LESSON XXXVI.

BURR AND BLENNERHASSET.

WIRT.

1. WHO is Blennerhasset? A native of Ireland, a man of letters, who fled from the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. Possessed himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and decorates it with every ro mantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him; music, which might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his; an extensive library spreads its treasures before him; a philosophical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature; peace, tranquilty, and innocence, shed their mingled delights around him; and to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of her children. The evidence would convince you, sir, that this is only a faint picture of the real life.

2. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, and this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart the destroyer comes; he comes to turn this paradise into a hell. A stranger presents himself. It is Aaron Burr? Introduced to their civilities by the high rank which he had lately held in his country, he soon finds his way to their hearts by the dignity and elegance of his demeanor, the light and beauty of his conversation, and the seductive and fascinating power of his address.

3. The conquest was not a difficult one. Innocence is ever simple and credulous; conscious of no designs of itself, it suspects none in others; it wears no guards before its breast; every door, and portal, and avenue of the heart is thrown open,

and all who choose it enter. Such was the state of Eden, when the serpent entered its bowers. The prisoner in a more enga ging form, winding himself into the open and unpractised heart of the unfortunate Blennerhasset, found but little difficulty in changing the native character of that heart and the objects of its affection.

4. By degrees he infuses into it the poison of his own ambition; he breathes into it the fire of his own courage; a daring and desperate thirst for glory; an ardor panting for all the storms, and bustle, and hurricane of life. In a short time the whole man is changed, and every object of his former delights relinquished. No more he enjoys the tranquil scene; it has become flat and insipid to his taste; his books are abandoned; his retort and crucible are thrown aside; his shrubbery blooms and breathes its fragrance upon the air in vain; he likes it not; his ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music; it longs for the trumpet's clangor and the cannon's roar: even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecstacy so unspeakable, is now unseen and unfelt.

5. Greater objects have taken possession of his soul—his imagination has been dazzled by visions of diadems, and stars, and garters, and titles of nobility; he has been taught to burn with restless emulation at the names of Cromwell, Cesar, and Bonaparte. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a desert; and in a few months we find the tender and beautiful partner of his bosom, whom he lately “permitted not the winds of summer to visit too roughly,"- we find her shivering, at midnight, on the winter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell.

6. Yet this unfortuuate man, thus deluded from his interest and his happiness — thus seduced from the paths of innocence and peace thus confounded in the toils which were deliberately spread for him, and overwhelmed by the mastering spirit

and genius of another; — this man, thus ruined and undone, and made to play a subordinate part in this grand drama of guilt and treason, this man is to be called the principal offender ; while he, by whom he was thus plunged and steeped in misery, is comparatively innocent—a mere accessory. Sir, neither the human heart, nor the human understanding, will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd; so shocking to the soul; so revolting to reason.

LESSON XXXVII.

THE BATTLE STORM.

SHAKSPEARE.

1. ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In

peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews-summon up the blood,-
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth the galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean

2. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To its full height!-On, on, you noble English,
Whose blood is set from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers, that like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Be copy now for men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war; and you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs are made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture: let us swear

That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not.
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eye:
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's a-foot;
Follow your spirit; and upon this charge,
Cry, heaven for Harry, England, and St. George!

LESSON XXXVIII.

SATAN TO HIS LEGIONS.

MILTON.

PRINCES, potentates,

Warriors, the flower of heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle, to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of heav'n?
Or, in this abject posture, have ye sworn
To adore the Conq'ror! who now beholds
Cherub, and seraph, rolling in the flood

With scatter'd arms, and ensigns; till anon
His swift pursuers, from heav'n-gates discern
The advantage, and descending, tread us down,

Thus drooping; or, with linked thunderbolts,
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake! arise! or be forever fallen!

LESSON XXXIX.

THE CRIMINALITY OF DUELLING.

to us.

DR. NOTT.

1. HAMILTON yielded to the force of an imperious custom. And yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all had an interestand he is lost — lost to his country-lost to his family—lost For this act, because he disclaimed it, and was penitent, I forgive him. But there are those whom I cannot forgive. I mean not his antagonist over whose erring steps, if there be tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and weeps. If he be capable of feeling, he suffers already all that humanity can suffer. Suffers, and wherever he may fly will suffer, with the poignant recollection of taking the life of one who was too magnanimous in return to attempt his own.

2. Had he known this, it must have paralyzed his arm while he pointed, at so incorruptible a bosom, the instrument of death. Does he know this now, his heart, if it be not adamant, must soften if it be not ice, it must melt. But on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he is, if he be penitent, I forgive him and if he be not, before these altars, where all of us appear as suppliants, I wish not to excite your vengeance, but rather, in behalf of an object rendered wretched and pitiable by crime, to wake your prayers.

3. I enjoy another opportunity; and would to God I might be permitted to approach for once the last scene of death. Would to God, I could there assemble on the one side the dis consolate mother with her seven fatherless children and on