UC-NRLF B 30V 776 GIFT or L. A. Williams THE SIXTH READER AND SPEAKER, THE FRANKLIN SIXTH REi^DEB AND SPEAKER: CONSISTING OP EXTRACTS IN PROSE AND V^ltSE, WITH BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES OP TQE AUTHORS. BT GEORGE S. HILLARD and HOMER B. SPRAGUK WITH AN INTRODUCTION ON ELOCUTION, By prof. SPRAGUE. WITH NEW AND ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON: BREWER AND TILESTON 1876. Cd to Act of Congrefls, In E. P. Whipple. . 204 83. The Character of Grattan Sydney Smith . .211 84. Finite and Infinite R. C. IVvUhrop . 212 36. The Reform that is needei Ucv. Horace Bushnell 215 87. Odligations of America to England Everett . . . .217 39. God IN Nature Rev. Edwin H. Chapin 222 40. The White Mountains . . Rtv. T. Starr King 225 43. John Hampden ... AlacaiUay . . . 233 44. A Taste FOB Reading . . Oeorge S. Hillard . 237 47. Execution OF Mary, Queen i>^ .>'...- . Lingard . . . .243 48. The Trial of Warren Hastings. . Macaulay . . .248 61. Eulogy on O'Connkll IV. H. Seumrd . 258 54. Incentives to Duty Sumner .... 268 55. The Western Posts . Ames. . 272 56. The Future of Ameru a H'cbster . 275 60. Kossuth Horace Mann . . 285 61. True Greatness Channing . . . 288 62. The Uses op the Ocean Rev. Leonard Stcain 290 65. Joan of Arc Thomxis Dc Quincey 301 68. Voices of the Dead Rev. John Cumming 310 69. The Boston Tea Catastrophi . Thomas Carlyle . 314 71. The Bible 320 79. Dangers to our Republic .... Horace Mann . . 345 82. American Nationality Clwaie .... 353 85. Around Yosemite Walls .... Clarence King . . 363 89. Lafayette's Visit to Ameiuca in 1825 Josiah Qiiincy . . 376 90. Personal Influek" i \V.R.W4lliams . 379 91. Speech on the American W'ak . . Lord Chdt/uim . . 382 93. The Old World and the New . . Horace Greeley . . 389 98. James Otis Sumner .... 398 100. Spa rtacus to the Gladiators . . . Rev. Elijah Kellogg 402 102. Books E. P. JVhipple . 411 lOG. The Honored Dead H. }F. Bcechcr . 421 107. America the Old World .... Louis Agassiz . . 423 108. A Tkibute to Massachusetts . . . Sumner . . . . 427 CONTENTS. ix 109. Napolbox ; or. The Man of thk Would Ralph W. Emerson 428 112, National Injustice Tftcodore Parker . 436 113. Oliver Cromwell Goldwin Smith . 438 115. My Gajidbn Acquaintance . . . . JamM RvmcU Lovoell 441 LESSONS IN POETRY. 2. To a Waterfowl. Wm. C. Bryant . 105 Campbell . . .111 Mrs. A. S. Stephens U2 James R. Loioell . 129 ff. W. Longfdlou} 133 Sir fVaUer ScoU . 139 4. Ye Mariners of England . 5. The PousH Boy ..... 9. Winter 10. The Old Clock on the Staiius 12. The Battle of Flodden Field 13. •♦ " •♦ {Concluded) " ** 143 14. Henry V. before the Battle of Aoin- court Shakespeare. . . 147 17. The Watcher on the Tower . . . Cluirles Maekxty . 159 18. The Pilgrim Fathers Rev. John Pierponi 162 21. The Fall of Poland Campbell . . .173 24. Youth 182 26. The good griiat Man Coleridge . . .188 27. Slavery Cowpvr .... 189 29. Charge of the Light Brigade . . Tennyson . . . 199 32. Paul Reveue's Ride Ixmgfdlow . . .206 35. The New Year Tennyson . . .214 38. Address to the Mummy in Belzoni s Exhibition, London Horace Smith . . 220 41. Abraham Davenport John O. fFhiUier . 230 42. Richelieu's Vindication Bulwer .... 232 45. Bringing our Sheaves with us . . Elizabeth A kers . 240 40. Lines to a Child, on his Voyage to France, to meet his Father . . Rev. Henry JFare, Jr. 241 49. Charles Sumner John G. WhiUier . 253 60. June Lowell .... 256 52. Hubert and Arthur Shakespeare. . . 262 53. Warren's Address before the Bat- tle OF Bunker Hill Pierpont . . . . 267 57. The Launching of the Ship . . . Longfellow . . . 277 58. Over the River Miss Priest . . .280 59. Hymn in the Valley of Cuamouni . Coleridge . . . 282 X CONTENTS. 63. Greece, in 1809 Lard Byron. . . 295 04. Thanatopsis Bryant .... 298 66. On the Death op a Child . . . . Lowell . 305 07. The Angels of Buena Vwta . . . WhittUr 307 70. Intimations of Immortautv fTordaworlh . .817 72. William Tell Sheridan Knouhs 322 78. William Tell (Condttded) '♦ 325 74. The Battle of Naseby Maeanbi.t . . 329 75. The Widow of Glencoe liitonn .... 331 76. The Antiquity of Freedom lirmnt 334 77. The Pilgrim Fathers. . . Sj>rwuu 337 78. W0L8EY and Cromwell shakcsj^ 341 80. Hallowed Ground . . <'umptM:U 347 81. The Execution of MoNTKiME . . . Wm. E. Ayluun . 850 83. The Rising in 1776 Thomas B. Ecad . 857 84. God Derzhavin ... 860 86. The Conqueror's Grave Bryant .... 369 87. Song of the Greeks Campbell . . .371 88. Parental Ode to my Infant Son . Hood . . 373 92. Alpine Scenery Byron 386 94. The Hekitage Lowell .... 391 95. Jenny Lind's Greetings TO America. Bayard Taylor . 394 96. Hymn of Praise by Adam akd Eve . A/iUon .... 395 97. Union and Liberty ...... 0. ir. Holmes. . 397 99. The Pauper's Death-Bed .... Mrs. C. B. SouUtey 401 101. Lochiel's Warning. ... Campbell ... 406 102. Extract from Rienzi . . . Miss MUford . . 409 104. Elegy writes in a Country liiiklh- YAUD Cfray 413 105. He givrth his Beloved Sleep . . Mrs. Browning . 419 110. The Lord of Butrago J. O. Lockhart . 433 111. Milton on his Blindne.ss .... Elisabeth Lloyd . 434 114. Burial of John Quikcy Adams . . Pierpont .... 440 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Adams, John Quincy Agassiz, Louis Akeiis, Elizabeth Ames, Fisheu. Anonymous Athen-eum Aytoun, William E. Heecher, Henry Ward Ukowninc, Mrs. liitYANT, William C. . lU'LWER .... liusiiNELL, Rev. Horace Byron .... Campbell, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Chanxixg, Rev. William E (iiAPiN, Rev. Edwin H. . Chatham, Lord Choate, Rufus . Coleridge (.OWPER .... De Quin'cey, Thomas . Derzhavin .... Emerson, Ralph W. Everett, Edward CiRAY, Thomas c, KEEN wood. Rev. F. W. P. (Jreeley, Horace . Hall, Rev. Robert . H.vwthorxe, Nathaniel Hill.\rd, George S. . Holmes, 0. W. Ill 105 173 106. 298, 347, Paoi . 103 423 . 240 272 182, 320 123 331, 350 421 . 419 334, 369 . 232 215 295, 386 371, 406 . 314 288 . 223 382 . 353 188, 282 . 189 301 . 360 428 150, 217 413 . 184 389 . 124 191 . 237 397 xii INDEX OF AUTHORS. Hood 373 Kp.llooo, Rev. Elijah 402 Kino, Clarence 353 Kino, Rev. Thomas Starr 225 Knowles, Rev. James Sheridan 322, 325 LiNOARD 243 Lloyd, Elizabeth 434 Lockhart 433 Longfellow, Hp.nry W 133, 2O6, 277 Lowell. Jamus IUsskli 129, 256, 305, 391, 441 Macaulay 248, 329 Mackay, < 159 Mamk, Hci 285, 345 Milton . 395 MiTFORP, ^li-^ . 408 Parki 435 PlER» i MS 162, 267, 440 Priest, Miss 280 QUINCY, JosiAH 376 Read, Thomas B 357 ScoTT, Sir Walter 139, 143, 164 Seward, Willl&m H 258 Shakespeare 147, 262, 341 ScHURZ, Carl 117 Smith, Goldwin 488 Smith, Horace 220 Smith, Sydney 211 Southey, Mrs. 401 Sparks, Ret. Jared 201 Sprague, Charles 337 Stephens, Mrs. 112 Sumner, Charles 268, 398, 427 Swain, Rev. Leonard 290 Taylor, Bayard 394 Tennyson, Alfred 199, 214 Webster, Daniel 136, 177, 178, 275 W'HIpple, E. P 204, 410 Whittier, John G 253, 307 Williams, Rev. W. R. 379 AVinthrop, Robert C 212 Wordsworth 317 INTROPUOTION. '- THE VOICE IN ELOCUTION. ** There is in souls a sympatliy with sounds." COWPEK. FORCE. Op the fourteen vowel sounds in our language, some requiie for their enunciation more force than others. Thus the sound of a as in ah, and that of o as in oh, are louder than that of oo in foot or i in fit. So the diphthong sound ou as in growl is a little stronger than that of w as in tune. A strong sound is naturally lit to express strength; a weak one to express weakness.* A similar difference exists among the twenty-two conso- nants. Thus the sounds of r, gr, h, sir, thr, are strong. This fact will be perceptible in the articulation of rave, rail, rend, ripf rear, roar, grapple, grasp, grind, gripe, groan, growl, harsh, haul, horrid, strain, strangle, strive, stress, strike, strug- gk, thrash, thrill, throw, throb, thrust, throttle. But the sound of / is weak ; as in lave, lay, lick, linger, lisp, loll, love, luU, * The (iiffereiu e in the fitness of vowels to express loud or soft sounds is seen in comparing words whose consonants are the same or nearly so. Tlie stronger vowel usually expresses the londer sound. Compare croak, crack, and the obsolete crick ; squall and squeal ; snore and sneer ; snort, snuff, and sniff ; snarl and snivel. Or the strong vowel expresses greater force. Compare spout and apt/, groan and ffrin, strong and string, master and wtistrest, thank and think, ghire and glitter. In some other languages ibis difference is more |>erceptiblp than in ours. In some of tlie lani^ages of the Scythian stock, as in the Magj-ar and the Turkish, the heavy vowels, o, o, h, are called masculine ; the light, e, i, o, u, feminine. In the Mantchoo, we find ama meaning father, erne mother; kaka is male, keke female; awka father-in-law, tinkf mr>th<*r-iii-lnw : k-anhm a strong sjiirit. hmken a feeble 14 TUF ^rXTH nKADKR. luU, W at the Ix'-uiiim- ut a word iuu-* tijc \\. ik - iiiwl .if oo ; as in w«a/lf, warble^ wav€j tveave^ welly wind, //„-/. ,/,//,;//. Many poet^ 6^ve sucpps^fUijy^. exerted their skill in selecting words tho ^QUIld , of whict iitly expresses the loud or soft sounds tliey wish to derv'cihe niid the strength or wetikness they wish to paint Th ' ' rlton's description of the battle of the angels : — Now storming fury rose. And clamor such as heard in heaven till now Was never. Arms on armor clashing brayed Horrible discord. By contrast take his description of soft music : — And ever, against eating cares, Lnp me in soft Lydian aire ^larried to immortal verse ; Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of link^ sweetness long drawn out With wanton heed and giddy cunning, The molting voice through mazes running, Untwisting all the chains that tic The hidden soul of harmony. From the same author take this dcscripiiun of the last exhibition of Samson's tremendous strength : — As with the force of winds and waters pent When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars, spirit. In tlie Tartar- Turkish, savmak means to hate, aevtnek to love ; the former being the stronger emotion with a barbarian ! In the Semitic lan- guages, " the weaker vowels t and k often convey a less active meaning as com- pared with the strong full a," Thus, in the Arabic, ** The three consonants q, f, I, form a root which conveys the idea of JcUlin^ ; then qatala means ' he killed,' qiUila, * he was killed.' Every active verb, like qatala, has its corre- sponding passive, qutUa," See Whitney on "Language and the Study of Language," pp. 301, 302 ; and Preface to Wedgwood's *' Dictionary of Eng- lish Etymolog)'." Compare the positive indicative Latin sum, es, est, sumiis, estis, sunt, I am, you are, he is, etc., with the contingent subjunctive sim, sis, sit, simus, sitis, sint, I may be, thou mayst be, etc. In German, danken is to thank ; denken, to think. See note, p. 18. FXTRODUCTKjX. 10 With hoiTiljle convulsion, to and fro He tugged, lie shook, till down they came and drew The whole roof after them with burst of thunder. Contrast Cleopatra's last words as the poisonous serpent at hor breast is stinging her to death. (Shakespeare's " Antony and Cleopatra," Act V. Sc. 2.) Charmias (to Cleopatra). Eastern star ! Cleopatra. Peace! peace! Dost thou not see my baby at my breast That sucks the nurse asleep ? Cu ARM IAN. 0, break ! 0, break ! Cleopatra. As sweet as balm, as soft as air, as gentle, — O Antony ! — Nay, I will take thee too : — {Applying another asp to her arm.) What should I stay — {fali» on a bed and dies.) • Read in Shakespeare's " King Henry the Fifth " the monarch's animating words to his soldiers at the siege of Harfleur : — But when the blast of war blows in our cars. Then imitate the action of the tiger ! Stiflen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage : Then lend the eye a terrible aspect ; Tiet it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide ; Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit To his full height ! On, on, you noble English ! Cry — *' Heaven for Hnny ! England : and Saint George ! " For contrast with the prece!Mm|HHTS ; The tmees, of the smallest spiditr's web ; The collars, of the tnoonshiue's watery beams : Her whip, of cricketii' bone ; the laj>h, of film : Her wagoner, a smidl gray -coated gnat, Not half so big as a roand little worm Pricked from the lazy fiuger of a maid. From an attentive examination of such i)assages, wo learn that the Volumk of the voice is a very imiwrtant element of ex- pression ; and that the vast, the sublime, the mighty, require a lai^r voice tlian the sroali, the delicate, and the weak. Here, too, a uiedium or moderate volume, as it allows of expansion or contraction to suit the varying needs *of expression, is best adapted for all ordinary passages. Use it, therefore, dvrhenever you know of no special reason for any other. Large volume is usually appropriate to joy, rage, defiance, command, awe, solemnity, horror; small volume, to tranquillity, cheerfulness, humor, tenderness, sorrow, pity, contempt, malice, secrecy, fear, and some moods of remorse, despair, and wonder. MOVEMENT. If we examine carefully the vowel sounds with reference to the time required to utter thetb, we shall find that those which w^e have characterized, under the two foregoing heads, as strong and large y are more prolonged than, some of those which we have designated as weak and little. Contrast the time of the in ho with the time of the o in hot ; the a in Iiall with the a in hat; the a in large with the i in little. Contrast 9lf>pe and dip^ float and flit, gloom^ gleam, and glim (Scotch). Some of the consonant sounds also are much more prolonged than others. Thus the ng in song is necessarily longer than tlio t in sot. Elementary sounds, then, difier in the rate or time of utterance. Keeping this hint in mind, what element of vocal expression do we discern in the following utterance of Hamlet, when in- formed by the ghost in reganl to his father's murder ] INTRODUCTION-. 21 Haste me to know it, that I, with wings as swift As meditation or the thoughts ..» l<»\-.. May sweep to my i-evenge ! l>y way of contrast, read sympathetically the following from Dr. Samuel Johnson : — Slow rises worth by poverty depressed. In the utterance of these two examples wo find ourselves spontaneously and almost irresistibly swayed by the meaning. Before we are aware, our voices are hurried or slackened, as if to correspond with the motion described. For further illus- tration, enter into the spirit of the two following extracts, and then read them with feeling. The first is from Cowper : — How fleet is the glance of the njind ! Comi>ai"ed witli the speed of its flight, The temi)est itself lags behind, The swift-winged arrows of light ! The next is from Milton : — Oft, on a plot of rising ground, I hear the far-olF euifew sound Over some wide-watered shore. Swinging slow with sullen roar. Evidently the mind and the tongue adapt their movements to the movements described.* • Great concentration of thought requires slow utterance, to give the mind of the listener time to take in the meaning. In President Lincoln's first in- augural message he condenses a great deal of thought into very few words. Tlius : - "Can alieus make treaties eaiier than fHends can make laws? Can treaties be eororced between aliens easier than laws amnnt; friends ? " In St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans we have, — " Now, if the fall of them lie the riches of the workl, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fulneia I " Landor sajrs, — " Ijovf ia a secondary passion with thoee who love moat : a primary with those that 22 THE SIXTH READER. We aro told thai the Australian savages seek to givo by repetition the impression of great distance. Thus, — He went through the wood, through the wood, across the plain, across the plain, acroas the plain, by the sea, by the sea, by the sea, by the sea. In like manner we sometimes repeat for the same reason. Thus,— Far, lar at sea. But oftener we convey the notion of distance by prolonging So Enienon rmniapiiw a great en your gates, and give the victors way ! Shakespeare. This stress is appropriate in calling to those at a great distance. Elocutionists, furthermore, mention what they style " com- pound " stress. It is a combination of the initial and the final. Thus, in derision, the circumflex slide begins and ends with considerable force : — " 0, but he paiised on the brink ! " Generally, wherever the circumflex slide is proper, as in surprise, mockery, irony, or in admitting what is true and coup- ling it with limitations, there the compound stress may be requisite. QUALITY. Ben Jonson says of the letter r, " It is the dog's letter, and hurreth [trills] in the sound." The hissing « is still more unpleasant to the ear. The English language still has many harsh consonant sounds, although it has been very greatly sof- tened during the last thousand years. Our piratical Saxon ancestors, on the shores of the stormy German Ocean, had an articulation as rough as their roaring winds and waves. Byron forcibly contrasts the Italian and the English in the following stanza : — I love the language, that soft bastanl Latin, Which melts like kis.se.s in a female mouth, And sounds as if it should be writ on satin. With syllables that breathe of the sweet south, 32 THE SIXTH READER. Andgi'ntif ii(|uius ::!;!::' il! - . \>;a in, That uot a single > . ; ^ ;. incouth ; Unlike our northern, whistling, grunting guttural. Which we 're obliged to hiss and spit and sputter all ! The element of vocal expression here suggested is termed Quality. Pure quality is opposed to aspirated, hissing, or whispering tones, suggestive of secrecy, of snakes, of geese, and of angry cats ; to guttural tones, reminding of choking anger and of swine and swinish men ; to hoarse or wheezy tones, indicative of exhaustion and disease ; to hollow or pectoral tones, hinting of ghosts and sepulchres ; and to nasal tones, that tell of colds and whining and cant. A profusion of vowel sounds is pleasing to the ear ; a pro- fusion of consonant sounds is annoying. The sweetness of music is largely due to its pure quality ; and it is safe to assert, as a general principle, that beauty, purity, and all the milder virtues incline to clearness of voice. Thus : — I have heard some fine music, as men are wont to speak, — the play of orchestras, the anthems of choirs, the voices of son^ that moved admiring nations. But in the lofty passes of the Alps I heard a music overhead from Gotl's orchestra, the giant peaks of rock and ice, cur- tained in by the driving mist and only dimly visible athwart the sky through its folds, such as mocks all sounds our lower worlds of art can ever hope to raise. I stood (excuse the simplicity ! ) calling to them in the loudest shouts I could raise, and listening in compulsory trance to their reply. I heard them roll it up through their cloudy worlds of snow, sifting out the harsh qualities that were tearing in it like demon screams of sin, holding on upon it as if it were a hymn they were fining to the ear of the great Creator, and sending it round and round in long reduplications of sweetness ; until finally, receding and rising, it trem- bled as it were among the quick gratulations of angels, and fell into the silence of the pure empyrean ! I had never any conception before of purity of sound, or what a simple sound may tell of purity by its own pure quality ; and I could only exclaim, "0 my God, teach me this! Be this with me forever." All other sounds are gone. The voices of yesterday, heard in the silence of entranced multitudes, are gone ; but that is with me still, and I trust will never cease to ring in my spirit till I go down to the chambers of silence itself ! — Bushnell. INTRODUCTION. 33 The harsh, the rough, the disagreeable, are akin to impure vocal qualities. We are not, however, to conclude that there is no room for the exercise of the latter. Anger, for example, may be heroic or even divine. There would be little strength of character without it, and there would be no strength in speech without prominent consonant sounds. Thus : — I am astonished ! shocked ! to hear such principles confessed, — to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country ; principles equally unconstitutional, inhuman, and unchristian ! " That God and nature put into our hands " ! I know not what ideas that loni may entertain of God and nature ; but I know that such abominable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity ! What ! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the mas- sacre of the Indian scalping-knife ! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, roasting, and eating — literally, my lords, eating — the mangled remains of his barbarous battles ! .... To turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child ! to send forth the infidel savage ! against whom ? against your Protestant brethren ! to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwell- ings, and extirpate their race and name with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war ! — Chatham. Of the emotions that especially require pure vocality, we may mention joy, delight, admiration, tranquillity, love, ten- derness, sorrow when not excessive, pity, solemnity, rever- ence, and gentle command. Among those that usually require impure quality, are impatience, contempt, scorn, malice, scold- ing, rage, defiance, anger, terror, horror, remorse, surprise, won- der, secrecy, obstinacy, revenge, and great fear. We have thus evolved the seven leading elements of vocal expression, — Force, Volume, Movement, Pitch, Slides, Stress, antl Quality. We have seen that they are founded largely on imitation and analogy, and that they have a natural fitness to express corresponding facts.* * Language, as miglit have been inferrci\iii HhAitER. The poets are much given to imitation of sounds. As one among innumerable instances, take this from Taylor's trans- lation of Biii^er's Lenare : — He cracked his whip ! the locks, the bolU Cling-clang asunder flew ! Take the following description by Tennyson of Sir Bedi- vere's hurling the magic sword Excalibur. Note the striking analogy of whirling, flashing, and rushing, which the broken measure of the poetry suggests : — .... Clutched the sword. And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch. Shot like a streamer of the northern room ! Orators, too, select with care words whose sound harmonizes with their mental moods. "Some words," says an eloquent writer, " sound out like drums ; some breathe memories sweet as flutes ; some call like a clarionet ; some shout a chaige like tnimpets ; some are sweet as children's talk ; others, rich as a mother's answering back." See how Everett suggests, by the sound of his well-chosen words, the midnight silence broken by a rushing train of cars : — All was wrapped in darkness and hnsheil in silence, broken only by what seemed, at that hour, the unearthly clank and nish of the train. Webster suggests the din of civil war by the jarring words, — States dissevered, discordant, belligerent ; a land rent with civil feuds, and drenched, it may be, with fraternal blood. But whether words be chosen with reference to fitness of sound or not, it is a part of the business of every speaker to of the following, out of hundreds of similar words: babble, bang, bellow, bow-wow, bubble, buzz, click, cluck, coo, cuckoo, crack, crash, croak, cnmch, ding-dong, drum, gong, gurgle, grunt, grumble, gobble, growl, hoot, hiss, howl, hum, hurly-burly, jingle, mew, murmur, quack, rattle, roar, rub- a-dub, rumble, sob, slam, tinkle, tick, twitter, thud, wheeze, whine, whiz, whistle, whisper. See Introduction to Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology. IMUnltUCTiuN. 35 give by liis tones as vivid an impression as possible, and to infuse into every sentence tlie appropriate force, volume, move- ment, pitch, slides, stress, and quality. We have thus far dealt, for the most part, with outward correspondences.* A more difficult matter now presents itself. How shall the orator represent the inner workings of tlie soull What elements of vocal expression shall body forth the emotions'? There is undoubtedly a best expression of every mental act and state. How to find it, is the in- quiry. Here is a comparatively unexplored field. We may indicate one method of investigation; but the limits of the present treatise require that we confine ourselves mostly to results that lie upon the surface. Take the sentiment of awe. Elocutionists, without giving any reason, tell us that it requires low pitch, large volume, slow movement, slight force, median stress, falling slides, hoarse quality. What is the philosophical explanation? Awe is perhaps oftenest awakened by the great forces of nature, — the roar of lions, the noise of the torrent, the ava- lanche, the wind, the thunder, the earthquake. These utter themselves in a deep, grave, bass sound. Hence, from time immemorial, a low pitch has been deemed appropriate to what is vast, solemn, or awful. Their voices, like themselves, are vast. Hence, the awful is expressed by large volume. These sounds swell and sink. Hence, by a kind of imitation, they give rise to a slight median stress. These sounds are slow ; and, besides, they repress our activity. Hence our voices move with corresponding slowness. They overpower iis, teach us our nothingness. Hence we speak of them \vith bated • See, however, the remarks on initial stress as appropriate for anger, and on median stress as expressive of gentle emotion, and final stress as fit to give the sense of impatience (pages 29, SO). See also the remarks (on page 27) on the circnrnflex slide as suggestive of crooked thought and insincere dealing. 36 THE .SIXTH liKAhKlL breath, and, at most, with only moderate force. They enforce silent acquiescence, " While thinking roan Shrinks back into hiroself, — himself so mean 'Mid things so vast." Hence short and falling slides, to express awe. They have hoarse tones ; and so our voices, when not hushed to a whis- per, are apt to express awe by deep, almost hoarse, utteranco. Awe, then, commonly has low pitch, large volume, median stress, slow movement, slight or moderate force, falling slides, and impure (hoarse) quality. If such be the facts in regard to awe, evidently, by a nati ral antithesis, mirthfulness would be expressed, to some extent at least, by opposite elements; as high pitch, small volume, initial stress, quick movement, rising slides, pure quality. But, as mirth is often imitative, these elements would be more or less varied according to circumstances. By similar methods of investigation, doubtless much of tli* philosophy of the vocal expression of emotions might be re- vealed ; but our limited space compels us to present only the results of observation and researcL Latitude must be allowed for a diversity of tastes in regard to some of the details. Not even the best elocutionists will agree on all points. SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO VOCAL EXPRESSION. Tranquillity is usually of moderate force, or a little les- rather slow movement; middle pitch, tending to low; pui quality ; moderate or slight volume ; gentle and median stress , moderate or short slides, mostly falling. Thus : — At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still. And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove ; When naught but the torrent is heard on the hill, And naught but the nightingale's song in the gi^ove, — It was thus, by the cave of the mountain afar, While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began ; TNTRrmunTmN. 37 No more with lums<'lt or with nutun* ai war, He thought as a sage, though he felt as a man. Beattik. Cheerfulness is usually of moderate force, or a little greater ; (I nick movement ; middle pitch, or a little higher ; pure qual- ity ; moderate or slight volume ; initial sti-ess, sometimes me- dian ; moderate or longer slides. Thus: — 0, young Lochinvar is come out of the west ! Through all the wide border his steed was the best ; And save his good broadsword he weapon had none ; He rode all unarmed, and lie rode all alone. So merry in love and so dauntless in war. There never was knight like the young Lochinvar. He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone : He swam the Esk Kiver, where ford there was none : But ere he alighted at Netherby gate, The bride had consented, the gallant came late ; For a laggard in love and a dastard in war Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar. Scott. Mirth, if the degree of fun be considerable, and the person be demonstrative, is usually rather loud, quick, high, pure, except in imitation of the opposite qualities ; of moderate or smidl volume ; initial stress ; extensive, often circumflex^ slides. Thus, in Holmes's Treadmill Song : — The stars are rolling in the sky. The earth rolls on below ; And we can feel the rattling wheel Revolving as we go. Then tread away, my gallant boys, And make the axle fly ; Why should not wheels go round about Like planets in the sky ? Wake up, wake up, my duck-legge' at the same time. On any other occasion I hould think myself justifiable in treating with silent contempt anything lii«h might fall from that honorable member. — GRArrAN. 44 THE SIXTH READER SooBN is similar to contempt, but louder, of larger volume, and longer slides, usually falling. Thus : — May their fate be a mock-word ! may men of all lauds Laugh out with a scorn that shall ring to the poles ! When each sword that the cowards let fall from their hands Shall be foTfged into fetters to enter their souls. MooRB. Maucb, which is a settled state of the mind, is usually of mo.M til." flashes of thy lightning wiM, And in the very grave would hide my head ! Dmitriev. INTRODUCTION. 49 Solemnity is usually of slight or moderate force, slow move- ment, low pitch, median stress, pure quality, moderate or large volume, short slides, mostly falling. Thus : — By Nebo's lonely mountain, ^ On this side Jordan's wave, In a vale in the land of Moab, There lies a lonely grave. But no man dug that sepulchre, And no man saw it e'er ; For the angels of God upturned the sod, And laid the dead man there ! Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander. Seriousness is usually of moderate force, but sometimes loud, sometimes soft ; rather slow movement ; low pitch ; slightly median stress, sometimes initial; pure quality; mod- erate volume ; moderate slides, mostly falling. Thus : — Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposi- tion that all men are created ej^ual. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedi- cated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting-place of those who have given their lives that that nation might live. — Lincoln. Reverence unites fear, respect, and esteem. It differs but little from solemnity in its expression. The pitch may be a little higher, the volume a little larger, the movement faster, and the slides oftener rising. Thus : — Venerable men ! You have come down to us from a former genera- tion. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. — Websteii. HouuoH chills and paralyzes. It is usually of soft force, very low pitch, very slow movement, slight median stress, sometimes tremulous ; impure, guttural quality ; usually large Tolume ; short falling slides, or none. This combination of ele- ments tends to the monotone. Thus the ghost of the murdered king in " Hamlet " : — 50 THE SIXTff READER. Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand. Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatched ; Cut off in the very blossoms of ray sin, Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled ; No reckoning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head ! O, horrible ! O, horrible ! Most horrible ! SUAKESPKARE. Remorse, when great, is usually of loud convulsive force, but sometimes suppressed ; quick movement, with irregular in- tervals ; high pitch, sometimes moderate or low ; impure qual- ity» guttuml, with sobbing or sighing ; small volume, some- times moderate ; final stress, with tremor ; moderate 8lidei>, mostly falling. Thus: — Oh, my offence is rank ; it siuEn. The following extract IVom Youngs " >iight Thoughts " will serve to illustrate further these points : — ll)\v poor, bow rich, how abject, how august, Tho word poor, meaning hnmhle, weak, naturally suggests a gesture below the horizontal plane. The worrl rich requires a gesture a little higher. The word abject may have a low gesture, as if calling attention to the very ground. On the word auffuti the look is elevated, and the hand may be raiseil to a position of about forty-five degrees above the horizontal No gestures shouM bo used here, unless tho utterance is very slow. The elevation and depression of tho eye and of tho face may suffice. How complicate, how wonderful, is man ! How passing wonder He who made him such ! Who ceutretl in our make such strange extremes. From different natures mar^'ellonsly mixed. Connection exquisite of distant worlds. Distinguished link in being's endless chain, Midway from nothing to the Deity. At nothing the eye, hand, and (acQ are downcast At He and at Deity they are uplifteil. A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorpt ; Though sullied and dishonored, still divine ; Dim miniature of greatness absolute ; An heir of glor}% a frail child of dust ! An heir of $lory requires the elevation of the eye and the hand. (Fig. 1 2). A frail child of dust requires that the look and gesture be depressed. (Fig. 13.) Helpless immortal ! insect infinite ! On the word helpless tlie gesture again is one of weakness and humility, — a low gesture. On the word immortal, even if the hand remain low, the eye and the face should be raised. The utterance must all the while be very slow. INTRODUCTION. 65 Fio. 12. Fio. 13. "Heir of glory." (p. 64.) " PraU child of dust " (p. 64. ) Abstract qualities, when successively enumerated, may be imagined to occupy different locations, and may be alluded to by corresponding gestures of place, thus : — What would content you ? Talent ? No. Enterprise ? No. Repu- tation T No. Courage ? No. Virtne ! No. Patriotism ? No. Holi- 1 1(.. 1.. Fia. 16. ••Talent? No. EnterpriMt No. Hoputation? No." 66 THE SIXTH READER. neasf No. The man whom you would select, must possess not one, but all of these. On the word talent the gesture might be directly to the front, as if talent were located between the speaker and the audience in fmnt of him. On the word enterprise the hand may gesticiUate a little to the right of where the gesture was made on taUnty as if enterprise lay beside talent and not f;ir Fio. 17. Fic. IS Fio. 19. a k v-^- P m Virtue ? No. .. "Patriotism? No." "Courage? No." distant from it. On the word reputation the hand may be carried still farther in the oblique direction, as if reputation were in the third place. On the word courage a similar ges- ture to the right of the gestiire on reputation would mark out its locality as the fourth in the series. On the word virtue another gesture still farther to the right, making it the fifth place in the series. So Tv4th patriotism and holiness succes- sively. (Fig. 20.) On the word one the gesture may be directly to the front, and with the index finger. On the word all a wave of the hand from the front around to the right, so as to include all the qualities that have been enum- erated in their respective locations. INTRODUCTION. 67 Fio-ao. Fio. 21. ' Holiness (pp. e.-i, 66.) A Climax. Perhaps, however, it would be better to locate the different qualities one above the other, marking talent by the hand at the height of the elbow or a little lower, and letting the hand rise successively on the other qualities, thus making a climax, holiness carrying the hand high toward the zenith. The posi- tions of the hand in the consecutive gestures need not be in a vertical plane ; they may better rise obliquely to tlie right. It is well for one who has a set speech to deliver, to note carefully beforehand the words or passages where gestures of place are required ; and to conceive, with as much distinctness as possible, of the appropriate situations which he may, for the purposes of his speech, conceive to be occupied by the things alluded to or described ; just as a painter, in drawing a land- scape, will select at the outset the points to which he wishes to give prominence, or which form the basis of his measure- ments, and >vill mark their relative positions on the canvas. Thus the prominent points of the picture which the orator has in his mind's eye will at once be reproduced by the audience. The following piece illustrates principally gestures of place. Circumstances may modify their number, form, and extent. 68 \i>LlL Now rest for the wretched : the long day is paat, In this line there is no detiint<» ronroption of any particular location, and no gesture of thai kini i> n. h drl. The eye is " bent on vacancy/' as in calm meditation. (See Conventional Guturet, p. 100.) And night on yon priion dascendiii. ^. ... The speaker should have determined befor* hand, for the purposes of Uie speech, the imaginary direction anl distance of this prison from liimself and from the audience; and his face should be turned towards it, his eye should seem to see it, his arm may be extended, and his liand, if not his finger, point towards it F10.SS. FlO. 23. Culm nieilitation " Vuii iiisoii," etc. A speaker of gr^at vivi.ln<'>- ^f fancy miudit r-oncoivo of night n.< an atmosphere of darkne^ coming down. Perliaps he wouM. n't innppmpriatoly. follow that descending move- ment I'V l-w,Tin,L: liis fic- (wliidi niidil liav.- l.een elevated to an aiiglt' "f al)..ut l-")^) and ]iis hand, bringing the Irand. at the conrhi-ion of tlie gesture, into the position in Avliich it Would itol. ryTRODUCTWX. 73 Now she treads tiif loiig unuge, —joy lighteth her eye I In the utterance of this line the gaze should be earnestly lixed upon the moving object, the linger pointing it out, the linger, the face, and the eyes turning very slowly to keep pace with its motion. ** Beyond her the dense wood and the darkening sky : At the word beyond the look is directed to the forest; and instantly, after the utterance of the word wood, the face and eyes arc slightly raised to behold the darkening sky. Fia. 33. •' To the sanctuary," etc. (p. 72.) " Treads the long bridge," etc. Wild hopes thrill her breast as she neareth the shore : As s«.(>n lis the word ski/ is uttered, the glance reverts as quickly as possible to the fugitive. < )h, despair ! — there are men fast advancing before ! Just l>efore the word'oA, the eye and the face move a little to catch a glimpse of the men advancing in front of the fugi- tive. By an abrupt gesture the hand may point these men out. The attitude may indicate despair. (Fig. 34.) 74 THE SIXTH READER. Flo. 84. Fio. 35. **0fc.4«piUr!- (p. 73.) Shame, shame on their manhood ! They hear, they heed The face is still riveted to the spot where the fugitive and the intercepting party are meeting. The hand, wliich has remained extended, may be dropped as the word shame is first uttered. The cry her flight to stay ; And, like demon forms, with their outstretched arms They wait to seize their prey ! (Fig. 86.) She pauses, she turns, — ah ! will she flee back ? The look is all the while fastened on the fugitive and her piirsuei-s ; or it may rapidly glance around the vicinity, as if looking for sympathy and succor. Like wolves her pursuers howl loud on her track : — She lifteth to heaven one look of despair, Her anguish breaks forth in one hurried prayer : — Hark, her jailer's 5'ell ! — like a bloodhound's bay At the word karh, the eye glances at the jailer, who has now, it must be supposed, approached very near the fugitive. I^\ J ii.'/U(j ', / i'y>.V. 75 On the low night wind it sweeps ! Now death, or the chain ! — to the stream she turns, And she leaps, God, she leaps ! On the word chain a gesture of emphasis, a downward stroke. (See, on a subsequent page, Emphatic Gestures.) During the delivery of the last eight or ten lines there may be no gesture to indicate mere locality; but throughout the whole of them the attention is steadily fixed on the spot where the action ia progressing. On the words she leaps there is first a sympathetic movement as if to leap, and immediately a recoiling with horror. (Fig, 38.) (See, on subsequent pages, Imitative Gestures.) On the word God there should be an in- stantaneous upward glance. The dark and the cold yet merciful wave K this scene is supposed to be somewhat near the speaker, he will naturally look down a little to the river below the bridge; but if it is conceived to be at some distance, say a liiarter of a mile or more, there will be no perceptible change 111 the direction of his gaze. Fio. 86. Pio. 87. •*OuUtret ! " (p. 75.) 'She rises," etc Bat she straggleth not with the strong rushing stream ; And low are the death-cries her woman's heart gives, As she floats adown the river ; Faint and more faint grows her drowning voice, And her cries have ceased forever. On the words as she floats adoton the river^ the direction of the glance should change very slightly, so as to keep pace with the floating corpse. Now back, jailer, back to thy dungeons again, At the word now, the glance returns to the jailer, who is supposed to be still standing on the bridge, watching his vie- INTRODUCTION. 77 Pio. 40. PlO. 41. •• Strong rushing stream." (p. 76. ) ' Back, jailer; back ! " (p. 70.) tim. At the utterance of the second hack^ the face turns to t he jail, and a quick gesture of the hand may point to it ; and the eye, having momentarily looked at the prison, instantly returns, and rests on the jailer. To swing the red lash, and rivet the chain : The form thou wouldst fetter — a valueless clod ! On Kitnnfj, the gesture may imitate the stroke of one ply- ing the lash. (See Imitative Gestures^ p. 80, etc.) At the word form or fetter^ the hand begins to be moved, ' > make a gesture pointing out the floating corpse ; and at the ttorance of the word dod the hand or finger points, with 1 descending stroke, in the direction of the dead body in the river. The gesture may be made with the left hand. (Fig. 22.) The soul thou wouldst barter — returned to her God ! The eyes, in the utterance of the word « a wide sweep of one or both arms to express universality. (P. 83, fig. 46.) On the wonl nothing, the imitative gesture descends, the action being that of one throwiiiLr :iw:iv or drop- ] ting as utterly worthless. 82 THE SIXTH READER. •nd th«y are counted to him lees than nothing, and vanity. On the word lest there is the same imitative gesture of con- temptuous throwing away. Behold the nations are as a drop of a hacket, and arc counted as the small dust of the balance ! On the words drop and dust incre is a similar movement of the arm and hand, as of one discarding what is of no value. This gesture should not be made at the front ; for when we throw away or reject as valneless, we do not cast the thing where it will be an obstacle, or even visible, in our path. Neither do we throw it far to the rear ; for that would require too much bodily exertion, and such action would seem to give it temporary importance : but we toss it down at the right or at the left; commonly the right, because the right hand is mainly employed. It is utterly useless to prolong the strife. Here, on the word uteUss, the action is again that of a person flinging away a trifle ; or, if one prefer, he may drop the hand as if it were paralyzed, and for the moment assume the attitude of helplessness. (Fig. 1.) The finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. The same gesture of throwing away on the word insignificance. I will not call him fool, because he happens to he Chancellor of the Exchequer. The same gesture on the word fool, with a little quicker stroke to indicate anger. (See Emphatic Gestures.) Secondly. The action in concession is that of a person con- veying in his hand something which he surrenders. The hand should then be extended forward and open, the palm up and turned a little to the front, — just as much so as if it contained something actuaUy to be placed in the hand or at the feet of the person to whom the concession is made. INTRODUCTION. 83 PlO. 4& Fig. 47. "All nations." etc. (p. 81) I freely graut all. " I freely grant all that you demand. The hand moves forward on a line nearly horizontal, palm upwards, the hand, at the word grants slightly turning on the wrist as on a pivot ; and when it has been extended as far as convenient, it remains for a time in that position of offering, as if it were to give the recipient time to take that which is yielded. I grant him, bloody, luxurious, avaricious, false. On the word grant the same gesture. Bmtus is an honorable man. This is concession, and may be expressed in the same manner. Politeness may require the speaker to bow ceremoniously at the same time that he moves forward the hand ; the principle being that the speaker shoiUd imitate the action and attitude of one yielding or conceding a visible and tangible object, which usually may, for the moment, be conceived of as being in the hand. Extreme humility, submission, and obsequiousness are ex- 84 THK SIXTH HEADER pressed by the iKjsture and motions of a deferential servant before his master, or a polished courtier before his king. Mo8t high« most mighty, and most puiwant Cesar, Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat An bumble heart No better general direction can be given i i iho delivery of these and similar lines than that, during the utterance of them, one should imagine himself actually in the position of the original speaker, and imitate his manner as far as dignity will permit. (Fig. 48.) Is there any limit to the extent to which imitative gestures should be used 1 Yes. First, there may be an innuiuon which is false, because too literal Thus, in one of Percival's hymns, we have the follow- ing lines in honor of thoee who fought at Bunker's Hill : — Hail to the mom when first they stood On Banker's height ! And fearless stemmed the invading flood, And wrote oar dearest rights in blood. And mowed in ranks the hireling brood In desperate fight ! Here a too close imitation would go through the exact motions of writing in the fourth line ; or, worse still, would, as it were, accurately swing a scythe in the fifth ! Secondly, there may be excessive or undignified imitation ; as if one describing a gymnast's feats should turn a summer- sault, or stand on his head in presence of the audience; or should take some steps of a Highland fling, to illustrate a description of such a dance. Decorum, therefore, and dignity are not to be sacrificed. " Suit the action to the word," says Shakespeare, " with this si)ecial obser^'ance, that you overstep not th(^ moflpsity of nature." lSTi;ni)UCTION. 85 Fio. 4& Fio. 49. Metelhis Cimber throws," etc. " Winds up the ascent," etc. We give the following analysis in further illustration of the principles alrejidy laid down. The selection is from the speech of Daniel Webster as prosecuting officer in the famous trial of the murderers of Joseph White. Here, too, some latitude must be allowed in regard to the number, the manner, and the extent of the gestures. The deed was executed with a degree of self-possession and steadiness equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. Tlie circumstances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. On the words, spread out the whole scene, there may well be an imitative gesture made by bringing the hands together in front, ibout the height of the elbow, or a little higher, turning the [•alms upward, and then, with the hands in this position, making an outward sweep, the open hands describing about I quarter of a circle, the radius being the length, or a little more, from the elbow to the tips of the fingers. All appear- ance of stiffness must be avoided. Deep »lce]) had fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, — the first sound slumbent 86 THE SIXTH READER, of the night held him in their soft bat Rtrong embrace. The enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apart- ment On the words through the window, the hand is raised, and the finger points to the window which the orator sees in his imagination. At the words unoccupied apartment^ the index finger ceases to point at the window ; and the opening hand, bj a slight motion, directs attention to the unoccupied apart- ment. These, of course, are gestures of place. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon. The slow motion of the murderer pacing the hall is indi- cated and slightly imitated by a slow movement of the hand ; and at the words hatf lighted^ the eye glances up towards the moon. These are mainly gestures of place. He winds up the ascent of the stairs On the word windi, the hand may be elevated a little higher than the forehead, and the index finger, pointing, may exe- cute a spiral, a circle, or a curve, to show the spiral motion. The elevation of the hand indicates place, and the winding motion is, of course, imitative. and reaches the door of the chamber. The index finger points to the door as the voice pronounces the word. Of this he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, The hand moves, the hand and forearm rotating so that the hand comes nearly palm upward, imitating the motion of unlocking by turning a key ; the ends of the thumb and first two fingers in contact, as if pressing on a key. till it turns on its hinges without noise ; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. Tlie hand may move slowly as tlie words are uttered, to INTRODUCTION. 87 Pio. 50. Fir.. 51. Moves the lock," etc 'Till it turns, "etc. imitate the swinging of the door. On the words beholds his victim, the hand is lowered, as if to point to the victim sleeping before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light On the words uncommonly open, the eye turns as if the speaker were inside the room and glancing up at the windows. The hand, somewhat elevated, may, at the same time, be waved in the arc of a circle, as if to call attention to a large part of the inside of the room. The face of the innocent sleeper was tamed away from the murderer, On the word factf the hand is again extended towards the face of the victim supposed to be present within touching distance. On the words Unnied army, the position of the hand may be reversed. It had, perhaps, been supine ; it may now be turned palm outwards, and nearly vertical, with a slight motion, as if turning the face away from the murderer. and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of Iiis aged temple, 88 THE SIXTH HEADER, On the words beams of the nuxm, the eye glances up towards the window through which the moonlight streams. On the words resting on the gray locks, the eye is fixed on the temples of the victim. showed him where to strike. These words, pronounced with great slowness, and accom- panied by a stroke, strictly in imitation of the murderer's blow, PicBS. The fktal blow." etc " FUm the dagger," etc. may be made exceedingly impressive and thrilling. Rufus Choate would have reproduced the scene by a two-handed blow! The fatal blow is given ! and the \ictim passes, without a straggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death ! Repose of sleep. These words call attention to the place of the sleeping victim. On the utterance of the words to t/te repose of death the hand, which had been resting almost on the sleeping form, may be carried a little distance to the right, as if death were somewhat removed from sleep. The gesture is one of place. INTRODUCTION. 89 Pin. M. FlO. 66. " Raises the aged arm," etc. " lAjilnres the wrist." etc. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work ; and he yet plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. On the words plies the hand may clinch, as it were, the dagger ; and on the word dagger it may fall, as if striking. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, On the words raises the aged arm, the motion of lifting the arm may he performed with the hand. and replaces it again over the wouiids of the poniard ! On the words replaces it again over the toounds of the poniard, he goes through the movement of replacing it with the hand. It i< needless to say that these are imitative gestures. To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse ! The gesture here imitates the position of a physician's thumh and finger feeling for the patient's pulse. 90 THE SIXTH READER. He feels for it, and ascertaiiu that it beats no longer ! It is accom- plished ! The deed is done ! He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes, oat through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder, — no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe ! Here the hand, the arm, and the eye follow the movement of the murderer from place to place. Ah, gentlonen, that was a dreadful mistake ! Such a secret can be safe nowhere. On the words can be tafe^ a long sweep of the arm, with open hand, beginning near the left shoulder. Just as the sweep is terminating, the word nowhere is uttered. A slight, quick shake of the head, to indicate negation, may accompany the utterance of the word wmkere. (See Conventional Geitures, page 100.) The whole creation of God has neither nook nor comer where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. On the words the whole creation, a very extensive sweep of Fio. fi«. Fig 57. ' Can be safe no-where.' The whole creation," etc. INTRODUCTION. 91 Fio. 68. Flo. 89. Eye which glances," etc. Splendor of noon." etc. both hands outward from a point just above the forehead, the face looking up to God ; the sweeping gesture terminating in a slight stroke on the word God, both hands being then ex- tended to the full length of the arms. This attitude should be maintained until the utterance of the word bestow, and just after that time the hands and the face drop. Not to speak of that Eye which glances through all disguises, At the beginning of this sentence, the look of the speaker may be fastened on his audience, but in the ending, it is slowly raised. and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. On the words splendor of noon, the face is high upturned, and the open hand, which had been lifted in front of the forehead, may be carried to the right to the extent of about the sixth of a circle. The gestures are chiefly expressive of place, as they draw attention to the flood of light that descends from the sky. 92 THE sfxrrr re a per. m. EMPHATIC GESTURES. Wbeneyer the mind is agitated, there is a natural and often irresistible tendency to express emotion by some bodily move- ment Any display of bodily force by a speaker indicates a corresponding degree of mental excitement.* The stronger the inner feeling, the greater the outward manifestation. This is the foundation of all emphatic gesture. There was a basis of truth in the view taken by a good mother in Israel, in one of our rural districts, when she ex- claime .sRies ; A gesture of location, beginning with the elevation of the hand and of the eye at the beginning of the sentence, and ter- minating with the hand lifted high towards the zenith on the word ikiet. call up the geologust trum ius subterranean explorations ; The hand begins to be lowered on the word geologist, and the descending gesture terminates with a slight stroke on ex- plorationtf as if locating them below the surface of the earth. suimiion, if need be, the mightiest intellects from the council -chamber of the nation ; enter cloistered halU, where the scholiast muses over su- ))erfluous annotations ; dissolve conclave and synod, where subtle |)olemic8 are vainly discmaing their barren dogmas ; On the wonU iiUdUcU from the eauncil-ekamberf the eye may be turned and the hand extended toward the supposed locality. On enter cloistered halUy another gesture of location, — a sweep of the baud towards the imagined place. So on conclave and fynod. A look of pitying contempt on the words scholiast and superfluous; a gesture of contempt on the words barren dogmas, preparation having been made for the scornful gesture by lifting the hand at the word vainly nearly to the height of the breast, the gesture being imitative of one rejecting what is utterly worthless, the backward or side- wise stroke being on the word dogmas. and go forth and teach this people. On the words go forth, a gesture partly imitative and partly by way of location, the hand being carried from the breast forward and upward to the full extent of the arm ; and then, without dropping the hand, a gesture of emphasis on the word teach, the gesture being made by a forcible stroke down in firout. For in the name of the living God it must be proclaimed that licen- tiousness shall be tlie liberty, and violence and chicanery shall be the lyTRovuunus. 99 Pio. 65. In the name of (p. 98.) ' The only happiness," etc. law, and superstition and priestcraft shall be the religion, and the self- destructive indulgence of all sensual and unhallowed passions shall be the only happiness, of that people which neglects the education of its children ! On the word God, a gesture of some emphasLs, and yet partly of location, made by lifting the hand to the height of the head, and striking upward on the word God, so that the ann will be extended straight towards heaven. The hand is then slowly withdrawn as far as the head, and an emphatic gesture is made by a downward stroke on the word liberty, and, again, on law. On religion, another still more forcible blow is struck for emphasis. On the word liappiness, it might not bo inappropriate to increase the emphasis by a stroke of both hands, due preparation having been made for the stroke by lifting both to about the height of the forehead. It is especially imjx)rtant for the student to take notice that all, or nearly all, of the emphatic gestures of the hand and arm may be made still more emphatic by combining with them a simul- taneous nod. (See pages 92, 93.) 100 TMM SIXTH READER. IV. CONVENTIONAL GESTURES. Under this head we include thoee gestnree which by com- mon usa^e have come to have a certain significance, without being palpably founded on place, manner, or degree ; that is, they do not indicate locality, nor do they imitate, nor em- phasize. Such is the uplifted hand, the fingers perpendicular and joined, the palm turned to the front, at the height of the face; that being the position required in the administration of an oath. Such are the bow of a speaker to his audience at the beginning of his address ; the clasping of the hands or placing the palms together in front of the breast in the act of adoration ; folding the arms across the breast, indicating com- posure ; kneeling in the act of prayer ; the nod of affirmation ; and the shaking of the head, indicating negation. Conven- tional gestures are not very numerous. y. 0ESTUBB3 OF ACTUAL PERFORlfANCE. These hardly need to be mentioned They are simply the motions of a speaker performing what he describes, or manipu- lating implements ; as of a chemical lecturer handling retorts, crucibles, etc DIRECTIONS. 1. Avoid all awkward, ungainly, or uncouth gestures and attitudes. It is a good rule never to take, unless unavoidable, and never to remain in, a posture in which you would not be willing to have your picture taken, or in which you would not be willing to be represented in a marble statue. 2. Unless the significance of the passage require it, avoid gestures that move in a straight line. So fer as practicable, the hand should generally move in a curve. 3. Examine the passage beforehand, and ascertain if any INTRODUCTION. 101 gestur(»8 of place are requisite U> present cle^rjy tbe ideas ; and then examine it in order to disco vir v^het!le^ f»dditlcral distinctness or vividness can be added by gestures of imitaiion. If you feel like imitating, imitate ; being careful, however, as Shakespeare advises, " not to overstep the modesty of nature." \. There will be little need of scrutinizing the passage to discover where gestures of emphasis may be needed. One who feels deeply what ho is saying, may generally, so far as mere emphasis is concerned, safely yield to the impulses of nature. If you feel like striking, strike. 5. Let your face and your attitude express the state of vour mind ; not the opposite, except for comic effect. 6. Use no gesture for which you cannot give a good reason. 