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True, true,

I should have learnt humility:

True, I am nothing: nothing have-but hope!
I have no ancient birth,-

no heraldry;

No motley coat is daubed upon my shield;
I cheat no rabble, like your charlatans,
By flinging dead men's dust in idiots' eyes
I work no miracles with buried bones;
I belt no broken and distempered shape

With shrivelled parchments plucked from mouldy shelves;
Yet, if I stooped to talk of ancestry,

I had an ancestor, as old and noble

As all their quarterings reckon, mine was Adam
The man who gave me being, though no Lord

Was nature's nobleman, an honest man!

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And prouder am I, at this hour, to stand,
Unpedestalled, but on his lowly grave,
Than if I towered upon a monument
High as the clouds with rotten infamy!

13. LOCHIEL'S WARNING.- Thomas Campbell

Locnel, a Highland chieftain, while on his march to join the Pretender, is met by one of the Highland seers, or prophets, who warns him to return, and not incur the certain ruin which awaits the unfortunate prince and his followers, on the field of Culloden.

Seer. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day

When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight:
They rally, they bleed, for their country and Crown
Woe, woe, to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair'
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
O! weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave-
Culloden, that reeks with the blood of the brave!

Lochiel. Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer.
Or, if gory
Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,

This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright!

Seer. Ha! augh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn 7

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn '
Sa, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth

From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the North ?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen out-speeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high
Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of Heaven.
O, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn ;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!
For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood!

Lochiel. False wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan: Their swords are a thousand, their bosons are one!

They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock !
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws!
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array

Seer. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day!
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal.
"T is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive King.
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!
Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight,
Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!

"T is finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?
For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,

Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?
Ah! no; for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier,
His death-bell is tolling; O! mercy, dispel
Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters, convulsed, in his quivering limbs

And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims!
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale

Lochiel. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale! For never shall Albin a destiny meet

So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat.

Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore

Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore

Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!

And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame '

14 'HILIP VAN ARTEVELDE'S DEFENCE OF HIS REBELLION. Henry Taylor
You speak of insurrections: bear in mind
Against what rule my father and myself
Have been insurgent; whom did we supplant?
There was a time, so ancient records tell,
There were communities, scarce known by name
In these degenerate days, but once far-famed,
Where liberty and justice, hand in hand,

Ordered the common weal; where great men grew
Up to their natural eminence, and none,.

Saving the wise, just, eloquent, were great.

Whom may we now call free? whom great? whom wise?
Whom innocent? - the free are only they

Whom power makes free to execute all ills

Their hearts imagine; they are only great

Whose passions nurse them from their cradles up
In luxury and lewdness, whom to see

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Is to despise, whose aspects put to scorn
Their station's eminence; the wise, they only
Who wait obscurely till the bolts of Heaven
Shall break upon the land, and give them light
Whereby to walk; the innocent, alas!
Poor Innocency lies where four roads meet,

A stone upon her head, a stake driven through her, --
For who is innocent that cares to live?

The hand of power doth press the very life

Of Innocency out

What, then, remains,

But in the cause of nature to stand forth,

And turn this frame of things the right side up?

For this the hour is come, the sword is drawn,
And tell your masters vainly they resist.
Nature, that slept beneath their poisonous drugs,

Is

up and stirring, and from north and south, From east and west, from England and from France, From Germany, and Flanders, and Navarre, Shall stand against them like a beast at bay. The blood that they have shed will hide no longer In the blood-sloken soil, but cries to Heaven. Their cruelties and wrongs against the poor Shall quicken into swarms of venomous snakes, And hiss through all the earth, till o'er the earth, That ceases then from hissings and from groans, Rises the song-How are the mighty fallen! And by the peasant's hand! Low lie the proud! And smitten with the weapons of the poorThe blacksmith's hammer and the woodman's axe! Their tale is told; and for that they were rich, And robbed the poor; and for that they were strong, And scourged the weak; and for that they made laws Which turned the sweat of labor's brow to blood, — For these their sins the nations cast them out! These things come to pass

From small beginnings, because God is just.

-

15 DUTY TO ONE'S COUNTRY.-Hannah More. Born, 1744; died 1838 OUR country is a whole, my Publius,

Of which we all are parts; nor should a citizen
Regard his interests as distinct from hers;
No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul,
But what affect her honor or her shame.

E'en when in hostile fields he bleeds to save her,
'Tis not his blood he loses, 't is his country's;
He only pays her back a debt he owes.
To her he's bound for birth and education;

Her laws secure him from domestic feuds,

And from the foreign foe her arms protect him.
She lends him honors, dignity, and rank,

His wrongs revenges, and his merit pays;
And, like a tender and indulgent mother,

Loads him with comforts, and would make his state
As blessed as nature and the gods designed it.
Such gifts, my son, have their alloy of pain,
And let the unworthy wretch, who will not bear
His portion of the public burthen, lose

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And from the sacred laws which guard those blessings,
Renounce the civilized abodes of man,

With kindred brutes one common shelter seek
In horrid wilds, and dens, and dreary caves,
And with their shaggy tenants share the spoil;
Or, if the shaggy hunters miss their prey,
From scattered acorns pick a scanty meal;
Far from the sweet civilities of life,

---

There let him live, and vaunt his wretched freedom,
While we, obedient to the laws that guard us,
Guard them, and live or die, as they decree.

16. ST. PIERRE TO FERRARDO.—James Sheridan Knowles.

St. Pierre, having possessed himself of Ferrardo's dagger, compels him to sign a confession. om his own lips, of his villany.

KNOW you me, Duke? Know you the peasant boy,
Whom, fifteen years ago, in evil hour,

You chanced to cross upon his native hills,
In whose quick eye you saw the subtle spirit,
Which suited you, and tempted it? He took
Your hint, and followed you to Mantua
Without his father's knowledge,

his old father,
Who, thinking that he had a prop in him
Man could not rob him of, and Heaven would spare,
Blessed him one night, ere he lay down to sleep,
And, waking in the morning, found him gone!

[Ferrardo tries to rise Move not, or I shall move! You know me.

O, yes! you trained me like a cavalier,
You did, indeed! You gave me masters, Duke,
And their instructions quickly I took up,

As they did lay them down! I got the start

---

Of my cotemporaries! not a youth

Of whom could read, write, speak, command a weapon,
Or rule a horse, with me! You gave me all, -

All the equipments of a man of honor,
But you did find a use for me, and made
A slave, a profligate, a pander, of me!
I charge you keep your seat! -

Ten thousand ducats?

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[Ferrardo rising.

What, Duke! Is such your offer? Give me, Duke,
The eyes that looked upon my father's face,
The hands that helped my father to his wish,
The feet that flew to do my father's will,
The heart that bounded at my father's voice,
And say that Mantua were built of ducats,
And I could be its Duke at cost of these

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