Strike home! and the world shall revere us As heroes descended from heroes. Old Greece lightens up with emotion! Her inlands, her isles of the ocean, Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring, That were cold, and extinguished in sadness; Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms, Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms, When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens ! 52. FALL OF WARSAW, 1794.-Thomas Campbell. O! SACRED Truth! thy triumph ceased a while, Presaging wrath to Poland - and to man! Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed O Heaven! he cried, my bleeding country save! He said; and on the rampart heights arrayed In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few! Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Dropped from her nerveless the shattered spear, grasp Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career. O righteous Heaven! ere Freedom found a grave, Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled! 53. MARCO BOZZARIS.-Fitz-Greene Halleck. Marco Bozzaris, the Epaminondas of modern Greece, fell in a night attack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platea, August 20, 1823, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were:-"To die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain." the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke, to hear his sentries shriek, king; "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek " And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke, And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightnings from the mountain cloud; "Strike till the last armed foe expires! Strike-for your altars and your fires! Strike for the green graves of your sires! God, and your native land!" They fought, like brave men, long and well; His few surviving comrades saw Like flowers at set of sun. Come to the bridal chamber, Death! The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, We tell thy doom without a sigh; BLAZE, with your serried columns! I wil not bend the knee; Revenge is stamped upon my spear, and "blood" my battle-cry! Some strike for hope of booty; some to defend their all; I love, among the wounded, to hear his dying moan, And catch, while chanting at his side, the music of his groan. My tawny household do ye seek? - I am a childless sire. But, should ye crave life's nourishment, enough I have, and good; 791; fell in battle, 1813. thy name! battle roll; 55. BATTLE HYMN.-Theodore Korner. Born One deeper prayer, 't was that no cloud might lower - Now for the fight! Now for the cannon-peal! PART THIRD. SENATORIAL. 1. AGAINST PHILIP.-Demosthenes. Original Translation. Demosthenes, whose claim to the title of the greatest of orators has not yet been superseded, was born at Athens, about 380 B. C. At the age of seventeen he determined to study eloquence, though his lungs were weak, his articulation imperfect, and his gestures awkward. These impediments he overcame by perseverance. When the encroachments of Philip, King of Macedon, alarmed the Grecian states, Demosthenes roused his countrymen to resistance by a series of harangues, so celebrated, that similar orations are, to this day, often styled Philippics. The influence which he acquired he employed for the good of his country. The charges that have come down of his cowardice and venality are believed to be calumnious. It is related of Demosthenes, that, while studying Oratory, he spoke with pebbles in his mouth, to cure himself of stammering; that he repeated verses of the poets as he ran up hill, to strengthen his voice; and that he declaimed on the sea-shore, to accustom himself to the tumult of a popular assembly. He died 322 B. C. The speeches of Demosthenes were delivered before select, not accidental, assemblages of the people; and they have here been placed under the Senatorial head, as partaking mostly of that style of Oratory. The first four extracts, from the first, third, eighth and ninth Philippics, which follow, together with the extract from Eschines on the Crown, are chiefly translated from Stiévenart's excellent and very spirited version. BEGIN, O men of Athens, by not despairing of your situation, however deplorable it may seem; for the very cause of your former reverses offers the best encouragement for the future. And how? Your utter supineness, O Athenians, has brought about your disasters. If these had come upon you in spite of your most strenuous exertions, then only might all hopes of an amelioration in your affairs be abandoned. When, then, O my countrymen! when will you do your duty? What wait you? Truly, an event! or else, by Jupiter, necessity! But how can we construe otherwise what has already occurred? For myself, I can conceive of no necessity more urgent to free souls than the pressure of dishonor. Tell me, is it your wish to go about the public places, here and there, continually, asking, "What is there new?" Ah! what should there be new, if not that a Macedonian could conquer Athens, and lord it over Greece? "Is Philip dead?" "No, by Jupiter! he is sick." Dead or sick, what matters it to you? If he were to die, and your vigilance were to continue slack as now, you would cause a new Philip to rise up at once, since this one owes his aggrandizement less to his own power than to your inertness! It is a matter of astonishment to me, O Athenians, that none of you are aroused either to reflection or to anger, in beholding a war, begun for the chastisement of Philip, degenerate at last into a war of defence against him. And it is evident that he will not stop even yet, unless we bar his progress. But where, it is asked, shall we make a descent? |