20 What dreadful noise of waters in my ears! What sights of ugly death within mine eyes! Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 25 Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels;

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's sculls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
30 That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
-Often did I strive

To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
35 To find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
My dream was lengthened after life;

O, then began the tempest to my soul;
40 I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger-soul, Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick, 45 Who cried aloud- -"What scourge for perjury Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?" And so he vanished. Then came wandering by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked out aloud50" Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, That stabbed me in the field by Tewsbury; Seize on him, furies! take him to your torments !". With that, methought a legion of foul fiends Environed me, and howled into mine ears 55 Such hideous cries, that with the very noise I trembling waked; and for a season after Could not believe but that I was in hell; Such terrible impression made my dream.

Shakspeare.

60.

Moral Sublimity.

-What can strive

With virtue? which of nature's regions vast
Can in so many forms produce to sight
Such powerful beauty? beauty which the eye
5 of hatred cannot look upon secure :

Which envy's self contemplates, and is turned
Ere long to tenderness, to infant smiles,
Or tears of humblest love. Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
10 The summer's noontide groves, the purple eve
At harvest home, or in the frosty moon

Glittering on some smooth sea, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship as the honoured roof
Whither from highest heaven immortal love
15 His torch ethereal and his golden bow
Propitious brings, and there a temple holds
To whose unspotted service gladly vowed
The social band of parent, brother, child,
With smiles and sweet discourse and gentle deeds
20 Adore his power? What gift of richest clime
E'er drew such eager eyes, or prompted such
Deep wishes, as the zeal that snathes back
From slander's poisonous tooth a foe's renown;
Or crosseth danger in his lion walk,
25 A rival's life to rescue ? as the young

Athenian warrior sitting down in bonds, That his great father's body might not want A peaceful, humble tomb? the Roman wife Teaching her lord how harmless was the wound 30 Of death, how impotent the tyrant's rage, Who nothing more could threaten to afflict Their faithful love? Or is there in the abyss, Is there, among the adamantine spheres Wheeling unshaken through the boundless void, 35 Aught that with half such majesty can fill The human bosom, as when Brutus rose Refulgent, from the stroke of Cæsar's fate Amid the crowd of patriots; and, his arm

Aloft extending, like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
40 On Tully's name, and shook the crimson sword
Of justice in his wrapt astonished eye,
And bade the father of his country hail,
For lo the tyrant prostrate on the dust-
And Rome again is free ?-

Akenside.

Ask any one man of morals, whether he approves of assassination; he will answer, No. Would you kill your friend and benefactor? No. The question is a horrible insult. Would you practise hypocrisy and 5 smile in his face, while your conspiracy is ripening, to gain his confidence and to lull him into security, in order to take away his life? Every honest man, on the bare suggestion, feels his blood thicken and stagnate at his heart. Yet in this picture we see Brutus. It would, 10 perhaps, be scarcely just to hold him up to abhorrence; it is, certainly, monstrous and absurd to exhibit his conduct to admiration.

He did not strike the tyrant from hatred or ambition; his motives were admitted to be good; but was not the 15 action nevertheless, bad?

To kill a tyrant, is as much murder, as to kill any other man, Besides, Brutus, to extenuate the crime, could have had no rational hope of putting an end to the tyranny; he had foreseen and provided nothing to 20 realize it. The conspirators relied, foolishly enough, on the love of the multitude for liberty-they loved their safety, their ease, their sports, and their demagogue favourites a great deal better. They quietly looked on, as spectators, and left it to the legions of Anthony, and 25 Octavius, and to those of Syria, Macedonia, and Greece, to decide, in the field of Phillippi, whether there should be a republic or not. It was accordingly, decided in favour of an emperor; and the people sincerely rejoiced in the political calm, that restored the games of the cir30 cus, and the plenty of bread.

Those, who cannot bring their judgments to condemn the killing of a tyrant, must nevertheless agree that the blood of Cæsar was unprofitably shed. Liberty gained nothing by it, and humanity lost much; for it cost eigh35 teen years of agitation and civil war, before the ambition of the military and popular chieftains had expended its means, and the power was concentred in one man's hands.

Shall we be told, the example of Brutus is a good one, 40 because it will never cease to animate the race of tyrant-killers-But will the fancied usefulness of assassination overcome our instinctive sense of its horror? Is it to become a part of our political morals, that the chief of a state is to be stabbed or poisoned, whenever a fan45 atick, a malecontent, or a reformer shall rise up and call him a tyrant ? Then there would be as little calm in despotism as in liberty.

But when has it happened, that the death of an usurper has restored to the public liberty its departed life? 50 Every successful usurpation creates many competitors for power, and they successively fall in the struggle. In all this agitation, liberty is without friends, without resources, and without hope. Blood enough, and the blood of tyrants too, was shed between the time of the 55 wars of Marius and death of Anthony, a period of about sixty years, to turn a common grist-mill; yet the cause of the public liberty continually grew more and more desperate. It is not by destroying tyrants, that we are to extinguish tyranny; nature is not thus to be exhaust60 ed of her power to produce them. The soil of a republic sprouts with the rankest fertility; it has been sown with dragon's teeth. To lessen the hopes of usurping demagogues, we must enlighten, animate and combine the spirit of freemen; we must fortify and guard the 65 constitutional ramparts about liberty. When its friends become indolent or disheartened, it is no longer of any importance how long-lived are its enemies: they will prove immortal.

Ames,

62. Conclusion of Webster's Plymouth Discourse.

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all5 creating power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country, during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our 10 sentiments of deep regard. for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New-England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclama15 tion and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave for the consideration of those who 20 shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote 25 every thing which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance of an hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections, which running backward, and warming with 30 gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of Being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would 35 hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence, where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant land of the Fathers. We bid you