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we stood upon open ground, yet, as the place was narrow and confined, there was no remaining there without certain and great danger; we therefore resolved to quit the town. The people followed us in the utmost consternation, and pressed in great crowds about in our way. Being got to a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots, which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated backwards and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that we could not keep them steady even by supporting them by large stones.

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7. "The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its banks by the convulsive motions of the earth. certain, at least, that the shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left upon it. On the other side, a black and dreadful cloud, bursting with an igneous serpentine vapor, darted out a long train of fire, resembling flashes of lightning. Soon afterward the cloud seemed to descend and cover the whole ocean, as indeed it entirely hid the island of Capriæ and the promontory of Misēnum. The ashes now began to fall upon us, though in no great quantity. I turned my head, and observed behind us a thick smoke, which came rolling after us like a torrent.

8. "I proposed, while we had yet any light, to turn out of the high road, lest we should be pressed to death in the dark by the crowd that followed. We had scarce stepped out of the path, when darkness overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or when there is no moon, but of a room when it is shut up, and all lights are extinct. Nothing then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the screams of children, and the cries of men- some calling for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands, and distinguishing each other by their voices; one lamenting his own fate, another that of his family, some wishing to die, some lifting their hands to the gods; but the greater part imagining that the last and eternal night was come, which was to destroy both the world and the gods together.

9. "At length a glimmering light appeared, which ve im agined to be rather the forerunner of an approaching burst of flames (as in truth it was), than the return of day: however, the fire fell at a distance from us. Then again we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to shake off, otherwise we should have been crushed and buried in the

In their ignorance of the one true God, most of the Romans of Pliny's day were Polytheists. or believers in many gods.

heap. I might boast that, during all this scene of horror, not a sigh or expression of fear escaped me, had not my support been founded on that miserable though strong consolation, that all mankind were involved in the same calamity, and that I imag ined that I was perishing with the world itself.

10. "At last this dreadful darkness was dissipated (after a duration of three days), by degrees, like a cloud or smoke; the real day returned, and even the sun appeared, though very faintly, and as when an eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes seemed changed, being covered over with white ashes, as with a deep snow. We returned to Mi-se'. num, where we refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed an anxious night between hope and fear, for the earthquake still continued. However, my mother and I, notwithstanding the danger we had passed and that still threatened us, had no thought of leaving the place till we should receive some account of my uncle."

11. He had already perished on the beach at Stabiæ, ten miles from Vesuvius, the second day of the eruption- this was now the fourth. There appear to have been three days of total darkness, except occasionally relieved by the breaking out of flames or lava. It may be imagined what the scene must have been which presented itself in the neighborhood of Herculaneum and Pompeii, or at Naples, when that which Pliny describes occurred at Mi-se'-num, twenty miles, nearly, from the mountain, with Naples itself, and the high lands intervening between it and the volcano; and what multitudes must have perished, if at ten miles distance Pliny was suffocated by the poisonous gases.

12. I believe no account has come to us how great the destruction of life was on this occasion, nor even of what befell the Neapolitans. The only fact in this relation is the immediate relief which the Emperor Titus, with characteristic humanity, dispatched to the scene, as soon as the news of the disaster had reached Rome. We may readily conjecture, that all the inhabitants in the immediate neighborhood of the hill must have had sufficient warning by the earthquake, and the first bursting out of smoke from the crater, to enable them to escape. And that the most did escape, at least from Pompeii, is proved by the comparatively few skeletons that have been discovered there.

WM. WARE.

CXIX.

THE SWORD AND THE PRESS.

1. WHEN Tamerlane had finished building his pyramid of seventy thousand human skulls, and was seen standing at the gate of Damascus, glittering in his steel, with his battle-axe on his

shoulder, till his fierce hosts filed out to new victories and car nage, the pale looker-on might have fancied that Nature was in her death-throes; for havoc and despair had taken possession of the earth, and the sun of manhood seemed setting in a sea of blood.

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2. Yet it might be on that very gala-day of Tamerlane that a little boy was playing nine-pins in the streets of Mentz, whose history was more important than that of twenty Tamerlanes. The Khan, with his shaggy demons of the wilderness, "passed away like a whirlwind," to be forgotten forever; and that German artisan has wrought a benefit which is yet immeasurably expanding itself, and will continue to expand itself, through all countries and all times.

