his dignity never was °vitiated by pride or harshness, and his unconquerable firmness was free from obstinacy, or self-willed arrogance.

He was gigantic, but at the same time he was well proportioned and beautiful. It was this symmetry of parts that diminished the apparent magnitude of the whole; as in those fine specimens of Grecian architecture, where the size of the temple scems lessened by its perfection. There are plenty of men who become distinguished by the predominance of one single faculty, or the exercise of a solitary virtue; but few, very few, present to our contemplation such a combination of virtues unalloyed by a single vice; such a succession of actions, both public and private, in which even his enemies can find nothing to blame.

Assuredly he stands almost alone in the world. He occupies a region where there are, unhappily for mankind, but few inhabitants. The Grecian biographer could easily find parallels for Alexander and Cæsar, but were he living now, he would meet with great difficulty in selecting one for Washington.

There seems to be an elevation of moral excellence, which, though possible to attain to, few ever approach. As, in ascending the lofty peaks of the Andes, we at length arrive at a line where vegetation ceases, and the principle of life seems extinct; so, in the gradations of human character, there is an elevation which is never attained by mortal man. A few have approached it, and none nearer than Washington. He is eminently conspicuous as one of the great benefactors of the human race, for he not only gave liberty to millions, but his name now stands, and will for ever stand, a noble example to high and low. He is a great work of the Almighty Artist, which none can study without receiving purer ideas and more lofty conceptions of the grace and beauty of the human character. He is one that all may copy at different distances, and whom none can contemplate without receiving lasting and salutary impressions of the sterling value, the inexpressible beauty of piety, integrity, courage, and patriotism, associated with a clear, vigorous, and wellpoised intellect.

Pure, and widely disseminated, as is the fame of this great and good man, it is yet in its infancy. It is every day taking deeper root in the hearts of his countrymen, and the estimation of strangers, and spreading its branches wider and wider, to the air and the skies. He is already become the saint of liberty, which has gathered new honors by being associated with his name; and when men aspire to free nations, they must take him for their moděl. It is, then, not without ample reason that the suffrages of mankind have combined to place Washington at the head of his race.

If we estimate him by the examples recorded in history, he stands without a parallel in the virtues he exhibited, and the vast, unprece

dented consequences resulting from their exercise. The whole world was the theatre of his actions, and all mankind are destined to partake sooner or later in their results. He is a hero of a new species he had no model; will he have any imitators? Time, which bears the thousands and thousands of common cut-throats to the ocean of oblivion, only adds new lustre to his fame, new force to his example, and new strength to the reverential affection of all good

men.

What a glorious fame is his, to be acquired without guilt and enjoyed without envy, to be cherished by millions living, hundreds of millions yet unborn! Let the children of my country prove themselves worthy of his virtues, his labors, and his sacrifices, by reverencing his name and imitating his piety, integrity, in'dustry, fortitude, patience, forbearance, and patriotism. So shall they become fitted to enjoy the blessings of freedom and the bounties of heaven.

J. K. PAULDING.

XLII.-CLARENCE'S DREAM.

CLARENCE AND BRAKENBURY.

BRAK. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day?
CLAR. Oh! I have passed a miserable night,
So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,

Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;

So full of dismal terror was the time.

BRAK. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me.
CLAR. Methought that I had broken from the tower,

And was embarked to cross to "Burgundy,

And, in my company, my brother Gloster,

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; thence we looked to'wards England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,

During the wars of York and Lancaster

That had befallen us. As we passed along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me (that sought to stay him) overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O, Heaven! methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!

What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!
I thought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;
A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
BRAK. Had you such leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

CLAR. Methought, I had; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smothered it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

BRAK. Awaked you not with this sore agony?
CLAR. Oh, no! my dream was lengthened after life;
Oh! then began the tempest to my soul!

