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It shouted through the belfry-tower,
"Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour!"

It crossed the church-yard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet! in quiet lie!"

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

XLI. SPEECH ON THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

LORD CHATHAM (WILLIAM PITT) (17081778), styled "the elder Pitt," was one of England's great orators and statesmen. Through his vigorous war policy as Secretary of State he brought success to the English army then opposing the French. His most active service in Parliament was in the House of Commons. In later years he was made a peer of the realm, and as Earl of Chatham entered the House of Lords. His last speeches were in defense of the American Colonies. As an orator of clearness, eloquence and logic Pitt ranks among the leaders in literature. As a man of high moral principle and unimpeachable integrity he is without a peer.

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EARL OF CHATHAM.

1. I CANNOT, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the illusion and darkness which envelop it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors.

2. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give its support to measures thus obtruded and

forced upon it? Measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor as to do her reverence.

3. The people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us; supplied with every military store, their interest consulted and their ambassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy! — and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the English troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility.

4. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be forever vain and impotent doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms never, never, never!

5. But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage?to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman

inhabitants of the woods?-to assign to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment.

6. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable,” says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and Nature have put in our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country!

7. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much upon your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such horrible barbarity. "That God and Nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and Nature that noble lord may entertain, I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity.

8. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife! - to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation.

9. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn, upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this

pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character.

LORD CHATHAM.

XLII. THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891). Lowell is perhaps the finest example of a rounded literary development that America has produced. He was with equal efficiency a critic, poet, essayist, professor, editor, humorist, lecturer, and statesman. With a college education (Harvard), he early became a man of letters in literary Boston. His lifetime home was the Elmwood mansion at Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was the first editor of the Atlantic Monthly, and for nine years was, with C. E. Norton, editor of the North American Review. He was lecturer before the Lowell Institute, and professor of modern languages in Harvard College. He served as minister to Spain for three years, and to England for five years. At the Court of King James he was one of the most dignified and diplomatic ministers the United States has ever had in representation. Lowell has written several volumes of critical essays. His poetry covers a wide range of thought, including legend, nature, sentiment and reflection, religion, personal pictures, freedom, and humor. His style was exquisite in its keenness and beautiful imagery. Best known among his works are: The Biglow Papers, A Fable for the Critics, The Present Crisis, Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration, and The Vision of Sir Launfal.

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PRELUDE TO PART FIRST.

1. OVER his keys the musing organist,
Beginning doubtfully and far away,
First lets his fingers wander as they list,

And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay:

Then, as the touch of his loved instrument

Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme,
First guessed by faint auroral flushes sent
Along the wavering vista of his dream.

2. Not only around our infancy

Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not;
Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood

Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;

At the Devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking;
There is no price set on the lavish summer,
And June may be had by the poorest comer.

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