7. Finally, the complete elocutionary analysis of any pas- sage will include the process laid down on pages 53, 64 tor the elements of vocal expression. The Sixth Reader. I. — CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATIONS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. JOHN QUmCY ADAMS. JoHW QcnrcY Adams was l)om in Braintree, Massachnsetts, July 11, 1767, and died at Waahington, February 23, 1848. He was for half a century in the service of his country, as Foreign Minister, United States Senator, Secretary of State, President of the United States, and from 1831 to the time of his death member of the House of RepresentatiTes. He was a man of indomitable energj-, dauntless courage, inde- fatigable indostry, and ardent patriotism. Hia politick opinions made him many enemies, especially in his declining years, but no one ever doubted his honesty and integrity, or failed to resi>ect the spotless purity of his private life. His systematic industry enabled him to accomplish an inimensc deal of work. He was a man of extensive learning, and familiar with ancient and modem literature. His writings, consisting of speeches, addresses, lectures, and reports, are numerous enough to All several volumes. He waa for a short time professor of rhetoric and oratory in Har- vard College, and the lectures he delivered in that capacity were published in 1810, in two octavo volumes. The following extract is from a discourse entitled " The Jubilee of the Constitution," delivered at New York on the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of that instrument WHEN the children of Israel, after forty years of wanderings in the wilderness, were about to enter upon the promised land, their leader, Moses, who was not permitted to cross the Jordan with them, just before his removal from among them, commanded that when the Lord their God should have brought them into the land, they should put the curse upon Mount Ebal and the blessing upon Mount Gerizim. This injunction was faithfully fulfilled by his successor, Joshua. Immediately after they had taken possession of 104 THE SIXTH READER. the land, Joshua built an altar to the Lord of whole stones upon Mount Ebal ; and there he wrote upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written in the presence of the children of Israel And all Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on the two sides of the ark of the covenant, borne by the priests and Levites, — six tribes over against Mount Greri- zim, and six over against Mount Ebal ; and he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, accord- ing to all that was written in the book of the law. Fellow-citizens, the ark of your covenant is the Dec- laration of Independence ; your Mount Ebal is the confederacy of separate State sovereignties ; and your Mount Gerizim is the Constitution of the United States. In that scene of tremendous and awful solemnity, nar- rated in the Holy Scriptures, there is not a cui-se pro- nounced against the people upon Mount Ebal, not a blessing promised them upon Mount Gerizim, which your posterity may not suffer or enjoy from your and their adherence to or departure from the principles of the Declaration of Independence, practically interwoven in the Constitution of the United States. Lay up these principles, then, in your hearts and in your souls ; bind them for signs upon your heads, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes ; teach them to your children, speaking of them when sitting in your houses, when walking by the way, when lying down, and when rising up ; write them upon the door-plates of your houses, and upon your gates ; cling to them as to the issues of life ; adhere to them as to the cords of your eternal salvation ! So may your children's children, at the next return of this day of jubilee, after a full century of experience under your national Constitution, celebrate TO A IVATERFOrVL. 105 it again, in the full enjoyment of all the blessings recog- nized by you in commemoration of this day, and of all the blessings promised to the children of Israel upon Mount Gerizim as the reward of obedience to the law of God! II — TO A WATERFOWL BRYANT. WiLLlAJf CoLLEN BRYANT was bom in Curomington, Massachuststts, November 3, 1794. He was admitted to the bar, but soon left the profession of the law, and has for many years resided in or near the city of New York, as one of the editors and proprietors of the " New York Evening Post," a daily paper which has a wide circu- lation and much influence. It is not necessary to point out, at any length, the merits of a poet whose productions were the delight of his own countrymen, and were well known abroad, long before the young persons for whose use this work is intended were bom. It is enough to say that his poems are distingiiished by the perfect finish of their style, their elevated tone, their dignity of sentiment, and their lovely pictures of American scenery. He is, at once, the most truthful and the most delightful of painters. We find in his pages all the most obvious and all the most retiring graces of our native landscapes, but nothing borrowed. from books, — nothing transplanted from a foreign soil. Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way 1 Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky. Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide. Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side Y 106 THE SIXTH JiKADER. There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — The desert and illimitable air, — Lone wandering, but not lost All day thy wings have fanned, At that fiir height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land. Though the dark night is near. And soon that toil shall end ; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou 'rt gone ; the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given. And shall not soon depart He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight. In the long way that I must tread alone Will lead my steps aright III — THE BURNING OF MOSCOW. ON the 14th of September, 1812, while the rear-guard of the Eussians were in the act of evacuating Moscow, Napoleon reached the hill called the ^Vlount of THE BUKMMJ uF MUSCUir. 107 Salvation, because it is there that the natives kneel and cross themselves at first sight of the Holy City. Moscow seemed lordly and striking as ever, with the steeples of its thirty churches and its copper domes glittering in the sun ; its palaces of Eastern architecture, mingled with trees and surrounded with gardens ; and its Kremlin, a huge triangular mass of towers, something between a palace and a castle, which rose like a citadel out of the general mass of groves and buildings. But not a chimney sent up smoke, not a man appeared on the battlements or at the gates. Napoleon gazed, every moment expecting to see a train of bearded boyars arriving to fling themselves at his feet, and place their wealth at his disposal. His first exclamation was, " Behold at last that celebrated city ! " His next, " It was full time !" His army, less regardful of the past or the future, fixed their eyes on the goal of their wishes, and a shout of " Moscow ! Moscow ! " passed from rank to rank When he entered the gates of Moscow, Bonaparte, as if unwilling to encounter the sight of the empty streets, stopped immediately on entering the first suburb. His troops were quartered in the desolate city. During the first few hours after their arrival an obscure rumor, which could not be traced, but one of those which are sometimes found to get abroad before the approach of some awful certainty, announced that the city would be endangered by fire in the course of the night. The report seemed to arise from those evident circumstances which rendered the event probable ; but no one took any notice of it until at midnight, when the soldiers were startled from their quarters by the report tliat tlie town was in flames. 108 THE SIXTH HEADER. The memorable conflagration began amongst the ware- houses and workshops in the bazaar, or general market, which was the richest district of the city. It was im- puted to accident, and the progress of the flames was sub- dued by the exertions of the French soldiers. Napoleon, who had been aroused by the tumult, hurried to the spot ; and when the alarm seemed at an end, he retired, not to his former quarters in the suburbs, but to the Kremlin, the hereditary palace of the only sovereign whom he had ever treated as an equal, and over whom his successful arms had now attained such an apparently immense superiority. Yet he did not suffer himself to l^e dazzled by the advantage he had obtained, but availed himself of the light of the blazing bazaar to write to the Emperor proposals of peace with his own hand. They were despatohed by a Russian officer of rank, who had been disabled by indisposition from following tlie army ; but no answer was ever returned. Next day the flames had disappeared, and the French officers luxuriously employed themselves in selecting out of the deserted palaces of Moscow that which best pleased the fancy of each for his residence. At night the flames again arose in the north and west quarters of the city. As the greater part of the houses were built of wood, the conflagration spread with the most dreadful rapidity. This was at first imputed to the blazing brands and sparks which were carried by the wind ; but at length it was observed that as often as the wind changed — and it changed three times in that terrible night — new flames broke out in that direction where the existing gale was calculated to drive them on the Kremlin. These horrors were increased by the chance of explo- THE BURNING OF MOSCOW. 109 sion. There was, though as yet unknown to the French, a magazine of powder in the Kremlin ; besides that, a park of artillery, with its ammunition, was drawn up under the Emperor's window. Morning came, and with it a dreadful scene. During the whole night the metropolis had glared with an un- timely and unnatural light. It was covered with a thick and suftbcating atmosphere of almost palpable smoke. The flames defied the efforts of the French soldiery ; and it is said that the fountains of the city had been rendered inaccessible, the water-pipes cut, and the fire-engines de- stroyed or carried off. Then came the report of fireballs having been found burning in deserted houses; of men and women that, like demons, had been seen openly spreading flames, and who were said to be furnished with combustibles for ren- dering their dreadful work more secure. Several wretches against whom such acts had been charged were seized upon, and, probably without much inquiry, were shot on the spot. While it was almost impossible to keep the roof of the Kremlin clear of the burning brands which the wind showered down, Napoleon watched from the windows the course of the fire which devoured his fair conquest, and the exclamation bui-st from him, " These are indeed Scythians ! " The equinoctial gales rose higher and higher upon the third night, and extended the flames, with which there was no longer any human i)o\ver of contending. At the dead hour of raidniglit the Kremlin itself was found to be on fire. A soldier of the Russian police, charged with being the incendiary, was turned over to the summary vPTifjoanop of tbo Tni|v>nal Guard. 110 THE SIXTH READER. Bonaparte was then, at length, persuaded by the en- treaties of aU around him tn tho altar there. With j)allid lip and stony brow, She murmurs forth her anguish now. But hark ! the tramp of heavy feet Is heard along the bloody street ! Nearer and nearer yet they come. With clanking arms and noiseless drum. Now whispered curses, low and deep, Around the holy temple creep ; — The gate i« burst ! a niffian band Rush in luul savaurlv donmnd. 1U THE SIXTH READER, With brutal voice and oath profane, The startled boy, for exile's chain ! The mother sprang with gesture wild, And to her bosom clasped her child ; Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye, Shouted, with fearful energy, '* Back, rufiSans, back ! nor dare to tread Too near the body of my dead ! Nor touch the living boy. * I stand Between him and your lawless band ! Take m«, and bind these arms, these hands, With Russia's heaviest iron bands, And drag me to Sibieria's wild. To perish, if *t will save my child I " '* Peace, woman, peace ! ** the leader cried, Tearing the pale boy from her side. And in his ruffian grasp he bore His victim to the temple door. " One moment ! " shrieked the mother, " one 1 Will land or gold redeem my son t Take heritage, take name, take all, But leave him fiiee from Russian thrall ! Take these ! " And her white arms and hands She stripped of rings and diamond bands, And tore from braids of long black hair The gems that gleamed like starlight there. Her cross of blazing rubies, last Down at the Russian's feet she cast. He stooped to seize the glittering store ; Upspringing from tlie marble floor The mother, with a cry of joy, •Snatched to her leaping heart the boy ! THE POLISH BOY, 115 But no ! the Russian's iron grasp Again undid the mother's clasp. Forward she fell with one long cry Of more than mortal agony. But the brave child is roused at length, And, breaking from the Russian's hold, He stands, a giant in the strength Of his young spirit fierce and bold. Proudly he towers ; his flashing eye So blue, and yet so bright. Seems kindled from the eternal sky, So brilliant is its light. His curling lips and crimson cheeks Foretell the thought before he speaks. Witli a full voice of proud command He turns upon the wondering band : " Ye hold me not ! no, no, nor can ! This hour has made the boy a man. I knelt beside my slaughtered sire, Nor f»'lt one throb of vengeful ire. I wept upon his marble brow. Yes, wept ! I was a child ; but now — My noble mother on her knee Has done the work of years for me ! " He drew aside his broulered vest. And there, like slumbering serpent's crest, The jewelled haft of poniard bright Glittered a moment on the sight. " Ha ! start ye back 1 Fool ! coward ! knave ! Think ye my noble father's glaive Would drink the life-blood of a slave ] The ]>caris that on the handle flame Would blush to nibit's in fli.ir •^li.inie : 116 THE SIXTH READER The blado would quiver in thy breast, Afihamed of such ignoble rest. No ! thus I rend the tyrant's chain, And fling him back a hotfs ditdain /*' AMERICAN BATTLE-FLAGS. 117 A moment, and the funeral light Flashed on the jewelled weapon bright ; Another, and his young heart's blood Leaped to the floor, a crimson flood ! Quick to his mother's side he sprang, And on the air his clear voice rang : " Up, mother, up ! look on thy son ! His freedom is forever won ! And now he waits one holy kiss To bear his father home in bliss ; One last embrace, one blessing, — one ! To prove thou know'st, approv'st, thy son. What ! silent yet ] Canst thou not feel My warm blood o'er thy heart congeal *? Speak, mother, speak ! lift up thy head ! What ! silent still 1 Then art thou dead ! Great God ! I thank thee ! Mother, I Rejoice with thee — and thus — to die ! " One long, deep breath, and his pale head Lay on his mother's bosom — dead ! VI.— AMERICAN BATTLE-FLAGS. CARL 8CHURZ. Carl Schvbz. an American statesman and orator, waa born at Llhlar, near Cologne. in Geimany. March 2, 1829, Taking an earnest part in the revolutionary movements of '48 and '40, he waa forced to leave his native country, and went successively to Switzerland, Paris, and England. He came to this country in 1852. He first at- tracted attention as an orator, in the Gennan language, in tlie Presidential campaign of 18S& He took a leading part in the couvt-ntion which nominated Mr. Lincoln for the PreaMency. and in the canvass which followed he was a very effective speaker in the language of his adopted country. After Mr. Lincoln's election, he waa appointed minister to Spain, but returned to the United States, December, 1801, and entered the military service as brigadier^eneral of Tolnnteera. He aenred with distinction throughout the war. In 1809 h* was choaen United StatM Senator ttom Missouri. He has taken a very 118 THr. ^IXiU KJlADJLIL oonspicQoas put in th« deliberaUotu of the Senate. Be U a phUoeophical thinker, M well M an eloqueut «iieaker. liis speeches show a niiiid of much originalitx and acuteneM, and he never addraeMS the Senate without carefUl preparation. The foUowlng extract is fh>m his eulogy on Charles Sumner, deUvend before the city authorities of Boston. In defending the coons of Mr. Sumner in moving a resolution that the names of the Utiles in the civil war should tw mnoved fh>m the rcglraeuUl colors of the army and the anny register. Mr. Schurx defends Uie courae of Mr. Sumner by a reference to parallel examples in bUtory. The battle of the Boyne was fought July 1. 1000. be- tween WiUiam the Thiitl. at the bead of a oonfedeimte army of EnglUh and Dutch, and the French and Iri^h under James the Second. The result was the defeat of James and his flight into France. The battle of Culloden was fought April 16. 1764. between the English troops, commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, and the Scotch High landers, led by Prince Charles Edward. The Utter were entirely defeated and the re- U Vendte is the name of a department in Fkmnoe in which a Royalist insurrection against Bepabliean France broke out in 179S and continued unUl 1796. with great loss ofUliB on both sides. At Villagos a Hungarian army under Odrgey surrendered at discretion to the Anstrians and Ruasians, August IS, 1849. The battle of Koniggratz was ftmgfat July S. 180^ between the Prussians under the flag of the Black Eagle. •nd the Austxians and Hanoverians, in whleh the Utter were whoUy defeated. The battU of LangenaaUa was fought June 27. 1806. the result of which was that the Anstrians and Hanoverians were defbeted by the Prassians and obliged to capltuUte. The batUe of Oravelotte was fought between the Prussians and their aUies on the one side, and the French on the other. August 16. 1870. in which the Utter were defeated after a desperate and bloody conflict FROM Europe Mr. Siimner returned late in the fall of 1872, much strengthened, but far from being well At the opening of the session he reintroduced two measures, which, as he thought, should complete the record of his political life. One was his civil-rights bill, which had failed in the last Congress ; and the other, a resolution providing that the names of the battles won over fellow-citizens in the war of the Rebellion should be removed from the regimental colors of the army, and from the army register. It was in substance only a repetition of a resolution which he had introduced ten years before, in 1862, dur- ing the war, when the first names of victories were put on American battle-flags. This resolution called forth a new storm against him. It was denounced as an insult AMERICAN BATTLE-FLAGS. 119 to the heroic soldiers of the Union, and a degradation of their victories and well-earned laurels. It was condemned as an unpatriotic act. Charles Sumner insult the soldiers who had spilled their blood in a w^ar for human rights ! Charles Sumner degrade victories, and depreciate laurels, won for the cause of universal freedom ! — how strange an imputa- tion ! Let the dead man have a hearing. This was his thought : No civilized nation, from the republics of an- tiquity down to our days, ever thought it wise or patri- otic to preserve in conspicuous and durable form the mementos of victories won over fellow-citizens in civil war. Why not ? Because every citizen should feel liim- self with all others as the child of a common country, and not as a defeated foe. All civilized governments of our days have instinctively followed the same dictate of wisdom and patriotism. The Irishman, when lighting for old England at Water- loo, was not to behold on the red cross floating above liim the name of the Boyne. The Scotch Highlander, when standing in the trenches of Sevastopol, was not by the colors of his regiment to be reminded of Culloden. No French soldier at Austerlitz or Solferino had to read upon the tricolor any reminiscence of the Vendue.* Xo Hungarian at Sadowa was taunted by any Austrian banner with the surrender of Villagos.-|- No German regiment from Saxony or Hanover, charging under the iron hail of Gravelotte, J was made to remember, by words written on a Prussian standard, that the black • Vendee, YMn(g)-dS'. t Villages, v51-y5'gos. Oravelotte, grav-lOt'. 120 THE ^IXTH HEADER, eagle had conquered them at Koniggratz* and Lan- gensalza.*f Should the son of South Carolina, when at some future day defending the Republic against some foreign foe, be reminded by an inscription on the colors floating over him, that under this flag the gun was fli-ed that killed liis father at Gettysburg ? Should this great and enlightened Eepublic, proud of standing in the front of human pro- gress, be less wise, less laige-hearted, than the ancients were two thousand years ago, and the kingly governments of Europe are to-day ? Let the battle-flags of the brave volunk^ers, wliich they brought home from the war with the glorious record of their victories, be preserved intact as a proud ornament of our State Houses and armories ; but let the colors of the army, under which the sons of all the States are to meet and mingle in common patriotism, speak of nothing but union, — not a union of conquerors and conquered, but a union which is the mother of all, equally tender to all, knowing of nothing? but equality, peace, and love among her children. Do you want conspicuous mementos of your victories ? They are written upon the dusky brow of every freeman who was once a slave ; they are written on the gate-posts of a restored Union ; and the most glorious of all will be written on the faces of a contented people, reunited in common national pride. Such were the sentiments which inspired that resolu- tion. Such were the sentiments which called forth a storm of obloquy. Such were the sentiments for which the Legislature of Massachusetts passed a solemn resolu- * Koniggratz, kdn'ig-grgtz. t Langensalza, l&ng-en-sal'tsa. AMERICAN BATTLE-FLAOS. 121 tion of censure upon Charles Sumner, — Massachusetts, his own Massachusetts, whom he loved so ardently with a filial love, of whom he was so proud, who had hon- ored him so much in days gone by, and whom he had so long and so faithfully labored to serve and to honor. Oh I those were evil days, that winter ; days sad and dark, when he sat there in his lonesome chamber, unable to leave it, the world moving around him, and in it so much that was hostile, and he — prostrated by the tor- menting disease, which had returned with fresh violence — unable to defend himself, and with this bitter arrow in liis heart. Why was that resolution held up to scorn lid vituperation as an insult to the brave, and an unpa- triotic act ? Wliy was he not attacked and condemned for it when he first offered it, ten years before, and when he was in the fulness of manhood and power ? If not then, why now ? Why now ? I shall never forget the melancholy hours I sat with him, seeking to lift him up with cheering words, and he — his frame for hours racked with excruciating pain, and then exhausted with suffering — gloomily brooding over he thought that he might die so. How thankful T am, how thankful every human soul in Massachusetts, how thankful every American must be, that he did not die then ! — and, indeed, more than once leath seemed to be knocking at his door, — how thankful hat he was spared to see the day, when the people, by striking developments, were convinced -that those who had acted as he did had after all not been impelled by mere whims of vanity, or reckless ambition, or sinister designs, but had good and patriotic reasons for what they ili.l • wi.MU the heart of Massachusetts came back to him 122 THE SIXTH READER. full of the old love and confidence, assuring him that he would again be her chosen son for her representative seat in the House of States ; when the lawgivers of the old Commonwealth, obeying an irresistible impulse of jus- tice, wiped away from the records of the Legislature, and from the fair name of the State, that resolution of censure which had stung him so deeply ; and when returning vigor lifted him up, and a new sunburst of hope illumined his life ! How thankful we all are that he lived that one year longer ! And yet, — have you thought of it ? — if he had died in those dark days, when so many clouds hung over him, would not then the much-vilified man have been the same Charles Sumner, whose death but one year later afflicted millions of hearts with a pang of bereavement, whose praise is now on every lip for the purity of his life, for his fidelity to great principles, and for the lofti- ness of his patriotism ? Was he not a year ago the same, — the same in pur- pose, the same in principle, the same in character ? What had he done then that so many who praise him to-day should have then disowned him ? See what he had done. He had simply been true to his convictions of duty. He had approved and urged what he thought right ; he had attacked and opposed what he thought wrong. To his convictions of duty he had sacrificed political associations most dear to him, the security of his position of which he was proud. For his convictions of duty he had stood up against those more powerful than he ; he had exposed himself to reproach, obloquy, and persecu- tion. Had he not done so, he would not have been the man you praise to-day ; and yet for doing so he was cried down but yesterday. THE CONTRAST; OR, PEACE AND li'AIi. 123 He had lived up tx) the great word he spoke when he entered the Senate, — " The slave of principle, I call no party master." That declaration was greeted with ap- plause ; and when, true to his word, he refused to call a party master, the act was covered with reproach. VII. — THE CONTRAST; OR, PEACE AND WAR. ATHENiEUM. PEACE. LOVELY art thou, O Peace ! and lovely are thy chil- dren, and lovely are the prints of thy footsteps in the green valleys. Blue wreaths of smoke ascend through the trees, and betray the half-hidden cottage ; the eye contemplates well-thatched ricks, and bams bursting with plenty : the peasant laughs at the approach of winter. White houses peep through the trees ; cattle stand cooling in the pool ; the casement of the farm-house is covered with jessamine and honeysuckle; the stately greenhouse exliales the perfume of summer climates. Children climb the green mound of the rampart, and ivy holds together the half-demolished buttress. The old men sit at their doors ; the gossip leans over her counter ; the children shout and frolic in the streets. ^The housewife's stores of bleached linen, whiter than snow, are laid up with fragrant herbs ; they are the pride of the matron, the toil of many a winter's niglit. Tlie wares of tlie merchant are spread abroad in the ahops, or stored in the higli-pUed warehouses ; the labor 124 THE SIXTH READER. of each profits all ; the inhabitant of the north drinks the fragrant herb of China ; the peasant's child wears the webs of Hindostan. The lame, the blind, and the aged repose in hospitals ; the rich, softened by prosperity, pity the poor ; the poor, disciplined into order, respect the rich. Justice is dispensed to alL Law sits steady on her throne, and the sword is her servant WAR. They have rushed through like a hurricane; like an army of locusts they have devoured the earth ; the war has fallen like a water-spout, and deluged the land with blood. The smoke rises not through the trees, for the honors of the grove are fallen, and the hearth of the cottager is cold ; but it rises from villages burned with fire, and from warm ruins spread over the now naked plain. The ear is filled with the confused bellowing of oxen, and sad bleating of overdriven sheep; they are swept from their peaceful plains; with shouting and goading are they driven away : the peasant folds his arms, and resigns his faithful fellow-laborers. The farmer weeps over his bams consumed by fire, and his demolished roof, and anticipates the driving of the winter snows. On that rising ground, where the green turf looks black with fire, yesterday stood a noble mansion; the owner had said in his heart : " Here will I spend the evening of my days, and enjoy the fruit of my years of toil ; my name shall descend with mine inheritance, and my chil- dren's children shall sport under the trees which I have planted." The fruit of his years of toil is swept away in THE CONTRAST: nn. PEACE AND WAR. 125 a moment ; wasted, not enjoyed ; and the evening of his days is left desolate. The temples are profaned ; the soldier's curse resounds in the house of God ; the marble pavement is trampled by iron hoofs ; horses neigh beside the altar. Law and order are forgotten ; violence and rapine are abroad ; the golden cords of society are loosed. Here are the shriek of woe and the cry of anguish ; and there is suppressed indignation bursting the heart with silent despair. The groans of the wounded are in the hospitals, and by the roadside, and in every thicket ; and the housewife's web, whiter than snow, is scarcely sufficient to stanch the blood of her husband and children. Look at that youth, the first-born of her strength ; yesterday he bounded as the roebuck ; was glowing as the summer fruits ; active in sports, strong to labor : he has passed in one moment from youth to age ; his coitieliness has departed ; help- lessness is his portion for the days of future years. He is more decrepit than his grandsire, on whose head are the snows of eighty winters ; but those were the snows of nature ; this is the desolation of man. Everything unholy and unclean comes abroad from its lurking-place, and deeds of darkness are done beneath the eye of day. The villagers no longer start at horrible sights ; the soothing rites of burial are denied, and liuman bones are tossed by human hands. No one careth for another ; every one, hardened by misery, careth for himself alone. Lo, these are what God has set before thee, child of reason ! son of woman ! Unto which does thine heart incline ? 126 THE SIXTH READER. VIIL— THE MISERIES OF WAR HALI^ Robert Hall was born in Arnsby, Leicestershire, England, May 2, 1764, and died in Bristol, February 21, 1831. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, became a clergyman of the Baptist persuasion, and was settled first at Bristol, next at Cambridge, then at Leicester, and lastly at Bristol again. He was a very ehxjuent and popular preacher, and hardly less remarkable for conversational I>owcr. He was of robust figure, but of feeble health, with a countenance expressive of self-reliance and intellectual strength. His works, edited, with a memoir, by Olinthus Gregory, and with an estimate of his character as a preacher, by John Fos- ter, have been published in England and America. They consist of sermons, occa- sional productions, and contributions to periodical literature. Their style is rich, animated, and pore. THOUGH the whole race of man is doomed to disso- lution, and we are all hastening to our long home, yet at each successive moment life and death seem to divide between them the dominion of mankind, and life to have the larger share. It is otherwise in war ; death reigns there without a rival, and without control. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph, of Death, who glories not only in the extent of his con- quest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death as- sumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims ; here they are the vigorous and the strong. It is remarked by the most ancient of poets,* that in peace, children bury their parents ; in war, parents bury their children : nor is the difference small. Children la- ment their parents, sincerely, indeed, but with that mod- erate and tranquil sorrow which it is natural for those to feel who are conscious of retaining many tender ties, many animating prospects. Parents mourn for their children with the bitterness of despair ; the aged parent, the wid- owed mother, loses, when she is deprived of her children, * Homer. THE Mrs?:RrES of war. 127 everything but the capacity of suffering : her heart, with- ered and desolate, admits no other object, cherishes no other hope. It is Rachel, weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are not. But to confine our attention to the number of the slain would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. The lot of those who perish instantaneously may be considered, apart from religious prospects, as compara- tively happy, since they are exempt from those lingering diseases and slow torments to which others are liable. We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger, or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment ; every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. In these last extremities we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature. What a scene, then, must a field of battle present, where thousands are left without assistance and without pity, with their wounds exposed to the piercing air, while the blood, freezing as it flows, binds them to the earth, amidst the trampling of horses and the insults of an enraged foe ! If they are spared by tlie humanity of the enemy, and carried from the field, it is but a prolongation of torment. Conveyed in uneasy vehicles, often to a remote distance, through roads almost impassable, they are lodged in ill- prepared receptacles for the wounded and the sick, where the variety of distress baffles all the efforts of humanity and skill, and renders it impossible to give to each the attention he demands. Far from their native home, no tender assiduities of friendship, no well-known voice, no wife or mother or sister is near to soothe their sorrows, relieve their thirst, or close their eyes in death ! Unhappy 128 THE SIXTH READER, man ! an(i must you be swept into the grave unnoticed and unnumbered, and no friendly tear be shed for your sufferings, or mingled with your dust ? "We must remember, however, that as a very small pro- portion of a military life is spent in actual combat, so it is a very small part of its miseries which must be ascribed to this source. More are consumed by the rust of inactivity than l)y the edge of the sword ; confined to a scanty or un- wholesome diet, exposed in sickly climates, harassed with tiresome marches and perpetual alarms, their life is a con- tinual scene of hai-dships and dangers. They grow familiar with hunger, cold, and watchfulness. Crowded into hos- pitals and prisons, contagion spreads amongst their ranks till the ravages of disease exceed those of the enemy. We have hitherto only adverted to the sufferings of those who are engaged in the profession of arms, without taking into our account the situation of the countries which are the scenes of hostilities. How dreadful to hold every- thing at the mercy of an enemy, and to receive life itself as a boon dependent on the sword ! How boundless the fears which such a situation must inspire, where the issues of life and death are determined by no known laws, prin- ciples, or customs, and no conjecture can be formed of our destiny, except as far as it is dimly deciphered in charac- ters of blood, in the dictates of revenge, and the caprices of power ! Conceive but for a moment the consternation which the approach of an invading army would impress on the peace- ful villages in our own neighborhood. When you have placed yourselves for an instant in that situation, you will learn to sympathize with those unhappy countries which have sustained the ravages of arms. But how is it possi- ble to give you an idea of these horrors ? Here you behold WINTER. 129 rich harvests, the bounty of Heaven, and the reward of industry, consumed in a moment, or trampled under foot, while famine and pestilence follow the steps of desolation. There the cottages of peasants given up to the flames, mothers expiring through fear, not for themselves but their infants ; the inhabitants flying with their helpless babes, in all directions, miserable fugitives on their native soil ! In another part you witness opulent cities taken by storm ; the streets, where no sounds were heard but those of peace- ful industry, filled on a sudden with slaughter and blood, resounding with the cries of the pursuing and the pur- sued ; the palaces of nobles demolished, the houses of the rich pillaged, and every age, sex, and rank mingled in pro- miscuous massacre and ruin ! IX. — WINTER JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. Jamzs BrsscLL Lowkll, an American poet and man of letters, was bom in Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, Febmary 2, 1819. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1838. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar, but never practised his profes- sion. He has been for many years professor of belles-lettres in Harvard College. He is a man of original genius, and in variety of intellectual power has no equal among our men of letters. He has very rare powers of wit and humor. His " Fable for Critics " is a brilliant satire. He has published two series of " Biglow Papers," so called, the ttrst of which has liad great popularity both in England and America. No one has ever u.scd the Yankee dialect with so much skill and effect as he. His serious poems are remarkable for their vigor, originality, and depth of thought Many of them have been called forth by the antislavery conflict. His descriptions of nature are vivid and beautiful. He has published two volumes in prose, called ••Among my Books" and "My Garden Windows," which contain much admirable criticism. The following extract is fh)m "The Vision of Sir Laonfal," a poem founded upon the Legend of King Arthur. DOWN swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, From the snow five thousand summers old ; On open wold and hiU-top bleak 130 THE SIXTH READER. It 1i,k1 :j;illiriv Mr irmined* his arches and matrhr ! ' ' ms ; Sl( udcr and clear were his crystal -i As the lashes of li;:ht that trim ihf>tars; Hn srnlptnrod overy tsumiii' ' ' 'it In his halls and chambers «■ . ht ; Sometimes his tiidJing waters shj»t Down througli a li..st leaved forest-crypt, Long, sparklinu ;d>l.s of steel-stemmed trees Bending to count, rl. it a breeze; Sometimes the roof no fretwork knew But silvery mosses that .l-w iiwiri ;^tow ; Somctii! With i|uaiiii ;iraocs4Uis oi icc-U'rn leal; Sometimes it was simply smooth and clear ^r the gladness of heaven to shine tlirough, and here He "had caught the nodding bulrush-tops . And hnrlp them thickly ^^4th diamond drops, AVhich cr\ -tailed tli.- l)eams of moon and sun, And made a star of every one ; No mortal builder's most rare device Could match thi- winter-palace of ice; 'T was as if every image that mirrored lay In his depths serene through the summer day. Each flitting shadow of earth and sky, Lest the l^ippy model should be lost. Had been mimicked in fairy masonry By the elfin builders of the frost. * Groined : adorned with intersecting arches. fVINTKR. 131 Within the hall are song and laughter, The cheeks of Christmas glow red and jolly, And sprouting is every corbel* and rafter With' the lightsome green of ivy and holly ; * Corbel : a niche in a wall. 132 THE SIXTH READER Through the deep gulf of the chimney wide Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ; The broad flame-pennons droop and flap, And belly and tug as a flag in the wind ; Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap, Hunted to death in its galleries blind ; And swift little troops of silent sparks. Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear, Go threading the soot-forest's tangled darks Like herds of startled deer. ,0 But the will! without was eager and sharp, Of Sir Lauufal's gray hair it makes a harp, And rattles and wrings The icy strings. Singing in dreary monotone, A Christmas carol of its own, Whose burden still, as he might guess, Was — " Shelterless, shelterless, shelterless ! " The voice of the seneschal flared like a torch As he shouted the wanderer away from the porch. And he sat in the gateway and saw all night The great hall-fire, so cheery and bold. Through the window-slits of the castle old, Build out its piers of ruddy light Against the drift of the cold. THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. 133 X. — THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS. LONGFELLOW. Hboit Wadsworth Loiroraxow is a native of Portland. Maine, and was grada- at«d at Bowdoln College in 1825. Soon after leaving college he went to Europe, and rrmained there till 1829. Ho then returned home and assumed the duties of professor of modem languages at Bowdoin College. He resigned his post in 1835, and visited Europe again, and upon his return in 1S36, was appointed to a similar professorship in the University at Cambridge. Here he has resided ever since, but he resigned his professorship in 1854. Mr. Longfellow holds a very high rank among the authors of America, and is one of the most ix)pular of living poets. He has written " Evangeline," " The Golden Legend," "The Song of Hiawatha." and "Courtship of Miles Standish," narrative poems of considerable length ; " The Spanish Student," a play ; and a great number of smaller pieces. He has a fhiitful imagination, under the coutrol of the most perfect taste, and a remarkable power of illustrating moods of mind and states of feeling by material forms. He has a great command of beautiful diction, and equal skill in the structure of his verse. His poetry is marked by tenderness of feeling, purity of sentiment, elevation of thought, and healthiness of tone. His readers are more than admirers ; they become friends. And over all that he has written there hangs a beautiful ideal light, —the atmosphere of poetry, — which illuminates his page as the sanshine does the natural landscape. Mr. Longfellow has also won enduring praise as a prose writer. His " Outre-mer," a collection of travelling sketches and miscellaneous essays, his "Hyperion," a ro- mance, and his " Kavanagh," a domestic story, are marked by the same traits as his poetry. He is a " warbler of poetic prose." and would be entitled to the honors of a poet had he never written a line of verse. His " Hyperion." especially, is full of beautiful description, rich fancy, and sweet and pensive thought He is also a man of extensive literary attainments, familiar with the languages of modem Europe, and a great master in the difficult art of translation. SOMEWHAT back from the village street Stands the old-fashioned country-seat ; Across its antique portico, Tall poplars-tees their shadows throw ; And from its station in the hall, An ancient timepiece says to all, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever 1 " Half-way up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands 134 THE SIXTH READER. From its case of massive oak, Like a monk, who, under his cloak, Crosses himself, and sighs, alas ! With sorrowful voice to all that pass, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " By day its voice is low and light ; But in the silent dead of night. Distinct as a passing footstep's fall, It echoes along the vacant hall, Along the ceiling, along the floor, And seems to say, at each chamber door, — ^ " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Througii days of death and days of birth. Through every swift vicissitude Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood, And as if, like God, it all things saw, It calmly repeats those words of awe*, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " In that mansion used to be Free-hearted hospitality ; His great fires up the chimney roared ; The stranger feasted at his board ; But, like the skeleton at the feast, That warning timepiece never ceased, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " There groups of merry children played ; There youths and maidens dreaming strayed. Tin: OLD CLUCK ON TITK STAIRS. 135 O precious hours ! (.) goidoii prime, And affluence of love and time ! Even as a miser counts his gold, Those hours the ancient timepiece told, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " From that chamber, clothed in white. The bride came forth on her wedding night ; There, in tliat silent room below, The dead lay in his shroud of snow ; And in the hush that followed prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " All are scattered now and fled. Some are married, some are dead ; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, " Ah ! when shall we all meet again ] " As in the days long since gone by. The ancient timepiece makes reply, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! " Never here, forever there, Where all parting, pain, and care. And death and time shall disappear, — Forever there, but never here ! The horologe of eternity Sayeth this incessantly, — " Forever — never ! Never — forever ! ** 136 THE STXTH READER. XI. — THE SLAVE-TRADE. WEBSTER. Dakhel Websteb wm born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782; and died at Marshfleld, Massachusetts, October 24. 1862. He was graduated at Dartmouth College in 1801, was admitted to the bar in 1805, and settled in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1807. He wras a member of the House of Representatives from New Hampshire from 1813 to 1817. In the latter part of 1816 he removed to Boston, and resided in that city, or at Marshfleld, during the remainder of his life. He was chosen to the House of Representatives from the district of Boston, in 1822, and was a member of that body till 1827, when he was elected to the United States Senate by the Legislature of Massachusetts. He continned there during the remainder of his life, with the exception of two intervals, when he held the office of Secretary of State, first under the administrations of Presidents Harrison and Tyler, and secondly under that of President Fillmore. For the last twenty-five years of his life, Mr. Webster's biography is identified with the history of his country Having been a leader of one of its great political parties, the time has hardly yet come for a calm and unbiassed judgment to be passed upon his services ; but no candid mind will ever question the sincerity and comprehensive- ness of his patriotism, still less the splendor of his intellectual powers. He was a great lawyer, a great statesman, a great debater, and a great writer. As a writer — in which point of view alone we have now to regard him — he stands among the very first of his class. No style can be found more suited for the subjects of which it treats than his. It is strong, simple, and dignified ; vehement and impassioned when necessary : readily rising into eloquence, and occasionally touched with high imagina- tive beauty. He excels in the statement of a case or the exposition of a principle ; and in his occasional disconrses there are passages of a lofty moral grandeur by which the heart and mind are alike affected. Some of his state papers may fairly challenge comparison with the best productions of the kind which the past has transmitted to us. The following passage is taken lh)m a discourse, pronounced at Plymouth, Decem- ber 22, 1820, in commemoration of the first settlement of New England. IF the blessings of our political and social condition have not been too highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government, religion, and learning to be transmitted as well as enjoyed. We are in the line of conveyance through which whatever has been obtained by the spirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to our children. We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own systems, to convince the world that THE SLAVE-TRADE. 137 order and law, religion and morality, the rights of con- science, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured in the most perfect manner by a government entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be signal, and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions which maintain that gov- ernment can rest safely on notliing but power and coer- cion. As far as experience may show errors in our establish- ments, we are bqjmd to correct them ; and if any prac- tices exist contrary to'the principles of justice and hu- manity, within the reacli of our laws or our influence, we are inexcusable if we do not exert ourselves to restrain and abolish them. I deem it my duty on this occasion to suggest that the land is not yet wholly free from the contamination of a traffic at which every feeling of humanity must revolt, — I mean the African slave-trade. Neither public sentiment nor the law has yet been able entirely to put an end to this odious and abominable trade. At the moment when God in his mercy has blessed the world with a universal peace, there is reason to fear that, to the disgrace of the Christian name and character, new efforts are making for the extension of this trade, by subjects and citizens of Christian states, in whose hearts no sentiment of justice inhabits, and over whom neither the fear of God nor the fear of man exercises a control. In the sight of our law, the African slave-trader is a pirate and a felon ; and in the sight of Heaven, an offender far beyond the ordinaiy depth of human guilt. There is no brighter part of our history than tliat which records the measures which have been adopted by the govern- 138 THE SIXTH READER. ment at an early day, and at different times since, for the suppression of this traffic ; and I would call upon all the true sons of New England to co-operate with the laws of man and the justice of Heaven. If there be, within the extent of our knowledge or influence, any participation in this traffic, let us pledge ourselves here, upon the Rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer, — I see the smoke of the furnaces where man- acles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I see the visages of those who, by stealth and at midnight, labor in this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set aside from the Christian world ; let it be put out of the circle of human sympathies and human regards ; and let civilized man henceforth have no communion with it. I would invoke those who fiU tlie seats of justice, and all who minister at her altar, that they execute the whole- some and necessary severity of the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its denuncia- tion of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent, when- ever or wherever there may be a sinner, bloody with this guilt, within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I call on the fair merchant, who has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist in scourging from those seas the worst pirates that ever infested them. That ocean which seems to wave with a gentle magnificence, to waft the burdens of an honest commerce, and to roll its treas- THE P.ATTI.E OF FLnDDEy FT Em. 139 ures with a conscious pride ; that ocean whicli hardy in- dustry regards, even when the winds have ruffled its sur- face, as a lield of grateful toil, — what is it to the victim of this oppression when he is brouglit to its shores, and looks forth upon it for the first time from beneath chains and bleeding with stripes? — What is it to him, but a widespread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death ? Nor do the skies smile longer ; nor is the air fragrant to him. The sun is cast down from heaven. An inhuman and cursed traffic has cut him off in his manhood, or in his youth, from every enjoyment belonging to his being, and every blessing which his Creator intended for him. XII. — THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD. SIR WALTER SCOTT. Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, Augtwt 15, 1771 ; and died at Abbotsford, September 21, 1832. In 1792 lie was called to the Scotch bar as an advocate ; but he made little progress in his profession, and was soon allured from it by the higher attractions of literature. After having written and published a few fugitive pieces, and edited a collection of border ballads, he broke upon the world, in 1805, with his " Lay of the I^ast Minstrel." which was received with a burst of admiration almost without parallel in literary history. This was followed by " Marmion," and " The Lady of the Lake," which added to the author's reputation, and by " Rokeby," and "The Lord of the Isles," which fairly sustained it. These poems were unlike any- thing that had prece' little doubt that Scott was Uie author of these works, although they were published without any name ; and when the avowal was made. In 1827, it took nobody by surimse. Of the great 140 THE SIXTH READER. powers put forth in these novels, of their immense popularity, and of the inflnence they have exerted, and are still exerting, upon literature, it is not necessary to speak, nor could such a subject be discussed in a notice like this. Besides his poems and novels, Scott wrote a Life of Napoleon, various other biog- raphies, and many works besides. He was a man of immense literary industry, and his writings fill eighty-eight volumes of small octavo size. All this did not pre- vent his discbai^ng faithfully the duties of a citizen, of a father of a family, and (for many years) of a magistrate. Scott's life has been written by his son-in-law, Lockhart ; and it is a truth Ail record of what he was and what he did. His was a noble nature, with nmch to love, and much to admire. He was a warm friend, most affectionate in his domestic relations, and ever ready to do kind acts to those who stood in need of them. The following extract fh)m " If amiion " describes the battle of Flodden Field, or Flodden, in which the English, under the Earl of Surrey, defeated, with great slaughter, the Scotch, under their king, James IV., September 8, 1511 Flodden Hill, an off- Hhoot of the Cheviot range, is in the county of Northumberland, in England, a few miles from the town of Coldstream. Marmion, an imaginary personage, is an English nobleman of bad character. Bloiiut and Fits Eustace are his sqtiires. Lady Clare is an English heiress, for whose hand Marmion had been an unsnccessftil suitor, and whose lover, Wilton, now fighting on the English side, he had attempted to ruin, but failed. Jeffi^y, in his review of " Manuion," in the Edinburgh Review, says: "Of all the poetical battles which have been fought, from the days of Homer to those of Mr. Southey. there is none, in our opinion, at all comparable, for interest and animation, for breadth of drawing and magnificence of effect, with this." BLOUNT ♦•and Fitz Eustace rested still With Lady Clare upon the hill ; On which (for far the day was spent) The western sunbeams now were bent. The cry they heard, its meaning knew, Could plain their distant comrades view : Sadly to Blount did Eustace say, " Unworthy office here to stay ! No hope of gilded spurs to-day. — t But see ! look up, — on Flodden bent The Scottish foe has fired his tent." And sudden, as he spoke, From the sharp ridges of the hill. All downward to the banks of Till, Was wreathed in sable smoke. * Pronounced Blfint or Bliint. + That is, no hope of being advanced to the dignity of knighthood, of >?hich gilded spurs were the badge. THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD, 141 Volumed and vast, and rolling far, The cloud enveloped Scotland's war. Ah down the hill they broke ; Nor marshal shout, nor minstrel tone. Announced their march ; their tread alone. At times one warning trumpet blown. At times a stifled hum, Told England, from his mountain-throne King James did rushing come. — Scarce could they hear or see their foes. Until at weapon-point they close. — They close, in clouds of smoke and dust, With sword-sway, and with lance's thrust ; And such a yell was there. Of sudden and portentous birth. As if men fought upon the earth, And fiends in upper air ; O life and death were in the shout, Eecoil and rally, charge and rout. And triumph and despair ! Long looked the anxious squires ; their eye Could in the darkness naught descry. At length the freshening western blast Aside the shroud of battle cast ; And, first, the ridge of mingled spears Above the brightening cloud appears ; And in the smoke the pennons flew. As in the storm the white sea-mew. Then marked they, dashing broad and far, The broken billows of the war, And plumed crests of chieftains brave, Floating like foam upon the wave ; ^^ But naught distinct they see. Wide raged the battle on the plain ; shook, and falchioua flashed amain ; 142 THE SIXTH READER. Fell England's arrow-flight like rain ; Crests rose, and stooped, and rose again. Wild and disorderly. Far on the left, unseen the while, Stanley broke Lennox and Ai-gyle ; Though there the western mountiiineer Itushed with bare bosom on the spear. And flung the feeble targe aside. And with both hands the broadswoT'l T.lirwi *T was vain : — But Fortune, on tli With fickle smile, cheered Scotland's light. Then fell that spotless banner wliit^, The Howard's lion 1. 11 : Yet still Lord Marmion's falcon flew With wavering flight, while fiercer grew Around the battle-yell. The Border slogan rent the sky. A Home ! a Gordon ! was the cry : Loud were the clanging blows ; Advanced, — forced back, — now low, now high, The pennon sunk and rose ; As bends the bark's mast in the gale, When rent are rigging, shrouds, and &iil, It wavered 'mid the foes. No longer Blount the view could bear : " By Heaven and all its saints ! I swear I will not SCO it lost ! Fitz Eustace, you, with Lady Clare, May bid your beads, and patter j.rayt r, — I jrallop to the host." And to the fray he rode amain, Followed by all the archer train. The fierv '- "^l^ ^vith desperate charge, Made, 1 •, an opening large, — The rescued Lanuor rose, — THE BATTLE UF FLuDDE.S FIELD. 143 But darkly closed the war around, Like pine-tree, rooted from the ground, It sank among the foes. Then Eustace mounted too ; — yet stayed, As loath to leave the helpless maid, When, fast as shaft can fly. Bloodshot his eyes, his nostrils s})read. The loose rein dangling from his head, Housing and saddle bloody red, Lord Marmion's steed rushed by ; And Eustace, maddening at the sight, A look and sign to Clara cast, To mark he would return in haste, Then plunged into the fight. Ask me not what the maiden feels. Left in that dreadful hour alone : Perchance her reason stoops, or reels ; Perchance a courage, not her own. Braces her mind to desperate tone. — The scattered van of England wheels j — She only said, as loud in air The tumult roared, " Is Wilton there 1 " They fly, or maddened by despair. Fight but to die. — " Is Wilton there ? " XIII.-THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD. (concluded.) WITH that, straight up the hill there rode Two horsemen drenched with gore. And in their arms, a helpless load, A wounded knight they bore. His hand still strained the broken brand ; ^^\^ .nn^ \v. ,•.• -Mw...„_»^i ^vitli blood and sand : 144 THE SIXTH READER, Dragged firom among the horses' feet, With dinted shield, and helmet beat, The falcon-crest and plumage gone. Can that be haughty Mannion ! . . . . When, doflfed his casque, he felt free air. Around 'gan Mannion wildly stare : — " Where 's Harry Blount 1 Fitz Eustace where ? Linger ye here, ye hearts of hare ! Redeem my pennon, — charge again ! Cry — * Mannion to the rescue ! * — vain I Last of my race, on battle-plain That shout shall ne'er be heard again ! — Yet my last thought is England's : — fly, To Dacre bear my signet-ring : Tell him his squadrons up to bring. — Fitz Eustace, to Lord Surrey hie ; Tunstall lies dead upon the field. His life-blood stains the spotless shield : Edmund is down : — my life is reft ; The Admiral alone is left. Let Stanley charge with spur of fire, — With Chester charge and Lancashire, Full upon Scotland's central host, Or victory and England 's lost. — Must I bid twice 1 — Hence, varlets ! fly ! Leave Marmion here alone — to die ! " They parted, and alone he lay : Clare drew her from the sight away. Till pain wrung forth a lowly moan. And half he murmured, " Is there none Of all my halls have nurst. Page, squire, or groom, one cup to bring Of blessed water from the spring, To slake my dying thirst 1 " O, woman ! in our hours of ease. THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN FIELD. 145 iTncertaiii, coy, ami hard to please, And variable as the shade IJy the light quivering aspen made ; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou ! — Scarce were the piteous accents said, When, with the Baron's casque, the maid To the nigh streamlet ran : Forgot were hatred, wrongs, and fears f The plaintive voice alone she hears. Sees but the dying man. She stooped her by the runnel's side. But in abhorrence backward drew ; For, oozing from tiie mountain's side. Where raged the war, a dark red tide AVas curdling in the streamlet blue. Where shall she turn 1 — behold her mark A little fountain cell, Where water, clear as diamond-spark. In a stone basin fell. Above, some half- worn letters say, Drink, wearij. pilgrim, drink, and. pray. For. the. kind. goul. of. Sybil. Grey. Who. built, this, cross, and. well. She filled the helm, and back she hied. And with sur])rise and joy espied A monk supporting Marmion's head ; A pious man whom duty brought To dubious verge of battle fought. To shrive the dying, bless the dead. Deep drank Lonl Marmion of the wave. And, as she stooj>ed his brows to lave, — " Is it the hand of Clare," he said, ** Or injured Constance, bathes my head ? " Thon. n9 romMmbr"*-' r -f*, — 146 THE SlXrif HEADER. " Speak not to me of shrift or prayer ! I must redress her woes. Short space, few M(.r«l>, aro iiiino to spare; Forgive and listen, -• nilt ( huv 1 '' — •* Alas ! " she said, " the m hilr, — O, tliiiik of your immortal weal ! In vain lur Constance is your zeal ; She — died at II -Iv M, ." — Lord Marmion starii-d Irum tlie ground, As light as if he felt no wound : Though in the action burst the tide In torrents from his wounded side. "Then it was truth," he said ; *' I knew That the dark jirrsau''' nuist be true. I would the tiemi, tu whom belongs The Vengeance due to all her wrongs, Would spare me but a day ! For wasting fire, and dying groan, ^Viul priests slain on the altar stone, Might bribe him for delay. It may not be ! this dizzy trance — Curse on yon base marauder's lance. And doubly cursed my faiHng braii'l ! A sinful heart makes feeble hand." Then, Minting, down on earth he sunk, Supported I'V the treiiiMiiig Monk. AVith fruitless labor Clara bound, And strove to stanch the gushing wound. The ^Monk, with unavailing cares. Exhausted all the Church's prayers. Fver. be said, tliat, elo>e and near, A lady's voice was in his ear. And that the priest he could not hear, For that slie t ver sung, JltWHY r. BEFORE THE BATTLE OF AGINCOUIiT. 