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Thou dread ambassador from earth to Heaven,
Great hierarch, tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell you rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God."

11. THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. — Alexander Pope
VITAL spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, O, quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O, the pain, the bliss, of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark! they whisper; angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away;
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul! can this be death?

The world recedes, it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount, I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?

O death! where is thy sting?

12. LIFE BEYOND THE TOMB. — James Beattie. Born, 1735 ; died, 1803.

SUCH is the destiny of all on earth:

So flourishes and fades majestic Man;
Fair is the bud his vernal morn brings forth,
And fostering gales a while the nursling fan.
O smile, ye Heavens, serene! Ye mildews wan,
Ye blighting whirlwinds, spare his balmy prime,
Nor lessen of his life the little span.

Borne on the swift though silent wings of Time,
Old Age comes on apace, to ravage all the clime.
And be it so. Let those deplore their doom,
Whose hope still grovels in this dark sojourn;
But lofty souls, who look beyond the tomb,

Can smile at Fate, and wonder how they mourn.
Shall Spring to these sad scenes no more return?
Is yonder wave the Sun's eternal bed?
Soon shall the Orient with new lustre burn,

And Spring shall soon her vital influence shed,
Again attune the grove, again adorn the mead.

Shall I be left, forgotten in the dust,

When Fate, relenting, lets the flower revive? Shall Nature's voice, to Man alone unjust,

Bid him, though doomed to perish, hope to live? Is it for this fair Virtue oft must strive

With disappointment, penury, and pain?

No! Heaven's immortal Spring shall yet arrive,
And man's majestic beauty bloom again,

Bright through the eternal year of Love's triumphant reign.

13. FORGIVENESS.

WHEN on the fragrant sandal-tree
The woodman's axe descends,
And she who bloomed so beauteously
Beneath the keen stroke bends,
E'en on the edge that wrought her death
Dying she breathed her sweetest breath,
As if to token, in her fall,

Peace to her foes, and love to all.

How hardly man this lesson learns,
To smile, and bless the hand that spurns;
To see the blow, to feel the pain,
But render only love again!
This spirit not to earth is given,
ONE had it, but he came from Heaven.
Reviled, rejected and betrayed,

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No curse he breathed, no 'plaint he made,
But when in death's deep pang he sighed,
Prayed for his murderers, and died.

14. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. —Philip Doddridge. Born, 1702; died, 1751.

"LIVE while you live," the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day;
"Live while you live," the Christian preacher cries,
"And give to God each moment as it flies."

Lord! in my view, let both united be;

I live to pleasure, while I live to thee.

PART EIGHTH.

RHETORICAL AND DRAMATIC.

1. ROME AND CARTHAGE.-Victor Hugo. Original Translation.

She

ROME and Carthage!-behold them drawing near for the struggle that is to shake the world! Carthage, the metropolis of Africa, is the mistress of oceans, of kingdoms, and of Nations; a magnificent city, burthened with opulence, radiant with the strange arts and trophies of the East. She is at the acme of her civilization. can mount no higher. Any change now must be a decline. Rome is comparatively poor. She has seized all within her grasp, but rather from the lust of conquest than to fill her own coffers. She is demi-barbarous, and has her education and her fortune both to make. All is before her, nothing behind. For a time, these two Nations exist in view of each other. The one reposes in the noontide of her splendor; the other waxes strong in the shade. But, little by little, air and space are wanting to each for her development. Rome begins to perplex Carthage, and Carthage is an eyesore to Rome. Seated on opposite banks of the Mediterranean, the two cities look each other in the face. The sea no longer keeps them apart. Europe and Africa weigh upon each other. Like two clouds surcharged with electricity they impend. With their contact must come the thunder-shock.

