betray herself? That she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription upon whose ruins is, "They were, but they are not ?" Forbid it, my countrymen! forbid it, Heaven!

I call upon you, fathers, by the shades of your ancestors, by the dear ashes which repose in this precious soil, by all you are and all you hope to be,-resist every object of disunion; resist every encroachment upon your liberties; resist every attempt to fetter your consciences, or smother your public schools, or extinguish your system of public instruction.

I call upon you, mothers, by that which never fails in woman -the love of your offspring; teach them, as they climb your knees, or lean on your bosoms, the blessings of liberty. Swear them at the altar, as with their baptismal vows, to be true to their country, and never to forget or forsake her.

I call upon you, young men, to remember whose sons you are--whose inheritance you possess. Life can never be too short, which brings nothing but disgrace and oppression. Death never comes too soon, if necessary in the defence of the liberties of your country.

I call upon you, old men, for your counsels, and your prayers, and your benedictions. May not your gray hairs go down in sorrow to the grave with the recollection that you have lived in vain! May not your last sun sink in the west upon a nation of slaves!

No! I read in the destiny of my country far better hopes, far brighter visions. We who are now assembled here must soon be gathered to the congregation of other days. The time of our departure is at hand, to make way for our children upon the theater of life. May God speed them and theirs! May he who, at the distance of another century, shall stand here to celebrate this day, still look around upon a free, happy, and virtuous people! May he have reason to exult as we do! May he, with all the enthusiasm of truth as well as poetry, exclaim that here is still his country!

Ex. CXC.-DUTIES OF AMERICANS.

G. S. HILLARD.

WE may betray the trust reposed in us—we may most miserably defeat the fond hopes entertained of us. We may

From

become the scorn of tyrants and the jest of slaves. our fate, oppression may assume a bolder front of insolence, and its victims sink into a darker despair.

In that event, how unspeakable will be our disgrace! with what weight of mountains will the infamy lie upon our souls! The gulf of our ruin will be as deep as the elevation we might have attained is high. How wilt thou fall from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! Our beloved country with ashes for beauty; the golden cord of our union broken; its scattered fragments presenting every form of misrule, from the wildest anarchy to the most ruthless despotism; our "soil drenched with fraternal blood;" the life of man stripped of its grace and dignity; the prizes of honor gone, and virtue divorced from half its encouragements and supports;-these are gloomy pictures, which I would not invite your imaginations to dwell upon, but only to glance at, for the sake of the warning lessons we may draw from them.

Remember that we can have none of those consolations which sustain the patriot who mourns over the undeserved misfortunes of his country. Our Rome can not fall, and we be innocent. No conqueror will chain us to the car of his triumph; no countless swarm of Huns and Goths will bury the memorials and trophies of civilized life beneath a living tide of barbarism. Our own selfishness, our own neglect, our own passions, and our own vices, will furnish the elements of our destruction. With our own hands we shall tear down the stately edifice of our glory. We shall die by self-inflicted wounds.

But we will not talk of themes like these. We will not think of failure, dishonor, and despair. We will elevate our minds to the contemplation of our high duties, and the great trust committed to us. We will resolve to lay the foundations of our prosperity on that rock of private virtue which can not be shaken until the laws of the moral world are reversed. From our own breasts shall flow the salient springs of national increase. Then our success, our happiness, our glory, is inevitable. We may calmly smile at all the croakings of all the ravens, whether of native or foreign breed.

The whole will not grow weak by the increase of its parts. Our growth will be like that of the mountain oak, which strikes its roots more deeply into the soil, and clings to it with a closer grasp, as its lofty head is exalted and its broad arms stretched out. The loud burst of joy and gratitude which this, the anniversary of our independence, is breaking

from the full hearts of a mighty people, will never cease to be heard. No chasms of sullen silence will interrupt its course; no discordant notes of sectional madness mar the general harmony. Year after year will increase it, by tributes from now unpeopled solitudes. The furthest West shall hear it and rejoice; the Oregon shall swell it with the voice of its waters; the Rocky Mountains shall fling back the glad sound from their snowy crests.

