They deemed perchance my haughtier mood
Was quelled by chains and solitude;

That he who once was brave-
Was I not brave-had now become
Estranged from Honour as from Rome.

They bade me to my country bear
The offers these have borne ;-
They would have trained my lips to swear,
Which never yet have sworn.
Silent their base commands I heard,
At length, I pledged a Roman's word
Unshrinking to return.

I go-prepared to meet the worst,
But I shall gall proud Carthage first.

They sue for peace,-I bid you spurn The gilded bait they bear,

I bid you still, with aspect stern, War, ceaseless war, declare.

Fools as they were, could not mine eye,
Through their dissembled calmness, spy
The struggles of despair?

Else had they sent this wasted frame,
To bribe you to your country's shame?

Your land I must not call it mine;
No country has the slave;
His father's name he must resign,
And even his father's grave-
But this not now)-beneath her lies
Proud Carthage and her destinies :
Her empire o'er the wave

Is
yours; she knows it well-and you
Shall know, and make her feel it too.

Ay,

bend your brows, ye ministers

Of coward hearts, on me ;

Ye know no longer it is hers,

The empire of the sea

Ye know her fleets are far and few,

Her bands, a mercenary crew;

And Rome, the bold and free,

Shall trample on her prostrate towers,
Despite your weak and wasted powers.

One path alone remains for me;—
My vows were heard on high;
Thy triumphs, Rome, I shall not see,
For I return to die.

Then tell me not of hope or life;

I have in Rome no chaste fond wife, No smiling progeny ;

One word concentres for the slaveWife, children, country, all

THE GRAVE.

ENTERPRISE OF NEW ENGLAND COLONISTS.-Burke.

As to the wealth, Mr Speaker, which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet, the spirit by which that enterprising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery.

Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay, and Davis's Straits;—whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry.

Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know, that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and

who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.

When I contemplate these things; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not squeezed into this happy form by the constraints of a watchful and suspicious government, but that through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me. My rigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

EXTRACT FROM MR CANNING'S SPEECH AT PLYMOUTH.

GENTLEMEN, the end which I confess I have always had in view, and which appears to me the legitimate object of pursuit to a British statesman, I can describe in one word. The language of modern philosophy is wisely and diffusively benevolent; it professes the perfection of our species, and the amelioration of the lot of all mankind. I hope that my heart beats as high for the general interest of humanity-I hope that I have as friendly a disposition towards other nations of the earth, as any one who vaunts his philanthropy most highly; but I am contented to confess, that in the conduct of political affairs, the grand object of my contemplation is the interest of England.

Not, that the interest of England is an interest which stands isolated and alone. The situation which she holds forbids an exclusive selfishness; her prosperity must contribute to the prosperity of other nations, and her stability to the safety of the world. But intimately connected as we are with the system of Europe, it does not follow that we are therefore called upon to mix ourselves, on every occasion, with a restless and meddling activity, in the concerns of the nations which surround us.

Our ultimate object must be the peace of the world. That object may sometimes be best attained by prompt exertions sometimes by abstinence from interposition in contests which we cannot prevent. It is upon these principles, that it did not appear to the Government of this country to

be necessary, that Great Britain should mingle in the recent contest between France and Spain.

There were some, who would have rushed forward at once from the sense of indignation at aggression, and who deemed that no act of injustice could be perpetrated, from one end of the universe to the other, but that the sword of Great Britain should leap from its scabbard to avenge it. But is there any one who continues to doubt whether the Government did wisely, in declining to obey the precipitate enthusiasm which prevailed at the commencement of the contest in Spain? Is there any man that does not now see what would have been the extent of burdens that would have been cast upon this country? Is there any one who does not acknowledge that, under such circumstances, the enterprise would have been one to be characterized only by a term borrowed from that part of the Spanish literature with which we are most familiar,-Quixotic; an enterprise, romantic in its origin, and thankless in the end?

But while we thus control our feelings by our duty, let it not be said that we cultivate peace, because we are unprepared for war. Our present repose is no more a proof of inability to act, than the state of inertness and inactivity in which I have seen those mighty war-ships, that float in the waters above your town, is a proof they are devoid of strength, and incapable of being fitted out for action. You well know, gentlemen, how soon one of those stupendous masses, now reposing on their shadows in perfect stillness, -how soon, upon any call of patriotism or of necessity, it would assume the likeness of an animated thing, instinct with life and motion-how soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plumage-how quickly it would put forth all its beauty and its bravery, collect its scattered elements of strength, and awaken its dormant thunder. Such as is one of these magnificent machines, when springing from inaction into a display of its might such is England herself, while, apparently passive and motionless, she silently concentrates the power to be put forth on an adequate occasion.

But God forbid that that occasion should arise! After a war sustained for nearly a quarter of a century,-some

DIALOGUE.

KING HENRY IV., NORTHUMBERLAND, AND HOTSPUR.

Shakspeare.

King Henry. My blood hath been too cold and temperate,

Unapt to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me: for accordingly,
You tread upon my patience: but, be sure,
I will from henceforth rather be myself,
Mighty, and to be feared, than my condition;

Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect,

Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
North. My good lord,

Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As was delivered to your Majesty.

Hot. My liege, I did deny no prisoners:
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reaped,
Showed like a stubble-land at harvest home.
He was perfumed like a milliner;

And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He

gave his nose! and still he smiled, and talked ; And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bringa slovenly, unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He questioned me: amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.

I, then, all smarting, with my wounds being cold,
To be so pestered with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answered negligently, I know not what-
He should or should not-for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,
Of guns, and drums, and wounds, (Heaven save the
mark!)