forget, that it is to their own industry, and to the wisdom and economy of their own management, that they are to look for the elements of subsistence — that if idleness and prodigality shall lay hold of the mass of our population, no benevolence, however unbounded, can ever repair a mischief so irrecoverable — that if they will not labor for themselves, it is not in the power of the rich to create a sufficiency for them ; and that tho every heart were opened, and every purse emptied in the cause, it would absolutely go for nothing towards forming a well- fed, a well-lodged, or a well-conditioned peasantry. Still, however, there are cases which no foresight could prevent, and no industry could provide for — where the blow falls heavy and unexpected on some devoted son or daughter of misfortune, and where, tho thoughtlessness and folly may have had their share, benevolence, not very nice in its calculations, will feel the overpowering claim of actual, helpless, and imploring misery. Now, I again offer my cheerful testimony to such benevolence as this; I count it delightful to see it singling out its object, and sustaining it against the cruel pressure of age and of indi- gence ; and when I enter a cottage where I see a warmer fireside, or more substantial provision, than the visible means can account for, I say that the landscape, in all its summer glories, does not offer an object so gratifying, as when referred to the vicinity of the great man's house, and the people who live in it, I am told that I will find my explanation there. Kind and amiable people! your benevolence is most lovely in its display, but oh! it is PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 189 perishable in its consequences. Does it never occur to you, that in a few years this favorite will die — that he will go to the place where neither cold nor hunger will reach him, but that a mighty interest remains, of which both of us may know the certainty, tho neither you nor I can calculate the extent. Your benevolence is too short — it does not shoot far enough ahead — it is like regaling a child with a sweetmeat or a toy, and then abandoning the happy unreflecting infant to exposure. You make the poor old man happy with your crumbs and your fragments, but he is an infant to the mighty range of infinite dura- tion; and will you leave the soul, which has this infinity to go through, to its chance? How comes it that the grave should throw so impenetrable a shroud over the realities of eternity? How comes it that heaven, and hell, and judgment, should be treated as so many nonentities, and that there should be as little real and operative sympathy felt for the soul, which lives for ever, as for the body after it is dead, or for the dust into which it moulders? Eter- nity is longer than time; the arithmetic, my brethren, is all on one side upon this question; and the wisdom which calculates, and guides itself by calculation, gives its weighty and respectable support to what may be called the bene- volence of faith. Now, if there be one employment more fitted than another to awaken this benevolence, it is the peculiar em- ployment of that Society* for which I am now pleading. I would have anticipated such benevolence from the sit- uation they occupy, and the information before the public bears testimony of the fact. The truth is, that the dis- eases of the body may be looked upon as so many outlets through which the soul finds its way to eternity. Now, it is at these outlets that the members of this Society have stationed themselves. This is the interesting point of survey at which they stand, and from which they com* mand a look of both worlds. They have placed them- selves in the avenues which lead from time to eternity, and they have often to witness the awful transition of a soul hovering at the entrance — struggling its way through the valley of the shadow of death, and at last breaking The Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick. 190 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. loose from the confines of all that is visible. Do you think it likely that men, with such spectacles before them, will withstand the sense of eternity? No, my brethren, they cannot, they have not. Eternity, I rejoice to announce to you, is not forgotten by them; and with their care for the diseases of the body, they are neither blind nor indif- ferent to the fact, that the soul is diseased also. We know it well. There is an indolent and superficial theology, which turns its eyes from the danger, and feels no pressing call for the application of the remedy — which reposes more in its own vague and self-assumed conceptions of the mercy of God, than in the firm and consistent repre- sentations of the New Testament — which overlooks the existence of the disease altogether, and therefore feels no alarm, and exerts no urgency in the business — which, in the face of all the truths and all the severities that are ut- tered in the word of God, leaves the soul to its chance; or, in other words, by neglecting to administer every thing specific for the salvation of the soul, leaves it to perish. Chalmers. The Hatefulness of War. Apart altogether from the evils of war, let us just take a direct look at it, and see whether we can find its char- acter engraven on the aspect it bears to the eye of an at- tentive observer. The stoutest heart of this assembly would recoil, were he who owns it to behold the destruc- tion of a single individual by some deed of violence. Were the man who at this moment stands before you in the full play and energy of health, to be in another moment laid by some deadly aim a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a spectacle so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be haunted for whole days by the image of horror you had witnessed, — who would feel the weight of a most oppressive sensation upon your heart, which nothing but time could wear away,—- . who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or for enjoyment, — who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy disquietude over your wak- ing moments, — who would dream of it at night, and it PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 191 would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an ever-meddling memory, into a scene of restlessness. But generally the death of violence is not instantaneous, and there is often a sad and dreary interval between its final consummation, and the infliction of the blow which causes it. The winged messenger of destruction has not found its direct avenue to that spot, where the principle of life is situated; and the soul, finding obstacles to its immediate egress, has to struggle it for hours ere it can make its dreary way through the winding avenues of that tenement, which has been torn open by a brother s hand. O ! my brethren, if there be something appalling in the suddenness of death, think not that, when gradual in its advances, you will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contemplation by viewing it in a milder form. O ! tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man, — as, goaded by pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy, or faint with the loss of blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his countenance, — or wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark, by a few feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body, — or lifting up a faded eye, he casts on you a look of imploring helplessness, for that succour, which no sympathy can yield him? It may be painful to dwell on such a representation, — but this is the way in which the cause of humanity is served. The eye of the sentimentalist turns away from its suffer- ings, and he passes by on the other side, lest he hear that pleading voice which is armed with a tone of remonstrance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot bear thus to pause, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual; but multiply it ten thousand times, — say, how much of all this distress has been heaped together on a single field, — give us the arithmetic of this accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an official computation, — and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of utterance which is read to them out of the registers of death. O ! say, what mystic spell is that which so blinds us to the 192 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. sufferings of our brethren, — which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding humanity, when it is aggravated by the shriek of dying thousands, — which makes the very mag- nitude of the slaughter throw a softening disguise over its cruelties and its horrors, — which causes us to eye with indifference the field that is crowded with the most re- volting abominations, and arrests that sigh, which each individual would singly have drawn from us, by the re- port of the many who have fallen, and breathed their last in agony, along with him? I have no time, and assuredly as little taste, for expa- tiating on a topic so melancholy; nor can I afford, at pre- sent, to set before you a vivid picture of the other miseries which war carries in its train, — how it desolates every country through which it rolls, and spreads violation and alarm among its villages, — how, at its approach, every home pours forth its trembling fugitives, — how all the rights of property, and all the provisions of justice, must give way before its devouring exactions, — how, when Sabbath comes, no Sabbath charm comes along with it, — and for the sound of the church-bell, which wont to spread its music over some fine landscape of nature, and summon rustic worshippers to the house of prayer, nothing is heard but the deathful volleys of the battle, and the maddening outcry of infuriated men, — how, as the fruit of victory, an unprincipled licentiousness, which no discipline can re- strain, is suffered to walk at large among the people,- — and all that is pure, and reverend, and holy in the virtue of families, is cruelly trampled on, and held in the bitterest derision. Oh! my brethren, were we to pursue those details, which no pen ever attempts, and no chronicle perpetuates, we should be tempted to ask, what that is which civilization has done for the character of the spe- cies? It has thrown a few paltry embellishments over the surface of human affairs; and for the order of society, it has reared the defence of law around the rights and the property of the individuals who compose it. But let war, legalize it as you may, and ushered into the field with all its parade of forms and manifestoes, — let this war only have its season, and be suffered to over- look those artificial defences, and you will soon see how much of the security of the commonwealth is due to po- PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 193 sitive restriction, and how little of it is due to the natural sense of justice among men. I know well, that the plau- sibilities of human character, which abound in every mo- dern and enlightened society, have been mustered up to oppose the doctrine of the Bible on the woful depravity of our race. But out of the history of war I can gather for this doctrine the evidence of experiment. It tells me, that man, when left to himself, and let loose among his fellows, to walk after the counsel of his own heart, and in the sight of his own eyes, will soon discover how thin that tinsel is which the boasted hand of civilization has thrown over him. Chalmers* On the Death of Christ. The Redemption of man is one of the most glorious works of the Almighty. If the hour of the creation of the world was great and illustrious; that hour, when, from the dark and formless mass, this fair system of nature arose at the divine command; when " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy:" — No less illustrious the hour of the restoration of the world, — the hour, when, from condemnation and misery, it emerged into happiness and peace. With less external majesty it was attended, but is, on that account, the more wonderful, that under an appearance so simple, such great events were covered. In the hour of Christ's death, the long series of pro- phecies, visions, types, and figures, was accomplished. This was the centre in which they all met; this the point towards which they had tended and verged, throughout the course of so many generations. You behold the Law and the Prophets standing, if we may so speak, at the foot of the cross, and doing homage. You behold Moses and Aaron bearing the ark of the covenant; David and Elijah presenting the oracle of testimony. You behold all the priests and sacrifices, all the rites and ordinances, all the types and symbols, assembled together to receive their consummation. Without the death of Christ, the worship and ceremonies of the law would have remained a pompous, but unmeaning institution. In the hour when he was crucified, " the book with the seven seals" was 194 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. opened. Every rite assumed its significancy; every pre- diction met its event; every symbol displayed its corre- spondence. This was the hour of the abolition of the Law, and the introduction of the Gospel: the hour of terminating the old, and of beginning the new dispensation of religious knowledge and worship throughout the earth. — Viewed in this light, it forms the most august era which is to be found in the history of mankind. When Christ was suf- fering on the cross, we are informed by one of the Evan- gelists, that he said, " I thirst;" and that they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it into his mouth. " After he had tasted the vinegar," knowing that all things were now accomplished, and the scripture fulfilled, he said, " It is finished;" that is, the offered draught of vinegar was the last circumstance predicted by an ancient prophet that remained to be fulfilled. The vision and the pro- phecy are now sealed : The Mosaic dispensation is closed. " And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." — Sig- nificantly was the veil of the temple rent in this hour; for the glory then departed from between the cherubim. The legal high-priest delivered up his Urim and Thummim, his breast-plate, his robes, and his incense; and Christ stood forth as the great high-priest of all succeeding gen- erations. By that one sacrifice which he now offered, he abolished sacrifices forever. Altars, on which the fire had blazed for ages, were now to smoke no more. Victims were no more to bleed. " Not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own blood, he now entered into the Holy Place, there to appear in the presence of God for us. This was the hour of association and union to all the worshippers of God. When Christ said, " It is finished," he threw down the wall of partition which had so long divided the Gentile from the Jew. He gathered into one, all the faithful, out of every kindred and people. He pro- claimed the hour to be come, when the knowledge of the true God should be no longer confined to one nation, nor his worship to one temple; but over all the earth, the worshippers of the Father should serve him " in spirit and in truth." From that hour, they who dwelt in the " ut- termost ends of the earth, strangers to the covenant of PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 195 promise," began to be "brought nigh." In that hour, the light of the gospel dawned from afar on the British islands. This was the hour of Christ's triumph over all the powers of darkness ; the hour in which he overthrew do- minions and thrones, " led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." The contest which the kingdom of darkness had long maintained against the kingdom of light was now brought to its crisis. The period was come, when " the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent." For many ages, the most gross superstition had filled the earth. " The glory of the incorruptible God was," every where, except in the land of Judea, " changed into images made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and beasts, and creeping things." The world, which the Almighty created for himself, seemed to have become a temple of idols. Even to vices and passions altars were raised ; and what was entitled Religion, was, in effect, a discipline of impurity. In the midst of this uni- versal darkness, Satan had erected his throne; and the learned and polished, as well as the savage nations, bowed down before him. But at the hour when Christ appeared on the cross, the signal of his defeat was given. His kingdom suddenly departed from him ; the reign of idolatry passed away: He was " beheld to fall like lightning from heaven." In that hour, the foundation of every Pagan temple shook; the statue of every false god tottered on its base ; the priest fled from his falling shrine ; and the heathen oracles became dumb for ever. Death also, the last foe of man, was the victim of this hour. The formidable appearance of the spectre remained, but his dart was taken away: for in the hour when Christ expiated guilt, he disarmed death, by securing the resurrection of the just. When he said to his penitent fellow-sufferer, " To-day thou shalt be with me in para- dise," he announced to all his followers the certainty of heavenly bliss. He declared "the cherubim" to be dis- missed, and the " flaming sword" to be sheathed, which had been appointed at the fall " to keep from man the way of the tree of life." Faint, before this period, had been the hope, indistinct the prospect, which even good men enjoyed of the heavenly kingdom. " Life and immor- 196 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. tality were now brought to light." From the hill of Cal- vary, the first clear and certain view was given to the world of the everlasting mansions. Since that hour, they have been the perpetual consolation of believers in Christ. Under trouble, they soothe their minds : amidst temptation, they support their virtue; and in their dying moments, enable them to say, " O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?" Blair. Infidelity. We have heard, indeed, of men who affected to hold fast by the tenets of natural religion, while they repudi- ated those of divine revelation; but we have never been so fortunate as to see and converse with one of them whose creed, select, and circumscribed, and palatable as he has made it, seemed to have any serious footing in his mind, or any practical influence on his life; who could restrain his sneer at piety the most untinctured with enthusiasm; or who could check his speculations, however hostile to that system he had affected to embrace, or who worship- ped the God in whose existence and attributes he acknow- ledged his belief, or who acted with a view to that im- mortality, for which he allowed that the soul of man is destined. It is true, the votaries of infidelity are often placed in circumstances which constrain them to hold such language, and maintain such a deportment, as by itself might indicate the presence of Christian principle. They are frequently not at liberty to give that full play, and that unreserved publicity to their unbelief, in which, however, it is natu- rally disposed to indulge, and in which it would undoubt- edly manifest itself, were it free to operate at large. And you may not therefore, at particular times, and in par- ticular situations, perceive any marked distinction between them and the devoted followers of Jesus of Nazareth. They may find it prejudicial to their worldly interest, or to their good name, to make an open avowal of any ap- proach, however distant, to the confines of atheism. They may have a family, and in the tenderness of parental af- fection, and with the conviction that what they regard as PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 197 altogether false, may contribute as much to the virtue and happiness of their children as if it were altogether time, thev mav shrink from any declaration of infidelity within thedomestic circle. They may acknowledge, in the season of their own distress, or they may suggest, amid the dis- tresses of their friends, those considerations on which the mind, when softened, or when agitated by affliction, na- turally clings, even tho it has no habitual conviction of the truth, and no proper title to the consolation which they afford : They may be driven by bodily anguish, or by im- pending danger, to utter the language of a piety, which till that moment was a stranger even to their lips, just as the mariner has been known, amidst the perils and horrors of a shipwreck, to cry for mercy from that God whose existence he had never before confessed, but by his pro- faneness and his blasphemies. Or they may even be strongly and insensibly induced to accommodate them- selves to prevailing customs, and to pay an outward ho- mage to the faith of the New Testament, by occasionally attending its institutions, tho they are all the while regard- ing it as a mere harmless fable, if not as a contemptible or a pernicious superstition. But look at them when placed in those circumstances which put no such restraints upon what they may say and do as the enemies of Christianity; observe them when the pride of intellect tempts them to display their learning or their ingenuity in contending against the vulgar faith — or when they have nothing to fear from giving utterance to what they think and feel — or when they happen to be associated with those among whom the quality of free-thinking prevails — observe them as to the language which they employ, and the practice which they maintain with respect to religion, in the or- dinary course and tenor of then* lives, and then say what positive proofs they give you of the reality or of the effi- cacy of those religious principles which they profess to have retained, after putting away from them the doctrine of Christ. Say, if instead of affording you positive proofs of such remanent and distinctive piety, they are not dis- playing daily and inveterate symptoms that God, and Pro- vidence, and immortality, are not in all their thoughts. Say, if you have not seen many a melancholy demonstra- tion of that general irreligion which we have ascribed to 198 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. them as the consequence of their throwing off the dominion of the Gospel. And say, if you have not been able to trace this down through all the gradations of infidelity, from the speculative philosopher, who has decided that there is no Saviour, till you come to the fool, who says, in the weak- ness and the wickedness of his heart, there is no God. Andrew Thomson. On the same subject It is amidst trials and sorrows that infidelity appears in its justest and most frightful aspect. When subjected to the multifarious ills which flesh is heir to, what is there to uphold our spirit, but the discoveries, and the prospects that are unfolded to us by revelation? What, for this purpose, can be compared with the belief that every thing here below is under the management of infinite wisdom and goodness, and that there is an immortality of bliss awaiting us in another world? If this conviction be taken away, what is it that we can have recourse to, on which the mind may patiently and safely repose in the season of adversity? Where is the balm which I may apply with effect to my wounded heart, after I have rejected the aid of the Almighty Physician? Impose upon me whatever hardships you please; give me nothing but the bread of soitow to eat; take from me the friends in whom I had placed my confidence ; lay me in the cold hut of poverty, and on the thorny bed of disease ; set death before me in all its terrors; do all this,— -only let me trust in my Savi- our, and " pillow my head on the bosom of Omnipotence ;" and I will " fear no evil," — I will rise superior to afflic- tion, — I will " rejoice in my tribulation." But let infidelity interpose between God and my soul, and draw its im- penetrable veil over a future state of existence, and limit all my trust to the creatures of a day, and all my expec- tations to a few years, as uncertain as they are short, and how shall I bear up, with fortitude or with cheerfulness, under the burden of distress? Or where shall I find one drop of consolation to put into the bitter draught which has been given me to drink? I look over the whole range of this wilderness in which I dwell, but I see not one covert from the storm, nor one leaf for the healing PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 199 of my soul, nor one cup of cold water to refresh me in the weariness and the faintings of my pilgrimage. The very conduct of infidels, in spreading their system with so much eagerness and industry, affords a striking proof that its influence is essentially hostile to human happiness. For what is their conduct? Why, they allow that re- ligion contributes largely to the comfort of man — that in this respect, as well as with respect to morality, it would he a great evil, were it to lose its hold over their affec- tions, — and that those are no friends to the world, who would shake or destroy their belief in it. And yet, in the very face of this acknowledgment, they scruple not to publish their doubts and their unbelief concerning it among their fellow men, and with all the cool delibera- tion of philosophy, and sometimes, with all the keenness and ardor of a zealot, to do the very thing which they profess to deprecate as pernicious to the well-being and comfort of the species. Whether they are sincere in this profession, or whether they are only trifling with the sense and feeling of mankind, still it demonstrates the harden- ing influence of their principles; and from principles, which make those who hold them so reckless of the peace, and order, and happiness of their brethren, what can be reasonably expected, but every thing which is most de- structive of human comfort? It is true, the infidel may be very humane in the inter- course of life; but, after all, what dependance can be placed upon that humanity of his, which deals out bread to the hungry, and clothing to the naked, and yet would sacrifice to literary vanity, or to something worse, what- ever can give support to trial, and consolation at death? He may sympathise with me in my distress, and speak of immortality, and at the very moment his constitutional kindness may be triumphing over his cold-blooded and gloomy speculations. But his speculations have shed a misery over my heart, which no language of his can dis- sipate, and which makes his most affectionate words sound in my ear like the words of mockery and scorn. He has destroyed me, and he cannot save me, and he cannot comfort me. At his bidding I have renounced that Savi- our in whom I once trusted and was happy, and have banished that Comforter, who once dwelt with me, and 200 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. would have dwelt with me as a comforter for ever. And he now pities me, as if his most pitying tones could charm away the anguish of my bosom, and make me forget that it was he himself who planted it there, and planted it so deep, and nourished it so well, that nothing but the power of that heaven, whose power I have denied, is able to pluck it out. Yes, after he has destroyed my belief in the superintending providence of God, — after he has taught me that the prospect of a hereafter is but the base- less fabric of a vision, — after he has bred and nourished in me a contempt for that sacred volume which alone throws light over this benighted world, — after having argued me out of my faith by his sophistries, or laughed me out of it by his ridicule, after having thus so wrung from my soul every drop of consolation, and dried up my very spirit within me, — yes, after having accomplished this in the season of my health and my prosperity, he would come to me while I mourn, and treat me like a drivelling idiot, whom he may sport with, because he has ruined me, and, to whom, in the plenitude of his compas- sion, — too late, and too unavailing, — he may talk of truths in which he himself does not believe, and which he has long exhorted me, and has at last persuaded me, to cast away as the dreams and the delusions of human folly! — From such comforters may heaven preserve me! "My soul come not thou into their secrets. Unto their assem- bly mine honor be not thou united ! " Andrew Thomson* Appeal in favour of the Heathen Nations. — Character of Scotsmen. Would that I may have conveyed any due sense of the necessities of the heathen nations, or of your obligations to help them! When we cast our eyes over those wide, unreclaimed regions of moral desolation, which an un- known God has, for so many ages, visited in the terrors of his power, and cherished in the relentings of his provi- dence, how sad and appalling the aspect of the past ! What ruin do we behold in the noblest work of God! What waste of intellect, what perversion of energy, what pitiable depravation of affection, what unrelenting tyranny of PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 201 error! Like the despotic elements of nature broke loose from their office of ministering to the health and solace of mankind, the moral energies of man seem there to emulate the operations of the earthquake and the whirlwind, and to aim only at confounding order, and perpetuating wretchedness. Yet, are they not men of like natures with ourselves, partakers of all our passions, affections, sympathies? What have we attained to, that they might not have surpassed us in, if it had been given them to share in our advantages? To what depth of degradation have they fallen, that might not have been our condition, had we, like them, been, as it were, forgotten of God, the outlaws of his dominion? They might have been our benefactors, had God willed it; and, more faithful to their privileges and to the claims of brotherhood than we have been, might have sent us their apostles, their ministers of reconciliation, their ambassadors of peace. Under the 6tarless sky of their unbroken night, lie buried the ele- ments of all that is great and exalted in our common nature — the materials whence the Divine Illuminator can elicit sparks of heavenly fire — the instruments he can harmonise to the touch of holy love — the souls he can form anew into heirs of God and immortality. Have they not, through their long series of thickly-peopled and quickly-passing generations, fallen where they rose — like those majestic but unprofitable forests which nature, pro- digal of strength, and wasteful of beauty, scatters over the mountains of her untracked continents, their gloomy shade unpenetrated by the luminary of day that gladdens happier vales? Time only has approached them in his undeviating progress, not with project of change, but in the fulfilment of destiny; closing in the unblessed exist- ence of one fading race, as often as another was ready to replace it. And is the God of nature thus active and vigilant, and yet neglectful of his creatures? Does he not appeal to us? Does he not claim some gratitude of us for all his care? Having prepared the ample, prolific blessing of the gospel, he committed it, not to angels, but to men. Ah! when once his Holy Spirit shall begin to move on the face of those dark chaotic waters, how shall order spring out of confusion, and rays of light and glory return to us from the regions of darkness and the shadow of death! 202 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. And where might we more reasonably expect to find men accomplished for the work, and eager to engage in it, than in this part of our native isle, ever distinguished by the production of talent rather than of wealth; where Providence seems to have repaid, in moral advantages, all that has been withheld in the indulgences of nature? " Men are ripened in these northern climes," and every country becomes tributary to that which by skill and in- dustry know how to draw from the stores of all. Strangers to luxury, undaunted by danger, unsubdued by hardship, your countrymen are found wherever arts, agriculture, and commerce extend — contributing to the improvement, and sharing in the prosperity, of every civilized people under heaven. What country in the world scatters from a scanty population so numerous a train of hardy, intrepid adven- turers, who follow wherever gain or glory mark the way — braving all the extremities of climate, and every vicissitude of fortune? Nay, as if the accessible parts of the globe afforded too limited a sphere for enterprise, they embrace with eagerness every project for extending their bounda- ries. To the insatiable ardor, and indefatigable persever- ance of one of your countrymen, the Nile first disclosed its mysterious source. And who has yet forgotten, or re- members without the applauding sigh of deep regret, him* who but lately " ivent out from us, and we saw him not since;" never since, in the ardor of unconquerable hope, he promised not to return till he should have traced for us the pathless windings of that howling desert through which the Niger rolls his mighty unexplored stream! And even now, when hope seems to catch enthusiasm from danger, and many thoughts are suspended on a peril- ous enterprise,)- when the north bursts his icy fetters, un- locks the bars of his imprisoned seas, and breaks up the masses of his tremendous winter, the accumulation of cen- turies, — who are so ready as Scotsmen to dare the terrors of the arctic sky, and impel their adventurous prows be- twixt the floating fields and frost-reared precipices that guard the secrets of the pole? The world characterizes these as noble enterprises ; and we do not in this sentiment * Mungo Park. f Captain Parry's Expedition for the Discovery of a North -West Passage. PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 203 dissent from the world: but while there are higher honors, and more blessed achievements, to which duty calls you to aspire, do not rest in a perishable name, nor be satis- fied to be the hearers only of sublunary blessings to your brethren of mankind. " It is more blessed to give, than to receive" — to inspire the hope of immortality, than to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Let all take their part in this divine work. If you can do but little; do that little in the spirit of faith and love, and it will be accepted. Henry Grey. Danger of Delay in Matters of Religion, By long delaying, your conversion may become alto- gether impossible. Habit, says the proverb, is a second nature ; and indeed it is stronger than the first. At first, we easily take the bend, and are moulded by the hands of the master; but this nature of our own making is proof against alteration. The Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, and the leo- pard his spots; the tormented in hell may as soon revisit the earth; as those who have been long accustomed to do evil, may learn to do well. Such is the wise appointment of Heaven, to deter sinners from delaying their repentance. When the evil principle hath corrupted the whole capacity of the mind; when sin, by its frequency and its duration, is woven into the very essence of the soul, and is become part of ourselves; when the sense of moral good and evil is almost totally extinct; when conscience is seared, as with a hot iron; when the heart is so hard, that the ar- rows of the Almighty cannot pierce it; and when, by a long course of crimes, we have become what the Scrip- ture most emphatically calls, " vessels of wrath fitted for destruction;" — then we have filled up the measure of our sins; then Almighty God swears in his wrath that we shall not enter into his rest; then there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a fearful looking for of wrath, and in* dignation which shall devour the adversary. Almighty God, weary of bearing with the sins of men, delivers them over to a reprobate mind; when, like Pharaoh, they survive only as monuments of wrath; when, like Esau, they cannot find a place for repentance, although they 204 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. seek it carefully with tears; when, like the foolish virgins, they come knocking — but the door of mercy is shut for ever. Further, let me remind you, my brethren, that if you repent not now, perhaps you will not have another oppor- tunity. You say you will repent in some future period of time; but are you sure of arriving at that period of time? Have you one hour in your hand? Have you one minute at your disposal? Boast not thyself of to-morrow. Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Before to- morrow, multitudes shall be in another world. Art thou sure that thou art not of the number? Man knoweth not his time. As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil hour. Can you recal to mind none of your companions, none of the partners of your follies and your sins, cut off in an unconverted state — cut off perhaps in the midst of an unfinished debauch, and hur- ried, with all their transgressions on their head, to give in their account to God the Judge of all? Could I show you the state in which they are now; could an angel from heaven unbar the gates of the everlasting prison; could you discern the late companions of your wanton hours, overwhelmed with torment and despair; could you hear the cry of their torment which ascendeth up for ever and ever; could you hear them upbraiding you as the partners of their crimes, and accusing you as in some measure the cause of their damnation! — Great God! how would your haii* stand on end! how would your heart die within you! how would conscience fix all her stings! and re- morse, awaking a new hell within you, torment you be- fore the time ! Had a like untimely fate snatched you away then, where had you been now? And is this the improvement which you make of that longer day of grace with which Heaven has been pleased to favor you? Is this the return you make to the Divine goodness, for pro- longing your lives, and indulging you with a longer day of repentance? Have you in good earnest determined within yourself, that you will weary out the long-suffering of God, and force destruction from his reluctant hand? I beseech, I implore you, my brethren, in the bonds of friendship, and in the bowels of the Lord; by the tender PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 205 mercies of the God of Peace; by the dying love of a cru- cified Redeemer; by the precious promises and awful threatenings of the gospel; by all your hopes of heaven and fears of hell; by the worth of your immortal souls; and by all that is dear to men; I conjure you to accept of the offers of mercy, and fly from the wrath to come — " Behold now is the accepted time, behold now is the day of salvation." All the treasures of heaven are now open- ing to you; the blood of Christ is now speaking for the remission of your sins; the church on earth stretehes out its arms to receive you; the spirits of just men made per- fect are eager to enrol you amongst the number of the blessed; the angels and archangels are waiting to break out into new hallelujahs of joy on your return; the whole Trinity is now employed in your behalf; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, at this instant, call upon you, weary and heavy laden, to come unto them that ye may have rest unto your souls! Logan. Religion the distinguishing Quality of our Nature. Religion is the distinguishing quality of our nature, and is one of the strongest features that marks the human character. As it is our distinguishing quality, so it pos- sesses such extensive influence, that, however overlooked by superficial inquirers, it has given rise to more revolu- tions in human society, and to more changes in human manners, than any one cause whatever. View mankind in every situation, from the earliest state of barbarity, down through all the successive periods of civilization, till they degenerate to barbarity again, and you will find them in- fluenced strongly by the awe of superior spirits, or the dread of infernal fiends. In the heathen world, where mankind had no divine revelation, but followed the im- pulse of nature alone, religion was often the basis of the civil government. Among all classes of men, the sacri- fices, the ceremonies, and the worship of the gods were held in the highest reverence. Judge what a strong hold ♦religion must have taken of the human heart, when, in- stigated by horror of conscience, the blinded wretch has submitted to torture his own flesh before the shrine of the 206 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. incensed deity, and the fond father has been driven to offer up with his own hands his first-born for his transgression, —the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul. It is pos- sible to shake off the reverence, but not the dread of a Deity. Amid the gay circle of his companions, in the hour of riot and dissipation, the fool may say in his heart that there is no God; but his conscience will meet him when he is alone, and tell him that he is a liar. Heaven will avenge its quarrel on his head. Judge, then, my brethren, how miserable it must be for a being made after the image of God, thus to have his glory turned into shame. How dismal must the situation be for a subject of the di- vine government to consider himself as acting upon a plan to counteract the decrees of God, to defeat the designs of eternal Providence, to deface in himself the image and the lineaments of heaven, to maintain a state of enmity and war with his Creator, and to associate with the infernal spirits, whose abode is darkness, and whose portion is despair! Reflections upon such a stat£ will give its full measure to the cup of trembling. Was not Belshazzar, the impious king of Babylon, a striking instance of what I am now saying? This monarch made a feast to a thousand of his lords, and assembled his princes, his concubines, and his wives. In order to increase the festivity, he sent for the consecrated vessels, which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple of Jerusalem ; and, in these vessels which were holy to the Lord, he made libations to his vain idols, and, in his heart, bade defiance to the God of Israel. But, whilst thus he defied the living God, forth came the fingers of a man's hand, and, on the wall, which had lately resounded with joy, wrote the sentence of his fate! In a moment his countenance was changed, his whole frame shook, and his knees smote one against another, whilst the prophet in awful accents denounced his doom; " O man, thy kingdom is departed from thee!*' Logan. On the Threatened Invasion in 1803. By a series of criminal enterprises, by the success of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradu- PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 207 ally extinguished: the subjugation of Holland, Switzer- land, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that catastrophe; and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere, who are in possession of equal laws, and a free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on the Continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she always chose for her favorite abode : but she is pur- sued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most ex- actly, most critically placed in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled — in the Thermopylae of the world. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned — the most important by far of sublunary interests! — you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the foederal re- presentatives of the human race ; for with you it is to de- termine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are entrusted to your care, and on your conduct at this moment depends the color and complexion of their destiny. If liberty, after being extinguished on the Continent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it? It remains with you then to decide, whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in every thing great and good; the freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and in- vited the nations to behold their God; whose magic torch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence — the freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with in- numerable institutions and improvements, till it became a theatre of wonders ; it is for you to decide, whether this freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall, and wrapped in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battle of the civilized world. Go then, ye defenders of your country, accompanied with every auspicious omen ; advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself 208 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. musters the host to war. Religion is too much interested in your success, not to lend you her aid; she will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are en- gaged in the field, many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands, which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriads of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle in its ascent to heaven, with the shouts of battle, and the shock of arms. The extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice of your cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in this struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the sa- tisfaction (the purest allotted to man!) of having performed your parts ; your names will be enrolled with the most il- lustrious dead, while posterity to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events of this period (and they will incessantly revolve them), will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I cannot but imagine the virtuous he- roes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favorable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that re- pose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended; and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne and liveth for ever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your la- bors, and cemented with your blood. And thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, gird on thy sword, thou Most Mighty: go forth with our hosts in the day of battle! Impart, in addition to their hereditary valor, that confidence of suc- cess which springs from thy presence! Pour into their hearts the spirits of departed heroes ! Inspire them with their own; and, while led by thy hand, and fighting under thy banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every val- ley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by the same illumination — chariots of fire and horses of fire! PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 209 Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them. Hall, On the same Subject. In the mighty designs of Providence, the same valor which is called to defend our land, is the great means by which we can relieve the sufferings of the world around us. Amid that wreck which we have witnessed of social welfare — amid the dethronement of kings, and the sub- jugation of kingdoms, — amid the trembling neutrality of some, and the silent servility of others, — this country alone hath remained independent and undismayed, — and it is upon the valor of our arms, that Europe now reposes its last hope of returning liberty, and restored honor. Among the nations which surround us, whom either the force of the enemy has subdued, or their power intimidated, there is not one virtuous bosom that does not throb for our success, — the prayers of millions will follow our ban- ners into the field, and the arm of the soldier will be blessed by innumerable voices, which can never reach his ear. If we fail, — if the ancient prowess and intrepidity of our people is gone, — there is then a long close to all the hopes and all the honors of humanity; over the fairest portion of the civilized earth, the tide of military des- potism will roll, and bury, in its sanguinary flood, alike the monuments of former greatness, and the promises of future glory. But, — if we prevail; if the hearts of our people are exalted to the sublimity of the contest; the mighty spell which has enthralled the world will be broken, — the spirit of nature and of liberty will rekindle : — and the same blow which prostrates the enemy of our land, will burst the fetters of nations, and set free the energies of an injured world. The historian of future times, when he meditates on the affairs of men, will select for his fairest theme the re- cord of our country; and he will say, — Such is the glory of nations, when it is founded on virtue, when they scorn the vulgar " devices of the human heart," and follow only the " counsel of the Lord;" when they act from the high ambition of being the ministers of that " Ancient of Days," 210 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. whose "judgment is set" in nature, and before whom the " books of the universe are open." There is yet, in such hours, a greater consideration. If there be something inexpressibly animating in seeing our country as the instrument of Heaven in the restoration of happiness to mankind; if to us be given the sublime charge, of at once defending our own land, and guiding the des- tinies of human nature, — there is something also equally solemn in the remembrance of the duties which so high a commission involves. And there is an instinct which must teach all, that of our conduct in these trying hours we are finally to render an account. It is this exalted prospect which ought ever to be present to us, in the seasons of difficulty and alarm. It is now, in the midst of wars, and the desolation of nations, that we ought to fortify our hearts at the shrine of religion. It is now that we are to weigh the duties which are demanded of us by Heaven and earth; and to consider whether, in that last day, we are to appear as cowards to our country and our faith, and as purchasing an inglorious safety, by the sacrifice of every duty, and every honor of man, — or as the friends of order, of liberty, and of religion, and allied to those glorious spirits who have been the servants of God, and the benefactors of mankind. Over the conflict which is to ensue, let it never be forgotten, that greater eyes than those of man will be present ; and let every man that draws the sword of defence, remember that he is not only de- fending the liberties of his country, but the laws of his God. Let, then, the young and the brave of our people go forth, with hearts inaccessible to fear, and undoubting of their cause. Let them look back into time, and see the shades of their ancestors rising before them, and exhort- ing them to the combat. Let them look around them, and see a subjugated world the witnesses of their contest, and the partners in their success. Let them look forward into futurity, and see posterity prostrated before them, and all the honors and happiness of man dependent upon the firmness of their hearts, and the vigor of their arms. Yes ! let them go forth, and pour around our isle a living barrier to injustice and ambition : and, when that tide of anarchy which has overflowed the world, rolls its last waves PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 211 to our shores, let them show to the foe as impenetrable a front, as the rocks of our land to the storms of the ocean. Alison. The Inquisition. The blood-thirsty Inquisitor, who has grown grey in the service of the mother of abominations, who has long made it his boast that none of her priests has brought so many hundreds of victims to her horrid altars, as himself; the venerable butcher, sits on his bench; the helpless in- nocent is brought bound from his dungeon, where no voice of comfort is heard, no friendly eye glances compassion ; where damp and stench, perpetual darkness and horrid silence, reign, except when broken by the echo of his groans; where months and years have been languished out, in want of all that nature requires ; an outcast from family, from friends, from ease and affluence, and a plea- sant habitation; from the blessed light of the world. He kneels ; he weeps ; he begs for pity. He sues for mercy, by the love of God, and by the bowels of humanity. Al- ready cruelly exercised by torture, nature shudders at the thought of repeating the dreadful sufferings, under which she had almost sunk before. He protests his innocence: he calls heaven to witness for him, and implores the di- vine power to touch the flinty heart, which all his cries and tears cannot move. The unfeeling monster talks of heresy and profanation of his cursed superstition. His furious zeal for priestly power, and a worldly church, stops his ears against the melting voice of a fellow-creature, prostrate at his feet. And the terror, necessary to be kept up among the blinded votaries, renders cruelty a proper instrument of religious slavery. The dumb executioners strip him of his rags; the rack is prepared; the ropes are extended; the wheels are driven round; the bloody whip and hissing pincers tear the quivering flesh from the bones; the pullies raise him to the roof; the sinews crack; the joints are torn asunder; the pavement swims in blood. The hardened minister of infernal cruelty, sits unmoved; his heart has long been steeled against compassion; he listens to the groans ; he views the strong convulsive pangs, when nature shrinks and struggles, and agonizing pain 212 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. rages in every pore: he counts the heart-rending shrieks of a fellow- creature in torment, and enjoys his anguish with the calmness of one who views a philosophical ex- periment. The wretched victim expires before him. He feels no movement, but of vexation at being deprived of his prey, before he had sufficiently glutted his hellish fury. He rises No thunder roars. — No lightning blasts him. He goes on to fill up the measure of his wickedness. He lives out his days in ease and luxury. He goes down to the grave, gorged with the blood of the innocent, nor does the earth cast up again the cursed carcase. Can any one think that such scenes would be suffered to be acted in a world, at the head of which sits, enthroned in supreme majesty, a Being of infinite goodness and per- fect justice, who has only to give his word, and such mon- sters would be, in an instant, driven by his thunder to the centre? — Can any one think that such proceedings would be suffered to pass unpunished, if there was not a life to come, a day appointed for rewarding every man according to his works? Burgh. Joseph and his Brethren. And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house (for he was yet there): and they fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, " What deed is this that you have done? wot ye not that such a man as I can certainly divine?" And Judah said, " What shall we say unto my lord? What shall we speak? or how shall we clear ourselves? God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants: behold, we are my lord's servants, both we, and he also with whom the cup is found." And he said, " God forbid that I should do so: but the man in whose hand the cup is found, he shall be my servant : and as for you, get you up in peace unto your father." Then Judah came near unto him, and said, " O my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy ser- vant: for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, ' Have ye a father or a brother?' And we said unto my lord, < We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one : and his brother is PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 213 dead, and he alone is left of his mother, and his father loveth him.' And thou saidst unto thy servants, < Bring him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him/ And we said unto my lord, i The lad cannot leave his fa- ther: for if he should leave his father, his father would die/ And thou saidst unto thy servants, ' Except your youngest brother come down with you, you shall see my face no more/ And it came to pass, when we came up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. And our father said, ' Go again and buy us a little food/ And we said, ' We cannot go down : if our young- est brother be with us, then will we go down : for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest brother be with us/ And thy servant my father, said unto us, \ Ye know that my wife bare me two sons: and the one went out from me, and I said, surely he is torn in pieces : and I saw him not since. And if ye take this also from me: and mischief befal him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave/ Now therefore when we come to thy servant our father, and the lad be not with us (see- ing that his life is bound up in the lad's life) : it shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die, and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father, with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant became surety for the lad unto my father, say- ing, if I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame to my father for ever. Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bond-man to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brethren: For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me, lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my fa- ther." Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him, and he cried, " Cause eveiy man to go out from me:" and there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, " lam Joseph; doth my father yet live?" And his brethren could not answer him: for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, " Come near to me I pray you;" and they came near, and he said, "lam 214 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life. For these two years hath the famine been in the land, and yet there are five years, in the which there shall be neither earing nor harvest. And God sent me before you, to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt. Haste you, and go up to my father, and say unto him, " Thus saith thy son Joseph, \ God hath made me lord of all Egypt, come down unto me, tarry not/ And thou shalt dwell in the land of Goshen, and thou shalt be near unto me, thou, and thy children, and thy children's children, and thy flocks, and thy herds, and all that thou hast. And there will I nourish thee (for yet there are five years of famine), lest thou and thy household, and all that thou hast, come to poverty. And behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you. And you shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that you have seen, and ye shall haste, and bring down my father hither." And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brethren, and wept upon them: and after that, his brethren talked with him. And the fame thereof was heard in Pharaoh's house, saying, " Joseph's brethren are come," and it pleased Pharaoh well, and all his servants. And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, " Say unto thy brethren, i this do ye, lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan: and take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now thou art com- manded, this do ye, take you waggons out of the land of Egypt, for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father and come. Also regard not your stuff: for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.' " And the children of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them waggons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 215 and gave theni provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment: but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner: ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with corn, and bread and meat for his father by the way. So he sent his brethren away, and they de- parted: and he said unto them, " see that ye fall NOT OUT BY THE WAY." And they went up out of Egypt, and came into the land of Canaan unto Jacob their father, and told him, say- ing, u Joseph is yet alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt." And Jacob's heart fainted, for he be- lieved them not. And they told him all the words of Jo- seph, which he had said unto them : and when he saw the waggons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. And Israel said, " It is enough, Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go AND SEE HIM BEFORE I DIE." Nathcms Parable. And the Lord sent Nathan unto David; and he went unto him, and said unto him: — " There were two men in one city: the one rich, and the other poor. The rich man had exceeding many flocks and herds: but the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had nourished and brought up; and it grew up together with him; and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drink of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man's lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come unto him.' 5 And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan — " As the Lord liveth, the man that hath done tins thing shall surely die; and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this tiring, and because he had no pity." — And Nathan said unto David, " Thou art the many 216 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. The Song of Deborah and Barak, Then sang Deborah, and Barak the son of Abinoam, on that day, saying, Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. Hear, O ye kings; give ear, O ye princes: I, even I, will sing unto the Lord; I will sing praise to the Lord God of Israel. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel. They chose new gods; then was war in the gates: was there a shield or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel? My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the Lord. Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way. They that are delivered from the noise of archers in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts toward the inhabitants of his villages in Israel : then shall the peo- ple of the Lord go down to the gates. Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake; utter a song: arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of Abinoam. Then he made him that remaineth have dominion over the no* bles among the people : the Lord made me have dominion over the mighty. Out of Ephraim was there a root of them against Amalek; after thee, Benjamin, among thy people : out of Machir came down governors, and out of Zebulun they that handle the pen of the writer. And the princes of Issachar were with Deborah; even Issachar, and also Barak: he was sent on foot into the valley. For the divisions of Reuben there were great thoughts of heart. Why abodest thou among the sheep-folds, to hear the bleatings of the flocks? For the divisions of Reuben there were great searchings of heart. Gilead abode beyond Jordan: and why did Dan remain in ships? Asher con- PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 21/ tinuecl on the sea-shore, and abode in his breaches. Ze- bulun and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field. The kings came and fought; then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo ; they took no gain of money. They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera. The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the river Kishon. O my soul, thou hast trodden down strength. Then were the horse -hoofs broken by the means of the prancings, the prancings of their mighty ones. Curse ye Meroz (said the angel of the Lord), curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be; blessed shall she be above women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workmen's hammer; and with the hammer she smote Sisera: she smote off his head, when she had pierced and stricken through his temples. At her feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he bowed, he fell : where he bowed, there he fell down dead. The mo- ther of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariots? Her wise ladies an- swered her, yea, she returned answer to herself, Have they not sped? have they not divided the prey? to every man a damsel or two, to Sisera a prey of divers colors, a prey of divers colors of needle-work, of divers colors of needle-work on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil? So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love him be as the sun when Ke goeth forth in his might. Jeremiah lamenteth the Jews, fyc. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a foun- tain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain *of the daughter of my people ! Oh that I had in the wil- derness a lodging-place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adul- 218 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. terers. an assembly of treacherous men. And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies; but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me. saith the Lord. Take ye heed every one of Ins neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will walk with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity. Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit: through deceit they refuse to know me. saith the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts. Behold. I will melt them, and try them: for how shall I do for the daughter of my people? Their tongue is as an arrow shot out: it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait. Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burnt up. so that none can pass tlnough them: neither can men hear the voice of the cattle: both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are tied; they are gone. And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons: and I will make the cities of Judaii desolate, without an inhabitant. Who is the wise man. that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken, that he mav declare it. for what the land perisheth and is burnt up like a wilderness, that none passeth through? And the Lord saith. Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein: But have walked after the ima- gination of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them: Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold. I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them. PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 219 Thus saith the Lordlrf hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come : And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have for- saken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out. Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbor lamentation: For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets. Speak, Thus saith the Lord, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvest-man, and none shall gather them. Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised ; Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Am- nion, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness; for all these nations are un- circumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart. Pauls Defence before Agrippa. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted to speak for thyself. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself: I think myself happy, king Agrippa, because I shall answer for myself this day before I thee, touching all the things whereof I am accused of the Jews ; Especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions which are among the Jews: where- fore I beseech thee to hear me patiently. My manner of 220 PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. life from my youth, which was at first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews; who knew me from the beginning (if they would testify), that after the straitest sect of -our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers : Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come: for which hope's sake, king Agrippa, I am ac- cused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests ; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every syna- gogue, and compelled them to blaspheme : and, being ex- ceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities. Whereupon, as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, At mid- day, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me,~ and them who journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying, in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee ; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them who are sanctified by faith that is in me. Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision : But showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusa- lem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. For these causes the PULPIT AND SACRED ORATORY. 221 Jews caught me in the temple, and went about to kill me. Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come; That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should show light unto the people, and to the Gentiles. And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus ; but speak forth the words of truth and so- berness. For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris- tian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. The Oration of 2Escliines against Demosthenes^ on the Crown. In such a situation of affairs, and in such disorders, as you yourselves are sensible of, the only method of saving the wrecks of government is, if I mistake not, to allow full liberty to accuse those who have invaded your laws. But if you shut them up, or suffer others to do this, I prophesy that you will fall insensibly, and that very soon, under a tyrannical power. For you know, Athenians, that government is divided into three kinds; monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy. As to the two former, they are governed at the will and pleasure of those who reign in either; whereas established laws only reign in a popular state. I make these observations, therefore, that none of you may be ignorant, but on the contrary, that every one may be entirely assured, that the day he ascends the seat of justice, to examine an accusation upon the invasion of the laws, that very day he goes to give judgment upon his own independence. And, indeed, the legislator who is convinced that a free state can support itself no longer than the laws govern, takes particular care to prescribe this form of an oath to judges, " I will judge according to the laws." The remembrance, therefore, of this being deeply implanted in your minds, must inspire you with a just abhorrence of any persons whatsoever who dare trans- gress them by rash decrees; and that far from ever look- ing upon a transgression of this kind as a small fault, you always consider it as an enormous and capital crime. Do not suffer, then, any one to make you depart from so wise a principle. — But as, in the army, every one of you would be ashamed to quit the post assigned him by the general; ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. 223 so let eveiy one of you be this day ashamed to abandon the post which the laws have given you in the common- wealth. What post? — that of protectors of the govern- ment. Must we, in your person, crown the author of the public calamities, or must we destroy him? And, indeed, what unexpected revolutions, what unthought of catastrophes, have we not seen in our days? — The king of Persia, that king who opened a passage through Mount Athos; who bound the Hellespont in chains; who was so imperious as to command the Greeks to acknowledge him sovereign both of sea and land; who in his letters and dispatches presumed to style himself the sovereign of the world from the rising to the setting of the sun; and who fights now, not to rule over the rest of mankind, but to save his own life. D^piot we see those very men who signalised their zeal in the relief of Delphos, invested both with the glory, for which that powerful king was once so conspicuous, and with the title of the chief of the Greeks against him ? As to Thebes, which borders upon Attica, have we not seen it disappear in one day from the midst of Greece? — And with regard to the unhappy Lacedaemonians, what calamities have not befallen them, only for taking but a small part of the spoils of the temple! They who for- merly assumed a superiority over Greece, are they not now going to send ambassadors to Alexander's court; to bear the name of hostages in his train; to become a spec- tacle of misery; to bow the knee before the monarch; submit themselves and their country to his mercy; and receive such laws as a conqueror, a conqueror they at- tacked first, shall think fit to prescribe them? Athens itself, the common refuge of the Greeks ; Athens formerly peopled with ambassadors, who flocked to claim its al- mighty protection; is not this city now obliged to fight, not to obtain a superiority over the Greeks, but to pre- serve itself from destruction? Such are the misfortunes which Demosthenes has brought upon us, since his inter- meddling with the administration. Imagine then, Athenians, when he shall invite the con- fidants and accomplices of his abject perfidy to range themselves around him, towards the close of his harangue ; imagine then, Athenians, on your side, that you see the 224 ANCIENT ELOQUENCE. ancient benefactors of this commonwealth, — when the clock has struck twelve, and most of the members retired home to their beds? Why, in God's name, not propose it early in the day, in a full house? The reason assigned for this assassinate mode of con- ducting public business, is, to the last degree, unfounded and unsatisfactory, " lest the public should be apprised of it." Has not the learned gentleman already told us, that the bill is to act retrospectively; that it is to commence on that melancholy, I fear, fatal day, on which the Spanish minister delivered the manifesto now on your table? Has he not farther informed us, that the ministry have not been unmindful of their duty ; for, they have exceeded all their former attacks on the constitution of their country? They have trampled on the laws, and have found an advo- cate to defend their conduct in the person of the learned gentleman, who has moved this extraordinary bill, in this very extraordinary manner. Is then the learned gentle- raan's love of his country not satisfied with the injuries inflicted on the most deserving part of the community, by robbing them of that protection which the laws have given them, and by breaking the national faith, which is the great pledge and security to every Englishman, for their due performance? Would the learned gentleman not let one father, one husband, one brother, or one child, escape, in this general scene of oppression and injustice ! Methinks, I hear the heartfelt shrieks of the miserable wife, this instant, piercing my ears, and entreating, in accents of rage and despair, the midnight ruffian not to drag from her side her tender and affectionate husband, the father of her children, and her only support! I think I hear the aged and helpless parent, in accents of sinking wo, misery, and distress, bewailing the loss of his dutiful and beloved son! I confess I am filled with horror at the various ills and miseries this instant inflicting in every part of these kingdoms, contrary to every principle of law, justice, and humanity: but the learned gentleman has a stomach for all this, and much more; for he says he has stood up, at this midnight hour, to propose a law, which, 256 MODERN ELOQUENCE. if proposed in open clay, in a full house, might perhaps have this one consequence, that of procuring, for the per- sons to be affected by it, that personal security, by flight and concealment, which the laws of their country, and the assurance of public faith always supposed to accompany them, have been inadequate to. Extract from Grattaris Speech on the Address to His Majesty.— -1782. Mr. Speaker, — I have thrown the declaration of rights into the form of an humble address to the Throne ; and have added other matter that calls for redress. I have done this in a manner which I conceive respectful to the King, recon- ciling to the pride of England, and with all due tenacity of the rights and majesty of the Irish nation; and if I sink under this great argument, let my infirmity be attributed to any cause, rather than a want of zeal in your service. I have troubled you so often on the subject of your rights, that I have nothing to add; but am rather to admire by what miraculous means and steady virtue the people of Ireland have proceeded, until the faculty of the nation is now bound up to the great act of her own redemption. I am not very old, and yet I remember Ireland a child; I have followed her growth with anxious wishes, and beheld with astonishment the rapidity of her progress, from injuries to arms — from arms to liberty. I have seen her mind en- large, her maxims open, and a new order of days burst in upon her. You are not now afraid of the French, nor afraid of the English, nor afraid of one another. You are no longer an insolvent gentry, without privilege, except to tread upon a crest-fallen constituency, nor a constitu- ency with privilege, except to tread upon the Catholic body; you are now a united people, a nation manifesting itself to Europe in signal instances of glory. Liberty, in former times, was recovered by the quick feelings and rapid impulse of the populace, excited by some strong object presented to the senses. Such an object was the daughter of Virginius, sacrificed to virtue ; such the seven bishops, whose meagre and haggard looks expressed the rigor of their sufferings; but no history can produce an MODERN ELOQUENCE. 25/ instance of men like you, musing for years upon oppres- sion, and then, upon a determination of right, rescuing tlie land. Fortunately for us, England did not take the lead; her minister did not take the lead in the restoration of our rights; had England in the first instance ceded, you would have sunk under the weight of the obligation, and given back the acquisition with a sheepish gratitude; but the virtue, the pride of the people was our resource, and it is right that people should have a lofty conception of them- selves. It was necessary that Ireland should be her own redeemer, to form her mind as well as her constitution, and erect in her soul a vast image of herself, and a lofty sense of her own exaltation; other nations have trophies and records to elevate the human mind ; those outward and visible signs of glory, those monuments of their heroic ancestors, such as were wont to animate the ancient Greeks and Romans, and rouse them in their country's cause; but you had nothing to call forth the greatness of the land, except injuries, and therefore it is astonishing that you should have preserved your pride; but more astonishing that you should proceed with a temper seldom found among the injured, and a success never but with the vir- tuous. You have no trophies; but the liberty you trans- mit to your posterity is more than a trophy. I dwell the more on this part of the subject, because I hold it neces- sary to pour into the public mind a considerable portion of pride, acting up to a good national character, founded on a great transaction. What sets one nation above another, but the soul that dwells therein, that etherial fire® — for it is of no avail that the arm be strong, if the soul be not great.— Nor was this act of your redemption confined to any body of men; all have had a share in it; there is not a man that washes his firelock this night,- — there is not a grand jury — there is not an association — there is not a corps of volunteers — -there is not a meeting of their delegates, that is not a party to this acquisition, and pledged to support it to the last drop of his blood. It seems as if the subjects of Ireland had met at the altar, and communicated a national sacrament. Juries, cities, counties, commoners, nobles, volunteers, gradations, reli- gions, — a solid league, a rapid fire. 258 MODERN ELOQUENCE, Extract from Grattaris Speech on the National Grievances. — July, 1788. The apostles were meek and inspired men — they went forth in humble guise, with naked feet, and brought to every man's door, in his own tongue, the true belief; their word prevailed against the potentates of the earth; and on the ruin of the barbaric pride, and pontine luxury, they placed the naked majesty of the Christian religion. This light was soon put down by its own ministers, and on its extinction, a beastly and pompous priesthood ascended. Political potentates, not Christian pastors — full of false zeal, full of worldly pride, and full of gluttony — empty of the true religion. To their flock oppressive — to their in- ferior clergy brutal — to their king abject, and to their God impudent and familiar; they stood on the altar, as a step- ping-stool to the throne, glozing in the ear of princes, whom they poisoned with crooked principles and heated advice, and were a faction against their king when they were not his slaves ; ever the dirt under his feet, or a poniard in his heart. — Their power went down, it burst of its own plethory, when a poor reformer, with the gospel in his hand, and in the inspired spirit of poverty, restored the Christian religion. — The same principle which intro- duced Christianity, guided reformation. The priesthood of Europe is not now what it once was ; their religion has increased, as their power has diminished. In these coun- tries, particularly for the most part, they are a mild order of men, with less dominion, and more piety, therefore their character may be described in a few words: — mo- rality, enlightened by letters, and exalted by religion. — Parliament is not a bigot — you are no sectary, no po- lemic; — it is your duty to unite all men, to manifest brotherly love and confidence to all men. The parental sentiment is the true principle of government. Men are ever finally disposed to be governed by the instrument of their happiness; — the mystery of government, would you learn it? — look on the gospel, and make the source of your redemption the rule of your authority; and, like the hen in the Scripture, expand your wings, and take in all your people. Let bigotry and schism, the zealot's fire, and the high- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 259 priest's intolerance, through all their discordancy tremble, while an enlightened parliament, with arms of general protection, overarches the whole community, and roots the Protestant ascendancy in the sovereign mercy of its nature. Laws of coercion, perhaps necessary, certainly severe, you have put forth already, but your great engine of power, you have hitherto kept back; that engine which the pride of the bigot, nor the spite of the zealot, nor the ambition of the high, nor the arsenal of the conqueror, nor the inquisition, with its jaded rack and pale criminal, never thought of: — the engine which, armed with physical and moral blessings, comes forth, and overlays mankind with services,— the engine of redress:- — this is government, and this the only description of government worth your am- bition. Were I to raise you to a great act, I should not recur to the history of other nations ; I would recite your own acts, and set you in emulation with yourselves. Do you remember that night, when you gave your country a free trade, and with your hands opened all her harbors? — That night when you gave her a free constitution, and broke the chains of a century — while England stood eclipsed by your glory, and your Island rose, as it were, from its bed, and got nearer to the sun? In the arts that polish life — the inventions that accommodate, the manu- factures that adorn it — you will be for many years inferior to some other parts of Europe ; but to nurse a growing people — to mature a struggling, tho hardy community, to mould, to multiply, to consolidate, to inspire, and to exalt a young nation; be these your barbarous accomplishments! Extract from Burkes Speech on the Debts of the Nabob ofArcot. — February 28, 1785. Among the victims to this magnificent plan of universal plunder, worthy of the heroic avarice of the projectors, you have all heard (and he has made himself to be well remembered) of an Indian chief called Hyder Aii Khan. This man possessed the western, as the company under the name of the nabob of Arcot does the eastern, division of the Carnatic. It was among the leading measures in the design of this cabal (according to their own emphatic 260 MODERN ELOQUENCE. language), to extirpate this Hyder Ali. They declared the nabob of Arcot to be his sovereign, and himself to be a rebel, and publicly invested their instrument with the sovereignty of the kingdom of Mysore. But their victim was not of the passive kind. They were soon obliged to conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance with this re- bel, at the gates of Madras. Both before and since this treaty, every principle of policy pointed out this power as a natural alliance ; and on his part, it was courted by every sort of amicable office. But the cabinet council of Eng- lish creditors would not suffer their nabob of Arcot to sign the treaty, nor even to give to a prince, at least his equal, the ordinary titles of respect and courtesy. From that time forward, a continued plot was earned on within the divan, black and white, of the nabob of Arcot, for the destruction of Hyder Ali. As to the outward members of the double, or rather treble government of Madras, which had signed the treaty, they were always prevented by some over-ruling influence (which they do not describe, but which cannot be misunderstood) from performing what justice and interest combined so evidently to enforce. — When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty, and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make a country possessed by their incorrigible and pre- destinated criminals, a memorable example to mankind. — - He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of his vengeance, and to put perpetual desola- tion as a barrier between him and those, against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, was no protection. — He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. — Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the nabob of Arcot — he drew from every quarter, whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of distress, and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the moun- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 261 tains Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon — it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents on the plains of the Carnatic. — Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. — A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, and destroyed every temple. — The miserable inhabitants flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goad- ing spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities. — But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into " The jaws of Famine. ' ' The alms of the settlement, in this dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal; — and all was done by charity, that pri- vate charity could do—but it was a people in beggary; it was a nation that stretched out its hands for food. — For months together these creatures of sufferance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days, had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition, or disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by a hundred a-day in the streets of Madras; — every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of India. — I was going to awake your justice towards this unhappy part of our fellow-citi- zens, by bringing before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger. — Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to the heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels him- self to be nothing more than he is ; but I find myself un- able to manage it with decorum; these details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting; they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearer; they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts. 262 MODERN ELOQUENCE. I find it advisable to throw a pall over this hideous ob- ject, and leave it to your general conceptions. •ywxwwww^ On Mercenary Informers* Gentlemen : — Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. In such a countiy as this, they are of all bad things the worst — worse by far than any where else ; and they de- rive a particular malignity even from the wisdom and soundness of the rest of our institutions. For very obvi- ous reasons, you cannot trust the crown with a dispensing power over any of your laws. However, a government, be it as it may, will, in the exercise of a discretionary power, discriminate times and persons; and will not or- dinarily pursue any man, when its own safety is not con- cerned. A mercenary informer knows no distinction. Under such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves, not only to the government, but they live at the mercy of every individual; they are at once the slaves of the whole community, and of every part of it; and the worst and most unmerciful men are those on whose goodness they most depend. In this situation, men not only shrink from the frowns of a stern magistrate ; but they are obliged to fly from their very species. The seeds of destruction are sown in civil intercourse, in social habitudes. The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. Their tables and beds are surrounded with snares. All the means given by Pro- vidence to make life safe and comfortable, are perverted into instruments of terror and torment. This species of universal subserviency, that makes the very servant who waits behind your chair, the arbiter of your life and for- tune, has such a tendency to degrade and debase mankind, and to deprive them of that assured and liberal state of mind, which alone can make us what we ought to be, that I vow to God I would sooner bring myself to put a man to immediate death for opinions I disliked, and so to get rid of the man and his opinions at once, than to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with the jail-distemper of a contagious servitude to keep him above ground, an ani- mated mass of putrefaction, corrupted himself, and cor- rupting all about him. Burke. MODERN ELOQUENCE. 263 Quarrel between Flood and Grattan. In a debate in the Irish Parliament, October 28, 1783, on a resolution for declaring that the condition of the kingdom required every practicable retrenchment consist- ent with the honor and safety of the state, Mr. Grattan made some strong personal allusions to Mr. Flood, who supported the resolution, accusing him particularly of hav- ing affected an indisposition, and being guilty of apostacy ; Mr. Flood rose, and replied in these words: " The right honorable member can have no doubt of the propriety of my saying a word in reply to what he has delivered. Every member of the house can bear witness of the infirmity I mentioned, and therefore it required but little candor, to make a nocturnal attack upon that in- firmity. But I am not afraid of the right honourable mem- ber; I will meet him any where, or upon any ground, by night or by day. I should stand poorly in my own esti- mation and in my country's opinion, if I did not stand far above him. I do not come here dressed in a rich ward- robe of words to delude the people. I am not one who has promised repeatedly to bring in a bill of rights, yet does not bring in that bill, or permit any other person to do it. I am not one who threatened to impeach the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and afterwards shrunk from the charge. I am not one who would come at midnight, and attempt a vote of this house to stifle the people, which my egregious folly had raised against me. I am not the gentleman who subsists upon your accounts. I am not the mendicant patriot who was bought by his countiy for a sum of money, and then sold my country for prompt pay- ment (alluding to the grant of £100,000 to Mr Grattan for his public services, the half of which sum he accepted). I never was bought by the people, nor ever sold them. The gentleman says he never apostatized; but I say I never changed my principles. Let every man say the same, and let the people believe it if they can. "I have now done, and give me leave to say, if the gentleman enters often into this kind of colloquy with me, he will not have much to boast of at the end of the session." Mr Grattan. — " In respect to the house, I could wish to avoid personality, but I must request liberty to explain 264 MODERN ELOQUENCE. some circumstances alluded to by the honorable mem- ber." After making this explanation, he proceeded. " It is not the slander of the bad tongue of a bad character that can defame me. I maintain my reputation in public and in private life ; no man who has not a bad character, can say I ever deceived him; no country has called me cheat. I will suppose a public character — a man not, of course, in the house, but who formerly might have been here. I will suppose it was his constant practice to abuse every man who differed from him, and to betray every man who trusted him. I will suppose him active ; I will begin from his cradle, and divide his life into three stages. In the first, he was intemperate; in the second, corrupt; and in the third, seditious* Suppose him a great egotist; his honor equal to his oath; and I will stop him, and say, < Sir, your talents are not so great as your life is infamous ; you were silent for years, and you were silent for money; when affairs of consequence to the nation were debating, you might be seen passing by these doors like a guilty spirit just waiting for the moment of putting the question, that you might pop in and give your venal vote; or you might be seen hovering over the dome like an ill-omened bird of night, with sepulchral notes, with cadaverous as- pect, and broken beak (alluding to a personal defect of Mr Flood's), ready to stoop and pounce upon your prey. You can be trusted by no man; the people cannot trust you; the ministers cannot trust you; you deal out the most impartial treachery to both ; you tell the nation it is ruined by other men, when it is sold by yourself; you fled from the embargo; you fled from the mutiny bill; you fled from the sugar bill. I therefore tell you in the face of your country, before all the world, and to your very beard, you are not an honest ?nan.' " Mr. Flood. — " I have heard very extraordinary language indeed, and I challenge any man to say that any thing half so unwarrantable was ever uttered in this house. The right honorable gentleman set out with declaring, he did not wish to use personality; and no sooner had he opened his mouth, than forth issued all the venom that ingenuity and disappointed vanity for two years brooding over corrup- tion has been able to produce. But taint my public char- acter it cannot; four and twenty years employed in your MODERN ELOQUENCE. 265 service lias established that; and as to my private, let that be learned from my friends, and those under my own roof. To these I appeal, and this appeal I boldly make with an utter contempt of insinuations, false as they are Uliberal;" Mr. Flood was proceeding, when the Speaker rose, and called for the support of the house to keep the gentlemen in order. Mr. John Burke then moved, that the gentlemen might be made to promise that nothing farther should pass be- tween them; and this being resolved, the house was cleared. But in the mean time, both Mr. Flood and Mr. Grattan had disappeared.* Invective against Hastings. Had a stranger, at this time, gone into the province of Oude, ignorant of what had happened since the death of Sujah Dowla, that man, who, with a savage heart, had still great lines of character, and who, with all his ferocity in war, had still, with a cultivating hand, preserved to his country the riches which it derived from benignant skies and a prolific soil — if this stranger, ignorant of all that had happened in the short interval, and observing the wide and general devastation, and all the horrors of the scene — of plains unclothed and brown — of vegetables burned up and extinguished — of villages depopulated, and in ruins — of temples unroofed and perishing — of reservoirs broken down and dry, — he would naturally inquire, what war has thus laid waste the fertile fields of tins once beautiful and opulent country — what civil dissentions have happened, thus to tear asunder and separate the happy societies that once possessed those villages — what disputed succession — what religious rage has, with unholy violence, demolished those temples, and disturbed fervent, but unobtruding piety, in the exercise of its duties? — What merciless enemy has * Next morning, Mr. Flood and Mr. Grattan were brought in cus- tody before Lord Chief Justice Annaly, who bound them both over to keep the peace, in recognizances of £20,000 each. They had, attended by their respective friends, almost reached the ground appointed for a serious interview, when they were arrested by officers whom the magi- strates had despatched after them. A A 266 MODERN ELOQUENCE. thus spread the horrors of fire and sword — what severe visitation of Providence has dried up the fountain, and taken from the face of the earth every vestige of verdure ? — Or, rather, what monsters have stalked over the country, tainting and poisoning, with pestiferous breath, what the voracious appetite could not devour? To such questions, what must be the answer? No wars have ravaged these lands, and depopulated these villages — no civil discords have been felt — no disputed succession — no religious rage — no merciless enemy — no affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged for the moment, cut off the sources of resuscitation — no voracious and poisoning monsters — no, all this has been accomplished by the friendship, genero- sity, and kindness of the English nation. They have em- braced us with their protecting arms, and, lo ! those are the fruits of their alliance. What, then, shall we be told, that under such circumstances, the exasperated feelings of a whole people thus goaded and spurred on to clamor and resistance, were excited by the poor and feeble influence of the Begums! When we hear the description of the paiv oxysm, fever, and delirium, into which despair had thrown the wretched natives, when on the banks of the polluted Ganges, panting for death, they tore more widely open the lips of their gaping wounds, to accelerate their disso- lution, and while their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly eyes to Heaven, breathing their last and fervent prayer, that the dry earth might not be suffered to drink their blood, but that it might rise up to the throne of God, and rouse the eternal Providence to avenge the wrongs of their country; will it be said that this was brought about by the incantations of these Begums in their secluded Zenana? or that they could inspire this enthusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a people who felt no griev- ance, and had suffered no torture? What motive, then, could have such influence in their bosom? What motive? That which nature, the common parent, plants in the bosom of man, and which, tho it may be less active in the Indian than in the Englishman, is still congenial with, and makes part of his being — that feeling which tells him, that man was never made to be the property of man; but that when through pride and insolence of power, one human creature dares to tyrannise over another, it is a power usurped, MODERN ELOQUENCE. 