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,

With that grim °ferryman, which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renownèd Warwick;
Who cried aloud,—“ What scourge for °perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished: Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood; and he shrieked out aloud,—
"Clarence is come, false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,—
That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury;—
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!"-
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howlèd in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling waked, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
BRAK. No marvěl, lord, that it affrighted you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
CLAR. I pray thee, Brakenbury, stay by me;
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

XLIII. CICERO'S ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

How far wilt thou, O Catiline! abuse our patience? How long shall thy madness outbrave our justice? To what extremities art thou resolved to push thy unbridled insolence of guilt? Canst thou behold the nocturnal arms that watch the Palatium, the guards of the city, the consternation of the citizens; all the wise and worthy clustering into consultation; this impregnable situation of the seat of the senate, and the reproachful looks of the fathers of Rome? Canst thou, I say, behold all this, and yet remain undäunted and unabashed? Art thou sensible that thy measures are detected? Art thou sensible that this senate, now thoroughly informed, comprehend the full extent of thy guilt? Point me out the senator ignorant of thy practices, during the last and the preceding night; of the place where you met, the company you summoned, and the crime you concerted. The senate is conscious, the consul is witness to this: yet, mean and degenerate! the traitor lives! Lives! did I say? He mixes with the senate; he shares in our counsels; with a steady eye he surveys us; he anticipates his guilt; he enjoys his murderous thoughts, and coolly marks us out for bloodshed. Yet we, boldly passive in our country's cause, think we act like Romans if we can escape his frantic rage.

Long since, O Catiline! ought the consul to have doomed thy life a forfeit to thy country; and to have directed upon thine own head the mischief thou hast so long been meditating for ours! Could the noble Scipio, when sovereign pontiff, as a private Roman, kill .Tiberius Gracchus for a slight encroachment upon the rights of his country; and shall we, her consuls, with persevering patience endure Catiline, whose ambition is to desolate a devoted world with fire and sword? There was-there was a time, when such was the spirit of Rome, that the resentment of her magnanimous sons more sternly crushed the Roman traitor, than the most inveterate enemy.

Strong and weighty, O Catiline! is the decree of the senate we can now produce against you; neither wisdom is wanting this state, nor authority in this assembly; but we (let me here take shame to myself), we, the consuls, are defective in our duty.

Mercy, Fathers Conscript, is my delight; but, never, in the hour of danger to my country, may that mercy degenerate into weakness. Yet, even now, my conscience tells me that I have been negligent. Within Italy, upon the very borders of Tuscany, a camp is pitched against the republic. The numbers of the enemy daily increase; but the captain of that camp, the leader of those enemies, we behold within our walls; nay, amidst this assembly, daily working up some intestine calamity for Rome.

Should I, at this instant, Catiline, command thee to be seized, to be dragged away to death; the censure, which I am afraid I have to dread from every good man, would be, not that I acted with too much severity, but with too much tardiness. Yet, this necessary piece of justice, though long required, a certain reason prevails with me still to delay. Thou shalt suffer death, trust me thou shalt; but it shall be at a time when there cannot be found a man on earth so much a traitor, so much a villain, so much a Catiline, as not to applaud the justice of the stroke. Thou shalt live while thêre breathes a man who dares to defend thee; but thou shalt live, as thou livest now, beset by my numerous, my trusty guards, so that thou shalt have no power, so much as to stir against the state: for many shall be the eyes, and many the ears, as they have hitherto been, who, unperceived by thee, shall continue to watch thy motions, and suffer none of thy actions to pass unobserved.

XLIV.-NATURE AND HER LOVER.

I REMEMBER the time, thou roaring sea,
When thy voice was the voice of Infinity,-
A joy, and a dread, and a mystery.

I remember the time, ye young May-flowers,
When your odors and hues in the fields and bowers
Fell on my soul as on grass the showers.

I remember the time, thou blustering wind,

When thy voice in the woods, to my dreaming mind,
Seemed the sigh of the earth for human kind.

I remember the time, ye sun and stars,
When ye raised my soul from mortal bars,
And bore it through heaven in your golden cars.

And has it, then, vanished, that dreamful time?
Are the winds, and the seas, and the stars sublime,
Deaf to thy soul in its manly °prime?

Ah, no! ah, no! amid sorrow and pain,

When the world and its facts oppress my brain,

In the world of spirit I rove, I reign.

I feel a deep and a pure delight
In the luxuries of sound and sight-
In the opening day, in the closing night.