147 " In the lost battle, borne dovra by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!" So the notes mug ; — " Avoid thee, Fiend ! — with cruel hand Shake not the dying sinner's sand !^ O, look, my son, upon yon sign Of the Redeemer's grace divine ! O, think on faith and bliss ! — By many a death-bed 1 have been, And many a sinner's parting seen. But never aught like this." — The war, that for a space did foil, Now trebly thundering swelled the gale, And — Stanley ! was the cry : — A light on Marmion's visage spread, And fired his glazing eye : With dying hand above his head. He shook the fragment of his blade, And shouted, " Victory ! — Charge, Chester, charge ! On, Stanley, on ! " Were the last words of Marmion. XIV.— HENRY V. BEFORE THE BATTLE OF AGINCOURT. SHAKESPEARE. WibLtAM Srakrbpbare wm boTO at Stratford-upon-Avon, in England, April 23, 1504 ; and died April 23, 1010. Very little i« known of the events of bis life, and of hiu personal character and Iiabits. He married young, went to London soon after his marriage, became an actor, a dramatic author, and a shareholder in one of the Lon- don theatres ; acquired considerable proiwrty, ami retired to his native place a few yean before hl.erament was cheerful and joyous, and tliat IS (certainly the spirit of his writings. lie is often tragic, but never morbid. In tlie next place, Shakespeare Li a proof that the highest poetical genius is not inconsistent with practical and successful business habits. Tliero can be no doubt that he was himself an excellent man of business, for he accumulated an ample fortune within a few years, and by occu|>ations in which punctuality, economy, and method are par- ticularly important. KING. Wliat 's lie, that wishes for more men from Eng- land 1 My cousin Westmoreland ? No, my fair cousin ; I f we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss ; and if to live, • The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God*s will ! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold ; Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost ; It yearns me not if men my garments wear ; Such outward things dwell not in my desires : But, if it be a .sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England : God's peace ! I would not lose so great an honor As one man more, methinks, would share from me, Eor the best hope I have. 0, do not wish one more ! HENRY V. BEFORE THE BATTLE OF AQINCOURT. 149 Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this tight, — Let him depart ; his passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse ! We M'ould not die in that man's company That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is called the feast of Crispian : He that outlives this day, iuid comes safe home, Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named. And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors, And say, To-morroio is Saiut Crispian : Then will ho strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say, These to&unds I had on Crispian s day. Old men forget ; yet all shall be forgot. But he '11 remember with advantages What feats he did that day. Then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words, — Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster, — Be in their flowing cui)s freshly remembered. This story shall the good man teach his son ; And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world. But we in it shall be rememlwrctl ; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers ! For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother ; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition ; And gentlemen now in Enghind, now abed, Sliall think themselves accursed they were not here. And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispian's day. 150 THE SIXTH READER, XV. ^ THREE PICTURES OF BOSTON. EVERETT. EowAKD EvE&BTT wftB boTO in DorchesteT, Massachusetts, A]iril 11, 1794; was graduated at Hanrard Colkge in 1811 ; and was settled over tlf rhun h in Brattle Street, in Boston, as successor to Mr. Buckmiuster, in 1813. In isiO lu> vv:l.s hd- jiointed pro esitor uf Greelc literature in Harvard College, and immediately to Euroi)c, with a view of making an ample preparation for the duties > position He remained in Enn^ about four and a half years, during wii: lie wi lit thruugh an extensive ooorse both of travel and study. U)>on lii> assumed the duties of his pmfessorsliip, and also those of editor of tli< N i.ii American Review," and continued in the discharge of both till hid cle<-ti i, t" th. House of Repieaentatives. in 1824. He remained in Congress till 1835, in which year be was chosen governor of Massachusetts. To this office he was re-elected for three successive ywrs. In 1841 he was a^iointed minister plenipotentiary to the Court of 8t James, and he discharged the duties of that post till 1845. Upon his return to America he was chosen President of Harvard College, and held that offlce till 1849. He was Secretary of State for a short period, at the close of Mr. Fillmore's adminis- tration, and in 1853 was chosen to the Senate of the United States by the L^islature of Massachusetts, but resigned his place the next year, on account of ill-health, and has since resided as a private citizen in Boston, till his bunented death, January 15. 1865. The variety of Mr. Everett's life and employments is but a tyf < r tin \ irsatility of his powers, and the wide range of his cultivation. He was one ..i th. most nnishe 1 lis to the "North American Revieif ,•• — the last of wlmli m- v. ry inituerous. ami upularity. equalled by notliing since Scott and Byron. Uis subcicquent pror, shown in skcU-hes taken fhim low life, and expressing itself by the most quaint, grotesque, and unex|»e«ted combinations of ideas. His Sam WcUer — a character he never surpassed — is the type of his creations of this class, and is truly original and well sustainetL Ue is hardly less successful in his pathetic passages than in his humomus delinea- tions. He excels in scenes depicting sickness and death, especially of the lovely and the young. His pages have been Mistered by many a tear. The extract in the text is alone enough to prove his great power over the symiiathies of the heart He had also oncommoa skill in the uiinnte representation of scenes of still life, which he painted with the sharp fidelity of a Dutch artist. He depicted a bar-rouui. a kitchen, a court of Justice, or a prison, so that we can almost see theni. He some- times used this gift in a way that violates good taste. The tone of Dickens's writings is sound and healthy ; though he takes na a little too murh into scenes of low life^^^lliMB^b evil and hateful cl^c|rters upon us more tlian we QOuifls'VMff'^i^VSda {Ktetical inia^nati«^yHri|^^^Hklll of genial charity. Ttie generous and syinpathftic tone of iJ||M^^^^^^^K»f their most powerful attractions. He had a hatred of oDB^|^^^^^^^PiRn all forms, and was ever ready to take sides with the victiU^^^^PH^Kr^ The following extract is firtim " Masterf^flnrnphrej-'s Clock," a novel published in 1S41. Little Nell is one of the sweetest and purest of all his creations ; and her life and death have touched many tliousands of hearts. She is represented in the novel as the constant attendant of her grandfatlier, an affectionate old man, but wanting in moral energy. She glides like a sunbeam of grace and innocence through many a troubletl scene : but the burden of life is too heavy for her delicate spirit, and she thus gently lays it down. - ^ BY little and little, the old man had di-awn back towards the inner chamber, while tliese words were spoken. He pointed there, as he replied, with trembling lips, — " You plot among you to wean my heart from her. You will never do that, — never while I have life. I DEATH AND BUJilAL OF LITTLE NELL. 155 liave no relative or friend but her, — I never had, — I never will have. She is all yj all to itie. It is too late tart us now." Waving them off with his hand, and calling softly to her as he went, he stole into the room. They who were left iKjhind drew close together, and after a few whispered ^wmt(is, — not unbroken by emotion, or easily uttered, — lollowed him. They moved so gently that their footsteps made no noise; but there were sobs from among the group, and sounds of grief and mourning. For she wtis dead. There, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. The solemn stillness was no marvel now. She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free fi-om trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresTr from the hand of God, and waiting for the l)reath of life ; not one who had lived, and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. "When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always." These were her words. She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird — a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have cnished — was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever. Where were the traces oHier early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues ? All gone. IiT§ was the true death l)efore their weeping eyes. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born; imaged iu lier tranquil beauty and profound repose. And still her former self lay there, unaltered in iliis change. Yes. 'The old fireside had smiled on that same 156 THE SIXTH i:i:.h>i:j:. sweet face; it had passed likt- a divam iliidiiLili liaunis o( iiiiseiT and care; at the door of the poor scliodlmasler (»ii lilt' suininer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cuid, w el niLrht, at the still bedside of tlie dyin«_r boy. tliere liad been ili«- .-aiin- miM. l'i\rly look. So -li;ill w,- know (lie an^t'ls in ilicir majesty, alicr dcaili. Tlie old man lidd n!i.. l:m..ni,] ■wm in his. and k»'])t iIm- small liand li^lil lulth -i. ttir wai'mlli. Il was tlic liami shf bad sHriclicd oui lo liini willi Iht ]a>' - llic hand llial had led him on ihioii-h all their \san- (kini'^s. ]-l\t'rand an<»n he j)ressc(l ii lo his lips ; then hnu^Li't'd it lo Ids breast agaiii. nnirmuiin^ tliai it was warmer now ; and as he said it, he looked, in agony, to those who stoo(i around, as if im]>l<)rini: them to help her. Shi* was dead, and past all Inlp.oi nf..! (I ii The ancit 111 looms she had seemed to lill w iih liir. even while ht'i own was ebbing fast, the i:ailh- h;id m.dden as it were but yesterday, could know Ik i nf) more. " It is not," paid the schoolmasu r, as lie bent down to ki-- her Mil ihc .•!i..'k. and l:;i\'- lii- l< ars five vent, — "it is nut in this world tliat Heaven's justice ends. Think what earth is compared with the world to which her young sjiirit has winged il-< early lli^hl. and >ay. il (..ne deliberate wish expressed in >olt nm terms ahove this bed could call her back to life, whi( h ot ns would utter it!" When morning came, and tliey (ould sj)eak more calmly on the subject of their gi'ief, they heard how her life had closed. She had been dead two days. They were all about her at the time, knowing that the end was drawing on. She died soon after dayhreak. They had read and talked to DEATH AND BURIAL OF LITTLE NELL. 1 -T her in the earlier portion of tlie night ; but as the hours ci*ept on, she sank to sleep. Tliey could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her jour- neyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes, but of those who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said, " God bless you ! " with great fervor. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music wliich she said was in the air It may have been. Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face, — such as they said they had never seen, and never could fon]jet, — and clnnff with both her arms about his neck. They did not know that she was dead, at first. For the rest, she had never murmured or complained ; but with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered, — save that she every day became more earnest and moi-e grateful to them, — faded like the light upon the sum- mer's evening. And now the bell — the bell she had so often heard by niglit and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice — rang its remoi-seless toll for her so young, so beautiful, so good. Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy poured forth — on crutches, in tlie pride of strength and healtli, in tlie full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life — to gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing, — grandmothers, who might have died ten yeare ago, and still been old, — the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. What was the death it would shut in, to that which still couLl opularity. In some cases they bavo been set tu music by hiuiselt FIRST VOICE. WHAT dost thou see, lone watcher on the tower 1 Is ihe day breaking] Comes the wishcd-for hourl Tell u.s ihe signs, and stretoh abroad thy hand If the bright morning dawns upon the land. IGO THE SIXTH READER, SECOND VOICE. The stars are clear above me, scarcely one Has dimmed its rays in reverence to the sun ; But yet I see, on the horizon's verge. Some fair, faint streaks, as if the light would suige. FIRST VOICE. Look forth again, watcher on the tower ! The people wake and languish for the hour ; Long have they dwelt in darkness, and they pine For the full daylight which they know must shine. 8EC0N% VOICE. I see not well, — the mom is cloudy still, — There is a radiance on the distant hill ; Even as I watch the glory seems to grow ; But the stars blink, and the night breezes blow. FIRST VOICE. And is that all, O watcher on the tower 1 Look forth again ; it must be near the hour. Dost thou not see the snowy mountain-copes, And the green woods beneath them on the slopes 1 SECOND VOICE. A mist envelops them, I cannot trace Their outline ; but the day comes on apace. The clouds roll up in gold and amljer flakes^ And all the stars grow dim. The morning breaks, FIRST VOICE. "We thank thee, lonely watcher on the tower ; But look again ; and tell us, hour by hour, - All thou beholdest, — many of us die Ere the day comes ; 0, give us a reply ! THE WATCHER ON THE TOWER. 161 SECOND VOICE. I see the hill-tops now ; and Chanticleer Crows his prophetic carol in mine ear ; I see the distant woods and fields of corn, And Ocean gleaming in the light of morn. FIRST VOICE. Again, — again, — O watcher on the tower ! We thirst for daylight, and we bide the hour. Patient, but longing. Tell us, shall it bo A bright, culm, glorious daylight for the free 1 SECOND IVOICE. I hope, but cannot telL i I hear a song. Vivid as day itself, ^nd clear and strong As of a lark, — young prophet of the noon, — Pouring in sunlight his seraphic tune^ FIRST VOICE. What doth he say, watcher on the tower 1 Is he a prophet ] Doth the dawning hour Inspire his music ? Is his chant sublime. Filled with the glories of the future time 1 SECOND VOICE. Ho prophesies ; his heart is full ; his lay Tells of the brightness of a peaceful day, — A day not cloudless, nor devoid of storm. But sunny for the most, and clear and warm. FIRST VOICE. We ihaiik tliet', watcher on the loiitily tower, For all thou tellest. — Sings he of an hour When Error shall decay, and Truth grow strong, And TJi'jlit >^i;ill rule su)>ri'Uio and vaiKjuisli AVi-ong] 162 THE SIXTH READER SECX)ND VOICE. He sings of brotherhood and joy and peace, Of days when hate and jealousies shall cease ; When war shall die, and man's progressive mind Soar as unfettered as its God designed. FIRST VOICE. Well done ! thou watcher on the lonely tower ! Is the day breaking ? dawns the happy hour 1 We pine to see it ; tell us, yet again, If the broad daylight breaks upon the plain ? SECOND VOICE. ^ It breaks, — it comes, — the misty shadows fly ; - A rosy radiance gleams \\\x)ii the sky ; The mountain-tops reflect it calm and clear ; The plain is yet in shade, but day is near. XVIII. — THE PILGRIM FATHERS. PIERPONT. John PiERPONT was 1»om in LiU'hfleld, Connecticut. April 6, 17S5 ; and dial Angnst 27, 1806. He was criginally a lawyer, but afterwards studied theologj-, and in 1819 was ortlained minister of the HoUis Street Church in Boston, where he remained till 1845. He was afterwards settle*! over congregations in Troy, New York, and Medford, Massachusetts. He was an active laborer in behalf of ten)|»crancc, antislavery, the improvement of prison discipline, and other reforms ; aud many of his poems have lieen calle*! forth by the moral and religious movements of the day. His poetry is characterized by cnerg>' of expression, and a generous tone of feeling. The following poem was written for the celebration of the anniversary of the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth, in December, 1824 THE Pilgrim Fatliers, — where are they 1 The waves that brought them o'er Still roll in, the bay, and throw their spray. As they break along the shore ; THE PILOIUM FATHERS. 163 Still roll in tho bay, as they rollQtl that day When the Mayflower moored below, When the sea around was black with storms, And white the shore with snow. The mists that wrapped the Pilgrim's sleep Still brood upon tho tide ; And tho rocks yet keep their watch by tho deep. To stay its waves of pride. But the snow-white sail that he gave to tho galo When tiie heavens looked dark is gone ; — As an'angel's wing, through an opening cloud, tf seen, and then withdrawn. Tlie Pilgrim exile, — sainted name ! — , The hill, whose icy brow ^l^^^^joiced, when ho came, in tho morning's flame, In the morning's flame burns now. And the moon's cold light, as it lay that night On the hillside and the sea. Still lies where he laid his houseless head ; — Lut tho Pilgrim, — where is hoi The Pilgrim Fathers are at rest : When Summer 's throned on high. And tho world's warm bf&tst is in verdure dressed, do, stand on the liill where they lie. Tho earliest ray of the golden day On that hallowed spot is cast ; And the evening sun, as he leaves tho world, Lodks kindly on that spot last. Tilt' i'li^nun sjiirit has not fled : It walks in noon's broad light ; 164 THE SIXTH READER. Ami it Avatches the bed of the gloiion . dcnl. AVith the holy stars, by night. It watches the bed of the bnivo who lia\ e bled, And sliall guard tliis ice-bound shoi-e, Till the waves of the bay where the Mayllowcr lay Sliall foam aiid freeze uo more. XIX. — DIAI.OGUE FROM IVANHOE SIR WALTER SCOTT. The following xccne Is taken from " Ivanhoe." a novel, the scene M which is laid in Englaiul, iu the twelfth century. Ivaiihoe, an Englbit Knight, is lying wounded and a captive in the castle of Fmnt-de-IJn'uf, n Nonnaii knight, while it is under- going an assault from a inrty of outlawed forest rangers, aided by an unknown knight iu black armor, hence called the Clack Kni;jht, who ailerwards turns out to be Rich- ard, King of Euglond. Rebecca is a young Jeirish maiden. FOLLOWING with wonderful promptitude the direc- tions of Ivanhoe, and availing liereelf of the protec- tion of the large ancient shield, which she placed against the lower part of the window, Ilebecca, with tolerable security to herself, could witnes.3 j)art of what was jmssing without the castle, and i-eport to Ivanhoe the preparations wiiich the assailants were making for the stomi. " The skirts of the wood seem lined with archers, al- tliough only a few are advanced from its dark shadow." " Under what banner ? " asked Ivanhoe. " Under no ensign of war which I can observe," an- swered Rebecca. " A singular novelty," muttered the knight, " to ad- advance to storm such a castle without pennon or banner displayed ! Seest thou who they be that act as leaders ? " " A knight clad in sable armor is the most conspicu- ous," said the Jewess ; " he alone is armed from head to DIALOGUE FROM IVANHOE. 165 licel, and seems to assume the direction of all around him." " What device does he bear on his shield ? " replied Ivanlioe. " Something resembling a l)ar of iron, and a padlock j)fiinted blue on the black shield." A fetterlock and shackle bolt azure," said Ivanhoe; " 1 know not who may heox the device, but well I ween it might now be mine own. Canst thou not see the motto ? " " Scarce the device itself, at this distance," replied Ke- l)ecca ; " biit when the sun glances fair upon his sliield, it shows as I tell you." " Seem there no other leaders ? " exclaimed the anxious inquirer. " None of mark and distinction that I can behold from this station," said Ilebecca; "but, doubtless, the other side of the castle is also assailed. They appear even now ])reparing to advance." Her description was here suddenly intennipted by the signal for assault, which wiis given by the blast of a shrill 1 ugle, and at once answered by a flourish of the Norman t;iim]iets from the battlements. " And I must lie here like a bedridden monk," ex- claimed Ivanhoe, " while the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hand of others! Look Irom the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that you are not marked by the archers beneath ; look out •lice more, and tell me if they yet advance to the storm." With patient courage, strengthened by the interval which she had employed in mental devotion, Eebecca again took i)ost at tlie lattice, sheltering herself, however, so as not to 1)0 visible from beiieiith. ICO THE SIXTH READER. " What dost thou see, Rebecca ? " again demanded tlie wounded knight. " Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes, and to hide the bowmen who shoot them." " That cannot endure," said Ivanhoe ; " if they press not right on to carry the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little against stone walls and bul- warks. Look for the Knight of the Fetterlock, fair Re- becca, and see how he bears himself ; for, as the leader is, so will his followers be." " I see him not," said Rebecca. " Foul craven ! " exclaimed Ivanhoe ; " does he blench from the helm when the wind blows highest ? " " He blenches not ! he blenches not ! " said Rebecca ; *' I see him now ; he leads a body of men close under the outer bamer of the barbican. They pull down the piles and palisades ; they hew down the barriers with axes. His high black plume floats abroad over the throng, like a raven over the field of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriei's, — they inish in, — they are thnist back! — Front-de-Bceuf* heads the defenders; I see his gigantic form above the preSs. They throng again to the breach, and the pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. It is the meeting of two fierce tides, — the con- flict of two oceans moved by adverse winds ! " She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a sight so terrible. *' Look forth again, Rebecca," said Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her retiring; "the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are now fighting hand to hand. Look again; there is now less danger." * Pronounced Fron(g)-dii-Biif. DIALOGUE FROM IVANHOE. 1G7 Rebecca again looked forth, and almost immediately exclaimed, — " Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand to hand on the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the progress of tlie strife. Heaven strike with the cause of the oppressed, and of the captive ! " She then uttered a loud shriek, and exclaimed, — " He is down ! — lie is down ! " " Who is down ? " cried Ivanhoe. " For our dear lady's sake, tell me which has fallen ? " " The Black Kniglit," answered liebecca, faintly ; tlien instantly again shouted, with joyful eagerness, " But no, — but no ! — lie is on foot again, and fights as if there were twenty men's strength in his single arm, — his sword is broken, — he snatches an axe from a yeoman, — he presses Front-de-Bceuf with blow on blow, — the giant stoops and totters, like an oak under the steel of the woodman, — he falls, — he falls ! " " Front-de-Bccuf ? " exclaimed Ivanhoe. " Front-de-Bceuf ! " answered the Jewess. " His men rush to the rescue, headed by tlie haughty Templar, — their united force compels the champion to pause, — they dmg Front-de-BfPuf within the walls." " Tlie as.sailants have won the barriers, have they not ? " said Ivanhoe. " Tliey have, — they have ! " exclaimed Rebecca, " and they press the besieged hard upon the outer wall ; some plant ladders, some swarm like bees, and endeavor to ascend upon the shoulders of one another, — down go stones, beams, and trunks of trees upon their heads, and as fast as they bear the wounded men to the rear, fresh men supply their place in the assault. Great God ! hast thou given men thine own image, that it should be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren ? " 1C8 THE SIXTH READER. " Think not of that," said Ivanhoe ; " this is no time for such thoughts. Who yield ? — who push their way ? " " The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shud- dering. "The soldiers lie grovelling under them like crushed reptiles, — the besieged have the better!" "St. George strike for us!" exclaimed the knight; " do the false yeomen give way ? " " No ! " exclaimed Rebecca ; " they bear themselves right yeomanly, — the Black Knight approaches the pos- tern with his huge axe, — the thundering blows which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of the battle, — stones and beams are hailed down on the bold champion, — he regards them no more than if they were thistledown or feathers!" " By Saint John of Acre ! " said Ivanhoe, raising him- self joyfully on his couch ; " methought there was but one man in England that miglit do such a deed ! " " The postern gate sliakes," continued Rebecca ; " it crashes, — it is splintered by his blows, — tliey rush in, — the outwork is won, — they hurl the defenders from the battlements, — they throw them into the moat ! O men, — if ye be indeed men, — spare them that can resist no longer ! " " The bridge, — th^ bridge which comiiiuiiicates with the castle, — have they won that pass ? " exclaimed Ivanhoe. " No," replied Rebecca ; " the Templar has destroyed the plank on which they crossed, — few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle, — the shrieks and cries which you hear, tell the fate of the otliers 1 Alas ! I see it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle ! " " "Wliat do they now, maiden ? " said Ivanhoe ; " look fortli yet again, — this is no time to faint at bloodshed." THE VOYAGE. 169 " It is over for the time," answered Rebecca. " Our friends strengthen themselves within the outwork which they liave mastered, and it affoixis them so good a shelter IVrtiu the foeman's shot, tliat the garrison only bestows a tew bolts on it, from interval to interval, as if rather to disquiet than effectually to injure them." XX. — THE VOYAGK mviNc. Washincton Irvix<;, the most popular of AinericAn authors, and one of the most j>opnl.ir writ«i8 in the English language during his time, was bom in New York, April 8, 1783 : and dietl November 28, 1859. His numerous works are too well known to need enumeration ; and his countrymen are so familiar with the graces of his style and the charm of his delightful genius, that any extended' criticism would be supcr- iliious. His writings arc remarkable for their combination of rich and original humor with great reAnement of feeling and delicacy of sentiment His humor is unstained l>y coarseness, and his sentiment is neither mawkish nor morbid. ' His s'ylc is care- fully nnisheil, and in his most elalH>rate pnxluctions the uniform music of his ca- dences approaches nionotony. He is an accurate observer, and his descriptions are correct, animated, and beautifid. In his biographical and historical works his style is flowing, easy, and transiiarent. His personal character was affectionate and amiable, and these traits penetrate his writings, and constitute no small portion of their chann. Few writers have ever awakened in their readers a stronger personal interest than Irving : and the sternest critic could not deal harshly with an author who showed himself to be so gentle and kindly a man. TO an American visiting Europe, tlie long voyage he has to make is an excellent preparative. From the moment you lose sight of the land you have left, all is vacancy until you step on the opposite shore, and are launched at once into the bustle and novelties of another world. I have said that at sea all is vacancy. I should cor- rect the expression. To one given up to day-dreaming, and fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea-voyage is full of subjects for meditation; but then they are the 170 THE SIXTH READER, wonders of the deep, and of the air, and rather tend to abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted to loll over the quarter-railing, or climb to the main-top on a calm day, and muse for hours together on the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea ; or 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 ; or 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 tlie surface ; or the ravenous shark, darting like a spectre through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys ; of shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth ; and of those wild phantasms tliat 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 earth in commun- ion ; lias established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions of the North all the luxuries of the South ; diffused the light of knowledge and the charities of cultivated life ; and has thus bound together those THE VOYAGE. 171 scattered portions of the human race, between which na- i lire seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier ! We one day descried some shapeless object drifting at a distance. At sea, everytldng that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that nmst have been completely wrecked; for tliere were the remains of handkercliiefs, l>y which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. I'here was no trace by whicli the name of the ship could l>t3 ascertained. The wreck liad evidently drifted about tor many months ; clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought I, are the crew ? Their struggle has long been over ; they have gone down amidst the roar of the tem- pest ; their bones lie whitening in the caverns of the deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, liave closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that ship ! what prayers ofll'ered up at the deserted fireside of home ! How often has the mistress, the wife, and tlie mother pored over the daily news to catch some casual intelligence of tliis rover of the deep ! How has expectation darkened into anxiety, anxiety into dread, and dread into despair! Alas! not one memento shall ever return for love to clierish. All that shall ever be known is, that she sailed from her port, " and was never heard of more." The sight of the wreck, as usual, gave rise to many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the case in the evening, when the weather, which had liitherto been fair, bogan to look wild and threatening, and gave indications of one of those sudden storms that will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a summer voyage. As we sat 172 77/ A SIXTH READER. round the dull light of a lamp in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. I was particularly struck with a short one related by the captain. "As I was once sailing," said he, "in a fine, stout ship, across the banks of Newfoundland, one of the heavy fogs, that prevail in those parts, rendered it impossible for me to see far ahead, even in the daytime ; but at night the weather was so thick that we could not distinguish any object at twice the length of our ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a constant watch forward to look out for fishing-smacks, which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. The wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we were going at a great rate through the water. Suddenly the watch gave the alarm of *a sail ahead ! ' but it was scarcely uttered till we were upon her. She was a small schooner at anchor, witli her broadside towards us. The crew were all asleep, and had neglected to hoist a light We struck her just amidships. The force, the size and weight of our vessel, bore her down below the waves : wf ])assed over her, and were hurried on our course. " As the craslung wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two or three half-naked wretches rushing from her cabin ; they had just started from their beds to be swallowed shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to our ears swept us out of all further hearing. I shall never foi-get that cry ! It was some time before we could put the ship about, she was under such headway. We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place where the smack was anchored. We cruised about for several hours in the dense fog. We fired several guns. THE FALL OF POLAND, 173 and listened if we might hear the halloo of any survive ors ; but all was silent, — we never heard nor saw any- thing of them more ! " It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry of "land !" was given from the mast-head. I question whether Columbus, when he discovered the New World, felt a more delicious throng of sensations, than rush into an Ameri- 1 ii's bosom when he first comes in sight of Europe. There 1.^ a volume of associations in the very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with everything of which his childhood has heard, or on which his studious years have pondered. From that time until the period of arrival, it was all feverish excitement. The ships of war, that prowled like guardian giants around the coast ; the headlands of Ireland, stretching out into tlie channel ; the Welsh moun- tains, towering into the clouds, — aU wereobjects of intense interest. As we sailed up the Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their trim shrubberies and green grass- plots. I saw the mouldering ruins of an abbey overrun with ivy, and the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow of a neighboring hill ; all were character- istic of England. XXL — THE FALL OF POLAND. CAMPBELL. I ME following extinct is from the "Pleasures of Hope." Tlie events which it nineiuorat4?8 took place in 1794. Warsaw was captured by the Russians in Novem- ber of that year. Kortion of Europe. " Prague " is Praga, a suburb of Warsaw, on the opposite side of the Vistula, and joined to the main city by a bridge of boats. O SACRED Truth ! thy triumph ceased awhile, And Hope, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, When leagued Oppression poured to Northern wars Her whiskered pandoors * and her fierce hussars. Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn. Pealed her loud drum, and twanged her trumpet horn ; Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van, PresagiJig wrath to Poland — and to man ! Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed. Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid. " Heaven ! " he cried, " my bleeding country save ! — Is there no hand on high to shield the brave 1 Yet, thougli 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 arrayed His trusty warriors, few, but undismayed ; Firm-paced 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 pealed the notes, omnipotent to charm. And the loud tocsin tolled their last alarm ! — In vain, alas ! in vain, ye gallant few ! From rank to rank your volleyed thunder flew : — O, bloodiest picture in the book of Time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime ; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, * " Pandoor." One of a body of light infantry soldiers in the service of Aus- tria; so called because originally raised from the mountainous districts, near the village of Pandur, in Lower Hungary. THE FALL OF POLAND. 176 Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe ! Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career : — Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell. And freedom shricketl, — as Kosciusko fell ! The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there, Tumultuous munler shook the midnight air, — On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below ; The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way, Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay ! Hark, as the smouldering piles with thunder fall, A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call ! Earth shook, — red meteors flashed along the sky, And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry ! O righteous Heaven ! ere Freedom found a grave, Why slept the sword, omnipotent to save 5 Where was thine ann, O Vengeance ! where thy rod. That smote the foes of Zion and of God ; That crushed proud Ammon, when his iron car Was yoketl in wratli, and thundered from afar ] Where was the storm that slumbered till the host Of blooil-stained Pharaoh left their trembling coast, Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow, And heaved an ocean on their march below 1 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 bkxKl atone. And make her arm puissant as your own 1 O, once again to Freedom's cause return The patriot Tell, — the Bruce of Biinnockbum ! Ye fond adorers of departed fame, Who warm at Scipio's worth or Tully's name! 176 THE SIXTH READER. Ye thiit, in fancied vision, ran admire The sword of Brutus and tlie Theban lyre ! * I^pt in hu^toric ardor, who adore Each classic haunt and well-remembered shore, Where valor tuned, amidst her chosen throng. The Thracian trumpet and the Spartan song ; Or, wandering thence, behold the later charms Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms ! See Koman fire in Hampden's bosom swell, And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell ! Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore. Hath Valor left the world — to live no more ? No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die, And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye ? Hampden no more, when suffering Freedom calls. Encounter Fate, and triumph as he falls 1 Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm, The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm ? Yes, in that generous cause, forever strong. The patriot's virtue and the poet's song, Still, as the tide of ages rolls away, Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay. ^ Yes, there are hearts, prophetic Hope may trust. That slumber yet in uncreated dust. Ordained to fire the adoring sons of earth, With every charm of wisdom and of worth ; Ordained to light with intellectual day, The mazy wheels of nature as they play. Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow. And rival all but Shakespeare's name below. • "The TTieban Ijtc*' The poetry of Pindar, a celebrated lyric poet, bora iu Tliebes. OPPOSITION TO INDEPENDENCE. 177 XXIT— OPPOSITION TO INDEPENDENCK WEBSTER This lesson anolcler and far-seeing statesmen are uttered by the lips of Mr. Ad- ams. Many (lersons have supposed that the s}iecch put into the mouth uf Mr. Adams was really delivered by him, but this is not the case. It was written by Mr. Webster. LET us pause ! This step, once taken, cannot be re- traced. This resolution, once pas.sed, will cut off all hope of reconciliation. If success attend the arms of England, we shall then be no longer Colonies, witli char- ters and with privileges; these will all be forfeited by tliis act ; and we shall be in the condition of other con- quered people, at the mercy of the conquerors. For ourselves, we may be ready to run the hazard ; but are we ready to carry the country to that length ? Is SMI ( r V- n probable as to justify it? Where is the mili- Uiry, wliere the naval power, by wliich we are to resist the whole strength of the arm of England ; for she wiU • rt that strength to the utmost ? Can we rely on the constancy and perseverance of the people ? or will they not act as the people of other countries have acted, and, •aried with a long war, submit, in the end, to a worse oppression ? While we stand on our old ground and insist on redress of grievances, we know we are right and ' ' not answerable for consequences. Nothing, then, can if imputed to us. But if we now change our object, carry our pretensions further, and set up for absolute independence, we shall lo.se the sympathy of mankind. We shall no longer 1^ defending what we possess, but struggling for something 178 THE SIXTH READER, which we never did possess, and which we have solemnly and uniformly disclaimed all intention of pursuing, from the very outset of the troubles. Abandoning thus our old ground, of resistance only to arbitrary acts of oppression, the nations will believe the whole to have been mere pretence, and they will look on us, not as injured, but as ambitious, subjects. I shudder before this responsibility. It will be on us, if, relinquishing the ground we have stood on so long, and stood on so safely, we now proclaim independence, and carry on the war for that object, while these cities bum, these pleasant fields whiten and bleach with the bones of their owners, and these streams run blood. It will be upon us, it will be upon us, if, failing to maintain this unseasonable and ill-judged declaration, a sterner despotism, maintained by military power, shall be established over our posterity, when we ourselves, given up by an exhausted, a harassed, a misled people, shall have expiated our rashness and atoned for our presump- tion on the sca£fold. XXIIL — MR. ADAMS'S REPLY. SINK or swim, live or die, survive or jicrish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, -that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there 's a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms ; and, blinded to her own interest for our good, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach fortli to it, and it is ours. Why, then, should we defer the declaration ? MR. ADAMS'S REPLY. 179 Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which slmll leave either safety to tlie country and its liberties, or safety to his own life and his own honor ? Are not you, sir, who sit in that chair, is not be, our venerable colle^ue near you, are you not both already the proscribed and predestined objects of punisli- rnent and of vengeance ? Cut off from all hope of royal clemency, what are you, what can you be, while the power of England remains, but outlaws ? If we postpone independence, do we mean to carry on or to give up the war ? Do we mean to submit to the measures of ParTia- ment, Boston Port Bill and all ? Do we mean to submit, and consent that we ourselves shall be ground to powder, and our country and its rights trodden down in the dust ? I know we do not mean to submit. We never shall submit Do we intend to violate that most solemn obli- gation ever entered into by men, that plighting, before God, of our sacred honor to Washington, when, putting him forth to incur the dangers of war, as well as the political hazards of the times, we promised to adhere to him, in every extremity, with our fortunes and our lives ? I know there is not a man here, who would not rather see a general conflagration sweep over the land, or an earth- quake sink it, than one jot or tittle of that plighted faith fall to the ground. For myself, having, twelve months ago, in this place, moved you, that George Washington be appointed commander of the forces raised, or to be raised, for defence of American liberty, may my right hand for- get her cunning, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I hesitate or waver in the support T give him. Tlie war, then, must go on. We must fight it through. And if the war must go on, wliy put off longer the decla- ration of independence ? That measure will strengthen 180 THE SIXTH READER us. It will give us character abroad. The nations will then treat with us, which they never can do while we acknowledge ourselves subjects in arms against our sov- ereign. Nay, I maintain that England herself will sooner treat for peace with us on the footing of independence, than consent, by repealing her acts, to acknowledge that her whole conduct toward us has been a course of injus- tice and oppression. Her pride will be less wounded by submitting to that course of things which now predestinates our indepen- dence, than by yielding the points in controversy to her rebellious subjects. The former she w^ould regard as the result of fortune ; the latter she would feel as her own deep disgrace. Why then, why then, sir, do we not as soon as possible change this from a civil to a national war ? And since we must fight it through, why not put ourselves in a state to enjoy all the benefits of victory, if we gain the victory ? If we fail, it can be no worse for us. But we shall not fail. The cause will raise up armies; the cause will create navies. The people, the people, if we are true to them, will caiTy us, and will carry themselves, gloriously, through this struggle. I care not how fickle other people have been found. I know the people of these Colonies, and I know that resistance to British aggression is deep and settled in their hearts, and cannot he eradicated. Every Colony, indeed, has expressed its willingness to follow, if we but take the lead. Sir, the declaration will inspire the people with in- creased courage. Instead of a long and bloody w^ar for the restoration of privileges, for redress of grievances, for chartered immunities held under a British king, set be- fore them the glorious object of entire independence, and MK ADAMS'S REPLY, 181 it will breathe into them anew the breath of life. Read this declaration at the head of the army; every sword will be drawn from its scabbard, and the solemn vow uttered, to maintain it, or to perish on the bed of honor. Publish it from the pulpit ; religion will approve it, and the love of religious liberty will cling round it, resolved to stand with it, or fall with it. Send it to the public halls ; pro- claim it there ; let them hear it who heard the first roar - 'f the enemy's cannon ; let them see it who saw their brothers and their sons fall on the field of Bunker Hill, and in the streets of Lexington and Concord, and the very walls will cry out in its support. Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die ; die colonists ; die slaves ; die, it may be, ignominiously, and on the scafTold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready, at the appointed liour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free coimtry. But whatever may be our fate, be assured, be assured that this declaration will stand. It may cost treasure, md it may cost blood; but it will stand, and it will 1 ichly compensate for both. Through the thick gloom of the present, I see the brightness of the future as the sun in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, an immortal (lay. When we are in ourgmves, our children will honor it. They will celebrate it with thanksgiving, with festiv- ity, with bonfires and illuminations. On its annUal re- turn, they will shed teare, copious, gushing tears, not of 182 THE SIXTH READER. subjection and slavery, not of agony and distress, but of exultation, of gratitude, and of joy. • Sir, before God, I believe the hour is come. My judg- ment approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready here to stake upon it ; and I leave off as I began, that, live or die, survive or perish, I am for the declaration. It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, — independence now, and independence forever ! XXIV. — YOUTH THIS is our morning ; in the way before us Its golden light is falling bright and fair j No clearer sky than that now bending o'er ^s E'er waked a longing for a dwelling there. We start together : yet how far diverging Out individual paths of life ^vill be ! Each her own scheme will be intently urging, Each working out her separate destiny. As some fair landscape, stretching in the distance, We look at life through eyes unused to tears, And yet not knowing whether our existence Shall cease in youth, or be prolonged through years ; Whether, ere noontide, everything we cherish Shall fade before us into less than air, And we, disheartened, lay us down to perish, The Star of Hope extinguished in despair. YOUTH. 183 Or, at the evening hours, our sun, descending With gathering glory to the peaceful west, Shall, as our well-wrought work is near its ending, ]5ehold us waiting for the promised rest. Who knows the future ] Who has turned its pages, Eeading its secrets with divining power? We may look backward through the reach of ages ; We can look forward not a single hour^ Yet without fear, without one dark misgiving. May we press onward with alacrity. Hoping and trustful; only this believing, — That as our purpose our reward shall bo. Then will the light that dwells in heavenly places, Flooding with joy a world beyond our gaze, Before whose brightness angels veiled their faces. Shine with swert iiifluonoo upon all our ways. We shall exi)erience peace ; and when life's river Forgets to flow, — through the Omnipotent will, — When on its banks the sunl>eams cease to quiver And deepening shadows settle dark and stiU ; Through the increasing dimness will our vision To the perception of true life arise ; We shidl catch glimpses of the land Elysian, We shall see morning break in Paradise. 184 THE SIXTH READER, XXV. — ETERNITY OF GOD. GREENWOOD. Francis WrLUAM Pm GiixEinrooo was born in Boston. Febnuuy 5. 1797, was graduated at Harvard College In 1814, and settled In 1818 as i^uitor over the New South Church, in Boston. But he was soon obliged to leave this post of duty, on account of his failing health. In 1824 he was settled as colleague to the late Dr. Freeman, over the church worshipping in King's ChapeL He died August 2, 1843. He was a man of rare purity of life, who preached the gospel by his works ss well aa his words. His manner in the pulpit was simple, impressive, and winning ; and his sermons were deeply imbued with true religiouii feeling. His style was beatitifully transparent and graceful, revealing a poetical imagination under the control of a pure taste. He waa a fluent contributor to the " North American Review" and the "Christian Examiner," and for a time was one of the editors of the latter periodical A volume entitled "Sermons of Consolation " appeared during his lifetime, and a selection from his sermons, with an introductory memoir, was published after his death. Dr. Greenwood was an attentive student of natural history, and was an accurate observer of nature, with remarkable powers of description. Some of his lighter pro- ductions, contrihutod to the gift annuals of the day, have great merit as vivid and picturesque delineations of natural scenes and ot^ects. The following extract is from one of his sermons. ^TT"E receive such repeated intimations of decay in VV the world through which we ai*e passing, — de- cline and change and loss follow decline and change and loss in such rapid succession, — that we can almost catch the sound of universal wasting, and hear the work of desolation going on busily around us. " The mountain falling Cometh to naught, and the rock is removed out of his place. The waters wear the stones, the things which gi'ow out of the dust of the earth are washed away, and the hope of man is destroyed." Conscious of our own instability, we look about for something to rest on ; but we look in vain. Tlie heavens and the earth had a beginning, and they will have an end. The face of the world is changing daily and hourly. All animated things grow old and die. The rocks crumble, the trees fall, the leaves fade, and the grass withers. The clouds are flying, and the waters are flowing, away from us. ETERNITY OF GOD. 185 The firmest works of man, too, are gradually giving way. The ivy clings to the mouldering tower, the brier hangs out from the shattered window, and the wall-flower springs from the disjointed stones. The founders of these perisliable works have shared the same fate, long ago. If we look back to the days of our ancestors, to the men as well as the dwellings of former times, they become immediately associated in our imaginations, and only make the feeling of instability stronger and deeper than before. In the spacious domes which once held our fathers, the serpent hisses and the wild bird screams. The halls which once were crowded with all that ta.ste and science and labor could procure, which resounded with melody and were lighted up with beauty, are buried by their own ruins, mocked by their own desolation. The voice of mer- riment and of wailing, the steps of the busy and the idle, liave ceased in the deserted courts, and the weeds choke the entrances, and the long grass waves upon the hearth- stone. The works of art, the forming hand, the tombs, the very ashes they contained, are all gone. Wliile we thus walk among the ruins of the past, a sad feeling of insecurity comes over us ; and that feeling is by no means diminished when we arrive at home. If we turn to our friends, we can hardly speak to them before they bid us farewell. We see them for a' few moments, and in a few moments more their countenances are changed, and they are sent away. It matlers not how near and dear they are. The ties which bind us together are never too close to be parted, or too strong to be broken. Tears were never known to move the king of terrors, neither is it enough that we are compelled to sur- render one, or two, or many, of those we love ; for though 186 THE SIXTH READER. the price is so great, we buy no favor with it, and our hold on those who remain is as slight as ever. The shad- ows all elude our grasp, and follow one another down the valley. We gain no confidence, then, no feeling of security, by turning to our contemporaries and kindi*ed. We know that the forms which are breathing around us are as short-lived and fleeting as those were which have been dust for centuries. The sensation of vanity, uncertainty, and niin is equally strong, whether we muse on what has long been pi-ostrate, or gaze on what is falling now or will fall so soon. If everything which comes under our notice has en- dured for so short a time, and in so short a time will be no more, we cannot say that we receive the least assur- ance by thinking on ourselves. When they, on whose fate we liave been meditating, were engaged in the active scenes of life, as full of health and hope as we are now, what were wo ? We had no knowledge, no conscious- ness, no being ; there was not a single thing in the wide universe which knew us. And after the same interval sliall have elapsed, which now divides their days from ours, what shall we be? What they are now. When a few more friends have left, a few more hopes deceived, and a few more changes mocked us, " we shall be brought to the gi-ave, and shall remain in the tomb : the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto us, and every man shall follow us. as there are innumerable before us." All power will have forsaken the strongest, and the lofti- est will be laid low, and every eye will be closed, and every voice hushed, and every heart will have ceased its beating. And when we have gone ourselves, even our memories will not stay behind us long. A few of the ETERNITY OF GOD. 187 ne.ir and dear will bear our likeness in their bosoms, till they too have arrived at the end of their journey, and en- tered tlie dark dwelling of unconsciousness. In the thoughts of others we shall live only till the last sound of the bell, which informs them of our departure, has ceased to vibrate in their ears. A stone, perhaps, may tell some wanderer where we lie, when we came here, and when we went away ; but even that will soon refuse to bear us record. " Time's effacing fingers " will be busy on its surface, and at length will wear it smooth ; and then the stone itself will sink or crumble, and the wanderer of another age will pass, without a single call upon his sympathy, over our unheeded graves. Is there nothing to counteract the sinking of the heart which must be the efl'ect of observations like these ? Can no support be offered ? Can no source of confidence be named ? yes ! there is one Being, to whom we can look with a perfect conviction of finding that security which nothing about us can give, and which nothing about us can take away. To this Being we can lift up our souls, and on him we may rest them, exclaiming in the language of the monarch of Israel, " Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God ! " " Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them shall wax old like a gar- ment ; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they sliall be changed ; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end." Here, then, is a support which will never fail ; here is a foundation which can never be moved, — the everlast- 188 THE SIXTH READER. ing Creator of countless worlds, " the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity." What a sublime conception ! He inJuxbits eternity, occupies this inconceivable dui-ation, pervades and fills throughout this boundless dwelling. The contemplation of this glorious attribute of God is fitted to excite in our minds the most animating and con- soling reflections. Standing as we are amid the ruins of time and the wrecks of mortality, where everything about us is created and dependent, proceeding from nothing, and hastening to destruction, we rejoice that something is pre- sented to our view which has stood from everlasting, and will remain forever. We can look to the throne of God : change and decay have never reached that ; the revolu- tion of ages has never moved it ; the waves of an eternity have been rushing past it, but it has remained unshaken ; the waves of another eternity are rushing towards it, but it is fixed, and can never be disturbed. XXVI. — THE GOOD GREAT MAN. COLERIDGE. Saxttel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. Mary, In Devonshire, England, October 21, 1772 : and died Jnly 25, 1S34. He was one of the most remarkable men of his time ; and few writers have exerted a wider and deej)er intellectual influence than he. His influence, too, is most felt by minds of the highest class. He was an origi- nal and imaginative poet, a profound and suggestive philosophical writer, and a critic of unrivalled excellence. His works are somewhat fragmentary in their character, for he wanted patience in intellectual construction ; but they are the fragments of a noble ediflce. In conversational eloquence he is said to have excelled all his contempora- ries. Coleridge's life was not in all respects what the admirers of his genius could have wisheI, where his gentle nature suflered much at the hands of older and rougher lads. He spent some time in the study of the law, and was called to the bar ; but his morbid temperament was found unequal to the discharge of professional and offlfial duties. He dcclinee," "The Progress of Error," "Charity," etc., was publisheil in 1782, when he was fifty-one years old. It rarely hapi^ns that a iKwt's flrst appearance is so late in life. This volume did not attract much attention. Bnt in 1784 he published "The Task," which was received with much more favor. It* vigorous and manly style, its eneOj'etic moral tone, and its charming pictures of natural scenery and domestic life, were soon appreciated, although the general t-isto at that time preferred a more artificial style of iK>etry. After the publication of *• The Task," he siwnt some yean upon a translation of Homer into blank verse, published In 1791. U»aj of Cowper's smaller pieces still enjoy great and deservcnpularity. Like ra of habitual mehincholy, be bad a vein of humor running Uiroueh bia 190 THE SIXTH READER, nature. His "John Gilpin " is a well-known instance of this ; and the s.iitio (jiiality tlii'W^ a fn.iutiit rharin over his correspondence. Cowper's life is full of deep and 5aly. lie had tiiid' r and Invin;,' friiiids, wlm watched over him with affec- tionate and imtiriii^; iiif-t IIi^ ihmsi mtiiuat.- riitmlships were with women ; and there is a strikiii;.' c.^: . ;i tl.r niasriilin,- vigor of his style and his feminine habits ami iiianii.T .■: 11 is letters are perlia]»s mc uesi in the language. They are not superior, as intel- Idtiial efforts, to those of Gray, Walpole, Byron, or Scott; but they have in the higltebt degree that conversational ease and playfbl grace which we most desiiv in this clas4 of writings. They are not epbtolary essays, but genuine letters, — thr nn studied eflVisions of the heart, meant for no eye but that of the jterson to whimi they are addressed. Cowper's life has been written, and his poems and prose writings edited, by Southey ; and they form a work of great interest and pernmueut value in literature. OFOR a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless coBtnjiiity of sliado, Where mmof •# oppression ami d.Mrii, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach me more ! !My oar is pained, My soul is sick, with *\. ly day > r« p ,it Of wrong and outrage with \vlii( h earth is filled. There is no flf.sli in man's olid urate heart, It does not !"»