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ELOQUENCE OF PATRICK HENRY.

Let a word be flung from the orator's tongue,

Or a drop from the fearless Pen,

And the chains accursed asunder burst

That fettered the minds of men!

V.

O, these are the swords with which we fight,
The arms in which we trust;

Which no tyrant hand will dare to brand,
Which time cannot dim or rust!

When these we bore we triumphed before,
With these we 'll triumph again ;

And the world will say, "No power can stay
The Voice and the fearless Pen!

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Hurrah!

Hurrah for the Voice and Pen!

D. F. McCarthy.

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XXXIV. — ELOQUENCE OF PATRICK HENRY.

D

URING the distress of the American army, caused

by the invasion of Cornwallis and Phillips in 1781, Mr. Venable, an army commissioner, took two steers for the use of the troops from Mr. Hook, a Scotchman, and a man of wealth, who was suspected of being unfriendly to the American cause.

2. The act was not strictly legal; and after the war had closed, Hook, by the advice of one Mr. Cowan, a lawyer of some distinction, thought proper to bring an action for trespass against Mr. Venable.

3. Mr. Henry appeared for the defendant; and he is said to have contributed much to the enjoyment of his hearers. At one time he excited their indignation against Hook, and vengeance was visible in every countenance; again, when he chose to ridicule him, the whole audience was in a roar of laughter. He painted the distress of the American army, exposed almost naked to the cold of a

winter's sky, and marking the frozen ground over which they marched with the blood of their unshod feet.

4. "Where was the man," said he, "who had an American bosom, who would not have thrown open his fields, his barns, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to receive with outspread arms the meanest soldier in that little band of starving patriots? Where is the man? There he stands; but whether the heart of an American beats in his bosom, you, gentlemen, are to judge."

5. He then carried the jury by the power of his imagination to the plains of Yorktown; the surrender of which had followed shortly after the act complained of. He painted the surrender in the most glowing and noble colors of his eloquence: the audience saw before their eyes the humbled and dejected British as they marched out of their trenches; they saw the triumph which lighted up every patriotic face; they heard the shout of "Victory!" the cry of "Washington and liberty!" as it rung and echoed through the American ranks, and was reechoed from the hills, and from the shores of the neighboring river.

6. "But hark!" continued Henry, "what notes of discord are these which disturb the general joy, and silence the acclamations of victory? They are the notes of John Hook, hoarsely bawling through the American camp, Beef beef! beef!"

7. The court was convulsed with laughter; the jury retired, and, we regret to say, John Hook lost his cause. Wirt.

EXERCISE.

1. Mr. Venable took two steers for the use of the troops 2. The act was not strictly legal.

3. Vengeance was visible in every countenance.

4. The surrender of Yorktown followed shortly after this act. 5. They saw the triumph which lighted up every patriotic face. 6. What notes of discord silence the acclamations of victory?

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Wild joy possessed each mariner's breast,
When day revealed a rich

And fruitful island, fair and green,
Where naked savages were seen
Running along the beach.

IV.

The Saint Maria moves proudly up,

And drops her anchor nighest;

And "Glory to God!" the sailors sing;
With "Glory to God!" the wild winds ring,
"Glory to God in the highest!"

V.

The boat is manned, and towards the land

Swift fly the flashing oars.

High at the prow the admiral,

In princely garb, superb and tall,

Surveys the savage shores.

VI.

They touch the strand, he stepped to land,

And knelt and kissed the sod,

With all his followers. Amazed,
Far off the painted red men gazed,
Believing him a god.

109

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THERE was once a hoe did. He got some pieces of

HERE was once a boy who fancied he should like to

wood together, with a chopper, a hammer, and some nails, and built himself a hut in the garden. Into this hut he used to go, and pretend to himself that he was shipwrecked on a desolate island.

2. This boy had a sister, who after looking into her father's books one day, came to him and said, "Papa, what' is art ?"

Papa made answer, "Art, dear, is make-believe."

3. "Then, papa, I suppose Tom was an artist, when he made believe he was Robinson Crusoe in the garden," said the little girl.

4. Let us look at this subject a little, and we shall find. it not so hard as it appears.

5. If an artist is a man who makes believe, and if that little boy was making believe when he pretended to himself that he was Robinson Crusoe in the garden, why was not that art, and why was he not an artist?

ART AND ARTISTS.

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6. There are several reasons; but I am going to speak of just two. The first is this, that the boy was only imitating.

7. There was once a sailor, in a ship on the coast of China, who wanted a new pair of trousers made. Now the Chinese can imitate anything very cleverly. So the sailor sent his own patched trousers to a Chinaman along with some cloth, and said, “ Make me a pair of trousers like this pattern."

8. I am sure you can guess what the Chinaman did, he made an exact copy of the trousers, with all the patches. 9. Now art is make-believe, which shows us things made after the patterns there are in the world; but it is not copying, like that of the Chinese tailor. This tailor copied the patch and sent the job home, thinking that trousers were intended to be patched.

10. An artist may make a picture, or a statue, or a tale, or a poem, in which he puts a broken-hearted woman or a wicked man, but he must not do this as if he thought women were intended to be broken-hearted, or men to be wicked; because, if he did, his work would turn out ugly, and nothing can be a work of art that is not beautiful.

11. The second reason is this, that the Robinson Crusoe boy was only making believe to himself for his own pleasure.

12. But the man who is really an artist does not, in making what we call works of art, seek his own pleasure. His work is often painful to him, and yet he goes on with it, and his one wish is to make it perfect.

13. He could not tell you why he was fonder of perfect make-believe than of anything else; but the one thing above all that makes a man an artist is that he loves his make-believe for its own sake, - not for pleasure or profit, but for itself.

14. You will not, all of you, understand this without turning it over in your own minds a good deal; but if you notice other boys and girls, even when they are very young,

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