Quoth Toby,-gravely making him a bow,—

"I pull it, sir, at your desire."

"At mine!"-" Yes, yours; I hope I've done it well;
High time for bed, sir: I was hastening to it;
But if you write up- Please to ring the bell,'
Common politeness makes me stop and do it."

6

6. ANDREW JONES.-Wordsworth.

"I hate that Andrew Jones; he'll breed
His children up to waste and pillage;
I wish the press-gang or the drum,
With its tantara sounds would come,
And sweep him from the village ! "

I said not this, because he loves
Through the long day to swear and tipple,
But for the poor dear sake of one
To whom a foul deed he had done,
A friendless man-a travelling cripple !

For this poor, crawling, helpless wretch,
Some horseman who was passing by,
A penny on the ground had thrown;
But the poor cripple was alone
And could not stoop-no help was nigh.

Inch thick the dust lay on the ground,
For it had long been droughty weather,
So with his staff the cripple wrought
Among the dust, till he had brought
The half-pennies together.

It chanced that Andrew passed that way,
Just at the time; and there he found
The cripple at the mid-day heat,
Standing alone, and at his feet
He saw the penny on the ground.

He stooped, and took the penny up,
And when the cripple nearer drew,
Quoth Andrew, "under half a crown.
What a man finds is all his own,
And so, good friend, good day to you."

And hence I said that Andrew's boys
Will all be trained to waste and pillage;
And wished the press-gang or the drum,
With its tantara sounds would come,
And sweep him from the village.

LESSON XLVIII.

WEBSTER'S SPEECH IN FANEUIL HALL, 1852.

1. Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen of the City Council of the City of Boston: I tender you my hearty thanks -my deep-felt gratitude-for this unexpected expression of your regard towards me as one of your fellow-citizens; and I thank you, Mr. Mayor, an old and constant friend of mine, for the kind manner in which you have been pleased to express your sentiments towards me on this occasion. And now, fellow-citizens of Boston, by the good Providence of God, I am here

once more before you and glad to see every face that illumines and is illumined in this assembly.

Fellow-citizens, this occasion is equally agreeable and unexpected. I left the place of my appropriate duties at the approach of Summer for my home, and to see something after those personal affairs that must necessarily occupy a certain portion of my time and attention. I came with no purpose or expectation of addressing any popular assembly, or meeting any great mass of my fellow-citizens; but I have been arrested by the vote of the City Council of Boston, inviting me, with a unanimity which affects my feelings, to meet them and my fellowcitizens of Boston here-not as a public man, but as a private man--not one who shares in the exercise of public authority, but as one of themselves, who has passed the greater part of his life in that association, in that acquaintance, and in the cultivation of the regard of this generation, and in some respects of the regard of their predecesGentlemen, I have said, and say now, that I come here to-day to discuss no political question, to enter upon the consideration of no controverted point of our Government, or any thing growing out of the present state of opinion in the community, about which men may honestly differ.

sors.

2. Fellow-Citizens, I abstain from all that which pertains to a political character, because this is not a fit occasion for such a discussion. This is a friendly, social, neighborhood meeting; and allow me to say, gentlemen, in the next place, that if it were a fit occasion for me to express political opinions, I humbly submit that I have no new opinions to express-no new political character to assume. What I think of the present emergencies

of public policy has been so often spoken of by me, and written by me, with a full heart and an honest purpose, that nothing, as it appears to me, remains to be said. I say to you, to-day, I have nothing to add-I have nothing to retract; I have neither explanation nor qualification to offer. I propose to you and to my fellow-citizens throughout all the country, to-day, no platform but the platform of my life and character. I have no promises with which to delude my country; I have no assurances to give but the assurances of my reputation. I am known. What I have been, and what I am, is known; and upon that knowledge I stand to-day, with my country and before my countrymen; and the rest is theirs.

Nevertheless, gentlemen, although it be not an occasion for public discussion of controverted questions, it is an occasion on which, considering where we are and the time in which we live, we should take into consideration the position which we occupy. This is Faneuil Hallopen. These images which surround Faneuil Hall, are the pictures of the great, and glorious, and immortal defenders of our liberty. No man of propriety and sentiment can stand here without revering them. No man with a proper regard for the past, with proper feelings for the present, or with proper inspiration for the future, can stand here in Faneuil Hall, surrounded by these images of our ancestors-these pictures of revolutionary characters-without considering that they are consecrated by early shedding of blood, ennobled by early efforts for liberty, and transmitted to posterity by all the sacred ties that can transmit important events to the

future. Gentlemen, here we are in what we justly call the "Cradle of American Liberty"--here we are, on the spot which gave interest to the events, military and civil, with which the revolution of our country commenced; and, in all time past, in the present time, and until the love of liberty is extinct in future generations, this place, and the events which consecrated it, will be held in the most grateful remembrance. Fellowcitizens-I hope it may not be irreverent for me to say, that as the Jews in the days of their captivity in Babylon, offered prayers to God daily, turning their faces always towards Jerusalem, so the patriotic and ingenuous youth of this and succeeding generations, who wish to ascertain and prove the early origin of the independence of their country, its early liberty, and wish to imbibe into their own hearts the fulness of its spirit, will turn their attention daily and hourly to this spot, where the early events of the revolution took place, and which, from that time to this, has been the theatre of commendation and enthusiastic reverence by all the lovers of liberty throughout the world.

3. Gentlemen and Fellow-Citizens, not to pursue even these general political remarks too far, I may say that the path of politics is a thorny path; it is agreeable sometimes to turn aside from it, and to walk along by the pleasant verdure of a beautiful vale, adorned with flowers, and enriched with the fruits of friendship and social regard. It is from one of these walks that we are assembled here to-day. Gentlemen, I propose to you to leave the briery region of controverted politics, and to walk with me along that vale where we may bow with