Why, let all traitors flock to thee, and learn
How proudly guilt can talk!-Let fathers rear
Their offspring henceforth, as the free wild birds
Foster their young; when these can mount alone,
Dissolving nature's bonds-why should it not
Be so with us?

What high prerogatives belong to death.
He hath a deep, though voiceless eloquence,
To which I leave my cause. "His solemn veil
Doth with mysterious beauty clothe our virtues,
And in its vast, oblivious folds, for ever

Give shelter to our faults." When I am gone,
The mists of passion which have dimm'd my name
Will melt like day-dreams; and my memory then
Will be-not what it should have been-for I
Must pass without my fame-but yet, unstained
As a clear morning dew-drop. Oh! the grave
Hath rights inviolate as a sanctuary's,
And they should be my own!

Pro.
Now, by just Heaven,
I will not thus be tortured!-Were my heart
But of thy guilt or innocence assured,
I could be calm again. But, in this wild
Suspense, this conflict and vicissitude
Of opposite feelings and convictions-What!
Hath it been mine to temper and to bend
All spirits to my purpose; have I raised
With a severe and passionless energy,
From the dread mingling of their elements,

Storms which have rock'd the earth?-And shall I now
Thus fluctuate, as a feeble reed, the scorn

And plaything of the winds?"-Look on me, boy!
Guilt never dared to meet these eyes, and keep

Its heart's dark secret close. Oh, pitying Heaven!
Speak to my soul with some dread oracle,

And tell me which is truth.

Rai.

I will not plead.

I will not call th' Omnipotent to attest

My innocence. No, father, in thy heart
I know my birthright shall be soon restored;
Therefore I look to death, and bid thee speed
The great absolver.

Pro. We will not part in wrath !—the sternest hearts, Within their proud and guarded fatnesses,

Hide something still, round which their tendrils cling
With a close grasp, unknown to those who dress
Their love in smiles. And such wert thou to me!
The all which taught me that my soul was cast
In nature's mould. And I must now hold on
My desolate course alone !—Why, be it thus!
He that doth guide a nation's star, should dwell
High o'er the clouds in regal solitude,

Sufficient to himself.

Rai.

Yet, on that summit, When with her bright wings glory shadows thee, Forget not him who coldly sleeps beneath,

Yet might have soared as high!

Pro.

Thou❜lt be remembered long.
O' th' heart is ne'er forgotten.
Rai.

No, fear thou not!
The canker-worm

"Oh! not thus

Let me deem

I would not thus be thought of."
Pro.
Again that thou art base!-for thy bright looks,
Thy glorious mien of fearlessness and truth,
Then would not haunt me as th' avenging powers
Followed the parricide. Farewell, farewell!
I have no tears. Oh! thus thy mother looked,
When, with a sad, yet half-triumphant smile,
All radiant with deep meaning, from her death-bed
She gave thee to my arms.

Rai.

Now death has lost

His sting, since thou believ'st me innocent.

Pro. Thou innocent!-Am I thy murderer then?
Away! I tell thee thou hast made my name

A scorn to men!-No! I will not forgive thee;
A traitor!-What! the blood of Procida

Filling a traitor's veins !-Let the earth drink it;
Thou wouldst receive our foes!—but they shall meet
From thy perfidious lips a welcome, cold

As death can make it.

Rai. Yet hear me!
Pro.

E'en shame look fair.

No! thou'rt skill'd to make

Why should I linger thus ?
[Going-he turns back for a moment.

If there be aught-if aught—for which thou need'st
Forgiveness-not of me, but that dread power
From whom no heart is veil'd-delay thou not
prayer :-
:-Time hurries on.

Thy

Rai.

Men talk of torture!-Can they wreak

Upon the sensitive and shrinking frame,

Half the mind bears, and lives?-My spirit feels
Bewilder'd; on its powers this twilight gloom

Hangs like a weight of earth. It should be morn ;
Why, then, perchance, a beam of Heaven's bright sun
Hath pierced, ere now, the grating of my dungeon,
Telling of hope and mercy!

David. THEN, by the mass, sir, I would do no such thing! ne'er a Sir Lucius O'Trigger in the kingdom should make me fight, when I wa'n't so minded. Oons! what will the old lady say, when she hears o't?

Acres. But my honour, David, my honour! I must be very careful of my honour.

Dav. Ay, by the mass! and I would be very careful of it, and I think in return my honour couldn't do less than to be very careful of me.

Acr. Odds blades! David, no gentleman will ever risk the loss of his honour!