267 and resistance is a duty — that feeling which tells him, that all power is delegated for the good, not for the injury of the people, and that when it is converted from the original purpose, the compact is broken, and the right is to be re- sumed — that principle which tells him, that resistance to power usurped is not merely a duty which he owes to himself, and to his neighbor, but a duty which he owes to his God, in asserting and maintaining the rank which he gave him in the creation! — to that common God, who, where he gives the form of man, whatever may be the complexion, gives also the feelings and the rights of man — that principle, which neither the rudeness of ignorance can stifle, nor the enervation of refinement extinguish! — that principle, which makes it base for a man to suffer when he ought to act, which, tending to preserve to the species the original designations of providence, spurns at the arrogant distinctions of man, and vindicates the inde- pendent quality of his race. Sheridan, Extract from Currans Speech, in Defence of Mr. Finnerty — December 22, 1797. Gentlemen, — Mr. Attorney- General has been pleased to open another battery upon this publication, which I do trust I shall silence, unless I flatter myself too much in supposing that hitherto my resistance has not been utterly unsuccessful. He abuses it for the foul and insolent fa- miliarity of its address. I do clearly understand his idea; he considers the freedom of the press to be the license of offering that paltry adulation which no man ought to stoop to utter or to hear; he supposes the freedom of the press ought to be like the freedom of a king's jester, who, in- stead of reproving the faults of which majesty ought to be ashamed, is base and cunning enough, under the mask of servile and adulatory censure, to stroke down and pamper those vices of which it is foolish enough to be vain. — -He would not have the press presume to tell the viceroy, that the prerogative of mercy is a trust for the benefit of the subject, and not a gaudy feather stuck into the diadem to shake in the wind, and, by the waving of the gorgeous plumage, to amuse the vanity of the wearer. He would 268 MODERN ELOQUENCE. not have it to say to him, that the discretion of the crown as to mercy, is like the discretion of a court of justice as to law, and that in the one case, as well as in the other, wherever the propriety of the exercise of it appears, it is equally a matter of right. He would have the press all fierceness to the people, and all sycophancy to power; he would have it consider the mad and phrenetic depopula- tions of authority like the awful and inscrutable dispensa- tions of providence, and say to the unfeeling and despotic spoiler, in the blasphemed and insulted language of religious resignation — " The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!!!" But let me condense the generality of the learned gentleman's invective, into questions that you can conceive. Does he mean, that the air of this publication is rustic and un- courtly? Does he mean, that when Marcus presumed to ascend the steps of the castle, and to address the viceroy, he did not turn out his toes as he ought to have done? But, gentlemen, you are not a jury of dancing-masters : — or does the learned gentleman mean, that the language is coarse and vulgar? If this be his complaint, my client has but a poor advocate. I do not pretend to be a mighty grammarian, or a formidable critic, but I would beg leave to suggest to you, in serious humility, that a free press can be supported only by the ardor of men who feel the prompt- ing sting of real or supposed capacity; who write from the enthusiasm of virtue, or the ambition of praise, and over whom, if you exercise the rigor of a grammatical censor- ship, you will inspire them with as mean an opinion of your integrity as of your wisdom, and inevitably drive them from their post — and if you do, rely upon it, you will re- duce the spirit of publication, and with it the press of this country, to what it for a long interval has been, the re- gister of births, and fairs, and funerals, and the general abuse of the people and their friends. But, gentlemen, in order to bring this charge of inso- lence and vulgarity to the test, let me ask you, whether you know of any language that could have adequately described the idea of mercy denied, where it ought to have been granted, or of any phrase vigorous enough to convey the indignation which an honest man would have felt upon such a subject? Let me beg of you for a moment to sup- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 269 pose that any one of you had been the writer of this very severe expostulation with the viceroy, and that you had been the witness of the whole progress of this never-to- be-forgotten catastrophe. Let me suppose, that you had known the charge upon which Mr. Orr was apprehended, — the charge of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and disgraced his country, of pledging himself to restore the people of his country to their place in the constitution, and of binding himself never to be the betrayer of his fel- low-laborers in that enterprise ; that you had seen him, on that charge, removed from his industry, and confined in a jail; that, through the slow and lingering progress of twelve tedious months, you had seen him confined in a dungeon, shut out from the common use of air and of his own limbs; that, day after day, you had marked the unhappy captive cheered by no sound, but the cries of his family, or the clinking of chains ; that you had seen him at last brought to his trial; that you had seen the vile and perjured in- former deposing against his life; that you had seen the drunken, and worn out, and terrified jury, give in a ver- dict of death; that you had seen the same jury, when their returning sSbriety had brought back their consciences, prostrate themselves before the humanity of the bench, and pray that the mercy of the crown might save their characters from the reproach of an involuntary crime; their consciences from the torture of eternal self-condem- nation; and their souls from the indelible stain of innocent blood. Let me suppose, that you had seen the respite given, and that contrite and honest recommendation trans- mitted to that seat where mercy was presumed to dwell; that new and before unheard of crimes are discovered against the informer; that the royal mercy seems to relent, and that a new respite is sent to the prisoner; that time is taken, as the learned counsel for the crown has expressed it, to see whether mercy could be extended or not ! that, after that period of lingering deliberation passed, a third respite is transmitted ; that the unhappy captive himself feels the cheering hope of being restored to a family that he had adored, to a character that he had never stained, and to a country that he had ever loved ; that you had seen his wife and children upon their knees, giving those tears to gratitude, which their locked and frozen hearts could 270 MODERN ELOQUENCE. not give to anguish and despair, and imploring the bless- ings of eternal providence upon his head, who had graci- ously spared the father, and restored him to his children; that you had seen the olive branch sent into his little ark, but no sign that the waters had subsided. "Alas! nor wife, nor children, more shall he behold, nor friends, nor sacred home !" No seraph mercy unbars his dungeon, and leads him forth to light and life ; but the minister of death hurries him to the scene of suffering and of shame ; where, unmoved by the hostile array of artillery and armed men collected together, to secure, or' to insult, or to disturb him, he dies with a solemn declaration of his innocence, and utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty of his country. Let me now ask you, if any of you had ad- dressed the public ear upon so foul and monstrous a sub- ject, in what language would you have conveyed the feel- ings of horror and indignation? — would you have stooped to the meanness of qualified complaint? — would you have been mean enough? — but I entreat your forgiveness — I do not think meanly of you; had I thought so meanly of you, I could not suffer my mind to commune with you as it has done; had I thought you that base and vile instru- ment, attuned by hope and by fear into discord and false- hood, from whose vulgar string, no groan of suffering could vibrate, no voice of integrity or honor could speak, let me honestly tell you, I should have scorned to fling my hand across it; I should have left it to a fitter minstrel: if I do not therefore grossly en- in my opinion of you, I could use no language on such a subject as this, that must not lag behind the rapidity of your feelings, and that would not disgrace those feelings, if it attempted to describe them. Gentlemen, I am not unconscious that the learned coun- sel for the crown seemed to address you with a confidence of a very different kind; he seemed to expect from you a kind lind respectful sympathy with the feelings of the castle, and with the griefs of chided authority. Perhaps, gentlemen, he may know you better than I do; if he does, he has spoken as he ought; he has been right in telling you, that if the reprobation of this writer is weak, it is because his genius could not make it stronger; he has been right in telling you, that his language has not been braided and festooned as elegantly as it might, that he has not MODERN ELOQUENCE. 271 pinched the miserable plaits of his phraseology, nor placed his patches and feathers with that correctness of millinery which became so exalted a person. If you agree with him, gentlemen of the jury, if you think that the man, who ventures, at the hazard of his own life, to rescue from the deep the drowning honor of his country, must not presume on the guilty familiarity of plucking it up by the locks, I have no more to say; do a courteous thing. Up- right and honest jurors, find a civil and obliging verdict against the printer! And when you have done so, march through the ranks of your fellow-citizens to your own homes, and bear their looks as you pass along; retire to the bosom of your families and your children, and when you are presiding over the morality of the parental board, tell those infants who are to be the future men of Ireland, the history of this day. Form their young minds by your precepts, and confirm those precepts by your own exam* pie ; teach them how discreetly allegiance may be perjured on the table, or loyalty be forsworn in the jury-box; and when you have done so, tell them the story of Orr; tell them of his captivity, of his children, of his crime, of his hopes, of his disappointments, of his courage, and of his death ; and when you find your little hearers hanging on your lips, — when you see their little eyes overflow with the tears of sympathy and sorrow, and their young hearts bursting with the pangs of anticipated orphanage, tell them that you had the boldness and the justice to stigmatise the monster who had dared to publish the transaction! I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, it is not with respect to Mr. Orr alone that your verdict is now sought; you are called upon on your oaths to say, that the government is wise and merciful, that the people are prosperous and happy, that military law ought to be continued, that the British constitution could not with safety be restored to this country, and that the statements of a contrary import, by your advocates in either country, were libellous and false. I tell you these are the questions; and I ask you, can you have the front to give the expected answer, in the face of a community who know the country as well as you do? Let me ask you, how could you reconcile with such a verdict ; the jails, the tenders, the gibbets, the confla- grations, the murders, the proclamations, that we hear of 2/2 MODERN ELOQUENCE. every day in the streets, and see every day in the country? What are the processions of the learned counsel himself circuit after circuit? Merciful God! what is the state of Ireland, and where shall you find the wretched inhabitant of this land! You may find him perhaps in jail, the only place of security, — I had almost said, of ordinary habita- tion: you may see him flying by the conflagration of his own dwelling; or you may find his bones bleaching on the green fields of his countiy; or he may be found tossing upon the surface of the ocean, and mingling his groans with those tempests, less savage than his persecutors, that drift him to a returnless distance from his family and his home. And yet with these facts ringing in the ears, and staring in the face of the prosecutors, you are called upon to say, on your oaths, that these facts do not exist. You are called upon, in defiance of shame, of truth, of honor, to deny the sufferings under which you groan, and to flatter the persecution that tramples you under foot. Gentlemen, before we part, let me once more remind you of your awful situation. — The law upon this subject gives you supreme dominion. Hope not for much assist- ance from his lordship. On such occasions, perhaps the duty of the court is, to be cold and neutral. I cannot but admire the dignity he has supported during this trial; I am grateful for his patience. But let me tell you, it is not his province to fan the sacred flame of patriotism in the jury-box; as he has borne with the little extravagan- cies of the law, do you bear with the little failings of the press. Let me therefore remind you, that, tho the day may soon come when our ashes shall be scattered before the winds of heaven, the memory of what you do cannot die; it will carry down to your posterity, your honor or your shame. In the presence and in the name of that ever-living God, I do therefore conjure you to reflect, that you have your characters, your consciences, — that you have also the character, perhaps the ultimate destiny of your country in your hands. In that awful name, I do conjure you to have mercy on your country and your- selves, and so judge now, as you shall hereafter be judged; and I do now submit the fate of my client, and of that country which we have yet in common, to your disposal. MODERN ELOQUENCE. 273 Description of an Informer. — Extract from Currans Speech in Defence of Mr. Finnerty. — Dec. 22, 1797. The learned gentleman is farther pleased to say, that the traverser has charged the government with the en- couragement of informers. This, Gentlemen, is another small fact, that you are to deny at the hazard of your souls and on the solemnity of your oaths. You are, upon your oaths, to say to the sister kingdom, that the govern- ment of Ireland uses no such abominable instruments of destruction as informers. Let me ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my hearing, when in the face of this audience, you are called upon to give a verdict that every man of us, and every man of you know by the testimony of his own eyes, to be utterly and absolutely false? I speak not now of the public proclamation of informers, with a promise of secrecy and of extravagant reward; I speak not of the fate of those horrid wretches who have been so often transferred from the table to the dock, and from the dock to the pillory; — I speak of what your own eyes have seen day after day during the course of this commission, from the box where you are now sitting; the number of horrid miscreants, who avowed, upon their oaths, that they had come from the very seat of government — from the castle, where they had been worked upon by the fears of death, and the hopes of compensation, to give evidence against their fellows, that the mild and wholesome coun- cils of this government, are holden over these catacombs of living death, where the wretch that is buried a man, lies till his heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then dug up a witness. Is this fancy, or is it fact? Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb — after having been dug out of the region of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? How his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused, and mark it for the grave, 274 MODERN ELOQUENCE. while his voice warned the devoted wretch of wo and death; a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent : — there was an antidote — a juror s oath — but even that adamantine chain, that bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informers mouth; conscience swings from her moor- ings, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim! Liberty of the Press. — Curran in Defence of Hamilton Rowan Jan. 29, 1794. Gentlemen, — Permit me to say, that if my client had occasion to defend his cause by any mad or drunken ap- peals to extravagance or licentiousnesss, I trust in God I stand in that situation, that, humble as I am, he would not have resorted to me to be his advocate. I was not recommended to his choice by any connection of principle or party, or even private friendship; and saying this, I cannot but add, that I consider not to be acquainted with such a man as Mr. Rowan, a want of personal good fortune. But upon this great subject of reform and emancipation, there is a latitude and boldness of remark, justifiable in the people, and necessary to the defence of Mr. Rowan, for which the habits of professional studies, and technical adherence to established forms, have ren- dered me unfit. It is, however, my duty, standing here as his advocate, to make some few observations to you, which I conceive to be material. Gentlemen, the interest of the sovereign must be for ever the interest of his people ; because his interest lives beyond his life ; it must live in his fame ; it must live in the tenderness of his solicitude for an unborn posterity; it must live in that heart-attaching bond by which millions of men have united the destinies of themselves and their children with his, and call him by the endearing appella- tion Of KING AND FATHER OF HIS PEOPLE. The people are always strong; the public chains can only be rivetted by the public hands. Look to those devoted regions of southern despotism; behold the expir- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 2/5 ing victim on his knees, presenting the javelin, reeking with his blood, to the ferocious monster, who returns it into his heart. Call not that monster the tyrant : he is no more than the executioner of that inhuman tyranny, which the people practise upon themselves, and of which he is only reserved to be a later victim, than the wretch he has sent before him. Look to a nearer country, where the sanguinary characters are more legible; whence you almost hear the groans of death and torture. Do you ascribe the rapine and murder in France, to the few names that we are execrating here? or do you not see that it is the phrenzy of an infuriated multitude, abusing its own strength, and practising those hideous abomina- tions on itself. Against the violence of this strength, let your virtue and influence be our safeguard. — You are living in a country, where the constitution is rightly stated to be only ten years old; where the people have not the ordinary rudiments of education. It is a melancholy story, that the lower orders of people here, have less means of being enlightened than the same class in any other country. If there be no means left, by which public measures can be canvassed, what then remains? The liberty of the press wily; that sacred palladium, which no influence, no power, no minister, no government, — which nothing but the depravity, or folly, or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy — And what calamities are the people saved from by having public communication left open to them ? I will tell you, Gentlemen, what they are saved from, and what the government is saved from; I will tell you also to what both are exposed, by shutting up that communi- cation. In one case, sedition speaks aloud and walks abroad ; the demagogue goes forth ; the public eye is upon him; he frets his busy hour upon the stage; but soon, either weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or disappoint- ment, bears him down, or drives him off, and he appears no more. In the other case, how does the work of sedi- tion go forward? Night after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the dark, and casts another and another brand upon the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal maturity shall arrive, he will apply the flame. If you doubt of tjie horrid consequences of suppressing the effu- sion even of individual discontent, look to those enslaved 276 MODERN ELOQUENCE. countries, where the protection of despotism is supposed to be secured by such restraints. Even the person of the despot there is never in safety. Neither the fear of the despot, nor the machinations of the slave have any slum- ber, the one anticipating the moment of peril, the other watching the opportunity of aggression. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise upon both; the decisive instant is precipitated without warning, by folly on the one side, or by frenzy on the other, and there is no notice of the treason till the traitor acts. In those unfortunate coun- tries (one cannot read it without horror), there are officers whose province it is, to have the water which is to be drunk by their rulers, sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched miscreant should throw poison into the draught. In that awful moment of a nation's travail ; of the last gasp of tyranny, and the first breath of freedom, how pregnant is the example! The press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the prince undone. As the advocate of society, therefore, of peace, of domestic liberty, and tln\ lasting union of the two countries, I conjure you to guard' the liberty of the press, that great sentinel of the state, that grand detector of public imposture: guard it, because, when it sinks, there sinks with it, in one common grave, the liberty of the subject, and the security of the crown. On Catholic Emancipation. This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the necessity of emancipating the Catholics of Ireland, and that is charged as part of the libel. If they had waited another year — if they had kept this prosecution impending for another year — how much would remain for a jury to decide upon, I should be at a loss to discover. It seems as if the pro- gress of public information was eating away the ground of the prosecution. Since the commencement of the prose- cution, this part of the libel has unluckily received the sanction of the legislature. In that interval, our Catholic brethren have obtained that admission, which it seems it was a libel to propose. In what way to account for this, I am really at a loss. Have any alarms been occasioned by the emancipation of our Catholic brethren? Has the MODERN ELOQUENCE. 277 bigotted malignity of any individuals been crushed? or has the stability of the government, or that of the country been weakened? or is one million of subjects stronger than four millions? Do you think that the benefit they have received, should be poisoned by the sting of vengeance? If you think so, you must say to them, " you have de- manded emancipation, and you have got it; but we abhor your persons, we are outraged at your success, and we will stigmatise, by a criminal prosecution, the adviser of that relief which you have obtained from the voice of your country." I ask you, do you think, as honest men, anxious for the public tranquillity, conscious that there are wounds not yet completely cicatrised, that you ought to speak this language at this time, to men who are too much disposed to think, that in this very emancipation, they haye been saved from their own parliament, by the hu- manity of their sovereign? Or do you wish to prepare tl^pa for the revocation of these improvident concessions? Vip you think it wise or humane, at this moment, to insult them, by sticking up in a pillory the man who dared to stand forth as their advocate? I put it to your oaths; do you think, that a blessing of that kind — that a victoiy obtained by justice over bigotry and oppression — should have a stigma cast upon it, by an ignominious sentence upon men bold and honest enough to propose that mea- sure? — to propose the redeeming of religion from the abuses of the church, the reclaiming of three millions of men from bondage, and giving liberty to all who had a right to demand it; giving, I say, in the so much cen- sured words of this paper, giving " Universal Emancipa- tion!" I speak in the spirit of the British law, which makes liberty commensurate with, and inseparable from, British soil; which proclaims even to the stranger and sojourner, the moment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the ground on which he treads is holy, and conse- crated by the genius of Universal Emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pro- nounced; — no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom, an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon Mm ; — no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty may have been cloven down; — no matter with what so- lemnities he may have been devoted upon the altar of 2/8 MODERN ELOQUENCE. slavery; the first moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust; his soul walks abroad in her own majesty; his body swells beyond the measure of his chains, that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disen- thralled, by the irresistible genius of Universal Emanci- pation. Curran, Tribute to Scotland, fyc — Currans Speech in Defence of Hamilton Rowan Jan. 29, 1794. Gentlemen, — I am glad that this question has not been brought forward earlier; I rejoice for the sake of the court, of the jury, and of the public repose, that this ques- tion has not been brought forward till now. In Great Britain, analagous circumstances have taken place. At the commencement of that unfortunate war, which has deluged all Europe with blood, the spirit of the English people was tremblingly alive to the terror of French prin- ciples ; at that moment of general paroxysm, to accuse was to convict. The danger loomed larger to the public eye, from the misty region through which it was surveyed. We measure inaccessible heights by the shadows which they project, where the lowness and the distance of the light form the length of the shade. There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous credulity, which disdains assenting to obvious truths, and delights in catching at the improbability of circumstances, as its best ground of faith. To what other cause, Gentlemen, can you ascribe, that in the wise, the reflecting, and the philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has been gravely found guilty of a libel, for publishing those resolu- tions to which the present minister of that kingdom had actually subscribed his name? To what other cause can you ascribe, what in my mind is still more astonishing, in such a country as Scotland — a nation cast in the happy medium between the spiritless acquiescence of submissive poverty, and the sturdy credulity of pampered wealth; cool and ardent; adventurous and persevering; winging her eagle flight against the blaze of every science, with an eye that never winks, and a wing that never tires; crowned as she is with the spoils of every art, and decked MODERN ELOQUENCE. 279 with the wreath of every muse, from the deep and scruti- nizing researches of her Hume, to the sweet and simple, but not less pathetic and sublime morality of her Burns — how, from the bosom of a country like that, genius, and character, and talents, should be banished to a distant barbarous soil*; condemned to pine under the horrid communion of vulgar vice and baseborn profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary calculation gives to the continuance of human life? But I will not press an idea that is painful to me, and I am sure must be painful to you: I will only suggest one or two circumstances that you ought to consider, in order to found your verdict. You should consider the charac- ter of the person accused; and in this your task is easy. I will venture to say, there is not a man in this nation more known than the gentleman who is the subject of this prosecution, not only by the part he has taken in public concerns, and which he has taken in common with many, but still more so, by that extraordinary sympathy for hu- man affliction, which, I am sorry to think, he shares with so small a number. There is not a day that you hear the cries of your starving manufacturers in your streets, that you do not also see the advocate of their sufferings — that you do not see his honest and manly figure, with uncovered head, soliciting for their relief ; searching the frozen heart of charity for every string that can be touched by com- passion, and urging the force of every argument and every motive, save that which his modesty suppresses — the authority of his own generous example. Or if you see him not there, you may trace his steps to the private abode of disease, and famine, and despair; the messenger of heaven, bearing with him food, and medicine, and conso- lation. Are these the materials of which you suppose anarchy and public rapine to be formed? Is this the man, on whom to fasten the abominable charge of goading on a frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed? Is this the man likely to apostatise from every principle that can bind him to the state; his birth, his property, his education, his character, and his children? Let me tell you, Gentle- * Mr. Curran alludes to the sentence of transportation passed in Scot- land on Messrs. Muir, Palmer, &c. 280 MODERN ELOQUENCE. men of the Jury, if you agree with his prosecutors, in thinking that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, on such an occasion, and upon the credit of such evidence you are to convict him, — never did you, never can you give a sentence consigning any man to public punishment with less danger to his person or to his fame: for where could the hireling be found to fling contumely or ingrati- tude at his head, whose private distresses he had not endeavored to alleviate, or whose public condition he had not labored to improve? Should your sentence, therefore, send him forth to that stage, which guilt alone can render infamous, let me tell you, he will not be like a little statue upon a mighty pedestal, diminishing by elevation; but he will stand a striking and imposing object upon a monument, which, if it does not (and it cannot) record the atrocity of his crime, must record the atrocity of his conviction* Upon this subject, therefore, credit me when I say, that I am still more anxious for you, than I can possibly be for him, I cannot but feel the peculiarity of your situation. Not the jury of his own choice, which the law of England allows, but which ours refuses; collected in that box by a person, certainly no friend to Mr, Rowan, certainly not very deeply interested in giving him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I am persuaded you do, you cannot be surprised, however much you may be distressed, at the mournful presage, with which an anxious public is le.d to fear the worst from your possible determination. But I will not, for the justice and honor of our common country, suffer my mind to be borne away by such melancholy anticipation. I will not relinquish the confidence, that this day will be the period of his sufferings ; and, however mercilessly he has been hitherto pursued, that your verdict will send him home to the arms of his family, and the wishes of his country. But if, which heaven forbid, it hath still been unfortunately determined, that because he has not bent to power and authority — because he would not bow down before the golden calf and worship it, he is to be bound, and cast into the furnace; I do trust in God, that there is a redeeming spirit in the constitution, which will be seen to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration. MODERN ELOQUENCE. 281 Extract from Mr, {note Lord) Er shines Speech, in favor of Hardy > in 1794. Gentlemen, — If precedents in bad times are to be followed, why should the Lords and Commons have in- vestigated these charges, and the crown have put them into this course of judicial trial? since, without such a trial, and even after an acquittal upon one, they might have attainted all the prisoners by act of parliament; they did so in the case of Lord Strafford. There are prece- dents, therefore, for all such things; but such precedents as could not for a moment survive the times of madness and distraction which gave them birth; but which, as soon as the spurs of the occasion were blunted, were re- pealed and execrated even by parliaments, which, little as I think of the present, ought not to be compared with it : — parliaments, sitting in the darkness of former times — in the night of freedom — before the principles of govern- ment were developed, and before the constitution became fixed. The last of these precedents, and all the proceed- ings upon it; were ordered to be taken off the file and burned, to the intent that the same might no longer be visible in after ages; an order dictated, no doubt, by a pious tenderness for national honor, and meant as a chari- table covering for the crimes of our fathers. — But it was a sin against posterity; it was a treason against society; — for, instead of commanding them to be burned, they should rather have directed them to be blazoned in large letters, upon the walls of our courts of justice, that, like the characters decyphered by the prophet of God, to the east- ern tyrant, they might enlarge and blacken in your sights, to terrify you from acts of injustice. In times, when the whole habitable earth is in a state of change and fluctuation, when deserts are starting up into civilized empires around you, and when men, no longer slaves to the prejudices of particular countries, much less to the abuses of particular governments, enlist them- selves, like the citizens of an enlightened world, into whatever communities their civil liberties may be best protected; it never can be for the advantage of this coun- try, to prove, that the strict, unextended letter of her laws, is no security to her inhabitants. On the contrary, 282 MODERN ELOQUENCE. when so dangerous a hire is every where holding out to emigration, it will be found to be the wisest policy of Great Britain to set up her happy constitution — -the strict letter of her guardian laws, and the proud condition of equal freedom, which her highest and her lowest subjects ought alike to enjoy; — it will be her wisest policy to set up these first of human blessings, against those charms of change and novelty, which the varying condition of the world is hourly displaying, and which may deeply affect the population and prosperity of our country. In times, when the subordination to authority is said to be every- where but too little felt, it will be found to be the wisest policy of Great Britain, to instil into the governed, an almost superstitious reverence for the strict security of the laws; which, from their equality of principle, beget no jealousies or discontent; — which, from their equal admin- istration, can seldom work injustice ; and which, from the reverence growing out of their mildness and antiquity, acquire a stability in the habits and affections of men, far beyond the force of civil obligations: whereas, severe penalties, and arbitrary constructions of laws intended for security, lay the foundations of alienation from every human government, and have been the cause of all the calamities that have come, and are coming upon the earth. Gentlemen, what we read of in books, makes but a faint impression upon us, compared to what we see pass- ing under our eyes in the living world. I remember the people of another country, in like manner, contending for a renovation of their constitution, sometimes illegally and turbulently, but still devoted to an honest end; — I myself saw the people of Brabant so contending for the ancient constitution of the good Duke of Burgundy. How was this people dealt by? All, who were only contending for their own rights and privileges, were supposed to be, of course, disaffected to the Emperor: — they were handed over to courts constituted for the emergency, as this is; and the Emperor marched his army through the country, till all was peace ; — but such peace as there is in Vesuvius or iEtna, the very moment before they vomit forth their lava, and roll their conflagrations over the devoted habita- tions of mankind: when the French approached, the fatal effects were suddenly seen, of a government of constraint MODERN ELOQUENCE. 