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Choate, Rufus - Continued

land, the course of agricultural occupation, the coming in of harvests, fruit of the seed his own hand had scattered, the animals and implements of husbandry, the trees planted by him in lines, in copses, in orchards, by thousands, the seat under the noble elm on which he used to sit to feel the southwest wind at evening, or hear the breathings of the sea, or the not less audible music of the starry heavens, all seemed at first unchanged.

The sun of a bright day, from which, however, something of the fervors of midsummer were wanting, fell temperately on them all, filled the air on all sides with the utterances of life, and gleamed on the long line of ocean. Some of those whom on earth he loved best, were still there. The great mind still seemed to preside; the great presence to be with you. You might expect to hear again the rich and playful tones of the voice of the old hospitality. Yet a moment more, and all the scene took on the aspect of one great monument, inscribed with his name, and sacred to his memory.

And such it shall be in all the future of America! The sensation of desolateness, and loneliness, and darkness with which you see it now, will pass away; the sharp grief of love and friendship will become soothed; men will repair thither, as they are wont to commemorate the great days of history; the same glance shall take in, and the same emotions shall greet and bless the harbor of the Pilgrims and the tomb of Webster.

Heroism of the Pilgrims-If one were called on to select the most glittering of the instances of military heroism to which the admiration of the world has been most constantly attracted, he would make choice, I imagine, of the instance of that desperate valor, in which in obedience to the laws, Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans cast themselves headlong, at the passes of Greece, on the myriads of their Persian invaders. From the simple page of Herodotus, longer than from the Amphyctionic monument, or the games of the commemoration, that act speaks still to the tears and praise of all the world.

Judge if, that night, as they watched the dawn of the last morning their eyes could ever see; as they heard with every passing hour the stilly hum of the invading host, his dusky lines stretched out without end, and now almost encircling them around; as they remembered their unprofaned home, city of heroes and of the mothers of heroes,-judge if, watching there, in the gateway of Greece, this sentiment did not grow to the nature of madness, if it did not run in torrents of literal fire to and from the laboring heart; and when morning came and passed, and they had dressed their long locks for battle, and when, a little after noon, the countless invading throng was seen at last to move, was it not with a rapture, as if all the joy, all the sensation of life was in that one moment, that they

cast themselves, with the fierce gladness of mountain torrents, headlong on that brief revelry of glory?

I acknowledge the splendor of that transaction in all its aspects. I admit its morality, too, and its useful influence on every Grecian heart, in that greatest crisis of Greece.

And yet, do you not think, that whoso could, by adequate description, bring before you that winter of the Pilgrims, its brief sunshine; the nights of storm, slow waning; the damp and icy breath, felt to the pillow of the dying; its destitutions, its contrasts with all their former experience in life; its utter insulation and loneliness; its deathbeds and burials; its memories; its apprehensions; its hopes; the consultations of the prudent; the prayers of the pious; the occasional cheerful hymn, in which the strong heart threw off its burden, and, asserting its unvanquished nature, went up, like a bird of dawn, to the skies; - do ye not think that whoso could describe them calmly waiting in that defile, lonelier and darker than Thermopylæ, for a morning that might never dawn, or might show them, when it did, a mightier arm than the Persian, raised as in act to strike; would he not sketch a scene of more difficult and rarer heroism? A scene, as Wordsworth has said, "melancholy, yea, dismal, yet consolatory and full of joy"; a scene, even better fitted to succor, to exalt, to lead the forlorn hopes of all great causes, till time shall be no more!

I have said that I deemed it a great thing for a nation, in all the periods of its fortunes, to be able to look back to a race of founders, and a principle of institution, in which it might rationally admire the realized idea of true heroism. That felicity, that pride, that help, is ours. Our past, with its great eras, that of settlement, and that of independence, should announce, should compel, should spontaneously evolve as from a germ, a wise, moral, and glowing future. Those heroic men and women should not look down on a dwindled posterity. That broad foundation, sunk below frost or earthquake, should bear up something more permanent than an encampment of tents, pitched at random and struck when the trumpet of march sounds at next daybreak. It should bear up, as by a natural growth, a structure in which generations may come, one after another, to the great gift of the social life.

Glittering Generalities -The glittering and sounding generalities of natural right, which make up the Declaration of Independence.- (To the Maine Whig Committee, 1856.)

Step to the Music of the Union - We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and keep step to the music of the Union.- (To the Whig Convention, October 1st, 1855.)

Christy, David (American, nineteenth century.)

Cotton Is King-Cotton is king; or, slavery in the light of political economy.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius (Rome, 106-43 B. C.) "Quousque Catilina?» - How long, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience? How long also shall thy madness elude us? Whither will thy ungovernable audacity impel thee? Could neither the nightly garrison of the citadel, nor the watch of the city, nor the general consternation, nor the congress of all good men, nor this strongly-fortified place where the senate is held, nor the enraged countenances of those senators, deter thee from thy impious designs? Dost thou not perceive that thy counsels are all discovered? Thinkest thou that there are any of us ignorant of thy transactions the past night, the place of rendezvous, thy collected associates? (Exordium of the first oration against Catiline. Free Translation.)

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"O Tempora! O Mores!» - The senate understands all this. The consul sees it, yet the traitor lives! Lives? Aye, and truly confronts us here in council-takes part in our deliberations and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter! And we all this while, strenuous that we are, think that we have amply discharged our duties to the state if we but shun this madman's sword and fury!

Long since, O Catiline, ought the consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thine own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee! Think not that we are powerless because forbearing. We have a decree-though it rests among our archives, like a sword in the scabbard - a decree by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes.-(Continuation of the above exordium.)

He Is Gone. He Is Fled. He Is EscapedAt length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! We have driven him forth, drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with fire and sword. He is gone; he is fled; he has escaped; he has broken away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of his treason! Would that his attendants had not been so few!

Be speedy, ye companions of his dissolute pleasures; be speedy and you may overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish, deprived of your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that compose his army; his army, I say,- for who doubts that the army under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army! Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons; miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration!

Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans, your garrisons and

armies; and first, to that maimed and battered gladiator oppose your consuls and generals; next, against that miserable outcast horde, lead forth the strength and flower of all Italy!

On the one side chastity contends; on the other, wantonness: here purity, there pollution; here integrity, there treachery; here piety, there profaneness; here constancy, there age; here honesty, there baseness; here continence, there lust; in short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle with iniquity, luxury, cowardice, rashness; every virtue with every vice; and, lastly, the contest lies between well grounded hope and absolute despair. In such a conflict, were every human aid to fail, would not the immortal gods empower such conspicuous virtue to triumph over such complicated vice? (From the second oration against Catiline. Free translation.)

Against Verres-I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that anything false, that even anything exaggerated is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privileges of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient reason for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment, then, ought to be inflicted on a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against a cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape? The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen, I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and I will attest my innocence." The bloodthirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defense, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; whilst the only words he uttered amidst his cruel sufferings were, "I am a Roman citizen!" With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that while he was asserting his citizenship, the order given for his execution-for his execution upon the cross!

was

O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred, now trampled upon!

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HENRY CLAY.

After a Photographic Study by Boch! of St. Louis, from a Daguerreotype.

is remarkable portrait of Clay is reproduced by the courtesy of Mr. E. Boehl of St. Louis. It is enlarged from a daguerreotype from life, aud no one who examines it will need to be told of its extraordinary merit. When it becomes better known it will probably supplant all other portraits of Clay. Certainly no other gives such a suggestion of persuasive power as there is in this face.

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