Dav. I say, then, it would but be civil in honour never to risk the loss of a gentleman. Lookye, master, this honour seems to me to be a marvellous false friend; ay, truly, a very courtier-like servant. Put the case, I was a gentleman (which, I thank my stars, no one can say of me;) well-my honour makes me quarrel with another gentleman of my acquaintance. So, we fight. (Pleasant enough that.) Boh! I kill him ; (the more's my luck.) Now, pray, who gets the profit of it? Why, my honour. But put the case, that he kills me! by the mass! I go to the worms, and my honour whips over to my enemy.

Acr. No, David, in that case! odds, crowns and laurels ! your honour follows you to the grave!

Dav. Now, that's just the place where I could make a shift to do without it.

Acr. Zounds! David, you are a coward! It doesn't become my valour to listen to you. What, shall 1 disgrace my ancestors? think of that, David; think what it would be to disgrace my ancestors!

Dav. Under favour, the surest way of not disgracing them is to keep as long as you can out of their company. Lookye now, master, to go them in such haste-with an ounce of lead in your brains-1 should think it might as well be let alone. Our ancestors are very good kind of folks; but they are the last people I should choose to have a visiting acquaintance with.

Acr. But, David, now, you don't think there is such very, very, very great danger, hey? Odds life! people

often fight without any mischief done!

Dav. By the mass, I think 'tis ten to one against you. Oons! here to meet some lion-headed fellow, I warrant, with his villanous double-barrelled swords and cut-and-thrust pistols! Oh bless us! it makes me tremble to think o't; those be such desperate bloody-minded weapons! well, 1 never could abide them; from a child I never could fancy them! I suppose there an't been so merciless a beast in the world as your loaded pistol!

Acr. Zounds! I wont be afraid; odds fire and fury! you sha'n't make me afraid. Here is the challenge, and I have sent for my dear friend, Jack Absolute, to carry it for me.

Dav. Ay, i' the name of mischief, let him be the messenger. For my part, I wouldn't lend a hand to it for the best horse in your stable. By the mass! it don't look like another letter! it is, as I may say, a designing and malicious-looking letter! and I warrant smells of gunpowder, like a soldier's pouch! Oons! I wouldn't swear it mayn't go off!

Acr. Out, you poltroon! you ha'n't the valour of a grasshopper.

Dav. Well, I say no more: 'twill be sad news, to be sure, at Clod Hall! but I ha' done. Good bye, master. Acr. Get along, you cowardly, dastardly, croaking raven!

SECTION XXVII.

EXTRACT FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
Edward Everett.

WE of America have here an advantage over our English brethren, in that keen enthusiasm which we feel for the famous spots and abodes, that are consecrated to both

alike, by the great names associated with them. To them the constant presence and familiarity of the scene blunt the edge of the feelings it excites in us, and Westminster Abbey and Stratford on Avon, awaken an enthusiasm in an American fancy, which the Englishman smiles at, as a sort of provincial rawness. Instead of assenting to those on both sides of the water, who have spoken of America as unfortunate in the want of ancient associations, as condemned to a kind of matter-of-fact, unpoetical newness of national character, we maintain that never nation, since the world began, had so rich a treasure of traditional glory. Is it nothing to be born, as it were, with the birthright of two native lands; to sail across the world of waters, and be hailed beyond it by the sound of your native tongue? Is it nothing to find in another hemisphere the names, the customs, and the dress of your own; to be able to trace your ancestry back, not to the ranks of a semi-barbarous conqueror, or the poor mythology of vagrants and fugitives of fabulous days, but to noble, high-minded men in an age of glory, than which a brighter never dawned on the world? Is it nothing to be able, as you set your foot on the English soil, and with a heart going back to all the proud emotions which bind you at the moment to the happy home you have left, to be able still, nevertheless, to exclaim, with more than poetical, with literal natural truth,

Salve! magna Parens

Frugum, Saturnia tellus, magna, virûm!

If there be any feeling, merely national, which can compare with this, it should be that which corresponds to it; the complacency, with which it were to be hoped the wise and good friends of British glory in England would regard this flourishing off-set of their own native stock; the pride with which they should witness the progress of their language, their manners, their laws, and their literature, over regions wider than the conquests of Alexander; and that not by a forced and military imposition on a conquered land, but by fair and natural inheritance, and still more by voluntary adoption and choice; the joy, with which they should reflect, that not a note is struck at the centre of thought and opinion in the British capital, but is heard and propagated by our presses, to the valley of the Missouri; and that if the day should come in the progress of national decline, when England shall be gathered with the empires that have been, when her thousand ships shall have disappeared from