283 and terror; — the well-affected were dispirited, and the disaffected inflamed into fury. At that moment, the Archdutchess fled from Brussels, and the Duke of Saxe- Teschen was sent express, to offer the joyeuse entree so long petitioned for in vain : but the season of concession was past; the storm blew from every quarter, and the throne of Brabant departed for ever from the house of Burgundy, Gentlemen, I venture to affirm that, with other coun- cils, this fatal prelude to the last revolution in that country, might have been averted. If the Emperor had been ad- vised to make the concessions of justice and affection to his people, they would have risen in a mass to maintain their prince's authority, interwoven with their own liber- ties; and the French, the giants of modern times, would, like the giants of antiquity, have been trampled in the mire of their own ambition. To conclude, my fervent wish is, that we may not conjure up a spirit to destroy ourselves, nor set the example here of what, in another country, we deplore. Let us cherish the old and venerable laws of our forefathers — let our judicial administration be strict and pure ; and let the jury of the land preserve the life of a fellow-subject, who only asks it from them upon the same terms under which they hold their own lives, and all that is dear to them and their posterity for ever. — Let me repeat the wish, with which I began my address to you, and which proceeds from the very bottom of my heart ; — may it please God, who is the author of all mer- cies to mankind, whose providence, I am persuaded, guides and superintends the transactions of the world, and whose guardian spirit has for ever hovered over this prosperous island, to direct and fortify your judgments. I am aware I have not acquitted myself to the unfortunate man who has put his trust in me, in the manner I could have wished; yet I am unable to proceed any farther; exhausted in spirit and in strength, but confident in the expectation of justice. Extract from Lord Erskines Speech^ on the Trial af John Stockdale, for a Libel on the House of Commons, Dec. 9, 1789 Part First. Gentlemen, — Ere I venture to lay the book before you, it must be yet further remembered (for the fact is 284 MODERN ELOQUENCE. equally notorious), that under these inauspicious circum- stances, the trial of Mr. Hastings at the bar of the Lords had actually commenced long before its publication. There the most august and striking spectacle was daily exhibited, which the world ever witnessed; a vast stage of justice was erected, awful from its high authority, splendid from its illustrious dignity, venerable for the learning and wisdom of its judges, captivating and affect- ing from the mighty concourse of all ranks and conditions which daily flocked into it, as into a theatre of pleasure; there when the whole public mind, was at once awed and softened to the impression of every human affection, there appeared, day after day, one after another, men of the most powerful and exalted talents, eclipsing by their ac- cusing eloquence the most boasted harangues of antiquity ; — rousing the pride of national resentment by the boldest invectives against broken faith and violated treaties, and shaking the bosom with alternate pity and horror, by the most glowing pictures of insulted nature and humanity; — ever animated and energetic, from the love of fame, which is the inherent passion of genius ; — firm, and indefatigable, from a strong prepossession of the justice of their cause. — Gentlemen, when the author sat down to write the book now before you, all this terrible, unceasing, exhaustless artillery of warm zeal, matchless vigor of understanding, consuming and devouring eloquence, united with the highest dignity, was daily, and without prospect of con- clusion, pouring forth upon one private unprotected man, who was bound to hear it, in the face of the whole people of England, with reverential submission and silence. — I do not complain of this as I did of the publication of the charges, because it was what the law allowed and sanc- tioned in the course of a public trial: but when it is re- membered that we are not angels, but weak fallible men, and that even the noble judges of that high tribunal are clothed beneath their ermines with the common infirmities of man s nature, it will bring us all to a proper temper for considering the book itself, which will in a few moments be laid before you. But first, let me once more remind you, that it was under all these circumstances, and amidst the blaze of passion and prejudice, which the scene I have been endeavoring faintly to describe to you, might be MODERN ELOQUENCE. 285 supposed likely to produce, that the author sat down to compose the book which is prosecuted to-day as a libel. Gentlemen, the question you have therefore to try upon all this matter is extremely simple. — It is neither more nor less than this — At a time when the charges against Mr. Hastings were, by the implied consent of the Commons, in every hand, and on every table; — when by their man- agers, the lightning of eloquence was incessantly consuming him, and flashing in the eyes of the public; — when every man was, with perfect impunity, saying, and writing, and publishing, just what he pleased of the supposed plunderer and devastator of nations; would it have been criminal in Mr. Hastings himself to have reminded the public that he was a native of this free land, entitled to the common protection of her justice, and that he had a defence in his turn to offer to them, the outlines of which he implored them in the meantime to receive, as an antidote to the unlimited and unpunished poison in circulation against Mm? — This is, without color or exaggeration, the true question you are to decide. Because I assert, without the hazard of contradiction, that if Mr. Hastings himself could have stood justified or excused in your eyes for pub- lishing this volume in his own defence, the author, if he wrote it bona fide to defend him, must stand equally ex- cused and justified; and if the author be justified, the publisher cannot be criminal, unless you had evidence that it was published by him, with a different spirit and inten- tion from these in which it was written. The question therefore is correctly what I just now stated it to be: Could Mr. Hastings have been condemned to infamy for writing this book? Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation, to be driven to put such a question in England. Shall it be endured, that a subject of this country (instead of being arraigned and tried for some single act in her ordinary courts, where the accusation, as soon at least as it is made public, is followed within a few hours by the decision) may be impeached by the Commons for the transactions of twenty years, — that the accusation shall spread as wide as the region of let- ters, — that the accused shall stand, day after day, and year after year, as a spectacle before the public, which shall be kept in a perpetual state of inflammation against 286 MODERN ELOQUENCE. him; yet that he shall not, without the severest penalties, be permitted to submit any thing to the judgment of man- kind in his defence ? If this be law (which it is for you to-day to decide), such a man has no trial; that great hall, built by our fathers for English justice, is no longer a court, but an altar; — and an Englishman, instead of be- ing judged in it by God and his country, is a victim and a sacrifice. From the same Speech. — Part Second. Gentlemen of the Jury,— If this be a wilfully false account of the instructions given to Mr. Hastings for his government, and of his conduct under them, the author and publisher of this defence deserve the severest punish- ment, for a mercenary imposition on the public. — But if it be true that he was directed to make the safety and pro- sperity of Bengal the first object of his attention, and that, under his administration, it has been safe and prosperous; — if it be true that the security and preservation of our possessions and revenues in Asia were marked out to him as the great leading principle of his government, and that those possessions and revenues, amidst unexampled dan- gers, have been secured and preserved; then a question may be unaccountably mixed with your consideration, much beyond the consequence of the present prosecution, involving, perhaps, the merit of the Impeachment itself Avhich gave it birth; — a question which the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr. Hastings, should in common prudence have avoided; unless, regretting the unwieldy length of their proceedings against him, they wished to afford him the opportunity of this strange anomalous defence. — For altho I am neither his counsel, nor desire to have any thing to do with his guilt or innocence; yet, in the colla- teral defence of my client, I am driven to state matter which may be considered by many as hostile to the Im- peachment. For if our dependencies have been secured, and their interests promoted, I am driven, in the defence of my client, to remark, that it is mad and preposterous to bring to the standard of justice and humanity, the exercise of a dominion founded upon violence and terror. It may, and must be true, that Mr. Hastings has repeatedly of- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 28/ fended against the rights and privileges of Asiatic govern- ment, if he was the faithful deputy of a power which could not maintain itself for an hour without trampling upon both: — he may and must have offended against the laws of God and nature, if he was the faithful viceroy of an empire wrested in blood from the people to whom God and nature had given it: — he may and must have pre- served that unjust dominion over timorous and abject na- tions by a terrifying, overbearing, insulting superiority, if he was the faithful administrator of your government, which, having no root in consent or affection — no founda- tion in similarity of interests, — nor support from any one principle which cements men together in society, could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. The unhappy people of India, feeble and effeminate as they are from the softness of their climate, and subdued and broken as they have been by the knavery and strength of civilization, still occasionally start up in all the vigor and intelligence of insulted nature : — to be governed at all, they must be governed with a rod of iron ; and our empire in the east, would, long since, have been lost to Great Bri- tain, if civil skill and military prowess had not united their efforts to support an authority — which heaven never gave, — by means which it never can sanction. Gentlemen, L think I can observe that you are touched with this way of considering the subject; and I can ac- count for it. — I have not been considering it through the cold medium of books, but have been speaking of man and his nature, and of human dominion, from what I have seen of them myself amongst reluctant nations submitting to our authority. — I know what they feel, and how such feelings can alone be repressed — I have heard them in my youth from a naked savage, in the indignant character of a prince surrounded by his subjects, addressings the governor of a British colony, holding a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes of his unlettered eloquence: " Who is it?" said the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached upon by the restless foot of English adventure — " who is it that causes this river to rise in the high mountains, and to empty itself in the ocean? Who is it that causes to blow the loud winds of winter, and that calms them again in the summer? Who is it that rears up the shade of those 288 MODERN ELOQUENCE. lofty forests, and blasts them with the quick lightning at his pleasure? — The same Being who gave to you a coun- try on the other side of the waters, and gave ours to us; and by this title we will defend it;" — said the warrior, throwing down his tomahawk upon the ground, and rais- ing the war-sound of his nation. — These are the feelings of subjugated man all round the globe; and depend upon it, nothing but fear will control where it is vain to look for affection. These reflections are the only antidotes to those ana- themas of superhuman eloquence which have lately shaken these walls that surround us ;— but which it unaccountably falls to my province, whether I will or no, a little to stem the torrent of, — by reminding you that you have a mighty sway in Asia, which cannot be maintained by the finer sympathies of life, or the practice of its charities and af- fections: What will they do for you when surrounded by two hundred thousand men, with artillery, cavalry, and elephants, calling upon you for their dominions which you have robbed them of? Justice may, no doubt, in such a case, forbid the levying of a fine to pay a revolting sol- diery: — & treaty may stand in the way of increasing a tri- bute to keep up the very existence of the government; and delicacy for women may forbid all entrance into a Zenana for money, whatever may be the necessity for taking it. — All these things must ever be occurring.- — But under the pressure of such constant difficulties, so danger- ous to national honor, it might be better perhaps to think of effectually securing it altogether, by recalling our troops and our merchants, and abandoning our oriental empire. Until this be done, neither religion nor philosophy can be pressed very far into the aid of reformation and punish- ment. If England, from a lust of ambition and dominion, will insist on maintaining a despotic rule over distant and hostile nations, beyond all comparison more numerous and extended than herself, and gives commission to her vice- roys to govern them with no other instructions than to preserve them, and to secure permanently their revenues; with what color of consistency or reason can she place herself in the moral chain, and affect to be shocked at the execution of her own orders ; adverting to the exact mea- sure of wickedness and injustice necessary to their execu- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 289 tion, and complaining only of the excess as the immorality, considering her authority as a dispensation for breaking the commands of God, and the breach of them as only punishable when contrary to the ordinances of man. Such a proceeding, Gentlemen, begets serious reflec- tions. It would be better perhaps for the masters and the servants of all such governments, to join in supplication, that the great author of violated humanity may not con- found them together in one common judgment. +rr++**r+++n From the same Speech — Part Third. Gentlemen, — I find, as I said before, I have not suf- ficient strength to go on with the remaining parts of the book. I hope, however, that notwithstanding my omis- sions, you are now completely satisfied, that whatever errors or misconceptions may have misled the writer of these pages, the justification of a person whom he believed to be innocent, and whose accusers had themselves ap- pealed to the public, was the single object of his contem- plation. If I have succeeded in that object, every purpose which I had in addressing you has been answered. It only now remains to remind you, that another con- sideration has been strongly pressed upon you, and, no doubt, will be insisted on in reply. — You will be told that the matters which I have been justifying as legal, and even meritorious, have therefore not been made the subject of complaint; and that whatever intrinsic merit parts of the book may be supposed, or even admitted to possess, such merit can afford no justification to the selected passages, some of which even with the context, carry the meaning charged by the information, and which are indecent ani- madversions on authority. To this I would answer (still protesting as I do against the application of any one of the innuendos), that if you are firmly persuaded of the single- ness and purity of the author's intentions, you are not bound to subject him to infamy, because, in the zealous career of a just and animated composition, he happens to have tripped with his pen into an intemperate expression in one or two instances of a long work. If this severe duty were binding on your consciences, the liberty of the c c 290 MODERN ELOQUENCE. press would be an empty sound, and no man could ven- ture to write on any subject, however pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow, and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the terrors of punish- ment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason, nor any masterly compositions on the general nature of government, by the help of which, the great commonwealths of mankind have founded their establishments ; much less any of those useful applications of them to critical conjunctures, by which, from time to time, our own constitution, by the exertion of patriot ci- tizens, has been brought back to its standard. — Under such terrors, all the great lights of science and civilization must be extinguished; for men cannot communicate their free thoughts to one another with a lash held over their heads. It is the nature of every thing that is great and useful, both in the animate and inanimate world, to be wild and irregular, — and we must be contented to take them with the alloys which belong to them, or live with- out them. Genius breaks from the fetters of criticism, but its wanderings are sanctioned by its majesty and wis- dom, when it advances in its path;- — subject it to the critic, and you tame it into dulness. Mighty rivers break down their banks in the winter, sweeping away to death the flocks which are fattened on the soil that they fertilize in the summer; the few may be saved by embankments from drowning, but the flock must perish for hunger. — Tem- pests occasionally shake our dwellings and dissipate our commerce; but they scourge before them the lazy ele- ments, whfch, without them; would stagnate into pesti- lence. — In like manner, Liberty herself, the last and best gift of God to his creatures, must be taken just as she is; you might pare her down into bashful regularity, and shape her into a perfect model of severe scrupulous law, but she would then be liberty no longer; and you must be content to die under the lash of this inexorable justice which you had exchanged for the banners of freedom. Extract from Lord Er shines Speech, for Captain Baillie, Nov. 24, 1778. Such, my Lords, is the case. The Defendant, — not a disappointed malicious informer, prying into official abuses, MODERN ELOQUENCE. 291 because without office himself, but himself a man in of- fice; — not troublesomely inquisitive into other men's de- partments, but conscientiously correcting his own; — doing it pursuant to the rules of law, and, what heightens the character, doing it at the risk of his office, from which the effrontery of power has already suspended him without proof of his guilt; — a conduct not only unjust and illi- beral, but highly disrespectful to this court, whose Judges sit in the double capacity of ministers of the law, and governors of this sacred and abused institution. Indeed, Lord has, in my opinion, acted such a part * * ****** (Here, Lord Mansfield observing the Counsel heated with his subject, and growing personal on the First Lord of the Admiralty, told him that Lord was not before the Court.) I know that he is not formally before the Court, but, for that very reason, I will bring him before the Court: he has placed these men in the front of the battle, in hopes to escape under their shelter, but I will not join in battle with them: their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of human depra- vity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me, I will drag him to light, who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert that the Earl of has but one road to escape out of this business with- out pollution and disgrace: and that is, by publicly dis- avowing the acts of the prosecutors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command. If he does this, then his offence will be no more than the too common one of having suffered his own 'personal interest to prevail over his public duty, in placing his voters in the hospital. But if, on the con- trary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of the evidence of their guilt, which has excited the abhor- rence of the numerous audience that crowd this court; If HE KEEPS THIS INJURED MAN SUSPENDED, OR DARES TO TURN THAT SUSPENSION INTO A REMOVAL, I SHALL THEN NOT SCRUPLE TO DECLARE HIM AN ACCOMPLICE IN THEIR GUILT, A SHAMELESS OPPRESSOR, A DISGRACE TO HIS RANK, AND A TRAITOR TO HIS TRUST. But as I should be very sorry that the fortune of my brave and honorable friend should depend either upon the exercise of Lord 's virtues, or the influence of his fears, I do most earnestly entreat the court to mark the 292 MODERN ELOQUENCE. malignant object of this prosecution, and to defeat it: — I beseech you, my Lords, to consider, that even by dis- charging the rule, and with costs, the defendent is neither protected nor restored. I trust, therefore, your Lordships will not rest satisfied with fulfilling your judicial duty, but as the strongest evidence of foul abuses has, by acci- dent, come collaterally before you, that you will protect a brave and public spirited officer from the persecution this wiiting has brought upon him, and not suffer so dread- ful an example to go abroad into the world, as the ruin of an upright man, for having faithfully discharged his duty. My Lords, this matter is of the last importance. I speak not as an advocate alone — I speak to you as a man — as a member of a state, whose very existence depends upon her naval strength. If a misgovernment were to fall upon Chelsea Hospital, to the ruin and discouragement of our army, it would be, no doubt, to be lamented, yet I should not think it fatal; but if our fleets are to be crip- pled by the baneful influence of elections, tve are lost in* deed! If the seaman, who, while he exposes his body to fatigue and dangers, looking forward to Greenwich as an asylum for infirmity and old age, sees the gates of it blocked up by corruption, and hears the riot and mirth of luxurious landmen drowning the groans and complaints of the wound- ed, helpless companion of his glory, — he will tempt the seas no more. The Admiralty may press his body, in- deed, at the expense of humanity and the constitution, but they cannot press his mind — they cannot press the heroic ardor of a British sailor; and instead of a fleet to carry terror all round the globe, the Admiralty may not much longer be able to amuse us with even the peaceable, unsubstantial pageant of a review. Fine and imprisonment! — The man deserves a pa- lace, instead of a prison, who prevents the palace, built by the public bounty of his country, from being converted into a dungeon, and who sacrifices his own security to the interests of humanity and virtue. And now, my Lord, I have done; — but not without thanking your Lordship for the very indulgent attention I have received, tho in so late a stage of this business, and, notwithstanding my great incapacity and inexperience, I resign my client into your hands, and I resign him with MODERN ELOQUENCE. 293 a well-founded confidence and hope; because that torrent of corruption, which has unhappily overwhelmed every other part of the constitution, is, by the blessing of Pro- vidence, stopped here by the sacred independence of the Judges. Extract from Lord Erskines Speech on the Age of Reason, 1797. This publication appears to me to be as cruel and mis- chievous in its effects, as it is manifestly illegal in its prin- ciples ; because it strikes at the best — sometimes, alas ! the only refuge and consolation amidst the distresses and afflic- tions of the world. The poor and humble, whom it affects to pity, may be stabbed to the heart by it. — They have more occasion for firm hopes beyond the grave, than the rich and prosperous, who have other comforts to render life delightful. I can conceive a distressed, but virtuous man, surrounded by his children, looking up to him for bread when he has none to give them; — sinking under the last day's labor, and unequal to the next, — yet still, supported by confidence in the hour when all tears shall be wiped from the eyes of affliction, bearing the burden laid upon him by a mysterious providence which he adores, and an- ticipating with exultation the revealed promises of his Creator, when he shall be greater than the greatest, and liappier than the happiest of mankind. What a change in such a mind might be wrought by such a merciless publication! Gentlemen, it would be useless and disgusting to enu- merate the offensive passages within the scope of the in- dictment. How any man can rationally vindicate the publication of such a book, in a country where the Chris- tian religion is the very foundation of the law of the land, I am totally at a loss to conceive, and have no ideas for the discussion of. How is a tribunal, whose whole juris- diction is founded upon the solemn belief and practice of what is here denied as falsehood, and reprobated as im- piety, to deal with such an anomalous defence? — Upon what principle is it even offered to the court, whose au- thority is contemned and mocked at? — If the religion proposed to be called in question, is not previously adopted 294 MODERN ELOQUENCE. in belief and solemnly acted upon, what authority has the court to pass any judgment at all of acquittal or condem- nation? — Why am I now, or upon any other occasion, to submit to his Lordship's authority? — Why am I now, or at any other time, to address twelve of my equals, as I am now addressing you, with reverence and submission? — Under what sanction are the witnesses to give their evi- dence, without which there can be no trial? — Under what obligations can I call upon you, the Jury representing your country, to administer justice? — Surely upon no other, than that you are sworn to administer it under the oaths you have taken. The whole judicial fabric, from the king's sovereign authority to the lowest office of magistracy, has no other foundation. The whole is built, both in form and substance, upon the same oath of every one of its ministers to do justice, as God shall help them hereafter. What God? and what hereafter? That God, undoubtedly, who has commanded kings to rule, and judges to decree justice; — who has said to witnesses, not only by the voice of nature, but in revealed command- ments — Thou shalt not bear false testimony against thy neighbor; and who has enforced obe- dience to them by the revelation of the unutterable bless- ings which shall attend their observance, and the awful punishments which shall await upon their transgressions. But it seems this is an age of reason, and the time and the person are at last arrived, that are to dissipate the errors which have overspread the past generations of ig- norance. The believers in Christianity are many, but it belongs to the few that are wise to correct their credulity. Belief is an act of reason, and superior reason may, there- fore, dictate to the weak. In contemplating the long list of sincere and devout Christians, I cannot help lamenting, that Newton had not lived to this day, to have had his shallowness filled up with this new flood of light. — -But the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak plainly and directly. Newton was a Christian! — Newton, whose mind burst forth from the fetters fastened by nature upon our finite conceptions — Newton, whose science was truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of it was philo- sophy — not those visionary and arrogant presumptions, which too often usurp its name, but philosophy resting MODERN ELOQUENCE. 295 upon the basis of mathematics, which, like figures, cannot lie — Newton, who carried the line and rule to the utmost barriers of creation, and explored the principles by which all created matter is held together, and exists. But this extraordinary man, in the mighty reach of his mind, over- looked, perhaps, the errors, which a minuter investigation of the created things of this earth might have taught him. What shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, who looked into the organic structure of all matter, even to the inani- mate substances which the foot treads upon? Such a man may be supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. Paine to look up through nature to nature's God. Yet the result of all his contemplations was the most con- firmed and devout belief in all which the other holds in contempt, as despicable and driveling superstition. — But this error might, perhaps, arise from a want of due atten- tion to the foundations of human judgment, and the struc- ture of that understanding which God has given us for the investigation of truth. — Let that question be answered by Mr. Locke, who, to the highest pitch of devotion and adoration, was a Christian — Mr. Locke, whose office was to detect the errors of thinking, by going up to the very fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper tract of reasoning, the devious mind of man, by showing him its whole process, from the first perceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratiocination: — putting a rein upon false opinion, by practical rules for the conduct of human judg- ment. But these men, it may be said, were only deep thinkers, and lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic of the world, and to the laws which practically regulate man- kind. Gentlemen, in the place where you now sit to ad- minister the justice of this great country, the never-to-be- forgotten Sir Matthew Hale presided; — whose faith in Christianity is an exalted commentary upon its truth and reason, and whose life was a glorious example of its fruits ; — whose justice, drawn from the pure fountain of the Christian dispensation, will be, in all ages, a subject of the highest reverence and admiration. But it is said by the author, that the Christian fable is but the tale of the more ancient superstitions of the world, and may be easily detected by a proper understanding of the mythologies of 296 MODERN ELOQUENCE. the Heathens. — Did Milton understand those mytholo- gies? — Was he less versed than Paine in the superstitions of the world? No, — they were the subject of his immor- tal song; and tho shut out from all recurrence to them, he poured them forth from the stores of a memory rich with all that man ever knew, and laid them in their order as the illustrations of real and exalted faith, the unques- tionable source of that fervid genius, which has cast a kind of shade upon all the other works of man- He pass'd the bounds of flaming space, Where angels tremble while they gaze- He saw, — till, blasted with excess of light, He clos'd his eyes in endless night. But it was the light of the body only that was extinguished: The celestial light shone inward, and enabled him to " justify the ways of God to man." — The result of his thinking was, nevertheless, not quite the same as the au- thor's before us. The mysterious incarnation of our blessed Saviour (which this work blasphemes in words so wholly unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the ear of a court of justice, that I dare not, and will not give them utter- ance), Milton made the grand conclusion of his Paradise Lost, the rest from his finished labors, and the ultimate hope, expectation, and glory of the world. Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or splendid, or illustrious, amongst created beings; — all the minds gifted beyond ordinary nature, if not inspired by its universal Author for the advancement and dignity of the world, tho divided by distant ages, and by clashing opinions, yet joining, as it were, in one sublime chorus, to celebrate the truths of Christianity, and laying upon its holy altars the never-fading offerings of their immortal wisdom. Against all this concurring testimony, we find suddenly, from the author of this book, that the Bible teaches no- thing but " lies, obscenity, cruelty, and injustice," — Had he ever read our Saviour's sermon on the Mount, in which the great principles of our faith and duty are summed up? — Let us all but read and practise it; and lies, obscenity, cruelty, and injustice, and all human wickedness, will be banished from the world! The people of England are a religious people, and, with the blessing of God, so far as it is in my power, I will MODERN ELOQUENCE. 297 lend my aid to keep them so. — I have no objections to the most extended and free discussion upon doctrinal points of the Christian religion; and tho the law of Eng- land does not permit it, I do not dread the reasonings of Deists, against the existence of Christianity itself, because, as was said by its divine Author, if it be of God it will stand. An intellectual book, however erroneous, addressed to the intellectual world upon so profound and complicated a subject, can never work the mischief which this indict- ment is calculated to repress. Such works will only in- cite the minds of men enlightened by study, to a deeper investigation of a subject well worthy of their deepest and continued contemplation. The powers of the mind are given for human improvement in the progress of human existence. The changes produced by such reciprocations of lights and intelligences are certain in their progressions, and make their way imperceptibly, by the final and irre- sistible power of truth. If Christianity be founded in falsehood, let us become Deists in this manner, and I am contented. — But this book has no such object, and no such capacity: — it presents no argument to the wise and en- lightened. On the contrary, it treats the faith and opinions of the wisest with the most shocking contempt, and stirs up men, without the advantages of learning, or sober think- ing, to a total disbelief of every thing hitherto held sacred; and, consequently, to a rejection of all the laws and ordi- nances of the state, which stand only upon the assumption of their truth. Gentlemen, I cannot conclude without expressing the deepest regret at all attacks upon the Christian religion, by authors who profess to promote the civil liberties of the world. For under what other auspices than Chris- tianity, have the lost and subverted liberties of mankind in former ages been re- asserted? — By what zeal, but the warm zeal of devout Christians, have English liberties been redeemed and consecrated? Under what other sanctions, even in our own days, have liberty and happi- ness been spreading to the uttermost corners of the earth? — What work of civilization, what commonwealth of great- ness, has this bold religion of nature ever established? — We see, on the contrary, the nations that have no other light than that of nature to direct them, sunk in barbarism, 298 MODERN ELOQUENCE. or slaves to arbitrary governments ; whilst, under the Chris- tian dispensation, the great career of the world has been slowly, but clearly advancing, — lighter at every step, from the encouraging prophecies of the gospel, and leading, I trust, in the end, to universal and eternal happiness. Each generation of mankind can see but a few revolving links of this mighty and mysterious chain ; but by doing our several duties in our allotted stations, we are sure that we are fulfilling the purposes of our existence. — You, I trust, will fulfil yours this day. **>i*** w *****i*+**w+f* - *+*iN>+m Mr. Pitt's Reply to Horace Walpole. Sir, — The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of those who continue ignorant in spite of age and expe- rience. Whether youth can be attributed to any man as a re- proach, I will not, Sir, assume the province of determin- ing; but surely age may justly become contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away with- out improvement, and vice appear to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch, who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and in whom age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or con- tempt, and deserves not that his grey head should secure him from insults. Much more, Sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation, who pro- stitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country* But youth, Sir, is not my only crime: I have been ac- cused of acting a theatrical part. — A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimula- tion of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opinions and language of another man. In the first sense, Sir, the charge is too trifling to be MODERN ELOQUENCE. 