Some doubt the courage of the negro. Go to Hayti, and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers France ever had, and ask them what they think of the negro's sword.

I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way. to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave-trade in the humblest village of his dominions.

You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for England, Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright consummate flower of our earlier civilization, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, TOUSSAINT L'OUVErture. WENDELL PHILLIPS.

SCENE FROM HAMLET.

[The Platform.]

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.

Ham. What hour now?

Hor. I think it lacks of twelve.

Mar.

Hor. Indeed!

season,

No, it is struck.

I heard it not; it then draws near the

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

(A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.) What does this mean, my lord?

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels;

And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Hor. Is it a custom?

Ham.

Ay, marry, is't:

But to my mind, — though I am native here,
And to the manner born, - it is a custom

More honor'd in the breach, than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,

Make us traduced, and taxed of other nations :
They clepe us, drunkards, and with swinish phrase

Soil our addition; and, indeed it takes

From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
The pith and marrow of our attribute.
So, oft it chances in particular men,

That, for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As in their birth, (wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin,)
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason;
Or by some habit, that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners;
that these men,

Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect;
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo,)

Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: The dram of base
Doth all the noble substance often out,

To his own scandal.

Hor.

Enter GHOST.

Look, my lord, it comes!

Ham. Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd.

Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked, or charitable,

Thou comest in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father: Royal Dane, Oh, answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath ope'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again in complete stecl,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

Το you alone.

Mar.

Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground:

But do not go with it.

Hor.

No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham.

Why, what would be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee;

And, for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again;

I'll follow it.

Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,

That beetles o'er his base into the sea;

And there assume some other horrible form,

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,

Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve. — (GHOST beckons.) Still am I call'd; unhand me, gentlemen ;

(Breaking from them.)

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me :

I

say, away: - Go on, I'll follow thee.

[Exeunt GHOST and HAMLET.]

Hor. He waxes desperate with imagination.
Mar. Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Hor. Have after:- To what issue will this come?
Mar. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Hor. Heaven will direct it.

Mar.

Nay, let's follow him. [Exeunt.]

[A more remote part of the Platform.]

Re-enter GHOST and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither will thou lead me? speak, I'll go no

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Ham.

Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

Ham. Speak, I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

Ham. What?

Ghost.

I am thy father's spirit;
Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,
And, for the day, confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres ;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand an-end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

Ham. Murder?

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;

But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Ham. Haste me to know it; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love,

May sweep to my revenge.

Ghost.

I find thee apt:

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf.

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear: 'Tis given out, that, sleeping in mine orchard

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused; but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent, that did sting thy father's life,

Now wears his crown.

Ham. Oh, my prophetic soul! my uncle!

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterous beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,