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meaning in them that fascinated, while they startled. His thoughts in their statuesque beauty merely would have gained all critical judgment; but he realized the antique fable, and warmed the marble into life. There was a sense of power in his language,-of power with-held and suggestive of still greater power,-that subdued, as by a spell of mystery, the hearts of all. For power, whether intellectual or physical, produces in its earnest development a feeling closely allied to awe. It was never more felt than on this occasion. It had

entire mastery.

The exulting rush of feeling with which he went through the peroration threw a glow over his countenance, like inspiration. Eye, brow, each feature, every line of the face seemed touched, as with celestial fire.

The swell and roll of his voice struck upon the ears of the spellbound audience, in deep and melodious cadence, as waves upon the shore of the far-resounding sea. The Miltonic grandeur of his words was the fit expression of his thought, and raised his hearers up to his theme. His voice, exerted to its utmost power, penetrated every recess or corner of the Senate-penetrated even the anterooms and stairways, as he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of solemn significance: "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent! on a land rent with civil feud, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all this worth? Nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterward; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea, and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens; that other sentiment, dear to every American heart, Liberty And Union, Now And Forever, One And Inseparable."

The speech was over, but the tones of the orator still lingered upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the close, retained their positions. The agitated countenances, the heaving breast, the suffused eye, attested the continued influence of the spell upon them. Hands that in the excitement of the moment had sought each other, still remained closed in an unconscious grasp. Eye still turned to eye, to receive and repay mutual sympathy;-and everywhere around seemed forgetfulness of all but the orator's presence and words. In this great intellectual conflict-this collision of mind with mind, Mr.

Webster won laurels as unfading as ever graced a Senator's brow.
Neither Demosthenes nor Cicero in their palmiest days obtained a
brighter fame.
M. MARCH.

CCXXVI. ALEXANDER'S FEAST.

'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
By °Philip's warlike son:

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were placed around;
Their brows with roses and with myrtle bound:
So should desert in arms be crowned.

The lovely Thais by his side

Sat, like a blooming eastern bride,
In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
Happy, happy, happy pair;

None but the brave,

None but the brave,

None but the brave deserves the fair.

Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful choir,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:

The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began from Jove,

Who left his blissful seat above,

Such is the power of mighty love!

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound;
A present deity they shout around,

A present deity the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravished ears

The monarch hears,

Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,

Of Bacchus ever fair, and ever young:

The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums;

Flushed with a purple grace

He shows his honest face.

Now give the hautboys breath; he comes! he comes!
Bacchus ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain :
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:
Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure;

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed with the sound, the king grew vain :

Fought all his battles o'er again :

And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slais.
The master saw the madness rise;

His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
And, while he heaven and earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful muse,

Soft pity to infuse:

He sung Darius great and good,

By too severe a fate,

Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood;
Deserted at his utmost need
By those his former bounty fed,
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast look the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of fate below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree:
'Twas but a kindred sound to move;
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures:
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor but an empty bubble;
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying,

If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, oh, think it worth enjoying!
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,

Take the good the gods provide thee.

The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So love was crowned, but music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked,
Sighed and looked, and sighed again.

At length with love and wine at once oppressed,
The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again;

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark! hark! the horrid sound

Has raised up his head,

As awaked from the dead,

And amazed he stares around.

Revenge, revenge, Timotheus cries;
See the Furies arise,

See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in the air,

And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!

Behold a ghastly band,

Each a torch in his hand;

These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain

Inglorious on the plain;
Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew:

Behold how they toss their torches on high!

How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods!

The princes applaud, with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau, with a zeal to destroy; Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

"And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

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While organs yet were mute;

Timotheus to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown:

He raised a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.

JOHN DRYDEN.

CCXXVII.-LORD CHATHAM.

LORD CHATHAM has been generally regarded as the most powerful orator of modern times. He certainly ruled the British senate as no other man has ever ruled over a great deliberative assembly. There have been stronger minds in that body, abler reasoners, profounder statesmen, but no man has ever controlled it with such absolute sway by the force of his eloquence.

His success, no doubt, was owing, in part, to his extraordinary personal advantages. Few men have ever received from the hand of Nature so many of the outward qualifications of an orator. His figure was tall and erect; his attitude imposing; his gestures energetic even to vehemence, yet tempered with dignity and grace. Such was the power of his eye, that he very often cowed down an antagonist in the midst of his speech, and threw him into utter confusion, by a single glance of scorn or contempt. Whenever he rose to speak, his countenance glowed with animation, and was lighted up with all the varied emotions of his soul, so that Cowper describes him, in one of his bursts of pathetic feeling,

"With all his country beaming in his face."

"His voice," says a contemporary, "was both full and clear. His lowest whisper was distinctly heard; his middle notes were sweet and beautifully varied; and, when he elevated his voice to its highest pitch, the House was completely filled with the volume of sound. The effect was awful, except when he wished to cheer or animate; then he had spirit-stirring notes which were perfectly irresistible."

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