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'Tis only for the chance of saving it. [To the people.] Ges. Go on.

Tell. I will.

O friends, for mercy sake, keep motionless

And silent.

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[Tell shoots a shout of exultation bursts from the crowd-Tell's head drops on his bosom; he with difficulty supports himself upon his bow.]

Ver. [Rushing in with Albert.] The boy is safe, no hair of him is touched.

Alb. Father, I'm safe! -your Albert's safe, dear father,

Speak to me! Speak to me!

Ver. He cannot, boy!

Alb. You grant him life?

[blocks in formation]

Alb.

[Crossing angrily behind.]

Thank Heaven! - thank Heaven!

Ver. Open his vest,

And give him air.

[Albert opens his father's vest, and the arrow drops.

Tell starts, fixes his eye upon Albert, and clasps

him to his breast.

Tell. My boy! - My boy!

Ges. For what

Hid you that arrow in your breast?

Speak, slave!

Tell. To kill thee, tyrant, had I slain my boy!

ADDRESS TO THE SURVIVORS OF THE BATTLE OF

BUNKER HILL.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

DANIEL WEBSTER, one of the greatest of American statesmen, was born at Salisbury, N. H., in 1782.

His father, Ebenezer Webster, was a farmer and Justice of the County Court. He had been an officer in the Revolutionary war. Daniel received his early instruction from his mother, a woman 5 of rare intellectual powers, and from the country school which he attended during the winters.

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Although he became a distinguished orator, he failed utterly in public speaking at school. He afterwards said: "There was one thing I could not do; I could not make a declamation. I could not speak before the school."

Daniel showed so great ability as a student that the family decided he must attend college,

although this step called for additional hardship and sacrifice 20 on the part of those at home. He studied under the direction

of a clergyman in a neighboring town, spent one year at Phillips Exeter Academy, and entered Dartmouth College when he was fifteen years old. During his vacations he taught school to pay his expenses. He also assisted his brother Ezekiel in 25 obtaining his education.

He finished his course at college with credit, and then studied law in Boston. He began his practice in Boscawen, a country town near his home; but after the death of his father he removed to Portsmouth, and was soon regarded as the leading 30 man in his profession.

After a time he removed to Boston, where he became known as one of the ablest lawyers of his time.

Webster was elected to Congress from Boston, and took his seat in December, 1823, and continued to serve in that position 5 till he was elected to the Senate, in which body he took his seat on the 4th of March, 1827.

The awkward village lad who could not declaim in the district school now ranked among the most eloquent orators of the country.

On the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, 10 Webster delivered a stirring oration, which made him famous throughout the country; and at the laying of the corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument he delivered an address which has not been equaled in this century. From that time Daniel Webster was sought after for every public occasion. He twice held the 15 office of Secretary of State. He resigned the latter office on account of failing health during the summer of 1852, and retired to his country seat at Marshfield, Mass., where he died in the following October.

You have come down to us from a former generation. 20 Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder in the strife of your country. Behold how altered! The 25 same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon; you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and 30 the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance;

a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death, — all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw 5 filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. 10 Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defense. All is peace; and God has granted you 15 this sight of your country's happiness ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils, and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and, in the name of the present generation, 20 in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you.

But, alas! you are not all here. Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you 25 in vain amidst this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have met the

common fate of men.

You lived at least long enough

to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established and to sheathe your swords 5 from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like

10

another morn,

Risen on mid-noon,

and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. Veterans of half a century! when, in your youthful days, you put everything at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this. At a period to which you could not 15 reasonably hope to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude.

20 But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. 25 The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years and bless them! and when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so often

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