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selves and with regard to others, and which will stand, after this globe is burned to ashes, our advocate or our accuser before the great Judge, when He comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent life.

My lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! but if you stand-and stand I trust you will-together with the fortune of this ancient monarchy-together with the ancient laws and liberties of this great and illustrious kingdom-may you stand as unimpeached in honor as in power; may you stand, not as a substitute for virtue, but as an ornament of virtue, as a security for virtue; may you stand long, and long stand the terror of tyrants; may you stand the refuge of afflicted nations; may you stand a sacred temple, for the perpetual residence of an inviolable justice.

VI. CATILINE'S ADDRESS TO THE CONSPIRATORS.

SALLUST.

HAD not your valor and fidelity been well known to me, fruitless would have been the smiles of Fortune; the prospect of as mighty domination would in vain have opened upon us; nor would I have mistaken illusive hopes for realities, uncertain things for certain. But since, on many and great occasions, I have known you to be brave and faithful, I have ventured to engage in the greatest and noblest undertaking; for I well know that good and evil are common to you and me. That friendship at length is secure, which is founded on wishing and dreading the same things. You all know what designs I have long revolved in my mind; but my confidence in them daily increases, when I reflect what our fate is likely to be, if we do not vindicate our freedom by our own hands. For, since the republic has fallen under the power and dominion of a few, kings yield their tributes, governorships their profits to them all the rest, whether strenuous, good, noble or ignoble, are the mere vulgar: without influence, without authority, we are obnoxious to those to whom, if the commonwealth existed, we should be a terror. All honor, favor, wealth, is centered in them, or those whom they favor: to us are left dangers, repulses, lawsuits, poverty. How long will you endure them, O ye bravest of men? Is it not bet

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ter to die bravely, than drag out a miserable and dishonored life, the sport of pride, the victims of disgrace? But by the faith of gods and men, victory is in our own hands our strength is unimpaired; our minds energetic: theirs is enfeebled by age, extinguished by riches. All that is required is to begin boldly; the rest follows of course. Where is the man of a manly spirit, who can tolerate that they should overflow with riches, which they squander in ransacking the sea, in levelling mountains, while to us the common necessaries of life are wanting? They have two or more superb palaces each; we know not wherein to lay our heads. When they buy pictures, statues, basso-relievos, they destroy the old to make way for the new in every possible way they squander away their money; but all their desires are unable to exhaust their riches. At home, we have only poverty; abroad, debts: present adversity; worse prospects. What, in fine, is left us, but our woe-stricken souls? What, then, shall we do? That, that which you have ever most desired. Liberty is before your eyes; and it will soon bring riches, renown, glory: Fortune holds out these rewards to the victors. The time, the place, our dangers, our wants, the splendid spoils of war, exhort you more than my words. Make use of me either as a commander or a private soldier. in soul nor body will I be absent from your side. These deeds I hope I shall perform as consul with you, unless my hopes deceive me, and you are prepared rather to obey as slaves, than to command as rulers.

Neither

VIL-CONCILIATION OF IRELAND.

ERSKINE.

WE refused to look at the grievances of America whilst they were curable. It was this refusal which gave birth to her independence. The same procrastinating spirit prevailed at that period which prevails now, and the same delusion as to the effects of terror and coercion. Lord Chatham's warning voice was rejected. 'Give satisfaction to America," said that great statesman- conciliate her affection-do it to-night-do it before you sleep." But we slept and did it not, and America was separated from us forever.

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Ireland in the same manner obtained a sudden and unsought-for independence, and has been brought to her present state of alarming hostility to this country. We refused to see what stared us in the face in characters reddening into blood; but the light broke in upon us at last, not through well-constructed windows, but through the yawning chasms of our ruin. We were taught wisdom through humiliation— I am afraid we have much more to learn in that useful, but melancholy school. The identical system by which America was lost to Great Britain, ministers are now acting over again with regard to Ireland at this moment. They refuse to redress her grievances. They listen not to her complaints ; what America was, Ireland, perhaps England itself, will shortly be, if you obstinately refuse to adopt that system of conciliation which alone can bring back affection and obedience to any government which has lost it.

