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him, and children reverence him. The lovely come out to look upon him, the learned deck their halls to greet him, the rulers of the land rise up to do him homage.

8. How his full heart labours! He views the rusting trophies of departed days, he treads the high places where his brethren moulder, he bends before the tomb of his "FATHER:"-his words are tears: the speech of sad remembrance. But he looks round upon the ransomed land, and a joyous race; he beholds the blessings those trophies secured, for which those brethren died, for which that "FATHER" lived; and again his words are tears; the eloquence of gratitude and joy.

9. Spread forth creation like a map; bid earth's dead multitude revive; and of all the pageant splendours that ever glittered to the sun, when looked his burning eye on a sight like this? Of all the myriads that have come and gone, what cherished minion ever ruled an hour like this? Many have struck the redeeming blow for their own freedom, but who, like this man, has bared his bosom in the cause of strangers?

10. Others have lived in the love of their own people, but who, like this man, has drank his sweetest cup of welcome with another? Matchless chief! of glory's im mortal tablets, there is one for him, for him alone! Oblivion shall never shroud its splendour; the everlasting flame of liberty shall guard it, that the generations of men may repeat the name recorded there, the beloved name of LAFAYETTE! SPRAGUE.

LESSON XXXI.

Liberty and Slavery.

1. Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery! still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty! thrice sweet and gracious goddess! whom all, in public or in private, worship; whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till nature herself shall change. No tint of words can spot thy snowy mantle, or chemic power turn thy sceptre into iron.

2. With thee to smile upon him as he eats his crust the swain is happier than his monarch, from whose court thou art exiled. Gracious heaven! grant me but health, thou great bestower of it! and give me but this fair goddess as my companion; and shower down thy mitres, if it seem good unto thy divine providence, upon those heads which are aching for them.

3. Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close to my table; and leaning my head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope to my imagination.

4. I was going to begin with the millions of my fellowcreatures, born to no inheritance but slavery; but, finding however affecting the picture was, that I could not bring it near me, and the multitude of sad groups in it did but distract me, I took a single captive; and having shut him up in his dungeon, I then looked through the twilight of his grated door to take his picture.

5. I beheld his body half wasted away with long expectation and confinement; and felt what kind of sickness of the heart it is which arises from hope deferred. Upon looking nearer, I saw him pale and feverish. In thirty years, the western breeze had not once fanned his bloodhe had seen no sun, no moon in all that time-nor had the voice of a friend or kinsman breathed through his lattice. His children-But here my heart began to bleed-and I was forced to go on with another part of his portrait.

6. He was sitting upon the ground upon a little straw in the farthest corner of his dungeon, which was alternately his chair and bed. A little calendar of small sticks was laid at the head, notched all over with the dismal days and nights he had passed there. He had one of these little sticks in his hand; and with a rusty nail he was etching another day of misery, to add to the heap.

7. As I darkened the little light he had, he lifted up a hopeless eye towards the door-then cast it down-shook his head-and went on with his work of affliction. I heard his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to lay his little stick upon the bundle. He gave a deep sigh. I saw the iron enter into his soul. I burst into tears.-I could not sustain the picture of confinement which my fancy had drawn.

STERNE.

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LESSON XXXII.

The Last Day.

At the destin❜d hour,

By the loud trumpet summon'd to the charge,
See, all the formidable sons of fire,

Eruptions, earthquakes, comets, lightnings, play,
Their various engines; all at once disgorge
Their blazing magazines: and take by storm
This poor terrestrial citadel of man.

Amazing period! when each mountain-height
Out-burns Vesuvius; rocks eternal pour

Their melted mass, as rivers once they pour'd; *
Stars rush; and final ruin fiercely drives
Her ploughshare o'er creation!—while aloft,
More than astonishment! if more can be!
Far other firmament than e'er was seen,
Than e'er was thought by man! far other stars!
Stars animate, that govern these of fire;
Far other sun!-A sun, Oh, how unlike

The babe at Bethlehem! How unlike the man
That groan'd on Calvary!-Yet HE it is;

That man of sorrows! Oh how chang'd! what pomp!
In grandeur terrible, all heav'n descends;
A swift archangel, with his golden wing,
As blots and clouds, that darken and disgrace
The scene divine, sweeps stars and suns aside.

