your

is more sacred than the throne itself, that for which king reigns, your lords deliberate, your commons assemble.

7. If ever I doubted before of the success of our agitation for repeal, this bill, this infamous bill, the way in which it has been received by the house, the manner in which its opponents have been treated, the personalities to which they have been subjected, the yells with which one of them has this night been greeted, - all these things dissipate my doubts, and tell me of its complete and early triumph.

8. Do you think those yells will be forgotten? Do you suppose their echo will not reach the plains of my injured and insulted country; that they will not be whispered in her green valleys, and heard from her lofty hills?

9. O, they will be heard there! Yes; and they will not be forgotten. The youth of Ireland will bound with indignation they will say, "We are eight millions; and you treat us thus, as though we were no more to your country than the isle of Guernsey or of Jersey !"

10. I have done my duty; I stand acquitted to my conscience and my country; I have opposed this measure throughout; and I now protest against it as harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust, as establishing an infamous precedent by retaliating crime against crime, as tyrannous, cruelly and vindictively tyrannous.

-

Daniel O'Connell. !

EXERCISE.

1. I do not rise to fawn or cringe to this house.

2. I do not rise to supplicate you to be merciful.

3. I call upon you not to allow this nefarious bill to pass.

4. I treat with scorn the puny and pitiful assertions that grievances are not to be complained of.

5. I stigmatize it. [Set a mark of disgrace upon.]

6. That man could discriminate between the straightforward testimony and the suborned evidence.

7. All these things dissipate my doubts.

8. I have opposed this measure throughout.

9. It is harsh, oppressive, uncalled for, unjust.

K

CXXIII. KING CANUTE.

I.

ING CANUTE was weary-hearted; he had reigned for years a score,

Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and rob

bing more;

And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea

shore.

II.

On that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and

young:

Thrice his Grace had yawned at table when his favorite gleemen

sung.

Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue.

III..

"Something ails my gracious master," cried the Keeper of the

Seal.

"Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served at dinner, or the veal?"

"Psha!" exclaimed the angry monarch. "Keeper, 't is not that

I feel.

IV.

""T is the heart, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest

impair :

Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care?
O, I'm sick, and tired, and weary." Some one cried, "The
King's arm-chair!”

V.

Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my Lord the Keeper

nodded,

Straight the King's great chair was brought him, by two footmen able-bodied.

Languidly he sank into it; it was comfortably wadded.

VI.

"Ah, I feel," said old King Canute, "that my end is drawing

near."

"Don't say so," exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze

a tear).

"Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty

year."

VII.

"Live these fifty years!" the Bishop roared with actions made

to suit.

“Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King

Canute!

Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will

do 't.

VIII.

"With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete, Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their

feet;

Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it

meet.

IX.

"Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill, And, the while he slew the foeman, bid the silver moon stand

still?

So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will."

X.

"Might I stay the sun above us, good Sir Bishop?" Canute cried; "Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride? If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.

XI.

"Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the

sign?"

Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, "Land and sea, my lord, are

thine."

Canute turned towards the ocean. "Back!" he said, "thou foaming brine.

XII.

"From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat; Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat: Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!"

XIII.

But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar,
And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling, sounding on the

shore ;

Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the King and courtiers

bore.

XIV.

And he sternly bade them nevermore to bow to human clay, But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey; And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day. Thackeray.

CXXIV.

I

THE FATE OF EUROPEAN KINGS.

WAS one evening on the Ohio, when the river had been swollen with recent rains. The current was passing quickly, but with the placidity which reminded me of the old proverb, that "smooth water runs deep." It was early in May. The sky was pale. Thin clouds, with softened outline, and mingling gently with one another, were moving toward the north. There was something in the air, which, if not vivifying, if not genial, was quieting.

2. From the various incidents that were going on in the boat about me, and the varying features of the scene through which we were gliding, I turned to one object, which, far more forcibly than the rest, attracted my attention. It was a sycamore, a noble-looking tree; noble in its proportions, noble in its profusion, noble in its promise.

3. The birds were in it, on its topmost branches, striking out their wings, and uttering their quick notes of joy. O, with what a sweet thrill came forth the liquid song from that waving, sparkling foliage! and how confident it made the looker-on, that the tree from which it gushed in a thousand mingling streams would stand, and flourish, and put forth its beauty, and rejoice in the fragrant breath of the summer, and stoutly defy the shock of the winter, for years to come!

4. It was a dream. I looked downward; the roots were stripped. The earth had been loosened from them, and they glistened like bones, whitened, as they were, with the water which tumbled through them, and about them, and over them. One hold alone it seemed to have.

But the sleepless element was busy upon that. Even while I looked, the soft mould slipped in flakes from the solitary stay which held the tree erect.

5. There it stood, full of vigor, of beauty, of festive life; full of promise, with a grave, perhaps fathoms deep, opened at its feet. The next flood, and the last link must give way. And down must come that lord of the forest, with all his honors, with all his strength, with all his mirth; and the remorseless river shall toss him to the thick slime, and then fling him up again, tearing his tangled finery, and bruising and breaking his proud limbs, until, two thousand miles below, on some stagnant swamp, tired of the dead prey, the wild pursuer, chafed and foaming from the chase, shall cast a shapeless log ashore.

6. "Such," said I, "shall be the fate of the European kings." It is now summer with them. Bright leaves are upon the tree, and life and song are among them; but death is at the root. The next flood, and the proud lord shall be overthrown, and the waters shall bear him away; and when they have stripped him of his finery, they shall fling him in upon the swamp to rot. Such shall be the fate of the European kings, European aristocracies, European despotisms. Who will lament it? Who would avert it?

7. What though it is now summer with the kings? What though the evil ones have been exalted, and the perjured have been named holy, and the blood of the people is mixed with the wine of princes, and illuminations bewilder the memory of those who mourn, and the reign of the wicked is a jubilee, and his power supreme? What reeks it? It shall pass as the dream of the drunkard, as the crown of pride from the drunkard of Ephraim.

T. F. Meagher.