"At least King Charles, if God decrees he must be lord of Spain, Shall witness that the Leonese were not aroused in vain ; "The LION that hath bathed his paws in seas of Libyan gore, LXXVII-MACLAINE'S CHILD MACKAY. "MACLAINE! you 've scourged me like a hound;— "You should have crushed me into death;— "On him, and you, and all your race!"- And, starting like a hunted stag, And, leaning o'er its topmost ledge, With flashing eye and burning brow, But, midway up the rugged steep, "Oh! spare my child, my joy, my pride; Oh! give me back my child!" she cried: "My child! my child!" with sobs and tears, She shrieked upon his callous ears. "Come, Evan," said the trembling chief,- "I scorn forgiveness, haughty man! And, as he spoke, he raised the child, "Fair lady, if your lord will strip, The lady's cheek grew pale with ire, Took aim, then dropped it, sore distressed. "I might have slain my babe instead. "Wrong unavenged I've never borne," The lady stood in mute despair, With freezing blood and stiffening hair; He saw the quivering of her eye, A storm of passion shook his mind,— "I smite you," But Evan's face beamed hate and joy; They found their bodies in the tide; Was that sad mother known to smile- They dragged false Evan from the sea, Ex. LXXVIII.—CHARACTER OF CHATHAM. GRATTAN. THE secretary stood alone; modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original, and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sank beneath him. With one hand, he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded, with the other, the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England, and the present age only, but Europe, and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor, and enlightened by prophecy. The ordinary feelings which render life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulty, no domestic weakness reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came, occasionally, into our system, to counsel and to decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, and so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman; and talked much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in the senate; peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments, and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully, it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not, like Murray, conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation, nor was he, like Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion; but, rather, lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. Upon the whole, there was something in this man that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilder ness of free minds with unbounded authority-something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world, which should resound throughout the universe, Ex. LXXIX.-VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. THE king was on his throne, In Judah deemed divine- The godless heathen's wine! In that same hour and hall, And wrote as if on sand: The fingers of a man,- Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand. The monarch saw, and shook, Chaldea's seers are good, But here they have no skill; Are wise and deep in lore; BYRON. |