* 1 t i man ; th. natural bond Of brotherhood is severed as the flax That falls asunder at the touch of tire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin N(it colored like hi^ own ; and having power To enforce the wrong, for sucli a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as Id- law In 1 jn y. Lands intersected by a narrow frith Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Make enemies of nations, wlm had else Like kindit'd drops been melted into one. Tims man devotes his brother, and destroys ; And, worse than all, and most to be deplored, As human nature's liroadest, foulest blot, Chains liini, anm an Old Manse." Tlie Snow ImaK*", and other Twice-ToUl Tales." the last three being collectiona of papvra contributed to various periodicals. He has also written three or four books 192 THE SIXTH READER. for children. Since hi* death, six voluuies hav« been published containing extracts from his Note-Books in America, England, and Italy. Hawthorne was a man of peculiarly original genius, and no writer of our time was less indebted to the thoughU and words of other men than he. Reserved in his tem- perament and secluded in his habits, his mind grew by a self-contained law of in- crease. He combined a rare imaginative faculty with a vein of deep, often mournful, reflection. He had an unequal power of moving in that twilight region which lies between the real and the unreal, and of so clearing up his mysteries as still to leave the shadow of doubt resting uiton them. He was a fine and sharp observer, and painted character with admirable discrimination and effect. His scenes and incidents are mostly drawn from tlie history and life of New England ; an«l it is a prep and painful interest. HESTER I'llYNNE went, one day, to the mansion of Governor Bellinghara. This was a large wooden house, built in a fashion of which there are specimens still extant in the streets of our elder towns ; ^ow^ moss- grown, crumbling to decay, and melancholy at heart, with the many sorrowful or joyful occurrences, remembered or forgotten, that have happened and passed away within their dusky chambers. Then, however, there was the freshness of the passing year on its exterior, and tlie cheerfulness gleaming forth from the sunny windows of a human habitation, into which death had never entered. It had, indeed, a very cheery aspect ; the walls being overspread with a kind of stucco, in which fragments of broken glass were plentifully intermixed, so that, when the sunshine fell aslantwise over the front of the edifice, it glittered and sparkled as if diamonds had been flung PEARL AT PLAY. 193 against it by the double haiidfuL The brilliancy might have befitted Aladdin's palace, rather than tlif* mansion of a grave old Puritan ruler. Pearl, looking at this bright wonder of a house, began to caper and dance, and imperatively required that the whole breadth of sunshine should be stripped oft' its front and given her to play with. " No, my little Pearl ! " said her mother. " Thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee." They approached the door, when they beheld the old physician, with a basket on one arm, and a staff" in the other hand, stooping along the ground in quest of roots and herbs to concoct his medicines withal. Hester bade little Pearl run down to the margin of the water, and -play with the slrells and tangled sea-weed, until she should have talked awhile wdth yonder gatherer of herbs. ^So the child flew away like a bird ; and, making bare her small feet, went pattering along the moist margin of the sea. Here and there she came to a full stop, and peeped curiously into a pool, left by the retiring tide as a mirror for Pearl to see her face in. Fortli peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf smile in her eyes, the image of a little maid, whom Pearl, having no other playmate, invited to take her hand and run a race with her. But the visionary little maid, on her part, beckoned likewise, as if to say, " This is a better place ! Come thou into the pool !" And Pearl, stepping in, beheld her own white feet at the bottom ; while, out of a still lower depth, came the gleam of a kind of fragmentary smile, floating to and fro on the agftetted water. Soon finding, 194 THE SIXTH READER. however, that the image was unreal, she turned elsewhere for better pastime. She made little boats out of birch-bark, and freighted them with snail-shells, and sent out more ventures on the PEARL AT I -LAV. 10." mighty deep than any merchant in New England. But the lai-ger part of tliem foundered neai* the shore. She seized a horseshoe by tlie tail, and made a prize of several five-fingers, and laid out a jelly-fish to melt in the warm 8U1L Then she took up the white foam, that streaked the line of the advancing tide, and threw it upon the breeze, scampering after it to catch the great snow-flakes ere they fell. Perceiving a flock of beach-birds that fed and fluttered along the shore, the naughty child picked up her apron full of pebbles, and, creeping from rock to rock after these small sea-fowl, displayed remarkable dexterity in pelting them. One little gray bird with a white breast, Pearl was almost sure, had been hit by a pebble and fluttered away with a brokeh wing. But then the elf child sighed and gave up her sport, because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that W51S as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself. Her final employment was to gather sea- weed of vari- ous kinds, and make herself a scarf or mantle, and a head-dress, and thus assume the aspect of a little mermaid. Just then she heard her mother's voice, and, flitting along as lightly as one of the little sea-birds, appeared before Hester, dancing and laughing. The road liomeward, after the two wayfarers had crossed from the peninsula tp the mainland, was no other than a foot-path. It straggled onward into the mystery of the primeval forest. This hemmed it in narrowly, and stood black and dense on either side, and disclosed imperfect glimpses of the sky above. The day was chill and sombre. Overhead was a gay expanse of cloud, slightly stirred by 196 THE SIXTH READER. a breeze ; so that a gleam of flickering sunshine might now and tlien be seen at its solitary play along the path. This flitting cheerfulness was always at the farther extrem- ity of some long vista through the forest. " Mother," said little Pearl, " the sunshine runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something. . Now, see ! There it is, playing, a good way off. Stand you here, and let me run and catch it. I am but a child. It will not flee from me." " Kun away, child," answered the mother, " and catch it ! It will soon be gone." Pearl set forth at a great pace, and, as Hester smiled to perceive, did actually catch the sunshine, and stood laughing in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendor, and scintillating with the vivacity excited by rapid mo- tion. The light lingered about the lonely child as if glad of such a playmate, until her mother had drawn almost nigh enough to step into the magic circle, too. " Come, my chQd," said Hester, looking about her, " we will sit down a little way within the wood, and rest ourselves." They entered sufficiently deep into the wood to secure themselves from the observation of any casual passenger along the forest track. Here they seated themselves in a little dell, with a leaf-strewn bank rising gently on either side, and a brook flowing through the midst, over a bed of fallen leaves. Continually, as it stole onward, the streamlet kept up a babble, kin^ quiet, soothing, but melancholy. " brook ! O foolish and tiresome little brook ! " cried Pearl, after listening awhile to its talk. " Why art thou so sad ? Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring." PEARL AT PLAY. 197 Pmt the brook, in the course of its little lifetime among the forest trees, had gone through so solemn an expe- rience that it could not help ttilking about it, and seemed to have nothing else to say. Pearl resembled the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life had flowed through scenes shadowed as heavily with gloom. But, unlike the little stream, she danced and sparkled, and prattled airily along her course. There was no other attribute that so much impressed her mother with a sense of vigor in Pearl's nature as her never-failing vivacity of spirits. It was a doubtful charm, imparting a haM, me- tallic lustre to tlie cliild's character. She wanted — what some people want throughout life — a grief that should deeply touch her, and tlms humanize and make her capa- ble of sympathy. But there was time enough yet for little Pearl. " What does this sad little brook say, mother ? " in- quired she. " If thou hadst a sorrow of thine own, the brook might tell thee of it," answered her mother. " Now, Pearl, go and play. But do not stray far into the wood. And take heed that thou come at my first call." The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook, and striving to mingle a more lightsome cadence with its melancholy voice. But the little stream would not be comforted ; and so Pearl ch'^se to break off all acquaintance with it, and the great black forest became the playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how. It ofiered her the partridge-berries, now red as drops of blood upon the withered leaves. These Pearl gathered, and was pleased with their wild flavor. The small deni- zens of the wilderness hardly took pains to move out of her patli. 198 THE SIXTH READER. A partridge, indeed, with a brood of ten behind iici ran forward thn.'ateningly, but soon repented her fierce- ness, and chicked to lier young ones not to be afraid. A pigeon, alone on a low branch, allowed Pearl to come beneath, and uttered a sound, as much of greeting as alarm A squirrel, from the lofty deptlis of his domestic tree, chattered, either in anger or merriment, — for a squirrel is such a choleric and humorous little personage that it is hard to distinguisli between his moods, — and flung down a nut upon her head. A fox, startled from his sleep by her light Ibotstep on the leaves, looked inquisitively at Pearl, as doubting whether it were better to steal off, or renew his nap on the same spot. The truth seems to be, that the mother- forest, and these wild things which it nourished, all recog- nized a kindred wildness in the human child. And she was gentler here than in the gi*assy margined streets of the settlement, or in her mother's cottage. The flowers seemed to know it ; and one and another whis- pered, as she passed, " Adorn thyself with me, thou beau- tiful child ; adorn thyself with me ! " and, to please them. Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and scarlet columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes. With these she decorated her hair and waist, and became a nymph child or an infant dryad, when she heard her mother's voice, and came slowly back. CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 100 XXIX. — CHAKGE OF THE UGHT BRIGADE. TENNYSON. Alfred TRnrrsoN. a livin,; yxwti of England, waa bora at Somenby, Lincofaubire, in 1810. He has published two volumes of miscellaneoos poetry ; also " The Princess." A narrative, in blank verse ; a volume <-alled " In Memoriam " ; *' Maud," in which an unhappy love-story is told in a broken and frnginentary way; and "Idyh of the King," comprising four poems founded on the legends of King Arthur. He is a man of rare and tine genius, whose i>oetry is addressed to retlued and calti- vated minds. The music of his verse and his skill in the use of language an alike ex- cellent He is a poet of poets ; and, in general, is only ftilly appreciated by thoM who have something of the poetical faculty themselves. He is more valued by women than by men, and by young men than by old. He is evidently a man of the finest organization, and his poetry is of the most exquisite and ethereal cast He has an un- common |K)wer of presenting pictures to the eye, and often in a very few words. His pages are crowded with subjects for the artist A portion of what he has written is rather remote ftt)ra the beaten track of human symiwithies and feelings ; but that he can write popular i)oetry is shown by his well-known " May Queen." His volume called " In Memoriani" is a very remarkable book. It is a collection of one hundreeculiar and uniform metre, which were called forth by the early death of Arthur Henry Hallam, the eldest son of the historian, a young man of rare excellence of mind and character, the intimate friend of Tennyson, and betrothed to his sister. Such a book will not be welcome to all minds, nor to any mind at 'all periods and in all moods ; but it contains some of the most exquisite i>oetry which has been written in our times, and some of the deepest and sweetest efftisions of feeling to bo found anywhere. Tlie following spirited poem commemorates a gallant and de8i)erate charge made by a brigade of English light-horse at the battle of Balaklava, in the Crimea, October 25, 1S54, under circumstances that seemed to insure the destruction of the whole body. The order to charge was supposed to have been given under a mistake ; but nothing was ever distinctly known about it., as Captain NoLm, who delivered it, was the Itrst man who fell. Of six hundrei.\Tii i;i:aI)ER. Not though the soldiers knew Some one had blundered ; Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why. Theirs but to do and die : Into the valley of death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to ri-lit 1" them, CaTiimn to Iri'i i,!' them, OiniKUi in IVoiit of them. Volleyed and thundered : Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well ; Into til. jaws of death, liiU) the mouth of hell. Rode the six hundred. Fla.slicd all tlieir sal)re.s bare. Flushed as they turned in air, SaWriiii: tli.- u'unners there, Cliarging an army, while All the world wondered : riiiii-fil ill thr liaitery smoke, liiglit tliron«;h llie line they broke ; Cossack nnd Russian h't'tlt .1 iiMin the sabre-stroke. Shattered and sundered. Then they rode back, but not. Not the >i.\ Imiidred. Cannon to riglit il tlit m, Cannon tr. Irft of thein, Cannon beliind ihciu, Volleyed ami thundered : PERSONAL Al'l'LAKAME OF H Ai^HIXGTUX. 201 Stormed at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well, Came through the jaws of death, Back from the mouth of hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. When can their glory fade 1 0, the wild charge tliey made ! All the world wondered. Honor the chai-ge they made ! Honor tlie Light Brigade, Noble six hundred 1 XXX. — PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND CHAR- ACTER OF WASHINGTON. REV. JARED SPARKS. Jarkd Sparkr. an Aniericim histnrian and author, was bom in Willington, Con- necticut, May 10, 17S9; aiid died Mfirrh 14, 186fl. He was «rst a Unitarian minister, and was settled in Baltimore fh)m 1819 to 1823. In 1821 he was Chaplain to the Hoose of Representatives. He e llinl.s long and somewhat slen- 202 . TliK .SIXTH HEADER. der, Init n\<'11 shaped and ninscular. TTis fciitures were regular and symmetrical, his eyes ui a light blue color, and his whole countenance, in its quiet state, was grave, placid, and benignant. AVheii alone, or not en^niLTCHl in eunversation. ho ap- p«'aic(l st'dalf and llion^lit t'ul : hut, when his nUcinion was excited, his eye kindlcil (piickly and beanic(l wiih animation and inteUigence. (lie was not fluent in speech, but what he said was a])posit<\ and listened to with more interest as beini; known tn ((tine from the heart. He pX^^ seldom attempted sallies ot wii cr Imiuor, hut no man received more pleasure from an exhibition ui them ])y otbcis; and. aUlinu^li (.ditented in seclusion, he .sought Ills cliicr liappiness in society, and jiai-iicij.atcd wiili de- liLdit in all its ratinnal and innocent amusements. pW^itliout austciiiy on the one hand, or an appeamnce of condescending tamiliaiity on tlit- otluT, lie was aft able, courteous, and rlicfitul ; l-ut it lia< ot'lrn Kern remarked, that llieie was a dignity m his person and manner, not easy to be defined, which impressed everyone who >aw Ilim for ilir first lime with an in-i inetive deference and awe. This mav liaxc arisen in ]tarl trom a conviction of lii> superiority, a- well as troin thu effect produced by his external jitnn and dejiori mciit. His moral ([ualities wcie in iieilect liarmonv with those *-' of his intellect. lAity was the ruling" i-iini-ijde of his conduct; and the rare endowmeni- ol' his undL*rstanding ^ were not more constantly tasked to devise the best meth- ods of efifecting an ohjtM't. than ihev wore to cruard the sanctity of conscieni c No instaiiee can ho addueotl. in wliieh he wa- actuated by a sinister motive, or endeavored to attain an end by unworthy means. Truth, integrity, and justice were PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF WASHlSdTON. 203 deeply rooted in liis mind ; and nothing could rouse his indignation so ;oon, or so utterly destroy his conHdence, as the discovery of the want of these virtues in any one whom he had trusted. Weaknesses, follies, indiscretions, he could forgive; hut subterfuge and dishonesty he never forgot and nirely pardoned. He was candid and sincere, true to his friends, and faithful to all, neither pmctising dissimulation, descending t4> artifice, nor holding out expectations which he did not intend should be realized. His pa*«ion8 were strong, and ^owetimes they broke out with vehemence, bjit lie. liad the power of checking thgni in ajn instant Perhaps self- control was the most remarkable trait of his character. It was in part the effect of discipline ; yet he seems by nature to have possessed this power to a degree which has been denied to other mer^J A Christian in faith and practice, he was habitually devout. His reverence for religion is seen in his exam- ple, his public communications, and his private writings. He uniformly ascribed his success to the beneficent agency of the Supreme Being. Charitable and humane, he was liberal to the poor, and kind to those in distress. As a husband, son, and brother, he was tender and affec- tionate. Without vanity, ostentation, or pride, he never spoke of himself or his actions, unless required by cir- cumstances which concerned the public interests. As he was free from envy, so he had the good fortune to escape the envy of others, by standing on an elevation wliich none could hope to attain. If he had one pjission .stronger than another, it was love of his country. The purity and ardor of his patriotism were commensurate with the gi'catness of its object Love of country in him was invested witlj tlie saci*ed obligation of a dntv ; 204 THE SlXrn READER. and from the faithful dibciiarge of tliis duty he never swerved for a moment, either in thought or deed, through the whole period of his eventful career. XXXI. — WASHINGTON'S GENIUS. B. P. WHIPPLE. Edwix Pbrct Whipple wm born iu Oloacester, Massachusetts, on the 8th of llareh, 1819. He has been for many years a resident of Boston. He is well known as a lyceum leatriots, warriors, and statesmen ; but these all fall into relations to one prom- inent and commanding figure, towering above the whole group in unapproachable majesty, whose exalted char- acter, warm and bright with every public and private virtue, and vital with the essential spirit of wisdom, has burst all sectional and national bounds, and made the name of Washington the property of all mankind. ThiB illustrious man, at once the world's admiration and enigma, we are taught by a fine instinct to venerate, and by a wrong opinion to misjudge. The might of his character has taken strong liold upon the feelings of great masses of men, but in translating this universal sentiment into an intelligent form, the intellectual element of his wonderful nature is as much depressed as the moral ele- WASHISQTON^S GENIUS. 205 ment is exalted, and consequently we are apt to misun- dei*stiind both. Mediocrity has a bad trick of idealizing itself in eulogizing him, and drags him down to its own low level while assuming to lift him to the skies. How many times have we been told that he was not a man of genius, but a person of " excellent common- sense," of " admirable judgment," of " rare virtues " ; and by a constant repetition of this odious cant we have nearly succeeded in divorcing comprehension from his sense, in- sight fi-om his judgment, force from his virtues, and life from tlie man. Accordingly, in tlie panegyric of cold spirits, Washington disappears in a cloud of common- places ; in the rodomontade of boiling patriots he expires in the agonies of rant. The sooner tliis bundle of mediocre talents and moral qualities, which its contrivers have the audacity to call Georer overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade, — «" Up the light ladder, slender and tall, To the highest window in the wall. Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, --^ And the moonlight flowing over all. Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead In their night-encampment on the hill, Wrapped in silence so deep and still,_ That he couUI hear, like a sentinel's tread, The watchful night-wind, as it went Creeping nloni: fr r ' : ' ' '. ;.' 208 rifK >IXTII UKAhEl:. And seeming to whisixjr, ** All is well ! " A moment only he feels tlie spell Of the place and the hour, the secret dread Of the lonely belfry and the dead ; For suddenly all hia thoughts are bent On a shadowy something far awav Where the river widens to meet the bay, — A line of black, tliat bends and floats On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats. - Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride. Booted and spurred, -with a heavy stride, On the opposite shore walked Pm"1 P-^ -^'"^ Now he patted his horse's side, Now gazed on the landscape far and near. Then impetuous stamped the earth. And turned and tightened his saddle-girth ; But mostly he watched with eager search The belfry-tower of the old North Church, As it rose above the graves on the hill, Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still. And lo ! as he loolifi, on the belfry's height,— A glimmer, and then a gleam of light ! He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight A second lamp in the belfry bums ! — A hurry of hoofs in a village-street, A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark. And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet : - That was all ! And yet, through the gloom and i\\9 licrl The fate of a nation was riding that night ; And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight, Kindled the land into flame with its heat. J' A LI. i:i: J /. /./v .> {,IJ >/:. 200 It w;i« twelve by the village-clock, VVlieii he crossed the bridge into ^rt'dfonl town. lie heiird the crowing of the c< Aiul tip ' :'■■._ oftlu. faniu'i'^ . , 210 THE SIXTH READER. And felt the damp of the river-fog, That rises >?hen the sun goes down. It was one by the village-clock, When he rode into Lexington. He saw the gilded weathercock Swim in the moonlight as he passed. And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, Gaze at him with a spectral glare, As if they already stood aghast At the bloody work they would look upon. It was two by the village-duck. When he came to the bridge in Concord town. — He heard the bleating of the flock. And the twitter of binls among the trees, And felt the breath of the morning-breeze Blowing over the meadows brown. And one was safe and asleep in his betl Who at the bridge would be first to fall. Who that day would be lying dead. Pierced by a Britisli ninskf»t-)>fill. You know the rest, in the books you have read How the British regidars fired and fled, — How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and fannyard-wall, Chasing the redcoats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again Under the trees at the turn of the road. And only pausing to tire and load. So through the night rode Paul Revere ; And so through the night went his cry of alarm To every ^liddlesex village and farm, — THE rffARACTER "I J.AlTAX. 211 A cry of dctianro, and not of fear, — A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo forevermore ! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, ^ In the hour of darkness and peril aid need. The people will waken and listen to hear The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed. And the midnight-message of Paul Kcvere. XXXTTT — THE CHARACTER OF GRATTAN. SYDNEY SMITH. Sydney Smith, a clergynuui of the Church of England, waa born at Woodford, In the county of Esst'x, England, in 1771. and died in 1845. He was one of the founders f the "Edinburgh Review," a periotlioal journal which has exerted, nnd is continu- ing to exert, so great an influence over the literature and politics of Great Britain ; and for many years lie was a consUint contributor ten. But his wit and iiunjor resttHl uinm a foundation of sound common-sense, and were alwaj-s under the control of a warm and good heart In reading him, we feel lirst that he is a wist- man, and then a witty man. He was a couni^pous and consistent friend of civil and rollgious liberty ; and In the various articles which he contributed to the " Edinburgh iifvlew," on social nnd political reform, he shows the enlarged views of an enlight- iied statesman, and the benevolent feeling of a Christian philanthropist THANK God that all is not profligacy and corruption ill tlie history of that devoted people, and that ilie name of Irishman does not always carry with it the idea of the oppressor or the oppressed, the plunderer or the plundered, the tyrant or the slave. Great men hallow a whole peojde, and lift up all who live in tluur time. What Irishman does not feel proud that he has lived in the days of (irattan ? Who has not turned to him for comfort, from the false friends and open enemies of Ireland ? Wlio did not rememl^r liim in the 212 77/ A >/.\Tii i:i:.\i'KiL days of its burninfj^ and wastings and iniird('r> '' No gov- ernment ever dismayed him, the wurld could not bribe liiui ; he thouglit niily of Irehind. lived for no other object, dedicated to her his beautilul fancy, his elegant wit, his manly courage, and all the splendor of his aston- ishing eloquence. He was so born and -<» uit'itMi, tli;it ]»<'etry, forensic skill, elegant literaluio, and all ilic liiLihest attain- ments of human genius, were wiihin his nach ; but he thoni:lit the noblest occupation of a man was to make other men happy and free ; and in that straight line he went on for fifty years, without one sidelook, without one yieldini: tln»u_Lilit, wiilmut one niMiiN.- in hi^ heart which he might not have laid <»iH'n to the view ot God and man. He is gone ! — but there is not a sinde day of his honest life of wlii( h every good Iri-liniaii wculd not be more proud, than of the whole political existence of his countrymen, — the annual deserters and V)etrayers of their native land. XXXTV — IIMTK AND IM IMTE. U. C. WIMUROP. Robert Charles Wimthbop was bom in Boston, Majr 12, 1809, and gradaated nt Han'ard College in 1S28. He was admitted to the bar in 1831, but never engaged in the practice of the profession. In 1834 he was elected to the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, and rc-.l.M tclessing of God will attend all their toils, and the grati- I ude of man will await all their triumphs. T.,et them dig down into the bowels of the earth. Let them rive asunder the massive rocks, and unfold the his- tory of creation as it lies written on the pages of their piled-up strata. Let them gather up the fossil fragments of a lost Fauna, reproducing the ancient forms which inhabited the land or the seas, bringing them together, bone to his bone, till Leviathan and Behemoth stand before us in bodily presence and in their full proportions, and we almost tremble lest these dry bones should live again ! Let them put Nature to the rack, and torture her, in all her forms, to the betrayal of her inmost secrets and 214 THE SIXTH READER confidences. They need not forbear. The ioundatious of the round world have been laid so strong that they can- not be moved. But let them not think by searching to find out God. Jjet them not dream of understanding the Almighty to perfection. Let them not dare to apply their tests and solvents, their modes of analysis or their terms of defini- tion, to the secrets of the spiritual kingdom. Let them spare the foundations of faith. Let them be satisfied with what is revealed of the mysteries of the Divine Nature. Let them not break through the bounds to gaze after the Invisible, lest the day come when they shall be ready to cry to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. XXXV. — THE NEW YEAR. ALFRED TENNYSON. RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light ; The year is dying in the night ; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new ; Ring, happy bells, across the snow ; The year is going ; let him go ; Ring out the false ; ring in the true. Ring out the grief, that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more ; Ring out the feud of rich and poor ; Ring in redress to all mankind. THE REFORM THAT IS NEEDED. 215 Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife ; King in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin. The faithless coldness of the times ; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes. But ring the fuller minstrel in. Rin;,' out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite ; Ring in the love of truth and right ; Ring in the common love of good. Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand j Ring out the darkness of the land. Ring in the Christ that is to be. XXXVL — THE REFORM THAT IS NEEDED. BUSHNELL. HoRACB BtraHKBLL, D. D., was born in Washington, Litchfield County, Ck)nn., in 1804, and was graduated at Tale College in 1827. In May, 1838, he was invited to be pastor of the North Congregational Church in Hnrtford, which i^sition he still re- tains. Dr. Bushnell's writings have been mainly ou theological subjects, though in ' - ' '" • before literary socieUes he has occasionally touched upon other themes. I ! IIS are renuirkable for their spiritual beauty and elevation of style, and .1' ' thod of treatment. lie in an earnest thinker rather than a Hutorician. 216 THE SIXTH READER. IT is getting to be a great hope of our time, that society is about to slide into something better, by a course of natural progress, — by the advance of education, by great public reforms, by courses of self-culture, and phil- anthropic practice. We have a new gospel that corre- sponds, — a gospel which preaches not so much a faith in God's salvation as a faith in human nature, — an atten- uated, moralizing gospel, that proposes development, not regeneration ; that shows men how to grow better, how to cultivate their amiable instincts, how to be rational in their own light, and govern themselves by their ovm power. Sometimes it is given as the true problem, how to reform the shape and reconstruct the style of their heads ! Alas, that we are taken, or can be, with so great folly ! How plain it is that no such gospel meets our want ! What can it do for us but turn us away, more and more fatally, from that gosjxjl of the Son of God which is our only hope ? Man, as a ruin, going after development and progress and philanthropy and social culture, and by this firefly glimmer, to make a day of glory ! And this is the doctrine that proposes shortly to re- store society, to settle the passion, regenerate the affec- tion, reglorify the thought, fill the aspiration of a desiring and disjointed world. As if any being but God had power to grapple with these human disorders ; as if man or society, crazed and maddened by the demoniacal frenzy of sin, w^ere going to rebuild the state of order, and reconstruct the harmony of nature by such kind of desultory counsel and unsteady application as it can manage to enforce in its own cause ; going to do this miracle by its science, its compacts, and seK-executed reforms ! OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICA Tu KiNOLAiSD. 217 As soon will the desolations of Karnac gather up their fragments and reconstruct the proportions out of which they have fallen. No ; it is not progi-ess, not reforms, that are wanted as any principal thing. Nothing meets our case, but to come unto God and be medicated in him ; to be bom of God, and so, by his regenerative power, to be set in heaven's own order. He alone can rebuild the ruin, he alone set up the glorious temple of the mind, and those divine affinities in us that raven* with immortal hunger ; he alone can satisfy them in the bestowment of himself ! XXXVII. — OBLIGATIONS OF AMERICA TO ENGLAND. EVERETT. The following extract is ttom an oration delivered at Plymouth, December 22, 1824. 'TTT'HAT citizen of our Republic does not feel, what VV • reflecting American does not acknowledge, the incalculable advantages derived to this land out of the deep fountains of civil, intellectual, and moral truth from which we have drawn in England ? What American does not feel proud that his fathers were the countrymen of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke ? Who does not know that, while every pulse of civil liberty in the heart of the British Empire beat warm and full in the bosom of our ancestors, the sobriety, the firmness, and the dignity with which the cause of free principles struggled into existence here, constantly found encouragement and countenance from the friends of liberty there ? * PronounceX> "F AMEIUCA T" KXGLASV. 219 aids of truth ; and richer, as the parent of this land of promise in the west. 1 am not — I need not say I am not — the panelist of England I am not dazzled by her riches, nor awed by her power. The sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet, — stars, garters, and blue ribbons, — seem to me poor things for great men to contend for. Nor is my admira- tion awakened by her armies mustered for the battles of Europe, her navies overshadowing the ocean, nor her empire, gi-aspiug the farthest east. It is these, and the price of guilt and blood by which they are too often main- tained, which are the cause why no friend of liberty can salute her with undivided afiections. But it is the cradle and the refuge of free principles, though often persecuted ; the school of religious liberty, tlie more precious for the struggles through which it has passed ; the tombs of those who have reflected honor on all who speak the English tongue ; it is the birthplace of our fathers, the home of the pilgrim ; — it is these which I love and venerate in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. In an American it would seem to me degenerate and ungrateful to hang with passion upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and follow without emotion the nearer and plainer footsteps of Shakespeare and Mil- ton. I should think him cold in his love for his native land, wlio felt no melting in his lieart for that other na- tive country which holds the ashes of his forefathei-s. 220 THE SIXTH READER. XXXVIII. — ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S EXHIBITION, LONDON. HORACE SMITH. Horace Smith, a native of London, died in July, 1849, in the seventieth year of his age. In 1812, in conjunction with his elder brotlier, James Smith, he published a volume called " Rejected Addresses," consisting of imitations of the popular j>oets of the day. It had great and «it}8ened success, and has since been frequently reprinted. Horace Smith was a stock-broker by profession ; but in the leisure hours stolen from his employment he wrote a number of works of fiction, which were received with fa- vor, and many contributions, both in verse and prose, to the magazines of the time. His poems have been collected and published in two volumes. H« waa a very amiable and estimable man. AND thou hiist walked about (how strange a story ! ) In Thebes's * streets three thousand years ago, When the Memnonium t was in all its glory, And time had not begun to overthrow Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Of which the very ruins are tremendous. Speak ! for thou long enough hast acted dummy ; Thou hast a tongue, — come, let us hear its tune ; Thou 'rt standing on thy legs, above ground. Mummy, Revisiting the glimpses of the moon ; Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, But vnih. thy bones, and flesh, and Hmbs, and features. Tell us — for doubtless thou canst recollect — To whom should we assign the sphinx's J fame 1 * Thebes was a celebrated city of Upper Egypt, of which extensive i-uins still remain. f The Memnonium was a building combining the properties of a palace and a temple, the ruins of which are remarkable for symmetry of architecture and elegance of sculpture. X The great sphinx, at the pyramids, is liewn out of a rock, in the form of a lion with a luinian head, and is one hundred and forty-three feet in length, and sixty -two feet in height in front. ADDRESS TO A MUMMY. 221 Was Cheops or Cephrenea architect Of either pyramid that bears his name ? * Is Pompey's Pillar really a misnomer ? t Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer 1 Perhaps thou wert a Mason, and forbidden By oath to toll the mysteries of thy trade ; Then say what secret meloily was hidden In Meninon's statue, which at sunrise played. t Perhaps thou wert a priest ; if so, my struggles Are vain ; Egyptian priest ne'er owned his juggles. Perchance that very hand, now pinioned"Tiat, Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharoah, glass to glass : Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat ; Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass ; Or held, by Solomon's own invitation, A torch at the great temple's dedication. I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed, Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled ; For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed. Ere Romulus and Remus had been sucked : — Antiquity appears to have begun Long after thy primevel race was run. Since first thy form was in this box extended, We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations ; • The pyramids are well-known structures near Cairo. According tc Herodotus, the great pyramid, so called, was built by Clieops (pronounced Ke'ops). He was succeeded by his brother Cephren or Ceplirenes (])ro- nounced Sef re-nes), who, according to the same historian, built another of the pyramids. + Pompey's Pillar is a column almost a hundred feet high, near Alexandria. It L«« now generally admitte«l by the learned to have had no connection with the Roman general whose name it bears. X Tliis was a statue at Thebes, said to utter at sunrise a sound like the twanging of a harp-string or of a metallic wire. 222 THE SIXTH READER. The Roman Empire has begim and ended ; New worlds have risen, — we have lost old nations, And countless kings have into dust been humbled. While not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled. Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses, Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,* O'erthrew Osiris, Onis, Apis, Isis,t And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder, When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder ? If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed, The nature of thy private life unfold . — A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast. And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled : — Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face 1 What were thy name and station, age and race 1 Statue of flesh, — immortal of the dead ! Imperishable type of evanescence ! Posthumous man, who quitt'st thy narrow bed, And standest undecayed within our presence ! Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning, When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning. Why should this worthless tegument endure, If its undying guest be lost forever 1 O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure In living virtue, that, when both must sever. Although corruption may our fmme consume. The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom ! * E^ypt was conquered 525 b. c. by Camby'ses, the second king of Persia. + These are the names of Egyptian deities. anr> rx x.irrnE. 223 XXXTX — GOD IN NATURE. CHAPIN. Edwik Hcbbell Crapiv. D. D., wm bom in Union Village, Washington Coxmty, New Yorlv, December 29, 1814. lie is a clergyman of the Univeraaliat denomination : but hU 8ynipathie.H are not bounded by the limits of any sect. Since 1848 he has be«n settled over a church in New York. He i.s one of the most eloquent pulpit ora- tors In America. He ia remarkable for eamestneiis and persuasivencs-s flowing firom a warm heart and a genial temperament. His style is picturesque and striking ; his thoughts are commended to his hearers by a voice of uncommon richness and power. THE grandest scale on which the operation of a Provi- dence appeal's is the entire system of the natural world. It is true that here is the field from which, in theory, many seem to exclude the notion of a Providence. They speak of Nature as a stupendous machine, wound up and running by its own vitality, — an automaton which, by a kind of clock-work, simulates a life and an intelligence that are really absent from it. Or, if they do not deny the operation of a Divine Providence, they refer to what are termed " the laws of nature " in such a man- ner as to shut off the immediate agency of God. But what is a law of nature, except a fixed way in which the Creator works ? The finest element that the chemist can detect — the subtile, immaterial force what- ever it may be — is not the law, but merely an expression of the law. And in the last analysis we cannot separate law from the operation of intelligent will. I do not say that God acts only through nature, or that God is identical with nature ; but in a profound sense it is true that nature is Providence. God, who in essence is distinct from his works, is perpetually in his works. And so every night and every day his provi- dence is illustrated before us. His beneficence streams out from the morning sun, and his love looks down upon 224 THE i^IXTH HEADER. us from the starry eyes of midiii^^liL. It is his solicitude that wraps us in the air, and the pressure of his hand, so to speak, that keeps our pulses beating. 0, it is a great thing to realize that the Divine Power is always working ; that nature, in every valve and every artery, is full of the presence of God ! It is a great thing to conceive of Providence as both general and special, comprehending immensity in its plan, yet sustaining the frailest being, and elaborating the humblest form. Take up as much as you can, in your imagination, the great circle of existence. How wide its sweep ! How immeas- urable its currents ! And are there some who tell us that God cares only for the grand whole, and has no regard for details, — that this is beneath the majesty of his nature, the dignity of his scheme ? I say, again, that nature is Providence ; and this tells us a different story. For it is full of minute ministra- tions, as though the Divine solicitude were concentrated upon the insect or the worm; so that whatever thing you observe, it seems as though the universe were con- structed and arranged for that alone. And the sublimities of God's glory beam upon us in his care for the little, as well as in his adjustments of the great ; in the comfort which surrounds the little wood-bird and blesses the denizen of a single leaf, as well as in hap- piness that streams through the hierarchies of being that cluster and swarm in yon forests of the firmament; in the skill displayed in the spider's eye, in the beauty that quivers upon the butterfly's wing, as in the splendors that emboss the chariot-wheels of night, or glitter in the san- dals of the morning. THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 225 XL— THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. REV. THOMAS STARR KING. Thomas Starr Kiko, an American divine and author, was bom in New Toric, De- cember 16, 1824 ; and died in San Francisco, Marcli 4, 1864. He was settled over Hollis Street Church, Boston, in December. 1848, and continued in that place until April, 1800, when he went to San Francisco to talte charjje of a Unitarian congrega- tion there. He had great influence there by his eloqueut exertions on behalf of tliu Union, and against tiie Rebellion. As a preacher and lecturer, combining a fer\'id spirit witit elegance of expression, he enjoyed great and deserved i>opularity. The work by which he is best known is entitled " The White Hills : Their Legends and Poetry," published in quarto in 1859. WELL has it been said, that " mountains are to the rest of the body of the earth what violent muscular action is to the body of man. The muscles and tendons of its anatomy are, in the mountains, brought out with fierce and convulsive energy, full of expression, passion, and strength ; the plains and the lower hills are the repose and the effortless motion of the frame, wlien its muscles lie dormant and concealed beneath the lines of its beauty, yet ruling those lines in their every undula- tion." This vigor, this fierce vitality in which they had their origin, is the source of much of the exhilaration which the sight of their wild outline inspires, even when the beholder is unconscious of it. The waves of flame that drove up the great wedges of granite in New Hamp- .shire through ribs of sienite and gneiss, bolted them with traps of porphyry and quartz, crusted them witli mica and .^ichist, and cross-riveted them with spikes of iron, lead, and tin, suggest their power in the strength with which the mountains are organized into the landscape, just as the force of a man's temperament is shown in the lines of his jaw and nose. The richest Iwauty that invests the mountains suggests 226 THE SIXTH HEADER. this branch of their utility. The mists that settle round them, above which their cones sometimes float, aerial islands in a stagnant sea; the veils of rain that trail along them ; the crystal snow that makes the light twinkle and dance ; the sombre thunder-heads that invest them with Sinai-like awe, — are all connected with their mission as the hydraulic distributors of the world, — the mighty trouglis that apportion to the land the moisture which the noiseless solar suction is ever lifting from the sea. Their peaks are the cradles, their furrows the first playgrounds, of the great rivers of the earth. Take a century or two into account, and we find the mountains fertilizing the soil by the minerals which they restore to it to compensate the wastes of the harvests. " The hills, which, as compared with living beings, seem everlasting, are, in truth, as perishing as they. Its veins of flowing fountain weary the mountain heart, as the crimson piUse does ours ! The natural force of the iron crag is abated in its appointed time like the strength of the sinews in a human old age ; and it is but the lapse of the longer ye^rs of decay which, in the sight of its Cre- ator, distinguishes the mountain range from the moth and the worm." We see, then, in looking at a cliain of lofty hills, and in thinking of their perpetual waste in the service of the lowlands, that the moral and physical worlds are built on the same pattern. . They represent the heroes and all beneficent genius. They receive upon their heads and sides the larger bap- tisms from the heavens, not to be selfish with their liches, but to give, — to give all that is poured upon them, — yes, and something of themselves with every stream and tide. Tin: JI'HITE MOUNTAINS. 227 When we look u}» ai ..Id Lafayette, or along the eastern slopes of Mt. Washington, we find that the lines of noblest expression are those which the torrents have made where soil has; hoon torn nut, and mcks have been grooved, and 228 THE SIXTH HEADER. ridges have been made more nervous, and the walls of mvines have been channelled for noble pencillings of shadow by the waste of the mountain in its patient suffering. In its gala-day of sunlight the ailist finds that its glory is its character. All its losses are gloritied then into expression. The great mountains rise in the landscape as heroes and prophets in history, ennobled by what they have given, sublime in the expressions of struggle and pain, invested with richest draperies of light, because their brows have been torn and their cheeks have been furrowed by toils and cares in behalf of districts be- low. Upon the mountains is written the law, and in their grandeur is displayed the fulfilment of it, that perfection comes through suffering. But we come to the highest use which mountains serve when we speak of their beauty. No farm in Coos * County has been a tithe so serviceable as the cone of Mt. Wash- ington, with the harvests of color that have been reaped from it for the canvas of artists or for the joy of vis- itors. Think of the loss to human nature if the summits of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau-f could be levelled, and their jagged sides, sheeted with snow and flaming with amethyst and gold, should be softened by the sun and tilled for vines and com ! Pour out over them every year all the wine that is wrung from the vineyards of Italy and France, and what a mere sprinkling in compari- son with the floods of amber, of purple, and of more vivid and celestial flames, with which no wine was ever pierced, * Pronounced Co-6s'. + Pronounce<^l Yung'frofi. THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. 229 that are shed over them by one sunrise, or that flow up their cold acclivities at each clear sunset. The mountains are more grand and inspiring when we stand at the proper distance and look at them than when we look from them. Their highest call is to be resting- places of the light, the stafl's from wliich the most gor- geous banners of morning and evening are displayed. And these uses we may observe and enjoy among the moderate mountains of New Hampshire. They are huge lay figures on which Nature shows off the splendors of her aerial wardrobe. She makes them wear mourning-veils of shadow, exquisite lace-work of dis- tant rain, hoary wigs of cloud, the blue costume of north- west winds, the sallow dress of sultry southern airs, white wrappers of dogday fog, purple and scarlet vests of sun- set light, gauzy films of moonliglit, the gorgeous embroid- ery of autumn chemistries, the flashing ermine dropped from the winter sky, and the glittering jewelry strewn over their snowy vestments by the cunning fingers of the frost. These are the crops which the intellect and heart find waiting and waving for them, without any effort or care of mortal culture, on the upper barrenness of the hUls. ' * So call not waste that barren cone Above the floral zone. Where forests starve ; It is pure use ; — What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind Of a celestial Ceres and the Muse ? " 230 THE >L\rU L'EADEn. XLL — ABT?AHAM DAVENPORT. NS 111 ITIKR, JOHK GreenLEAF Wiiittier was lK)ni in Ii;i\iT!iill, M:i.ss:i( Ini-. It-, in 1>0S. Hr has writltii imnli in jiiosr uikI \' ; riim >t- ness of txH).', IiIkIi moral imrpos- ...i ..; a sincere and l.arl<.s> f i brave ami 1(>\ in;: h< lire, from tlir ! -'■ • . , . , .\. ., ],..„. . ...... .., i.a.-, f..uu(l thr ij. .;, uitlioiit doing any violcMce to inilh. Ill d. . ..autifnlly: and a vein of genuine tcndeme^^ run- tlii"U-li in- writings. ]N llir old till' >iiiall trilmt.- cf tlic Miaii.K, A\'a\rd cvti liy llic w.mkIs i.l' 1^ ipp' »\\:iiii-. .\iid liall"N\i'\v.mi hi.- d'the sprinjT, Ov»'r tlie fresh earth and tin- li.'aven of noon, A horror of great dark 11.--. hk.- tli.' niuht In day of whieli tlic Xorlan.l saj^as '■ trll. — The twih-lit .if tlic ,u..ds. Thr l..\vdiuii.: sky ^Vas hlack witli ominous 'I.mkU. >avi' wh.-re its rim AVas frill-. m1 with a dull ,-l..\v. lik.- that which climbs The erater's side.s from th.' r.-.j jndl helow. Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls Roosted : th.' < attle at the pasture-bars Lowed, and ' '; I homeward : bats on leathern wings * A -.1 ,a 1- an old heroic Scandinavian tale. ABRAHAM DAVENPORT. 231 Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears grew sharp To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked A loving guest at Bethany, but stern As Justice and inexorable law. Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts, Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, Trembling beneath their legislative robes. " It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us adjourn," Some said ; and then, as if with one accord, All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport. He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice The intolerable hush. " This well may be The day of judgment, which the world awaits But be it so or not, I only know My present duty, and my Lord's command To occupy till he come. So, at the post Where he hath set me in his providence, I choose, for one, to meet him face to face, — No faithless servant frightened from my task. But reaily when the Lord of the harvest calls ; And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, Let God do his work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles." And tliey brought them in. Then by the flaring lights the Speaker read, Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, " An act to amend an act to regulate The shad and alewive fisheries." Whereupon, Wisely and well spake Abraham Davenport, Straight to the question, with no figures of si)eech Save the ton Arab signs, yet not without The shri'wd r natiiml to the man : 232 THE SIXTH READER. His awe-struck colleagues listening all the while, Between the pauses of his argument, To hear the thunder of the wrath of God Break from the hollow trumpet of the cloud. And there he stands in memory to this day, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen Against the background of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass. That simple duty hath no place for fear. XLIL — RICHELIEU'S VINDICATION. BULWEB. Sir Edward Gbobob Earle Bulwcr-Lytton (generally known by his original name of Bulwer), one of the most popular and distinguished writers of England, was bom at Haydon Hall, in the county of Norfolk, in 1805, educated at the University of Cambridge, and died January 18, 1873. He was the author of a large number of novels, as well as of plays, poems, and miscellanies. He was a wi-iter of various and versatile power, and his novels are remarkable for brilliant descrip- tion, startling adventures, sharp delineation of character, and — especially the later ones — a vein of philosophical reflection. The moral tone of his earlier works is not always to be commended, but in this respect, as well as in substantial literary merit, there is a marked improvement in those of later date. The following passage Is fh>m " Richelieu," a play fonnded upon certain incidents in the life of the great French statesman of that name. MY liege, your anger can recall your tnist, Annul my office, spoil me of my lands, Rifle my cofiers ; but my name, my deeds. Are royal in a land beyond your sceptre. Pass sentence on me, if you will ; — from kings, Lo, I appeal to Time ! Be just, my liege. I found your kingdom rent with heresies, And bristling with rebellion ; — lawless nobles And breadless serfs ; England fomenting discord ; Austria, her clutch on your dominion ; Spain Forging the prodigal gold of either Ind JOHN HAMPDEN. 233 To ann^ thunderbolts. The Arts lay dead ; Trade rotted in your marts ; your armies mutinous, Your treasury bankrupt. Would you now revoke Your trust, so be it ! and I leave you, sole, Supremest Monarch of the mightiest realm. From Ganges to the icebergs. Look without, — No foe not humbled ! Look within, — the Arts Quit, for our schools, their old Ilesperides, The golden Italy ! while throughout the veins Of your vast empire flows in strengthening tides Trade, the calm health of Nations ! Sire, I know That men have called me cruel ; — I am not ; — I am just ! I found France rent asunder, The rich men despots, and the poor banditti ; Sloth in the mart, and schism within the temple ; Brawls festering to rebellion ; and weak laws Eotting away with rust in antique sheaths. I have re-created France ; and, from the ashes Of the old feudal and decrepit carcass. Civilization, on her luminous wings. Soars, phcenix-like, to Jove ! What was my art ] Genius, some say ; — some. Fortune ; Witchcraft, some. Not so ; — my art was Justice. XLIIL — JOHN HAMPDEN. MACAULAY. Thomas Babijjoton Macaulat was born in the village of Rothley, in thn county of Leicester, England. October 25, 1800 : and died December 28, 1859. He wa« edu- cated at Cambridge University, and was called to the bar in 1828. In 1830 he became a meniber of Parliament, and took an active part in the debates on the Reform Bill. In 1834 he was sent to India as a member of the Supreme Council. Returning home in 1838, he was again elected to Parliament in 1839, and was appointe tv)iiii \at»»«l a ;>fiT of Kntrl.-ind, with \\\c 234 rill-: sixth READER. title of Baron Maoaulay of Rothlpy, in 1857. His principal literary work is a History of England, in five volumes, the last a fragmentary volume published since his la- mented death. No historical work in the English language has ever ei^oyed so wide a popularity. It is written in a most animated and attractive style, and abounds with brilliant pictures. II embodies the results of very thorough research, and its tone and spirit are generous and liberal. Hi.s essays, most of which were originally contributed to the " Edinburgh Review," have had a popularity greater even than that of his History. They are remarkable for brilliant rhetorical power, splendid coloring, and affluence of illustration. Lord Macaulay has also written " I^ays of Ant-ient Rome," and some ballads in the same style, which are full of animation and energy, and have the true trumpet ring which stirs the soul and kindles the blood. His parliamentary speeches have been also collected and published, and are marked by the same brilliant rhetorical energy as his writings. The following account of the death and character of John Hampden, the great Eng- lish patriot, is taken from a review of Lonl Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, pub- lished in the " E«linburgh Review " in 1831. In June, 1643, Pritice Rupert, a nephew of Charles I., and a general In hia service, had sallied out from Oxford on a predatory expedition, and, after some slight suc- cesses, was prepai-ing to huiTj- back with his prisoners and booty. The Earl of Essex was the Parliamentary commander-in-<".hief. AS soon as Hampden received intelligence of Rupert's incursion, he sent off a horseman with a message to the general. In the mean time he resolved to set out witli all the cavalry he could muster, for the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take measures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse and dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service. " But he was," says Lord Claren- don, "second to none but the general himself in the observance and application of all men." On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued. . In the first charge Hampden was struck in the shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone and lodged in his body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross the bridge, and made his retreat unmo- lested to Oxford. Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands lean- J()ii.\ UAMVUEy. 