299 confuted, and deserves to be mentioned only that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language ; and tho I may perhaps have some am- bition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or modelled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me Avith theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment which he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dig- nity entrench themselves, nor shall any thing but age re- strain my resentment; age, which always brings with it one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious with- out punishment. But with regard, Sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat which of- fended them, is the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon pub- lic robbery. — I will exert my endeavors, at whatever haz- ard, to repel the aggressor and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder. Speech of Lord Chatham, in the House of Peers, against the American War, and against employing the Indians in it I cannot, my Lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my Lords, is a peril- ous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adula- tion: the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if pos- sible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it; and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still pre- 300 MODERN ELOQUENCE. sume to expect support in their infatuation? Can par- liament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my Lords, which have reduced this late flourish- ing empire to scorn and contempt! " But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world : now, none so poor as to do her reverence:" — The people, whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their am- bassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy — and min- isters do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or ef- fect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the British troops than I do ; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve any thing but impossi- bilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, my Lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst: but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assist- ance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot: your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent — doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resent- ment, the minds of your adversaries, to over-run them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cru- elty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my countiy, I never would lay down my arms; — Never y never, never! — But, my Lords, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to au- thorise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalp- ing-knife of the savage? — to call into civilized alliance, the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods? — to dele- gate to the merciless Indian, the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My Lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my Lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of MODERN ELOQUENCE. 301 policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; " for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, " to use all the means, which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country. My Lords, I did not intend to en- croach so much on your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation — I feel myself impelled to speak. My Lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible bar- barity! — " That God and nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and nature, that noble Lord may en- tertain, I know not; but I know, that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and human- ity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife ! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims ! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that Right Reverend, and this most Learned Bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; — upon the judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your Lord- ships, to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I in- voke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty, and establish the religion of Britain, against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than Popish cruelties, and Inquisitorial prac- tices, are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom? — your Pro- testant brethren! — to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name, by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible hounds of war I D D 302 MODERN ELOQUENCE. Spain can np longer boast pre-eminence in barbarity. Sbe armed herself with bloodhounds, to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs of war against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your Lordships, and upon every order of men in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure, the in- delible stigma of the Public Abhorrence. More particu- larly, I call upon the holy prelates of our religion, to do away this iniquity; let them perform a lustration, to pu- rify the country from this deep and deadly sin.* Extract from Sir James Macintosh's Speech in Defence of Mr. Peltier, for a Libel on Napoleon Bonaparte, on the 2lst February, 1803. Gentlemen of the Jury, — The time is now come for me to address you on behalf of the unfortunate gentle- man, who is the defendant on this record. I cannot but feel, Gentlemen, how much I stand in need of your favor- able attention and indulgence. The charge which I have to defend, is surrounded with the most invidious topics of discussion; but they are not of my seeking. The case and the topics, which are inseparable from it, are brought here by the prosecutor. Here I find them, and here it is my duty to deal with them, as the interests of Mr. Peltier seem to me to require. He, by his choice and confidence, has cast on me a very arduous duty, which I could not decline, and which I can still less betray. He has a right to expect from me a faithful, a zealous, and a fearless defence ; and this his just expectation, according to the measure of my humble abilities, shall be fulfilled. I have said a fearless defence. Perhaps that word was unneces- sary in the place where I now stand. Intrepidity in the discharge of professional duty is so common a quality at the English Bar, that it has, thank God! long ceased to * " My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more ; but my feelings and indignation were too strong, to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous principles." MODERN ELOQUENCE. 303 be a matter of boast or praise. If it had been otherwise, Gentlemen, if the Bar could have been silenced or over- awed by power, I may' presume to say, that an English Jury would not this day have been met to administer justice. Therefore I need scarcely say, that my defence shall be fearless, in a place where fear never entered any heart but that of a criminal. Gentlemen, there is one point of view in which this case seems to merit your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the civilized world ever saw: — the defendant is a defenceless proscribed exile. I consider this case, therefore, as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world, and the only free press remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the English Press is new — it is a proud and a melancholy distinction. Before the great earthquake of the French revolution had swal- lowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the conti- nent, we enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than others, but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free. Holland and Switzerland are no more; and, since the commencement of this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list of independent states, by one dash of the pen. Three or four still preserve a precarious and trem- bling existence. I will not say by what compliances they must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the feebleness of states, whose unmerited fall I do most bit- terly deplore. These governments were, in, many respects, one of the most interesting parts of the ancient system of Europe. The perfect security of such inconsiderable and feeble states, their undisturbed tranquillity, amidst the wars and conquests that surrounded them, attested, beyond any other part of the European system, the moderation, the justice, the civilization, to which Christian Europe had reached in modern times. Their weakness was protected only by the habitual reverence for justice, which, during a long series of ages, had grown up in Christendom. This was the only fortification which defended them against those mighty monarchs to whom they offered so 304 MODERN ELOQUENCE. easy a prey. And till the French revolution, this was sufficient. Consider, for instance, the Republic of Geneva : think of her defenceless position in the very jaws of France; but think also of her undisturbed security, of her profound quiet, of the brilliant success with which she applied to industry and literature, while Louis XIV. was pouring his myriads into Italy before her gates; call to mind, if ages crowded into years have not effaced them from your memory, that happy period, when we scarcely dreamed more of the subjugation of the feeblest republic in Europe, than of the conquest of her mightiest empire, and tell me if you can imagine a spectacle more beautiful to the moral eye, or a more striking proof of progress in the noblest principles of civilization. These feeble states, these monu- ments of the justice of Europe, the asylum of peace, of industry, and of literature; the organs of public reason, the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, have perished with those ancient principles, which were their sole guardians and protectors. They have been swallowed up by that fearful convulsion, which has shaken the uttermost corners of the earth. They are destroyed, and gone for ever! — One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most important con- cerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen, and I trust I may venture to say, that if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British Empire. It is an awful consideration, Gentlemen. Every other monument of European liberty has perished That ancient fabric which has been gradu- ally reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers still stands — It stands, thanks be to God! solid and entire — but it stands alone, and it stands amidst ruins ! Believing, then, as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle, that this is only the first battle between reason and power — that you have now in your hands, committed to your trust, the only remains of free discussion in Europe, now confined to this kingdom; addressing you, therefore, as the guardians of the most important interests of man- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 305 kind ; convinced that the unfettered exercise of reason de- pends more on your present verdict, than on any other that was ever delivered by a jury, — I trust I may rely with confidence on the issue — I trust that you will consider yourselves as the advanced guard of liberty — as having this day, to fight the first battle of free discussion against the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered! Gentlemen, the French revolution — I must pause, after I have uttered words which present such an overwhelming idea — but I have not now to engage in an enterprise so far beyond my force as that of examining and judging that tremendous revolution — I have only to consider the char- acter of the factions which it must have left behind it. The French revolution began with great and fatal errors. These errors produced atrocious crimes. A mild and fee- ble monarchy was succeeded by bloody anarchy^ which very shortly gave birth to military despotism. France, in a few years, described the whole circle of human society. All this was in the order of nature — when every prin- ciple of authority and civil discipline, when every principle which enables some men to command and disposes others to obey was extirpated from the mind by atrocious theo- ries, and still more atrocious examples; when every old institution was trampled down with contumely, and every new institution covered in its cradle with blood; when the principle of property itself, the sheet-anchor of society, was annihilated; when in the persons of the new pos- sessors, whom the poverty of language obliges us to call proprietors, it was contaminated in its source by robbery and murder, and it became separated from that education and those manners, from that general presumption of su- perior knowledge and more scrupulous probity which form its only liberal titles to respect ; when the people were taught to despise every thing old, and compelled to detest everything new; there remained only one principle strong enough to hold society together, a principle utterly incom- patible, indeed, with liberty, and unfriendly to civilization itself, a tyrannical and barbarous principle, but, in that miserable condition of human affairs, a refuge from still more intolerable evils — I mean the principle of military power, which gains strength from that confusion and blood- shed, in which all the other elements of society are dis- 306 MODERN ELOQUENCE. solved, and which, in these terrible extremities, is the ce- ment that preserves it from total destruction. Under such circumstances, Bonaparte usurped the su- preme power in France — I say usurped, because an illegal assumption of power is an usurpation. But usurpation, in its strongest moral sense, is scarcely applicable to a period of lawless and savage anarchy. The guilt of mili- tary usurpation, in truth, belongs to the authors of those confusions which sooner or later give birth to such an usurpation. As for the wretched populace who were made the blind and senseless instrument of so many crimes, whose frenzy can now be reviewed by a good mind with scarce any moral sentiment but that of compassion — that miserable multitude of beings, scarcely human, have already fallen into a brutish forgetfulness of the very atrocities which they themselves perpetrated. They have already forgotten all the acts of their drunken fury. If you ask one of them, who destroyed that magnificent monument of religion and art? or who perpetrated that massacre? They stupidly answer, the Jacobins! Tho he who gives the answer was probably one of these Jacobins himself; so that a traveller, ignorant of French history, might suppose the Jacobins to be the name of some Tartar horde, who, after laying waste France for ten years, were at last expelled by the native inhabitants. They have passed from senseless rage to stupid quiet. Their delirium is followed by lethargy. Some of them, indeed — the basest of the race — the Sophists, the Rhetors, the Poet-laureats of murder — who were cruel only from cowardice, and calculating selfish- ness, are perfectly willing to transfer their venal pens to any government that does not disdain their infamous sup- port. These men, republicans from servility, who pub- lished rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who reduced plunder to a system of ethics, are as ready to preach sla- very as anarchy. But the more daring — I had almost said the more respectable ruffians, cannot so easily bend their heads under the yoke. These fierce spirits have not lost " the unconquerable will, the study of revenge, im- mortal hater — They leave the luxuries of servitude to the mean and dastardly hypocrites, to the Belials and Mam- mons of the infernal faction. They pursue their old end MODERN ELOQUENCE. 307 of tyranny under their old pretext of liberty. The recol- lection of their unbounded power renders every inferior condition irksome and vapid, and their former atrocities form, if I may so speak, a sort of moral destiny which ir- resistibly impels them to the perpetration of new crimes. They have no place' left for penitence on earth; they labor under the most awful proscription of opinion that ever was pronounced against human beings. They have cut down every bridge by which they could retreat into the society of men. — Awakened from their dreams of democracy, the noise subsided that deafened their ears to the voice of hu- manity, the film fallen from their eyes which hid from them the blackness of their own deeds, haunted by the memory of their inexpiable guilt, condemned daily to look on the faces of those whom their hands made widows and orphans ; they are goaded and scourged by these real fu- ries, and hurried into the tumult of new crimes, which will drown the cries of remorse: or if they be too depraved for remorse, will silence the curses of mankind. Tyran- nical power is their only refuge from the just vengeance of their fellow creatures; murder is their only means of usurping power. They have no taste, no occupation, no pursuit, but power and blood. If their hands are tied, they must at least have the luxury of murderous projects. They have drank too deeply of human blood ever to re- linquish their cannibal appetite. I am aware, Gentlemen, that I have already abused your indulgence ; but I must entreat you to bear with me for a short time longer, to allow me to suppose a case which might have occurred, in which you will see the horrible consequences of enforcing rigorously principles of law, which I cannot contest, against political writers. We might have been at peace with France dming the whole of that terrible period which elapsed between August 1792 and 1794, which has been usually called the reign of Robe- spierre! The only series of crimes, perhaps, in history, which, in spite of the common disposition to exaggerate extraordinary facts, has been beyond measure under-rated in public opinion. I say this, Gentlemen, after an investi- gation, which I think entitles me to affirm it with confi- dence. Men s minds were oppressed by the atrocity and the multitude of crimes ; their humanity and their indo- 308 MODERN ELOQUENCE, lence took refuge in scepticism from such an overwhelming mass of guilt; and the consequence was, that all these un- paralleled enormities, tho proved, not only with the fullest historical, but with the strictest judicial evidence, were at the time only half believed, and are now scarcely half re- membered. When these atrocities were daily perpetrat- ing, of which the greatest part are as little known to the public in general as the campaigns of Genghis Khan, but are still protected from the scrutiny of men by the im- mensity of those voluminous records of guilt in which they are related, and under the mass of which they will lie bu- ried, till some historian be found with patience and courage enough to drag them forth into light, for the shame, in- deed, but for the instruction of mankind; when these ciimes were perpetrating, which had the peculiar malig- nity, from the pretexts with which they were covered, of making the noblest objects of human pursuit seem odious and detestable; which had almost made the names of liberty, reformation, and humanity, synonymous with anarchy, robbery, and murder; which thus threatened not only to extinguish every principle of improvement, to ar- rest the progress of civilized society, and to disinherit future generations of that rich succession, which they were entitled to expect from the knowledge and wisdom of the present, but to destroy the civilization of Europe, which never gave such a proof of its vigor and robustness, as in being able to resist their destructive power ; when all these horrors were acting in the greatest empire of the Continent, I will ask my learned friend, if we had then been at peace with France, how English writers were to relate them so as to escape the charge of libelling a friendly Government? When Robespierre, in the debates in the National Con- vention on the mode of murdering their blameless Sove- reign, objected to the formal and tedious mode of murder called a trial, and proposed to put him immediately to death without trial, " on the principles of insurrection" because, to doubt the guilt of the King would be to doubt of the innocence of the Convention, and if the King were not a traitor, the Convention must be rebels; would my learned friend have had an English writer state all this with " decorum and moderation? 1 * would he have had an English writer state, that tho this reasoning was not per- MODERN ELOQUENCE. 309 fectly agreeable to our national laws, or perhaps to our national prejudices, yet it was not for him to make any observations on the judicial proceedings of foreign states? When Marat, in the same Convention, called for two hundred and seventy thousand heads, must our English writers have said, that the remedy did, indeed, seem to their weak judgment rather severe; but that it was not for them to judge the conduct of so illustrious an assembly as the National Convention, or the suggestions of so en- lightened a statesman as M. Marat? When that Convention resounded with applause at the news of several hundred aged priests being thrown into the Loire, and particularly at the exclamation of Carrier, who communicated the intelligence, " What a revolution- ary torrent is the Loire 7" when these suggestions and narratives of murder, which have hitherto been only hinted and whispered in the most secret cabals, in the darkest caverns of banditti, were triumphantly uttered, patiently endured, and even loudly applauded by an assembly of seven hundred men, acting in the sight of all Europe, would my learned friend have wished that there had been found in England a single writer so base as to deliberate upon the most safe, decorous, and polite manner of relat- ing all these things to his countrymen? When Carrier ordered five hundred children under fourteen years to be shot, the greater part of whom escaped the fire from their size, when the poor victims ran for pro- tection to the soldiers, and were bayonetted clinging round their knees ! would my friend — but I cannot pursue the strain of interrogation! it is too much! It would be a violence which I cannot practice on my own feelings — it would be an outrage to my friend — it would be an affront to you — it would be an insult to humanity. No! Better, ten thousand times better, would it be that every press in the world were burnt, that the very use of letters were abolished, that we were returned to the honest ignorance of the rudest times — than that the results of civilization should be made subservient to the purposes of barbarism — than that literature should be employed to teach a tolera- tion for cruelty, to weaken moral hatred for guilt, to de- prave and brutalize the human mind. I know that I speak my friend's feelings as well as my own, when I say God 310 MODERN ELOQUENCE. forbid that the dread of any punishment should ever make any Englishman an accomplice in so corrupting his coun- trymen, a public teacher of depravity and barbarity! In the Court where we are now met, Cromwell twice sent a satirist on his tyranny to be convicted and punished as a libeller, and in this Court, almost in sight of the scaf- fold streaming with the blood of his Sovereign, within hearing of the clash of his bayonets which drove out Par- liaments with contumely, two successive juries rescued the intrepid satirist* from his fangs, and sent out with defeat and disgrace the Usurper's Attorney-General from what he had the insolence to call his Court! Even then, Gentlemen, when all law and liberty were trampled under the feet of a military banditti ; when those great crimes were perpetrated on a high place and with a high hand against those who were the objects of public veneration, which more than any thing else upon earth overwhelm the minds of men, break their spirits, and confound their moral sentiments, obliterate the distinctions between right and wrong in their understanding, and teach the multitude to feel no longer any reverence for that justice which they thus see triumphantly dragged at the chariot-wheels of a tyrant; — even then, when this unhappy country, trium- phant indeed abroad, but enslaved at home, had no pros- pect but that of a long succession of tyrants wading through slaughter to a throne — even then, I say, when all seemed lost, the unconquerable spirit of English liberty survived in the hearts of English jurors. That spirit is, I trust in God, not extinct: and if any modern tyrant were, in the drunkenness of his insolence, to hope to overawe an Eng- lish jury, I trust and I believe that they would tell him: " Our ancestors braved the bayonets of Cromwell — we bid defiance to yours. Contempsi Catilince gladios — non pertimescam tuosl" What could be such a tyrant's means of overawing a jury? — As long as their country exists, they are girt round with impenetrable armor. Till the destruction of their country, no danger can fall upon them for the performance of their duty, and I do trust that there is no Englishman so unworthy of life as to desire to outlive England. But if * Lilburne. MODERN ELOQUENCE. 311 any of us are condemned to the cruel punishment of sur- viving our country — if in the inscrutable counsels of Pro- vidence, this favored seat of Justice and Liberty, this noblest work of human wisdom and virtue, be destined to destruction, which I shall not be charged with national prejudice for saying, would be the most dangerous wound ever inflicted on civilization; at least, let us carry with us into our sad exile, the consolation that we ourselves have not violated the rights of hospitality to exiles — that w© have not torn from the altar, the suppliant who claimed protection as the voluntary victim of loyalty and con- science ! Gentlemen, I now leave this unfortunate gentleman in your hands. His character and his situation might in- terest your humanity — but, on his behalf, I only ask justice from you. I only ask a favorable construction of what cannot be said to be more than ambiguous language, and this, you will soon be told from the highest authority, is a part of justice. ON THE MANNER OF READING VERSE. " Whatever difficulties we may find in reading prose, they are greatly increased when the composition is in verse; and more particularly if the verse be rhyme. The regularity of the feet, and the sameness of sound in rhym- ing verse, strongly solicits the voice to a sameness of tone ; and tone, unless directed by a judicious ear, is apt to de- generate into a song, and a song, of all others, the most disgusting to a person of just taste. If, therefore, there are few who read prose with propriety, there are still fewer who succeed in verse; they either want that equable and harmonious flow of sound which distinguishes it from loose, unmeasured composition, or they have not a sufficient de- licacy of ear to keep the harmonious smoothness of verse from sliding into a whining cant; nay, so agreeable is this cant to many readers, that a simple and natural delivery of verse seems tame and insipid, and much too familiar for the dignity of the language. So pernicious are bad habits in eveiy exercise of the faculties, that they not only lead us to false objects of beauty and propriety, but at last deprive us of the veiy power of perceiving the mistake. For those, therefore, whose ears are not just, and who are totally deficient in a true taste for the music of poetry, the best method of avoiding this impropriety is to read verse exactly as if it were prose; for tho this maybe said to be an error, it is certainly an error on the safer side. "To say, however, as some do, that the pronunciation of verse is entirely destitute of song, and that it is no more than a just pronunciation of prose, is as distant from truth, as the whining cant we have been speaking of, is from true poetic harmony. Poetry without song is a body without a soul. The tune of this song is, indeed, difficult to hit; but when once it is hit, it is sure to give the most exquisite pleasure. It excites in the hearer the most eager desire of imitation; and if this desire be not accompanied EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 313 by a just taste of good instruction, it generally substitutes the turn ti, turn ti, as it is called, for simple, elegant, poetic harmony. " It must, however, be confessed, that elegant readers of verse often verge so nearly on what is called sing song, without falling into it, that it is no wonder those who at- tempt to imitate them, slide into that blemish which borders so nearly on a beauty. " The truth is, the pronunciation of verse is a species of elocution very distinct from the pronunciation of prose : both of them have nature for their basis; but one is com- mon, familiar, and practical nature; the other beautiful, elevated, and ideal nature; the latter as different from the former as the elegant step of a minuet is from the common motions in walking. Accordingly, we find, there are many who can read prose well, who are entirely at a loss for the pronunciation of verse." Walker. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Lines Written on Visiting a Scene in Argyleshire. At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour, I have mus'd in a sorrowful mood, On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower, Where the home of my forefathers stood. All mind and wild is their roofless abode, And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree; And travel'd by few is the grass-cover'd road, Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode To his hills that encircle the sea. Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk, By the dial-stone aged and green, One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk, To mark where a garden had been. Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race, All wild in the silence of Nature, it drew E E 314 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. From each wandering sunbeam, a lonely embrace ; For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place Where the flower of my forefathers grew. Sweet bud of the wilderness ! emblem of all That remains in this desolate heart ! The fabric of bliss to its centre may fall; But patience shall never depart! Tho the wilds of enchantment, all vernal and bright, In the days of delusion, by fancy combin'd With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight, Abandon my soul like a dream of the night, And leave but a desert behind. Be hush'd, my dark spirit! for wisdom condemns When the faint and the feeble deplore ; Be strong as the rock of the ocean, that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore! Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain, May thy front be unalterd, thy courage elate ! Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again; To bear, is to conquer our fate. Campbell* The Soldiers Dream. Our bugles sang truce — for the night-cloud had lowered, And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower d, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die. When, reposing that night on my pallet of straw, By the wolf-scaring faggot that guarded the slain, At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw, And thrice ere the morning I dream'd it again. Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array, Far, far I had roam'd on a desolate track: 'Twas autumn-r-and sunshine arose on the way To the home of my fathers, that welcom'd me back. I flew to the pleasant fields, travers'd so oft ^ In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft, And I well knew the strains that the corn-reapers sung. Extracts in rhyme. 