now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,-bearing, for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as-What is all this worth ?— nor those other words of delusion and folly-Liberty first and Union afterwards,-but every where, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the whole Heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heartLiberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!

6. LOVE OF COUNTRY.-Walter Scott.

Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land?”
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well:
For him no minstrel raptures swell!
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

LESSON XLV.

1. RIGHTS OF THE PLEBEIANS.-Canuleius.

I

What an insult upon us is this? If we are nốt so rich as the Patricians, are we not citizens of Rome as well as they? inhabitants of the same country? members of the same commúnity? The nations bordering upon Rome, and even strangers mòre remote, are admitted, not only to marriages with us, but to what is of much greater importance, the freedom of the city. Are we, because we are commoners, to be worse treated than strangers? And when we demand that the people may be free to bestow their offices and dignities on whom they plèase, do we ask any thing unréasonable or new? Do we claim more than their original, inherent right? What I occasion, then, for all this uproar, as if the universe were falling to ruin? They were just going to lay violent hands upon me in the senate house.

What must this empire, then, be unavoidably overtúrned? must Rome of necessity sink at once, if a Plebeian, worthy of the office, should be raised to the consulship? The Patricians, I am persuaded, if they could, would deprive you of the common light. It certainly offends them that you breathe, that you speak, that you have the shapes of men. Nay, but to make a commoner a consul, would be, say they, a most enòrmous thing. Numa Pompílius, however, without being so much as a Roman citizen, was made king of Rome. The elder Tàrquin, by birth not even an Itàlian, was,

nevertheless, placed upon the thróne. Servius Tullius, the son of a captive wòman, obtained the kingdom as the reward of his wsidom and virtue. In those ! days, nò man in whom virtue shone conspicuous, was rejected or despised on account of his ráce and descént.

2. SALATHIEL TO TITUS.-Croly.

Son of Vespasian, I am at this hour a poor man, as I may in the next be an exile or a slave: I have ties to life as strong as ever were bound round the heart of a man: I stand here a suppliant for the life of one whose loss would embitter mine! Yet not for wealth unlimited, for the safety of my family, for the life of the noble victim that is now standing at the place of torture, dare I abandon, dare I think the impious thought of abandoning the cause of the City of Holiness.

Titus in the name of that Being, to whom the wisdom of the earth is folly, I adjure you to beware. Jerusalem is sacred. Her crimes have often wrought her misery-often has she been trampled by the arms of the stranger. But she is still the City of the Omnipotent; and never was blow inflicted on her by man, that was not terribly repaid.

The Assyrian came, the mightiest power of the world he plundered her temple, and led her people into captivity. How long was it before his empire was a dream, his dynasty extinguished in blood, and an enemy on his throne ?-The Persian came from her protector, he turned into her oppressor; and his em

pire was swept away like the dust of the desert!The Syrian smote her: the smiter died in agonies of remorse; and where is his kingdom now?-The Egyptian smote her: and who now sits on the throne of the Ptolemies?

Pompey came: the invincible, the conqueror of a thousand cities, the light of Rome: the lord of Asia, riding on the very wings of victory. But he profaned her temple; and from that hour he went down-down, like a mill-stone plunged into the ocean! Blind counsel, rash ambition, womanish fears, were upon the great statesman and warrior of Rome. Where does he sleep? What sands were colored with his blood? The universal conqueror died a slave, by the hand of a slave! Crassus came at the head of the legions: he plundered the sacred vessels of the sanctuary. Vengeance followed him, and he was cursed by the curse of God. Where are the bones of the robber and his host? Go, tear them from the jaws of the lion and the wolf of Parthia,-their fitting tomb!

You, too, son of Vespasian, may be commissioned for the punishment of a stiff-necked and rebellious people. You may scourge our naked vice by force of arms and then you may return to your own land, exulting in the conquest of the fiercest enemy of Rome. But shall you escape the common fate of the instrument of evil? Shall you see a peaceful old age? Shall a son of yours ever sit upon the throne? Shall not rather some monster of your blood efface the memory of your virtues, and make Rome, in bitterness of soul, curse the Flavian name?

3. HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS.-Shakespeare.

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced to you, trippingly on the tongue; but, if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus: but use all gently; for, in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, WHIRLWIND of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters,-to very rags,-to split the ears of the GROUNDLINGS; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb show and noise. I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing,—whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature; scorn, her own image; and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O! there be players that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly,—not to speak it profanely, that, neither