Ex. CXCI.-CATILINE'S REPLY.

CONSCRIPT FATHERS!

I do not rise to waste the night in words;
Let that plebeian talk; 'tis not my trade;

But here I stand for right,-let him show proofs,-
For Roman right; though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there!
Cling to your master, judges, Romans, slaves!
His charge is false;-I dare him to his proofs.
You have my answer. Let my actions speak!

But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong!
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks
my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me,-turning_out
The Roman from his birthright; and, for what?

CROLY.

[Looking round him.

To fling your offices to every slave!
Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top
Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler man below!

Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones;

[To the senate.

Fling down your scepters; take the rod and axe,
And make the murder as you make the law!

Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free
From daily contact of the things I loathe ?

"Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this?
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?
Banished! I thank you for 't.

It breaks my chain!
I held some slack allegiance till this hour;
But now my sword's my own. Smile on, my lords!
I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your lazy dignities.

But here I stand and scoff you! here, I fling
Hatred and full defiance in your face!

Your consul's merciful.-For this, all thanks,
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline!

"Traitor!" I go; but, I return. This-trial!
Here I devote your senate!
I've had wrongs

To stir a fever in the blood of age,

Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel.

This day's the birth of sorrow! This hour's work

Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my lords,
For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus!-all shames and crimes!
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn ;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and axe,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till anarchy comes down on you like night,
And massacre seals Rome's eternal grave.

I go; but not to leap the gulf alone.
I go; but, when I come, 't will be the burst
Of ocean in the earthquake,—rolling back

In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!

You build my funeral-pile; but your best blood

Shall quench its flame! Back, slaves! [To the lictors.] I will return!

Ex. CXCII.-KING HAROLD'S SPEECH TO HIS ARMY, BEFORE THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS.

SIR E. BULWER LYTTON.

THIS day, O friends and Englishmen, sons of our common land, this day ye fight for liberty. The count of the Nor

mans hath, I know, a mighty army; I disguise not its strength. That army he hath collected together by promising to each man a share in the spoils of England. Already, in his court and his camp, he hath parceled out the lands of this kingdom; and fierce are the robbers that fight for the hope of plunder! But he can not offer to his greatest chief boons nobler than those I offer to my meanest freeman-liberty, and right, and law, on the soil of his fathers!

Ye have heard of the miseries endured, in the old time, under the Dane; but they were slight indeed to those which ye may expect from the Norman. The Dane was kindred to us in language and in law, and who now can tell Saxon from Dane? But yon men would rule ye in a language ye know not; by a law that claims the crown as the right of the sword, and divides the land among the hirelings of an army. We baptized the Dane, and the church tamed his fierce soul into peace; but yon men make the church itself their ally, and march to carnage under the banner profaned to the foulest of human wrongs!

Offscourings of all nations, they come against you: ye fight as brothers under the eyes of your fathers and chosen chiefs; ye fight for the women we would save; ye fight for the children ye would guard from eternal bondage; ye fight for the altars which yon banner now darkens! Foreign priest is a tyrant as ruthless and stern as ye shall find foreign baron and king!

Let no man dream of retreat; every inch of ground that ye yield is the soil of your native land. For me, on this field I peril all. Think that mine eye is upon you, wherever ye are. If a line waver or shrink, ye shall hear in the midst the voice of your king. Hold fast to your ranks. Remember, such among you as fought with me against Hardrada-remember that it was not till the Norsemen lost, by rash sallies, their serried array, that our arms prevailed against them. Be warned by their fatal error, break not the form of the battle; and I tell you, on the faith of a soldier, who never yet hath left field without victory, that ye can not be beaten. While I speak, the winds swell the sails of the Norse ships, bearing home the corpse of Hardrada.

Accomplish, this day, the last triumph of England; add to these hills a new mount of the conquered dead! And when, in far times and strange lands, scald and scop shall praise the brave man for some valiant deed, wrought in some holy cause,