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"BRITANNIA RULES THE WAVES !"
Oh! vain and impious boast.
Go, mark, presumptuous slaves,
Where He who sinks or saves,
Strews the sand with countless graves
Round your coast.

CATO AND DECIUS.

JOSEPH ADDISON,

Dec. Cæsar sends health to Cato

Cato. Could he send it

To Cato's slaughter'd friends, it would be welcome.
Are not your orders to address the senate ?

Dec. My business is with Cato; Cæsar sees
The straits to which you are driven; and, as he knows
Cato's high worth, is anxious for your life.

Cato. My life is grafted on the fate of Rome.
Would he save Cato, bid him spare his country.
Tell your dictator this; and tell him, Cato
Disdains a life which he has power to offer.

Dec. Rome and her senators submit to Cæsar;
Her gen'rals and her consuls are no more,
Who check'd his conquests, and denied his triumph:
Why will not Cato be this Cæsar's friend?

Cato. Those very reasons thou hast urged forbid it.
Dec. Cato, I've orders to expostulate,

And reason with you as from friend to friend:
Think on the storm that gathers o'er your head,
And threatens ev'ry hour to burst upon it.

Still may you stand high in your country's honours;
Do but comply and make your peace with Cæsar,
Rome will rejoice, and cast its eyes on Cato,

As on the second of mankind.

Cato.

No more:

I must not think of life on such conditions.

Dec. Cæsar is well acquainted with your virtues,

And therefore sets this value on your life.

Let him but know the price of Cato's friendship,

And name your terms.

Cato.
Restore the commonwealth to liberty,
Submit his actions to the public censure,

Bid him disband his legions,

And stand the judgment of a Roman senate :
Bid him do this, and Cato is his friend.

Dec. Cato, the world talks boldly of your wisdom.--
Cato. Nay more-tho' Cato's voice was ne'er employed
To clear the guilty, and to varnish crimes,
Myself will mount the rostrum in his favour
And strive to gain his pardon from the people.
Dec. A style like this becomes a conqueror.
Cato. Decius, a style like this becomes a Roman.
Dec. What is a Roman that is Cæsar's foe?
Cato. Greater than Cæsar: he's a friend to virtue.
Dec. Consider, Cato, you're in Utica,

And at the head of your own little senate :
You don't now thunder in the capitol,

With all the mouths of Rome to second you.

Cato. Let him consider that, who drives us hither; 'Tis Cæsar's sword has made Rome's senate little, And thinn'd its ranks. Alas! thy dazzled eye Beholds this man in a false glaring light, Which conquest and success have thrown upon him; Didst thou but view him right, thou'dst see him black With murder, treason, sacrilege, and crimes

That strike my soul with horror but to name them.

I know thou look'st on me as on a wretch,

Beset with ills and cover'd with misfortunes;
But, by the gods I swear, millions of worlds
Should never buy me to be like Cæsar.

Dec. Does Cato send this answer back to Cæsar,
For all his gen'rous cares and proffer'd friendship?
Cato. His cares for me are insolent and vain:
Presumptuous man! the gods take care of Cato.
Would Cæsar show the greatness of his soul,
Bid him employ his care for these my friends,

And make good use of his ill-gotten pow'r,
By shelt'ring men much better than himself.

Dec. Your high unconquer'd heart makes you forget
You are a man; you rush on your destruction.
But I have done. When I relate hereafter

The tale of this unhappy embassy,
All Rome will be in tears.

LITTLE LIZZIE.

SHELDON CHADWICK.

PRETTY little Lizzie was sent to the mill,

Before she had learned to play with the flowers,
From the bell's first chime 'till the wheels stood still,
She toiled like a caged bird away from the bowers.
Pretty little Lizzie !
Pity little Lizzie !

Oh! Death kindly kissed her meek, white face;
And lit her gentle eyes with strange fires wild;
But Lizzie's mother lay in the grave's cold place,
And oh, what a life she left for her child!
Pretty little Lizzie! the sun's golden rays

Blacker made the shadow of her dreary toil;
Oh, never could her eyes on the blue sky gaze,
Without an interbreath in the long turmoil.
Pretty little Lizzie !
Pity little Lizzie !

As the silkworm spinneth its fine, soft thread,
From her heart and her brain her life she spun,
From the hour that she crawled from her low straw bed
Till the rattle and the roar of the wheels was done.

Pretty little Lizzie no longer was gay,

Her father ever loved at the ale-bench to be,
His curses stained the air of the holy Sabbath-day,
And Lizzie had no altar by her mother's knee.
Pretty little Lizzie!

Pity little Lizzie !

Oh, fresh in her memory was childhood's prime,

When her cheek was anointed by her mother's kiss, And she prayed that the Lord, in his own good time, Would take her from the world to the Land of Bliss. Pretty little Lizzie grew sickly and thin,

She knew no tender prattle, and no childish glee, And she drooped very low 'mid the darkness and the din, As in the town's smoke droops the flower and the tree, Pretty little Lizzie !

Pity little Lizzie !

Softly faded out her bright, sunny smile;

'Twas mercy called her home to the sky so young, Ere passion's meteor-fires her steps did beguile, And virtue's virgin lily in the dust was flung!

Pretty little Lizzie went weak to the mill,

One morn ere the lark did the sun-gates seek,
And she crept to her straw-bed at midnight, ill,
With Death's own watch-fire lighted on her cheek!
Pretty little Lizzie!
Pity little Lizzie !

Her father staggered home by the moon's pale ray,
But Lizzie did not tremble as the stairs he trod;
And he kicked the little corpse as it silent lay,
But it stirred not, it felt not-the soul was with God!
Pretty little Lizzie in her shroud was arrayed,
Within a narrow box did her slim form rest,
And two pale buds were delicately laid

In her tiny white hands, meekly crossed o'er her breast,
Pretty little Lizzie!
Pity little Lizzie !

On her last hard pillow so sweetly she lay,

And around her young face such a smile was shed, And her soft lips were parted as if oped to pray, The good-hearted neighbours hardly thought she was dead!

Pretty little Lizzie will hunger no more,

She has done with sorrow, curses, cold, and snow,

And the soft winds sigh, and the sky weeps, o'er
Her little mossy grave, where the daisies blow.
Pretty little Lizzie !
Pity little Lizzie!

Oh! pleasantly she sleeps where the church bells ring,
And the little children sit by her grave in the sun,
She can hear the grasses grow, and the summer birds
sing,

And the rattle and the roar of the wheels is done.

(By permission of the Author.)

THE TOWN AND COUNTRY MICE.
ALEXANDER POPE.

ONCE on a time (so runs the fable),
A country mouse, right hospitable,
Received a town mouse at his board,
Just as a farmer might a lord:
A frugal mouse, upon the whole,
Yet loved his friend, and had a soul;
Knew what was handsome, and would do't,
On just occasion, coûte qu'il coûte.
He brought him bacon, nothing lean;
Pudding, that might have pleased a dean;
Cheese, such as men in Suffolk make,
But wished it Stilton for his sake;
Yet, to his guest though no way sparing,
He eat himself the rind and paring. -
Our courtier scarce could touch a bit,
But showed his breeding and his wit:
He did his best to seem to eat,

And cried "I vow you're mighty neat:
"But, my dear friend, this savage scene!
For Heaven's sake come and live with men ;
Consider, mice, like men, must die,
Both small and great, both you and I;

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