EI he chose for granted, instead of making a question of it. He was not a dealer in moot-points. He seized on some stronghold in the argument, and held it fast with a convulsive grasp, or wrested the weapons out of his adversaries' hands by main force. He entered the lists like a gladiator. He made political controversy a combat of personal skill and courage. He was not for wasting time in long-winded discussions with his oppo'nents, but tried to disarm them by a word, or by a glance of his eye, so that they should not dare to contradict or confront him again. He did not wheedle, or palliate, or circumvent, or make a studied appeal to the reason or the passions. He dictated his opinions to the House of Commons. "He spoke as one having authority, and not as the Scribes." EI But if he did not produce such an effect either by reason or imagination, how did he produce it? The principle by which he exerted his influence over others (and it is a principle of which some speakers that I might mention seem not to have an idea, even in possibility) was sympathy. He himself evidently had a strong possession of his subject, a thorough conviction, an intense interest; and this communicated itself from his manner, from the tones of his voice, from his commanding attitudes, and eager gestures, instinctively and unavoidably to his hearers. His will was surcharged with electrical matter like a Volta'ic battery; and all who stood within its reach felt the full force of the shock. Zeal will do more than knowledge. To say the truth, there is, in his speeches, little knowledge, no ingenuity, no parade of individual details, not much attempt at general argument, neither wit nor fancy, but there are a few plain truths told home; whatever he says, he does. 7. LORD CHATHAM AS SECRETARY OF STATE. Grattan. ΕΙ The Secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chica'nery, no narrow systems of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous France sank beneath him; with one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. statesman. 8. EDMUND BURKE. He habitually recurred to principles; he was a scientific While other statesmen saw nothing but the object of the hour, he loved to let his imagination play on the future glories of America. His visions have all been, even in the period of less than a century, almost literally fulfilled. He delighted in contemplating those brave descendants of Englishmen, who had sought in the American wilderness a place of refuge where they might worship God in the way that their hearts and minds most approved. He exulted in their flourishing condition, in the increase of their wealth, their commerce, and their numbers. He pictured them reaping their golden harvests, throwing the harpoon on the coast of Africa, and penetrating amid icebergs into "Hudson's Bay" and "Davis's Straits." He was a writer of the first class, and excelled in almost every kind of composition. In his mind political principles were not objects of barren speculation. Wisdom in him was always practical. Whatever his understanding adopted as truth made its way to his heart, and sank deep into it; and his ardent and generous feelings seized with promptitude every occasion of applying it to mankind. "His knowledge of history," says Grattan, "amounted to a power of foretelling; and when he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that great political physician, intelligent of symptoms, distinguished between the access of fever and the force of health; and what other men conceived to be the vigor of her constitution he knew to be no more than the paroxysm of her madness; and then, prophet-like, he pronounced the destinies of France, and in his prophetic fury admonished nations." CXV. MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER.* THE world is full of life and love; the world methinks might spare, * Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, perished on the scaffold, Feb. 8, 1587, in the forty-fifth year of her age. Her mortal remains were taken from her weeping servants and left unwatched and unattended, except by a poor little lap-dog, which could not be induced to quit the body of its mistress. The faithful animal was found dead two days afterwards. In apostrophizing Queen Elizabeth as the "Semiramise of England," the poet alludes to her remorse for signing the death-warrant of Mary Stuart, and to the fact that her own death was wanting in the consolations of a conscience void of offence. Close by the form mankind desert, one thing a vigil keeps; It does not know that kindness dies, and love departs from death. And hears from lips that speak no more the voice that can command. To that poor fool, alone on earth, no matter what had been It seemed to gaze with such rebuke on those who could forsake, Alike the soul that hate had sped, the life that love had killed. Semiramis of England, hail! thy crime secures thy sway; strain Through vacant space, one thing to seek, one thing that loved — in vain? Though round thy parting pangs of pride shall priest and noble crowd, More worth the grief that inourned beside thy victim's gory shroud! SIR E. BULWER LYTTON. CXVI. CONVERSATION SPOILERS. 1. THOUGH Nature weigh our talents, and dispense And conversation, in its better part, 2. Ye powers, who rule the tongue, if such there are.― Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate- Vociferated logic kills me quite; A noisy man is always in the right: I twirl my thumbs, fall back into my chair, 3 Dubius is such a scrupulous, good man- 4. A story in which native humor reigns We bustle up, with unsuccessful speed, And, in the saddest part, cry, " Droll, indeed!' COWPER. CXVII. - THE YOUTH OF WASHINGTON. 1. JUST as Washington was passing from boyhood to youth, the enterprise and capital of Virginia were seeking a new field for exercise and investment, in the unoccupied public domain beyond the mountains. The business of a surveyor immediately became one of great importance and trust, for no surveys were executed by the government. To this occupation the youthful Washington, not yet sixteen years of age, and well furnished with the requisite mathematical knowledge, zealously devoted himself. Some of his family connections possessed titles to large portions of public land, which he was employed with them in surveying. 2. Thus, at a period of life when, in a more advanced stage of society, the intelligent youth is occupied in the elementary studies of the schools and colleges, Washington was carrying the surveyor's chain through the fertile valleys of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains; passing days and weeks in the wilderness, beneath the shadow of eternal forests; listening to the voice of the waterfalls, which man's art had not yet set to the healthful music of the saw-mill or the trip-hammer; reposing from the labors of the day on a bear-skin, with his feet to the blazing logs of a camp-fire; and sometimes startled from the deep slumbers of careless, hard-working youth, by the alarm of the Indian war-whoop. EI 3. This was the gymnastic school in which Washington was brought up; in which his quick glance was formed, destined to range hereafter across the battle-field, through clouds of smoke and bristling rows of bayonets; the school in which his senses, weaned from the taste for those detest'able indulgences, miscalled pleasures, in which the flower of adolescence so often languishes and pines away, were early braced up to the sinewy manhood which becomes the ΕΙ "Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye." 4. There is preserved among the papers of Washington a letter, written to a friend while he was engaged on his first surveying tour, and when he was, consequently, but sixteen years of age. I quote a sentence from it, in spite of the homeliness of the details', for which I like it the better, and because I wish to set before you, not an ideal hero, wrapped in cloudy generalities and a mist of vague panegyric, but the real, identical man, with all the peculiarities of his life and occupation. 5. " Your letter," says he, "gave me the more pleasure, as I received it among barbarians and an uncouth set of people. Since you received my letter of October last, I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed; but, after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain down before the fire, upon a little hay, straw, fodder, or a bear-skin, — whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire. Nothing would make it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon" is my con |