40 er parts of an inky blackness. The rain began to pat

ter down in broad and scattered drops ; the wind freshened, and curled up the waves; at length it seemed as if the bellying clouds were torn open by the mountain

tops, and complete torrents of rain came rattling down. 45 The lightning leaped from cloud to cloud, and stream

ed quivering against the rocks, splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees. The thunder burst in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to

mountain ; they crashed upon Dunderberg, and rolled 50 up the long defile of the highlands, each headland mak

ing a new echo, until old Bull hill seemed to bellow back the storm.

For a time the scudding rack and mist, and the sheeted rain, almost hid the landscape from the sight. There 55 was a fearful gloom, illumined still more fearfully by the

streams of lightning which glittered among the rain drops. Never had I beheld such an absolute warring of the elements ; it seemed as if the storm was tearing and

rending its way through this mountain defile, and had 60 brought all the artillery of heaven into action.

Irving
Slavery.

-My ear is pained,
My soul is sick, with every day's report
Of wrong and outrage, with which earth is filled.

There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart, 5 It does not feel for man: the natural bond

Of brotherhood is severed as the flax
That falls asunder at the touch of fire.
He finds his fellow guilty of a skin

Not coloured like his own; and having power 10 To enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause,

Dooms and devotes. him as his lawful prey.
Lands intersected by a narrow frith
Abhor each other. Mountains interposed

Make enemies of nations, who had else
15 Like kindred drops been mingled into one.

Thus man devotes his brother, and destroys;
And, worse than all, and most to be deplored,

70.

my

As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,

Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat 20 With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,

Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man ? And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,

And hang his head, to think himself a man ? 25 I would not have a slave to till my ground,

To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews, bought and sold, had ever earn'd.

No: dear as freedom is, and in heart's 30 Just estimation prized above all price,

ements of the world together, was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected

in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his 15 dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes

with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the nabob of Arcot, he drew from every

quarter, whatever a savage ferocity could add to his 20 new rudiments in the arts of destruction ; and com

pounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. While the authors of all

these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this men25 acing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it sud

denly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic.

Then ensued a scene of wo, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart con

ceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All 30 the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mer

cy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants flying from their

flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, with35 out regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sa

credness of function ; fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the tramp

ling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an 40 unknown and hostile land. Those, who were able to

evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities. But escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine.

For eighteen months, without intermission, this de45 struction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of

Tanjore ; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British

armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds 50 of miles in all directiors, through the whole line of their march, they did not see one man, not one woman, not

one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead uniform silence reigned over the whole region.”

Burke.

Sleep, gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,

And steep my senses in forgetfulness ?
5 Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber :
Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,
10 And lull’d with sounds of sweetest melody.

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds ; and leav’st the kingly couch.
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell ?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
15 Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge ;
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 20 With deaf'ning clamours in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy, in an hour so rude ;

And, in the calmest and most stillest night, 25 With all appliances, and means to boot, Deny it to a king ?

Shakspeare.

73. Vainty of power and misery of Kings.

No matter where; of comfort no man speak :
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs ;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. 5 Let's choose executors, and talk of wills :

And yet not so,-for what can we bequeath,
Save our deposed bodies to the ground ?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own, but death; 10 And that small model of the barren earth,

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings :-

How some have been depos’d, some slain in war ; 15 Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd ;

Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd :--For within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king,

Keeps death his court : and there the antic sits, 20 Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp ;

Allowing him, a breath, a little scene
To monarchise, be fear'd, and kill with looks ;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,-

As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
25 Were brass impregnable; and, humour'd thus,

Comes at the last, and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and--farewell king !
Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence ; throw away respect, 30 Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends :--Subjected thus,
How can you say to me-I am a king ?

Shakspeare:

Here are the sovereign pontiff of the Catholic faith, and the Catholic king of Spain, distributing one third part of the revenues of their church for the poor, and

here are some of the enlightened doctors of our church 5 depreciating such a principle, and guarding their riches

against the encroaching of christian charity ; I hope they will never again afford such an opportunity of com