protecting arm over the oppressed. I know, indeed, little of the philosophy you talk of, but I believe neither you nor I shall ever atone to the world for half the mischief we have done it.

Alex. Leave me. Take off his chains, and use him well. Are we then so much alike? Alexander like a robber? Let me reflect.

LESSON CXCIII.

Lines written in 1821; on hearing that the Austrians had entered Naples with scarcely a show of resistance on the part of the Neapolitans, who had declared their independence, and pledged themselves to maintain it.-MOORE,

Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are!

From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk from the first touch of Liberty's war,

Be sucked out by tyrants, or stagnate in chains!
On-on, like a cloud, through their beautiful vales,
Ye locusts of tyranny!-blasting them o'er:
Fill-fill up their wide, sunny waters, ye sails,

From each slave-mart in Europe, and poison their shore.
May their fate be a mock-word-may men of all lands
Laugh out with a scorn that shall ring to the poles,
When each sword, that the cowards let fall from their hands,
Shall be forged into fetters to enter their souls!

And deep, and more deep, as the iron is driven,
Base slaves! may the whet of their agony be,
To think as the damned haply think of the heaven

They had once in their reach,-that they might have been free.

Shame! shame! when there was not a bosom, whose heat
Ever rose o'er the zero of Castlereagh's heart,
That did not, like Echo, your war-hymn repeat,

And send back its prayers with your Liberty's start! ...
When the world stood in hope-when a spirit that breathed
Full fresh of the olden time whispered about,
And the swords of all Italy, half-way unsheathed,

But waited one conquering word to flash out! ...

When around you the shades of your mighty in fame,
Filicaias and Petrarchs seemed bursting to view,
And their words and their warnings,-like tongues of bright
. flame

Over Freedom's apostles-fell kindling on you!...

Good God! that in such a proud moment of life,
Worth ages of history-when, had you but hurled
One bolt at your bloody invader, that strife

Between freemen and tyrants had spread through the
world.....

That then-O, disgrace upon manhood! e'en then
You should falter-should cling to your pitiful breath,
Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood men,
And prefer a slave's life, to a glorious death!

It is strange !—it is dreadful! Shout, Tyranny, shout
Through your dungeons and palaces, Freedom is o'er'—
If there lingers one spark of her fire, tread it out,

،

And return to your empire of darkness once more.
For if such are the braggarts that claim to be free,

Come, Despot of Russia, thy feet let me kiss :-
Far nobler to live the brute bondman of thee,

Than sully even chains by a struggle like this.

LESSON CXCIV.

Soliloquy of Macbeth, when going to murder Duncan, king of
Scotland.-SHAKSPEARE.

Is this a dagger, which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:-
I have thee not; and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling, as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind; a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable

As this which now I draw.

Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest: I see thee still;

And on thy blade, and dudgeon,* gouts† of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing;
It is the bloody business, which informs

Thus to mine eyes.-Now o'er the one half world,
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered murder,
Alarumed by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus, with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.-Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
The very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horrour from the time,
Which now suits with it.-Whiles I threat, he lives;
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven, or to hell.

LESSON CXCV.

Dialogue from Macbeth.-SHAKSPEARE

SCENE.-MALCOLM and MACDUFF, in the king's palace in England;-Enter ROSSE from Scotland.

Macduff. See, who comes here?

Malcolm. My countryman; but yet I know him not.
Macd. My ever gentle cousin, welcome hither.

Mal. I know him now: Good God, betimes remove
The means that make us strangers!

Rosse. Sir, Amen.

Macd. Stands Scotland where it did?

Rosse. Alas, poor country;

Almost afraid to know itself! It cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave: where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;
Where sighs, and groans, and shrieks that rent the air,
Are made, not marked; where violent sorrow seems
A modern ecstasy; the dead man's knell

Is there scarce asked, for who; and good men's lives
Expire before the flowers in their caps,
Dying, or ere they sicken.

*Haft, handle. + Drops. [gouttes, French.] "Gut for drop is still used in Scotland by physicians." Johnson. The diphthong ou in gouts has the sound of oo, as in croup and group.

Macd. O, relation,

Too nice, and yet too true!
Mal. What is the newest grief?

Rosse. That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker;

Each minute teems a new one.

Macd. How does my wife?

Rosse. Why, well.

Macd. And all my children?

Rosse. Well too.

Macd. The tyrant has not battered at their peace ? Rosse. No; they were well at peace, when I did leave them. Macd. Be not a niggard of your speech: how goes it? Rosse. When I came hither to transport the tidings, Which I have heavily borne, there ran a rumour Of many worthy fellows that were out; Which was to my belief witnessed the rather, For that I saw the tyrant's power afoot: Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses.

Mal. Be it their comfort,

We are coming thither: gracious England hath
Lent us good Siward, and ten thousand men;
An older, and a better soldier, none
That Christendom gives out.

Rosse. Would I could answer

This comfort with the like! But I have words,
That would be howled out in the desert air,
Where hearing should not latch* them.
Macd. What concern they?

The general cause? or is it a fee-grief,t
Due to some single breast?

Rosse. No mind, that's honest,

But in it shares some wo; though the main part
Pertains to you alone.

Macd. If it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

Rosse. Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,
Which shall possess them with the heaviest sound
That ever yet they heard.

Macd. Humph! I guess at it.

*Catch.

A grief that has a single owner. This interjection, implying doubt and deliberation, and more co rectly written hum, is sounded inarticulately, with the lips closed.

Rosse. Your castle is surprised; your wife, and babes, Savagely slaughtered: to relate the manner, Were, on the quarry of these murdered deer, To add the death of you.

Mal. Merciful heaven!

What! man, ne'er pull your hat upon your brows;
Give sorrow words: the grief, that does not speak,
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Macd. My children too?

Rosse. Wife, children, servants, all

That could be found.

Macd. And I must be from thence !

My wife killed too!

Rosse. I have said.

Mal. Be comforted:

Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,
To cure this deadly grief.

Macd. He has no children.-All my pretty ones?
Did you say, all?-O, hell-kite!——AlÎ?

What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam,
At one fell swoop?

Mal. Dispute it like a man.
Macd. I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me.-Did heaven look on
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits but for mine,

Fell slaughter on their souls :-Heaven rest them now!
Mal. Be this the whetstone of your sword: let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.

་

Macd. O, I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue! But, gentle heaven,
Cut short all intermission; front to front,
Bring thou this fiend of Scotland, and myself;
Within my sword's length set him; if he 'scape,
Heaven forgive him too!

Mal. This tune goes manly.

Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;
Our lack is nothing but our leave; Macbeth

Is ripe for shaking, and the powers above

Put on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may;

The night is long, that never finds the day.

[Exeunt.

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