315 Then pledg'd we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore, From my home and my weeping friends never to part ; My little ones kiss'd me a thousand times o'er, And my wife sobb'd aloud in her fulness of heart: " Stay, stay with us — rest, thou art weary and worn!" And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay — But sorrow return'd with the dawning of morn, And the voice in my dreaming ear — melted away. Campbell* Glenara. Oh! heard you yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? "lis the Chief of Glenara laments for his dear; And her sire and her people are called to her bier. Glenara came first, with the mourners and shroud; Her kinsmen they folio w'd, but mourn' d not aloud; Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around; They march'd all in silence — they look'd to the ground. In silence they reach'd over mountain and moor, To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar, " Now here let us place the gray-stone of her cairn- Why speak ye no word?" said Glenara the stern. " And tell me, I charge you, ye clan of my spouse, Why fold ye your mantles, why cloud ye your brows?" So spake the rude chieftain: no answer is made, But each mantle unfolding, a dagger display'd. " T dream'd of my lady, I dream'd of her shroud," Cried a voice from the kinsmen, all wrathful and loud; u And empty that shroud, and that coffin did seem: Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!" Oh! pale grew the cheek of that chieftain I ween; When the shroud was unclos'd, and no body was seen: Then a voice from the kinsmen spoke louder in scorn — 'Twas the youth that had lov'd the fair Ellen of Lorn — a I dream'd of my lady, I dream'd of her grief, I dream'd that her lord was a barbarous chief; On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem: Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!" 316 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. In dust low the traitor has knelt to the ground, And the desert reveal'd where his lady was found; From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borne ; Now joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn! Campbell. The Star of Bethlehem. When marshalFd on the mighty plain, The glittering host bestud the sky; One star alone, of all the train, Can fix the sinner s wandering eye. Hark! hark! to God the chorus breaks, Prom every host, from every gem ; But one alone the Saviour speaks, It is the star of Bethlehem. Once on the raging seas I rode, The storm was loud — the night was dark, The ocean yawn'd — and rudely blow'd The wind that toss'd my foundering bark. Deep horror then my vitals froze, Death-struck, I ceas'd the tide to stem; When suddenly a star arose, — It was the star of Bethlehem. It was my guide, my light, my all, It bade my dark forebodings cease; And through the storm, and danger's thrall, It led me to the port of peace. Now safely moor'd — my perils o'er, I'll sing, first in night's diadem, For ever and for evermore, The Star!— The Star of Bethlehem! H. K White. < + »mm»amMfi i *»i *H t0* & On Prayer, Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Utter'd or unexpress'd; The motion of a hidden fire, That trembles in the breast. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 317 Prayer is the burthen of a sigh ; The falling of a tear; The upward glancing of an eye, When none but God is near. Prayer is the simplest form of speech That infant lips can try: Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach The Majesty on high. Prayer is th& Christians vital breath ; The Christians native air; His watchword at the gates of death; He enters heaven by prayer Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, Returning from his ways; While angels in their songs rejoice, And say, " Behold he prays!" The saints, in prayer, appear as one, In word, and deed, and mind, When with the Father and his Son, Their fellowship they find. Nor prayer is made on earth alone: The Holy Spirit pleads ; And Jesus, on the eternal throne, For sinners intercedes. O Thou, by whom we come to God, The Life, the Truth, the Way! The path of prayer thyself hast trod; Lord, teach us how to pray. Montgomery. The Voice of Praise. There is a voice of magic power To charm the old, delight the young — In lordly hall, in rustic bower, In every clime, in every tongue, Howe'er its sweet vibration rung, In whispers low, in poet's lays, There lives not one who has not hung Enraptur'd on the voice of praise. 318 EXTRACTS IN RHYME, The timid child, at that soft voice, Lifts for a moment's space the eye; It bids the fluttering heart rejoice, And stays the step prepar'd to fly: 'Tis pleasure breathes that short quick sigh, And flushes o'er that rosy face; Whilst shame and infant modesty Shrink back with hesitating grace. The lovely maidens dimpled cheek At that sweet voice still deeper glows; Her quivering lips in vain would seek To hide the bliss her eyes disclose; The charm her sweet confusion shows Oft springs from some low broken word: O praise ! to her how sweetly flows Thine accent from the loved one heard! The hero, whfcn a people's voice Proclaims their darling victor near, Feels he not then his soul rejoice, Their shouts of love, of praise to hear? Yes! fame to generous minds is dear — It pierces to their inmost core ; He weeps who never shed a tear; He trembles who ne'er shook before. The poet too — ah! well I deem, Small is the need the tale to tell ; Who knows not that his thought, his dream, On thee at noon, at midnight, dwell? Who knows not that thy magic spell Can charm his every care away? In memory cheer his gloomy cell; In hope can lend a deathless day. 'Tis sweet to watch Affections eye; To mark the tear with love replete; To feel the softly-breathing sigh, When Friendship's lips the tones repeat; But oh! a thousand times more sweet The praise of those we love to hear! Like balmy showers in summer heat, It falls upon the greedy ear. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 319 The lover lulls his rankling wound, By dwelling on his fair one's name; The mother listens for the sound Of her young warriors growing fame. Thy voice can soothe the mourning dame, Of her soul's wedded partner riven, Who cherishes the hallow'd flame, Parted on earth, to meet in heaven! — That voice can quiet passion's mood; Can humble merit raise on high; And from the wise, and from the good, It breathes of immortality ! There is a lip, there is an eye, Where most I love to see it shine, To hear it speak, to feel it sigh — My mother, need I say — 'tis thine ! Mary Russel Mitford. Genius, What is Genius? — 'Tis a flame Kindling all the human frame; 'Tis a ray that lights the eye, Soft in love, in battle high. 'Tis the lightning of the mind, Unsubdu'd and undefin d ; 'Tis the flood that pours along The full clear melody of song; 'Tis the sacred boon of heaven, To its choicest favorites given. They who feel can paint it well — What is Genius? — Byron, tell! Anon. The Dying Soldier, The tumult of battle had ceas'd-— high in air The standard of Britain triumphantly wav'd; And the remnant of foes had all fled in despair, Whom night, intervening, from slaughter had sav'd; When a veteran was seen, by the light of his lamp, Slow-pacing the bounds of the carcass-strewn plain; Not base his intent, — for he quitted his camp To comfort the dying, — not plunder the slain. 320 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Tho dauntless in war, at a story of wo Down his age-furrow'd cheeks the warm tears often ran; Alike proud to conquer, or spare a brave fo, He fought like a hero! — " but felt like a man!" As he counted the slain, — " Ah, conquest ! " he cried, " Thou art glorious indeed, but how dearly thou'rt won!" " Too dearly, alas ! " a voice faintly replied — It thrill'd through his heart! — 'twas the voice of his son! He listen d aghast! — all was silent again; He search' d by the beams which his lamp feebly shed, And found his brave son amid hundreds of slain, The corse of a comrade supporting his head! " My Henry ! " — the sorrowful parent exclaim'd, " Has fate rudely wither'd thy laurels so soon?" The youth op'd his eyes as he heard himself nam'd, And awoke for a while from his death-boding swoon. He gaz'd on his father, who knelt by his side, And seizing his hand, press'd it close to his heart; " Thank heaven, thou art here, my dear father!" he cried; i' For soon! ah, too soon, we for ever must part! " Tho death early calls me from all that I love ! From glory, from thee, yet perhaps 'twill be given To meet thee again in yon regions above V 3 His eyes beam'd with hope as he fix'd them on heaven. " Then — let not thy bosom with vain sorrow swell; Ah! check, ere it rises, the heart-rending sigh! I fought for my king! — for my country! — I fell In defence of their rights : and I glory to die ! " Anon. The Evening Cloud. A cloud lay cradled near the setting sun, A gleam of crimson ting'd its braided snow: Long had I watch'd the glory moving on, O'er the still radiance of the lake below. Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow! Even in its very motion there was rest; While every breath of eve that chanc'd to blow. Wafted the traveler to the beauteous west. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 321 Emblem, methought, of the departed soul! To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given; And by the breath of Mercy made to roll Right onward to the golden gates of heaven, Where, to the eye of Faith, it peaceful lies, And tells to man his glorious destinies. Wilson. The Contrast— Feb. 17, 1820. Windsor Terrace. I saw him last on this terrace proud, Walking in health and gladness, Begirt with his court, and in all the crowd, Not a single look of sadness. I've stood by the crowd beside the bier, When not a word was spoken; But every eye was dim with a tear, And the silence by sobs was broken. I've heard the earth on his coffin pour, To the muffled drum's deep rolling, While the minute-gun with its solemn roar Drowned the death-bell's tolling. The time since he walk'd in his glory thus, To the grave till I saw him carried, Was an age of the mightiest change to us y But to him a night unvaried. We have fought the fight; from his lofty throne The foe of our land we have tumbled, And it gladden'd each eye — save his alone, For whom that foe we humbled. A Daughter beloved — a Queen — a Son — A Son's sole child — have perish'd; And sad was each heart — save the only one By which they were fondest cherish'd. For his eyes were seal'd, and his mind was dark, And he sat in his age's lateness, Like a vision thron'd — as a solemn mark Of the frailty of human greatness. 322 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. His silver beard o'er his bosom spread, Un vexed by life's commotion; Like a yearly lengthening snow-drift, shed On the calm of a frozen ocean. Still o'er him oblivion's waters lay, Tho the stream of time kept flowing; When they spoke of our King, — was but to say, That the old mans strength was going. At intervals, thus, the waves disgorge, By weakness rent asunder, A piece of the wreck of the Royal George, For the people's pity and wonder. He is gone at length — he is laid in dust — Death's hand his slumbers breaking, For the coffin d sleep of the good and just, Is a sure and a blissful waking. His people's heart is his funeral urn, And should sculptur'd stone be denied him, There will his name be found, when in turn We shall lay our heads beside him. Anon. The Mariner's Dream. In slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay, His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind: But, watch-worn and weary, his cares flew away, And visions of happiness danc'd o'er his mind. He dream'd of his home, of his dear native bowers, And pleasures that waited on life's merry morn; While memory each scene gaily cover'd with flowers, And restor'd every rose, but conceal'd eveiy thorn. Then fancy her magical pinions spread wide, And bade the young dreamer in ecstacy rise; — Now far, far behind him the green waters glide, And the cot of his forefathers blesses his eyes. The jessamine clambers in flower o'er the thatch, And the swallow chirps sweet from her nest in the wall; All trembling with transport, he raises the latch, And the voices of lov'd ones reply to his call. EXTRACTS IN RHYME* 323 A father bends o'er him with looks of delight; His cheek is bedew'd with a mother's warm tear; And the lips of the boy in a love-kiss unite With the lips of the maid whom his bosom holds dear. The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast, Joy quickens his pulses, his hardships seem o'er; And a murmur of happiness steals through his rest — H O God! thou hast bless'd me, I ask for no more." Ah ! whence is that flame which now glares in his eye ? Ah! what is that sound which now bursts on his ear? Tis the lightning's red gleam, painting hell on the sky! 'Tis the crashing of thunders, the groan of the sphere! He springs from his hammock, he flies to the deck, — Amazement confronts him with images dire — Wild winds and mad waves drive the vessel a wreck — The masts fly in splinters — the shrouds are on fire. Like mountains the billows tremendously swell — In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save ; Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell, And the death-angel flaps his broad wing o'er the wave ! Oh ! Sailor Boy, wo to thy dream of delight ! In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss — Where now is the picture that fancy touch'd bright, Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honied kiss? Oh, Sailor Boy! Sailor Boy! never again Shall home, love, or kindred, thy wishes repay; Unbless'd and unhonor'd, down deep in the main Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay. No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee, Or redeem form of fame from the merciless surge — But the white foam of waves shall thy winding-sheet be, And winds in the midnight of winter thy dirge ! On a bed of sea-green flowers thy limbs shall be laid ; Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow; Of thy fair yellow locks, threads of amber be made, And every part suit to thy mansion below. Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away, And still the vast waters above thee shall roll; Frail short-sighted mortals their doom must obey — Oh, Sailor Boy! Sailor Boy! peace to thy soul! Dimond. 324 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Hymn to Nature. 'Twa9 eve's pensive twilight, the valley was gray, Between the dark trees almost deepen'd to night; And the golden-streak'd west seem'd the memory of day; The brook yet reflected the soft amber light. And all was so still, and so fragrant around, That the fragrance did seem from the stillness to creep ; It seem'd as if Nature repos'd on the ground, And the odor that rose were the breath of her sleep. The nightingale singing within her green cell, Made the woods sweetly mourn with the strains of her ditty; Oh, her notes sobb'd so true, 'twas like Grief when she tells AH the woes of her heart to the listening of Pity. Nought was heard, when she paus'd, but the sound of the rill, With its little lone music so silvery and meek, And the sweet lisping fall 'mid the landscape so still, Seem'd as first infant essays of Silence to speak. The moon, slowly rising behind the tall trees, Her silver globe seem'd to suspend from the pine — 'Twas the calm lamp of silence — the leaves felt no breeze; And the world at the moment seem'd formed but to shine. All sooth'd and subdu'd in the midst of the scene, God of Nature ! I cried, here Religion may kneel — This temple thou fillest! — majestic, serene — On this turf let me worship ! — the Godhead I feel. Brandon. The Orphans. My chaise the village inn had gain'd, Just as the setting sun's last ray Tipp'd with refulgent gold the vane Of the old church across the way. Across the way I silent sped, The time till supper to beguile In moralizing o'er the dead, That moulder'd round the ancient pile. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 325 There many an humble green grave shew'd Where want, and pain, and toil, did rest ; And many a nattering stone I view'd, O'er those who once had wealth possess'd. A faded beech its shadow brown Threw o'er a grave where sorrow slept, On which, tho scarce with grass o'ergrown, Two ragged children sat and wept. A piece of bread between them lay. Which neither seem'd inclin'd to take; And yet they look'd so much a prey To want, it made my heart to ache. " My little children, let me know Why you in such distress appear? And why you wasteful from you throw That bread which many a heart would cheer?" The little boy, in accents sweet, Replied, while tears each other chas'd; — " Lady, we've not enough to eat, And if we had, we would not waste. But sister Mary's naughty grown, And will not eat, what e'er I say, Tho sure I am, the bread's her own, And she has tasted none to-day." " Indeed" (the wan-starv'd Mary said) " Till Henry eats, I'll eat no more'; For yesterday I got some bread; He's had none since the day before." My heart did swell, my bosom heave ; I felt as tho depriv'd of speech ; — I silent sat upon the grave, And press'd a clay-cold hand of each. With looks that told a tale of wo, With looks that spoke a grateful heart, The shivering boy did nearer draw, And thus their tale of wo impart: — " Before my father went away, Entic'd by bad men o'er the sea, Sister and I did nought but play, — W T e liv'd beside yon great ash-tree. F F 326 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. But then poor mother did so cry, And look'd so chang'd, I cannot tell — She told us that she soon should die, And bade us love each other well. She said, that, when the war was o'er, Perhaps we might our father see; But if we never saw him more, That God our father then would be. She kiss'd us both, and then she died — And we no more a mother have — Here many a day we sat and cried Together, on poor mother's grave. But then our father came not here; I thought if we could find the sea, We should be sure to meet him there, And once again might happy be. We hand in hand went many a mile, And ask'd our way of all we met, And some did sigh, and some did smile, And we of some did victuals get. But when we reach' d the sea, and found 'Twas one great water round us spread, We thought that father must be drown'd, And cried, and wish'd we both were dead. So we return'd to mother's grave, And only long with her to be ; For Goody, when this bread she gave, Said father died beyond the sea. Then, since no parents have we here, Well go and seek for God around; Lady! pray can you tell us where That God our father may be found? He stays in heaven, mother said, And Goody says that mother's there; So, if she knows we want his aid, I think, perhaps, she'll send him here." I clasp'd the prattlers to my heart, And cried — " Come both, and live with me- 111 clothe you, feed you, give you rest, And will a second mother be. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 327 And God will be your father still — 'Twas he in mercy sent me here, To teach you to obey his will, Your steps to guide, your hearts to cheer." Anon. Love of Country. Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High tho his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung. O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath, and shaggy wood, Land of the mountain and the flood, Land of my sires ! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand! Still as I view each well-known scene, Think what is now, and what hath been, Seems as to me, of all bereft, Sole friends thy woods and streams were left; And thus I love them better still, Even in extremity of ill. By Yarrow's stream, still let me stray, Tho none should guide my feeble way; Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break, Altho it chill my wither'd cheek ; Still lay my head by Teviot stone, Tho there, forgotten and alone, The Bard may draw his parting groan. Sir W. Scott. 328 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. The Maniac, Hither at times, with cheerfulness of soul, Sweet village-maids from neighboring hamlets stroll, That like the light-heel'd does our lawns that rove, Looks shyly curious; ripening into love; For love's their errand: hence the tints that glow On either cheek, a heighten'd lustre know: When, conscious of their charms, even age looks sly, And rapture beams from youth's observant eye. The pride of such a party, Nature's pride Was lovely Poll;* who innocently tried, With hat of airy shape, and ribbons gay, Love to inspire, and stand in hymen's way: But ere her twentieth summer could expand, Or youth was render'd happy with her hand, Her mind's serenity, her peace was gone, Her eye grew languid, and she wept alone: Yet causeless seem'd her grief; for quick restrain'd, Mirth follow'd loud; or indignation reign'd: W T hims wild and simple led her from her home, The heath, the common, or the fields, to roam : Terror and joy, alternate rul'd her hours ; Now blythe she sung, and gather'd useless flowers; Now pluck'd a tender twig from every bough, To whip the hovering demons from her brow. Ill-fated maid ! thy guiding spark is fled, And lasting wretchedness awaits thy bed, — Thy bed of straw ! for mark, where even now O'er their lost child afflicted parents bow; Their wo she knows not, but perversely coy, Inverted customs yield her sullen joy; Her midnight meals in secrecy she takes, Low muttering to the moon, that rising breaks Thro' night's dark gloom: — Oh how much more forlorn Her night, that knows of no returning morn! — Slow from the threshold, once her infant seat, O'er the cold earth she crawls to her retreat; * The author has since conversed with this unfortunate woman, and finds that her name is not Mary, but Ann Rayner, of Ixworth Thorp : she is very much recovered, and appears to have a true sense of her past calamity. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 329 Quitting the cot's warm walls unhous'd to lie, Or share the swine's impure and narrow sty; The damp night-air her shivering limbs assails; In dreams she moans, and fancied wrongs bewails. When morning wakes, none earlier rous'd than she, When pendent drops fall glittering from the tree; But nought her rayless melancholy cheers, Or soothes her breast, or stops her streaming tears. Her matted locks, unornamented flow; Clasping her knees, and waving to and fro ; — Her head bow'd down, her faded cheek to hide ; — A piteous mourner by the pathway side. Some tufted molehill, through the livelong day, She calls her throne ; there weeps her life away ; And oft the gaily-passing stranger stays His well-tim'd step, and takes a silent gaze, Till sympathetic drops unbidden start, And pangs quick-springing muster round his heart ; And soft he treads with other gazers round, And fain would catch her sorrow's plaintive sound: One word alone is all that strikes the ear, One short, pathetic, simple word, — u Oh dear!" A thousand times repeated to the wind, That wafts the sigh but leaves the pang behind! For ever of the profferd parley shy, She hears the .unwelcome foot advancing nigh; Nor quite unconscious of her wretched plight, Gives one sad look, and hurries out of sight ! — Fair promis'd sunbeams of terrestrial bliss, Health's gallant hopes, — and are ye sunk to this? For in life's road, tho thorns abundant grow, There still are joys poor Poll can never know; Joys which the gay companions of her prime Sip, as they drift along the stream of time; At eve to hear beside their tranquil home The lifted latch, that speaks the lover come: That love matur'd, next playful on the knee To press the velvet lip of infancy; To stay the tottering step, the features trace; — Inestimable sweets of social peace ! * O Thou, who bidst the venial juices rise ! Thou, on whose blasts, autumnal foliage flies! 330 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Let peace ne'er leave me, nor my heart grow cold, Whilst life and sanity are mine to hold. Bhomfield. Address to the Ocean. thou vast ocean! ever sounding sea! Thou symbol of a drear immensity ! Thou thing that windest round the solid world Like a huge animal, which, downward hurl'd From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone, Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone. Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep. Thou speakest in the East and in the West At once, and on thy heavily laden breast Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life Or motion, yet are mov'd and meet in strife. The earth hath nought of this : no chance or change Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare Give answer to the tempest- waken air; But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range At will, and wound its bosom as they go: Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow; But in their stated rounds the seasons come, And pass like visions to their wonted home, And come again, and vanish : the young Spring Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming, And Winter always winds his sullen hom, When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn, Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies Weep, and flowers sicken when the Summer flies. Oh! wonderful thou art, great element: And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent, And lovely in repose ; thy summer form Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves Make music in earth's dark and winding caves, 1 love to wander on thy pebbled beach, Marking the sun-light at the evening hour, And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach — 6 Eternity— Eternity — and Power.' Procter. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 331 On the Downfal of Poland. O sacred Truth! thy triumph ceas'd awhile, And Hope, thy sister, ceas'd with thee to smile, When leagu'd Oppression pour'd to Northern wars Her whisker' d pandoors and her fierce hussars, Wav'd her dread standard to the breeze of morn, Peai'd her loud drum, and twang' d her trumpet-horn ; Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, Presaging wrath to Poland — and to man! Warsaw's last champion, from her height survey 'd, Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid, — " O Heaven!" he cried, " my bleeding country save!-— Is there no hand on high to shield the brave ? Yet, tho destruction sweep those lovely plains, Rise fellow men! our country yet remains! By that dread name, we wave the sword on high ! And swear for her to live! — with her to die!" He said, and on the rampart-heights array'd His trusty warriors, few, but undismay'd; Firm-pac'd and slow, a horrid front they form, Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm! Low, murmuring sounds along their banners fly, Revenge, or death! — the watchword and reply; Then peai'd the notes, omnipotent to charm, And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm ! — In vain — alas! in vain, ye gallant few! From rank to rank your volley'd thunder flew: — Oh! bloodiest picture in the book of time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime! Found not a generous friend, a pitying fo, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her wo ! Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter d spear, Clos'd her bright eye, and curb'd her high career; — Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, And Freedom shriek'd — as Kosciusko fell! The sun went down, nor ceas'd the carnage there; Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air — On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, His blood-dy'd waters murmuring far below. 332 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. The storm prevails ! the rampart yields away — Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay ! Hark! as the mouldering piles with thunder fall, A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call ! Earth shook! — red meteors flash'd along the sky! And conscious nature shudder'd at the cry! O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save? Where was thine arm, O Vengeance ! where thy rod, That smote the foes of Zion and of God ? That crush'd proud Ammon, when his iron car Was yok'd in wrath, and thunder'd from afar? Where was the storm that slumber'd till the host Of blood-stain'd Pharaoh left their trembling coast; Then hade the deep in wild commotion flow, And heav'd an ocean on their march below? Departed spirits of the mighty dead! — Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled! Friends of the world ! restore your swords to man, Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van! Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone, And make her arm puissant as your own! Oh ! once again to Freedom's cause return The patriot Tell — the Bruce of Bannockburn ! Campbell. 0?i the Dissolutio7i of Nature. — Hymn from the Fall of Jerusalem. Even thus amid thy pride and luxury, O Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee, That secret coming of the Son of Man, When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine Irradiate with his bright advancing sign: When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan, Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away: Still at the noontide of that nightless day, Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain. Along the busy mart and crowded street, The buyer and the seller still shall meet, And marriage-feasts begin their jocund strain : EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 333 Still to the pouring out the cup of wo ; Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro, And mountains molten by his burning feet, And Heaven his presence own, all red with furnace-heat. The hundred-gated cities then, The Towers and Temples, nam'd of men Eternal, and the Thrones of kings ; The gilded summer Palaces, The courtly bowers of love and ease, Where still the Bird of pleasure sings; Ask ye the destiny of them? Go gaze on fallen Jerusalem! Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, 'Gainst Earth and Heaven God's standard is unfurl'd, The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world! — Oh! who shall then survive? Oh! who shall stand and live? When all that hath been, is no more: When for the round earth hung in air, With all the constellations fair In the sky's azure canopy; When for the breathing Earth and sparkling Sea, Is but a fiery deluge without shore, Heaving along the abyss profound and dark, A fiery deluge, and without an Ark. Lord of all power ! when thou art there alone On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne, That in its high meridian noon Needs not the perish'd sun nor moon: When thou art there in thy presiding state, Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom : When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb, The dead of all the ages round thee wait: And when the tribes of wickedness are strown Like forest leaves in the autumn of thine ire: Faithful and True! thou still wilt save thine own! The Saints shall dwell within the unharming fire, Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm. Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side, So shall the church, thy bright and mystic Bride-, Sit on the stormy gulf, a halcyon oird of calm. 334 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Yes, mid yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of thy mercy shines, We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem. Milman, Enumeration of Sweets. 'Tis sweet to hear, At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep, The song and oar of Adria's gondolier, By distance mellow'd, o'er the waters sweep; 'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear; 'Tis sweet to listen as the night- winds creep From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high The rain-bow, bas'd on ocean, span the sky. 'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awaken'd by the lark, Or lulld by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and their earliest words. Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth Purple and gushing: sweet are our escapes From civic revelry to rural mirth; Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps; Sweet to the father is his first-born's birth; Sweet is revenge — especially to women, Pillage to soldiers, prize-money to seamen. Sweet is a legacy, and passing sweet The unexpected death of some old lady Or gentleman of seventy years complete, Who've made " us youth" wait too — too long already For an estate, or cash, or country-seat, Still breaking, but with stamina so steady, That all the Israelites are fit to mob its Next owner for their double-lost post-obits. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 335 'lis sweet to win, no matter how, one's laurels, By blood or ink; 'tis sweet to put an end To strife; 'tis sometimes sweet to have our quarrels, Particularly with a tiresome friend; Sweet is old wine in bottles, ale in ban-els; Dear is the helpless creature we defend Against the world; and dear the school-boy spot We ne'er forget, though there we are forgot. But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate love — it stands alone, Like Adam's recollection of his fall; The tree of knowledge has been pluck'd — all's known — And life yields nothing farther to recall Worthy of this ambrosial sin, so shown, No doubt in fable, as the unforgiven Fire, which Prometheus filch'd for us from heaven. Byron. The Battle of Hohenlinden. On Linden, when the sun was low, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, And dark as winter was the flow Of Iser rolling rapidly ; But Linden saw another sight, When the drum beat, at dead of night, Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of her scenery ! By torch and trumpet fast array 'd, Each horseman drew his battle-blade, And furious eveiy charger neigh'd, To join the dreadful revelry; Then shook the hills with thunder riven! Then rush'd the steed to battle driven! And louder than the bolts of heaven, Far flash' d the red artillery! But redder yet those fires shall glow On Linden's hills of stained snow; And bloodier yet the torrent flow Of Iser rolling rapidly ! 336 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Tis morn — but scarce yon level sun Can pierce the war-cloud rolling dun, Where furious Frank and fiery Hun Shout in their sulphurous canopy! The combat deepens — On, ye brave, Who rush to glory or the grave! Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave, And charge with all thy chivalry! Few, few shall part where many meet ! The snow shall be their winding-sheet; And every turf beneath their feet Shall be a soldier s sepulchre ! Campbell. The Storm. Again the weather threaten'd, again blew A gale, and in the fore and after hold Water appear'd; yet, tho the people knew All this, the most were patient, and some bold, Until the chains and leathers were worn through Of all our pumps : — a wreck complete she roll'd, At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are Like human beiags during civil war. Then came the carpenter, at last, with tears In his rough eyes, and told the captain, he Could do no more; he was a man in years, And long had voyag'd through many a stormy sea. And if he wept at length, they were not fears That made his eye-lids as a woman s be, But he, poor fellow, had a wife and children, Two things for dying people quite bewildering. 'Twas twilight, for the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one who hates us, so the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale, And hopeless eyes, which o'er the deep alone Gaz'd dim and desolate; twelve days had fear Been their familiar, and now death was here. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 337 At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars, And all things, for a chance had been cast loose, That still could keep afloat the struggling tars, For yet they strove, although of no great use: There was no light in heaven but a few stars ; The boats put off o'ercrowded with their crews; — She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, And, going down head foremost — sunk, in short. Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell, Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave, Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell, And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die. And first one universal shriek there rush'd, Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash Of echoing thunder; and then all was hush'd, Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash Of billows ; but at intervals there gush'd, Accompanied with a convulsive splash, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Of some strong swimmer in his agony. Byron. The Maid of the Inn. Who is she, the poor maniac ! whose wildly-fix'd eyes Seem a heart overcharged to express? — She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs; She never complains — but her silence — implies The composure of settled distress! No aid, no compassion, the maniac will seek, Cold and hunger awake not her care; Through the rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak On her poor wither'd bosom, half bare ; and her cheek Has the deadly pale hue of despair! Yet cheerful and happy — nor distant the day — Poor Mary the maniac has been: The traveler remembers, who journey'd this way, No damsel so lovely, no damsel so gay, As Mary, the Maid of the Inn! G G 338 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Her cheerful address fill'd the guests with delight. As she welcom'd them in with a smile; Her heart was a stranger to childish affright, And Mary would walk by the Abbey at night, When the wind whistled down the dark aisle. She lov'd ; and young Richard had settled the day, And she hop'd to be happy for life — But Richard was idle and worthless; and they Who knew him would pity poor Mary, and say, That she was too good for his wife. Twas in Autumn, and stormy and dark was the night, And fast were the windows and door; Two guests sat enjoying the fire that burn'd bright, And smoking in silence, with tranquil delight, They listen'd to hear the wind roar. " 'Tis pleasant," cried one, " seated by the fire-side, To hear the wind whistle without." " A fine night for the Abbey!" his comrade replied: " Methinks a man's courage would now be well tried, Who should wander the ruins about. " I myself, like a school-boy, should tremble to hear The hoarse ivy shake o'er my head; And could fancy I saw, half persuaded by fear, Some ugly old abbot's white spirit appear, For this wind might awaken the dead." " I'll wager a dinner," the other one cried, " That Mary would venture there now:" " Then wager, and lose," with a sneer he replied, I'll warrant she'd fancy a ghost by her side, And faint if she saw a white cow!" " Will Mary this charge on her courage allow?" His companion exclaim'd with a smile; " I shall win, for I know she will venture there now, And earn a new bonnet, by bringing a bough From the alder that grows in the aisle." With fearless good humor did Mary comply, And the way to the Abbey she bent — The night it was gloomy, the wind it was high, And, as hollowly howling it swept through the sky, She shiver'd — with cold as she went. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 339 O'er the path, so well known, still proceeded the maid, Where the Abbey rose dim on the sight; Through the gateway she enter'd — she felt not afraid — Yet the ruins were lonely and wild, and their shade Seem'd to deepen the gloom of the night. All around her was silent, save when the rude blast Howl'd dismally round the old pile ; Over weed-cover d fragments still fearless she pass'd, And arriv'd at the innermost ruin at last, Where the alder-tree grew in the aisle. Well pleas'd did she reach it, and quickly drew near, And hastily gather'd the bough — When the sound of a voice seem'd to rise on her ear — She paus'd, and she listend, all eager to hear, And her heart panted fearfully now! The wind blew, the hoarse ivy shook over her head; — She listend; — nought else could she hear. The wind ceas'd, her heart sunk in her bosom with dread, For she heard in the ruins — distinctly — the tread Of footsteps approaching her near. Behind a wide column, half breathless with fear, She crept, to conceal herself there ; That instant the moon o'er a dark cloud shone clear, And she saw in the moon-light two ruffians appear, And between them — a corpse did they bear! Then Mary could feel her heart-blood curdle cold! Again the rough wind hurried by — It blew off the hat of the one, and behold ! Even close to the feet of poor Mary it roll'd ! — She fell — and expected to die ! " Curse the hat!" — he exclaims — " Nay come on, and fast hide The dead body!" his comrade replies. She beheld them in safety pass on by her side, She seizes the hat, fear her courage supplied, And fast through the Abbey she flies ! She ran with wild speed, she rush'd in at the door, She gaz'd horribly eager around: Her limbs could support their faint burden no more; But, exhausted and breathless, she sunk on the floor, Unable to utter a sound. 340 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Ere yet her pale lips could the story impart, For a moment the hat met her view — Her eyes from that object convulsively start, For, O heaven ! what cold horror thrill'd through her heart When the name of her Richard she knew! Where the old Abbey stands, on the common hard by, His gibbet is now to be seen; Not far from the inn it engages the eye, The traveler beholds it, and thinks, with a sigh, Of poor Mary, the Maid of the Inn ! Souther/. Hymn on Modern Greece. The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece ! Where burning Sappho lov'd and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, — Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set. The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, Have found the fame your shores refuse; Their place of birth alone is mute To sounds which echo farther west Than your sires' " Islands of the Bless'd." The mountains look on Marathon — And Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persin's grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sat on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations; — all were his! He counted them at break of day — And when the sun set, where were they? And where are they? and where art thou, My country? — On thy voiceless shore EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 341 The heroic lay is tuneless now — The heroic bosom beats no more! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine? 'Tis something, in the dearth of fame, Tho link'd among a fetter'd race, To feel at least a patriot's shame, Even as I sing, suffuse my face; For what is left the poet here? — For Greeks a blush — for Greece' a tear. Must we but weep o'er days more bless'd? Must toe but blush ? — Our fathers bled. Earth ! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead ! Of the three hundred, grant but three To make a new Thermopylae ! What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no; — the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall, And answer, " Let one living head, But one arise, — we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb. In vain — in vain : strike other chords ; Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes, And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble call — How answers each bold bacchanal! You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet, Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? Of two such lessons, why forget The nobler and the manlier one? You have the letters Cadmus gave — Think ye he meant them for a slave? Fill high the bowl of Samian wine ! We will not think of themes like these ! It made Anacreon's song divine: He serv'd — but serv'd Polycrates — A tyrant; but our masters then Were still, at least, our countrymen. 342 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. The tyrant of the Chersonese Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades ! Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind ! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! On Suli's rock and Parga's shore, Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore; And there, perhaps, some seed is sown, The Heracleidan blood might own. Trust not for freedom to the Franks — They have a king who buys and sells: In native swords, and native ranks, The only hope of courage dwells ; But Turkish force, and Latin fraud, Would break your shield, however broad. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine ! Our virgins dance beneath the shade — I see their glorious black eyes shine; But gazing on each glowing maid, My own the burning tear-drop laves, To think such breasts must suckle slaves. Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan- like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine — Dash down the cup of Samian wine! Byron. Lord Ulliris Daughter. A Chieftain to the Highlands bound, Cries, " Boatman, do not tarry, And I'll give thee a silver pound, To row us o'er the ferry ! " — " Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle, This dark and stormy water? " " O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle, And this Lord Ullin's daughter: — EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 343 " And fast before her father's men, Three days we've fled together; For should he find us in the glen, My blood would stain the heather — " His horsemen hard behind us ride — Should they our steps discover, Then — who would cheer my bonny bride, When they have slain her lover?" — Outspoke the hardy Highland wight, " I'll go, my chief — I'm ready: — It is not for your silver bright, But for your winsome lady! " And, by my word, the bonny bird In danger shall not tarry; So — though the waves are raging white — I'll row you o'er the ferry!" — By this the storm grew loud apace, The water- wraith was shrieking, And in the scowl of heaven, each face Grew dark as they were speaking. But still as wilder blew the wind, And as the night grew drearer, Adown the glen rode armed men! — Their trampling sounded nearer! — " Oh! haste thee, haste!" the lady cries, Though tempests round us gather, I'll meet the raging of the skies, But not an angry father." — The boat has left a stormy land, A stormy sea before her, — When — oh! too strong for human hand! — The tempest gather'd o'er her — And still they row'd amidst the roar Of waters fast prevailing: Lord Ullin reach'd that fatal shore His wrath was chang'd to wailing — For sore dismay'd, through storm and shade, His child he did discover! — One lovely arm she stretch' d for aid, And one was round her lover. 344 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. " Come back! come back!" he cried in grief, Across this stormy water: And 111 forgive your Highland chief, My daughter! — Oh! my daughter!" — 'Twas vain! — the loud waves lash'd the shore, Return or aid preventing: — The waters wild went o'er his child — And he was left lamenting. Campbell. Fitz- James and Roderick Dhu. The Chief in silence strode before, And reach'd that torrent's sounding shore, Which, daughter of three mighty lakes, From Vennachar in silver breaks, Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines On Bochastle the mouldering lines, Where Rome, the Empress of the World, Of yore her eagle wings unfurl'd. And here his course the Chieftain staid, Threw down his target and his plaid, And to the Lowland warrior said: — " Bold Saxon! to his promise just, Vich-Alpin has discharg'd his trust. This murderous Chief, this ruthless man, This head of a rebellious clan, Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward, Far past Clan- Alpine's outmost guard. Now, man to man, and steel to steel, A Chieftain's vengeance thou shalt feel. See, here, all vantageless I stand, Arm'd like thyself, with single brand ; For this is Coilantogle ford, And thou must keep thee with thy sword." The Saxon paus'd: — " I ne'er delay'd, When foeman bade me draw my blade ; Nay more, brave Chief, I vow'd thy death: Yet sure thy fair and generous faith, And my deep debt for life preserv'd, A better meed have well deserv'd: — EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 345 Can nought but blood our feud atone? Are there no means?" — " No, Stranger, none! And hear, — to fire thy flagging zeal, — The Saxon cause rests on thy steel; For thus spoke Fate by prophet bred Between the living and the dead; " Who spills the foremost foeman's life, His party conquers in the strife. ,, " Then, by my word," the Saxon said, " The riddle is already read. Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff, — There lies Red Murdoch, stark and stiff. Thus Fate has solv'd her prophecy, Then yield to Fate, and not to me." Dark lightning flash'd from Roderick's eye — " Soars thy presumption then so high, Because a wretched kern ye slew, Homage to name to Roderick Dhu? He yields not, he, to man nor Fate! Thou add'st but fuel to my hate: — My clans-man's blood demands revenge. — Not yet prepar'd? — By heaven, I change My thought, and hold thy valor light As that of some vain carpet-knight, Who ill deserv'd my courteous care, And whose best boast is but to wear A braid of his fair lady's hair." — " I thank thee, Roderick, for the word! It nerves my heart, it steels my sword; For I have sworn this braid to stain In the best blood that warms thy vein. Now, truce, farewell! and ruth, begone! — Yet think not that by thee alone, Proud Chief! can courtesy be shown. Tho not from copse, or heath, or cairn, Start at my whistle clans-rnen stern, Of this small horn one feeble blast Would fearful odds against thee cast. But fear not — doubt not — which thou wilt — We try this quarrel hilt to hilt." — Then each at once his faulchion drew, Each on the ground his scabbard threw, 346 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Each look'd to sun, and stream, and plain, As what they ne'er might see again; Then foot, and point, and eye oppos'd, In dubious strife they darkly clos'd. Ill far'd it then with Roderick Dhu, That on the field his targe he threw, Whose brazen studs and tough bull-hide Had death so often dash'd aside; For, train'd abroad his arms to wield, Fitz-Jarnes's blade was sword and shield. He practis'd every pass and ward, To thrust, to strike, to feint, to guard; While less expert, tho stronger far, The Gael maintain'd unequal war. Three times in closing strife they stood, And thrice the Saxon blade drank blood ; No stinted draught, no scanty tide, The gushing flood the tartans dyed. Fierce Roderick felt the fatal drain, And shower'd his blows like wintry rain; And, as firm rock, or castle roof, Against the winter shower is proof, The foe, invulnerable still, Foil'd his wild rage by steady skill; Till, at advantage ta'en, his brand Forc'd Roderick's weapon from his hand, And, backwards borne upon the lea, Brought the proud Chieftain to his knee. " Now, yield thee, or, by Him who made The world, thy heart's blood dyes my blade !" " Thy threats, thy mercy, I defy! Let recreant yield, who fears to die." — Like adder darting from his coil, Like wolf that dashes through the toil, Like mountain-cat who guards her young. Full at Fitz- James's throat he sprung; Receiv'd, but reck'd not of a wound, And lock'd his arms his foeman round. — Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own! No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, Through bars of brass and triple steel ! — EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 347 They tug, they strain! — down, down, they go, The Gael above, Fitz-James below. The Chieftain's gripe his throat compress'd, His knee was planted in his breast ; His clotted locks he backward threw, Across his bnnv his hand he drew, From blood and mist to clear his sight, Then gleam'd aloft his dagger bright! — — But hate and fury ill supplied The stream of life's exhausted tide, And all too late the advantage came, To turn the odds of deadly game ; For, while the dagger gleam'd on high, Reel'd soul and sense, reel'd brain and eye. Down came the blow! but in the heath The erring blade found bloodless sheath. The struggling foe may now unclasp The fainting Chief's relaxing grasp; Unwounded from the dreadful close, But breathless all, Fitz-James arose. Modem Greece. Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; WTiere the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gul in her bloom ; Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute; Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky, In color tho varied, in beauty may vie, And the purple of Ocean is deepest in die ; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 'Tis the clime of the east, 'tis the land of the Sun — Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done ? Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell, Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell. Byron. 348 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. Imitation of the Preceding Passage, as applied to Scotland. Know'st thou the land where the hardy green thistle, The red blooming heath and the harebell abound; Where oft o'er the mountains the shepherds thrill whistle Is heard in the gloaming so sweetly to sound? Know'st thou the land of the mountain and flood, Where the pine of the forest for ages have stood ; Where the eagle comes forth on the wings of the storm, And her young ones are rock'd on the high Cairngorm? Know'st thou the land where the old Celtic wave Encircles the hills which its blue waters lave ; Where the virgins are pure as the gems of the sea, And their spirits are light as their actions are free? 'Tis the land of thy sire! — 'tis the land of thy youth, Where first thy young heart glow'd with honor and truth ; Where the wild fire of genius first caught thy young soul, And thy feet and thy fancy roam'd free from contrpl! Then why does that fancy still dwell on a clime Where Love leads to Madness, and Madness to Crime; WTiere courage itself is more savage than brave ; — Where man is a despot, and woman a slave? Tho soft are the breezes, and sweet the perfume, And fair are the " gardens of Gul" in their bloom; Can the odors they scatter — the roses they bear, Speak peace to the heart of suspicion and fear? Ah, no! 'tis the magic that glows in thy strain, Gives life to the action, and soul to the scene! And the deeds which they do, and the tales which they tell, Enchant us alone by the power of thy spell ! And is there no charm in thine own native earth? Does no talisman rest in the place of thy birth? Are the daughters of Albion less worthy thy care, Less soft than Zuleika — less bright than Gulnare? Are her sons less renown'd, or her warriors less brave, Than the slaves of a Prince — who himself is a slave? Then strike thy wild lyre — let it swell with the strain, Let the mighty in arms live, and conquer again ; Their past deeds of valor thy lays shall rehearse, And the fame of thy country revive in thy verse. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 349 The proud wreath of victory round heroes may twine, Tis the Poet who crowns them with honor divine! And thy laurels, Pelides, had sunk in the tomb, Had the Bard not preserv d them immortal in bloom ! Anon. + r + * +ti * ++r++r*r> On Sleep. An infant when it gazes on a light, A child the moment when it drains the breast, A devotee when soars the Host in sight, An Arab with a stranger for a guest, A sailor when the prize has struck in fight, A miser filling his most hoarded chest, Feel rapture; but not such true joy are reaping As they who watch o'er what they love while sleeping. For there it lies so tranquil, so belovd, All that it hath of life with us is living; So gentle, stirless, helpless, and unmov'd, And all unconscious of the joy 'tis giving ; All that it hath felt, inflicted, pass'd, and prov'd, Hush'd into depths beyond the watcher's diving; There lies the thing we love with all its errors And all its charms, like death without its terrors. Byron. The Fate of Maegregor. " Maegregor, Maegregor, remember our foemen; The moon rises broad from the brow of Ben-Lomond ; The clans are impatient, and chide thy delay: Arise ! let us bound to Glen-Lyon away." Stern scowl'd the Maegregor, then silent and sullen, He turn'd his red eye to the braes of Strathfillan; " Go, Malcolm, to sleep, let the clans be dismiss'd; The Campbells this night for Maegregor must rest." " Maegregor, Maegregor, our scouts have been flying, Threfc days, round the hills of M'Nab and Glen-Lyon; Of riding and running such tidings they bear, We must meet them at home else they'll quickly be here." " The Campbell may come, as his promises bind him, And haughty M'Nab with his giants behind him; H H 350 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. This night I am bound to relinquish the fray, And do what it freezes my vitals to say. Forgive me, dear brother, this horror of mind ; Thou knowest in the strife I was never behind. Nor ever receded a foot from the van, Or blench'd at the ire or the prowess of man. But I've sworn by the cross, by my God, and by all ! An oath which I cannot, and dare not recall, — Ere the shadows of midnight fall east from the pile, To meet with a spirit this night in Glen-Gyle. " Last night, in my chamber, all thoughtful and lone, I call'd to remembrance some deeds I had done, When enter d a lady, with visage so wan, And looks, such as never were fasten'd on man. I knew her, O brother! I knew her full well! Of that once fair dame such a tale I could tell As would thrill thy bold heart; but how long she remain'd, So rack'd was my spirit, my bosom so pain'd, I knew not — but ages seem'd short to the while. Tho proffer the Highlands, nay, all the Green Isle, With length of existence no man can enjoy, The same to endure, the dread proffer I'd fly! The thrice-threaten'd pangs of last night to forego, Macgregor would dive to the mansions below. Despairing and mad, to futurity blind, " The present to shun, and some respite to find, I swore, ere the shadow fell east from the pile, To meet her alone by the brook of Glen- Gyle. " She told me, and turn'd my chill'd heart to a stone, The glory and name of Macgregor was gone : That the pine, which for ages had shed a bright halo, Afar on the mountains of Highland Glen-Falo, Should wither and fall ere the turn of yon moon, Smit through by the canker of hated Colquhoun: That a feast on Macgregors each day should be common, For years, to the eagles of Lennox and Lomond. " A parting embrace, in one moment, she gave: Her breath was a furnace, her bosom the grave ! Then flitting elusive, she said, with a frown, " The mighty Macgregor shall yet be my own!" EXTRACTS IN RHYiME. 351 " Macgregor, thy fancies are wild as the wind ; The dreams of the night have disorder'd thy mind. Come, buckle thy panoply — march to the field, — See, brother, how hack'd are thy helmet and shield ! Ay, that was M'Nab, in the height of his pride, When the lions of Dochart stood firm by his side. This night the proud chief his presumption shall rue ; Rise, brother, these chinks in his heart-blood will glue : Thy fantasies frightful shall flit on the wing, When loud with thy bugle Glen-Lyon shall ring." Like glimpse of the moon through the storm of the night, Macgregor's red eye shed one sparkle of fight: It faded — it darken'd — he skudder'd — he sigh'd, — " No ! not for the universe I" low he replied. Away went Macgregor, but went not alone ; To watch the dread rendezvous, Malcolm has gone. They oar'd the broad Lomond, so still and serene! And deep in her bosom, how awful the scene ! O'er mountains inverted the blue waters curl'd, And rock'd them on skies of a far nether world. All silent they went, for the time was approaching; The moon the blue zenith already was touching; No foot was abroad on the forest or hill, No sound but the lullaby sung by the rill; Young Malcolm at distance, couch'd, trembling the while, — Macgregor stood lone by the brook of Glen-Gyle. Few minutes had pass'd, ere they spied on the stream, A skiff sailing light, where a lady did seem; Her sail was the web of the gossamer's loom, The glow-worm her wakelight, the rainbow her boom ; A dim rayless beam was her prow and her mast, Like wold-fire, at midnight, that glares on the waste. Tho rough was the river with rock and cascade, No torrent, no rock, her velocity staid; She wimpled the water to weather and lee, And heav'd as if borne on the waves of the sea. Mute Nature was rous'd in the bounds of the glen; The wild deer of Gairtney abandon'd his den, Fled panting away, over river and isle, Nor once turn'd his eye to the brook of Glen-Gyle. 352 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. The fox fled in terror, the eagle awoke, As slumbering he dWd in the shelf of the rock; Astonish'd, to hide in the moon-beam he flew, And screw'd the night-heaven till lost in the blue. Young Malcolm beheld the pale lady approach, The chieftain salute her, and shrink from her touch. He saw the Macgregor kneel down on the plain, As begging for something he could not obtain; She rais'd him indignant, derided his stay, Then bore him on board, set her sail, and away. Tho fast the red bark down the river did glide, Yet faster ran Malcolm adown by its side; " Macgregor! Macgregor!" he bitterly cried; " Macgregor! Macgregor !" the echoes replied. He struck at the lady, but, strange tho it seem, His sword only fell on the rocks and the stream ; But the groans from the boat, that ascended amain, Were groans from a bosom in horror and pain. — They reach'd the dark lake, and bore lightly away; Macgregor is vanish'd for ever and aye ! Hogg* The Battle ofMorgarten. The wine-month* shone in its golden prime, And the red grapes clustering hung, But a deeper sound, through the Switzer's clime, Than the vintage-music rung — A sound through vaulted cave, A sound through echoing glen, Like the hollow swell of a rushing wave ; 'Twas the tread of steel-girt men! And a trumpet, pealing wild and far, 'Midst the ancient rocks was blown, Till the Alps replied to that voice of war, With a thousand of their own. And through the forest glooms, Flash'd helmets to the day, And the winds were tossing knightly plumes, Like pine-boughs in their play. * Wine-month—the German name for October. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 353 In Hasli's wilds there was gleaming steel, As the host of the Austrian pass'd ; And the Shreckhorn's rocks, with a savage peal, Made mirth at his clarion's blast. Up midst the Righi snows, The stormy march was heard, With the charger's tramp, whence fire-sparks rose, And the leader's gathering word. But a band, the noblest band of all, Through the rude Morgarten strait, With blazon'd streamers, and lances tall, Mov'd onwards in princely state. They came, with heavy chains, For the race despis'd so long — But amidst his Alp domains, The herdsman's arm is strong ! The sun was reddening the clouds of morn When they enter'd the rock defile, And shrill as a joyous hunter's horn Their bugles rung the while. — But on the misty height, Where the mountain people stood, There was stillness as of night, Wlien storms at distance brood: There was stillness, as of deep dead night, And a pause — but not of fear, While the Switzers gaz'd on the gathering might Of the hostile shield and spear. On wound those columns bright, Between the lake and wood, But they look'd not to the misty height. Where the mountain people stood. The pass was fill'd with their serried power, All helm'd and mail-array' d, And their steps had sounds like a thunder shower In the rustling forest shade. There w r ere prince and crested knight Hemm'd in by cliff and flood, When a shout arose from the misty height Where the mountain people stood. 354 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. And the mighty rocks came bounding down Their startled foes among, With a joyous whirl from the summit thrown — Oh! the herdsman's arm is strong! They came like Lanwine* hurl'd, From Alp to Alp in play, When the echoes shout through the snowy world, And the pines are borne away. The larch-woods crash'd on the mountain side, And the Switzers rush'd from high With a sudden charge on the flower and pride Of the Austrian chivalry: Like hunters of the deer, They storm'd the narrow dell, And first in the shock, with Uri's spear, Was the arm of William Tell! f There was tumult in the crowded strait, And a cry of wild dismay, And many a warrior met his fate From a peasant's hand that day! And the Empire's banners there, From its place of waving free, Went down before the shepherd men, The men of the Forest Sea. J With their pikes and massy clubs, they brake The cuirass and the shield, And the war-horse dash'd to the reddening lake, From the reapers of the field. The field — but not of sheaves — Proud crests and pennons lay, Strewn o'er it thick as the beech-wood leaves, In the autumn tempest's way. Oh! the sun in heaven fierce havock view'd When the Austrian turn'd to fly, And the brave, in the trampling multitude, Had a fearful death to die! * Lanwine — the Swiss name for the Avalanche, f William Tell's name is particularly mentioned amongst the con- federates at Morgarten. t Forest Sea — the Lake of the Four Cantons. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 355 And the leader of the war At eve unhelm'd was seen, With a hurrying step on the wilds afar, And a pale and troubled mien. But the sons of the land which the freeman tills. Went back from the battle-toil, To their cabin-home, midst the deep green hills, All burden'd with royal spoil. There were songs and festal fires, On the soaring Alps that night, When children sprung to greet their sires From the wild Morgarten fight. Edin. Mag, IW/W K WVy^WW ^ W W WW The Lyre. Where the roving rill meander'd Down the green, retiring vale, Poor, forlorn Alcseus wander'd, Pale with thought, serenely pale : Timeless sorrow o'er his face Breath'd a melancholy grace, And fix'd on every feature there The mournful resignation of despair. O'er his arm, his Lyre neglected, Once his dear companion, hung, And, in spirit deep dejected, Thus the pensive poet sung; While at midnight's solemn noon, Sweetly shone the cloudless moon, And all the stars, around his head, Benignly bright, their mildest influence shed. "Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure, Solace of my bleeding heart! Lyre ! O Lyre ! my only pleasure, We must ever, ever part : For in vain thy poet sings, Woos in vain thy heavenly stiings; The muse's wretched sons are born To cold neglect; and penury, and scorn. 356 EXTRACTS IN RHYME. " That which Alexander sigh'd for, That which Czesar's soul possess'd, That which heroes, kings have died for, Glory! animates my breast. Hark! the charging trumpets' throats Pour their death-defying notes : ' To arms!' they call: to arms I fly, Like Wolfe to conquer, and like Wolfe to die ! " Soft! the blood of murder d legions Summons vengeance from the skies; Flaming towns, and ravag'd regions, All in awful judgment rise ! then, innocently brave, 1 will wrestle with the wave ; Lo! Commerce spreads the daring sail, And yokes her naval chariots to the gale. " Blow, ye breezes ! — gently blowing, Waft me to that happy shore, Where, from fountains ever flowing, Indian realms their treasures pour; Thence returning, poor in health, Rich in honesty and wealth, O'er thee, my dear paternal soil, I'll strew the golden harvest of my toil. " Then shall Misery's sons and daughters In their lonely dwellings sing: Bounteous as the Nile's dark waters, Undiscover'd as their spring, I will scatter o'er the land, Blessings with a sacred hand: For such angelic tasks design'd, I give the Lyre and sorrow to the wind." On an oak, whose branches hoary, Sigh'd to every passing breeze, Sigh'd, and told the simple story Of the patriarch of trees ; High in air his harp he hung, Now no more to rapture strung; Then warm in hope, no longer pale, He blush'd adieu, and rambled down the dale. EXTRACTS IN RHYME. 357 Lightly touch'd by fairy fingers, Hark! — the Lyre enchants the wind; Fond Alcseus listens, lingers, Lingering, listening, looks behind. Now the music mounts on high, Sweetly swelling through the sky; To every tune, with tender heat, His heart-strings vibrate, and his pulses beat. Now the strains to silence stealing, Soft in ecstasies expire; Oh ! with what romantic feeling Poor Alcseus grasps the Lyre ! Lo ! his furious hand he flings In a tempest o'er the strings ; He strikes the chords so quick, so loud, Tis Jove that scatters lightning from a cloud ! " Lyre! O Lyre! my chosen treasure, Solace of my bleeding heart ; Lyre ! O Lyre ! my only pleasure, We will never, never part! — Glory, Commerce, now in vain Tempt me to the field, the main; The Muses' sons are bless'd, tho born To cold neglect, and penury, and scorn. " What, tho all the world neglect me, Shall my haughty soul repine? And shall poverty deject me, While this hallow'd Lyre is mine ? Heaven — that o'er my helpless head Many a wrathful vial shed, — Heaven gave this Lyre ! — and thus decreed, Be thou a bruised, but not a broken reed!" Montgomery. «rA>^wwwvs»«v^Vjrr*wiwvvwww< w wvn//y>iv/