1 CXLIV. ANTONY'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS. 2 SHAKSPEARE. FRIENDS, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: The evil that men do lives after them; He was my friend, faithful and just to ne: And Brutus is an honorable man. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Did this in Cæsar seem ambitious? When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept. And Brutus is an honorable man. You all did see, that, on the Lupercal, Was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke ; 3 And men have lost their reason! - Bear with me: My heart is in the coffin there with Cæsar, But yesterday the word of Cæsar might O Masters! if I were disposed to stir I will not do them wrong- I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, But here's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar; Let but the commons hear this testament, And they would go and kiss dead Cæsar's wounds, Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And, dying, mention it within their wills, Unto their issue. - 4 If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. 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, This was the most unkindest cut of all! ད For, when the noble Cæsar saw him stab, 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. Good friends! sweet friends! 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, I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts: But, as you know me all, a plain, blunt man, - and that they know full well To stir men's blood: I tell you that which you yourselves do know Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor, poor, dumb mouths, And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony, 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 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 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? 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 |