their regard for posterity - by all their gratitude to Him who has bestowed upon them such unnumbered blessings - by all the duties which they owe to mankind, and all the duties they owe to themselves by all these considerations, I implore upon them to pause solemnly to pause at the edge of the preci

pice before the fearful and disastrous leap is taken into the yawning abyss below, from which none who take it will ever return in safety.

And, finally, Mr. President, I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me on earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the melancholy and heart-rending spectacle. H. Clay.

WE

CXXXI.

NATIONAL GLORY.

E are asked, what have we gained by the war? I have shown that we have lost nothing, either in rights, territory, or honor; nothing, for which we ought to have contended, according to the principles of the gentlemen on the other side, or according to our own. Have we gained nothing by the war? Let any man look at the degraded condition of the country before the war, the scorn of the universe, the contempt of ourselves, and tell me if we have gained nothing by the war. What is our present situation? Respectability and character abroad; security and confidence at home. If we have not obtained, in the opinion of some, the full measure of retribution, our character and Constitution are placed on a solid basis, never to be shaken.

The glory acquired by our gallant tars on the sea, by our Jacksons and our Browns on the land, is that nothing? True we had our vicissitudes: there are humiliating events which the patriot cannot review without deep regret; but the great account when it comes to be balanced, will be found vastly in our favor. Is there a man who would obliterate from the proud pages of our history, the brilliant achievements of Jackson, Brown, and Scott, and the host of heroes on land and sea whom I cannot

enumerate? Is there a man who could not desire a participation in the national glory acquired by the war? Yes, national glory, which, however the expression may be condemned by some, must be cherished by every genuine patriot.

What do I mean by national glory? Glory such as Hull, Jackson, and Perry have acquired. And are gentlemen insensible to their deeds, to the value of them in animating the country in the hour of peril hereafter? Did the battle of Thermopyla preserve Greece but once? While the Mississippi contributes to bear the tributes of the Iron Mountains and the Alleghanies to her delta, and to the Gulf of Mexico, the eighth of January shall be remembered, and the glory of that day shall stimulate future patriots, and nerve the arms of unborn freemen, in driving the presumptuous invader from our country's soil.

Gentlemen may boast of their insensibility to feelings inspired by the contemplation of such events. But I would ask, does the recollection of Bunker's Hill, Saratoga, and Yorktown, afford no pleasure? Every act of noble sacrifice of the country, every instance of patriotic devotion to her cause, has its beneficial influence. A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the country's inheritance. They awe foreign powers; they arouse and animate our own people. I love true glory. It is this sentiment which ought to be cherished; and, in spite of cavils, and sneers, and attempts to put it down, it will rise triumphant, and finally conduct this nation to that height, to which nature and nature's God have destined it. H. Clay.

CXXXII.

BRUTUS ON THE DEATH OF CESAR.

ROMANS, countrymen, and lovers! Hear me for my cause;

and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honor; and have respect to mine honor, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses, that you may be the better judge. If there be any in this assembly,any dear friend of Cæsar's, — to him I say, that Brutus' love to Cæsar was not less than his. If, then, that friend demand why

Not that I loved Had you rather

Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Cæsar were living, and die all slaves; than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition.

Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude, that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile, that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply,

None? Then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than you shall do to Brutus. The question of his death is enrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart; that, as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.

Shakspeare.

СХХХІІІ.

HAMLET'S ADDRESS TO THE PLAYERS.

PEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you,

SPEAK

trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb

shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod. I pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judi cious grieve; the censure of which one, must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, Pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. Shakspeare.

CXXXIV.

FALSTAFF'S DESCRIPTION OF HIS SOLDIERS.

F I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet. I have misused the king's press outrageously. I have got, in exchange of an hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good householders, yeoman's sons; inquire me out contracted bachelors, such as have been asked twice on the banns; such a commodity of warm slaves, as had as lief hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a culverin worse than a struck deer or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts in butter, with hearts in their breasts no bigger than pins' heads; and they bought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores; discarded, unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and hostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace; and such have I to fill up

the rooms of them that have bought out their services, that you would think, that I had an hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt it is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves; and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of St. Albans, or the rednosed innkeeper of Daintry. But that's all one; they'll find linen enough on every hedge. Shakspeare.

AS young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I

am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for, indeed, three such antics do not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is whitelivered, and red-faced; by the means whereof, 'a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue, and a quiet sword; by the means whereof, 'a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, - he hath heard, that men of a few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest 'a should be thought a coward; but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for 'a never broke any man's head but his own, and that was against a post, when he was drunk. They will steal anything, and call it — purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case; bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three half-pence. Nym. and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filching; and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel; I knew, by that piece of service, the men would carry coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets, as their gloves or their handkerchiefs; which makes much against my manhood, if I should take from another's pocket, to put into mine; for it is plain pock