278

RESULTS OF THE AMERICAN WAR, 1780.

and massacre, which every honest man must detest, which every good man must abhor, and every wise man condemn! And this man imputes the guilt of such measures to those who had all along foretold the consequences; who had prayed, entreated, and supplicated, not only for America, but for the credit of the nation and its eventual welfare, to arrest the hand of Power, meditating slaughter, and directed by injustice!

4. What was the consequence of the sanguinary measures recommended in those bloody, inflammatory speeches? Though Boston was to be starved, though Hancock and Adams were proscribed, yet at the feet of these very men the Parliament of Great Britain was obliged to kneel, flatter, and cringe; and, as it had the cruelty, at one time, to denounce vengeance against these men, so it had the meanness, afterward, to implore their forgiveness. Shall he who called the Americans "Hancock and his crew," shall he presume to reprehend any set of men for inflammatory peeches?

5. It is this accursed American war that has led us, step by step, into all our present misfortunes and nătional disgraces. What was the cause of our wasting forty millions of money, and sixty thousand lives? The American war! What was it that produced the French rescript and a French war? The American war! What was it that produced the Spanish manifesto and Spanish war? The American war! What was it that armed forty-two thousand men in Ireland with the arguments carried on the points of forty thousand bayonets? The American war! For what are we about to incur an additional debt of twelve or fourteen millions? This accursed, cruel, diabolical Amerian war! CHARLES JAMES FOX. (1749—1806.)

BATTLE HYMN, AND FAREWELL TO LIFE. 279

CXIX. — BATTLE HYMN, AND FAREWELL TO LIFE.

Low'ER (lou'er), v. i., to appear dark. | SE'RAPH-IC (se-raf'ic), a., pertaining GUISE, n., garb; manner. to or like a seraph.

Theodore Korner, the martial poet of Germany, and author of the following poems, was born in the year 1791, and fell in battle August 25, 1813, when scarcely twenty-two years

old.

FATHER of earth and heaven! I call thy.name!

Round me the smoke and shout of battle roll; My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame;Father, sustain an untried soldier's soul. Or life, or death, whatever be the goal That crowns or closes round the struggling hour, Thou knowest, if ever from my spirit stole One deeper prayer, 't was that no cloud might lower On my young fame! - O hear! God of eternal power!

Now for the fight! Now for the cannon-peal!

Forward-through blood, and toil, and cloud, and fire! Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel, The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire! They shake! like broken waves their squares retire! On them, hussars! Now give them rein and heel; Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire: Earth cries for blood! In thunder on them wheel! This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph-seal!

My deep wound burns; my pale lips quake in death,I feel my fainting heart resign its strife;

And, reaching now the limit of my life,

Lord, to thy will I yield my parting breath!
Yet many a dream hath charmed my youthful eye,—
And must life's fairy visions all depart?
O, surely no! for all that fired my heart

To rapture here, shall live with me on high.

And that fair form that won my earliest vow,
That my young spirit prized all else above,
And now adored as freedom, now as love,

Stands in seraphic guise before me now;
And, as my failing senses fade away,
It beckons me on high, to realms of endles

CXX.-WATERLOO.

NICHE (nitch), n., a small recess in | REV'EL-RY, n., noisy merr the side of a wall. BIER, n., a carriage for th

On the night previous to the battle of Waterloo, it is said that a ball was g sels. To this the poet alludes in the introductory stanza. The battle was 18, 1815, when the allied army, composed of 67,655 men, commanded by Wellington, defeated the French army, of 71,947 men, commanded by person.

THERE was a sound of revelry by night,

And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry; and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brav A thousand hearts beat happily; and wher Music arose, with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake And all went merry as a marriage-bell.— But, hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a risi

Did ye not hear it? No; 't was but the win
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street.
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined!

No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasu To chase the glowing hours with flying fee But, hark! that heavy sound breaks in once As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before. Arm! arm! it is, it is the cannon's opening roa

Within a windowed niche of that high hall

Sat Brunswick's fated chieftain ;* he did h

Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick, and brother of Quee He distinguished himself in the Peninsular war. He was killed

WATERLO0.

That sound the first amid the festival,

And caught its tone with death's prophetic ear: And when they smiled, because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well,

Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell!

281

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated ;-who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder, peal on peal, afar,
And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens, with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips, "The foe! they come! they
come!"

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;

Last eve, in beauty's circle, proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife;
The morn, the marshaling in arms
-the day,

Battle's magnificently stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which, when rent, The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent.

BYRON.

AR-BI-TRA'TION, n.,

CXXI.-LOVE IS POWER.

the reference of a PER ANNUM (Latin), by the year. cause to persons chosen by the par- AP-PUR'TE-NANCE, n., what belongs to. ties to decide it. PAR'A-LYZE, v. t., to affect as with palsy; to deaden.

DEV-AS-TA'TION, n., waste.

SUB-TRACTION, n., the taking of a part | BEL-LIG'ER-ENT (-lij-), a., war-mak

from the rest. AC-COU'TER-MENTS

ing.

or AC-COU'TRE- PEC-U-LA'TION, n., theft of public

MENTS (-koo'ter-), n. pl., equipage. MAR-TEL'LO TOWER, n., a vaulted round tower for coast defense.

money.

EN-GEN'DER (-jen-), v. t., to produce.
Ex'I-GEN-CY, n., pressing necessity.

The h in humble ought to be sounded. Give er in ex'er-cise, gov'ern-ments, &c., its true sound, as in her, without stress.

1. WAR may be defined as a people's expedient for accomplishing a purpose by violence. It is expressly so; and all the ingenuity in the world would fail to make it out as any thing else. What a strange ideä! A man who would seek to assert a right, or even to defend himself from wrong, by violence,- that is, by taking arms, and wounding or killing those opposed to him, would be regarded as an intolerable barbarian. The laws of his country would hold him as guilty of a capital offense, and he would suffer the severest penalty they were empowered to inflict.

2. But when a collection of men, forming what is called a nation, have a right to be asserted, or a wrong to be redressed, or perhaps only an opinion to be advanced, it is thought quite fair and reasonable that they should use these violent and murderous means. What is forbidden to individuals in every state above the most savage, and hardly tolerated even there, is freely granted to civilized nations, which, accordingly, are every now and then seen falling into bloody fights about matters which, with private men, would be settled by a friendly arbitration, or, at most, a decision in a law court.