1 slavery. It is not therefore from the passiveness of enslaved nations that we must form our judgment of the natural dispositions of mankind either for or against slavery; but rather from the prodigious efforts of every free people to prevent oppression. I am sensible that the former frequently declaim in favour of the tranquility they enjoy in their chains, and that they call a state of wretched servitude a state of peace: miserrimam servitutem pacem appellant: but when I observe the latter sacrificing pleasure, repose, wealth, power, and even life itself to the preservation of that single treasure, which is so much disdained by those who have lost it; when I see free born animals dash their brains out against the bars of their prison from an abhorrence of captivity; when I behold numbers of naked savages, despising European pleasures, and braving hunger, fire, the sword, and death, to preserve their independence, I feel that it belongs not to slaves to argue about li berty. ROUSSEAU. Discours sur Inegalité, part ii. "THE Bastile is not an evil to be despised" but strip it of its towers-fill up the foss-un" barricade the doors-call it simply a confine"ment-and suppose it is some tyrant of a dis"temper-and not of a man which holds you " in it-the evil vanishes, and you bear the "other half without complaint." "I was interrupted in the hey-day of this solitoof quy with a voice which I took to be of a child, which which complained it could not get out. I looked up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without farther atrention. In my return back through the passage I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage"I can't get out-I can't get out!" said the starling. I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity "I **can't get out!" said the starling" God help thee!" said I, " but I will let thee out cost what it will." So I turned about the cage to get the door-it was twisted and double-twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces-I took both hands to it. The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his breast against it, as if impatient" I fear, poor creature!" said I, " I cannot set thee at liberty." "No," said the starling-" I can't get out-I can't get out!" said the starling. I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; nor do I remember any accident of my life where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly called home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true 1 true in tune to nature were they chaunted, that in one moment they overthrew all my sysstematic reasonings upon the Bastile; and I heavily walked up stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them. Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still Slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have beeen made to drink of thee, though art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty, thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship, whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till nature herself shall change no tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chymic power turn thy sceptre into iron with thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust, the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious heaven! grant me but health, thou great Bestower of it, and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seems good unto thy wise providence, upon those heads that are aching for them. The bird in his cage pursued me into my room; I sat down close by my table, and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miser es of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination. : I was going to begin with the millions of my fellow creatures born to no inheritance but slavery; but finding, however affecting the picture was, that that I could not bring it nearer me, and that the multitude of sad groupes in it did but di stract me I took a single captive, and having first shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his pic ture. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement, and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it was which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer I saw him pale and feverish: in thirty years the western breeze had not once fanned his blood-he had no sun, no moon in all that time-nor had the voice of friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children -But here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of the por trait. He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw, in the furthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed: a little calendar of small sticks were laid at his head notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there he had one of these little sticks in his hand, and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery to add to the heap. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door, then cast it down -shook his head, and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the : the bundle-He gave a deep sigh-I saw the iron enter into his soul-I burst into tears-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn. STERNE. Sentimental Journey, vol. ii. STRANGE as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that, exhausted as I was with hunger, destitute of all provision for the future, and surrounded with the most alarming dangers, my mind suddenly became glowing, animated, and chearful. I recollected the confinement I had undergone, and the fate that had impended over me with horror. Never did man feel more vividly than I felt at that moment the sweets of liberty. Never did man more strenuously prefer poverty with independence to the artificial allurements of a life of slavery. I stretched forth my arms with rapture, I clapped my hands one upon another, and exclaimed, Ah, this is indeed to be a man! These wrists were lately galled with fetters; all my motions, whether I rose up or sat down, were echoed to with the clanking of chains; I was tied down like a wild beast, and could not move but in a circle of a few feet in circumference. Now I can run fleet as a grey-hound, and leap like a young roe upon the mountains. Oh, God! (if God there be that condescends to record the lonely beatings of an anxious heart) thou only can'st tell with what delight a prisoner, just broke forth from his dungeon, hugs the blessings of new found liberty! Sacred and indescribable moment, when |