object, this, THIS is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and HIGHER than eloquence, it is ACTION, noble, SUBLIME, GODLIKE ACTION!

LESSON XXIV.

WATER FOR ME.

E. JOHNSON.

1. OH, water for me! BRIGHT WATER for me,
And wine for the tremulous debauchee!
It cooleth the brow, it cooleth the brain,
It maketh the faint one strong again;

It comes o'er the sense like a breeze from the sea,
All freshness, like infant purity.

Oh, water, BRIGHT WATER for me, for ME!
Give wine, give WINE, to the debauchee!

2. Fill to the brim! FILL, FILL to the BRIM!
Let the flowing crystal kiss the rim!
For my hand is steady, my eye is true;
For I, like the flowers, drink nothing but dew.
Oh, water, BRIGHT WATER'S a mine of wealth,
And the ores it yieldeth are vigor and health.
So water, PURE WATER, for me, for ME!

And wine for the tremulous debauchee!

3. Fill again to the brim, AGAIN to the BRIM!
For water strengtheneth life and limb!
To the days of the aged, it addeth length;
To the might of the strong, it addeth strength;
It freshens the heart, it brightens the sight;
"Tis like quaffing a goblet of morning light!
So, water, I will drink nothing but thee,
Thou parent of health and energy!

4. When over the hills, like a gladsome bride, Morning walks forth in her beauty's pride,

G

And, leading a band of laughing hours,
Brushes the dew from the nodding flowers,
Oh, cheerily then my voice is heard,
Mingling with that of the soaring bird,
Who flingeth abroad his matin loud,

As he freshens his wing on the cold, gray cloud.

5. But when evening has quitted her sheltering yew,
Drowsily flying, and weaving anew

Her dusky meshes o'er land and sea,

How gently, O sleep, fall thy poppies on me!
For I drink water, pure, COLD, and BRIGHT,
And my dreams are of heaven the livelong night.
Thou art silver and gold, thou art RIBBON and STAR!
Hurrah for bright water! HURRAH! HURRAH!

LESSON XXV.

CHARACTER OF MR. PITT.

GRATTAN.

1. THE secretary stood alone: modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age

unanimous.

2. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes

were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor and enlightened by prophecy.

3. The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel and to decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all her classes of venality.

4. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her. Nor were his political abilities his only talents. His eloquence was an era in the senate; peculiar, and spontaneous; familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully: it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtility of argumentation, nor was he forever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

5. Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.

55127A

100

LESSON XXVI.

CATILINE'S REPLY.

1. CONSCRIPT Fathers!

REV. GEORGE CROLY.

I do not rise to waste the night in words:
Let that plebeian talk; 'tis not my trade;
But here I stand for right,—let him show proofs,—
For Roman right; though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there!
Cling to your master, judges, ROMANS, SLAVES!
His charge is false; I dare him to his proofs.
You have my answer. Let my actions speak!

2. But this I will avow,—that I have scorn'd,

And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong!
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not HALF so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me, turning out
The Roman from his birthright; and for what?
To fling your offices to every SLAVE!

VIPERS, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top
Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome,

Hang HISSING at the nobler man below!

3. Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones! [To the

Fling down your scepters; take the rod and axe,
And make the murder as you make the law!

4. Banish'd from Rome! What's banish'd but set free
From daily contact of the things I loathe?
"Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this?
Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?

senate.]

BANISH'D! I thank you for it. It breaks my chains!
I held some slack allegiance till

But now my sword's my own.

this hour;

Smile on, my lords!

I scorn to count what feelings, wither'd hopes,
Strong PROVOCATIONS, bitter, BURNING WRONGS,
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your LAZY DIGNITIES.
But here I stand and SCOFF you! here I fling
HATRED and full DEFIANCE in your FACE!
Your consul's merciful. For this all thanks!
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline!

5. "TRAITOR! I

go;

but I return.

This TRIAL!

Here I devote your senate! I've had wrongs
To stir a fever in the blood of age,

Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel.

This day's the birth of sorrow! This hour's work

Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my lords,
For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus! all shames and crimes!
Wan treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn;
SUSPICION, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked REBELLION, with the torch and axe,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ;
Till anarchy comes down on you like night,
And MASSACRE seals Rome's eternal GRAVE.

6. I go; but not to leap the gulf alone.

I GO; but, when I COME, 'twill be the burst

Of ocean in the earthquake, rolling back

In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!

You build my funeral-pile; but your best blood

Shall quench its flame! BACK, slaves! [To the lictors.]
I will return.

LESSON XXVII.

WHITHERWARD SHALL A YOUNG MAN SET HIS FACE, AND HOW SHALL HE ORDER HIS STEPS?

HORACE MANN.

5. SYB'-A-RITE, a person devoted to luxury and pleasure.

5. MAM'-MON, riches, or the god of riches.

5. ER-E-BUS, (in mythology,) the abode of the wicked.