viction. We have compared some of our highest and most vaunted displays with the speeches of Mr. Madison, during his services in congress. What a contrast! It is the noisy and short-lived babbling of a brook after a rain, compared with the majestic course of the Potomac. 4. Yet, you have the vanity and hardihood to ask for the proof of his talents! You, who have as yet shown no talents that can be of service to your country—no talents beyond those of the merciless Indian, who dexterously strikes a tomahawk into the defenseless heart! But what an idea is yours of energy! You feel a constitutional irritability; you indulge it, and you call that indulgence energy! Sudden fits of spleen transient starts of passion, wild paroxysms of fury, the more slow and secret workings of envy and resentment, cruel taunts and sarcasms, the dreams of disordered fancy, the crude abortions of short-sighted theory, the delirium and ravings of a hectic fever this is your notion of energy! Heaven preserve our country from such energy as this! If this be the kind of energy which you deny to Mr. Madison, the people will conour in your denial. But, if you deny him that salutary energy which qualifies him to pursue his country's happiness and to defend her rights, we follow up the course of his public life, and demand the proof of your charge. LESSON LXIV. RUM'S MANIAC. DR. NOTT. 1. WHY am I thus? the maniac cried, It's not for cure that here I've come; I tell thee, all I want is rum I must have rum ! 2. Sane? yes, and have been all the while; 3. 'Tis he! 'tis he! my aged sire! What has disturbed thee in thy grave? Why bend on me that eye of fire? Why torment, since thou canst not save? Back to the church-yard whence you've come! Return, return! but send me rum O, send me rum! 4. Why is my mother musing there, On that same consecrated spot, Where once she taught me words of prayer? But now she hears-she heeds me not. Mute in her winding-sheet she stands; Cold, cold, I feel her icy hands- 5. She's vanished; but a dearer friend, I know her by her angel smile, Has come her partner to attend, His hours of misery to beguile; Haste! haste! loved one, and set me free; "Twere heaven to 'scape from hence to theeFrom hence to thee. 6. She does not hear; away she flies, 7. Hark! hark! for bread my children cry, O give me back the drunkard's cup! 8. It wont wash out, that crimson stain! I've scoured those spots, and made them white; Soon as the morning brings the light! 9. 'Twas there I heard his piteous cry, But steeled my heart, and bade him die, 10. Hark! still I hear that piteous wail; But, that pursuing, there 'twould come; 11. Guard, guard those windows! bar that door! Yonder I armed bandits see! They've robbed my house of all its store, They're breaking in! don't let them come! 12. I stake again?. not I; no more, 13. Will no one pity? no one come? Not thou; O come not, man of prayer! 14. Talk not of pardon there revealed; Tears never blot the book of fate; 15. See how that rug those reptiles soil! On every limb-around my head; 16. A frend! a fiend! with many a dart, And hie thee to thy native hell! 17. He's gone! he's gone! and I am free; 18. There, there again! that demon's there, Crouching to make a fresh attack; See how his flaming eye-balls glare! Thou fiend of fiends, what's brought thee back? Back in thy car? for whom? for where? He smiles, he beckons me to come; What are those words thou'st written there ? "In hell they never want for rum!" |