may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, let it come!

Gentlemen may

The war is actu

It is vain to extenuate the matter. cry peace, peace, but there is no peace. ally begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? what would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

-Patrick Henry.

C.-RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION.

IMPORTANT as I deem it to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion in its full and just extent. Sentiments lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry by extravagant and unconstitutional pretenses, the firmer shall be the tone in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner in which I shall exercise, it.

It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures and the merits of public men. It is a "home-bred right," a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those, whose representative I am, shall find me to

abandon. Aiming at all times to be courteous and temperate in its use, except when the right itself shall be questioned, I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm that would move me from my ground.

This high constitutional privilege I shall defend and exercise, within this House, and without this House, and in all places; in time of peace, and at all times. Living, I shall assert it; and should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of God I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defense of them.

-Webster.

CI.-RIENZI'S LAST APPEAL TO THE ROMANS.

Will

YE come, then, once again! Come ye as slaves or freemen? A handful of armed men are in your walls. ye who chased from your gates the haughtiest knights, the most practiced battle-men of Rome, succumb now to one hundred and fifty hirelings and strangers? Will you arm for your tribune? You are silent. Be it so! Will you arm for your own liberties-your own Rome? Silent still! By the saints that reign on the throne of the heathen gods, are ye thus fallen from your birthright? Have you no arms for your own defence?

Romans, hear me! Have I wronged you? If so, by your hands let me die; and then, with knives yet reeking with my blood, go forward against the robber who is but the herald of your slavery, and I die honored, grateful, and avenged. You weep. Aye, and I could weep, too, that I should live to speak of liberty in vain to Romans. Weep! Is this an hour for tears? Weep now, and your tears shall ripen harvests of crime and license and despotism to come! Romans, arm; follow me at once to the Place of the Colonna; expel this ruffian Minorbino, expel your enemy,

(no matter what you afterward do to me), or I abandon you to your fate. What, and is it ye who forsake me, for whose cause alone man dares to hurl against me the thunders of his God in this act of excommunication? Is it not

for you that I am declared heretic and rebel? What are my imputed crimes? That I have made Rome, and asserted Italy to be free! That I have subdued the proud magnates who were the scourge both of Pope and people.

Do you you upbraid me with what I have dared and done for you? Men, with you I would have fought; for you I would have perished. You forsake yourselves in forsaking me; and, since I no longer rule over brave men, I resign my power to the tyrants you prefer. Seven months I have ruled over you, prosperous in commerce, stainless in justice, victorious in the field. I have shown you what Rome could be; and since I abdicate the government ye gave me, when I am gone strike for your own freedom! It matters nothing who is the chief of a brave and great people. Prove that Rome hath many a Rienzi, but of brighter fortunes.

Heed me I ride with these faithful few through the quarter of the Colonna, before the fortress of your foe. Three times before that fortress shall my trumpet sound; if, at the third blast, ye come not, armed as befits you,-I say not all, but three, but two, but one hundred of ye,-I break my wand of office, and the world shall say one hundred and fifty robbers quelled the soul of Rome, and crushed her magistrate and her laws. -Rienzi.

CII. ORATORY.

It is absolutely necessary for the orator to keep one man in view amidst the multitude that surround him; and, while composing, to address himself to that one man, whose mistakes he laments, and whose foibles he discovers. This

K. N. E.-25.

man is to him as the genius of Socrates, standing continually at his side, and by turns interrogating him or answering his questions. This is he whom the orator ought never to lose sight of, in writing, till he obtain a conquest over his prepossessions. The arguments which will be sufficiently persuasive to overcome his opposition, will equally control a large assembly.

The orator will derive still farther advantages from a numerous concourse of people, where all the impressions made at the time will convey the finest triumphs of the art by forming a species of action and re-action between the auditory and the speaker. It is in this sense that Cicero is right in saying, "That no man can be eloquent without a multitude to hear him."

The auditor came to hear a discourse; the orator attacks him, accuses him, makes him abashed; addresses him at one time as his confidant, at another as his mediator or his judge. See with what address he unvails his most concealed passions; with what penetration he shows him his most intimate thoughts; with what energy he annihilates his best framed excuses! The culprit repents. Profound attention, consternation, confusion, remorse,-all announce that the orator has penetrated, in his retired meditations, into the recesses of the heart. Then, provided no ill-timed sally of wit follow to blunt the strokes of Christian eloquence, there may be in the church two thousand auditors, yet there will be but one thought, but one opinion; and all those individuals united, form that ideal man whom the orator had in view while composing his discourse.

But, you may ask, where is this ideal man, composed of so many different traits, to be found, unless we describe some chimerical being? Where shall we find a phantom like this, singular but not outré, in which every individual may recognize himself, although it resembles not any one? Where shall we find him? In your own heart. Often retire there. Survey all its recesses. There you will trace

both the pleas for those passions which you will have to combat, and the source of those false reasonings which you must point out. To be eloquent, we must enter within ourselves. The first productions of a young orator are generally too far fetched. His mind, always on the stretch, is making continual efforts, without his ever venturing to commit himself to the simplicity of nature, until experience teaches him that, to arrive at the sublime, it is, in fact, less necessary to elevate his imagination than to be deeply impressed with his subject.

If you have studied the sacred books; if you have observed men ; if you have attended to writers on morals, who serve you instead of historians; if you have become familiar with the language of orators, make trial of your eloquence upon yourself, become, so to speak, the auditor of your own discourses; and thus, by anticipating the effect which they ought to produce, you will easily delineate true characters; you will perceive that, notwithstanding the shades of difference which distinguish them, all men bear an interior resemblance to one another, and that their vices have a uniformity because they always proceed either from weakness or interest. In a word, your descriptions will not be indeterminate; and the more thoroughly you shall have examined what passes within your own breast, with more ability will you unfold the hearts of others.

-Maury.

CIII.-LIBERTY AND UNION.

I PROFESS, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our