Let ministers instantly forego that fatal system of coercion which forced America from her connection with us into the arms of France, and which is, at this very moment, driving Ireland to seek the same protection. Let them relinquish the insane attempt to retain the affection of that country at the point of the bayonet, which is hourly tearing out of the hearts of Irishmen those feelings of kindness and love for England, upon which the permanence of union between the two countries can alone be established. This fatal system of coercion and terror, which ministers seem resolved to persevere in, has made half Europe submit to the arms of France, and has given the air of romance or rather of enchantment to the career of her conquests. Now in Holland -now on the Rhine-almost at the same moment overturning the states of Italy, and overawing the empire at the gates of Vienna. Without meaning to underrate the unexampled energies of a mighty nation repelling the atrocious combinations of despotism against her liberties, the nations with which she contended had no privileges to fight for, or any governments worth preserving; they felt therefore no interest in their preservation. Whilst the powers of such governments remained, their subjects were drawn up in arms, and appeared to be armies; but when invasion had silenced the power which oppressed them, they became in a moment the subjects and the soldiers of their invaders. Take warning from so many examples -the principles of revolution are eternal and universal.

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VIII-A FREE CONSTITUTION.

BOLINGBROKE.

If ever a weak and corrupt administration should arise; if an evil minister should embezzle the public treasure; if he should load the nation in times of peace, with taxes greater than would be necessary to defray the charge of an expensive war; if money thus raised should be expended, under the pretence of secret service, to line his own pockets; to stop the mouths of his hungry dependants; to bribe sore future parliament to approve his measures; and to patch up an illdigested, base, dishonorable peace with foreign powers, whom he shall have offended by a continual series of provocations and blunders; if he should advise his sovereign to make it a maxim, that his security consisted in the continuance, or increase of the public debts, and that his grandeur was founded on the poverty of his subjects; if he should hazard the affections of the people, by procuring greater revenues for the crown, than they shall be able to spend or the people to raise; and after this, engage his prince to demand still farther sums as his right, which all men should be sensible were not his due; I say, if the nation should ever fall under these unhappy circumstances, they will then find the excellence of a free constitution. The public discontent, which upon such occasions has formerly burst forth in a torrent of blood, of universal confusion and desolation, will make itself known only in faint murmurs, and dutiful general complaints. The nation will wait long, before they engage in any desperate measures, that may endanger a constitution, which they justly adore, and from which they confidently expect a sure, though perhaps a dilatory justice, upon such an enormous offender.

These are the inestimable advantages of our present happy settlement. Let us prize it as we ought. Let us not have the worse opinion of the thing itself, because it may, in some instances, be abused. But let us retain the highest veneration for it. Let us remember how much it is our right, and let us resolve to preserve it, untainted and inviolable. Then shall we truly serve our king; we shall do our duty to our country; and preserve ourselves in the condition, for which all men were originally designed; that is, of a free people.

IX.-IMMORTAL INFLUENCE OF ATHENS.

T. B. MACAULAY.

ALL the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Whenever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, and consoling ;-by the lonely lamp of Erasmus; by the restless bed of Pascal; in the tribune of Mirabeau; in the cell of Galileo; on the scaffold of Sidney. But who shall estimate her influence on private happiness? Who shall say how many thousands have been made wiser, happier, and better, by those pursuits in which she has taught mankind to engage; to how many the studies which took their rise from her have been wealth in poverty,liberty in bondage,—health in sickness,―society in solitude. Her power is indeed manifested at the bar; in the senate; in the field of battle; in the schools of philosophy. But these are not her glory. Wherever literature consoles sorrow, or assuages pain,-wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and wake for the dark house and the long sleep,-there is exhibited, in its noblest form, the immortal influence of Athens.

The dervise, in the Arabian tale, did not hesitate to abandon to his comrade the camels with their load of jewels and gold, while he retained the casket of that mysterious juice, which enabled him to behold at one glance all the hidden riches of the universe. Surely it is no exaggeration to say, that no external advantage is to be compared with that purification of the intellectual eye, which gives us to contemplate the infinite wealth of the mental world; all the hoarded treasures of the primeval dynasties, all the shapeless ore of the yet unexplored mines. This is the gift of Athens to man. Her freedom and her power have for more than twenty centuries been annihilated; her people have degenerated into timid slaves; her language into a barbarous jargon; her temples have been given up to the successive depredations of Romans, Turks, and Scotchmen; but her intellectual empire is imperishable. And, when those who have rivalled her greatness, shall have shared her fate: when civilization and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in distant continents;

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