SARCASM. God be thanked, man's pride is greater than his ignorance, and what he wants in knowledge he supplies by sufficiency. When he has looked about him as far as he can, he concludes there is no more to be seen. When he is at the end of his line, he is at the bottom of the ocean. When he has shot his best, he is sure none ever did or ever can shoot better or beyond it. His own reason he holds to be the certain measure of truth, and his own knowledge of what is possible in nature.-Sir W. Temple. BOLDNESS. I am a Roman citizen-my name Mutius. My purpose was to kill an enemy. Nor am I less prepared to undergo the punishment than I was to perpetrate the deed. To do and to suffer bravely is a Roman's part. Neither am I the only person thus affected towards you; there is a long list of competitors for the same honour. If, therefore, you choose to confront the danger of selling your life every hour at hazard, prepare yourself—you will have the foe in the very porch of your palace. This is the kind of war that the Roman youth declare against you. You have nothing to fear in the field; the combat is against you alone, and every individual is your antagonist.-Livy. ENERGETIC REMONSTRANCE. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America! What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst, but we know that in three campaigns we have done and suffered much. You may swell every expence, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot. Your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms. Never, never, never!-Earl of Chatham. DECLAMATION. These abominable principles, and this most abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right-reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God—to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine to save us from the pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character.-Earl of Chatham. NARRATIVE. " An old man and a little boy were driving an ass to the next market to sell. "What a fool is this fellow" said a man upon the road," to be trudging it on foot, with his son, that his ass may go light." The old man hearing this set his boy upon the ass and went whistling by the side of him. "Why," Sirrah, cries a second man to the boy, "is it fit for you to be riding while your poor old father is walking on foot?" The father, upon this rebuke, took down his son from the ass and mounted himself. "Do you see," said a third, "how the lazy old knave rides along upon his beast, while his poor little boy is almost crippled with walking?" The old man no sooner heard this than he took up his son behind him. "Pray, honest friend," said a fourth, "is that ass your own." "Yes," replied the man. "One would not have thought so," said the other, "by your loading him so unmercifully; you and your son are better able to carry the poor beast than he you." Anything to please," said the owner; and, alighting with his son, they tied the legs of the ass together, and by the help of a pole, endeavoured to carry him upon their shoulders over the bridge that led to the town. This was so entertaining a sight that the people ran in crowds to laugh at it; till the ass, conceiving a dislike to the over complaisance of his master, burst asunder the cords that tied him, slipped from the pole, and tumbled into the river. The poor old man made the best of his way home, ashamed and vexed, that by endeavouring to please everybody he had pleased nobody, and lost his ass into the bargain. EXERCISES ON FORCE. SUBDUED FORCE. There is no breeze upon the fern, Upon the eyre nods the erne, The deer hath sought the brake. So darkly glooms yon thunder cloud There breathed no winds their crest to shake RAISED FORCE. THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.* The breaking waves dashed high On a stern and rock-bound coast, And the heavy night hung dark, The hills and waters o'er, When a band of exiles moor'd their bark Not as the conqueror comes They the true-hearted came; Not with the roll of the stirring drum, Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear; They shook the depths of the desert gloom, Amidst the storm they sung; And the stars heard,-and the sea; And the sounding isles of the dim wood rang, *The Puritans, who had been driven by the intolerance of the times into Holland, resolved on seeking an asylum for themselves and their children on the shores of America. They landed in New England, December 22, 1620. The ocean eagle soared From his nest by the white waves' foam, And this was holy ground, The soil where first they trod. They have left unstained what there they found,— EXERCISES ON TONE. MONOTONE. Of man's first disobediencé, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, Sing, heavenly muse, that, on the secret top Of Oreb or of Sinai, didst inspire That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed, In the beginning how the heavens and earth Rose out of chàos, Monotone, at the commencement of poetic descriptions, adds greatly to the dignity and grandeur of the objects described. LOW AND SOLEMN. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE. Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note, We buried him darkly at dead of night, No useless coffin confined his breast, Nor in sheet, nor in shroud we bound him; Few and short were the prayers we said, HIGH AND CHEERFUL. But thou, oh Hope, with eyes so fair, She called on echo still through all her song; A soft responsive voice was heard at every close. And Hope, enchanted, smiled, and waved her golden hair. EXERCISES ON TIME. SLOW. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day; Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight; Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mould'ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. |