Murray he did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation, nor was he, like Townsend, for ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of his mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through its history.

HENRY GRATTAN.

83.- Ossian's Address to the Sun.3

In 1762 a Scotchman named James Macpherson published a poem called "Fingal" as the translation of an original by a pretended Gaelic bard named Ossian. The work, though an invention, was founded on traditions gathered by Macpherson in the Highlands of Scotland. The book, which is written in a vague and misty style, was a favorite with Napoleon.

O thou that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! whence are thy beams, O Sun? thy everlasting

1 Murray; i.e., Lord Mansfield, | excellent opportunity for practicing the great English judge. the orotund voice. (See p. 23.) It should be spoken very slowly, very distinctly, and with all the volume of "pure tone" at the pupil's com

2 Townsend; i.e., Charles Townsend, a distinguished member of Parliament in Chatham's time.

3 Elocution. This piece gives an ❘ mand.

light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty: the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course?

The oaks of the mountains fall, the mountains themselves decay with years, the ocean shrinks and grows again, the moon herself is lost in the heavens; but thou art for ever the same, rejoicing in the brightness of thy

course.

When the world is dark with tempests, when thunders roll and lightnings fly, thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more, whether thy yellow hair flows on the eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the west.

But thou art perhaps, like me, for a season: thy years will have an end. Thou wilt sleep in thy clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult, then, O Sun, in the strength of thy youth: age is dark and unlovely. It is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds, and the mist is on the hills, the blast of the north is on the plains, the traveler shrinks in the midst of his journey.

84. Soliloquy of a Young Lady.

"Well!" exclaimed a young lady, just returned from school," my education is at last finished." Indeed, it would be strange if, after five years' hard application, anything

were left incomplete. Happily, it is all over now, and I have nothing to do but to exercise my various accomplishments.

"Let me see. As to French, I am mistress of that, and speak it, if possible, with more fluency than English. Italian I can read with ease, and pronounce very well, as well, at least, as any of my friends, and even better; and that is all one need wish for in Italian. Music I have learned till I am perfectly sick of it. But, now that we have a grand piano, it will be delightful to play when we have company. I must still continue to practice a little,

-the only thing, I think, that I need now to improve myself in. And then, there are my Italian songs, which everybody allows that I sing with taste; and, as it is what so few people can pretend to, I am particularly glad that I can.

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'My drawings are universally admired, especially the shells and flowers, which are beautiful certainly. Besides this, I have a decided taste in all kinds of fancy ornaments.

"And then my dancing and waltzing, -in which our master owned he could take me no farther. Just the figure for it, certainly. It would be unpardonable if I did not excel.

As to common things, poetry, and philosophy,

geography, and history, and thank my stars, I have got through them all, so that I may consider myself not only perfectly accomplished, but also thoroughly well informed.

"Well, to be sure, how much I have fagged through! The only wonder is, that one head can contain it all.”

JANE TAYLOR

85.- Spartacus to the Gladiators.

Spartacus, born in Thrace in the first century B.C., was chief of a band of banditti, and was captured by the Romans. He was sold, and trained as a gladiator, but persuaded seventy or eighty of his associates to escape with him from the training school of Lentulus of Capua. Taking refuge in the crater of Vesuvius, the gladiators chose Spartacus as their leader. Spartacus proclaimed liberty to all slaves, gathered together an army of a hundred thousand of them, and repeatedly defeated the armies of Rome, but finally died in battle.

It had been a day of triumph at Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles,1 had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheater to an extent hitherto unknown, even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away, the roar of the lion had ceased, the last loiterer had retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dewdrops on the corslet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of Vulturnus 2 with a wavy, tremulous light.

No sound was heard save the last sob of some retiring wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphitheater, a band of gladiators were assembled, their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet lingering on their brows; when Sparta

1 eagles, the symbol of the Roman army.

2 Vulturnus (now Volturno), the chief river in Campania, Italy.

cus, starting forth from amid the throng, thus addressed them:

"Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them

come on.

"And yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal.

"One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra;1 and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not know then what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my fore

2

1 Marathon and Leuctra, the scenes of two Grecian victories over the invading Persians.

2 defile, etc., in allusion to the uneven and memorable battle in the pass of Thermopyle.