236 ing on his horse's nock, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which had been inhabited by liis father-in- law, and from whicli, in liis youth, he had carried home his bride Elizabeth, was in sight. There still remains an affecting tradition that he looked for a moment towards that beloved house, and made an effort to go thither and die. But the enemy lay in that direction. He turned his horse towards Thame, where he arrived almost faint- ing with agony. The surgeons dressed liis wounds. But there was no hope. The pain which he suffered was most excruciating. But he endured it with admirable firmness and resignation. His first care was for his country. He wrote from his bed several letters to London, concerning public affairs, and sent a last pressing message to the head-quarters, recom- mending that the dispersed forces should be concentrated. When his public duties were performed, he calmly pre- pared himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the Church of England, with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of the Bucking- hamshire Greencoats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter describes as a famous and excellent divine. A short time before his deatli, the sacrament was administered to him. His intellect remained unclouded. When all was nearly over, he lay murmuring faint prayers for himself, and for the cause in which he died. " Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, in the moment of the last agony, " receive my soul. O Lord, save my country ! O Loi^, be merciful to — " In that broken ejaculation passed away his noble and fearless spirit. He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His soldiers, bareheaded, with reversed arms and muffled drums and colors, escorted his body to the grave, singing, as they 236 THK >IXrH READER. marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm in which the fragility of human life is contrasted with the immutability of Him to whom a thousand years are as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night. The news of Hampden's death produced us great a con- sternation in his party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from ilic next "Weekly Iiiitlli-cii- cer " : " The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his king and country, and mak. > some conceive little content to be at the army, now that he is gone. The memory of tliis deceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be had in honor and esteem ; a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valor, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind." He had indeed left none his like behind him. There still remain' the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency and burning for revenge, — it was when the vices and igno- rance which the old tyranny had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction, — that England missed the sobriety, the self-command, the perfect soundness of judg- ment, the perfect rectitude of intention, to which the his- tory of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone. XLIV. — A TASTE FOR READING. GEORGE S. HILLARD. ^T"7"E cannot linger in the beautiful creations of in- V V ventive genius, or pursue the splendid discoveries of modem science, without a new sense of the capacities and dignity of human nature, which naturally leads to a stirner self-respect, to manlier resolves and higher aspira- tions. We cannot read the ways of God to man as re- vealed in the history of nations, of sublime virtues as exemplified in the lives of great and good men, without t'alHng into that mood of thoughtful admiration, which, though it be but a transient glow, is a purifying and ele- vating influence while it lasts. 238 THE SIXTH READER. The study of history is especially valuable as an anti- dote to self-exaggeration. It teaches lessons of humility, patience, and submission.- When we read of realms smitten with the scourge of famine or pestilence, or strewn with the bloody ashes of war ; of grass growing in the streets of great cities ; of ships rotting at the wharves ; o^ fathers burying their sons ; of strong men begging their bread ; of fields untilled, and silent work- shops, and despairing countenances, — we hear a voice of rebuke to om* own clamorous sorrows and peevish complaints. We learn that pain and sufiering and dis- appointment are a part of God s providence, and that no contract was ever yet made with man by which virtue should secure to him temporal happiness. In books, be it remembered, we have the best products of the best minds. We should any of us esteem it a great privilege to pass an evening with Shakespeare or Bacon, were such a thing possible. But, were we ad- mitted to the presence of one of these illustrious men, we might find him touched with infirmity, or oppressed with weariness, or darkened with the shadow of a recent trouble, or absorbed by intrusive and tyrannous thoughts. To us the oracle might be dumb, and the light eclipsed. But, when we take down one of their volumes, we run no such risk. Here we have their best thoughts, em- balmed in their best words ; immortal flowers of poetry, wet with Castalian dews, and the golden fruit of wisdom that had long ripened on the bough before it was gath- ered. Kere we find the growth of the choicest seasons of the mind, when mortal cares were forgotten, and mortal weaknesses were subdued ; and the soul, stripped of its vanities and its passions, lay bare to the finest effluences of truth and beauty. We may be sure that A TAiSTE FOR READINO. 239 Shakespeare never out-talked his Hamlet, nor Bacon' his Essays. Great writors nro iiidciMl Ijest known through their books For the knowledge that comes from books> I would claim no more than it is fairly entitled to. I am weU aware that there is no inevitable connection between intellectual cultivation, on the one hand, and individual virtue or social well-l)eing, on the other. "The tree of knowledge is not the tree of life." I admit that genius and learning are sometimes found in combination with gross vices, and not unfrequently with contemptible weaknesses ; and that a community at once cultivated and corrupt is no impossible monster. But it is no overstatement to say, that, other things being equal, the man who has the greatest amount of intel- lectual resources is in the least danger from inferior temptations, — if for no other reason, because he has fewer idle moments. Tlie ruin of most men dates from some vacant hour. Occupation is the armor of the soul ; and the train of Idleness is borne up by all the vices. I remember a satirical poem, in which the Devil is rep- resented as fishing for men, and adapting his baits to the tast« and temperament of his prey ; but the idler, he said, pleased him most, because he bit the naked hook. To a young man away from home, friendless and for- lorn in a great city, the hours of peril are those between sunset and bedtime ; for the moon and stars see more of evil in a single hour than the sun in his whole day's cir- cuit. The poet's visions of evening are all compact of tender and soothing images. It brings the wanderer to his home, the child to his mother's arms, the ox to his stall, and the weary laborer to his rest But to the gentle-hearted youth wlio is thrown upon the rocks of 240 THE SIXTH READER a pitiless city, and stands "homeless amid a thousand homes/' the approach of evening brings with it an aching sense of loneliness and desolation, which comes down upon the spirit like darkness upon the earth. In this mood, his best impulses become a snare to him ; and he is led astray because he is social, affectionate, sym- pathetic, and warm-hearted. If there be a young man, thus circumstanced, within the sound of my voice, let me say to him, that books are the friends of the friend- less, and that a library is the home of the homeless. A taste for reading will always carry you into the best possible company, and enable you to converse with men who will instruct you by their wisdom, and charm you by their wit ; who will soothe you when fretted, refresh you when weary, counsel you when perplexed, and sym- pathize with you at all times. XLV. — BRIXGING OUR SHEAVES WITH US. ELIZABETH AKER8. THE time for toil has passed, and night has come, — The last and saddest of the harvest eves ; Worn out with labor long and wearisome, Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home, Each laden with his sheaves. Last of the laborers, thy feet I gain, Lord of the harvest ! and my spirit grieves That I am burdened, not so much with grain, As with a heaviness of heart and brain ; — Master, behold my sheaves ! LIXES TO A CHILD. 241 Few, light, and worthless, — yet their trifling weight Through all my frame a weary aching leaves ; For long I struggled with my hopeless fate, And stayed and toiled till it was dark and late, — Yet these are all my sheaves. Full well I know I have more tares than wheat. Brambles and flowers, dry stalks and withered leaves ; Wherefore I blush and weep, as at thy feet I kneel down reverently and repeat, " Master, behold my sheaves ! " I know these blossoms, clustering heavily, With evening dew upon their folded leaves, Can claim no value or utility, — Therefore shall frograucy and beauty be The glory of my sheaves. So do I gather strength and hope anew ; For well I know thy patient love perceives Not what I dies of inxitry. He was a man of ardent piety, an earnest and excellent preacher, and always con- trolled by the highest sense of duty. His prose writings are marked by simplicity, dirrctnem, and strong religious feeling; and the few poems he wrote show poetical powers of no common onler. TIm following lines originally appeared in the " Christian Disciple." 242 THE SIXTH HEADER. LO ! how impatieotly upon the tide The proud ship tosses, eager to bo free. Her flag streams wildly, and her fluttering sails Pant to be on their flight. A few hours more. And she will move in stately grandeur on. Cleaving her path majestic through the flood, As if she were a goddess of the deep. O, 't is a thought sublime, that man can force A path upon the waste, can find a way Where all is trackless, and compel the winds, Those freest agents of Almighty power. To lend their untamed wings, and bear him on To distant climes ! Thou, William, still art young, And dost not see the wonder. Thou wilt ti-ead The buoyant deck, and look upon the flood. Unconscious of the high sublimity. As 't were a common thing, — thy soul unawed. Thy childish sports unchecked ; while thinking man Shrinks back into himself, — himself so mean Mid things so vast, — and, rapt in deepest awe, Bends to the might of that mysterious Power, Who holds the waters in his hand, and guides The ungovernable winds. T is not in man To look unmoved upon that heaving waste, Which, from horizon to horizon spread. Meets the o'erarching heavens on every side. Blending their hues in distant ftiintness there. 'T is wonderfid ! — and yet, my boy, just such Is life. Life is a sea as fathomless. As wide, as terrible, and yet sometimes As calm and beautiful. The light of Heaven Smiles on it, Wld 't is decked with every hue Qf glory and of joy. Anon, dark clouds EXECUTIOX OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. 243 Arise, cont«'imiiiy wmus of fate go forth, And hope sits weeping o'er a general wreck. And thou must sail upon this sea, a long, Eventful voyage. The wise mai/ sutfer wreck, The foolish must. 0, then be early wise ! Learn from the mariner his skilful art To ride upon the waves, and catch the breeze. And dare tlie tljreatening storm, and trace a path Mid countless dangers, to the destined port. Unerringly secure. O, learn from him To station quick-eyed Prudence at the helm. To guard thy sail from Passion's sudden blasts, And make Religion thy magnetic guide. Which, though it trembles as it lowly lies. Points to the light that changes not, in Heaven ! Farewell, — Heaven smile propitious on thy course, And favoring breezes waft thee to the arms Of love paternal. — Yes, and more than this, — Blest be thy passage o'er the changing sea Of life ; the clouds be few that intercept The light of joy ; the waves roll gently on Beneath thy bark of hope, and bear thee safe To meet in peace thine other father, — God. XLVIL — EXECUTION OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. UNOARD. John Linoard was born in Winchester, England, February 5, 1771 ; and die Near a hun- dred and seventy lords, three fourths of the upper house, as the upper house tlieu was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. ' The junior baron present led the way, — Geoi-ge Eliott, Lord Keathfield, recently ennobled for liis memorable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, earl marshal of the realm, by the great dignita- ries, and by the brothers and the sons of the king. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience such as has rarely e.xcited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a gi'eat, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. There were seated round the queen the fair-haired young daughtei's of the house of JJrunswick. There the amlinssadors of great kings and commonwealths gazed 250 THE SIXTH HEADER. with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene sui-passing all the imitations of the stage. There the his- torian of the Roman Empire * thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate that still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Afiica. ? There were seen, side by side, the greatest scholar and the greatest painter of the age. The specUcle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons.. It had induced Parr f to suspend his lalwrs in that dark and profjjuud mine from which he had extracted a vast treas- ure of erudition, a ti*easure too often buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostenta- tion, but still precious, massive, and splendid. There appeared the volu^uous charms of herj to whom the heir of the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There, too, was she,§ the beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the St. Cecilia, whose delicate features, lighted up by love and music, ai*t has rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised, and exchanged rep^tees, under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. IMontague. And there • GiblK)n. t Samuel Parr, a clei^gynian and man of learning, but hanlly the " greatest scholar of the age." t Mrs. Fitzherl)ert, whom the Prince of Wales was supposed to have secretly niarrieil. § The first wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a woman remarkable for beauty and uiiudcal genius, whom Sir Joshua Reynolds hati painted as St. Cecilia. THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS. 251 the ladies, wliose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster election against palace and treasury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. The sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had matle laws and trea- ties, had sent forth aimies, had set up and pulled down princes, v And in his high place he had so borne himself that all had feared him, tliat most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny Iiim no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court^ indicated also liabitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive, but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and worn, but serene,- — such was the aspect with which the great procoiisul presented himself to his judges. The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. Tlie ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered' less tedious that it would otherwise have been, by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of tlie amiable poet. On tlie third day, Burke rose. Four sittings were occu- pied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuber- ance of thought and a splendor of diction which more tlian satisfied the highly raised expectation of the audi- ence, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances in which 252 THE SIXTH READER the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the company, and of the English pres- idencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administra- tion of Hastings, as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admira- tion from the stem and hostile chancellor,* and, for a moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. rThe ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such display? of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out ; smelling-bot- tles were handed round ; hysterical sobs and screams were heard ; and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length the orator concluded. Eaising his voice till the old arches of Irish oak resounded, " Therefore," said he, " hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Com- mons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and w^hose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the com- mon enemy and oppressor of alL" Lord Thurlow, a stern, rough man, and friendly to Hastings. CJIAJILES aUMNER, 253 XLTX. — CHARLES SUMNER JOHN O. WHITTIER. Thk following U a portion of a poem written by Mr. Whittier and read at the legislative commemoration of Charles Sumner at Boston, June 9, 1874. " Mother State ** refers to Maiisachusetta, " Aubum'a Field of Ood " to the cemetery of Mount Aubuni. " I am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of conduct, or the maxims of a fireman by the actions of a slave ; but. by the grace of God, I have kept my life unsullied." — Milton's Ik/enct oftKt People of England. O MOTHER State ! the winds of March Blew chill o'er Auburn's Field of God, Where, slow, beneath a leaden arch Of ^ky, tliy niouniing children trod. And now, with all thy woods in leaf, Thy fields in flower, beside thy dead Thou sittest, in thy robes of grief, A Rachel yet uncomforted ! And once again the organ swells, Once more the flag is half-way hung, And yet again the mournful bells In all thy steeple-towers ate rung. No trumpet sounded in his ear, He saw not Sinai's cloud and flame. But never yet to Hebrew seer A clearer voice of duty came. , God said : " Break thou these yokes ; undo These heavy burdens, I onlain A work io last thy wliolo life through, A ministry of strife and pain. 254 Tiu: SIXTH header. " Forego tliy <1 roams of lettered case, Put thou the scholar's promise by, I'lic lights nl" man are more than th. ■>.■.'' lie heard, and answer* <] : •> Here am I " He set his face against the blast, His feet against the flinty shard,* Till the hard service grew, at last, Its own exceeding great reward. Beyond the dust and smoke he saw The sheaves of freedom's large increase, The holy fanes of equal law, The New Jerusalem of peace. The first to smite, the first u> .].<..» , When once the hostile ensigns fell, He stretched out liands of generous care To lift the foe he fought so well. For there was nothing base or small Or craven in his soul's broad plan ; Forgiving all things personal, He hated oul}' wrong to man^ Tin ..LI tratlitions of his State, The memories of her great and good, Took from his life a fresher date, And in liim>. h' < ni!»«Mlied stood. If than Iiome's tribunes statelier He wore his senatorial ri'lu', His lofty port was all for her, The one dear spot on all the globe. * A fi-agrnent of aiiy brittle suljslance. CHARLES SUMNER. 255 Proud was ho 1 If his presence kept Its grandeur whereso'er he trod, ' As if from Tlutarch's gallery stepped The hero and the demigod, None failed, at least, to reach his ear, Nor want nor woe appealed in vain ; The homesick soldier knew his cheer, And blessed him from his ward of pain. He cherished, void of selfish ends. The social courtesies that bless And sweeten life, and loved his friends With most unworldly tenderness.^. His state-craft was the Golden Rule ; His right of vote a sacred trust ; Clear, over threat and ridicule, All heard his challenge, " Is it just 1 " Long shall the good State's annals tell, Her children's children long be taught, How, praised or blamed, he guarded well The trust he neither shunned nor sought. The lifted sword above her shield With jealous care shall guard his fame ; The pine-tree on her ancient field To all the winds shall speak his name. State, so passing rich before, Who now shall doubt thy highest claim ] The world that counts thy jewels o'er Shall longest pause at Sumuer's name. 25G THE SIXTH READER. L — JUNR JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. AND what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days ; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune. And over it softly her warm ear lays : Whether we look or whether we listen, "We hear life murmur, or see it glisten ; Every clod feels a stir of might. An instinct within it that reaches and towers And, groping blindly above it for light. Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers ; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys ; The cowslip startles in meadows green. The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there 's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace : The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives ; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings. And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings ; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, — In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best 1 Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer Into every bare inlet and creek and bay. Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it ; JUNE. 257 No matter how barren the past may have been, *T is enough for us now that the leaves are green ; \Ve sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing ; The breeze comes whispering in our ear That dandelions are blossoming near. That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing. That the river is bluer than the sky. That the robin is plastering his house hard by ; And ii* the breeze kept the good news back, For otlier couriers we should not lack ; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, — And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer. Warmed with the new wine of the year. Tells all in his lusty crowing ! Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how ; Everything is happy now. Everything is upward striving ; *T is as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, — 1' is the natural way of living : Who knows whither the clouds have fled 1 In the unscarrefl heaven they leave no wake. And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrows and ache ; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now Remembered the keeping of his vow % 258 THE SIXTH READER, LL— EULOGY ON O'CONNELL. W. EL SEWARD. William IIeicrt Sewako was born In Florida, New York, May 16, 1801 ; was graduated at Union Ck>llege In 1819, and admitted to the bar in 1822. lie died at Auburn, New Yoric, October 10, 1872. Withoat neglecting bis professional duties, he eariy engaged in politics, and in 1838 was chosen governor of New York by the Whigs, and was re-elected in 1846. In February, 1849, he was chosen to the Senate of the United States, and continued a meuilier of that body till the election of President Lincoln, when he be<'aine a niemlier of his Cabinet as Secretary of State. During his career in the Senate he was retnaricable for the ability and consistency witli which he maintained the itulicy and principles of the antislavery party, but ho by no means confined his attention to this subject, but spoke upon a variety of ques- tions connected with the commercial and industrial relations of the country. He was a man of patient and persevering industry, and his speeches, which were always care- fully pre[iarcd, are honorably distinguished for their decorum of tone and their great literary merit His writings have been published in four octavo volumes, with a biognipliical memoir and historical notes. The following extracts are fh>m a eiUogy delivered before the Irish citizens of New York, upon tlte life and character of Daniel O'Connell, the distinguished champion of the lilierties of Ireland. This was one of his most |K>werfUl efforts, full of elo- quent allusions, hutoric refcreDces, and touches of tender pathos and sorrow. THERE is sad news from Genoa, An aged and weary pilgrim, who can travel no farther, passes beneath the gate of one of her ancient palaces, saying, with pious resignation, as he enters its silent chambers, " Well, it is God's will that I shall never see Rome. I am disap- pointed, but I am ready to die." The " superb," though fading queen of the Mediter- ranean holds anxious watch through ten long days over that majestic stranger's wasting frame. And now death is there, — the Liberator of Ireland has sunk to rest in the cradle of Columbus. Coincidence beautiful and most sublime ! It was the very day set apart by the elder daughter of the Church for prayer and sacrifice throughout the world for the children of the sacred island, perishing by famine and pestilence in their houses and in their native fields, and EULOGY ON aCONNELL. 259 on tbeir crowded paths of exile, on the sea and in the havens, and on the lakes, and along tlie rivere of this far- distant land. The chimes rung out by pity for his coun- trymen were O'Conuell's fitting knell ; his soul went forth on clouds of incense that rose from altars of Chris- tian charity ; and the mournful anthems which recited the faith, and the virtue, and the endurance of Ireland were his becoming requiem. But has not O'Connell done more tlian enough for fame ? On the lofty brow of Monticello, under a gi*een old oak, is a block of gmnite, and underneath are the ashes of Jeffei-sou. Read the epitaph, — it is the sage's claim to immortality : " Author of the Declaration of Independence, and of the Statute for Religious Liberty." Stop now and write an epitaph for Daniel O'Conuelh " He gave liberty of conscience to Europe, and renewed the revolutions of the kingdoms towards universal free- dom, wliich began in America and had been arrested by the anarcliy of France." Let the statesmen of the age read that epitaph and be Ijumble. Let tlie kings and aristocracies of the earth read it and tremble. Who lias ever accomplished so much for human free- dom with means so feeble ? Who but he has ever given liberty to a people by the mere utterance of his voice, without an army, a navy, or revenues, — without a sword, a spear, or even a shield ? Who but he ever subverted tyranny, and saved the lives of the oppressed, and yet spared the oppressor? Who but he ever detached from a venerable constitu- tion a column of aristocracy, dashed it to the earth, and yet left the ancient fabric stronger and moi-e beautiful than before ? 260 THE SIXTH READER. Who but he has ever lifted up seven millions of people from the debasement of ages, to the dignity of freedom, without exacting an ounce of gold, or wasting the blood of one human heart ? Whose voice yet lingers like O'Connell's in the ear of tyrants, making them sink with fear of change ; and in the ear of the most degraded slaves on earth, awaking hopes of freedom ? Who befoi-e liim has brought the schismatics of two centuries together, conciliating them at the altar of uni- versal liberty ? Who but he ever brought Papal Rome and Protestant America to bum incense together? It was O'Connell's mission to teach mankind that Lib- erty was not estranged from Christianity, as was pro- claimed by revolutionary France ; that she was not divorced from law and public order ; that she was not a demon like Moloch, requiring to be propitiated with the blood of human sacrifice ; that democracy is the daughter of peace, and, like true religion, worketh by love. I see in Catholic emancipation, and in the repeal of the act of union between Great Britain and Ireland, only incidents of an all-pervading phenomenon, — a phenome- non of mighty interest, but not portentous of eviL It is the universal dissolution of monarchical and aristocratical governments, and the establishment of pure democracies in their place. I know this change must come, for even the menaced governments feel and confess it. I know that it will be resisted, for it is not in the nature of power to relax. It is a fearful inquiry, How shall that change be passed ? Shall there never be an end to devastation and carnage ? Is every step of human progress in the future, as in the past, to be marked by blood ? EULOGY ON aCONNELL. 261 Must the nations of the earth, after groaning for ages under vicious institutions established without their con- sent, wade through deeper seas to reach that condition of more perfect liberty to which they are so rapidly, so irresistibly impelled ? Or shall they be able to change their forms of govem- ment by slow and measured degrees, without entirely or all at once subverting them, and from time to time to re- pair their ancient constitutions so as to adapt them peace- fully to the progi*ess of the age, the diffusion of knowledge, the cultivation of virtue, and tlie promotion of happiness ? Wlien that crisis shall come, the colossal fabric of the British Empire will have given way under its always accumulating weight. I see England, then, in solitude and in declining greatness, as Rome was when her prov- inces were torn away, — as Spain now is since the loss of the Indies. I see Ireland, invigorated by the severe experience of a long though peaceful revolution, extend- ing her arms east and west in fmternal embrace towards new rising states, her resources restored and improved, her people prosperous and happy, and her institutions i^'ain shedding the lights of piety, art, and freedom over I he world. Come forward, then, ye nations who are trembling between the dangers of anarchy and the pressure of des- ])otism, and hear a voice that addresses tlie Liberator of Ireland from the caverns of Silence where Prophecy ii bom: — "To thee, now sainted spirit, Patriarch of a wide-spreading family, Remotest lands and unborn times shall turn, Whether they wouhl restore or build. To thee ! As one who rightly taught how Z«!al should bum ; As one who drew from out Faith's holiest urn The purest streams of patient euei^." 262 THE SIXTH READER. LIL — HUBERT AND ARTHUR SHAKESPEARE. The following scene U from " King John." Arthur, a young boy. is htwftd heir to the crown of England, which has been usurped by his uncle, the king, who employs Hubert to r'»t out his nephew's eyes. Prince Arthur, Hubert, and Attendants. ScEivB, — A room in the castle, Northampton. Enter Hubert and tvjo Attendants. HUBERT. Heat me these irons hot ; and look thou stand Within the aiTas :* when I strike my foot Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth, And bind the boy, which you shall find with me, Fast to the chair : l)e heedful Hence, and watch. IsT Attendant. I hope your warrant will bear out the deed. Hub. Uncleanly scruples ! Fear not you : look to 't. [Exeunt ArrENDANTSt Young lad, come forth ; I have to say with you. Enter Arthur. Arthur. Good morrow, Hubert. HuR Good morrow, Uttlr iirinro Arth. As little prince (having so great a title To be more prince) as may be. — You are sad. Hub. Indeed, I have been merrier. Arth. Mercy on me I Methinks nobody should be sad but I : Yet 1 remember when I was in France, Young gentlemen would be as sad as night. Only for wantonness. By my Christendom, + So I were out of prison, and kept sheep, • Tapestry, or hangings, for rooms. t Christeuing, baptism. HJ'nKnT AS'f ARTHUiL 2G3 I shouKl be merr>' Jis the day is long ; And 8o I would bo here, but that I doubt My uncle practises more harm to me : He is afraid of me, and I of him. * Is it my fault that I was Geoifrey's son 1 No, iudeetl, is 't not ; and I would to Heaven I were your son, so you would love me, Hubert. Hub. If I talk to him, with his innocent prate He will awake my mercy, which lies dead : Therefore I will be sudden, and despatch. {Aside.) Arth. Are you sick, Hubert ? You look pale to-day : In sooth, I would you were a little sick. That I might sit all night, and watch with you : 1 warrant, I love you more than you do me. Hub. His words do take possession of my bosom. — Ilead here, young Arthur. (SJiawiruf a paper.) How now, foolish rheum !* (Aside.) Turning dispiteous t torture out of door ! I must be brief ; lest resolution drop i)\\t at mine eyes in tender womanish teai-s. — Can you not read it 1 Is it not fair writ 1 Arth. Too fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect. Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes ? Hua Young boy, I must. Arth. And will you 1 Hua And I will. Arth. Have you the heart 1 When your head did but ache, 1 knit my handkerchief about your brows ( riie best I had, a princess wrought it me), And I did never ask it you again : And with my hand at midnight held your head ; And, like the watchful minutes to the hour, Still and anon cheered up the heavy time ; .Saying, What l;uk ynn ? and. Where lies your <^rn't i • Tears. f Uiijiitying, cruel. 264 THE SIXTH READER, Or, What good love may I perform for you 1 Many a poor man's son would have lain still, And ne'er have spoke a loving word to you : But you at your sick service had a prince. Nay, you may think my love was crafty love, And call it cunning : do, an if you will. If Heaven be pleased that you must use me ill. Why, then you must. — Will you put out mine eyes % These eyes, that nevet did, nor never shall, So much as frown on you 1 HuR I have sworn to do it ; And with hot irons must I bum them out. Arth. Ah, none but in this iron age would do it ! The iron of itself, though heat red-hot. Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears, And quench his fiery indignation. Even in the matter of mijie innocence : Kay, after that, consume away in rust. But for containing fire to harm mine eye. Are you more stubborn-hard than hammered iron 1 An if an angel should have come to me, And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes, I would not have believed him. No tongue but Hubert's — * HuR Come forth. {Stamps.) Re-enter Attendants, toith eordf irons, etc Do as I bid you do. Arth. O, save me, Hubert, save me ! My eyes are out, Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men. Hub. Give me the iron, I say, and bind him here. Arth. Alas, what need you be so boisterous-rough 1 * This line has been read variously. We give it as it is printed in Charles Knight's pictorial edition. "Arthur begins a fresh sentence, which is inter- ruptem the State of Massachusetts in the winter of 1851, and continued a mem- ber of that body until his death, March 11, 1874. He was well known for the eneigy and eloquence with which he has assailed Uie institution of slavery. His works, con- sisting of speeches and occasional addresses, have been published in three volumes, and are remarkable for fervid eloquence and abundant illustration. The following extract is the conclusion of a discourse pronounced before the Fhi- Beta-Kappa Society of Harvard College, at their anniversar}', Aogost 27, 1846, en- titled "The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philantliropist," and in commemo- ration of four deceased members of the society, John Pickering, Joseph Story, Washington Allston, and William Ellery Chauning. THUS have T attempted, humbly and affectionately, to bring before you the images of our departed brothers, while I dwelt on the great causes in which their lives were made manifest. Servants of Knowledge, of Justice, of Beauty, of Love, they have ascended to the great Source of Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Love. Each of our brothers is removed ; but though dead, yet speak- eth, informing our imderstaudings, strengthening our sense of justice, refining our tastes, enlarging our sympathies. The body dies; but the page of the Scholar, the inter- pretation of the Jurist, the creation of the Artist, the beneficence of the Philanthropist, cannot die.^ I have dwelt upon their lives and characters, less in grief for what we have lost, than in gratitude for what we so long possessed, and still retain, in their precious example. In proud recollection of her departed children, INCENTIVES TO DUTY. 269 Alma Mater might well exclaim, in those touching words of paternal grief, that slie would not give her dead sons for any living sons in Christendom. Pickering, Story, Allston, Channing ! A grand Quaternion ! Each, in his peculiar sphere, was foremost in his country. Eacli might have said, what the modesty of Demosthenes did not forbid him to boast, that, through him,^is country had been crowned abroad. Their labors were wide as the Commojiwealth of Letters, Laws, Art, Humanity, and have found acceptance wherever tliese have found dominion. Their lives, which overflow with instruction, teach one persuasive lesscm, wliich speaks alike to all of every calling and pursuit, — not to live for ourselves alone. They lived for Knowledge, Justice, Beauty, Humanity. Withdraw- ing from the strifes of the world, irom the allurements of office, and the rage for gain, they consecrated themselves to the pursuit of excellence, and each, in his own voca- tion, to beneficent labor. They were all philanthroj^ists ; for the laboi-s of all promoted the welfare and happiness of mankind. In the contemplation of their generous, unselfish lives, we feel the insignificance of office and wealth, which men so hotly pursue. What is office ? and what is wealth ? They are the expressions and representatives of what is present and fleeting only, investing their possessor, per- lia])s, with -a brief and local regard. But let ^lis not be exaggerated ; let it not be confounded with the serene fame which is the reflection of important labors in great causes. The street-lights, within the circle of their nightly scintillation, seem to outshine the distant stars, observed of^en in all lands and times; but gas-lamps are not to be mistaken for the celestial luminaries. ^. Thev who Vwo. onlv for wealth ami the ihinus of this 270 THE SIXTH READEH. world follow sliadows, neglecting the great realiLi(;s which are etenial on earth and in heaven. After the perturba- tions of life, all its accumulated possessions must be resigned, except those alone which have been devoted to God and mankind. What we do for ourselves, perishes with this mortal dust ; what we do for otiiers, lives in the grateful hearts of all who feel or know the benefaction. Worms may destroy the body ; but they cannot consume such a fame. It is fondly cherished on earth, and never forgotten in heaven. The selfish struggles of the crowd, the clamors of a false patriotism, the suggestions of a sordid ambition, cannot obscure that great commanding duty which en- joins perpetual labor, without distinction of country, of color, or of race, for the welfare of the whole Human Family. In this mighty Christian cause, Knowledge, Jurisp^nidence, Art, Philautliropy, all are bles.sed minis- ters. ^More puissant than the Sword, they shall lead mankind from the bondage of ecror into that service which is perfect freedom. Our departed brothers join in summoning you to tliis gladsome obedience. Their ex- amples speak for them. Go forth into the many man- sions of the house of life : scholars ! store them with learning ; jurists ! build them with justice ; artists ! adorn them with beauty ; philanthropists ! let them resound with love. He servants of truth, each in his vocation ; doers of the word and not hearers only. Be sincere, pure in heart, earnest, enthusiastic. A virtuous enthusiasm is always self-forgetful and noble. It is the only inspijation now vouchsafed to man. Like Pickering, blend humility with learning. Like Story, ascend above the Present, in place and time. Like Allston, regard fame only as tlie eternal shadow of exQellence. like Clianning, bend in INCENTIVES TO DUTY. L'Tl adoration befoi-e tlie right. Cultivate alike the wisdom of experience and the wisdom of hope. Mindful of the Future, do not neglect the Past ; awed by the majesty of Antiquity, turn not with indifference from the^uture. True~wisdom looks to the ages before us, as well as behind us. Like the Janus of the Cagitol, one front thoughtfully regards the Past, rich with experience, with memories, with the priceless traditions of virtue ; the other is ear- nestly directed to the All Hail Hereafter, richer still with its transcendent hopes and unfulfilled prophecies. We stand on the threshold of a new age, which is preparing to recognize new influences. The ancient divinities of Violence and Wrong are retreating to their kindred darkness. Tliere 's a fount about to stream, There *s a light about to beam, There 's a warmth about to glow, There 's a flower about to blow ; There 's a midnight blackness changing Into gray ; Men of thought, and men of action, • Clear the way. Aid the dawning, tongue and pen ; Aid it, hopes of honest men ; Aid it, paper ; aid it, tyi^e ; Aid it, for the hour is ripe. And our earnest must not slacken Into play ; Men of thought, and men of action, Clear the way. Tlie age of Chivalry has gone. An ai;c ^>^ Humanity has come. The horse, whose importance, more than liuman, gave the name to that early period of gallantry and war, now yields his foremost place toyman. In s'mvjti'^' liiiii, 272 THE SIXTH READER. in promoting liis elevation, in contributing to his welfare, in doing him good, there are fields of bloodless triumph, nobler far than any in which the bravest knight ever conquered. Here are spaces of lab(jr, wide as the world, lofty as heaven. Let me say, then, in the benison once bestowed upon the youthful knight, — Scholars! jurists ! artists ! philanthropists ! heroes of a Christian age, com- panions of a celestial knighthood, "Go forth; be bi-ave, loyal, and successful ! " And may it be our office to-day to light a fresh beacon- fire on the venerable walls of Harvard, sacred to Truth, to Christ, and the Church, — to TnTth Immortal, to Christ the Comforter, to the Holy Church Universal. Let the flame spread from steeple to steeple, from hill to hill, from island to island, from continent to continent, till the long lineage of fires shall illumine all the nations of the earth ; animating them to the holy contests of Knowl- edge, Justice, Beauty, Love. LV. — THE WESTERN POSTS. AME& FiSHFJt Ames wiu bom in Dedhnni, Massachusetts, April 0, 1758; and died in the same place, July 4, 1808. When the Federal government went into operation, he was elected the first representative of his district in Congress, and retained his seat through the whole of the administration of Washington, of whose policy and measures he was an ardent supporter. He was a very eloquent man, remarkable alike or his readiness in debate and the finished beauty of his prepared speeches. He was a copious writer upon political subjects, and his essays are remarkable for vigor of thought and bril- liant and animated style. In private life Mr. Ames was one of tlie most amiable and delightful of men, and possessed of rare convei-sational powers. The speech from which the following extract is taken was delivered in the House of Representatives, April 28, 1796, in support of a resolution in favor of passing the laws necessary for carrying into effect a treaty recently negotiated with Great Britain by Mr. Jay. By this treaty, Great Britain agreed to surrender certain posts on the western frontier, which she still held. Mr. Ames argued that the possession of tliese posts was essential for the preservation of the Western settlers against the Indians. THE WESTERN POSTS. 27^'^ IF any, against all these proofs, should maintain that the peace with the Indians will be stable without the posts, to them I will urge another reply. From argu- ments calculated to produce conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear me, and ask whether it is not already planted there ? I resort espe- cially to the convictions of the Western gentlemen, whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will remain in security ? Can they take it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove firm ? No, sir, it will not be peace, but a swoixl ; it will be no better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the tomahawk. On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could tind words for them, if my powers bore any pro- portion to my zeal, I would swell my voice to such a note of remonstrance it should reach every log-house beyond the moimtains. I would say to the inhabitants : Wake from your false security ; your cruel dangers, your more cruel apprehensions, are soon to be renewed ; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn open again ; in the daytime, your path through the woods will be ambushed ; the darkness of midniglit will glitter with the blaze of your dwellings. You are a father, — the blood of your sons .shall fatten your cornfield. You are a mother, — the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle. On this subject you need not suspect any deception on your feelings ; it is a spectacle of horror which cannot be overdmwn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will speak a language, compared with which all I have said or can say will be poor and frigid. Will it be whispered that tlie treaty has made me a now chanipinTi for tli<» ]>rntor'ti<»n of the fr""ii'"-^ ? It is 274 THE SIXTH READER. known that my voice, as well as vote, has been uni- foi-mly given in confonnity with the ideas I have ex- pressed. Protection is the right of the frontiers ; it is our duty to give it. Who will accuse me of wandering out of the subject ? Who will say that I exaggerate the tendencies of our measures ? Will any one answer by a sneer that this is all idle preaching ? Will any one deny that we are bound, and 1 would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty, for the vote we give ? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects ? Are republicans irresponsible ? Have the principles on which you gi'ound ther eproach upon cabinets and kings no practical influ- ence, no binding force ? Are they merely themes of idle declamation, introduced to decorate the morality of a newspaper essay, or to furnish petty topics of harangue from the windows of that State House ? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to ask, Can you put the dearest interest of society at risk, without guilt and without remorse ? It is vain to offer as an excuse that public men are not to be reproached for the evils that may happen to ensue from their measures. This is very true, where they are unforeseen or inevitable. Those T have depicted are not unforeseen ; they are so far from inevitable, we are going t/O bring them into being by our vote ; we choose the con- sequences, and become as justly an.swerable for them as for the measure that we know will produce them. By rejecting the posts, we light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake to render an account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make ; to the wretches that will be roasted at the THE FUTURE OF AMERWA. 275 Stake ; to our country ; and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God. We are answerable ; and it' duty be anything more than a word of iinpostui-e, if conscience be not a bugl>ear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country. There is no mistake in tliis case, thei-e can be none ; experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The Western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplain- ing sacrihce. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness ; it exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the otlier grasps a tomaliawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture ; already they seem to sigh in the western wind ; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains. LVI— THE FUTURE OF AMERICA. WEBSTER. CoscLi*8iON of a discoarae delivered at Plymouth, Massachusetts, December 22, 1820, in commeniontion of the 9mt settlement in New England. LET US not forget the religious cliaracter of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their higli ven- eration for the Christian religion. They journeyed in its liglit, and lalx>red in its hope. They sought to incorpo- rate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, 276 THE SIXTH READER. political, and literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend their influence stiU more widely ; in the full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceable spirit of Christianity. The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occa- sion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the aU-creating power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will: then recount the steps of New England's ad- vancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas. We would leave, for the considei'ation of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the bless- ings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation ; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty ; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote everything which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backward, and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP. 277 for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being. Advance, then, ye future generations ! We would hail you as you rise in your long succession to fill the places whicli we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the Fathers. We bid you welcome to the health- ful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the tjpasures of science and the delights of learning. We come you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred and parents and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational ex- istence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everiasting Truth ! LVIL — THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP. LONGFELLOW. ALL is finished, and at length Has come the bridal day Of beauty and of strength. To-day the vessel shall be launched ! With fleecy clouds the sky is blanched. And o'er the bay, Slowly, in all his splendors diglit, The great sun rises to behold the sight. 278 THE SIXTH READER, The ocean old, Centuries old, Strong as youth, and as uncontrolled, Paces restless to and fro, Up and down the sands of gold. His beating heart is not at rest ; And far and wide With ceaseless flow His beai-d of snow Heaves with the heaving of his breast. He waits impatient for his bride. There she stands. With her foot upon the sands, Decked with flags and streamers gay. In honor of her marriage-day, Her snow-white signals fluttering, blending, Round her like a veil descending, Ready to be The bride of the gray old sea. • Then the Master, With a gesture of command. Waved his hand ; And at the wonl. Loud and sudden there was heard, All around them and below. The sound of hammers, blow on blow. Knocking away the shores and spurs. ^ And see ! she stirs ! She starts, — she moves, — she seems to feel The thrill of life along her keel, And, spurning with her foot the ground, With one exulting, joyous bound, She leaps into the ocean's arms. THE LAUNCHING OF THE SHIP. 279 And lo ! from the assembled crowd Tliere rose a shout, proloiij He crossed in the twilight, gray and cold, And the pale mist hid him from mortal view. OVER THE RIVER, 281 We saw not the angeb who met him there ; The gates of the city we could not see ; Over the river, over the river, My brother stands waiting to welcome me I Over the river the boatman pale Carried another, — the household pet ; Her brown curls waved in the gentle gale, — Darling Minnie ! I see her yet. She crossed on her bosom her dimpled hands, And fearlessly entered the phantom bark ; We watched it glide from the silver sands, And all our sunshine grew strangely dark. We know she is safe on the farther side, Where all the ransomed and angels be ', Over the river, tlie mystic river. My childhood's idol is waiting for me^ For none return from those quiet shores, Who cross with the boatman cold and pale ; We hear the dip of the golden oars, And catch a gleam of the snowy sail, — An«l lo ! they have passed from our yearning heart ; They cross the stream, and are gone for aye j We may not sunder the veil apart That hides from our vision the gates of day ; We only know that their bark no more May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea ; Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore, They watch and beckon and wait for me. Ajiil 1 >it liiul Uiink, when the sunset's gold Is flushing river and hill and shore, I shall one day stand by the water cold, And list for the sound of the boatman's oar ; 282 THE SIXTH READER. I shall watch for a gleam of the flapping sail ; I shall hear the boat as it gains the strand ; I shall pass from sight, with the boatman pale. To the better shore of the spirit land ; I shall know the loved who have gone before, And joyfully sweet will the meeting be, When over the river, the peaceful river, The Angel of Death shall carry me. LIX. — HYMN IN THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNI. COLERIDGE. HAST thou a charm to stay the moming-star In his steep course 1 So long he seems to pause On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc ! The Arve and Arveiron at thy base Kave ceaselessly ; but thou, most awful form, Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines. How silently ! Around thee, and above. Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black. An ebon mass : methinks thou piercest it As with a wedge. But when I look again, It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine. Thy habitation from eternity. dread and silent Mount ! I gazed upon thee Till thou, still present to the bodily sense. Didst vanish from my thought : entranced in prayer 1 worshipped the Invisible alone. Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody, — So sweet we know not we are listening to it, — Thou, the mean while, wast blending with my thought, HYMy /.V THE VALLEY OF CHAMOUNL 283 Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy ; Till the dilating soul, en rapt, transfuserl, Into the mighty vision passing — tliore, As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven. Awake, my soul ! not only passive praise Thou owest ! not alone these swelling tears. Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy ! Awake, Voice of sweet song ! Awake, my heart, awake ! Green vales and icy cliffs ! all join my hymn. Thou tiret and chief, sole sovereign of the vale ! 0, struggling with the darkness all the night, And visited all night by troops of stars. Or wljen they climb the sky, or when they sink, — Companion of the morning-star at dawn. Thyself earth's rosy star, and of the da^vn Co-herald, — wake, wake, and utter praise ! Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth ] Who filled thy countenance with rosy light 1 Who made thoe p;m>nt of perpetual streams'? And you, ye live wild torrents fiercely glad ! Who called you forth from night and utter death. From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precijMtous, black, jagged rocks. Forever shattered, and the same forever 1 NVho gave you your invulnemble life, Ydur strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, rneeasing thunder, and eternal foam ? And who commanded, — and the silence came, — "Here let the billows ^jtiffou imd have rest]" Ye ice-falls I ye tliat fi-om the mountain's brow Adown enormous ravines slope amain — 284 THE SIXTH READER, Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge ! Motionless torrents ! silent cataracts ! Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven KOSSUTH. 285 Beneath the keen full moon 1 Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows ] Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet 1 God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer ! and let the ice-plains echo, God ! God ! sing, ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice ! Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-Uke sounds ! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow. And in their perilous fall shall thunde^ God ! Ye living liowcrs that skiit the eternal frost ! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest ! Ye eagles, playmates on tlie mountain storm ! Ye liglitnings, the dread arrows of the clouds ! Ye signs and wonders of the elements ! Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise ! LX._ KOSSUTH. HORACE MANN. Horace Uahs wm born in Franklin, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796 ; and died Aagiist 2, 1859. He was graduated at Brown University in 1819, and admitted to the bar in 1823, and continued in the practice of his profession, first at Dedham, and then at Boston, for the next fourteen years. He was, during this period, almost constantly a member of the Legislature, and for two years President of tlie Senate. He was an earnest supporter of all legislative measures for the suppression of vice and crime, and the relief of human suffering. In 1837 he was chosen secretary of the Massa- chusetts Bt)ard of Education, and for several years devoted himself to the laliors of this arduous post with characteristic energy and enthusiasm. By his writings, his lectures, his corresjMndence, and his personal influence, he gave a great impulse to the cause of education, not merely in Massachusetts, but all over the country. Ui>on the death of John Quincy Adams, in 1848, Mr. Mann was chosen to Congress in his place, and remained a member of the House of Representatives till 1852. when he was chosen president of Antioch College. Ohio, where he remained till the time of his death, laboring with his usual leal and energy in the cause of education and philan- thropy. While in Congress he was distinguished for his fer\'ent antislavery zeal. He was a man of ardent benevolence and great force of character, and his writings are distinguished for fervid eloquence and impassioned i 286 THE aiXTU READER. ON the banks of the Danube a young man sprang, at a single bound, from comparative obscurity to uni- versal fame. His heroism organized armies. His genius created resources. He abolished the factitious order of nobility, but his exalted soul poured the celestial ichor * of the gods through ten millions of peasant hearts, and made them truly noble. Though weak in all but the energies of the soul, yet it took two mighty empires to break down his power. When he sought refuge in Turkey, the sympathies of the civilized world attended his exile. He was invited to our shores. He came, and spoke as man never before spake. It was Byron's wish that he could condense all the raging elements of his soul " Into one word, And that one word were lightning." Kossuth found what Byron in vain prayed for ; for all his words were lightning : not bolts, but a lambent flame, which he poured into men's hearts, not to kill, but to animate with a more exalted and a diviner life. In cities, where the vast population went forth to hail him ; in academic halls, where the cultivation of elo- quence and knowledge is made the business of life ; in those great gathering-places where the rivers of people have their confluence, — he was addressed by the most eloquent men whom this nation of oratoi-s could select. More than five hundred of our select speakers spoke be- fore him that which they liad laboriously prepared from history and embellished from the poets,^with severe toil, by the long-trimmed lamp. • Pronounced T'kor. An ethereal fluid that supplied the place of blood in the arterial circulation of the ancient gods. KOSSUTH. 287 Save in two or three peculiar cases, his unprepared and improvised replies, in eloquence, in pathos, in dig- nity, in exalted sentiment, excelled them all. For their most profound philosophy he gave them deeper generali- zation; he out-circuited their widest ranges of thought, and in the whole sweep of the horizon revealed glories they hatl never seen ; and while they checked their ambi- tious flight beneath the sun, he soared into the empyrean and br(jught down, for the guidance of men's hearts and deeds, the holy light that shines from the face of God. Though all their splendors were gathered to a focal point, they were outshone by his effulgence. His immortal theme was liberty. Liberty for the nations. Liberty for the people. The person of this truly noble Hungarian has departed from our shores, but he has left a spirit beliipd him that will never die. He has scattered seeds of liberty and truth, whose flowers and fruit will become honors and glories amamnthine. I jbrust he goes to mingle in sterner scenes ; I trust he goes to battle for the right, not with the tongue and pen alone, but with aU the weapons that freedom can forge and wield. » Before the Divine government I bow in reverence and adoration ; bilt it tasks all my philosophy and all my religion to believe that the despots of Europe have not exercised their irresponsible and cruel tyrannies too long. It seems too long since Charles was brought to the axe and Louis to the guillotine. Liberty, humanity, justice, demands more modem instances. The time has fully come when the despot, not the patriot, should feel the executioner's steel or lead. The time has fully come when, if the oppressed demand their inalienable and Heaven-burn rights of their op- 288 THE SIXTH HEADER. pressors, and this demand is denied, that they should say, not exactly in the language of Patrick Henry, " Give me liberty, or give me death " ; that was noble language in its day, but we have now reached an advanced stage in human developments, and the time has fully come when the oppressed, if their rights are forcibly denied them, should say to the oppressor, " Give me liberty, or I wiU give you death ! " LXI.