Imatges de pàgina
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by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for ever and ever, that they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labors, and cemented with your blood.

And thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, gird on thy sword, thou Most Mighty go forth with our hosts in the day of battle! Impart, in addition to their hereditary valor, that confidence of success which springs from thy presence! Pour into their hearts the spirit of departed heroes! Inspire them with thine own; and, while led by thine hand, and fighting under thy banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every valley, and in every plain, what the prophets beheld by the same illumination-chariots of fire, and horses of fire! Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

35. THE SPLENDOR OF WAR.- -Chalmers.

The first great obstacle to the extinction of war, is, the way in which the heart of man is carried off from its barbarities and its horrors, by the splendor of its deceitful accompaniments. There is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies, just as there is in contemplating the devouring energy of a tempest; and this so elevates and engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying, and the shriek of their desolated families.

There is a gracefulness in the picture of a youthful warrior burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this generous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, in the fell work of death, the opposing sons of valor struggle for a remembrance and a name; and this side of the picture is so much the exclusive object of our regard, as to disguise from our view the mangled carcasses of the fallen, and the writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds more who have been laid on the cold ground, and left to languish and to die.

There no eye pities them. No sister is there to weep over them. There no gentle hand is present to ease the dying posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the maddening fury of the combat, had been given and received by the children of one common father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over every countenance, and when night comes on, and darkness

gathers around them, how many a despairing wretch must take up with the bloody field as the untented bed of his last sufferings, without one friend to bear the message of tendernes to his distant home, without one companion to close his eyes.

I avow it. On every side of me I see causes at work, which go to spread a most delusive coloring over war, to remove its shocking barbarities to the background of our contemplations altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive charges. I see it in the poetry which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many admirers, as, by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter.

I see it in the music which represents the progress of the battle; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawingroom are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the deathtones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless silence.

All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian sentiment upon earth, to arrest the strong current of its popular and prevailing partiality for war. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle, on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful benevolence of the gospel, chasing away every spell, will be devoted to simple but sublime enterprises for the good of the species.

36. POLITICAL SEVERITY REBUKED.-Byron.

In what state of apathy have we been plunged so long, that now, for the first time, the house has been officially apprised of these disturbances? All this has been transacting within one hundred and thirty miles of London, and yet we, "good easy men! have deemed full sure our greatness was a ripening," and have sat down to enjoy our foreign triumphs in the

midst of domestic calamity. But all the cities you have taken, all the armies which have retreated before your leaders, are but paltry subjects of self-congratulation, if your land divides against itself, and your dragoons and executioners must be let loose against your fellow-citizens.

You call these men a mob, desperate, dangerous, and ignorant; and seem to think that the only way to quiet the "Bellua multorum capitum" is to lop off a few of its superfluous heads. But even a mob may be better reduced to reason by a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labor in your fields, and serve in your houses that man your navy, and recruit your army-that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you, when neglect and calumny have driven them to despair. You may call the people a mob; but do not forget that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people.

And here I must remark with what alacrity you are accustomed to fly to the succor of your distressed allies, leaving the distressed of your own country to the care of Providence orthe parish. When the Portuguese suffered under the retreat of the French, every arm was stretched out, every hand was opened, from the rich man's largess to the widow's mite, all was bestowed to enable them to rebuild their villages and replenish their granaries. And at this moment, when thousands of your misguided but most unfortunate fellow-countrymen are struggling with the extremes of hardship and hunger, as your charity began abroad, it should end at home.

A much less sum-a tithe of the bounty bestowed on Portugal, would have rendered unnecessary the tender mercies of the bayonet and the gibbet. But doubtless our funds have too many foreign claims to admit a prospect of domestic relief,—though never did such objects demand it. I have traversed the seat of war in the peninsula; I have been in some of the most oppressed provinces of Turkey; but never, under the most despotic of infidel governments, did I behold such squalid wretchedness as I have seen since my return, in the very heart of a Christian country.

