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CXLIV. ANTONY'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS.

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SHAKSPEARE.

FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:
I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interréd with their bones:
So let it be with Cæsar! The noble Brutus
Hath told you, Cæsar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Cæsar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honorable man,
So are they all, all honorable men ;)
Come I to speak in Cæsar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to ne:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see, that, on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse.

Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And sure he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke ;
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,

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And men have lost their reason! - Bear with me:

My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Cæsar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

O Masters! if I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.

I will not do them wrong- I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.

But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar;
I found it in his closet: 't is his will.

Let but the commons hear this testament,
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,)

And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood-

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy,

Unto their issue.

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If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember

The first time ever Cæsar put it on ;

'T was on a summer's evening in his tent;

That day he overcame the Nervii :

:

Look! In this place ran Cassius's dagger through:—

See, what a rent the envious Casca made

Through this, the well-belovéd Brutus stabbed;

And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Cæsar followed it!

This was the most unkindest cut of all!

For, when the noble Cæsar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,

Quite vanquished him! Then burst his mighty heart: And, in his mantle muffling up his face,

Even at the base of Pompey's statue,

Which all the while ran blood, great Cæsar fell.
O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I and you, and all of us, fell down;
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity:- these are gracious drops,
Kind souls! What, weep you when you but behold
Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look
Here is himself— marred, as you see, by traitors.

Good friends! sweet friends!
To such a sudden flood of mutiny!

ye

here!

Let me not stir you up

They that have done this deed are honorable!

What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it! They are wise and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:
I am no orator, as Brutus is;

But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man,
That love friend
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- and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
I only speak right on;

To stir men's blood:

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I tell you that which you yourselves do know

Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me. But, were I Brutus,

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony,
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar, that should move

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny!

CXLV. VINDICATION OF IRELAND.

SHEIL.

[RICHARD LALOR SHEIL was born near Waterford, Ireland, August 17, 1791, and died May 23, 1857, at Florence, where he was residing as British minister at the court of Tuscany. He was called to the bar in 1814, and entered parliament in 1830. He was a man of brilliant oratorical genius, and the author of several successful dramas. The following piece is an extract from a speech delivered in the house of commons in vindication of the Irish people against a charge made by Lord Lyndhurst in the house of lords, a short time before.]

THERE is, however, one man of great abilities, not a member of this house (Lord Lyndhurst), but whose talents and whose boldness have placed him in the topmost place in his party who, disdaining all imposture, and thinking 5 it the best course to appeal directly to the religious and national antipathies of the people of this country — abandoning all reserve, and flinging off the slender veil by which his political associates affect to cover, although they cannot hide, their motives-distinctly and audaciously 10 tells the Irish people that they are not entitled to the same privilege as Englishmen; and pronounces them, in any particular which could enter his minute enumeration of the circumstances by which fellow-citizenship is created, in race, identity, and religion—to be aliens-to be aliens 15 in race to be aliens in country to be aliens in religion. Aliens! good God! was Arthur, Duke of Wellington, in the house of lords, and did he not start up and exclaim, "Hold! I have seen the aliens do their duty?" The Duke of Wellington is not a man of an excitable tempera20 ment. His mind is of a cast too martial to be easily moved; but, notwithstanding his habitual inflexibility, I cannot help thinking that when he heard his Roman Catholic countrymen (for we are his countrymen) designated by a phrase as offensive as the abundant vocabulary of his clo25 quent confederate could supply-I cannot help thinking that he ought to have recollected the many fields of fight in which we have been contributors to his renown. "The

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battles, sieges, fortunes that he has passed," ought to have come back upon him. He ought to have remembered that. from the earliest achievement in which he displayed that military genius which has placed him foremost in the 5 annals of modern warfare, down to that last and surpassing combat which has made his name imperishable - from Assaye to Waterloo — the Irish soldiers, with whom your armies are filled, were the inseparable auxiliaries to the glory with which his unparalleled successes have been 10 crowned. Whose were the arms that drove your bayonets at Vimiera through the phalanxes that never reeled in the shock of war before? What desperate valor climbed the steeps and filled the moats at Badajos? All his victories should have rushed and crowded back upon his memory 15 Vimiera, Badajos, Salamanca, Albuera, Toulouse, and, last of all the greatest

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Tell me, for you were there I appeal to the gallant soldier before me, (Sir Henry Hardinge,) from whose opinions I differ, but who bears, I know, a generous heart in 20 an intrepid breast; tell me, for you must needs remember- on that day when the destinies of mankind were trembling in the balance while death fell in showerswhen the artillery of France was levelled with a precision of the most deadly science when her legions, incited by 25 the voice, and inspired by the example of their mighty leader, rushed again and again to the onset tell me if, for an instant when, to hesitate for an instant was to be lost, the "aliens" blenched?

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And when at length the moment for the last and decisive 30 movement had arrived, and the valor which had so long been wisely checked was at last let loose — when, with words familiar, but immortal, the great captain commanded the great assault tell me, if Catholic Ireland, with less heroic valor than the natives of this your own glorious country, 35 precipitated herself upon the foe? The blood of England, Scotland, and of Ireland, flowed in the same stream, and

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