-TRUE GREATNESS. CHANNING. From an article on the *' Life and Character of Napoleon Bonaparte," originally pub> lished in the " Christian Examiner," in 1827. SUCH was Napoleon Bonaparte. But some will say he was still a great man. This we mean not to deny. But we would have it understood, that there are various kinds or orders of greatness, and that the highest did not belong to Bonaparte. There are different orders ot greatness. Among these, the first rank is unquestionably due to moral greatness, or magnanimity ; to that sublime energy by which the soul, smitten with the love of virtue, binds itself indissolubly, for life and for death, to truth and duty ; espouses as its own the interests of human nature ; scorns all meanness, and defies all peril ; hears in its own conscience a voice louder than threat^nings and thunders ; withstands all the powers of the universe which would sever it from the cause of freedom and religion ; reposes an unfaltering trust in God in the darkest hour ; and is ever " ready to be offered up " on the altar of its country or of mankind. Of this moml greatness, which throws all other forms TUVE GREATNESS, 289 of greatness intx) obscurity, we see not a trace in Napo- leon. Thougli clothed with the power of a God, the thought of cousecratiug himself to the introduction of a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the character and condition of liis race, seems never to have dawned on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice seems not to have waged a moment's war with self-will and ambition. His ruling passions, indeed, were singularly at variance with magnanimity. Moral greatness has too much sim- plicity, is too unostentatious, too self-subsistent, and enters into others' interests with too much heartiness, to live an hour for what Napoleon always lived, — to make itself the theme and gaze and wonder of a dazzled world. Next to moral comes intellediml greatness, or genius in the liighest sense of that word ; and by this we mean that sublime capacity of thought, through which the soul, smit- ten with the love of the true and the beautiful, essays to comprehend the universe, soars into the heavens, pene- trates the earth, penetrates itself, questions the past, an- ticipates the future, traces out the general and all compre- hending laws of nature, binds together by innumerable affinities and relations all the objects of its knowledge, rises from the finite and transient to the infinite and tlie everlasting, frames to itself, from its own fulness, lovelier and sublimer forms than it beholds, discerns the harmo- nies between the world within and the world without us, and finds in every region of the universe types and inter- preters of its own deep mysteries and glorious inspirations. This is the greatness which belongs to philosophei*s and to the master-spirits in poetry and the fine arts. Next come.s the greatness of action ; and by tliis we mean the sublime power of conceiving bold and extensive 290 THE SIXTH READER. plans ; of constructing and bringing to bear on a mighty- object a complicated machinery of means, energies, and arrangements, and of accomplishing great outward effects. To this head belongs the greatness of Bonaparte, and that he possessed it, we need not prove, and none will be hardy enougli to deny. A man who raised himself from obscurity to a throne ; who changed the face of the world ; who made himself felt through powerful and civilized nations ; who sent the terror of his name across seas and oceans ; whose will was pronounced and feared as destiny ; whose donatives were crowns ; whose antechamber was thronged by submissive princes; who broke down the awful barrier of the Alps, and made them a highway ; and whose fame was spread beyond the boundaries of civiliza- tion to the steppes of the Cossack, and the deserts of the Arab, — a man who has left this record of himself in his- tory has taken out of our hands the question whether he shall be called great. All must concede to him a sublime power of action, — an energy equal to great effects. LXIL — THE USES OF THE OCEAN. SWAIN. The following extract is a portion of a sermon of striking eloquence and beauty by the late Rev. Leonartl Swain, of Providence, Rhode Island, published In the " Biblio- theca Sacm." THE traveller who would speak of his experience in foreign lands must begin with the sea. God has spread this vast pavement of his temple between the hemi- spheres, so that he who sails to foreign shores must pay a double tribute to the Most High ; for through this temple THE USES uF THE OCEAN. 291 he has to cany his anticipations as he goes, and his memories when he returns. The sea speaks for God ; and however eager the tourist may be to reach the strand that lies before him, and enter upon the career of business or pleasure that awaits him, he nmst check his impatience during this long interval of approach, and listen to the voice with which Jehovah speaks to him as, horizon after horizon, he moves to his purpose along the aisles of God's mighty tabernacle of the deep. It is a common thing, in speaking of the sea, to call it " a waste of waters." But this is a mistake. Instead of being an encumbrance or a superfluity, the sea is as essen- tial to the life of the world, as the blood is to the life of the human body, t Instead of being a waste and desert, it keeps the earth itself from becoming a waste and a desert It is the world's fountain of life and health and beauty ; and if it were taken away, the grass would perish from the mountains, the forests would crumble on the hills, the hars^ests would become powder on the plains, the conti- nent would be one vast Sahara of frosts and fire, and the solid globe itself, scarred and blasted on every side, would swing in the heavens, silent and dead as on the fii-st morning of creation. Water is as indispensable to all life, vegetable or ani- mil, as the air itself. From the cedar on the mountains t J the lichen that clings to the wall ; from the elephant that pastures on the forests, to the animalcule that floats in the sunbeam ; from the leviathan that heaves the sea into billows, to the microscopic creatures that swarm, a million in a single foam-drop, — all alike depend for their existence on this single element and must perish if it be withdrawn. This element of water is supplied entirely by the sea. 292 TEE SIXTH READER. The sea is the great inexhaustible fountain which is con- tinually pouring up into the sky precisMy as many streams, and as large, as all the rivers of the world are pouring into it The sea is the real birthplace of the clouds and the rivers, and out of it come all the rains and dews of heaven. Instead of being a waste and an encumbrance, therefore, it is a vast foimtain of fruitfulness, and the nurse and mother of all the living. Out of its mighty breast come the re- sources that feed and support the population of the world. Omnipresent and everywhere alike is this need and bless- ing of the sea. It is felt as truly in the centre of the con- tinent, — where, it may be, the rude inhabitant never heard of the ocean, — as it is on the circumference of the wave-beaten shore. ^Me are surrounded, every moment, by the presence and bounty of the sea. It looks out upon us from every violet in our garden-bed ; from every spire of grass that drops upon our passing feet the beaded dew of the morning; from the bending grain that fills the arm of the reaper ; from bursting presses, and from barns filled with plenty ; from the broad foreheads of our cattle and the rosy faces of our children ; from the cool dropping well at our door ; from the brook that murmurs from its side; and from the elm or spreading maple that weaves its protecting branches beneath the sun, and swings its breezy shadow over our habitation4 / It is the sea that feeds us. It is the sea that clothes us. It cools us with the summer cloud, and warms us with the blazing fires of winter. We make wealth for ourselves and for our children out of its rolling waters, though we may live a thousand leagues away from its shore, and never have looked on its crested beauty, or listened to its eternal THE USES OF THE OCEAN. 293 anthem. Thus the sea, though it bears no harvest on its bosom, yet sustains all the harvests of the world. Though a desert itself, it makes all the other wildernesses of the earth to bud and blossom as the rose. Though its own watei-s are m salt and wonnwood, it makes the clouds of heaven to di-op with sweetness, opens springs in the val- leys, and rivera among the hills, and fountains in all dry places, and gives drink to all the inhabitants of the earth. The sea is a perpetual source of health to the world. Without it there could be no drainage for the lands. It is the scavenger of the world. Its agency is omnipresent. Its vigilance is omniscient. Where no sanitary committee could ever come, where no police could ever penetrate, its myriad eyes are searching, and its million hands are busy exploring all the lurking-places of decay, bearing swiftly ofl' the dangerous sediments of life, and laying them a thousand miles away in the slimy bottom of the deep. The sea is also set to purify the atmosphere. The winds, whose wings are heavy and whose Sreath is sick with the malaria of the lands over which they have blown, are sent out to range over these mighty pastui-es of the deep, to plunge and play with its roUing billows, and dip their pinions over and over in its healing waters. There they rest when they are weary, cradled into sleep on that vast swinging couch of the ocean. There they rouse them- selves when they are refreshed, and lifting its waves upon their shouldei-s, they dash it into spray, and hurl it back- wards and forwards through a thousand leagues of sky^ Thus tlieir whole substance is drenched, Jind bathed, and washed, and winnowed, and sifted through and through, by this glorious baptism. Thus they fill their mighty lungs once more with the sweet breath of ocean, and, striking their wiiij^^s fur the shore, thcv go breiitlniit,' health ami 294 THE SIXTH READER. vigor along all the fainting hosts that wait for them in mountain and forest and valley and plain, till the whole drooping continent lifts up its rejoicing face, and mingles its laughter with the sea that has waked it from its fevered sleep, and poured its tides of returning life through all its shrivelled arteries. The ocean is not the idle creature that it seems, with its vast and lazy length stretched between the continents, with its huge bulk sleeping along the shore, or tumbling in aimless fury from pole to pole. It is a mighty giant, who, leaving his oozy bed, comes up upon the land to spend his strength in the service of man. » He there allows his captors to chain him in prisons of stone and iron, to bind his shoulders to the wheel, and set him to grind the food of the nations, and weave the garments of the worid. The mighty shaft, which that wheel turns, runs out into all the lands ; and geared and belted to that centre of power, ten thousand times ten thousand clanking engines roll their cylinders, and ply their hammers, and drive their million shuttles. Thus the sea keeps all our mills and factories in mo- tion. Thus the sea spins our thread and weaves our cloth. It is the sea that cuts our iron bars like wax, rolls them out into proper thinness, or piles them up in the solid shaft strong enough to be the pivot of a revolving planet. It is the sea that tunnels the mountains, and bores the mine, and lifts the coal from its sunless depths, and the ore .from its rocky bed."^ It is the sea that lays the iron track, that builds the iron horse, that fills his nostrils with fiery breath, and sends his tireless hoofs thundering across the longitudes. It is the power of the sea that is doing for man all those mightiest works that would be else impossible. It is by this power that he is to level the GREECE, IN 1809. 295 mountains, to tame the wildernesses, to subdue the con- tinents, to throw his pathways around the globe, and make his nearest approaches to omnipi-esence and om- nipotence. LXIII. - GREECE, IN 1809. BYRON. Gbobos Gokdoh Btbon. Lord Byroo, was born in London, January 22, 1788 ; and died at Missolonghi, in Greece, April 19, 1824. In March, 1812, he published the first two cantos of his oplendid poeni, " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," which produced an impression upon the public almost without precedent in English literature, and gained him the very highest place among the poets of the day. Lord Byron's poetry has. In an intellectual point of view, some great and enduring excellences. In description and in the expression of passion he is unrivalled. His poetry abounds with passages of melting tenderness and exquisite sweetness, which take captive and bear away the susceptible heart. His wit, too, is plaj'ful and bril- liant, and his sarcasm venomous and blistering. His leading characteristic is energy : be is never languid or tame ; and in bis highest moods, his words flash and bum like lightning fh>m the cloud, and hurry the reader along with the breathless si)eed of the tempest. Much of Lord Byron's poetry is objectionable in a moral point of view. Some of it ministers nndisguisedly to the evil passions, and confounds the distinctions be- tween right and wrong ; and still more of it is false and morbid in its tone, and teaches, directly or indirectly, the mischievous and irreligious doctrine, that the unhappiness of men is just in proportion to their intellectual superiority. The following extract is flrom "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." Thermopylae is a narrow pass leading ftwm Thessaly into Southern Greece, where I^eonidas and a small band of Spartan heroes, resisting an immense Persian host, were all slain. The town of Spada. or Lacediemon, was upon the river Eurotas. Thrasybulus was an Athenian general who overthrew the power of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens, b. c. 403. He first seiied the fortress of Phyle, which was about fifteen miles ftt>m Athens. The Helots were slaves to the Spartans. Colonna, or Colonni, anciently Sunium, is a promontory forming the southern extremity of Attica, where there was a temple to Minerva, who was also called Tritonla. Hymettus and Pentelicus were mounteins near Athens, Uie former famous for honey, and th*; latter for marble. The modern name of Pentelicus is Mendeli. Athena was a name by which the Greeks called Minerva, the literary goddess of Athens. FAIR Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great ! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long-accustomed bondage uncreate 1 296 THE SIXTH READER, isoi such thy suiis who wliilom* did await — The hopeless warriors of a >villing doom — In bleak Tliermopylaj's sepulchral strait : Oh ! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks and call thee from the tomb 1 Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Coiddst thou forebode the dismal hour that now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain % Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain. But every carle t can lord it o'er thy land ; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain. Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved ; in word, in deed, unmanned In all, save form alone, how changed ! and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye. Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew With thy unquench(^d beam, lost Liberty ! And many dream withal the hour is nigh That j^'ives them back their fathers' heritage ; For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage. Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page. Hereditary bondmen ! know ye not AVho would be free, themselves must strike the blow ] By their right arms the conquest must be wrought : Will Gaul, or Muscovite, redress yel — No ! True, they may lay your proud despoilers low ; But not for you will Freedom's altars flame. Shades of the Helots ! triumph o'er your foe ! Greece ! change thy lords : thy state is still the same : Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame. * Formerly. t A rude man. GliJ'.hth, jy 1809. 297 Wlion risoth Lacedifiuoii's hartlihood, When Thebes Kpamiiiondas rears' again, When Atliens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men^ Then thou mayst bo restored ; but not till then. A thousand yeare scarce serve to form a state ; iVn hour may lay it in the dust ; and when Can man its shattered splendor renovate '\ Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ? And yet, how lovely, in thine age of woe, Land of lost gods, and godlike men, art thou ! Tliy vales of evergreen, thy hiUs of snow. Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now. Thy fan<'S, thy temples, to thy surface bow. Commingling slowly with heroic earth ; Broke by the share of every rustic plough : So perish monuments of mortal birth ; So perish all in turn save well-recortled worth : Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave ; Siive where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna*s cliff, and gleams along the wave ; Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, Where the gray stones and unmolested grass Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave. While strangers only, not regardless pass, Liiij.'rliiL'. like m.-, t...T-.-linu.p, to gaze and si "1' *' \l'i Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, Hail the bright clime of battle and of song. Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore ; Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young ! Which sages venerate and bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. ,a^ LXIV. — THANATOPSIS.f BRYANT. TO him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language. For his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile A wood. t From two Greek words, signifying a view of death. thanatopsl:. -OO And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And gentle sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware.i When thoughts Of the last bitter hour come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad im^es Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall. And breathless darkness, and the narrow house. Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart. Go forth under the open sky, 'and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around — Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — Comes a still voice, — Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale fonu was laid, with many tears. Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image.v Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again ; And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements ; To be a brother to the insensible rock, And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting-{)lace Shalt thou retire alone, — nor coiUdst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world ; with kings, The powerful of the earth, — the wise, the good. Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, — All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 300 THE SIXTH READER. The venerable woods ; rivers that move In majesty, %nd the complaining brooks, That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb (^f man ! The golden sun, The planets, all the intinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, and traverse Bart-a's desert sands ; Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there ! And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep, — the dead reign there alone^ So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure 1 All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages gUde-s away, the sons of men — The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man — Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side. By those who in their turn shall follow them. ^ So live, that when thy summons comes to join The inimmerable caravan, which moves JuAy uF ARC. 301 To that mystciious realm whero each shall tako UU chamber iu the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lios down to pleasant dreams. LXV. — JOAN OF ARC. THOMAS DE QUINCEY. Thomas De Quikcey was born iu Manchester, England, August 15, 1785; lived fo) some years In Orassmere, in the county of Westmoreland, and latterly in Scotland. He dieerial magnificence. He has a rare power of painting sol- emn and gorgeous pictures ; not with a few touches, but in lines slowly drawn and witli colors carefully laid on. He has equal skill in expressing the language of strong and deep i>as8ion, — the sorrow that softens the heart and the remorse which lacer- ates it He has also a peculiar vein of humor, which produces Its effects by ampli- fication and slowly adding one ludicrous conception to another. And combined with these arc a rare faculty of acute metaphysical analysis, which divides and defines with the sharpest precision, and a biting critical discernment, which eats^into the heart of ignorance and jircsumption. The writings of De Quincey are well worth studying on account of their rhetorical power and their wealth of expression. "TTTHAT is to be thought of her ? What is to be VV thought of the poor shepherd-girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that — like the Hebrew sheplierd- boy from the hills and forests of Judjea — rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings ? %r,2 THE SIXTH READER. The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. ^ But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest, Adverse armies JOAN OF ARC. 303 bore witness to the boy as no pretender; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good-will, both were found trae and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose — to a splendor and a noonday prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a byword amongst his pos- terity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was depart- ing from Judah. The poor forsaken girl, on the con- trary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for Fmnce. She never sang together with the songs that rose in her native Domremy * as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances of Vaucouleurs,-(* which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. , No ! for her voice was then silent. No ! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl! whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for thy side, that never once — no, not for a moment of weakness — didst thou revel in the vision of coro- nets and honor from man. Coronets for thee ! no ! Honors, if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood. Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, king of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will not obey the summons. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall pro- • Donirciiiv. dom'iivmy. f Vaucouleurs, vo-cd-lers'. 304 THE SIXTH READER. claim the grandeur of the poor sheplierd-girl, that gave up all for her country, — thy ear, young shepherd-girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life ; to do, — never for thyself, always for others ; to suffer, — never in the persons of generous champions, always in thy own : that was thy destiny ; and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself. " Life," thou saidst, " is short, and the ^leep which is in the grave is long. Let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heav- enly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long." This pure creature, — pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious, — never once did this holy child, as re- garded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not pre- figure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen * as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volley- ing flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there until nature and imper- ishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints, — these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard forever. Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he that sat upon it; but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sat upon it, was for her ; but, on the contrary, that she was for them ; not she by them, but they by her, should rise from the dust * Rouen, ro'en or r6-an(g)'. ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. 305 Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wiuth of God and man combined to wither them ; but well Joanna knew — early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth — that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for Jier. Flower nor bud, beU nor blossom, would ever bloom for ?ier. LXVI.-.ON THE DEATH OF A CHILD. JAMGB R LOWELL. K "OW peacefully they rest, Cross-folded there Upon his little breast, Those ami']] white hands that ne'er were still before, But ever sported with his mother's hair, Or the pJain cross that on her breast she wore ! Her heart no more will beat To feel the touch of that soft palm, That ever seemed a new surprise, Sending glad thoughts up to her eyes To bless him with their holy calm, — Sweet thoughts ! they made her eyes as sweet. How quiet are the hands That wove those pleasant bands ! But that they do not rise and sink With his calm breathing, I should think That he were dropped asleep : Alas ! too deep, too deep 306 THE SIXTH READER. Is this his slumber ; Time scarce can number The years ere he will wake again — 0, may we see his eyelids open then, — O, stern word — nevermore 1 He did but float a little way Adown the stream of time, With dreamy eyes watching the ripples' play, Or listening to their fairy chime ; His slender sail Ne'er felt the gale ; He did but float a little way, And putting to the shore, While yet 't was early day, Went calmly on his way. To dwell with us no more i Full short his journey was ; no dusi. Of earth unto his sandals clave ; The weary weight that old men must. He bore not to the grave. He seemed a cherub who had lost his way, And wandered hither ; so his stay With us was short, and *t was most meet That he should be no delver in earth's clod. Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet To stand before his God — O, blest word — evermore I THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 307 LXVll THK ANGEI^ OF BUENA VISTA. WHITTIEa BoWA Vista U a hanUet in Mexico where the Mexican army, under General Santa Anna, was defeated by the Americans, under General Taylor, February 22 and 23, 1847. La Angostura is about a mile and a half distant La Puebla (pwifbla, or poo-ft'bU) is the second city of Mexico. SPEAK and tell us, ourXimena,* looking northward far away, O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array, Who is losing ? who is winning 1 are they far or come they near ? Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear. " Down the hills of Angostuim still the storm of battle rolls ; Blood is flowing, men are dying ; God have mercy on their souls ! " Who is losing] who is winning] — " Over hill and over plain, I see but smoke of cannon, clouding through the mountain rain." Holy Mother ! keep our brothers ! Look, Ximena, look once more! " Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before. Bearing on. in strancrf' confusion, friond and fopman, foot and Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its moun- tain course." Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Ah ! the smoke has rolled :i\\M\ ; And 1 see the Nortlicrn ri ties gleaming down the ranks of gray. Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there the troop of Minon t wheels : Thoro tlio \nrt!H'rii In u-scs thuiulcr. with tho cannon at their • Pronounce«l Hl-nia'iin. f \(M,r>« ,..r..,wM,.„,fvl mill .■■., :r "oneral. 308 THE SIXTH READER. " Jesu, pity ! how it thickens ! now retreat ami now advance ! Kight against the blazing cannon shivers Puebla's chai-ging lance! Down they go, the brave young riders ; horse and foot together fall; Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through them ploughs the Northern baU." Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling fast and frightful on. ISpeak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who has lost and who has won? " Alas ! alas ! I know not ; friend and foe together fall ; O'er the dying rush the living ; pray, my sisters, for them all ! " Lo ! the wind the smoke is lifting. Blessed Mother, save my brain! I can see the wounded crawling slowly out from heaps of slain. Now they stagger, blind and bleeding ; now they fall, and strive to rise; Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest they die before our eyes! " my heart's love ! O my dear one ! lay thy poor head on my knee ; Dost thou know the Hps that kiss thee 1 Canst thou hear me 1 Canst thou see ^ my husband, brave and gentle ! O my Bernard, look once more On the blessed cross before thee ! mercy ! mercy ! all is o'er." Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy dear one down to rest ; Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the cross upon his breast ; Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his funeral masses said ; To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the living ask thy aid. Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and young, a soldier lay. Torn with shot and pierced with lances, bleeding slow his lifft away ; But, as tenderly before him, the lorn Xiraena knelt, She saw the Northern eagle shining on his pLstol-l)elt. With a stilled cry of horror straight she turned u\v;i} her head ; With a sad and bitter feeling looked she back upon her dead : But she heard the youth's low moaning, and his struggling breath of pain, And she raised the cooling water to his parched lips again. Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed her hand, and faintly smiled. Was that j)itying face his mother's 1 did she watch beside her ciiiia i All liis stranger words wit ii iiieuniiig her woman's heart supplied ; With her kiss upon his forehead, " Mother ! " murmured he, and died. \ ** A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who led thee forth, From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weeping lonely in the North ! " Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she laid him \7ith her dead, .\,.,i f,,,.,.,-! ♦-> —-.fijo tiio ]ivinff^find hiiul thewouixls wliichbled. Luuk I'oiLh oucG more, Ximeua ! " Like a cloud before the wind Rolls the battle down the mountains, leaving blood and death behind ; Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the dust the wounded strive ; Hide your faces, holy angels ! thou Christ of God, forgive ! " Sink, Night, among thy mountains ! let the cool, gray shad- ows fall ; Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy curtain over all ! Througli the thickening winter twilight, wide apart the battle rolled, In its sheath the sabre rested, and the cannon's lips grew cold. 310 THE SIXTH READER. But the noble Mexic women still their holy task pursued, Through that long, dark night of soirow, worn and faint and lacking food ; Over weak and suffering brothers, with a tender care they liung, And the dying foeman blessed them in a strange and Northern tongue. Not wholly lost, Father ! is this evil world of ours ; Upward, through its blood and ashes, spring afresh the Eden flowers ; From its smoking hell of battle. Love and Pity send their prayer, And still thy white-winged angels hover dimly in our air ! LXVIIL — VOICES OF THE DEAD. CUMMINO. John CrTMxnro, D. D., is the pastor of a Scotch Presbyterian church in the city of London. He is a popular and eloquent preacher, and the author of many works which are Oavorably known in this country as well as in Europe. Among them are "Apocalyptic Sketches," " Lectures on the Parables," and "Voices of the Night." WE die, but leave an influence behind us that sur- vives. The echoes of our words are evermore repeated, and reflected along the ages. It is what man was that lives and acts after him. What he said sounds along the years like voices amid the mountain gorges ; and what he did is repeated after him in ever-multiply- ing and never-ceasing reverberations. Every man has left behind him influences for good or for evil that will never exhaust themselves. The sphere in which he acts may be small, or it may be great. It may be his fireside, or it may be a kingdom ; a village, or a great nation ; it may be a parish, or broad Europe : but act he does, cease- lessly and forever. His friends, his family, his successoi*s ri>i'i:s '//■• rur: head. 311 in office, his relatives, are all receptive of an influence)^ a moral influence, which he has tmnsniitted and be- queathed to mankind ; either a blessing which will repeat itself in showers of benedictions, or a curse which will nmltiply itself in ever-accumulating evil. Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends and designs it or not. He may be a blot, radiating his dark influence outward to the very circumference of society, or he may be a blessing, spreading benedictions over the length and breadth of the world; but a blank he cannot h&S The seed sownjn life springs up in harvests of blessings or harvests of sorrow. Whether our influence is great or small, whether it is good or evil, it lasts, it lives some- where, within some limit, and is operative wherever it is. Tlie gi*ave buries the dead dust, but the character walks the world, and distributes itself, as a benediction or a curse, among the families of mankind. The sun sets beyond the western Iiills ; but the trail of light he leaves behind him guides the pilgrim to his dis- tant home. The tree falls in the forest ; but in the lapse of ages it is turned into coal, and our fires burn now the brighter because it grew and fell The coral insect dies ; but the reef it raised breaks the surge on the shores of great continents, or has formed an isle in the bosom of the ocean, to wave with harvests for the good of man. We live and we die ; but the good or evil that we do lives after us, and is not " buried with our bones." Tlie babe that perished on the bosom of its mother, like a flower that bowed its head and drooped amid the death-frosts of time, — that babe, not only in its image, but in its influence, still lives and speaks in the chambers of the mother's heart. 312 THE SIXTH READER. The friend witli whom we took sweet counsel is re- moved visibly from the outward eye ; but the lessons that he taught, the grand sentiments that he uttered, the holy deeds of generosity by which he was characterized, the moral lineaments and likeness of the man, still sur- vive, and appear in the silence of eventide, and on the tablets of memory, and in the light of morn, and noon, and dewy eve ; and, being dead, he yet speaks eloquently, and in the midst of us. Mahomet still live^ in his practical and disastrous in- fluence in the East. Napoleon still is France, and France is almost Napoleon. Martin Luther's dead dust sleeps at Wittenberg, but Martin Luther's accents still ring through the churches of Christendom. Shakespeare, Byron, and Milton all live in their influence, for good or eviL The apostle from his chair, the minister from his pulpit, the martyr from his flame-shroud, the statesman from his cabinet, the soldier in the field, the saUor on the deck, who all have passed away to their graves, still live in the practical deeds that they did, in the lives they lived, and in the powerful lessons that they left behind them. ** None of us liveth to himself " ; others are affected by that life : " or dieth to himself" ; others are interested in that death. Our queen's crown may moulder, but she who wore it will act upon the ages which are yet to come. The noble's coronet may be reft in pieces, but the wearer of it is now doing what will he reflected by thousands who will be made and moulded by him. Dignity and rank and riches are all corruptible and worthless; but moral character has an immortality that no sword-point can destroy, that ever walks the world and leaves last- ing influences behind. What we do is transacted on a stage of which all in the VOICES OF THE DEAD. 313 universe are spectators. What we say is transmitted in echoes that will never cease. What we are is influencing and acting on the rest of mankind. Neutral we cannot be. Living we act, and dead we speak ; and the whole uni- verse is the mighty company forever looking, forever lis- tening, and all nature the tablets forever recording the words, the deeds, the thoughts, the passions, of mankind I Monuments and columns and statues, erected to he- roes, poets, orators, statesmen, are all influences that extend into the future ages. "The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle " still speaks. The Mantuan bard f still sings in every school. Shakespeare, the bard of Avon, is still tmnslated into every tongue. The philos- ophy of the Stagyrite | is still felt in every academy. Whether these influences are beneficent or the reverse, they are influences fmught with power. How blest must be the recollection of those who, like the setting sun, have left a trail of light behind them by which othei*s may see the way to that rest which remaineth with the people of God ! It is only the pure fountain that brings forth pure water. The good tree only will produce the good fruit. If the centre from which all proceeds is pure and holy, the radii of influence from it will be pure and holy also. Go forth, then, into the spheres that you occupy, the em- ployments, the trades, the professions of social life ; go forth into the high places or into tlie lowly places of the land ; mix with the roaring cataracts of social convul- sions, or mingle amid the eddies and streamlets of quiet and domestic life ; whatever spliere you fill, carrying into it a holy heart, you will radiate around you life and power, and leave behind you holy and beneficent influences. • Honar. + Virgil. Aristotle. 314 THE SIXTH READER. LXIX. — THE BOSTON TEA CATASTROPHE THOMAS CARLYLE. Thomas Carlyle was born in Dumfriesshire, in Scotland, in 1796, and has resided for many years in or near Londun. While quite young, he wrote several papers for Brewster it " Ediubur:gh Encyclopcedia " ; but he Urat began to attract attention by his contributions to the *' Edinburgh Review," and esjiecially by an atlujlniblc \M\mr on Bums. He rose by d^rees into great }>opuIarity and commandvpg influence as a writer, but was knuwn and valued at an earlier i)criod in America than at home. His works are quite numerous : among them are a " Life of Schiller," " Sartor Resar- tus," a '* History of the French Revolution," " Past and Present," " Hero- Worship," " Latter-Day Pamphlets," a " Life of Sterling," " The Life and Letters of Cromwell," " Chartism," and several volumes of contributions to ^leriodical literature. Carlyle is an original thinker and a powerful writer. His early and familiar acquaint- ance with the literature of Germany has given a peculiar character to his style, by which some are repelled and some are attracted ; the latter lx;ing now the Uirger }>art. Portions of his later writings read like literal translations from the Genuan. He is fond of odd terms of expression, and has a family of pet words, which he in- troduces on all occasions. His style Is thus very marked, and never to be mistaken for that of any other author. His writings are not easy reading at first ; but those who like them at all like them much. The following extract is trom tlie "History of Frederick the Great," Vol. VI. pp. 406, 407. CURIOUS to remark, wliile Frederick is writing this letter, " Thursday, December 16, 1773," what a com- motion is going on, far over seas, at Boston, New Eng- land, in the " Old Soutli Meeting-house " tliere, in regard to three English tea-ships that are lying embargoed in Griffin's Wharf*, for above a fortnight past. The case is well known, and still memorable to mankind. British Parliament, after nine years of the saddest haggling and baffling to and fro, under constitutional stress of weather, and such east winds and west winds of Parliamentary eloquence as seldom were, has made up its mind that America shall pay duty on tliese teas be- fore infusing them ; and America, Boston more especially, is tacitly determined that it will not ; and that, to avoid mistakes, these teas shall never l^e landed at all. Such is Boston's private intention, more or less fixed, — to say THE BOSTOy TEA CATASTROPHE. 315 nothing of the Philadelphias, Charlestons, New Yorks, who are watching Boston, and will follow suite of it Sunday, November 26th, — that is, nineteen days ago, — the firet of these tea-ships, the " Dartmouth," Captain Hall, moored itself in Griffin's Wharf. Owner and con- signee is a bix)ad-brimmed Boston gentleman called Jtotch, more attentive to pi-ofits of tmde than to the groans of Boston ; but already on that Sunday, much moi-e on the Monday following, there had a meeting of citi- zeas run together (on Monday Faneuil Hall won't hold them, and they adjourn to the Old South Meeting-house), who make it apparent to Rotch that ic will nmcli be- lieve him, for the sake both of tea and skin, not to " en- ter " (or officially announce) this ship " Dartmouth " at the custom-house in any wise ; but to pledge his broad- brimmed woi-d, equivalent to his oath, that she shall lie dormant there in Griffin's Wharf, till we see. Which, accordingly, she has been doing ever since ; she and two others that arrived some days later, dormant all three of them, side by side, three crews totally idle ; a "Committee of Ten" supervising Rotch's procedures; and the Bo.ston world much expectant Thursday, December 1 Gth : this is the twentieth day since Rotch's " Dart- mouth" arrived here; if not "entered" at custom-house in the course of this day, custom-house cannot give her a " clearance " either (a leave to depart) ; she becomes a smuggler, an out law. imd Iht fate is mysterious to Rotch and to us. This Thursday, accordingly, by ten in the morning, in tlie Old South Meeting-house, Boston is .issembled, and country people to the number of 2,000 ; and Rotch was never in such a company of human friends before. They are not uncivil fo liiiu (cautious people, heedful of the 316 THE SIXTH READER, verge of the law) ; but they are peremptory, to the ex- tent of — Rotch may shudder to think what. " I went to the custom-liouse yesterday," said Hotch, "your Committee of Ten can bear me witness, and de- manded clearance and leave to depart ; but tliey would not: were forbidden, they said." "Go, then, sir; get you to the governor liimself ; a clearance, and out of harbor this day ; had n't you better i " Kutch is well aware tliat he had ; hastens off to the governor (who has vauislied to his country-house on purpose). Old South Meeting- house adjourning till 3 r. M., for liolch's return with clearance. At three no Kotch, nor at four, nor at five ; miscella- neous plangent,* intermittent speech instead, mostly plan- gent, in tone sorrowful rather than indignant ; at a quarter to six, here at length is Eotch ; sun is long since set, — has Kotch a clearance or not ? liotch reports at large, willing to be questioned and cross-questioned : " Governor absolutely would not ! My Christian friends, what could 1 or can I do ? " There are by this time 7,000 i>eople in Old South Meeting-house ; very few tallow lights in comparison, — almost no lights for the mind either, — and it is difficult to answer. Itotch's report done, the chairman (one Adams, " Amer- ican Cato," subsequently so called) " dissolves the sorrow- ful 7,000," with these words: "This meeting declares that it can do nothing more to save the country." Will merely go home, then, and weep. Hark, however: al- most on the instant, in front of Old South Meeting-liouse, a terrific war-whoop ; and about fifty Mohawk Indians, — with whom Adams seems to be acquainted, and speaks without interpreter. Aha! * Plangent : literally, dashing, as the waves of the sea ; here, sad and monotonous. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 317 And, sure enough, before the stroke of seven, tliese fifty painted Mohawks are forward, witliout noise, to Giiffin's Wharf; have put sentries all round there ; and, in a great silence of the neighborhood, ai*e busy, in three gangs, on the dormant tea-ships, opening their cliests and punctu- ally shaking them out into the sea. " Listening from the ih'stance, you could hear the ripping open of the chests and no other sound." About 10 p. M., all was finished ; 342 chests of tea ilung out to infuse in the Atlantic ; the fifty Mohawks gone like a dream ; and Boston sleeping more silently even than usual LXX— INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. WORDSWORTH. William Wordsworth was bom at Cookennouth, In the county of Cumberland, England, April 7, 1770 ; and died April 23, 1830. Hin life was i»as8ed for the most part in Uiat beautiful region of England where he was bom, and with which so much of his IKwtry is insciiarably associated. He made his flr«t apinairance as an author in 1793, by the publication of a thin quarto volume of poems, which did not attract much attention. Indee«l, for many years his iK>etr)- made little impression on the general public, and that not of a favorable kind. The *' Edinburgh Review " — the grejit au- thority in matters of literary taste — set its face against him ; and Wordsworth's own style and manner were so peculiar, and so unlike those of the poetry which was pop- ular at the time, that he was obliged to create the taste by which he himself was Juilgcd. As time went on, his influence and popularity increased, and many years l»efore his tleath he enjoyeil a fame and consideration which in calmness and serenity resembled the unbiasseil judgment of posterity. Wonlsworth's character was pure and high. He was resen'ed in manner, and some what exclusive in his tastes and sympathies ; but his friends were warmly attached to him. His domestic aflections were strong ami deep. His Life has been published, since his decease, by his nephew, the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, and republisheior all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy ! Hence in a season of calm weather. Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea 320 THE SIXTH READER Which brought us hither, — Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the shore. And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. And 0, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves ! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might j I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they ; The innocent brightness of a new-bom day Is lovely yet ; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live. Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, — To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. LXXL — THE BIBLK STUDY how to be wise ; and in all your gettings get un- derstanding. And especially would I urge upon your, soul-wrapt attention that Book upon which all feelings, all opinions, are concentrated ; which enlightens the judgment, while it enlists the sentiments, and soothes the imagination in songs upon the harp of the " sweet songster of Israel." The Book which gives you a faithful insight into your heart, and consecrates its character in THE BIBLE. 321 "Shrines Such as the keen tooth of time can never touch. " Would you know the effect of that Book upon the heart ? It purifies its thoughts and sanctifies its joys ; it nerves and strengthens it for sorrow and the mishaps of life ; and when these shall have ended, and the twilight of death is cpreading its dew-damp upon the wasting features, it pours upon the last glad throb the bright and streaming light of Eternity's morning. O, have you ever stood beside the couch of a dying saint, wheu ** Without a sigh, A change of feature or a shaded smile, He gave his hand to the stern messenger, And as a glad child sei^ks his father's arms, Went home " ? Then you have seen the deep, the penetrating influence of this Book. Would you know its name ? It is the Book of books, — its author, God, — its theme, Heaven, Eternity. The Bible ! Read it, search it. Let it be first upon the shelves of your library, and first in the affections of your heart. " Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me." 0, if there is sublimity in the contemplation of God, — if there is grandeur in the display of eternity, — if there is anything ennobling and purifying in the revelation of man's salva- tion, search the Scriptures, for they are they which testify of these things ! 322 THE SIXTH READER, LXXIL— WILLIAM TELL KNOWLES. James Sheridam Knowles was born in Cork, Ireland, in I7S4 ; and died in 1862. He was the author of " The Hunchback," *' Vlrginiiia," *• William Tell," "The Wife," uiid several other plays, lionie of M'hich have been highly sticcessful. He was origi- nally an actor and teucher of elocution, but in hia latter years he was a zealous and eloquent preacher of tlie Baptist denomination. The following extract is from " William Tell," a play founded on the leading inci- dents in the life of tlie Swiss itatriot of that name. Oesler (pronounced GitH^x) is Um5 Austrian governor of Switzerland, and Samem one of his officeis. William Tell, Albert, aiul Gesler. Gesler. What is thy name % Tell. My name ? It matters not to keep it from thee now : My name is TelL Ges. Tell, — William TeU! Tell. The same. Ges. What ! he so famed 'bovc all his countrymen For guiding o'er the stormy lake the boat 1 And such a master of his bow, 't is said His arrows never miss ! Indeed, I *11 take Exquisite vengeance ! Mark ! I '11 spare thy life, — Thy boy's too, — both of you are free, — on one Condition. Tell. Name it. Ges. I would sec you make A trial of your skill with that same bow Vou shoot so well with. Tell. Name the trial you Would have me make. Ges. You look upon your boy As though instinctively you guessed it. Tell. Look upon my boy ! What mean you ? Look upon My boy as though I guessed it, — guessed the trial WILLIAM TELL. 323 You 'd have me make, — guessed it Instinctively ! You do not me^n — No, — no, — You would have me make a trial of My skill upon ray child ! Impossible I I do not guess your meaning. Ges. I would see lliee hit an apple at the distance of A hundred paces. Tell. Is my boy to hold it 1 Ges. No. Tell. No I — I '11 send the arrow through the core I Ges. It is to rest upon his head. Tell. Great Heaven, you hoar him ! Ges. Thou dost hear the choice I give, — Such trial of the skill thou art master of, Or death to both of you ; not otherwise To be escajMid. Tell. monster ! Ges. Wilt thou do it? Albert. He will ! he will ! Tell. Ferocious monster ! — make A father murder his own child ! Ges. Takeoff His chains, if he consent. Tell. With his own hand ! Ges. Does he consent 1 Axa He does. (Gesler gigTis to his officers^ who proceed to take off Tell's chains. Tell all the time unamscioiu what they do.) Tell. With his own hand ! Murder his child \vith his own hand, — this hand, — The hand I *vo led him, when an infant, by ! 'T is beyond horror, — *t is most horrible ! Amazement ! {His chains fall off.) What *s that you 'vo done to me. 324 THE SIXTH READER. Villains ! put ou my chains again. My hands Are free from blood, and have no gust for it, That they should drink my child's 1 Here ! here ! I 'U not Munler my boy for Gesler. Alb. Father, — father! You will not hit me, father 1 Tell. Hit thee ! — Send The arrow through thy brain ; or, missing that, Shoot out an eye ; or, if thine eye escape. Mangle the cheek I 've seen thy mother's lips Cover with kisses ! — Hit thee, — hit a hair Of thee, and cleave thy mother's heart — Ges. Dost thou consent 1 Tell. Give me my bow and quiver. Ges. For what 1 Tell. To shoot my boy I Alr No, father, — no ! To save me ! You '11 be sure to hit the apple, — Will you not save me, father ? Tell. Lead me forth ; I '11 make the trial ! Alb. Thank you ! Tell. Thank me ! Do You know for what 1 I will not make the trial, To take him to his mother in ray arms, And lay him down a corpse before her ! Ges. Then he dies this moment, — and you certainly Do murder him whose life you have a chance To save, and will not use it. Tell. WeU, — I '11 do it : I '11 make the trial Alr Father — Tell. Speak not to me : Let me not hear thy voice. Thou must be dumb ; And so should all things be. Earth should be dumb, And Heaven, — unless its thunders muttered at WILLIAM TELL, 325 The deed, and sent a bolt to stop it 1 Give me My bow and quiver ! Gbs. When all 's ready. Tell. Well ! Lead on ! . LXXIII. — WILLIAM TELL (concluded.) Peusons. — Enter, slowly, people in evident digress, — Officers, Sar- NEM, Gesler, Tell, Albert, and Soldiers, — one bearing Tell's bow and quiver, another toith a basket of apples. Ges. That is your ground. Now shall they measure thence A Inindred paces. Take the distance. Tell. Is the line a true one ] Ges. True or not, what is 't to thee 1 Tell. What is 't to me 1 A little thing, A very little thing ; a yard or two Is nothing here or there — were it a wolf I shot at ! Never mind. Ges. Be thankful, slave, Our grace accords thee life on any terms. Tell. I will be thankful, Gesler ! — Villain, stop ! You measure to the sun. Ges. And what of that 1 What matter whether to or from the sun 1 Tell. I *d have it at my back ; the sun should shine Upon the mark, and not on him that shoqts. I cannot see to shoot against the sun, — I will not shoot against the sun ! Ges. Give him his way ! Tliou hast cause to bless my mercy. Tell. I shall remember it. I M like to see The apple I *m to shoot at 326 THE SIXTH READER Ges. Stay ! show me the basket ! There — Tell. You 've picked the smallest one. Ges. I know I have. Tell. Oh ! do you 1 — But ypu see The color on 't is dark, I 'd have it light, To see it better. Ges. Take it as it is : Thy skill will be the greater if thou hit'st it. Tell. True, — true ! I did not think of that ; I wonder I did not think of that. Give me some chance To save my boy ! ( Throws atoay Ou apple toith all his farce.) I will not murder him. If I can help it — for the honor of The form thou wearest, if all the heart is gone. Ges. Well : choose thyself. Tell. Have I a friend among the lookers-on 1 Verner. {Rushing fonoard.) Here, TeU. Tell. I thank thee, Verner ! He is a friend runs out into a storm To shake a hand with us. I must be brief : When once the bow is bent, we cannot take The shot too soon. Verner, whatever be The issue of this hour, the common cause Must not stand still. Let not to-morrow's sun Set on the tyrant's banner ! Verner ! Verner! The boy ! — the boy ! Thinkcst thou he hath the courage To stand it? Ver. Yes. Tell. Does he tremble 1 Ver. No. Tell. Art sure % Ver. I am. Tell. How looks he 1 Ver. Clear and smilingly : If you doubt it, look yourself. WILLIAM TELL. 327 Tell. No, — no, — my friend ; To hear it is enough. Vbr. He bears himself so much above his years — Tell. I know, — I know! Veb. With constancy so modest — Tell. I was sure he would ! Ver. And looks with such relying love And reverence upon you — Tell. Man ! Man ! Man ! No more ! Already I 'ra too much the father To act the man ! — Vemer, no more, my friend ! I would be flint, — flint, — flint. Don't make mo feel I 'm not, — do not mind me ! Take the boy And set him, Vemer, with his back to me. Set him upon his knees, and place this apple Upon his head, so that the stem may front me, — Thus, Vemer ; charge him to keep steady, — tell him I '11 hit the apple ! Vemer, do all this More briefly than I tell it thee. Ver. Come, Albert ! {Leading him out.) ALa May I not speak with him before I go ] Ver. No. Alb. I would only kiss his hand. Ver. You must not. Alb. I must! I cannot go from him without. Ver. It is his will you should. Alb. His will, is it 1 I am content then ; come. Tell. My boy ! {Holding out his amis to hiin.) Alb. My father! {Rushing into Teal's amut.) Tell. If thou canst bear it, should not II — Go, now. My son, and keep in mind that I can shoot — Go, boy, — be thou but steady, I will hit The apple. Go ! Gotl bless thee, — go. — My bow ! — {TJu how is handed to him.) 328 THE SIXTH READER. Thou wilt not fail thy master, wilt thou 1 Thou Hast never failed him yet, old servant. No, I 'm sure of thee ; I know thy honesty. Thou art stanch, — stanch. Let me see my quiver. Ge8. Give him a single arrow. Tell. Do you shoot 1 Sol. I do. Tell. Is it so you pick an arrow, friend 1 The point, you see, is bent ; the feather jagged : {Breaks it.) That 's all the use 't is fit for. Ges. Let him have another. Tell. Why, 't is better than the first. But yet not good enough for such an aim As I 'm to take, — 't is heavy in the shaft : I '11 not shoot with it ! {Throws it away.) Let me see my quiver. Bring it ! T is not one arrow in a dozen I *d take to shoot with at a dove, much less A dove like that. Ges. It matters not. Show him the quiver. Tell. See if the boy is ready. (Tell here hides an arrow under his vest.) Ver. He is. Tell. I 'm ready, too I Keep silent for Heaven's sake, and do not stir ; and let me have Your prayers, — your prayers ; and be my witnesses, That if his life 's in peril from my hand, 'T is only for the chance of saving it {To the people.) Ges. Go on. Tell. I will. O friends, for mercy's sake, keep motionless And silent ! . (Tell shoots ; a shout of exultation bursas from the crowd. Tell's head drops on his bosom ; he with difficulty supports himself upon his brow.) THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 329 Ver. {Rushing in iriih Albert.) The boy is safe ! no hair of him is touched ! Alb, Father, I *m safe ! — your ^bert 's safe, dear father. Speak to me ! Speak to me ! Ver. He cannot, boy ! Alb. You grant him life 1 Ges. I do. Alb. And we are free 1 Ges. You are. {Crossing angrily hthind.) Alb. Thank Heaven ! — thank Heaven ! \ Open his vest, Anil give him air. (Albert opens his father's vest, and the arrow drops. Tell starts, fixes his eye on Albert, and clasps him to his breast.) Tell. My boy ! — My boy ! Ges. For what Hid you that arrow in your breast 1 Speak, slave ! Tell. To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy ! LXXIV. — THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. macaulat. Nasebt is a small parish near Northampton, England, where the troops of Charles I. were totally defeated by the Parliamentary army under Fairfax in 1645. OH, wherefore come ye forth, in triumph from the North, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red ] And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout ] And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread 1 0, evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, And crimson was the juice, of the vintage that we trod ! For we trampled on tlic throng of the haughty and the strong. Who sat in the high places, and slew the saints of God. 330 THE SIXTH READER. It was about the noon of a glorious day of June, That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine ; And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair, And Astley, and Sir Marmaduke, and Rupert of the Rhine. Like a servant of the Lord, with his Bible and his sword. The general rode along us, to form us to the fight. When a murmuring sound broke out, and swelled into a shout, Among the godless horsemen, upon the tyrant's right. And hark ! like the roar of the billows on the shore, The cry of battle rises along their charging line ! For God ! for the Cause ! for the Church ! for tne Laws ! For Charles, King of England, and Rupert of the Rhine ! The furious German comes, with his clarions and his drums, His bravoes of Alsatia, and pages of Whitehall ; They are bursting on our flanks. Grasp your pikes, close your ranks. For Rupert never comes but to conquer or to fall. They are hero ! They rush on ! We are broken ! We are gone ! Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. Lord, put forth thy might ! Lord, defend the right ! Stand back to back, in God's name, and light it to the last. Stout Skippon hath a wound ; the centre hath given ground ; Hark ! hark ! what means this trampling of horsemen in our rear] Whose banner do I see, boys 1 'T is he, thank God ! 't is he, boys ! Bear up another minute ; brave Oliver is here. Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, Like a whirlwind" on the trees, like a deluge on the dikes ; THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE. 331 Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accurst, And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes. Fast, fust, the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar ; And ho — he tunis, he flies : — shame on those cruel eyes That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war. LXXV. — THE WIDOW OF GLENCOK AYTOUN. WttUAM BDMOKDerooHE Attouit wu bom in the county of Fife, in Scotland, in ISIS. He WW called to the Scotch bar in 1S40, and in 1845 was elected to the profes- surehip of rhetoric and belles-lettres in the University of Edinburgh, which he held until his death, August 4, 1S65. He was a prominent contributor to " Bkckwood's Magazine." In the month of February, 1692, a number of persons of the clan of Macdonald, n*skllng in Glencoc, a glen on the western coast of S<"ntland, wene cnielly and trcach- rously put to death, on the ground that their chief had not taken tlic oath of allegi- uice to the government of King William within the time prescribed by his proclama- tion. A full and interesting account of the massacre may be found in Macaulay's " History of England." The following poem is supposed to be spoken by tlic widow of one of the victims. The captain of the company of soldiers by whom the massacre was perpetrated was Campbell of Glenlyon. "The dauntless Graime" was the Mar- quis of Montrose. DO not lift him from the bracken, leave liim lying where he fell, — lietter bier ye cannot fashion : none beseems him half so well .Vs the bare and broken heather, and the hard and trampled sod, Whence his angry soul ascended to the judgment-seat of God ! Winding-sheet we cannot give him, — seek no mantle for the dead, Save the cold and spotless covering showered from heaven upon his head. Leave his broadsword as we found it, rent and broken with the blow That, before he died, avenged him on the foremost of the foe. 332 THE SIXTH READER. Leave the blood upon his bosom, — wash not off that sacred stain ; Let it stiffen on the tartan, let his wounds unclosed remain, Till the day when he shall show them at the tlirone of God on high, When the murderer and the murderefl meet before their Judge's eye. Nay, — ye should not weep, my children ! leave it to the faint and weak ; Sobs are but a woman's weapons, — tears befit a maiden's cheek. Weep not, children of Macdonald ! weep not thou, his orphan heir; Not in shame, but stainless honor, lies thy slaughtered father there. Weep not ; but when years are over, and thine arm is strong and sure, And thy foot is swift and steady on the mountain and the muir, Let thy heart be hard as iron, and thy wrath as fierce as fire. Till the hour when vengeance cometh for the race that slew thy sire ! Till in deep and dark Glenlyon rise a louder shriek of woe, Than at midnight, from their eyry, scared the eagles of Glencoe ; L-ouder than the screams that mingled with the howling of the blast, When the murderers' steel was clashing, and the fires were rising fast ; When thy noble father bounded to the rescue of his men. And the slogan of our kindred pealed throughout the startled glen ,^ When the herd of frantic women stumbled through the mid- night snow. With their fathers' houses blazing, and their dearest dead below ! O, the horror of the tempest, as the flashing drift was blown, Crimsoned with the conflagration, and the roofs went thunder- ing down ! 