3. Who, motion, foreign to the smallest grain, Shot through vast masses of enormous weight? Who bid brute matter's restive lump assume Such various forms, and gave it wings to fly? Has matter innate motion? Then each atom, Asserting its indisputable right To dance, would form an universe of dust. Has matter none?-then whence these glorious forms LESSON CXLIII. To-morrow.-COTTON. 1. TO-MORROW, didst thou say? Methought I heard Horatio say, To-morrow. Go to I will not hear of it-To-morrow! 'Tis a sharper, who stakes his penury Against thy plenty-who takes thy ready cash, And pays thee nought, but wishes, hopes, and promises The currency of idiots-injurious bankrupt, That gulls the easy creditor!-To-morrow! It is a period no where to be found In all the hoary registers of Time, Unless perchance in the fool's calendar. 2. Wisdom disclaims the word, nor holds society With those who own it. No, my Horatio, Tis Fancy's child, and Folly is its father; Wrought of such stuff as dreams are, and as baseless But soft, my friend-arrest the present moment: Thou, like a sleeping, faithless sentinel, "Tis of more worth than kingdoms! far more precious Than all the crimson treasures of life's fountain. O! let it not elude thy grasp; but, like The good old patriarch* upon record, Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee. LESSON CXLIV. 4 Vanity of Power and Misery of Kings.-SHAKSPEARE. 2. For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground, And tell sad stories of the death of kings: How some have been depos'd, some slain in war; 3. To monarchize, be fear'd, and kill with looks; - * See Genesis, chap. xxxii. 24-30, As if this flesh, which walls about our life, Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell king! For you have but mistook me all this while : How can you say to me--I am a king? LESSON CXLV. Darkness.-BYRON. 1. I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: 2. And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, 3. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down Lord George Gordon Byron, an English nobleman, distinguished as a poet. He was born in London, Jan. 22d, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, in April, 1824, while assisting the Greeks in their glorious struggle for freedom And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up 4 pang Of famine fed upon all entrails-men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh. And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand 7. The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies; they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place, Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands 'The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died—. Unknowing who he was upon whose brow 8. And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge— 9. The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave The moon, their mistress, had expired before; The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air, LESSON CXLVI. Hannibal to Scipio Africanus, at their interview preceding the Battle of Zama.t 1. SINCE fate has so ordained it, that I, who began the war and who have been so often on the point of ending it by a complete conquest, should now come of my own motion, to ask a peace--I am glad that it is of you, Scipio, I have the fortune to Hannibal, a celebrated Carthaginian, and one of the greatest generals of antiquity, was born 252 years B. C. At 9 years of age, his father, Hamilcar, made him swear on the altar, eternal enmity to Rome. At 25 years of age, he took upon him the command of the army, and having conquered the Roman forces in Spain, he led his army over the Pyrenees and Alps into Italy. Here he gained many important victories; and during sixteen years conquered every army which the Romans sent against him. At the end of this time, the Romans sent an army into Africa, under the command of Scipio, and the Carthaginians called Hannibal out of Italy to defend his own country. He was defeated by Scipio at the battle of Zama, and was obliged to flee his country. He led a wandering life at the courts of Antiochus and Prusias, in Asia, and at last destroyed himself by poison, when he was about to be delivered into the hands of the Romans, B. C. 182, aged 70. The battle of Zama was fought 196 years B. C. in which the Carthaginians were totally defeated, and an end put to the second Punic War. The three wars between Rome and Carthage were called Punic Wars. The first Punic War commenced 264 years B. C. and lasted 23 years. The second commenced 218 years B. C. and lasted 22 years. The third commenced 149 years B. C. and lasted 3 years; when Carthage was entirely destroyed, 146 years B. C. |