Page images
PDF
EPUB

battles! Such horrible notions shock every precept of religion, divine or natural, every generous feeling of humanity, and every sentiment of honor.

These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend bench, those holy ministers of the gospel, and pious pastors of our church; I conjure them to join in the holy work, and vindicate the religion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and the law of this learned bench, to defend and support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the learned judges, to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships, to reverence the dig nity of your ancestors, and maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestors of this noble lord frown with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honor, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion, of this country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery, and the Inquisition, if these more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are let loose among us.-To turn forth into our settlements, among our ancient connections, friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child! to send forth the infidel savage,-against whom? against your Protestant brethren; to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and

name, with these horrible hell-hounds of savage war !— hell-hounds, I say, of savage war.

[Chatham.

MOLOCH AND SATAN BEFORE THE POWERS
OF HELL.

ONE there was there, whose loud defying tongue
Nor hope nor fear had silenced, but the swell
Of overboiling malice. Utterance long
His passion mocked, and long he strove to tell
His laboring ire; still syllable none fell
From his pale quivering lip, but died away
For very fury; from each hollow cell

Half sprang his eyes, that cast a flamy ray.

"This comes," at length burst from the furious chief, "This comes of dastard counsels! Here behold

The fruits of wily cunning! the relief

Which coward policy would fain unfold

To soothe the powers that warred with heaven of old.
O wise! O potent! O sagacious snare!

And lo! our prince, the mighty and the bold,
There stands he, spell-struck, gaping at the air,
While heaven subverts his reign and plants her stand
ard there."

Here, as recovered, Satan fixed his eye

Full on the speaker; dark as it was stern;

He wrapped his black vest round him gloomily

And stood like one whom weightiest thoughts concern.
Him Moloch marked and strove again to turn
His soul to rage. "Behold, behold," he cried,
"The lord of hell, who bade these legions spurn
Almighty rule,-behold he lays aside

The spear of just revenge, and shrinks, by man defied."

Thus ended Moloch, and his burning tongue
Hung quivering, as if mad to quench its heat
In slaughter. So, his native wilds among,
The famished tiger pants, when near his seat,
Pressed on the sands, he marks the traveler's feet.
Instant low murmurs rose, and many a sword
Had from its scabbard sprung; but toward the seat
Of the arch-fiend, all turned with one accord,
As loud he thus harangued the sanguinary horde.

THE SAME, CONTINUED.

"YE powers of hell, I am no coward. I proved this of old. Who led your forces against the armies of Jehovah? Who coped with Ithuriel, and the thunders of the Almighty? Who, when stunned and confused ye lay on the burning lake, who first awoke and collected your scattered powers? Lastly, who led you across the unfathomable abyss to this delightful world, and established that reign here which now totters to its base? How, therefore, dares yon treacherous fiend to cast a stain on Satan's bravery? He, who preys only on the defenseless, who sucks the blood of infants, and delights only in acts of ignoble cruelty and unequal contention! Away with the boaster who never joins in action; but, like a cormorant, hovers over the field, to feed upon the wounded and overwhelm the dying. True bravery is as remote from rashness as from hesitation. Let us counsel coolly, but let us execute our counseled purposes determinately. In power, we have learned by that experiment which lost us heaven, that we are inferior to the thunder-bearer: in subtilty,

in subtilty alone, we are his equals. Open war is im

Dossible.

Thus shall we pierce our conqueror through the race
Which, as himself, he loves; thus, if we fall,
We fall not with the anguish, the disgrace
Of falling unrevenged. The stirring call
Of vengeance rings within me! Warriors all,
The word is vengeance, and the spur despair.
Away with coward wiles! Death's coal-black pall
Be now our standard! Be our torch, the glare
Of cities fired! our fifes, the shrieks that fill the air !”

[White.

MARULLUS TO THE MOB.

WHEREFORE rejoice that Cæsar comes in triumph? What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

[ocr errors]

you hard hearts! you cruel men of Rome!
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,
To towers, and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made a universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath his bands,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in his concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now call out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way,

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?
Begone,-

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit the plague,

That needs must light on this ingratitude. [Shakspeare.

SPEECH OF RAAB KIUPRILI.

HEAR me,

Assembled lords and warriors of Illyria,

Hear, and avenge me!

Twice ten years have I

Stood in your presence, honored by the king,
Beloved and trusted. Is there one among you,
Accuses Raab Kiuprili of a bribe?

Or one false whisper in his sovereign's ear?
Who here dares charge me with an orphan's rights
Outfaced, or widow's plea left undefended?
And shall I now be branded by a traitor,

A bought-bribed wretch, who, being called my son,
Doth libel a chaste matron's name, and plant
Hensbane and aconite on a mother's grave?
Th' underling accomplice of a robber,
That from a widow and a widow's offspring
Would steal their heritage? To God a rebei,
And to the common father of his country,

A recreant ingrate !—

What means this clamor? Are these madmen's voices?

Or is some knot of riotous slanderers leagued
To infamize the name of the king's brother

With a black falsehood? Unmanly cruelty,

« PreviousContinue »