Fig. 48.

Fig. 49.

Who can recount the mischiefs o'er?

THE SAME WITHOUT THE FIGURES

Virtue resides on earth no more '

The wind was high-the window shakes ;
With sudden start the miser wakes!

Along the silent room he stalks;

Looks back, and trembles as he walks!
Each lock, and every bolt he tries,
In ev'ry creek and corner pries;

Then opes his chest, with treasure stor'd,
And stands in rapture o'er his hoard:
But now with sudden qualms possest,

He wrings his hands; he beats his breast―
By conscience stung, he wildly stares;

And thus his guilty soul declares:

Had the deep earth her stores confin'd,

This heart had known sweet peace of mind:
But virtue's sold! good gods! what price
Can recompense the pangs of vice'

O bane of good! seducing cheat!

Can man, weak man, thy power defeat?
Gold banish'd honor from the mind,

And only left the name behind;
Gold sow'd the world with ev'ry ill;

Gold taught the murd'rer's sword to kill.
'Twas gold instructed coward hearts
In treach'ry's more pernicious arts.
Who can recount the mischiefs o'er ?
Virtue resides on earth no more!

CHAPTER XI.

SELECTIONS FOR DECLAMATION.

NOTE.-In the following Selections the sign of the Rhetorical Pause is made in most of the places authorized by the Rules of Rhetorical Punctuation. A strict attention to these pauses will conduce greatly to the pupil's improvement in Elocution.The Sections are made short to accommodate young pupils, and those who may not wish to commit to memory a whole Lesson.

ENGLAND | may as well dam up the waters of the Nile | with bulrushes, as to fetter the step of freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land, than where she treads the sequestered* glens of Scotland, or couches herself | among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland. Arbitrary principles, like those against which we now contend, have cost one king of England his life, another his crown, and they may yet cost a third his most flourishing colonies.

We are two millions-one-fifth fighting men. We are bold and vigorous, and we call no man master. To the nation, from whom we are proud to derive our origin, we ever were, and we ever will be, ready to yield unforced assistance; but it must not, and it never can be extorted.†

Some have sneeringly asked, "Are the Americans too poor to pay a few pounds on stamped paper?" No! America, thanks to God and herself, is rich. But the right to take ten pounds, implies the right to take a thousand; and what must be the wealth, that avarice, aided by power, cannot exhaust? True, the spectre‡ is now small; but the shadow he casts before him is huge enough to darken all this fair land Others, in sentimental style, talk of the immense debt of gratitude which we owe to England. And what is the amount of this debt? Why, truly, it is the same that the young lion owes to the dam, which has brought it forth | on the solitude

*Sequestered, secluded-at a distance from other inhabited places + Extorted. gained by force.

t Spectre, an apparition- a ghost

of the mountain, or left it | amid the winds and storms of the desert.

Section 2.

We plunged into the wave, with the great charter of freedom in our teeth, because the fagot and torch were behind us. We have waked the new world from its savage lethargy;* forests have been prostrated in our path; towns and cities have grown up suddenly as the flowers of the tropics, and the fires in our autumnal woods | are scarcely more rapid than the increase of our wealth | and population. And do we owe all this to the kind succor of the mother country? No! we owe it to the tyranny | that drove us from her to the pelting storms which invigorated our helpless infancy

But perhaps others will say, "We ask no money | from your gratitude-we only demand | that you should pay your own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their necessity? Why, the king-(and with all due reverence to his sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects, as little as he does the language of the Choctaws.) Who is to judge | concerning the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge | whether the money | is properly expended? The cabinet | behind the throne. In every instance, those who take are to judge | for those who pay; if this system is suffered to go into operation, we shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege, that rain and dew | do not depend upon Parliament; otherwise | they would soon be taxed and dried.

But thanks to God there is freedom enough left upon earth | to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty | is extinguished in Greece and Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores of America. Actuated by its sacred influence, we will resist | unto death. But we will not countenance anarchy§ and misrule. The wrongs, that a desperate community | have heaped upon their enemies, shall be amply and speedily repaired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember, that a fire is lighted | in these colonies, which ONE BREATH OF THEIR KING | may kindle into such fury, that the blood of all England | cannot extinguish it. *Lethargy, stupidity, dulness. + Extinguished, put out, quenched. † Tropics, warm countries near the equator. § Anarchy, want of government.

THIRTY-FIRST LESSON.

THE AMERICAN INDIANS.-Sprague.

Section 1.

ROLL back the tide of time. Not many generations ago, where you now sit, circled with all that exalts and embel'ishes* civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox | dug his hole | unscared. Here lived and loved | another race of beings. Beneath the same sun | that rolls over your heads, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon | that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate. Here the wigwam blaze | beamed on the tender and helpless, the council fire glared | on the wise and daring. Now they dipped their noble limbs | in your sedgyf lakes, and now they paddled the light canoe | along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death-song, all were here; and when the tiger strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped; and | from many a dark bosom | went up a pure prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written his laws for them on tables of stone, but He had traced them I on the tables of their hearts.

Section 2.

The poor child of nature | knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe | he acknowledged in everything around. He beheld him | in the star that sunk in beauty | behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb | that flamed on him from his midday throne; in the flower that snapped | in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine, that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler | that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm | that crawled at his foot; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent, in humble, though blind adoration. And all this has passed away Across the ocean | came a

* Embellishes, makes beautiful.

† Sedgy, overgrown with flags.