The catastrophe of this stupendous drama is at hand. What actors are met! Two races, that of merchants and mariners, that of laborers and soldiers; two Nations, the one dominant by gold, the other by steel; two Republics, the one theocratic, the other aristocratic. Rome and Carthage! Rome with her army, Carthage with her fleet; Carthage, old, rich and crafty,-Rome, young, poor, and robust; the past and the future; the spirit of discovery, and the spirit of conquest; the genius of commerce, the demon of war; the East and the South on one side, the West and the North on the other; in short, two worlds, -the civilization of Africa, and the civilization of Europe. They measure each other from head to foot. They gather all their forces. Gradually the war kindles. The world takes fire. These colossal powers are locked in deadly strife. Carthage has crossed the Alps; Rome, the seas. The two Nations, personified in two men, Hannibal and Scipio, close with each other, wrestle, and grow infuriate. The duel is desperate. It is a struggle

for life. Rome wavers.

She utters that cry of anguish

Hannibal at the gates! But she rallies, collects all her strength for one last, appalling effort, throws herself upon Carthage, and sweeps her from the face of the earth!

2. THE DRONES OF THE COMMUNITY. - Percy Bysshe Shelley.

THOSE gilded flies

That, basking in the sunshine of a Court,
Fatten on its corruption - what are they?
The drones of the community! they feed
On the mechanic's labor; the starved hind
For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield
Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,
Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes
A sunless life in the unwholesome mine,
Drags out in labor a protracted death,

To glut their grandeur. Many faint with toil,
That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.
Whence, think'st thou, kings and parasites arose?
Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap
Toil and unvanquishable penury

On those who build their palaces, and bring

Their daily bread?- From vice, black, loathsome vice;
From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;

From all that genders misery, and makes
Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust,
Revenge, and murder.

And, when Reason's voice,

Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked
The Nations; and mankind perceive that vice
Is discord, war, and misery, that virtue
Is peace, and happiness, and harmony;
When man's maturer nature shall disdain
The playthings of its childhood; - kingly glare
Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority
Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne
Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall,
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable

As that of truth is now.

Where is the fame

Which the vain-glorious mighty of the earth
Seek to eternize? O! the faintest sound
From time's light foot-fall, the minutest wave
That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing
The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! to-day
Stern is the tyrant's mandate, - red the gaze
That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!

That mandate is a thunder-peal that died

In

ages past; that gaze, a transient flash

On which the midnight closed; and on that arm
The worm has made his meal.

3. CÆSAR'S PASSAGE OF THE RUBICON.-James Sheridan Knowles.

A GENTLEMAN, Mr. Chairman, speaking of Cæsar's benevolent disposition, and of the reluctance with which he entered into the civil war, observes, "How long did he pause upon the brink of the Rubicon!" How came he to the brink of that river? How dared he cross it? Shall private men respect the boundaries of private property, and shall a man pay no respect to the boundaries of his country's rights? How dared he cross that river? O! but he paused upon the brink. He should have perished upon the brink ere he had crossed it! Why did he pause? Why does a man's heart. palpitate when he is on the point of committing an unlawful deed? Why does the very murderer, his victim sleeping before him, and his glaring eye taking the measure of the blow, strike wide of the mortal part? Because of conscience! 'T was that made Cæsar pause upon the brink of the Rubicon. Compassion! What compassion? The compassion of an assassin, that feels a momentary shudder, as his weapon begins to cut! Cæsar paused upon the brink of the Rubicon! What was the Rubicon? The boundary of Cæsar's province. From what did it separate his province? From his country. Was that country a desert? No: it was cultivated and fertile, rich and populous! Its sons were men of genius, spirit, and generosity! Its daughters were lovely, susceptible, and chaste! Friendship was its inhabitant! Love was its inhabitant! Domestic affection was its inhabitant! Liberty was its inhabitant! All bounded by the stream of the Rubicon! What was Cæsar, that stood upon the bank of that stream? A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country! No wonder that he paused, no wonder if, his imagination wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water, and heard groans instead of murmurs! No wonder, if some gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the spot! But no!he cried, "The die is cast!" He plunged!- he crossed!-and Rome was free no more!

4. ROLLA'S ADDRESS TO THE PERUVIANS. -Sheridan.

My brave associates, partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame!can Rolla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No! You have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They

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