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3. What are the conquests and the expeditions of the whole corporation of captains, from Walter the Penniless to Napo. leon Bonaparte, compared with those movable types of Faust? E Truly it is a mortifying thing for your conqueror to reflect how perishable is the metal with which he hammers with such violence; how the kind earth will soon shroud up his bloody footprints; and all that he achieved and skilfully piled together will be but like his own canvas city of a camp- this evening loud with life, to-morrow all struck and vanished, a few pits and heaps of straw."

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4. For here, as always, it continues true, that the deepest force is the stillest; that, as in the fable, the mild shining of the sur shall silently accomplish what the fierce blustering of the tempest in vain essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in mind that not by material but by moral power are men and their actions to be governed. How noiseless is thought! No rolling of drums, no tramp of squadrons, no tumult of innumerable baggage-wagons, attend its movements.

5. In what obscure and sequestered places may the head be meditating which is one day to be crowned with more than imperial authority! for kings and emperors will be among its ministering servants; it will rule not over124 but in all heads; and with these solitary combinations of ideas, and with magic form'ulas, bend the world to its will. The time may come when Napoleon himself will be better known for his laws than his battles, and the victory of Waterloo prove less momentous than the opening of the first Mechanics' Institute.

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Beneath the rule of men entirely great

The pen is mightier than the sword.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Behold

The arch enchanter's wand!-itself a nothing!

But taking sorcery from the master hand

To paralyze the Cæsars, and to strike

The loud earth breathless! Take away the sword
States can be saved without it.

LYTTON.

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O THOU great Arbiter of life and death!
Nature's immortal, immaterial sun!
Whose all-prolific beam late called me forth
From darkness, teeming darkness, where I lay
The worm's inferior, and in rank beneath
The dust I tread on ;131-high to bear my brow,
To drink the spirit of the golden day,
And triumph in existence,11 and couldst know
No motive but my bliss, and hast ordained,
A rise in blessing,129 with the patriarch's joy
Thy call I follow to the land unknown :132
I trust in Thee, and know in whom I trust:
Or life or death is equal; neither weighs;
All weight166 in this,-O, let me live to Thee!

2. HE LIVES LONG WHO LIVES WELL.

Randolph.

Wouldst thou live long? The only means are these, 'Bove Galen's diet, or Hippoc'ratës':

Strive to live well; tread in the upright ways,
And rather count thy actions than thy days;
Then thou hast lived enough amongst us here;
For every day well spent I count a year.
Live well, and then, how soon soe'er thou die,
Thou art of age to claim eternity.

But he that outlives Nestor, and

appears

To have passed the date of gray Methuselah's years,
If he his life to sloth and sin doth give,
I say he only was-

he did not LIVE.

3. RETIREMENT. —Goldsmith.

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O, blest retirement,162 friend to life's decline!
Retreats from care, that never must be mine!
How blest is he who crowns in shades like these
A youth of labor with an age of ease;

Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 't is hard to combat,37 learns to fly!
For him no wretches, born to work and weep,
Explore the mine, or tempt the dangerous deep;
No surly porter stands in guilty state,
To spurn imploring famine from the gate;
But on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend ·

Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last.
His heaven commences ere the world be past!

4. THE OLD MAN BY THE BROOK.-Wordsworth. Down to the vale this water steers, how merrily it goes. "T will murmur on a thousand years, and flow as now it flows. And here, on this delightful day, I cannot choose but think How oft, a vigorous man, I lay beside this fountain's brink. My eyes are filled with childish tears, my heart is idly stirred, For the same sound is in my ears that in those days I heard

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O Freedom! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap

With which the Roman master crowned his slave,
When he took off the gyves.5 50 A bearded man,
Armed to the teeth, art thou: one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarred

With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs

Are strong and struggling. Power at thee has launched
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;
They could not quench the life thou hast from heaven!

6. THE FOLLY OF PROCRASTINATION.

To-morrow's action! can that hōary wisdom,
Borne down with years, still dote upon to-morrow
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward, and the fool, condemned to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,117
Till interposing death destroys the prospect!
Strange! that this general fraud from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The soldier, laboring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms
To-morrow brings the visionary bride.
But thou, too old to bear another cheat,
Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

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An ardent spirit dwells with Christian love,-
The eagle's vigor in the pitying dove:

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