2. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much inore, sir, is he to be abhorred who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country.

3. But youth, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man.

4. In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age or modeled by experience.

5. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. 1 shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment.

6. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that, if I had acted a borrowed part, I should nave avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeav

ors, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder.

LESSON CXL.

ON TIME.

WHITE.

1. WHO needs a teacher to admonish him

That flesh is ?
grass that earthly things are mist?
What are our joys but dreams? And what our hopes
But goodly shadows in the summer cloud?

There's not a wind that blows but bears with it
Some rainbow promise. Not a moment flies
But puts its sickle in the fields of life,

And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares.

2. 'Tis but as yesterday since on yon stars,
Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherd gazed,
In his mid-watch, observant, and disposed
The twinkling hosts, as fancy gave them shape.
Yet, in the interim, what mighty shocks
Have buffeted mankind; whole nations razed;
Cities made desolate; the polished sunk
To barbarism, and once barbaric states
Swaying the wand of science and of arts;
Illustrious deeds and memorable names
Blotted from record, and upon the tongue
Of gray tradition voluble no more!

3. Where are the heroes of the ages past?

Where the brave chieftains? where the mighty ones
Who flourished in the infancy of days?

All to the grave gone down! On their fall'n fame,
Exultant, mocking at the pride of man,

■ Alluding to the first astronomical observations, made by the Chaldean shepherds.

4.

Sits grim forgetfulness. The warrior's arm
Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame;
Hushed is his stormy voice, and quenched the blaze
Of his red eye-ball

Yesterday, his name

Was mighty on the earth; to-day — 't is what?
The meteor of the night of distant years,
That flashed unnoticed, save by wrinkled eld
Musing at midnight upon prophecies,
Who at her only lattice saw the gleam
Point to the mist-poised shroud, then quietly
Closed her pale lips, and locked the secret up
Safe in the charnel's treasures.

5.

O how weak

Is mortal man! how trifling! how confined
His scope of vision! Puffed with confidence,
His phrase grows big with immortality;
And he, poor insect of a summer's day,
Dreams of eternal honors to his name,
Of endless glory and perennial bays.
He idly reasons of Eternity

As of the train of ages; when, alas !
Ten thousand thousand of his centuries
Are, in comparison, a little point
Too trivial for account.

6.

O, 't is strange, 'T is passing strange, to mark his fallacies; Behold him proudly view some pompous pile, Whose high dome swells to emulate the skies, And smile, and say, My name shall live with this Till Time shall be no more; while at his feet, Yea, at his very feet, the crumbling dust Of the fallen fabric of the other day Preaches the solemn lesson. He should know That Time must conquer; that the loudest blast That ever filled Renown's obstreperous trump,

7.

Fades in the lapse of ages, and expires.
Who lies inhumed in the terrific gloom

Of the gigantic pyramid? Or who

Reared its huge wall? Oblivion laughs, and says,
The prey
is mine. They sleep, and never more
Their names shall strike upon the ear of man,
Their memory burst its fetters.

Where is Rome?
She lives but in the tale of other times.
Her proud pavilions are the hermit's home;
And her long colonnades, her public walks,
Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet,

Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace,
Through the rank moss revealed, her honored dust.

8. But not to Rome alone has Fate confined
The doom of ruin; cities numberless,
Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy,
And rich Phoenicia; they are blotted out,
Half razed from memory, and their very name
And being in dispute!

LESSON CXLI.

TRIBUTE TO WASHINGTON.

HARRISON.

1. HARD, hard indeed, was the contest for freedom, and the struggle for independence. The golden sun of liberty had nearly set in the gloom of an eternal night, ere its radiant beams illumined our western horizon. Had not the tutelar saint of Columbia hovered around the American camp, and presided over her destinies, freedom must have met with an untimely grave.

2. Never can we sufficiently admire the wisdom of those statesmen, and the skill and bravery of those unconquerable veterans, who, by their unwearied exertions in the cabinet

and in the field, achieved for us the glorious Revolution Never can we duly appreciate the merits of a Washington, who, with but a handful of undisciplined yeomanry, triumphed over a royal army, and prostrated the Lion of England at the feet of the American Eagle. His name, so terrible to his foes, so welcome to his friends, shall live for ever upon the brightest page of the historian, and be remembered with the warmest emotions of gratitude and pleasure by those whom he has contributed to make happy, and by all mankind, when kings, and princes, and nobles, for ages, shall have sunk into their merited oblivion.

3. Unlike them, he needs not the assistance of the sculptor or the architect to perpetuate his memory; he needs no princely dome, no monumental pile, no stately pyramid, whose towering height shall pierce the stormy clouds, and rear its lofty head to heaven, to tell posterity his fame. His deeds, his worthy deeds, alone have rendered him immortal! When oblivion shall have swept away thrones, kingdoms, and principalities; when every vestige of human greatness, and grandeur, and glory, shall have moldered into dust, and the last period of time become extinct; eternity itself shall catch the glowing theme, and dwell with increasing rapture on his

name!

LESSON CXLII.

SPEECH ON THE QUESTION OF WAR WITH ENGLAND.

PATRICK HENRY.a

1. THIS, sir, is no time for ceremony. The question before the house is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery. And in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at this time, through fear of

a Patrick Henry; a distinguished Virginian.