brought nearer together; commerce is quickened; markets are opened; property, wherever touched by these lines, is changed, as by a magic rod, into new values; and the great current of travel, like that stream of classic fable, or one of the rivers of our own California, hurries in a channel of golden sand. The roads, together with the laws of ancient Rome, are now better remembered than her victories. The Flaminian and Appian ways, once trod by returning proconsuls and tributary kings, still remain as beneficent representatives of her departed grandeur. Under God, the road and the schoolmaster are the two chief agents of human improvement. The education begun by the schoolmaster is expanded, liberalized, and completed, by intercourse with the world; and this intercourse finds new opportu nities and inducements in every road that is built. Our country has already done much in this regard. Through a remarkable line of steam communications, chiefly by railroad, its whole population is now, or will be soon, brought close to the borders of Iowa. The cities of the southern seaboard-Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile-are already stretching their lines in this direction; while the traveler from all the principal points of the northern seaboard - from Portland, Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington— now passes without impediment to this remote region, traversing a territory of unexampled resources, at once a magazine and a granary, the largest coal-field, and at the same time the largest corn-field of the known globe,-winding his way among churches and school-houses, among forests and gardens, by villages, towns, and cities, along the sea, along rivers and lakes, with a speed which may recall the gallop of the ghostly horseman in the ballad: "Fled past on right and left how fast Each forest, grove, and bower! Tramp! tramp! along the land they speed, On the banks of the Mississippi he is now arrested. The proposed road in Iowa will bear the adventurer yet further, to the banks of the Missouri; and this distant giant stream, mightiest of the earth, leaping from its sources in the Rocky Mountains, will be clasped with the Atlantic in the same iron bracelet. In all this I see not only further opportunities for commerce, but a new extension to civilization, and increased strength to our national Union. SUMNER. THE OREGON SETTLEMENT. XXVIII. — THE OREGON SETTLEMENT. 187 Ir would seem that the white race alone received the divine command to subdue and replenish the earth; for it is the only race that has obeyed it- the only one that hunts out new and distant lands, and even a new world, to subdue and replenish. Starting from western Asia, taking Europe for their field, and the sun for their guide, and leaving the Mongolians behind, they arrived, after many ages, on the shores of the Atlantic, which they lit up with the lights of science and religion, and adorned with the useful and the elegant arts. Three and a half centuries ago, this race, in obedience to the great command, arrived in the New World, and found new lands to subdue and replenish. Even four-score years ago the philosophic Burke was considered a rash man because he said the English colonists would top the Alleghanies, and descend into the valley of the Mississippi, and occupy without parchment, if the crown refused to make grants of land. What was considered a rash declaration eighty years ago, is old history in our young country at this day. I cannot repine, sir, that this capitol has replaced the wigwam, this Christian people replaced the savages, white matrons the red squaws, and that such men as Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, have taken the place of Powhatan, Opechonecanough, and other red men, however respectable they may have been as savages. Sir, the apparition of the van of the Caucasian race, rising upon the Oriental nations in the east, after having left them on the west, and after having completed the circumnavigation of the globe, must wake up and animate the torpid body of old Asia. Our position and policy will commend us to their hospitable reception; political considerations will aid the action of social and commercial influences. Pressed upon by the great powers of Europe, the same that press upon us, they must in our approach see the advent of friends, not of foes; of benefactors, not of invaders. The moral and intellectual superiority of the white race will do the rest; and thus the youngest people and the newest land will become the reviver and the regenerator of the oldest. It is in this point of view, and as acting upon the social, political, and religious condition of Asia, and giving a new point of departure to her ancient civilization, that I look upon the settlement of the Columbia River by the van of the Caucasian race as the most momentous human event in the history of man since his dispersion over the face of the earth. T. H. BENTON. PART EIGHTH. THE STAGE. I. THE CONSPIRATORS OF PALERMO. MONTALBA, GUIDO, PROCIDA, RAIMOND. Procida. Welcome, my brave associates! We can share The wolf's wild freedom here. The oppressor's haunt Is not 'midst rocks and caverns. - Art thou here, With thy deep wrongs and resolute despair, Childless Montalba? Montalba (advancing). He is at thy side. Call on that desolate father, in the hour When his revenge is nigh. Pro. Art thou, too, here, Guido, the exile from thy mountain home? Last night before my own ancestral towers, Who heard their melodies. But there are vows Call on the outcast when revenge is nigh. Pro. I knew a young Sicilian, one whose heart Stood by the scaffold, with extended arms, Call on the orphan when revenge is nigh. Pro. Our band shows gallantly-but there are men Who should be with us now, had they not dared In some wild moment of festivity To give their full hearts way, and breathe a wish 188 THE CONSPIRATORS OF PALERMO. For freedom!-But have they not Gui. Look on me! I have a brother, a young, high-souled boy, With theirs of whom you spoke; and I have knelt- We know so well, and spurned me. But the stain now -now-before The majesty of yon pure Heaven, whose eye Mont. Let them fall When dreaming least of peril! Hide the sword Of banqueting, where the full wine-cup shines Perish alike? Mont. Who talks of innocence ? When hath their hand been stayed for innocence ? Amid our band, to stay the avenging steel For pity or remorse, or boyish love, Then be his doom as theirs!- Why gaze ye thus? Gui. Be it so ! If one amongst us stay the avenging steel Rai. Our faith to this! No! I but dreamed I heard it! Can it be? My countrymen, my father! Is it thus That freedom should be won?-Awake! Awake On the crowned heights, and to the sweeping winds, 189 Your glorious banner! Let your trumpet's blast Make the tombs thrill with echoes! Proclaim from all your hills, the land shall bear Till the heart bounds with joy, to still its beatings? -- ay, yours and mine, A murderer!-Heard ye?-Shall that name with ours Go down to after days?-, friends! a cause Like that for which we rise hath made bright names And shall not ours be such? Mont. Fond dreamer, peace! Fame! What is fame? Will our unconscious dust At the vain breath of praise?-I tell thee, youth, Our souls are parched with agonizing thirst, Which must be quenched, though death were in the draught: We must have vengeance, for our foes have left No other joy unblighted. Pre. my son, The time is past før such high dreams as thine. Thou know'st not whom we deal with. Knightly faith, And chivalrous* honor, are but things whereon They cast disdainful pity. We must meet Falsehood with wiles, and Rai. Procida, know, insult with revenge. I shrink from crime alone. ●, if my voice As knights, as warriors! Mont. "Peace! have we not borne The indelible taint of con'tumely and chains? Rai. Why, then, farewell; I leave you to your counsels. He that still The ch in chivalry, chivalrous, &c., has the sound of sh |