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,
Confined 'mid crazy people? Why?
I am not mad-knave, stand aside!
I'll have my freedom, or I'll die;

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;
Why, then, tormented thus? 'Tis sad:
Why chained, and held in duress vile?
The men who brought me here were mad;
I will not stay where specters come;
Let me go home: I must have rum-
I must have rum!

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-
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,
Regardless of the chain I wear,
Back to her mansion in the skies,
To dwell with kindred spirits there.
Why has she gone? Why did she come?

7. Hark! hark! for bread my children cry,
A cry that drinks my spirits up;
But 'tis in vain, in vain to try;

O give me back the drunkard's cup!
My lips are parched, my heart is sad;
This cursed chain! 'twill make me mad-
"Twill make me mad!

8. It wont wash out, that crimson stain!

I've scoured those spots, and made them white;
Blood reäppears again, again,

Soon as the morning brings the light!
When from my sleepless couch I come,
To see-to feel-O give me rum!
I must have rum!

9. 'Twas there I heard his piteous cry,
And saw his last imploring look,

But steeled my heart, and bade him die,
Then from him golden treasures took;
Accursed treasure! stinted sum!
Reward of guilt! Give, give me rum—
O, give me rum!

10. Hark! still I hear that piteous wail;
Before my eyes his specter stands;
And when it frowns on me I quail!
O, I would fly to other lands!

But, that pursuing, there 'twould come;
There's no escape! O, give me rum—
O, give me rum!

11. Guard, guard those windows! bar that door! Yonder I armed bandits see!

They've robbed my house of all its store,
And now return to murder me;

They're breaking in! don't let them come!
Drive, drive them hence! but give me rum'
O, give me rum!

12. I stake again?. not I; no more,
Heartless, accursed gamester, no!
I staked with thee my all before,
And from thy den a beggar go!
Go where? A suicide to hell!
And leave my orphan children here,
In rags and wretchedness to dwell,
A doom their father cannot bear.

13. Will no one pity? no one come?

Not thou; O come not, man of prayer!
Shut that dread volume in thy hand;
For me damnation's written there-
No drunkard can in judgment stand!

14. Talk not of pardon there revealed;
No, not to me, it is too late;
My sentence is already sealed;

Tears never blot the book of fate;
Too late, too late these tidings come;
There is no hope! O give me rum!
I must have rum!

15. See how that rug those reptiles soil!
They're crawling o'er me in my bed'
I feel their clammy, snaky coil

On every limb-around my head;
With forked tongue I see them play;
I hear them hiss-tear them away!
Tear them away!

16. A frend! a fiend! with many a dart,
Glares on me with his blood-shot eye,
And aims his missiles at my heart,—
O, whither, whither shall I fly!
Fly? no, it is no time for flight!
Fiend! I know thy hellish purpose well!
Avaunt, avaunt, thou hated sprite,

And hie thee to thy native hell!

17. He's gone! he's gone! and I am free;
He's gone, the faithless, braggart liar
He said he'd come to summon me-
See there again, my bed's on fire!
Fire water! help! O haste, I die!
The flames are kindling round my head!
This smoke!--I'm strangling!—cannot fly!
O, snatch me from this burning bed!

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!"