77//; iiii>>ir oaition of this class. In 1823 he was the successful competitor for A prise offered lor the bext ode to be recited at a Shakesiieare pageant at the Boston Tlieatre. This is the most fervid and brilliant of all his poems, and has muclrt)f the lyric rash and glow. In 1829 he recited a poem called " Curiosity," before the Phi Beta KapiM Society of Harvard College, which is polished in its versification, and tilled with carefully wrought and beautiful pictures. In 1830 he pronounced an ode at the centennial celebration of the settlement of Boston (from which the following extract is taken), which is a finished and animated performance. He has also written many smaller pieces of much merit. ' Mr. Sprague presents an encouraging example of the union of practical business habits with the taste of a scholar and the sensibilities of a i>oet. He was for many years cashier of a bank, and performed his prosaic duties with as much attentiveneaa and skill as if he had never written a line of verse. BEHOLD ! they come, — those sainted forms, Unshaken through the strife of storms ; Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down, And earth puts on its rudest frown ; But colder, ruder, was the hand That drove them from their own fair land ; Their own fair land, — Refinement's chosen seat. Art's tropliied dwelling. Learning's green retreat, — By valor guarded, and by victory crowned. For all, but gentle Charity, renowned. , With streaming eye yet steadfast heart. Even from that land they dared to part, And burst each tender tie, — Haunts, where their sunny youth was passed ; Homes, where they fondly hoped at last In peaceful age to die ; Friends, kindred, comfort, all, they spurned ; Their fathers' hallowed graves; And to a world of darkness turned. Beyond a world of wmvc^s. 338 THE SIXTH READER. When Israel's race from bondage fled, Signs from on high the wanderers led ; But here — Heaven hung no symbol here, Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer ; They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night. Nought but the fagot's guilty light ; The cloud they gazed at was the smoke That round their murdered brethren broke. A fearful jmth they trod, And dared a fearful doom, To build an altar to their God, And hnd a quiet tomb. They come ; — that coming who shall tell 1 The eye may weep, the heart may swell, But the poor tongue in vain essays A fitting note for them to raise. We hear the after-shout that rings For them who smote the power of kings : The sweUing triumph all would share. But who the dark defeat would dare, And boldly meet the wrath and woe That wait the unsuccessful blow 1 It were an envied fate, we deem. To live a land's recorded theme, When we are in the tomb ; We, too, might yield the joys of home, And waves of winter darkness roam. And tread a shore of gloom, — Knew we those waves, through coming time. Should roll our names to every clime ; Felt we that niilHons on that shore Should stand, our memory to adore. But no glad vision burst in light Upon the Pilgrims' aching sight ; THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 339 Their hearts no proud hereafter swelled ; Deep shadows veiled the way they held ; The yell of vengeance was tlieir trump of fame, Their monument, a grave without a name. Vet, strong in weakness, there they stand On yonder ice-bound rock, Stem and resolved, that faithful band, To meet Fate's rudest shock. In grateful adoration now, Upon the barren sands they bow. What tongue e'er woke such prayer As bursts in desolation there 1 What arm of strength e'er wrought such power As waits to crown that feeble hour 1 There into life an infant empire springs ! There falls the iron from the soul ; There Liberty's young accents roll Up to the King of kings ! To fair creation's farthest bound That thrilling summons yet shall sound; The dreaming nations shall awake, And to their centre earth's old kingdoms shake ; Pontiff and prince, your sway Must crumble from that day : Before the loftier throne of Heaven The hand is raised, the pledge is given, One monarch to obey, one creed to own, — That monarch, Grod ; that creed, his word alone. Spread out earth's holiest records here, Of days and deeds to reverence dear ; A zeal like this what pious legends tell 1 On kingdoms built In blood and guilt. 340 THE SIXTH READER. The vorshippers of vulgar triumph dwell ; But what exploit with theirs shall page, Who rose to bless their kind, — Who left their nation and their age, Man's spirit to unbind ? Who boundless seas passed o*er. And boldly met, in every path, Famine, and frost, and savage wrath. To dedicate a shore, Where Piety's meek train might breathe their vow, And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow ; Where Liberty's glad race might j)roudly come, And set up there an everlasting home 1 many a time it hath been told. The story of these men of old ! For this fair Poetry hath wreathed Her sweetest, purest flower ; For this proud Eloquence had breathed His strain of loftiest power ; Devotion, too, hath lingered round Each spot of consecrated ground. And hill and valley blessed, — There, where our banished fathers strayed. There, where they loved and wept and prayed. There, where their ashes rest, — And never may they rest unsung. While Liberty can tind a tongue. Twine, Gratitude, a wreath for them More deathless than the diadem. Who, to life's noblest end, Gave up life's noblest powers, And bade the legacy descend Down, down to us and ours. IVOLSEY AND CKOMJVELL. 341 LXXVIIL— WOLSEY AND CROMWELL SHAKESPEARE. TiTB following scene is taken from the historical play of " King Henry VIII." Cardinal Wobtey had l>een ))rime miuister of En^^land, the possessor of enormous wealth and unltounded power, but, in losing the favor of the king, had lost alL Crom- well was n friend and member of his household, who remained faithfUl to his benefac- tor in his fallen fortuues. WOL. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness ! This is the state of man : To-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hope ; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him ; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And — when ho thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening — nips his root ; And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders. This many summers, in a sea of glory ; But far beyond my depth : my high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye : I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors ! There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,* More pangs and fears than wars or women have ; And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, N. vrr to hope again. — Eyitrr Croitwell, amazedly. Why, how now, Cromwell ? Cbom. I have no power to speak, sir. * That is, the min which princes inflict 342 THE SIXTH READER. WoL. What, amazed At ray misfortunes 9 Can thy spirit wonder A great man should decline 1 Nay, and you weep I am fallen indeed. Crom. How does your grace 1 WoL. Why, well ; Never so truly happy, my good CromwelL I know myself now ; and I feel within me A peace above all eai-thly dignities, A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me, — I humbly thank his grace, — and from these shoulders, These ruined pillars, out of pity, taken A load would sink a navy, — too much honor. O, 't is a burden, Cromwell, 't is a burden Too heavy for a man that \io\yes for heaven ! Crom. I am glad your grace has made that right use of it. WoL. I hope I have. I am able now, methinks, (Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,) To endure more miseries, and greater far, Than my weak-hearted enemies dare oifer. What news abroad 1 Crom. The heaviest, and the worst, Is your displeasure with the king. Woi^ God bless him ! Crom. The next is, that Sir Thomas More is chosen Lord Chancellor, in your place. WoL. That 's somewhat sudden ; But he 's a learned man. May he continue Long in his Highness's favor, and do justice For truth's sake, and his conscience ; that his bones. When he has run his course, and sleeps in blessings, May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on 'em ! What more ] Crom. That Cranmer is returned with welcome, Installed Lord Archbishop of Canterbuiy. WOLSKY AND CROMWELL 343 WoL. Tliat *8 news, indeed. Crom. Last, that the Lady Anne,* Whom the king hath in secrecy long married, This day was viewed in open, as his queen, Going to chapel ; and the voice is now Only about her coronation. WoL. There was the weight that pulled me down ! Cromwell, The king has gone beyond me ; all my glories In that one woman I have lost forever ! No sun shall ever usher forth mine honors, Or gild again the noble troops that waited Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell ; I am a jKwr, fallen man, unworthy now To be thy lord and master. Seek the king : That sun, I pray, may never set ! I have told him Wliat and how true thou art ; he will advance thee ; Some little memory of me will stir him (I know his noble nature) not to let Thy hopeful service perish too. Good Cromwell, Neglect him not ; make use now, and provide For thine own future safety. Crom. O my lord, Must I then leave you ? Must I needs forego So good, so noble, and so true a master? Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron, With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord. The king shall have my service ; but my prayers Forever, and forever, shall be yours. WoL. Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear In all my miseries ; hut thou hast forced me. Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman. Let 's dry our eyes ; and thus far hear me, Cromwell ; And — when I am forgotten, as I shall be, • Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII. 344 THE SIXTH HEADER. And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention Of me more must be heard of — say, I taught thee ; Say, Wolsey — that once trod the ways of glory. And sounded all the depths and shoals of honor — Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in ; A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it. Mark but my fall, and that that ruined me. Cromwell, 1 charge thee, fling away ambition : By that sin fell the angels : how can man, then. The image of his Maker, hope to win by *t 1 Love thyself last ; cherish those hearts that hate thee ; Corruption wins not more than honesty : Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace. To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not. Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's. Thy God's, and truth's ; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell, Thou fall'st a blessetl martyr ! Serve the king ; And — Prithee, lead me ui : There take an inventory of all I have, To the last penny ; *t is the king's ; my robe, And my integrity to Heaven, is all I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell, Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies ! Crom. Grood sir, have patience. WoL. So I have. Farewell The hopes of court ! my hopes in heaven do dwell DANGERS TO OUR REPUBLIC. 345 LXXIX — DANGERS TO OUR REPUBLIC. HORACE MANN. The following is an extract trom an oration delivered July 4, 1842, before the au- thorities of Boston. BEHOLD, on this side, crowding to the polls, and even candidates for the highest offices in the gift of the people, are men whose hands are red with a brother's blood, slain in private quarrel ! Close pressing upon these urges onward a haughty band glittering in wealth ; but, for every flash that gleams from jewel and diamond, a father, a mother, and helpless children have been stolen, and sold into ransomless bondage. Invading their ranks, stmggles forward a troop of riot- ous incendiaries, who have hitherto escaped the retribu- tions of law, and would now annihilate the law whose « judgments they fear. Behind these pours on, tunniltuous, the chaotic rout of atheism ; and yonder dashes forward a sea of remorseless life, — thousands and ten thousands, — condemned by the laws- of God and man. In all the dread catalogue of mortal sins, there is not one but, in that host, there are hearts which have willed and hands which have perpetrated it. The gallows has spared its victim, the prison has released its tenants ; from dark cells, where malice had brooded, where revenge and robbery had held their nightly rehear- sals, the leprous multitude is disgorged, and comes up to the ballot-box to foredoom the destinies of this nation. But look again, on the other side, at that deep and dense array of ignorance, whose limits the eye cannot discover. Its van leans against us here, its rear is beyond the distant hills. They, ton. in this hour of their coun- 346 THE SIXTH READER. try's peril, have come up to turn the folly of which they are unconscious into measures which they cannot under- stand, by votes which they cannot read. Nay more, and worse ! for, from the ranks of crime, emissaries are sally- ing forth towards the ranks of ignorance, and hying to and fro amongst them, shouting the war-cries of faction, and flaunting banners with lying symbols, such as cheat the eye of a mindless brain ; and thus the hosts of crime are to lead on the hosts of ignorance in their assault upon Liberty and Law ! What now shall be done to save the citadel of freedom, where are treasured all the hopes of posterity ? Or, if we can survive the peril of such a day, what shall be done to prevent the next generation from sending forth still more numerous hordes, afflicted witli (h^ejx'r blindness and in- cited by darker depravity '. Are there any here who would counsel us to save the people from themselves, by wresting from their hands this formidable right of ballot ? Better for the man who would propose this remedy to an infuriated multitude, that he should stand in the lightning's path as it descends from heaven to earth. And answer me this question, you who would recon- quer for the few the power which has been won by the many, — you who would disfranchise the common mass of mankind, and recondemn them to become Helots and bondmen and feudal serfs, — tell me were they again in the power of your castes, would you not again neglect them, again oppress them, again make them slaves ? Tell me, you royalists and hierarchs, or advocates of royalty and hierarchy, were the poor and the ignorant again in your power, to be tasked and tithed at your pleasure, would you not turn another Ireland into paupers, and colonize another Botany Bay with criminals ? HALLOWED GROUND. 347 O, better, far better, that the atheist and the blasphemer, and he who, since the last setting sun, has dyed his hands in parricide, or his soul in sacrilege, should challenge equal political power with the wisest and the best! Better that these blind Samsons, in the wantonness of their gigantic strength, should tear down the pillars of the Republic, than that the great lesson which Heaven, for six thousand years, has been teaching to the world, should be lost upon it, — the lesson that the intellectual and moral nature of man is the one thing precious in the sight of God, and therefore that, until this natui-e is cultivated and enlightened and purified, neither opu- lence nor power, nor learning nor genius, nor domestic sanctity nor the holiness of God's altars, can ever be safe. Until the immortal and godlike capacities of every being that comes into the world are deemed more worthy, are watched more tenderly, than any other thing, no dynasty of men, or form of government, can stand or shall stand upon the face of the earth ; and the force or the fraud which would seek to uphold them shall be but " as fetters of flax to bind the flame." TA'XX. — HALLOWED GROUND. CAMPBELL. WHAT 's hallowed ground ] Has earth a clod Its Maker meant not should be trod By man, the image of his God, Erect and free, I'nscouri^d by Superstition's rod To bow the knee 1 348 THE SIXTH READER, Is *t death to fall for Freedom's right 1 He 's dead alone that lacks her light ! And murder sullies in Heaven's sight The sword he draws. What can alone ennoble fight ? A noble cause ! Give that ! and welcome War to brace Her drums ! and rend Heaven's reeking space ! The colors planted face to fece, The charging cheer, Though Death's pale horse lead on the chase, Shall still be dear. And place our trophies where men kneel To Heaven ! but Heaven rebukes my zeaL O God above ! The cause of Truth and human weal, Transfer it from the sword's appeal To Peace and Love. Peace, Love ! the cherubim that join Their spread wings o'er Devotion's shrine, Prayers sound in vain, and temples shine, Where they are not : The heart alone can make divine Religion's spot. To incantations dost thou trust, And pompous rites in domes august 1 See mouldering stones and metal's rust Belie the vaunt Tliat men can bless one pile of dust AVith chime or chant. HALLOWED GROUND. 349 The ticking woodworm mock thee, man ! Thy temples — creeds themselves grow wan, But there 's a dome of nobler span, A temple given Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban, — Its space is Heaven ! Its roof star-pictured Nature's ceiling. Where, trancing the rapt spirit's feeling. And God himself to man revealing. The harmonious spheres Make music, though unheard in the pealing By mortal ears. Fair stars ! are not your beings pure ] Can sin, can death, your worlds obscure 1 Else why so swell the thoughts at your Aspect above ] Ye must be Heavens that make us sure Of heavenly love I And in your harmony sublime I read the doom of distant time ; That man's regenerate soul from crime Shall yet be drawn, And reason on his mortal clime Immortal dawn. What 's hallowed ground 1 'T is what gives birth To sacred thoughts in souls of worth ! — Peace ! Independence ! Truth ! go forth Earth's compass round ; And your high-prie«thood shall make earth All hallowed ground t 35a THE SIXTH READER, LXXXL — THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE. AYTOUN. The following extract i« from the " Lays of the Scotch Cavaliers," a collection of stirring ballads illiuttrating the history of ik'otland. James Graliam, Marquis of Montrose, was executed in Edinburgh, May 21, 1850, for an attempt to overthrow the power of the Coninionweulth, and restore Charles II. The ballae county of Inverness. Dundee Is a seaport town in the county of Forfar. Inverlochy was a castle in Inverness-shire. If<»ntr08e was betrayed by a man named MacLeod of As- synt. Dunedin is tlie Gaelic name fbr Edinburgh. Warristoun was Archibald John- ston of Warristoun, an inveterate enemy of MonCrase. COME hither, Evan Cameron ! Come, stand beside my kriee : I hear the river roaring down towards the \^4ntry sea ; There 's shouting on the mountain-side, there 's war within the blast. Old faces look upon me, old forms go trooping past ; I hear the pibroch* wailing amidst the din of tight, And my dim spirit wakes again upon the verge of niglit. 'T was I that led the Highland host through wild Lochaber's snows. What time the plaided clans came do\vn to battle with Mon- trose. I 've told thee how the Southrons fell beneath the broad clay- more, And how we smote the Campbell clan by Inverlochy's shore. I 've tcld thee how we swept Dundee, and tamed the Lindsay's pride ; But never have I told thee yet how the Great Marquis died ! • An air played on the bagpipe before the Highlanders, when they go out to battle. THE EXECUTION OF MONTROSE. 351 A traitor sold liim to his foes, — deed of deathless shame ! 1 charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet with one of Assjnt's name, — Be it upon the mountain's side, or yet within the glen. Stand he in uiartial gear alone, or backed by armc^d men, — Face him, as thou wouldst face the man who wronged thy sire's renown ; "RonifiiiiLtT (if wliiit blood tlioii art. and strikn the caitiff dowiu i ney Droii^iii luiji to tlie Watergate, liard l)ound with hempen span, As though they held a lion there, and not an unarmed man. They set him high upon a cart, — the hangman rode below, — They drew his hands behind his back, and bared his noble br«3w: Then, as a hound is slipped from leash, they cheered, — the common throng, — And blew the note with yell and shout, and bade him pass along. But when he came, though pale and wan, he looked so great and high. So noble was his manly front, so calm his steadfast eye. The rabble rout forbore to shout, and each man held his breath. For well they knew the hero's soul was face to face with dcmth. And then a mournful shudder through all the people crept. And some that came to scoff at him now turned aside and wept. Had I l>een there with sword in hand, and fifty Caraerons by, That dav tliroU'.di liiudi Dunedin's streets liad pcided the sloLran* Nut aii their troops ot trampling horse, nor might of mailed men. Not all the relx'ls in the South, had borne us backwards then ! Once more his foot on Hip^hland heath had trod as free as air, '»" ! ■•• ' ••'! wlio bore my name, been laid around him there. • The war-fTV of a cloil. 352 THE SIXTH READER. It miglit not be. They placed him next within the solemn hall, Where • once the ScoTlish kings were throned amidst their nobles all. But there was dust of vulgar feet on that polluted floor, And perjured traitors filled the place where good men sat before. With savage glee came Warristoun to read the murderous doom. And then uprose the great Montrose in the middle of the room. Now by my faith as belted knight, and by the name I bear, And by the bright Saint Andrew's cross that waves above us there, — Yea, by a greater, mightier oath, and 0, that such should be ! By that dark stream of royal blood that lies *twixt you and me, — I have not sought in battle-field a wreath of such renown, Nor hoped I, on my dying day, to win a martyr's crown ! The morning dawned full darkly, the rain came flashing down, And the jagged streak of the levin-bolt lit up the gloomy town : The thunder crashed across the heaven, the fatal hour was come. Yet aye broke in, with muffled beat, the 'larum of the drum. There was madness on the earth below, and anger in the sky, Ann young and old, and rich and poor, came forth to see him die. Ah God ! that ghastly gibbet ! how dismal 't is to see The great, tall, spectral skeleton, the ladder, and the tree ! Hark ! hark ! it is the clash of arms, the bells begin to toll, — He is coming ! he is coming ! God's mercy on his soul ! One last long peal of thunder, — the clouds are cleared away. And the glorious sun once more looks down amidst the dazzling day. He is coming ! he is coming ! — Like a bridegroom from his room Came the hero from his prison to the scaffold and the doom. M AMERICAN NATIONALITY. 353 There was glory on his forehead » there was lustre in his eye, And he never walked to battle more proudly than to die : There was color in his visage, though the cheeks of all were wan, And they marvelled as they saw him pass, that great and goodly man ! A beam of light fell o'er him, like a glory round the shriven, And he climbed the lofty ladder, as it were the path to heaven. Then came a flash from out the cloud, and a stunning thunder roll, ^ And no man dared to look aloft, for fear was on every soul. There was another heavy sound, a hush and then a groan ; And darkness swept across the sky, — the work of death was done! LXXXII. — AMERICAN NATIONALITY. CHOATE. Rtmrs Choats waa bora in Essex, Massachusetts, October 1, 1799 ; and died July 13, 1859. He was graduated at Dartmouth CoII^e in 1819, and admitted to the bar in 1824. He practised his profession first at Danvers. then at Salem, and for the last twenty-flve years of his life at Boston. He was chosen to the House of Representa- tives in 1832, and served there a single tenn. He was a member of the Senate from February, 1841, to Marrh. 1845 He was a brilliant and eloquent advocate, with un- rivalled power over a jury, a thoroughly instnicteath, like hers, is on the highway of empires ; your charge, her charge, is of generations and ages ; your record, her record, is of treaties, battles, voy- ages, beneath all the constellations ; her image, one, im- mortal, golden, rises on your eye as our western star at evening rises on the traveller from his home ; no lowering cloud, no angry river, no lingering spring, no broken cre- vasse, no inundated city or plantation, no tracts of sand, arid and burning on that surface, but all blended and soft- ened into one beam of kindred rays, the image, harbinger, and promise of love, hope, and a brighter day ! But if you would contemplate nationality as an active virtue, look around you. Is not our own history one wit- ness and one record of what it can do ? This day and all which it stands for, — did it not give us these ? This glory of the fields of that war, this eloquence of that revo- lution, this one wide sheet of flame, which wrapped tyrant and tyranny, and swept all that escaped from it away, forever and forever; the courage to fight, to retreat, to rally, to advance, to guard the young flag by the young arm and the young heart's blood, to hold up and hold on, till the magnificent ((nisumination crowned the work, — 356 THE SIXTH READER. were not all these impaired or inspired by this imperial sentiment ? Has it not here begun the master-work of man, the creation of a national life ? Did it not call out that pro- digious development of wisdom, the wisdom of con- structiveness which illustrated the years after the war, and the framing and adopting of the Constitution ? Has it not, in general, contributed to the administering of that government wisely and well since ? Look at it ! It has kindled us to no aims of conquest. It has involved us in no entangling alliances. It has kept our neutrality dignified and just. The victories of peace have been our prized victories. But the larger and truer grandeur of the nations, for which they are created, and for which they must one day, before some tribunal, give account, what a measure of these it has enabled us already to fulfil ! It has lifted us to the throne, and has set on our brow the name of the Great Republic. It has taught us to demand nothing wrong, and to submit to nothing wrong ; it has made our diplomacy sagacious, wary, and accomplished ; it has opened the iron gate of the moun- tain, and planted our ensign on the great tranquil sea. It has made the desert to bud and blossom as the rose ; it has quickened to life the giant brood of useful arts ; it has whitened lake and ocean with the sails of a daring, new, and lawful trade ; it has extended to exiles, flying as clouds, the asylum of our better liberty. It has kept us at rest within all our borders ; it has repressed without blood the intemperance of local insubor- dination ; it has scattered the seeds of liberty, under kw and under order, broadcast ; it has seen and helped Amer- ican feeling to swell into a fuller flood ; from many a field and many a deck, though it seeks not war, makes not THE RISING IN / 7' 357 war, and fears not war, it has borne the radiant flag, all unstained ; it has opened our age of lettered glory ; it has opened and honored the age of the industry of the people! LXXXIIL — THE RISING IN 1776. THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. Tbomab BiKTHAXASi Reao wm bom iu Chester County, Pennsylvania, March 12, /82*2. He U a portrait-iJaiuter by profession, but has published several volumes of poetry, among which are many pieces of decided merit. He has also edited a work entitled '* Specimens of the Female Poets of America." OUT of the North the wild news came, Far flashing on its wings of flame, Swift as tlie boreal light which flies At midnight through the startled skies. And there was tumult in the air, The fife's shrilTnote, the drum's loud beat, And through the wide land everywhere The answering tread of hurrying feet ; While the first oath of Freedom's gun Came on the blast from Lexington ; And Conconl, roused, no longer tame, Forgot her old baptismal name, Made bare her patriot arm of power, And swelled the discord of the hour. Within its shade of elm and oak The church of Berkley Manor stood ; There Sunday found the rural folk. And some esteemed of gentle blood. In vain their feet with loitering tread Passed mid the graves where rank is naught ; All could not read the lesson taught In that republic of the^ead. 358 THE SIXTH READER. How swopt the hour of Sabbath talk, The \;ilc \\ ith peace and sun-hinr full Where all the happy peoj)!*' walk, Decked in their hon^spun iiux and wool ! Where youth's gay hiats with blossoms bloom ; And every maid, with simple art, Wears on her breast, lik»^ h^r own licuit, A bud whose depth- ar. all perfume ; While every garment's gentle stir Is breathing rose and lavender. The paf«tor fame ; liis snowy looks Hallcwnl hi- hi'MW of iliMii-lit and care; And calmly, as sli. [.h. ids lead their flocks, He led into the huu^e of prayer. The pastor rose ; the prayer was strong ; The psalm was warrior David's song ; The text, a few short words of might, — " The Lord of hosts shall arm the right ! " He spoke of wrongs too long endured, Of sacred rights to be secured ; Then from his patriot tongue of flame The startling words for Freedom came. The stirring sentences he spake Compelled the heart to ghw r (juak.', And, rising ^ti his theme's broa His holiest places then are ours. His temples are our forts and towers. That frown upon the tyrant foe ; In this, the dawn of Fi-eedom's day, There is a time to tight and pray ! " And now before the open door — The warrior priest had ordered so — The enlisting trumpet's sudden roar Bang through the chapel, o'er and o'er, Its long r<*verberating blow. So loud anil clear, it seemed the eai Of dusty dejith must wake and hear. And there the startling drum and fife Fired the living with fiercer life ; While overhead, with wild increase, Forgetting its ancient toll of peace, The great bell swung as ne'er before : It seemed as it would never cease ; And every word its ardor flung From off its jubilant iron tongue Was, " War ! War ! War ! " " Who dares " — this was the patriot's cry, As striding from the desk he came — «(•..,..,. :...*■ ^^,j^), ,„f, j„ Fmodom's name. 360 THE SIXTH READER. For her to live, for lier to die ] " A hundred hands flung up reply, A hundred voices answered, " // " LXXXIV. — GOD. DERZHAVIN. OxBRrEL RoMAKOviTCH Derzhavin, % RiimUui lyiical poet, was bom In Kasan, July 3, 1743 ; and died July 6, 1816. He gained distinction in the military and civil service of hia country, and was made Secretar}' of State in 1791 by Catherine II. The following poem has been translated, not only into many Eurni)ean languages, but into those of China and Japan. It is said to have been hung up in the palace of the Eiiii»eror of Cliina, printed in gold letters on white satin. Sir John Bowring, in his •• Specimens of the Russian Poets," published in 1821, was the Hrst person who made the readers of England and America acquainted with the writings of Derzhavin and other Russian poets. OTHOU eternal-One ! whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide : Unchanged through timers all devastating flight ; Thou only God ! There is no God beside ! Being above all beings ! Mighty One ! Whom none can comprehend and none explore ; Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone : Embracing all, — supporting, — ruling o'er, — Being whom we call God, — and know no more ! In its sublime research, philosophy May measure out the ocean-deep, — may count The sands or the sun's rays, — but Grod ! for thee There is no weight nor measure ; none can mount Up to thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, Though kindle by thy light, in vain would try To trace thy counsels, infinite and dark ; And thought is lost ere thought can soar so high. Even like past moments in eternity. OOD. 361 Thou from primeval nothingness didst call. First chaos, then existence : Lord ! on thee Eternity had its foundation : all Sprung forth from thee : of light, joy, haraiony, Sole origin : all life, all beauty thine. Thy word created all, and doth create ; Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine. Thou art, and wert, and shalt be ! Glorious ! Great ! Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate ! Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround, Upheld by thee, by thee inspired with breath ! Thou the beginning with the end hast bound, And beautifully mingled life and death ! As sparks mount upwards from the fiery blaze, So suns are bom, so worlds spring forth from thee : And as the spangles in the sunny rays Shine round the silver snow, the pageantry Of heaven's bright army glitters in thy praise. A million torches lighted by thy hand Wander unwearied through tlie blue abyss : They own thy power, accomplish thy command, All gay with life, all eloquent witli bliss. What shall we call them *? Piles of crystal light, — A glorious company of golden streams, — Lamps of celestial ether burning briglit, — Suns lighting systems with their joyous beams 1 But thou to these art as the noon to night. Yes ! as a drop of water in the sea, All this magnificence in thee is lost. What are ten thousand worlds compared to thee 1 And wliat am / then 1 Hejiven's unnum])ered host, Tiiough multiphed by myriads, aud arrayed 362 Tin: sixth READER. In all the glory of sublimest thought, Is but an atom in the balance ; weighed Against thy greatness, is a ciplier brought Against infinity ! 0, wlmt .\m I then ] Naught ! Naught ! yet the effluence of thy light divine, Pervading worlds, hath readied my bosom too ; Yes ! in my spirit doth thy spirit shine, As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew. Naught ! yet I live, and on hope's pinions fly Eager towards thy presence ; for in thee I live, and breathe, and dwell ; aspiring high. Even to the throne of thy divinity. I am, God ! and surely thou must be ! Thou art ! directing, guiding all, thou art ! Direct my understanding, then, to thee ; Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart : Though but an atom midst immensity. Still I am something, fashioned T)y thy hand ! I hold a middle rank 'twixt heaven and earth. On the last verge of mortal l>eing stand. Close to the realms where angels have their birth; Just on the boundaries of the spirit-land ! The chain of being is complete in me ; In me is matter's last gradation lost. And the next step is sptrit, — Deity ! I can command the lightning, and am dust ! A monarch, and a slave ; a worm, a god ! Whence came I here ? and how so marvellously Constructed and conceived 1 unknown ! this clod Lives surely through some higher energy ; For from itself alone it could not be ! ABOUND YUSEMITE l^ALLS. 363 Creator, yes ! thy wisdom and thy word Createil nu ! thou source of lifo and good ! Thou spirit of my spirit, and my Lord ! Thy light, thy love, in their bright plenitude Filled me with an immorttd soul, to spring Over the abyss of lUiuth, and bade it wear The garments of eteruid day, and wing Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere. Even to its source, — to thee, its Author there thoughts ineffable ! visions blest ! Though worthless our conceptions all of thee, Yet shall thy shadowed image fill our breast, And waft its homage to thy Deity. God ! thus alone my lonely thoughts can soar ; Thus seek thy presence, Being wise and good ! Midst thy vast works admire, obey, adore ; And when the tongue is eloquent no more. The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude. LXXXV. — ABOUND YOSEMITE WALLS. CLARENCE KING. LATE in the afternoon of October 5, 1864, a party of us reached the edge of Yosemite,* and, looking down into the valley, saw that the summer haze had been banished from the region by autumnal frosts and wind. We looked in the gulf through air as clear as a vacuum, discerning small objects upon valley-floor and cliff-front. That splendid afternoon shadow which divides the face of El Capitan was projected far up and across the valley, cutting it in halves, — one a mosaic of russets and yellows • Pronounced Yu-s6m'i-te. 364 THE SIXTH READER. with dark pine and glimpse of white river ; the other a cobalt-blue zone, in which the familiar groves and mead- ows were suffused with shadow-tones. It is hard to conceive a more pointed contrast than this same view in October and June. Then, through a slum- berous yet transparent atmosphere, you look down upon emerald freshness of green, upon arrowy rush of swollen river, and here and there, along pearly cliffs, as from the clouds, tumbles white, silver dust of cataracts. The voice of full soft winds swells up over rustling leaves, and, pul- sating, throbs like the beating of far-off surf. All stern sub- limity, all geological terribleness, are veiled away behind magic curtains of cloud-shadow and broken light Misty brightness, glow of cliff and sparkle of foam, wealth of beau- tiful details, the charm of pearl and emerald, cool gulfs of violet shade stretching back in deep recesses of the walls, — these are the features which lie under the June sky. Now all that has gone. The shattered fronts of walls stand out sharp and terrible, sweeping down in broken crag and cliff to a valley whereon the shadow of autumnal death has left its solenmity. There is no longer an air of beauty. In this cold, naked strength, one who has crowded on him the geological record of mountain work, of granite plateau suddenly rent asunder, of the slow, im- perfect manner in which Nature has vainly striven to smooth her rough work, and bury the ruins with thou- sands of years' accumulation of soil and debris* Already late, we hurried to descend the trail, and were still following it when darkness overtook us ; but the ani- mals were so well acquainted with every turn, that we found no difficulty in continuing our way to Longhurst's house, and here we camped for the night. » Dihris (da-bre'), fragments detached fix>m the siumuits and sides of mountains. AROUND YOSEMITE WALLS. 365 By night we had climbed to the top o'f the northern wall, camping at the head- waters of a small brook, named by emotional Mr. Hatchings, I believe, the Virgin's Tears. A charnung camp-ground was formed by bands of rus- set meadow wandering in vistas through a stately forest of dark green fir-trees unusually feathered to the base. Little mahogany-colored pools surrounded with sphagnum* lay in the meadows, offering pleasant contrast of color. Our camp-ground was among clumps of thick firs, which completely walled in the fire, and made close overhang- ing shelters for table and beds. The rock under us was one sheer sweep of thirty-two hundred feet ; upon its face we could trace the lines of fracture and all prominent lithological changes. Directly beneath, outspread like a delicately tinted chart, lay the lovely park of Yosemite, winding in and out about the solid white feet of precipices which sunk into it on either side ; its sunlit surface invaded by the shadow of the south wall ; its spires of pine, open expanses of buff and drab meadow, and families of umber oaks, rising as background for the vivid green river-margin and flaming orange masses of frosted cottonwood foliage. Deep in front, the Bridal- Veil Brook made its way through the bottom of an open gorge, and plunged off the edge of a thousand-foot cliff, falling in white water-dust and drifting in pale translucent clouds out over the tree- tops of the valley. Directly opposite us, and forming the other gate-post of the valley's entrance, rose the great mass of Cathedral Rocks, — a group quite suggestive of the Florence Cuomo, But our grandest view was eastward, above the deep sheltered valley and over the tops of those terrible granite • Pronounced RpBg'ni^ni. A kind of fragrant moss. 366 nil-: SIXTH READER. walls, out upon rolling ridges of stone and wonderful granite domes. Nothing in the whole list of iiruptive ^ products, except volcanoes themselves, is so wonderful as those domed mountains. They are of every variety of AROUND YUSEMlTh IF ALLS. 367 conoidal form, having horizontal sections accurately eUip- tical, ovoid, or circular, and profiles varying from such semicircles as the cap behind the Sentinel to the graceful infinite curves of the North Dome. Above and beyond tliese, stretch back long Uire ridges connecting with sunny summit i)eaks. The whole region is one solid granite mass, with here and there shallow soil layers, and a thin variable forest, which grows in picturesque mode, defining the leading lines of erosion, as an artist deepens here and there a line to hint at some structural peculiarity. A complete physical exposure of the range, from sum- mit to base, lay before us. At one extreme stand sharp- ened peaks, white in fretwork of glistening ice-bank, or black, where tower straight Ixilts of snowless rock ; at the other, stretch away plains smiling with a broad hon- est brown under autumn sunlight. They are not quite lovable even in distant tranquillity of hue, and just es- cape being interesting in spite of their familiar rivers and associated belts of oak. Nothing can ever render them quite charming, for, in the startling splendor of flower- clad April, you are surfeited with an embarrassment of l)eauty, at all other times stunned by their poverty. Not so the summits ; forever new, full of individuality, rich in detail, and coloring themselves anew under every cloud- change or hue of heaven, they lay you under their spell. From them the eye comes back over granite waves and domes to the sharp precipice-edges overhanging Yosemite. We look down those vast, hard, gi-anite fronts, cracked and splintered, scarred and stained, down over gorges crammed with debris or dark with files of climbing pines. Lower, the precipice-feet are wrapped in meadow and grove, and Ixjyond, level and sunlit, lies the floor, — that 368 THE SIXTH READER. smooth river-cut i)ark, with exquisite perfection of finish. An excursion which Cotter and I made to the top of the Three Brothers proved of interest. A half-hour's walk from camp, over rolling granite country, brought us to a ridge which jutted boldly out from the plateau to the edge of the Yosemite wall. Here again we were on the verge of a precipice, this time four thousand two hun- dred feet high. Beneath us the whole upper half of the valley was as clearly seen as the southern half had been from Capitan. The sinuosities of the Merced, those nar- row silvery gleams which indicate the channel of the Yosemite Creek, the broad expanse of meadow, and debris trains which had bounded down the Sentinel slope, were all laid out under us, though diminished by immense depth. The loftiest and most magnificent parts of the walls crowded in a semicircle in front of us ; above them the domes, lifted even higher than ourselves, swept down to the precipice-edges. Directly to our left, we overlooked the goblet-like recess into which the Yosemite tumbles, and could see the white torrent leap through its granite lip, disappearing a thousand feet below, hidden from our view by projecting crags ; its roar floating up to us, now resounding loudly, and again dying off in faint reverbera- tions, like the sounding of the sea. I found it extremest pleasure to lie there alone on the dizzy brink, studying the fine sculpture of cliff and crag, and watching that slow grand gro^vth of afternoon shadows. Sunset found me there, still disinclined to stir, and re- paid me by a glorious spectacle of color. At this hour there is no more splendid contrast of light and shade than one sees upon the western gateway itself, — dark-shad- owed Capitan upon one side, profiled against the sunset THE CONQUERORS GRAVE. 369 sky, and the yellow mass of Cathedral Rocks rising oppo- site in full light, while the valley is divided equally be- tween sunshine and shade. Pine groves and oaks almost black in the shadow are brightened up to clear red- browns where they pass out upon the lighted plain. The Merced, upon its mirror-like expanse, here reflects deep blue from Capitan, and there the warm Cathedral gold. LXXXVI.— THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE. BRYANT. This poem, which appeared originally in " Putnam's Magazine," i» one of the most lieantiful compositions that ever was written ; admirable in sentiment, admirable in expression. From such poetry we leani how much we owe to those poets whose genius is under the control of moral feeling ; who make the imagination and the sense of beauty ministering servants at the altar of the highest good and the highest truth. WITHIN this lowly grave a conqueror lies ; And yet the monument proclaims it not, Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought The emblems of a fame that never dies, — Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf Twined with the laurel's fair,' imperial leaf. A simple name alone, To the great world unknown, Is graven here, and >vild-flowers rising round, Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground. Lean lovingly a^jainst the humble stone. lien*, ill tin* (Hiict eartli, thoy laid apart Xo man of iron mould and bloody hands, WHio sought to AVHjak upon the cowering lands The passions timt roiisiinio<1 1"*^ focfl<^c^ lionrt ; 370 THE SIXTH READER. But one of tender spirit and delicate frame. Gentlest in mien and mind Of gentle womankind, Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame ; One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made Its hamit, like flowers by sunny brooks in May ; Yet at the thought of others' pain, a shade Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. Nor deem that when the hand that moulders here Was raised in menace, realms were chilled with fear, And armies mustered at the sign, as when Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy east, — Gray captains leading bands of veteran men And fiery youths to be the vultures' feast. Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave The victory to her who fills this grave ; Alone her task was wrought ; Alone the battle fought ; Through that long strife her constant hope was staid On God alone, nor looked for other aid. She met the hosts of sorrow with a look That altered not beneath the frown they wore ; And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took Meekly her gentle rule, and frowned no more. Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, And calmly broke in twain The fiery shafts of pain, And rent the nets of passion from her path. By that victorious hand despair was slain : With love she vanquished hate, and overcame Evil with good in her great Master's name. Her glory is not of this shadowy state^ Glory that "vvith the fleeting season dies ; SONG OF THE GREEKS. 371 But when sho qptered at the sapphire gate, Wliat joy was nicliant in celestial eyes ! How heaven's bright deptlis with sounding welcomes rung, And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung ! And He who, long before, Pain, sconi, and sorrow bore, The mighty Sufferer, \y\th aspect sweet, Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat, - — He who, returning glorious from the grave. Dragged death, disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave. See, as I linger here, the sun grows low ; Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near. O gentle sleeper, from thy grave I go Consoled, though sad, in hope, and yet in fear I Brief is the time, I know. The warfare scarce begun ; Yet till may win the triumphs thou hast won ; Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee ; The victors' names are yet too few to fill Heaven's mighty roll ; the glorious armory That ministered to thee is open still. LXXXVII. — SONG OF THE GREEKS. CAMPBELU TnsBK stirring lines were written while the struggle between the Greeks nnd Turks was going on, whioh ended in the pstAblishment of Greece as an independent king- dom. A(.Al>i Uj Uu; balilo, At.li.tians ! Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance ; (hir land, — the first garden of Liberty's tree, — It luitli Imm'h. :in.l shall VL't be. ihv. land of the free : 372 THE SI. \ -I II READER. For the cross of our faith is replanted, The pale dying crescent is daunted, And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves. Their spirits are hovering o'er us, And the sword shall to glory restore us. Ah ! what though no succor advances, Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances Are stretched in our aid ? — Be the combat our own ! And we '11 perish or conquer more proudly alone ! For we 've sworn by our country's assaulters. By the virgins they 've dragged from our altars, By our massacred patriots, our children in chains. By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins, That, living, we shall be victorious, Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious. A breath of submission we breathe not : The sword that we 've drawn we will sheathe not : Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid. And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade. Earth may hide, waves ingulf, fire consume us ; But they shall not to slavery doom us. If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves : But we 've smote them already with lire on the waves, And new triumphs on land are before us : To the charge ! — Heaven's banner is o'er us. This day, — shall ye blush for its story. Or brighten your lives with its glory ? — Our women, — 0, say, shall they shriek in despair, Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair ? Accursed may his memory blacken, K a coward there be who would slacken PARENTAL ODE TO MY INFANT SON. 373 Till we 've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth. Strike home ! — and the world shall revere us As heroes descended fix>m heroes. Old Greece lightens up with emotion ! Her inlands, her isles of the ocean, Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns shall with jubilee ring. And the Nine * shall new hallow their Helicon's t spring. Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness. That were cold, and extinguished in sadness ; Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms. Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms, — When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens ! LXXXVm. —PARENTAL ODE TO MY INFANT SON. HOOD. Thomas Hood was born in London in 1798, and died in 1845. He was destined for commercial punuits, and at an early age was placed in a connting-honse in his native city. Being of a delicate constitution, his health began to fail ; and at the age of fif- teen he was sent to Dundee, in Scotland, to reside with some relatives. But his tastes were strongly literary ; and at the age of twenty-three he embraced the profession of letters, and began to earn his bread by his pen. His life was one of severe toil, and, Irom his delicate health and sensitive temperament, of much suflTering, alwaj's sus- tained, however, with manly resolution and a cheerful spirit. He wrote much, both in proee and verse. His worl(s consist, for the most part, of collected contributions to magaiines and periodicals. His novel of "Tylney Hall" was not very succe-ssflil. His " Whims and Oddities," of which three volumes were published, and his •' Hood's Own," are the most popular of his writings. " Up the Rhine " is the narrative of an imaginary tour in Germany by a family party. " Whimsicalities " is a collection of his contributions to the " New Monthly Magazine," of which he was at one time the editor. At the time of his death he was conducting a periodical called " Hood's Magazine." in which some of his best pieces appear. Hood was a man of peculiar and original genios, which manlfteted itself with eqna) * The Muses, nine goddesses who presided over the liberal arts. t A mountain in Greece, sacred to Aik)I1o and the Mnse.m an Address delivered in Boston, June 17, 1874, at an entertainment in aid of the Washington Medallion Fund. FORTY-NINE years ago I had the privilege, in my capacity as aid to Governor Lincoln, to stand next to General Lafayette wlien he laid the corner-stone of the Monument on Bunker Hill. It is impossible for per- sons of this generation to realize the enthusiasm with which his return was greeted ; all knew that when he applied, in 1776, to our commissioners in Paris, for a pas- sage in the first ship they should despatch to America, they were obliged to answer him that they possessed not the means or the credit sufficient for providing a single vessel in all the ports of Franca " Then," exclaimed the youthful hero, "I will provide my own." And it is a literal fact, that when all America was too poor to offer him so much as a passage to her shores, he left, in his tender youth, the bosom of a home where domestic hap- piness, wealth, and honor awaited him, to plunge in the blood and dust of our inauspicious struggle. And his reappearance, after an absence of forty years, was almost as if his friend George Washington had re- turned on the scene. On the 15th of June, after having, in four months, travelled over five thousand miles, and visited the country from Maine to Florida, and received the homage of our sixteen Republics, — a fact, before the invention of railways, almost without a parallel, — La- LAFAYETTE'S VISIT TO AMERICA IN 1825. 377 fayette reached Boston to witness the celebration of the fiftietli anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill. The day dawned with uncommon splendor. The State of Massachusetts had made an appropriation to pay the expenses of every soldier of the Kevolution who reported himself on that day ; and almost every survivor of that venerable band, who resided in New England, had availed himself of her bounty. From my ofticial relations, T wit- nessed the meeting of these veterans. They had parted nearly half a century before. Their subsequent lot in life, or even their continued existence, had been to each other unknown. They met and recognized one another witli almost the feelings of boys. The recollections of the past pressed upon their memories ; and the flame of life that had become almost dormant in their bosoms flashed out with its early briglitness before it expired. Forty years before, their patriot souls had scorned tlie advice not to disband until the nation had paid for their services, and they left the army poor, and, from their mil- itary experiences, unfitted to prosper in the usual avoca- tions of life. The visit of T^fayette, and the recognition tlirough him and with him of their services, was to them like the breaking out of the setting sun after a day of storms, revealing the beauty of the land for whicli they had suffered, and giving them the hope of a brighter to-morrow. The Masonic and military show of the procession had never been surpassed, but the great interest of the scene arose from the presence of the survivors of the army of the Revolution. Of these, two hundred officers and sol- diers led tlie way, and forty, who had fought at Bunker Hill, followed in carriages. Lafayette was the only staff officer of that venerable band ; and seven captains, three lieutenants, and one ensign constituted all the other offi- cers that remained. 378 THE SIXTH READER. The first exercise of the day had a peculiar interest. The occasion was of course to be consecrated by prayer and the venerable Joseph Thaxter, chaplain of Prescott's own regiment, rose to officiate. Fifty years before he had stood upon that spot, and in the presence of many for whom that morning sun should know no setting, called upon Him, wlio can save by many or by few, for his aid in the approaching struggle. His presence brought the scene vividly -to our view. In imagination, we could almost hear the thunder of the broadsides that ushered in that eventful morning. We could almost see l^escott and Warren and their gal- lant host pausing from their labors to listen to an invoca- tion to Him before whom many before nightfall were to appear. We could almost realize what thoughts must have filled the minds of patriots before that first deci- sive conflict. Since then, everj'thing liad changed, except the Being l^efore whom we bowed. He alone is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. The prayer was followed by a hymn, written by Mr. Pierpont, wliich, sung by the vast multitude to the tune of Old Hundred, produced a tlirilliiii^' effect: — "0, is not this a holy spot : 'Tis the high place of freedom's birth : — God of our fathers I is it not The holiest spot on all the earth ? '* Quenched is thy flame on Horeb's side, The robbers roam o'er Sinai now, And those old men, thy seers, abide No more on Ziou's mournful T)row. " But on this sjwt, thou, Lord, hast dwelt Since round its head the war-cloud curled, And wrapped our fathers, where they knelt In prayer and battle for a world. PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 379 Here sleeps their dust : "t is holy ground, And we, the children of the brave, From the four winds have gathered round To lay our offering on their grave. Free as the winds that round us blow, Free as yon waves before us spread, We rear a pile, that long shall throw Its shadow on their sacred bed. ' But on their deeds no shade shall fall While o'er their couch thy sun shall flame. Thine ear was bowed to hear their call, And thy right hand shall guard their fame.". XC. — PEESONAL INFLUENCE WILLIAM R. WILLIAMS, D. D. William R Williams, D. D., an American clergymui. was born in the city of New York. October 14, 1804. He was graduated at Columbia College in 18*22. He studied law and was admitted to practice, but soon after embraced the clerical profession, and was settled In 1831 over the Baptist congregation in Amity Street, New York. where he has since resided. He has published " I.«rturps on the Ix)rd'8 Prayer," "Religioos Progress," and a volume of miscellaneous addresses. He has a high reputation as an earnest and eloquent preacher of the gospel. THE world is filled with the countless and interlacing filaments of influence, which spread from individual to individual, over the whole face and framework of soci- ety. The infant, wailing and helpless in tlie arms of his mother, already wields an influence felt through the whole household, his fretfulness disturbing or his serene smiles gladdening that entire home. And as, with added years, his faculties are expanded, and the sphere of his acti\ity widens itself, his influence increases. Every man whom he meets, much more whom he moulds and governs, becomes the more happy or the more wTetched, the better or the worse, according to the character of his spirit and example. 380 THE SIXTH READER. Nor can he strip from himself this influence. If he flee away from the society of his fellows to dwell alone in the wilderness, he leaves behind him the example of neglected duty, and the memory of disregarded love, to afflict the family he has abandoned. Even in the path- less desert, he finds his own feet caught in the torn and entangled web of influence that bound him to society; and its cords remain wherever he was once known, send- ing home to the hearts that twined around him sorrow and pain. Nor can the possessor of it expect it to go down into the grave with him. The sepulchre may have closed in silence over him, and his name may have per- ished from among men ; yet his influence, nameless as it is, and untraceable by human eye, is floating over the face of society. No man leaves the world in all things such as he found it The habits which he was instrumental in forming may go on from century to century, an heirloom for good or for evil, doing their work of misery or of liappiness, blasting or blessing the country that has now lost all record of his megiory. In the case of some, this influ- ence is most sensible. Every age l>eholds and owns their power. And thus it is, that, although centuries have roUed their inter- vening tide between the age of their birth and our own, and the empires under which they flourished have long since mouldered away from the soil whence they sprung, and the material frame of the author himself lias been trampled down into undistinguishable dust, the writers of classical antiquity are still living and laboring among us. The glorious dreams of Plato still float be- fore the eye of tlie metaphysician, and the genius of Homer tinges with its own light the whole firmament of modern invention. PERSONAL INFLUENCE. 