LESSON LXXXI.

WE MUST FIGHT.

I HAVE but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House? Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Let us not, I beseech you, deceive ourselves longer. We have done every thing that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned-we have remonstrated-we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending-if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we

have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us!

LESSON LXXXII.

ONE CENTURY AFTER WASHINGTON.

GENTLEMEN, we are at the point of a century from the birth of Washington; and what a century it has been! During its course, the human mind has seemed to proceed with a sort of geometric velocity, accomplishing, for human intelligence, and human freedom, more than had been done in fives or tens of centuries preceding. Washington stands at the commencement of a new era, as well as at the head of the new world. A century from the birth of Washington has changed the world. The country of Washington has been the theatre on which a great part of that change has been wrought; and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been accomplished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders! and of both he is the chief.

Washington had attained his manhood when that spark of liberty was struck out in his own country, which has since kindled into a flame, and shot its beams over the earth. In the flow of a century from his birth, the world has changed in science, in arts, in the

extent of commerce, in the improvement of navigation, and in all that relates to the civilization of man.

But

it is the spirit of human freedom, the new elevation of individual man, in his moral, social, and political character, leading the whole long train of other improvements, which has most remarkably distinguished the era.

It has assumed a new character; it has raised itself from beneath governments to a participation in governments; it has mixed moral and political objects with the daily pursuits of individual men; and, with a freedom and strength before altogether unknown, it has applied to these objects the whole power of the human understanding. It has been the era, in short, when the social principle has triumphed over the feudal principle; when society has maintained its rights against military power, and established, on foundations never hereafter to be shaken, its competency to govern itself.

LESSON LXXXIII.

ODE TO ART.

WHEN, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,

An angel left her place in heaven,

And crossed the wanderer's sunless path.
T'was Art! Sweet Art! new radience broke,
Where her light foot flew o'er the ground;

And thus with seraph voice she spoke,-
"The curse a blessing shall be found.”

She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide sunbeams never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,
And nature gladdened as she gazed.
Earth's thousand tribes of living things,
At Art's command, are to him given;
The village grows, the city springs,
And point their spires of faith to heaven.

In fields of air he writes his name,

And treads the chambers of the sky;
He reads the stars, and grasps the flame
That quivers round the throne on high.

LESSON LXXXIV.

TO THE CONDOR.

WONDROUS, majestic bird! whose mighty wing Dwells not with puny warblers of the springNor on earth's silent breast,

Powerful to soar in strength and pride on high,
And sweep the azure bosom of the sky,-
Chooses its place of rest.

Proud nursling of the tempest, where repose
Thy pinions at the daylight's fading close?
In what far clime of night

Dost thou in silence, breathless and alone,-
While round thee swell of life no kindred tone,—
Suspend thy tireless flight?

The mountain's frozen peak is lone and bare;
No foot of man hath ever rested there;—
Yet 'tis thy sport to soar

Far o'er its frowning summit;-and the plain
Would seek to win thy downward wing in vain,
Or the green sea-beat shore.

The limits of thy course no daring eye

-

Has marked; thy glorious path of light on high
Is trackless and unknown;

The gorgeous sun thy quenchless gaze may share;
Sole tenant of his boundless realm of air,

Thou art, with him, alone.

Imperial wanderer! the storms that shake
Earth's towers, and bid her rooted mountains quake,
Are never felt by thee!-

Beyond the bolt,-beyond the lightning's gleam,
Basking forever in the unclouded beam,—
Thy home immensity!

And thus the soul, with upward flight like thine,
May track the realms where heaven's own glories shine,
And scorn the tempest's power;—

Yet meaner cares oppress its drooping wings;
Still to earth's joys the sky-born wanderer clings,—
Those pageants of an hour!