And what are your remedies? After months of inaction, and months of action worse than inactivity, at length comes forth the grand specific, and never-failing nostrum of all state physicians, from the days of Draco to the present time. After feeling the pulse and shaking the head over the patient, prescribing the usual course of warm water and bleeding-the warm water of your mawkish policy, and the lancets of your military-these

convulsions must terminate in death, the sure consummation of the prescriptions of all political Sangrados. Still there will be two things wanting to convict and to condemn; and these are, in my opinion, twelve butchers for a jury, and a Jefferies for a judge!

37. EFFECT OF THE EXCLUSIVE SYSTEM ON THE CONDITION OF IRELAND.-Phillips.

Look to protestant Ireland, shooting over the empire those rays of genius, and those thunderbolts of war, that have at once embellished and preserved it. I speak not of a former era. I refer not for my example to the day just passed, when our Burkes, our Barrys, and our Goldsmiths, exiled by this system from their native shores, wreathed the "immortal shamrock” round the brow of painting, poetry, and eloquence! But now, even while I speak, who leads the British senate? A protestant Irishman! Who guides the British arms? A protestant Irishman! And why, why is Catholic Ireland, with her quintuple population, stationary and silent? Have physical causes neutralized its energies? Has the religion of Christ stupified its intellect? Has the God of mankind become the partizan of a monopoly, and put an interdict on its advancement? Stranger, do not ask the bigoted and pampered renegade who has an interest in deceiving you; but open the penal statutes, and weep tears of blood over the reason. Come-come yourself, and see this unhappy people; see the Irishman, the only alien in Ireland, in rags and wretchedness, staining the sweetest scenery ever eye reposed on; persecuted by the middleman of some absentee landlord; plundered by the lay-proctor of some rapacious and unsympathizing incumbent; bearing through life but insults and injustice; and bereaved of even any hope in death, by the heart-rending reflection that he leaves his children to bear, like their father, an abominable bondage? Is it the fact? Let any who doubt it walk out into your streets, and see the consequences of such a system; see it rearing up crowds in a kind of apprenticeship to the prison, absolutely permitted by their parents, from utter despair, to lisp the alphabet and learn the rudiments of profligacy? For my part, never did I meet one of these youthful assemblages without feeling within me a melancholy emotion. How often have I thought, within that little circle of neglected triflers, who seem to have been born in caprice and bred in orphanage, there may exist some mind

formed of the finest mould, and wrought for immortality; a soul swelling with energies and stamped with the patent of the Deity, which, under proper culture, might perhaps bless, adorn, immortalize, or ennoble empires; some Cincinnatus, in whose breast the destinies of a nation may lie dormant; some Milton, "pregnant with celestial fire;" some Curran, who, when thrones were crumbled and dynasties forgotten, might stand the landmark of his country's genius, rearing himself amid regal ruins and national dissolution, a mental pyramid in the solitude of time, beneath whose shade things might moulder, and round whose summit eternity must play. Even in such a circle the young Demosthenes might have once been found, and Homer, the disgrace and glory of his age, have sung neglected! Have not other nations witnessed those things, and who shall say that nature has peculiarly degraded the intellect of Ireland? Oh, my countrymen, let us hope that under better auspices and a sounder policy, the ignorance that thinks so may meet its refutation. Let us turn from the blight and ruin of this wintry day to the fond anticipation of a happier period, when our prostrate land shall stand erect among the nations, fearless and unfettered; her brow blooming with the wreath of science, and her path strewed with the offerings of art; the breath of heaven blessing her flag; the extremities of earth acknowledging her name; her fields waving with the fruits of agriculture; her ports alive with the contributions of commerce; and her temples vocal with unrestricted piety.

38. THE DOWNFALL OF BONAPARTE.-Grant.

The hour of retribution is at length arrived. He who had no mercy upon others, is now reduced to a condition which may excite the pity of his most implacable enemy. He who has made so many miserable, is now condemned to drink, to the very dregs, the bitter cup of degradation and sorrow. He is thrown from his elevation, despoiled of his glories, hunted from hill to hill, and from river to river; the props with which he had supported his power are falling around him; he finds no defense in the thrones behind which he had intrenched his usurped dominion. By a connection with ancient families, he has hoped to clothe his new greatness with something of prescriptive pomp and veneration; but he sees those vanishing before him-Austria renouncing his alliance-Bavaria quitting his ranks-Saxony torn from his grasp the Rhine itself anticipating the hour

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