Its pleasures past, for what can last We have enjoyed, nor unemployed, Your brilliant style that does beguile We do admire your plan entire, The timid one that's just begun To study recitation, You do allure, with success sure, You have the heart, besides the art And while you tell, with magic spell, You've taught us when, and yet again, And like a pin, to shew therein At commas keep the voice from sleep, But colons bold require a hold— Two seconds to make them square. We change the voice, from tasteful choice, As rule will shew, by which we go And pause again, with voice or pen, But periods need a slower speed, The article or particle The definite one I mean- For direction with inflexion, We make a pause before a clause According to importance due We read them fast, if that's their caste, We don't pretend to comprehend, Or put in operation, All rules of verse, and then rehearse "Twill never do to weary you, With rhyming conversation; So I refuse to let the muse Obtain such condemnation. It cheers the heart, this noble art, It stores the mind with gold refined, From narrow self, and worldly pelf, The gems of yore and modern lore We also know, and are not slow To give our teacher credit, For his good rules to train the schools, Which guide through plight, with steady light Attuning all, both great and small, The pieces we elicit. Should fate restore the blessing o'er By sending you next session, We'll seize the prize, to get more wise This humble rhyme, though not sublime, Which may not suit your fashion. And may your name, with all its fame, Long may you be, deservedly, While I conclude, with gratitude, Cic. OUR long dispute must close. Take one proof more Of this rebellion. Lucius Catiline Has been commanded to attend the senate. He dares not come! I now demand your votes! Is he commended to exile? Here I repeat the charge, to gods and men, A meeting of conspirators was held Cat. Conscript fathers! I do not rise to waste the night in words: But here I stand for right!—Let him shew proofs !— Cic. Deeds shall convince you! Has the traitor done? Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb; Cic. This is his answer! Must I bring more proofs ? Fathers, you know their lives not one of us, But lives in peril of his midnight sword. Lists of proscription have been handed round, Your murderer's hire. Fathers of Rome! If men can be convinced By proof, as clear as daylight, here it is! Look on these letters! Here's a deep-laid plot Made with all form and circumstance. The time Cat. Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones! Cic. Give up the record of his banishment. Cat. Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free I held some slack allegiance till It breaks my chain ! this hour,— Smile on, my lords! I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes, But here I stand and scoff you!-here I fling Your consul's merciful. For this, all thanks! He dares not touch a hair of Catiline! Con. (Reads.) "Lucius Sergius Catiline, by the decree of the senate, your are declared an enemy and alien to the state, and banished from the territory of the commonwealth!" Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple! Cat. "Traitor!" I go,-but I return! This trial! Here I devote your senate!-I've had wrongs, To stir a fever in the blood of age, And make the infant's sinews strong as steel. This day's the birth of sorrows! This hour's work Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my lords! A STORM AT SEA. [By kind permission of Messrs. CHAPMAN & HALL.] "DON'T you think that," I asked the coachman, in the first stage out of London, "a very remarkable sky? I don't remember to have seen one like it." "Nor I-not equal to it," he replied. "That's wind, sir. There'll be mischief done at sea, I expect, before long." |