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he regards them no more than if they were thistle-down or feathers!"

"By St. John of Acre," said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a deed!"

"The postern gate shakes," continued Rebecca, "it crashes-it is splintered by his blows-they rush in-the outwork is won-they hurl the defenders from the battlements-they throw them into the moat. O men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that can resist no longer!"

"The bridge, the bridge which communicates with the castle-have they won that pass?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.

"No," replied Rebecca, "the Templar has destroyed the plank on which they crossed-few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle-the shrieks and cries which you hear tell the fate of the others. Alas! I see it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle."

SCOTT.

THE FIRST TWO STANZAS OF MARMION; A TALE OF

FLODDEN FIELD.

DAY set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone :
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The loop-hole grates where captives weep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.

The warriors on the turrets high,
Moving athwart the evening sky,
Seemed forms of giant height:
Their armour, as it caught the rays,
Flashed back again the western blaze,
In lines of dazzling light.

St. George's banner, broad and gay,
Now faded, as the fading ray

Less bright, and less, was flung;
The evening gale had scarce the power
To wave it on the donjon tower,
So heavily it hung.

The scouts had parted on their search,
The castle gates were barred;
Above the gloomy portal arch,
Timing his footsteps to a march,
The warder kept his guard;

Low humming, as he paced along,
Some ancient Border gathering-song.

SCOTT.

THE DEATH OF MARMION.

WITH fruitless labour, Clara bound,
And strove to staunch the gushing wound:
The Monk, with unavailing cares,
Exhausted all the Church's prayers.
Ever, he said, that, close and near,
A lady's voice was in his ear,

And that the priest he could not hear,

For that she ever sung,

"In the lost battle, borne down by the flying, "Where mingles war's rattle with groans of the dying!"

So the notes rung;"Avoid thee, Fiend! with cruel hand, "Shake not the dying sinner's sand!

66

O look, my son, upon yon sign "Of the Redeemer's grace divine;

"O think on faith and bliss! "By many a death-bed I have been, "And many a sinner's parting seen, "But never aught like this."

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The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale,
And-Stanley! was the cry;
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:
With dying hand, above his head
He shook the fragment of his blade,

And shouted "Victory!

Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"
Were the last words of Marmion.

SCOTT.

SPEECH OF CICERO AGAINST CATILINE.

CATILINE! how far art thou to abuse our forbearance? How long are we to be deluded by the mockery of thy madness? Whère art thou to stóp in this career of unbridled licèntiousness? Has the nightly guard at the Palàtium' nothing in it to alarm you; the patroles throughout the city, nothing; the confusion of the people, nothing; the assemblage of all true lovers of their country, nothing; the guarded majesty of this assembly, nothing; and all the eyes that, at this instant, are rivetted upon yours-have they nothing to denoúnce, nor yoù to apprehénd? Does not your conscience infórm you, that the sùn' shines upon your sécrets? and do you not discover a full knowledge of your conspiracy revealed on the countenance of every man around you? Your employment on the last night-your occupations on the preceding night-the place where you met-the pèrsons who met and the plot fabricated at the méeting:-of thèse things, I ask not who knóws; I ask, whò, among you áll, is ignorant?

But, alas! for the times thus corrupted; or rather for mankind, who thus corrupt the times! The sénate knows all this! The cónsul' sèes all this! and yet the man who sits thére-lives. Líves! áy-comes down to your senatehouse; takes his séat, as counsellor for the còmmonwealth; and, with a deliberate destiny in his eye, marks out our

mémbers, and selects them for slaughter; while for ùs, and for our country, it seems glory sufficient to escape from his fúry-to find an asylum from his sword.

Lòng, very long, before this late hoúr, ought I, the consul, to have doomed this ringleader of sedítion to an ignominious death-óught I to have overwhelmed you, Catiline, in the ruins of your own machinations. Whát! did not that great man, the high-priest, Publius Scípio-although at the time in private station-sacrifice Tiberius Grácchus for dáring even to modify our constitution? and shall wé, clothed as we are with the plenitude of cónsular power, endure this nùisance of our nation and our náme? Shall we suffer him to put the Roman Empire to the sword, and lay waste the world, because such is his horrid fáncy? With the sanction of so late a précedent, need I obtrude the fate of the innovator, Spurius Mélius, immolated at the altar of the constitution, by the hand of Servilius Ahála? There has-yés, there has been, and lately been, a vindicatory virtue, an avènging spirit in this repúblic, that never failed to inflict speedier and heavier vengeance on a noxious cítizen, than on a national fòe. Against yoú, Catiline, and for your immediate condemnation, what, therefore, is wanting? Not the grave sanction of the sénate-not the voice of the country-not ancient précedents-not living law. But we are wanting-I say it more loudly-WE, the consuls themselves.

Conscript Fathers, a camp is pitched against the Roman repúblic, within Italy, on the very borders of Etrùria. Every day adds to the number of the enemy. The leader of those enemies, the commander of that encampment, walks within the walls of Ròme; takes his seat in this sénate, the heart of Rome; and, with venomous míschief, rànkles' in the inmost vítals of the còmmonwealth. Catiline, shoúld I, on the instant, order my lictors to seize and drag you to the stáke, sóme men might, even thèn, blame me for having procrastinated punishment; but nò man could críminate me' for a faithful execution of the làws. They shall be executed. But I will neither act, nor will I suffer, without full and sufficient reason. Trust me, they

shall be executed; and thén, even then, when there shall not be found a man so flagítious, so much a Càtiline, as to say you were not ripe for execution. You shall lível as long as there is one who has the forehead to say you òught to live; and you shall live, as you live nów, under our broad and wakeful eye, and the sword of jústice' shall keep waving round your head. Without the possibility of hearing, or of seeing, yoù shall be seen, and heárd, and understood.

Was not the night before the last sufficient to convince you, that there is a good genius' protecting that repúblic which a ferocious demòniac' is labouring to destroy? I avèr that, on thát sáme nìght, you and your complótters! assembled in the house of Marcus Portius Lècca. Can even your own tongue deny it? Yét secret! speak out, man; for, if you do not, there are some I see around me who shall have an agonising proof that I am true in my assertion.

Good and great góds! where àre we? What cíty do we inhàbit? Under what government do we live? Hère, HERE, Conscript Fathers, mixed and mingled with us állin the centre of this most grave and venerable assembly— are men sítting, quietly incubating a plot against my life, against all your lives; the life of every virtuous sénator and cìtizen: while I', with the whole nest of traitors brooding beneath my eyes, am parading in the petty formalities of debate; and the very men appear scarcely vulnerable by my voice, who ought, long since, to have been cut down with the sword.

In the house of Lécca, you were, on that night, Thèn and there did you divide Italy into military stations; did you appoint commanders of those stations; did you specify those whom you were to take along with you, and those! whom you were to leave behind; did you mark out the límit of the intended conflagration; did you repeat your resolution of shortly leaving Ròme, only putting it off for a líttle, as you said, until you could have the head of the consul. Two knights-Ròman knights-promised to deliver that head to you before sunrise the next morning; but scarcely was this stygian counsel dissolved, when the consul

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