At midnight, when mankind is wrapp'd in peace, And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams,

Man, starting from his couch, shall sleep no more!
The day is broke which never more shall close!
Above, around, beneath, amazement all!
Terror and glory join'd in their extremes!
Our God in grandeur, and our world on fire!
All nature struggling in the pangs of death!

Dost thou not hear her? dost thou not deplore
Her strong convulsions, and her final groan?
Where are we now? Ah me! the ground is gone
On which we stood! Lorenzo! while thou may'st,
Provide more firm support, or sink for ever!

Where? how? from whence? vain hope! it is too late!
Where, where, for shelter, shall the guilty fly,
When consternation turns the good man pale!

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Great day! for which all other days were made;
For which earth rose from chaos; man from earth;
And an eternity, the date of gods,

Descended on poor earth-created man!
Great day of dread decision, and despair!
At thought of thee, each sublunary wish
Lets go its eager grasp, and drops the world;
And catches at each reed of hope in heav'n.
Already has begun the grand assize,

In us, in all: deputed conscience scales

The dread tribunal, and forestalls our doom;
Forestalls: and, by forestalling, proves it sure.
Why on himself should man void judgment pass?
Is idle nature laughing at her sons?

Who conscience sent, her sentence will support,
And God above assert that God in man.

Thrice happy they, that enter now the court
Heav'n opens in their bosoms; but how rare!
Ah me! that magnanimity, how rare!

What hero, like the man who stands himself?
Who dares to meet his naked heart alone;
Who hears intrepid the full charge it brings;
Resolv'd to silence future murmurs there?
The coward flies; and, flying,. is undone.

Shall man alone, whose fate, whose final fate
Hangs on that hour, exclude it from his thought?
I think of nothing else, I see! I feel it!

All nature, like an earthquake, trembling round!
I see the Judge enthron'd! the flaming guard!
The volume open'd! open'd ev'ry heart!
A sun-beam pointing out each secret thought!
No patron! intercessor none! now past
The sweet, the clement, mediatorial hour!
For guilt no plea! to pain, no pause! no bound!
Inexorable, all! and all extreme!

Nor man alone; the foe of God and man,
From his dark den, blaspheming, drags his chain,
And rears his brazen front, with thunder scarr'd
Like meteors in a stormy sky, how roll

His baleful eyes! He curses whom he dreads;
And deems it the first moment of his fall.
Eternity, the various sentence past,
Assigns the sever'd throng distinct abodes,

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Sulphureous, or ambrosial. What ensues?
The deed predominant! the deed of deeds!
The goddess, with determined aspect, turns
Her adamantine key's enormous size
Through destiny's inextricable wards,
Deep driving ev'ry bolt, on both their fates:

Then, from the chrystal battlements of heav'n,
Down, down she hurls it through the dark profound,
Ten thousand thousand fathom; there to rest,

And ne'er unlock her resolution more.

The deep resounds; and hell, through all her glooms,
Returns, in groans, the melancholy roar.

YOUNG.

LESSON XXXIII.

The Monied Man.

1. Old Jacob Stock! The chimes of the clock were not more punctual in proclaiming the progress of time, than in marking the regularity of his visits at the temples of Plutus, in Threadneedle-street, and Bartholomew-lane. His devotion to them was exemplary. In vain the wind and the rain, the hail and the sleet, battled against his rugged front.

2. Not the slippery ice, nor the thick-falling snow, nor the whole artillery of elementary warfare, could check the plodding perseverance of the man of the world, or tempt him to lose the chance which the morning, however unpropitious it seemed, in its external aspect, might yield him of profiting by the turn of a fraction.

3. He was a stout-built, round-shouldered, squab-looking man, of a bearish aspect. His features were hard, and his heart was harder. You could read the interest-table in the wrinkles of his brow, trace the rise and fall of stocks by the look of his countenance; while avarice, selfishness, and money-getting, glared from his gray, glassy eye.

4. Nature had poured no balm into his breast; nor was his "gross and earthly mould" susceptible of pity. A single look of his would daunt the most importunate petitioner that ever attempted to exact hard coin by the soft rhetoric of a heart-moving tale.

5. The wife of one whom he had known in better

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