381 Nor, unhappily, is this all. Corruption is yet oozing out, in lessons of profligacy and atheism, from the pages of an Ovid and a Lucretius, and, as if from their gi-aves, streams forth the undecaying rankness of vice and false- hood, although the dominion of the world has long since passed from the halls of their Caesars, and the very lan- guage they employed has died away from the lips of man. The Church yet feels, throughout all lands, the influ- ence of the thoughts that passed, in the solitude of mid- night, through the bosom of Paul, as he sat in the shad- ows of his prison, a lone, unbefriended man, — thoughts which, lifting his manacled hand, he spread in his epistles before the eyes of men, there to remain forever. It feels yet the effect of the pious meditations of David, when roaming on the hillside a humble shepherd lad, of the family piety of Abraliam, and of the religious nurture that trained up the infancy of Moses. Every nation is affected at this moment by the moral power that emanated from the despised Noah, as that preacher of righteousness sat among his family, perhaps dejected and faint from un- successful toil, teaching them to call upon God when all the families of the earth beside had forgotten him. And if the mind, taking its flight from the narrow pre- cincts of these walls, were to wander abroad along the peopled highways and to the farthest hamlets of our own land, and, passing the seas to traverse distant realms and barbarous coasts, every man whom its travels met, nay, every being of human mould that has ever trodden this earth in earlier ages, or is now to be found among its moving myriads, has felt or is feeling the influence of the thoughts of a solitary woman, who, centuries ago, stood debating the claims of conscience and of .sin, nmiil the verdant glories of the yet unforfeited Paradisi 382 THE SIXTH READER, . XCI. — SPEECH ON THE AMEKICAN WAR CHATHAM. William Pitt, E«rl of Chatham, was bom in Boconnoc, in the county of Cornwall, England, November 15, 1708 ; and died at Hayes, in Kent, May 11, 1778. He entered the Hoose of Comniuns in 1735, became Secretary of State, and substantially Prime Minister, in December, 175<1; and continaed to hold this office, with a brief interval, till October, 1761. In 176G he received the office of Lord Privy Seal, and was elevated to tlie peerage with the title of Earl of Chatham. He resigned the Privy Seal in 1768, and subsequently took a leading part in many popular questions. Chatham's name is one of the most iUustrioos In Eng^h history. Dr. Franklin said that in the course of his life he bad sometimes leen eloquence without wisdom, and often wisdom without eloquence ; in Lord Chatham alone had he seen both united. His eloquence, vivid, impetuous, and daring, was aided by uncommon per- sonal advantages, — a commanding presence, an eye of fire, and a voice of equal sweet- ness and power. His character was lofty, his private life was spotless, and his motives high. His temper was somewhat wayward, and he was impatient of oppo- sition or contradiction. &is memory is cherished with peculiar reverence in our country, because of his earnest and consistent support of the rigbts of the Colonies against the measures of Lord North's administration. The following speech was delivered in the House of Lords, November 18, 1777. The king had opened the session of Parliament with a speech from the throne, recom- mending a ftirther and more enezgetiu prosecution of the war to reduce the American Colonies to submission. To the address in reply to this speech, and simply echoing its sentiments, Chatham offered an amendment, proposing an immediate cessation of hostilities, and adequate measures of conciliation. The birth of the Princess Sophia, one of the daughters of George III., had recently taken place, and was alluded to in the address. I RISE, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, nothing can remove, but which impels me to endeavor its alleviation, by a free and unreserved communication of my sentiments. In tlie first part of the address I have the honor of heartily concurrihg with the noble earl who moved it No man feels sincerer joy than I do ; none can offer more genuine congratulations on every accession of strength to the Protestant succession. I therefore join in every congratulation on the birth of another princess, and the happy recovery of her Majesty. But I must stop here. My courtly complaisance will SPEECH A //// AMEKICAN WAR. 383 carry me no further. I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I cannot concur in a blind and servile address, which a})proves and endeavors to sanctify the monstrous measures wliich have heaped dis- grace and misfortune upon us. This, ray lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment ! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot now avail, — cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the Throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the illusion and the darkness which envelop it, and display in its full danger and true colors the ruin that is brought to our doors. This, my lords, is our duty. It is the proper function of this noble assembly, sitting, as we do, upon our honors in this house, the hereditary council of the Crown. Who is the minister, where is the minister, that has dared to suggest to the Throne the contrary, unconstitutional language this day delivered from it? The accustomed language from the Throne has been application to Parlia- ment for advice, and a reliance on its constitutional ad- vice and assistance. As it is the right of Parliament to give, so it is the duty of the Crown to ask it. But on this day, and in this extreme momentous exigency, no reliance is reposed on our constitutional counsels ! no advice is asked from the sober and enlightened care of Parliament ! But the Crown, from itself and by itself, declares an unalterable determination to pursue measures, — and what measures, my lords ? The measures that have produced the imminent perils that threaten us; the measures that have brought ruin to our doors. Can the minister of the day now presume to expect a continuance of support in this ruinous infatuation ? Can pMrl.-ii.H.nf 1h» <,, dead U) its (.MiL:o(^ to rclinrpii.^li \\\^ at- tempt, and witli Liivat delay and daii-cr id adopt a iicw and distinct plan ^r cix-iat iuii>. W'c .->li;ill soon know, and in any event iiave reason to lament, what may liaM- happened since. As to conquest, thL^refore, my lords, 1 repeat, it is impossildr. You may swell every expense and every effort >\\\\ more extravagantly, pile ami accumulate every !i>-i>t- ance you can buy or Ik. now, traffic and l.artcr whIi every little jiitilul German prince that sells and -. mN \\\< subjects to the slianiblos of a foreign despot, your eHorts are forever vain and impotent, — doubly so from this mercenary ailunder, devoting them and their possessions to tlic lajiaeiiy of liindinL: cniehy ! If I weii- an American, as I am an Knglisiunan, whih' a lorei-n iioop was landed in mv country, I nevi-r would lay down my arms, — never, — never, — never. A' XCIL — ALPiXK s(i:xi:i:v. BVIioN. BOVK me are tlie Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose va>t walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy x aljis. And throned Ktornity in icy halls Of cold suhliniity. where forms an he became one of the eoetical production is his translation of Goethe's " Faust," in which the original metres are often imitated with exquisite skill I GREET with a full heart the land of the west, Whose banner of stars o'er the earth is unrolled, Whose empire o'ershadows Atlantic's wide breast. And opes to the sunset its gateway of gold ; The land of the mountain, the land of the lake, And rivers that roll in magnificent tide, Where tlie souls of the mighty from slumber awake To hallow the soil for whose freedom they died. Thou cradle of empire, though wide be the foam That severs the land of my fathers from thee, I hear from thy children the welcome of home. For song has a home in the hearts of the free ; And long as thy waters shall gleam in the sun, And long as thy heroes remember their scars, Be the hamls of thy children united as one, And may peace shed her light on thy banner of stars • HYMN OF PRAISE BY ADAM AND EVE. 395 XCVL — liiM.N OF PRAISE BY ADAM AND EVE. MILTON. JoBM Milton wu born in London. December 9, 1608; and died November 8. 1674. Bi« i« one of the greatest names in all literature ; and of course it wuuld be inifiossi- ble in the comi|«ss or a brief notice like thitt to |M>int out, except in the most cumory uuwner, the elements of his intellectual supremacy. His "Comus," "Lycidas," *• L'Alleyro," " U Penaeroso." and " Arcades " were written before he was thirty years old ; •* Paradise Lust," " Paradise Re^aiued," and " Samson Agonistes " were all pul»- lished after his fifty-ninth year, and many years after he had been totally blind. His prose worlcs were the j,Towth of the iutermediate peri«jd. Milton's early poetry is full of morning freshness and the spirit of unworn youth; the "Paradise Lost" is characterized by the highest sublimity, the most various learning, and the noblest pictures; and the "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes " have a serene and solemn grandeur, depeening in the latter into auster- ity ; while all are markiHl by imaginative power, purity, and elevation of tone, and the finest harmony of verse. His prose works, which are partly in Latin and partly in English, were for the most part called forth by the ecclesiastical and political controversies of the stormy period in which he lived. They are vigorous and elo(iuent in style, and abound in passages of the highest lieauly and loftiest tone of sentiment. Milton's character is liardly less worthy of admiration than his genius. Spotless in morals; simjdc in his tastes ; of ardent piety ; l)earing with cheerfulness the burdens of blindness, poverty, and neglect; bending his genius to the humblest duties, — he ]iresents an exalte*l model of excellence, in which we can Hnd nothing to qualify our reverence, except a certain severity of temi)er, and perhaps a somewhat impatient and intolerant spirit. The following passage is ttom the fifth book of " Paradise Lost" THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty ! Thine this universal frame, Tlius wondrous fair ! Thyself how wondrous then, Unsixjakable ! wlio sittest above these heavens. To us invisible, or dimly seen In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. SiKjak, ye who bast can tell, ye sons of light, Angels ; for ye behold him, and with songs And choral symphonies, day without night, Circle his throne rejoicing ; ye in heaven. On earth join all ye creatures to extol 396 THE SIXTH READER. Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn. Sure pledge of day, that crownest the smiling mom With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere. While day arises, that sweet hour of prime. Thou sun, of this great worid both eye and soul, Acknowledge him thy greater ; sound his praise In thy eternal course, both when thou climbest, And when high noon ha.st gained ; and when thou fallest. Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray, Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold, In honor to the worid's great Author rise ; Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky, Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers, liising or falling, still advance his praise. His praise, ye winds that from four quarters blow. Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye pines, With every plant, in sign of worship wave. Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow. Melodious munnurs, warbling tune his praise. Join voices, all ye living souls ; ye binls, That singing up to heaven's gate ascend. Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk The earth and stately tread or lowly creep ; Witness if I be silent, morn or even, To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade. Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise. Hail, universal Lord, be bounteous still To give us only good ; and if the night Have gathered aught of evil or concealed, Disperse it, as more light dispels the dark. UNION AND LIBERTY. 397 XCVIL — UNION AND LIBERTY. O. W. HOLMES. Oliteb WEHDEtx Hounss. M. D., waa bom in Cambridge, Massachnsetta, August 20. 1809 ; waa graduated at Harvard College in 18*29, and cooinienced the practice of medicine in Boston in 1836. He baa been for many years one of the professore in the medical department of Harvanl College, and he is understood to be highly skilfal tioth in the theory and ]»racti(*e of his profeasion. He began to write })oetry at quite an early age. Hl« longest pnxluctious are occasioiud poeniH which have been reciter the birthright of man ! 398 THE SIXTH READER. Yet, if by madness and treachery bliglitcd, Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, Then, with the arms of thy millions united. Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law ! Lord of the Universe ! shield us and guide us, Trusting thee always, through shadow and sun ! Thou hast united us, who shall divide us 1 Keep us, keep us, the Many in One ! Up with our banner bright. Sprinkled with starry light. Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore ; While through the sounding sky. Loud rings the nation's cry, — Union and Liberty ! — one evermore ! XCVIIL — JAMES OTIS. SUMNER. The following is an extrart tram a speech by Charles Sninner, delivered in the Sen- ate, Februarj' 2, 1866, on a Joint resolution carrying out the gnaniuty of a republican fomi of government THE cause of human liberty, in this great controver- sy, found a voice in James Otis, a young lawyer of eloquence, learning, and courage, whose early words, like the notes of the morning bugle mingling with the dawn, awakened the whole country. Asked by the merchants of Boston to speak at the bar against WTits of assistance, issued to enforce ancient acts of Parliament, he spoke both as lawyer and as patriot, and so doing became a statesman. His speech was the most important, down to that occasion, ever made on this side of the ocean. JAMES OTIS, 390 An earnest contemporary who was present says, " No harangue of Demosthenes or Cicero ever had such effect u[)on the globe as that speech." It was the harbinger of a new era. For live hours the brilliant orator unfolded the character of these acts of Parliament; for live houra he held the court-room in rapt and astonished admiration ; but his effort ascended into statesmanship when, alter showing that the colonists were witliout representiition in Parliament, he cried out, that, notwithstanding this exclu- sion, Parliament had undertaken to " impose taxes, and enonnous taxes, buixlensome taxes, oppressive, ruinous, intolerable taxes"; and then, glowing with generous in- dignation at tliis injustice, he launched that thunderbolt of politi(^il truth, "Taxation without representation is Tyranny." From the narrow court-room where he spoke, the thunderbolt passed, smiting and blasting the intoler- able pretension. It was the idea of John Locke ; but the fervid orator, with tongue of flame, gave to it tlie intensity of his own genius. He found it in a book of philosophy ; but he sent it forth a winged messenger blazing in the sky. John Adams, then a young man just admitted to the bar, was i)resent at the scene, and he dwells on it often with sympathetic delight. There in the old Town House of IJoston sat the live judges of tlie Province, with Hutch- inson as chief justice, in robes of scarlet, cambric bands, and judicial wigs ; and there, too, in gowns, bands, and tie-wigs, were the barristers. Conspicuous on the wall were full-length portraits of two British monarchs, Charles II. and James II., while in the corners were the likenesses of Massachusetts governors. In tliis presence the great oration was delivered. The patriot lawyer had refused (•ompen.sation. " In such a cause as this," said he, " I dospise a fee." He six)ke for country and for mankind. 400 THE ^IXTU READER. Firmly he planted himself on the rights of man, which, he insisted, were by the everlasting law of nature inherent and inalienable ; and these rights, he nobly proclaimed, were common to all without distinction of color. To sup- pose them surrendered in any other way than by equal rules and general consent^ was to suppose men idiots or mad, whose acts are not binding. But he especially flew at two arguments of tyranny : first, that the colonists were " virtually " represented ; and, secondly, that there was such a difference between direct and indirect taxation, that while the former might be questionable, the latter was not. To these two apologies he replied, first, that no such phrase as " virtual represen- tation " was known in law or constitution ; that it is altogether subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd ; and that we must not be cheated by any such phantom, or other fiction of law or politics : and then, with the same crushing force, he said that in the absence of representation all taxation, whether direct or indirect, whether internal or external, whether on land or tradt \\ a> equally obnoxious to the same unhesitating condemnation. The effect was electric. The judges were stunned into silence, and postponed judgment. The people were aroused to a frenzy of patriotism. " American Indepen- dence," says John Adams, in the record of his impressions, " was then and there born ; the seeds of patriots and heroes wei-e then and there sown, to defend the vigorous youth. Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born." THE PAUPERS DEATH-BED. 401 XCIX. — THE PAUPER'S DEATH ^^Y^^. C. a SOUTH EY. Caboliitk Axif B0WI.1S, who became, June 4, 1839, the second wife of Robert Sou they, WM born «t l.yniington, Ent{lnnd, December 0. 1780; and died July 20, 1854. She is the author of " Chapter* on Churchyards," " Ellen Pltz Arthur," and other worlcs. She is bejjt known by her poetr>', which is remarkable for tenderness and depth of feeling. TREAD softly, — bow the head In reverent silence low ; No passing bell doth toll, Yet an immortal soul Is passing now. Stranger, however great, With lowly reverence bow ; There is one in that poor shed, One by that paltry bed, Greater than thou. Beneath that beggar's roof, Lo ! Death doth keep his state ; Enter, — no crowds attend ; Enter, — no guards defend This palace gate. That pavement, damp and cold, No smiling courtiers tread ; One silent woman stands, Lifting with meagre hands A dying head. No mingling voices sound, — An infant M'ail alone ; A sob suppressed, — again That short, deep gasp, and then The paiting groan. .102 THE SIXTH READER. O change ! O wondrous change ! Burst are the prison bars ; This moment there, so low, So agonized, and now Beyond the stars ! O change ! stupendous change ! Tliere lies the soulless clod ! The sun eternal breaks, — The new-born immortal wak^s, - AVakes with his God ! C — SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS. KELLOGG. Elijah Kellooo wnii bora in Portland, Maine, and was gruduatni at Bowdoin Col- lege in 18*0. In J844 he waa ordained over tlie Congregational Sm-jety of HaritswelL In 1856 he removed to Boston, and liecanie })a8tatrunage of the Boston Seamen's Friend Society. He has since coutiuued to reside there. The following is a supposed speech of Spartarus. who was a real personage. He was a Thracian by birth, and a gUtdiator, who heade«i a rebellion of gladiators and slaves against the Romans, which waa not sui»prea8e«l until after a long struggle, in which he »howe«l great energy and ability. A prator was a Roman magistrate. Tlie vestal virgins wer« priMtesses of Vesta. Tliey luwl a conspicuous yXm-e at the gladiatorial shows. The ancients attached great importance to the rites of sepulture, and b»'lieved that, if the VwHly were not buried, the soul could not cross the Styx, and reach the Elysian Fields, tlie abtnle of the departed spirits of the good. IT had l)i'L'ii a day of triumph .in Cai)ua. Lvniuhis. retuniing with victorious eagles, had amused the pop- ulace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent liitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away ; the roar of the lion had ceased ; the last lo^rer had retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of tlie victor were extinguished. SPAIiTAL'ii> T" in I- '''i-M'l^^' •'■ ^ -^^^-^ Tlie moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered tlie (k'wdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Voltiimus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when the zephyr sways tlie young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary wave, telling its story to the smooth peb- bles of the beach, and tlieu all wa« still {is the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the ampitheatre a band of glad- iators were crowded together, — their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their brows, — when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, tlius a<.ldres.sed them : — " Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arena every sliape of man or beast tliat the broad Empire of Rome could furnislv, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if there be one among you who can say that, ever, in pub- lic fight or private bmwl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If there be three in all your throni: dan' faro me on the bloody sand, let tliom come on ! •* Yet, I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of savage men. My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brouglit to the rural deities his offerings of fruits and flowers. He dwelt among the vine- clad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. Aly early life ran quiet as the brook l>y which I sported 1 was taught to prune the vine, to tend the flock ; and then, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneatli the shade, and pl.iyed upon the shepheixl's flute. I had a friend, the son 404 THE SIXTH READER. of our neighbor ; we led our flocks to the same pasture, and shared together our rustic meaL "One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuc- tra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned. I knew not why ; and 1 clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars, " That very night the Romans landed on our shore, and the clasli of steel was heard within our quiet vale. 1 saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the iron hoof of the war-horse ; the bleeding body of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling. To-day I killed a man in the arena, and when I broke his helmet clasps, behold ! he was my friend ! He knew me, — smiled faintly, — gasped, — and died; the same sweet smile that I had marked upon his face when, in adventurous l>oy- hood, we scaled some lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph, I told the pnetor he was my friend, noble and brave, and I begged his body, that I might burn it upon the funeral- pile, and mourn over him. Ay, on my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that boon, while all the Roman maids and matrons, and those holy virgins they call vestal, and the rabble, shouted in mockery, deem- ing it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale, and tremble like a very child, l^efore that piece of bleeding clay ; but the pnetor drew back as if I were SPARTACU^i TU Tiih ' . i.A I 'I AT"i:S. 405 pollution, and sternly said, ' Let the carrion rot ! Tliere are ;io noble men but Romans ! * And he, deprived of funeral rites, must wander, a hapless ghost, beside the waters of that sluggish river, and look — and look — and look in vain to the bright Elysian Fields where dwell his ancestors and noble kindred. And so nmst you, and so must T, die like dogs ! "O Rome ! Rome ! thou hast been a tender nurse to me ! Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd- lad, who never knew a harsher sound than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint ; taught him to drive the sword through rugged brass and planted mail, and warm it in tlie m.arrow of his foe ! to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a smooth- cheeked boy upon a laughing girl. And he shall pay thee ]>ack till thy yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled ! " Ye stiind here now like giants, as ye are ! the strength of brass is in your toughened sinews ; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet odors from his curly locks, shall come, and with his lily fingers pat your brawny arta dead ? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your . that ye do crouch and cower like base-born slaves ith your masters lash ? comrades ! warriors ! 406 THE SIXTH READER. Thracians ! if we must tight, lot us fight for ourselves ; if we must slaugliter, let us slaughter our oppressors ; if we must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle." CL — LOCHIEUS WARNING. CAMPBELL. In 1745, Charles EdwanI, granditon of James II.. landed in ScoUand, and soon gathered around him an army with which he marc-hed iiitu Eiii^land, in order to re- gain i)os8e«8lon of the throne ttotn which his aucestors had been driven. He was brilliantly successful at first, and i«netrated into EngUnd as far as Derby ; but he was then obliged to retreat, and, after many disasters, his array was entirely defeated by the English, under command of the Duke of Cumberland, at Culloden. Lochiel, the head of the warlike clan of the Cauien)ns, was one of the most power- ful of the Highland chiefUiins. and a zealous supitortiT of the cUims of Charles Edward. Among the Highlanders are certain persons supposed to have the gift of second sight ; that is. the power of foreseeing future events. Lochiel, on his way to join Charles Edward, is represcnteil as meeting one of these seers, who endeavors in vain to dissuade him fh>m his purpose. Seer, Lochiel. SEER. Lochiel, Lochiel, lieware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array ! For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight ; They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown ; Woe, woo to the riders that trample them flown ! Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain. And their hoof-beaten boapms are trod to the plain. But hark ! through the fast-flashing lightning of war. What steed to the desert flies frantic and farl T is thine, Glenullin ! whose bride shall await. Like love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate. A steed comes at morning : no rider is there ; But its bridle is red with the sign of despair. LOCHIEL'S WARNING, 407 Weep, Albin ! * to death and captivity led ! O weep ! but tliy tears cannot numb^T the dead ; For a mertilcss swoixl on Cullotlcn shall wave, — Culloden, that reeks with the blood of the brave. LocHiKL. Go, preach to the coward, thou death-tolling scor ; Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear, Draw, dotanl, around thy old wavering sight This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright. Sekr. Ha ! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn ? Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn : Say, nished the bold eagle exultingly forth From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the north ? Lo ! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode Comijanionless, bearing destruction abroad ; IJut down let him stoop from his havoc on high ! Ah, home let him si)eed, — for the spoiler is nigh. Why flames the far summit ? Why shoot to the blast Those eml>ers, like stars from the firmament casti 'T is the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven From liis eyry that beacons the darkness of heaven. O crested Lochiel ! the peerless in might. Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn ; Return to thy dwelling ! all lonely return ! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood I LocniEL. False wizard, avaunt ! I have marshalled my clan ; Their swortls are a thousand, their bosoms are one ! They are tnie to the last of their blood and their breath. And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock ! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on tho mrk ! I'ut woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause. When Albin her claymore in HURGHYARD. 415 Nor you, yo prouil, impute to these the fault, If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, WJiere through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise. "Or»^ 416 THE SIXTH READER Can storied urn or animated bust liack to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust, Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death ? Perhaps, in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page. Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; Chill Penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the sOuL Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; Full many a flower is bom to blush unseen. And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast The li^le tyrant of his fields withstood. Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest -, Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. Th' applause of list'ning senates to command. The threats of pain and ruin to despise, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read their history in a nation's eyes, Their lot forbade ; nor circumscribed alone Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ; Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind ; The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide. To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, ELEOY IVRITTKS I\ i IIURCHYARD. 417 Or heap the shrine of luxury and pride With incense kindled at the Muse's flame. Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife Their solwr wishes never learned to stray ; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way. Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh, With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh« Their names, their years, spelt by th* unlettered Muse, The place of fome and elegy supply ; And many a holy text around she strews, That teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey. Their pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned^ Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind ? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries, K'on in our nshes live their wonted fires. For thic, wlu), mindful of th' unhonored dead, Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, If 'chance, by lonely contemplation led, !t'\ — 11.4.i\ ......II. ii.Miy-headed swain may >;i\. " Oft have we seen him at the ])eep of dawn, Hnishing ^^^th hasty steps the dews away, To me4?t tin' Sim niton tlio uplan CV. — HE GIVETH HIS BELOVED SLEEP. MRS. BROWNING. Elisabeth Barritt BBOwniKa was born In London in 1809. She was married to Robert Browning In 1846. and dieoems, such as "Aurora Leigh," "CasaGuidi Windows," and the rctuarkable sonnets from the Portuguese. She was a woman of rare and high genius, marked by imagination and originality of treatment, and hanlly less so by her in- tense sympathy with every form of suffering. She is sometimes obscure in expression ; her poetry is sometimes wanting in i>erfect taste, and ft«quently needs compression ; but she is unequalled for power of thought, splendor of coloring, and a varied and paniooate energy'. She was not less distinguished for her learning than for her jenlos. She was an admirable Greek .scholar, and published in one of the English periodicals a series of striking tran.Hlation.s from the Greek Christian poets. She was a person of very delicate organization, and from the pressure of constant ill health com- pelled to lead a life of constant seclusion. During her married life in Italy, she became known to several Americans, who found her as remarkable for sweetness, simplicity, and unaffected grace of manner as for genius and learning. The Italians have marked their sense of her enthusiastic interest in their cause, by un Italian inscription on the Walls of the house in Florence in which she lived for many years, and where she wrote Vier " Casa Guidi Windows." OF all the thoughts of God that are Borne inward unto souls afar, Along the Psalmist's music deej), Now tell me if that any is, For gift or grace, surpassing this, — " He giveth his beloved sleep " ] What would we give to our beloved ? The hero's heart to be unmoved. The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep. The patriots voice to teach and rouse. The monarch's crown to light the brows, — }h> -ivpt). hisl-]..v..i e Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. He is an eloquent and effective preacher, and. as a lecturer to the people, he enjoys an unrivalled popularity, earned by the happy combination of humor, pathos, earnest- ness, and genial sympathy with humanity, which his discourses present. He is a roan of great energy of temperament, fervently opposed to every form of oppression and ii^astice, and with a poet's love of nature. His style is rich, glowing, and ex- uberant The following extract is fh)m the " Star Papers," a volume made up of papers which originally appeared in the "New York Independent" HOW bright are the honors which await those who, with sacred fortitude and patriotic patience, have endured all things that they might save their native land from division and from the power of comiption ! The honored dead ! They that die for a good cause, are re- deemed from death. Their names are gathered and gar- nered. Their memory is precious. Each place grows proud for them who were bom there. There is to be erelong, in every village and in every neighborhood, a fjlowing pride in its martyred heroes. 422 THM: sixth nEADKV. rs Tablets sliall preserve their names. Pious love shall renew their inscriptions as time and the unfeeling ele- ments decay them. And the national festivals shall give multitudes of precious names to the orator's lips. Chil- dren shall grow up under more sacred inspirations whose elder brothers, dying nobly for their country, left a name that honored and inspired all who bore it. Orphan chil- dren shall find thousands of fathers and mothers to love and help those whom dying heroes left as a legacy to the gratitude of the public. 0, tell me not that tliey are dead, — that generous host, that airy army of invisible heroes ! They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this nation. Are they dead that yet-«peak louder than we can speak, and a more uni- vei-sal language ? Are they dead that yet act ? Are they dead that yet move upon society, and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism ? Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears. He was your son ; but now he is the nation's. He made .your household bright ; now his example inspii-es a thou- sand households. Dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land. Before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you. Now he is augmented, set free, and given to all. He has died from the family, that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be foi-gotten or neglected; and it shall by and by be confessed, as of an ancient hero, that he did more for Iiis country by his death than by his whole life. Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name ; ^ery river shall keep some solemn title ; every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register ; and till the mountains are worn out, and the rivers forget to flow, till AMKRWA THE OLD WORLD. 423 the clouds are weary of replenishing springs, and the springs forget to gush, and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are in- Bcribed upon the book of National Remembrance ! CVIL— AMERICA THE OLD WORLD. LOUIS AOASSIZ. Lons John RtrpoLPH AnA5»is was born at Mottler, near Ijikv Nonrhat<»l In Swit- lerUod. May 28, 1807; and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts), December 15, 1873. H. ' ' ninelf to natural hlstor)' from his early youth. He gained at an early ai; lip of Cuvier and Humboldt, by whom he was wannly encouraged and aiih . ...lH>r8 and studies. The thrt-e subjects which claimed his special atten- tion were the fossil Hshes, fresh-water llshes o Euroi>e, and the formation of glaciers, on all of which he publi8he' us so far, we may look down toward its base and fancy how the sea washed against this earliest shore of a lifeless world. This is no romance, but the bold, simple truth ; for the fact that this granite band was lifted out of the waters so early in the history of the world, and has not since been submerged, has, of course, prevented any subsequent de- posits from forming above it And this is true of all the northern part of the United States. It has been lifted gradually, the beds deposited in one period being sub- sequently raised, and forming a shore along which those of the succeeding one collected, so that we have their whole sequence before us. For this reason the American continent offers facilities to the geologist denied to him in the so-called Old World, where the earlier deposits are comparatively hidden, and the broken character of the land, intersected by moun- tains in every direction, renders his investigation still more difficult A TRIBUTE TO MASSACHUSkTTS. 427 CVIIL — A TRIBUTE TO MASSACHUSETTS. 8UMNEB. Trs foUowing is an extract from Mr. Somner's speech in the Senate, May 19 and 20, 1856. GOD be praised, Massachusetts, honored Common- wealth, tliat gives me the privilege to plead for Kansas on this floor, knows her rights, and will maintain them firmly to the end. Tliis is not the first time in his- tory that her public acts have been impeached and her public men exposed to contumely. Thus was it in the olden time, when she began the great battle whose fruits you all enjoy. But never yet lias she occupied a position so lofty as at this hour. By the intelligence of her popu- lation, by the resources of her industry, by her commerce, cleaving every wave, by her manufactures, various as human skill, by her institutions of education, various as human knowledge, by her institutions of benevolence, various as human suffering, by the pages of her scholars and historians, by the voices of her poets and orators, she is now exerting an influence more subtile and command- ing than ever before, — shooting her far-darting rays wherever ignorance, wretchedness, or wrong prevails, and flashing light even upon those who travel lar to persecute 1m 1 Such is Massachusetts; and 1 am proud to believe tliat you may as well attempt with puny arm to topple down the earth-rooted, lieaven- kissing^ granite which crowns the historic sod of Bunker Hill, as to change her fixed resolve for Freedom everywhere. Sir, to men on earth it belongs only to deserve success, not to secure it ; and I know not how soon the efforts of Massachusetts will wear the crown of triumph. But it cannot be that she acts wrong for herself or her children. 428 ' THE SIXTH READER. when in this cause she encounters reproach. No : by the generous souls once exposed at Lexington, — by those who stood arrayed at Bunker Hill, — by the many from her bosom who, on all the fields of the first great struggle, lent their vigorous arms to the cause of all, — by the children she has borne whose names alone are national trophies, is Massachusetts now vowed irrevocably to this work. What belongs to the faithful servant she will do in all things, and Providence shall determine the result CIX— NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD. RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Ralph Waldo Emsbsom. an Americm Msayist and poet, was born in Boston, May 25, 1803 : and graduated at Harvard College, 1821. lu 1829 he was settled as a Unita- rian clergyman in Boston, tmtj in 1882, he diaaolTed bis connection with his people on account of some differences of opinieauty and originality as his prose writings. AMONG the eminent persons of the nineteenth cen- tury, Bonaparte is far the best known and the ^ most powerful, and owes his predominance to the fidel- ity with which he expresses the tone of thought and NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WOULD. 429 belief, the aims of the masses of active and cultivated men. Bonaparte was the idol of common men, because he had in transcendent degree the qualities and powers of tommon men. Bonaparte wi*ought, in common with that great class he represented, for power and wealth, — but Bonaparte, specially, without any scruple as to the means. All the sentiments which embarrass men's pursuit of these ob- jects he set aside. The sentiments were for women and children. Napoleon renounced, once for all, sentiments and aflec- tions, and would help himsell* witli his hands and his head. "With him is no miracle, and no magic. He is a worker in brass, in iron, in wood, in earth, in roads, in buildings, in money, and in troops, and a very consistent and wise master-workman. He is never weak and lite- rary, but acts with the solidity and the precision of natural agents. He has not lost his native sense and sympathy with things. Men give way before such a man, as before natural events. But Bonaparte superadded to this mineral and animal force, insight and generalization, so that men saw in him combined the natural and the intellectual power, as if the sea and land had taken flesh and begun to cipher. There- fore the land and sea seem to presuppose him. He came unto his own, and they received liim. The art of war was the game in which he exerted his arithmetic. It consisted, according to bim, in having always more forces than the enemy on the point where the enemy is attacked, or where he attacks; and his whole talent is strained by endless manoeuvre and evolu- tion, to march always on the enemy at an angle, and 430 THE SIXTH READER. destroy his forces iu detail. It is obvious that a very small force, skilfully and rapidly manoeuvring, so as always to bring two men against one at the point of engagement, will be an overmatch for a much larcrer body of men. Nature must have far the greatest share in every suc- cess, and so in his. Such a man was wanted, and such a man was born ; a man of stone and iron, capable of sit- ting on horseback sixteen or seventeen hours, of going many days together without rest or food, except by snatches, and with the sjxjed and spring of a tiger in action ; a man not embarrassed by any scruples ; com- pact, instant, selfish, prudent, and of a perception which did not suffer itself to be balked or misled by any pre- tences of others, or any superstition, or any heat or haste of his own. " My hand of iron," he said, " was not at the extremity of my arm, it was immediately connected with my head." He respected the power of nature and fortune, and ascribed to it his superiority, instead of valuing himself, like inferior men, on his opinionativeness, and waging war with nature. His favorite rhetoric lay in allusion to his star ; and he pleased himself, as well as the people, when he styled himself the "Child of Destiny." "They charge me," he said, "with the commission of great crimes. Men of my stamp do not commit crimes. Nothing has been more simple than my elevation ; 't is in vain to ascribe it to intrigue or crime ; it was owing to the peculiarity of the times, and to my reputation of having fought well against the enemies of my country. I have always marched with the opinion of great masses, and with events." Napoleon understood his business. Here was a man NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 431 who, iu each moment and emergency, knew what to do next It is an immense comfort and refreshment to the spirits, not only of kings, but of citizens. Few men have any next ; they live from hand to mouth, without plan, and are ever at the end of their line, and, after each action, wait for an impulse from abroad. His victories were only so many doors, and he never for a moment lost sight of his way onward in the dazzle and uproar of the present circumstance. He knew what to do, and he flew to his mark. He would shorten a stmight line to come at his object. Horrible anecdotes may, no doubt, be collected from his history, of the price at which he bought his successes ; but he must not there- fore be set down as cruel, but only as one who knew no impediment to his will; not bloodthirsty, not cruel, — but woe to what thing or person stood in his way ! Not bloodthii-sty, but not sparing of blood, — and pitiless. On any point of resistance, he concentrated squadron on squadron in overwhelmning numbers, until it was swept out of existence. To a regiment of horse chasseurs at Lobenstein, two days before the battle of Jena, Napo- leon said, " My lads, you must not fear death ; when sol- • liers brave death, they drive him into the enemy's ranks." Eacli victory was a new weapon. " My power would tall were I not to support it by new achievements. Con- (juest has made me what I am, and conquest must main- tain me." He felt, with every wise man, that as much life is needed for conservation as for creation. We are always in peril, always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction, and only to l)e saved by invention and courage. This vigor was guarded and tempered by the coldest prudence and punctuality. A thunderbolt in the attack, 432 THE SIXTH READER. he was found invulnerable in his intrenchments. His very attack was never the inspiration of courage, but the result of calculation. The lesson he teaches is that which vigor always teaches, — that there is always room for it. To what heaps of cowardly doubts is not that man's life an answer. When he appeared, it was the belief of all military men that there could be nothing new in war ; as it is the belief of men to-day, that nothing new can be undertaken in politics, or in church, or in letters, or in trade, or in farm- ing, or in our social manners and customs ; and as it is, at all times, the belief of society that the world is made up. But Bonaparte knew better than society ; and, more- over, knew that he knew better. Bonaparte was singularly destitute of generous senti- ments. The highest placed individual in the most culti- vated age and population of the world, he has not the merit of common truth and honesty. He is unjust to his generals ; egotistic and monopolizing ; meanly stealing the credit of their great actions from Kellermann, from Bernadotte ; intriguing to involve his faithful Junot in hopeless bankruptcy, in order to drive him to a distance from Paris, because the familiarity of his manners offends the new pride of his throne. He is a boundless liar. The official paper, his " Moni- teurs," and all his buUetins, are proverbs for saying what he wished to be believed ; and worse, — he sat, in his premature old age, in his lonely island, coldly falsifying facts and dates and characters, and giving to history a theatrical eclat. like all Frenchmen, he has a passion for stage effect. Every action that breathes of generosity is poisoned by this calculation. His star, his love of glory, his doctrine of the immortality of the soul, are all French. THE LORD OF BUTRAGO. 433 He did all that in him lay, to live and thrive without nionil principle. It was tiie nature of tilings, the eternal law of man and the world, which baulked and ruined him ; and the result, in a million experiments, will be the same. Every experiment, by multitudes or by individ- uals, that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail. ex. — THE LORD OF BUTRAGO. J. G. LOCKHART. JoHM Gibson Lockhaht was a man of brilliant literary powera. He wrote " Va- lerius," " llatUiew Wald." *' Adam Blair," and '* Ranald Daltou," all noveU ; " Pe- ter's Letters," a series of sketches of Scotch society and of eminent men in Scotland ; end a volume of translations from the Spanish ballads. He was also a frequent con- tributor to the earlier numbers of "Blackwood's Magazine." He was bom in Glas- gow, in 1792, and die«l at Abbotsford, in 18M. He had been for many years editor of the " Quarterly Review." " "ITT^OUR horse is faint, my king, — my lord ! your gallant JL horse is sick, — His limbs are torn, his breast is gored, on his eye the film is thick ; Mount, mount on mine, oh, mount apace, I pray thee, mount and fly! Ui in my arms I '11 lift your grace, — their trampling hoofs are nigh ! " My king, — my king ! you 're wounded sore, — the blood runs firom your feet ; But only lay a hand before, and I '11 lift you to your seat : Mount, Juan, for they gather fast ! I hear their coming cry, — Mount, mount, and ride for jeopardy, — I *11 save you though I die I " Stand, noble steed ! this hour of need, — be gentle as a lamb : I '11 kiss the foam from off thy mouth, — thy master dear I am, — 434 ^THE SIXTH HEADER. Mount, Juan, mount ! whate'er betide, away the britllt; lling, And plunge the rowela in his side ; — my horse shall save my king! " Nay, never speak ; my sixes, lord king, received their land from yours. And joyfully their blood shall spring, so be it thine secures : If I should fly, and thou, my king, be found among the dea«l, How could I stand 'mong gentlemen, such scorn on my gray headt " Castile's proud dames shall never point the finger of disdain, And say there 's one that ran away when our good lords were slain ! — I leave Diego in your care, — • you '11 fill his father^s jilace : Strike, strike the spur, and never spare, — God's blessing on your grace ! " So spake the brave Montaflez, Butrago's lord vms ho ; And turned him to the coming host in steadfastness and glee ; He flung himself among them, as they came down the hill — He died, God wot ! but not before his sword had drunk it: fill CXL — MILTON ON HIS BLINDNESS. EUZABETH LLOTD. I AM old and blind ! Men point at me as smitten by God*s frown : Afflicted and deserted of my kind. Yet am I not cast down. I am weak, yet strong : I murmur not that I no longer see ; MILTON ON mS BLINDNESS. 435 Poor, olil, and helpless, I the more belong, Father Supreme, to thee. merciful One ! When men are farthest, then art thou most near ; When friends pass by, my weakness to shun, Thy chariot I hear. Thy glorious face Is leaning toward me, and its holy light Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place, — And there is no more night On bended knee 1 recognized thy purpose, clearly shown ; My vision thou hast dimmed, that I may see Tliyself, thyself alone. I have naught to fear ; This darkness is the shadow of thy wing; Hencath it 1 am almost sacred, — here Can come no evil thing. O I seem to stand Trembling ! where foot of mortal ne*er hath been, Wrapped in the radiance from thy sinless land, Which eye hath never seen. Visions come and go ; Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng ; Fn)m angel lips I seem to hear the flow Of soft and holy song. It is nothing now, ^V'hen Heaven is opening on my sightless eyes, When airs from Paradise refresh my brow, — Hiat earth in darkness lies. 436 TJU-: >L\rji ulaukil CXIL — NATIONAL ix.ir>H(;E. THEODORE PARKER. TBSODOiut Pakkek, an American cleygyman and reformer, was bom in Lexington, Massachuaetts. August 24, 1810; and died at Florence, Italy, May 10. I860. He studied theology at the Divinity School in Cambridge, and waa settled over the Unitarian Society in West Rozbory. In 1846 he waa settled over a congregation in Doston. Here he preached, in the Mnsic Hall, every Sunday, to immense audimcea. He became early known for his eneiietk denial of many of the doctrines regarded as vital by a majority of Chriatiaiia, whib 1m maintained with great power those which he regarded aa vital, such as the extstence of a personal Ood. the immortality of the soul, and the bcantf of a pure and holy life. He threw himsrif with great ardor into the social questions of his time, and was la aU thiaga a aealoua and uncompromising refbnmer. He waa fearless and aggressive, sometimes niOust in his denunciations, bat always (kithftil to hia own eonvlctioiis of duty. Be was one of the earliest snd most fervid of the opponents o: sUvery in New En^and. He waa a fHend of tem- perance and an advocate of pence. Notwithstanding the time which he gave to these sul^}ects, he was a hard stndent of books, accumulated an immense library, and was remarkable for the wide Tangs of hia knowlelge. Siaoe his death biflgnphlcs have appeared, by Joor liruidance as my lamp can lend. Let us dis- (jinci iiii'l l»ring up the awful shadows cf ciniuics l)uried Ioiil: ago, and learn a lesson from the toini>. Come, old Assyria, with the Ninevitisli finvt; upon thy emei-ald crown. What laid thee low ' I fi^U by my own injiistiir rii.reby Nineveh and Babvlnii witli me u\ the ground." O queenly Persia, flame oi Uic nations, wherefore art thou so fallen, who troddest the peoplr iin«l. r tlu'c, bridgedst the Hellespont with ships, and pouredst thy temple-wasting millions on the western world ? " Because I trod the people under me, bridged the II; 11. s[H .lit with ships, and poui-ed my temple- wasting NATIONAL INJUSTICE. 437 millions on the western world. I fell by my own mis- deeils." Tliou muse-like Grecian queen, fairest of all thy classic sisterhood of states, enchanting yet the world with thy sweet witchery, speaking in art and most seductive song, why liest thou there with beauteous yet dishonored brow, reposing on thy broken harp ? " I scorned the law of God ; banished and poisoned wisest, justest men ; I loved the loveliness of flesh embalmed in Parian stone ; I loved the loveliness of thought, and treasured that in more than Parian speech ; but the beauty of justice, the loveliness of love, I trod them down to earth. Lo, therefore have I become as those barbarous states, — as one of them.'* O manly, majestic Rome ! Thy seven-fold mm-al crown all broken at thy feet, why art thou here ? T was not injustice brought thee low, for thy great book of law is prefaced with these words. Justice is the unchanging, EVERLASTING WILL TO GIVE EACH MAN HIS RIGHT! "It was not the saint's ideal ; it was the hypocrite's pretence. I made iniquity my law. I trod the nations under me. Their wealth gilded my palaces. Where thou-mayst see tlie fox and hear the owl, it fed my courtiers and my courtesans. Wicked men were my cabinet counsellors. The flatterer breathed his poison in my ear. Millions of l)ondmen wet the soil with tears and blood. Do you not hear it ciying yet to God ? Lo, here have I my recom- Ijenso, tormented with such downfalls as you see ! " Go back and tell the new-born child who sitteth on the AU^hanies, laying his either liand upon a tributary sea, a crown of thirty stars upon his brow, — tell him there are riglits which states must keep, or they shall suffer wrong. Tell him there is a God, who keeps the black man and the white, and hurls to earth the loftiest realm that 438 THE SIXTH READER. breaks his jiist, eternal law ! Warn the young empire, that he come not clown, dim and dishonoi-ed, to my shameful tomb ! Tell him that justice is the unchanging, everlasting will to give each man his right. I knew it, broke it, and am lost. Bid liim keep it, and be safe ! " CXIII. — OLIVER CROMWELL. GOLJ)WIN SMITH. GoLowm Smith wu born at BMding, EnglMd. to 18S3. He wm edacated at Eton and at Oxford, at both of which institatiaiM he diatingoUhed himaelf aa a acholar, and at the Utt^r of which, in 18&8. beeanae Regiua ProfeMor of Modem Hi»- tory. In 1861 he published an able work entitled " Iriah Hlatory and Irish Charac> ter." During our civil war be vtelted America, that he might stadjr more doeely the iasnea Inrolved. Returning, he became, at th« rislc of aocial ostraciam, a champion of the American Union, and did much to oeople to a watering-place, as the first authentic notifica- tion of spring. And such his appearance in the orchard and garden undonbtinlly is. But, in spite of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with us all winter, and I 442 THE SIXTH READER. liave seen him when the thermometer marked fifteen degrees below zero of Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within, like Emerson's titmouse, and as cheerful as he. The robin has a bad reputation among people who do not value themselves less for being fond of cherries. There is, I admit, a spice of vidgarity in him, and his song is mther of the Bloomlield sort, too largely ballasted witli prose. His ethics are of the Poor Bichard school, and the main chance which calls forth all liis energy is altogether of the appetite. He never has those fine intervals of lunacy into which his cousins, the catbird and the mavis, are apt to fall. But for a' that and twice as muckle 's a' that, I would not exchange him for all the cherries that ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults, he has not wholly forfeited tliat superiority which belongs to the children of nature. He has a finer taste in fruit tlian could be distilled from many successive committees of the Horticultural Society, and he eats with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. Johnson's. He feels and freely exercises his right of eminent domain. His is the earliest mess of green peas ; his, all the mulberries I had fancied mine. But if he get also the lion's share of the raspberries, he is a great planter, and sows those wild ones in the woods, that solace the pedestrians and give a momentary calm even to the jaded victims of the White Hills. He keeps a strict eye over one's fruit, and knows to a shade of pur- ple when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun. During the severe drought a few years ago, the i-obins wholly vanished from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three weeks. Meanwhile, a small foreign MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 443 grape-vine, rather sliy of bearing, seemed to find the dusty air congenial, and, dreaming perhaps of its sweet Argos acwss the sea, decked itself with a score or so of fair bunches. I watched them from day to day till they should have secreted sugar enough from the sunbeams, and at last made up my mind that I would celebrate my vintage the next morning. But the robins, too, had somehow kept note of them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews into the promised land, before I was stirring. When I went with my basket, at least a dozen of these winged vintagers bustled out from among the leaves, and, alighting on the nearest trees, inter- changed some shrill remarks about me of a derogatory nature. They had fairly sacked the vine. Not Wellington's veterans made cleaner work of a Spanish town ; not Fed- erals or Confederates were ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to surprise the fair Fidele with, but the robins made them a profounder seci-et to her tlian I had meant. The tattered remnant of a single bunch was all my harvest-home. How paltry it looked at the bottom of my basket, — as if a humming-bird had laid her egg in an eagle's nest ! I could not help laughing ; and the robins seemed to join heartily in the merriment There was a native grape-vine close by, blue with its less re- lined abundance, but my cunning thieves preferred the foreijm flavor. Could I tax them with want of taste ? The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, like primitive fire-worshippers they hail the return of light and warmth to the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred singing like one. They are noisy enough then, and sing, as \HHits sliould, with no afterthought. But 444 THE SIXTH READEIL when they come after cherries to the tree near my win- dow, they nmffle their voices, and their faint pip, pip, pop ! sounds far away at the bottom of the garden, where they know I shall not suspect them of robbing the great black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store. They are feathered Pecksniffs, to be sure; but then how brightly their breasts, tliat look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against the dark green of the fringe-tree ! After they have pinched and shaken all the life out of an earth-worm, as Italian cooks pound all the spirit out of a steak, and then gulped him, they stand up in honest self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats with the virtuous air of a lobby-member, and outface you with an eye that calmly challenges inquiry. "Do I look like a bird that knows the flavor of raw vermin ? I throw myself upon a jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate anything less ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will answer that liis vow forbids him." Can such an open bosom cover such depravity ? Alas ! yes. I have no doubt his breast was redder at that very moment with the blood of my rasp- berries. On the whole, he is a doubtful friend in the garden. He makes his dessert of all kinds of berries, and is not averse from early peas. But when we remem- ber how omnivorous he is, eating his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that Natui-e seems exliaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to vegetation, per- haps we may reckon that he does more good than harm. For my own part, I would rather have his cheerfulness and kind neighborhood than many berries. Cambridge : Electrotyped and Printed by Wehh, Bigelow, & Co. / / RETURN EDUO ,T0— *► 2600" \TION- PSYCHOLOGY LIBRARY folman Hall 642-4209 LOAN PERIOD 1 2 3 ~ l.MONTH' = '''*^ ')!'A^:''"r \ *>.'! t 4 r^ln-'ic: ■■-•"■... 56 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS 2- hour books must be renewed in personr Return to -desk from which bQrro.weil^./ DUE AS STAMPED BELOW SEP . I '^^ i lU I. ' 17f;fC'0-r ^ : • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY FORM NO. DDIO, 5m, 3/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720 9)% tb 36795 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA UBRARY