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Sneer. Why, that's true, and that attack now on you the other day

Sir F. What? where?

Dan. Ay, you mean in a paper of Thursday; it was completely ill-natured, to be sure.

Sir F. O, so much the better-Ha! ha! ha!-I would n't have it otherwise.

Dan. Certainly, it's only to be laughed at; for— Sir F. You don't happen to recollect what the fellow said, do you?

Sneer. Pray, Dangle-Sir Fretful seems a little anxious

Sir F. O no! - anxious,

not I, not the least. I- But one may as well hear, you know.

Dan. Sueer, do you recollect? - [Aside to SNEER.] Make out something.

Sneer. [Aside to DANGLE.] I will. [Aloud.] Yes, yes, I remember perfectly.

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Sir F. Well, and pray now not that it signifies— what might the gentleman say ?

Sneer. Why, he roundly asserts that you have not the slightest invention or original genius whatever; though you are the greatest traducer of all other authors living.

Sir F. Ha ha! ha! Very good!

Sneer. That, as to comedy, you have not one idea of your own, he believes, even in your commonplacebook, where stray jokes and pilfered witticisms are kept with as much method as the ledger of the Lost and Stolen Office.

Sir F. Ha! ha! ha! Very pleasant!

Sneer. Nay, that you are so unlucky as not to have the skill even to steal with taste: but that you glean from the ref'use of obscure volumes, where more judicious plagiarists have been before you; so that the body of your work is a composition of dregs and sediments, - like a bad tavern's worst wine.

Sir F. Ha! ha!

Sneer. In your more serious efforts, he says, your bombast would be less intolerable, if the thoughts were ever suited to the expression; but the homeliness of the sentiment stares through the fantastic encumbrance of its fine language, like a clown in one of the new uniforms!

Sir F. Ha! ha!

Sneer. That your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style, as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-wolsey; while your imitations of Shakespeare resemble the mimicry of Falstaff's Page, and are about as near the standard of the original. Sir F. Ha!

Sneer. In short, that even the finest passages you steal are of no service to you; for the poverty of your own language prevents their assimilating; so that they lie on the surface like lumps of marl on a barren moor, encumbering what it is not in their power to fertilize!

Sir F. [After great agitation.] Now, another person would be vexed at this.

Sneer. Oh! but I would n't have told you, only to divert you.

Sir F. I know it I am diverted -not the least invention!

very good!

Ha ha ha!

Ha! ha! ha! very good!

Sneer. Yes-no genius! Ha! ha! ha!

Dan. A severe rogue! ha! ha! But you are quite right, Sir Fretful, never to read such nonsense.

are quite right.

You

Sir F. To be sure-for, if there is anything to one's praise, it is a foolish vanity to be gratified at it; and if it is abuse, why, one is always sure to hear of it from one good-natured friend or another!

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CII.

VAN ARTEVELDE'S SPEECH.

TAYLOR.

In the fourteenth century the Earl of Flanders claimed sovereignty over the Flemish town of Ghent; but he having deprived it of certain immunities which the citizens guarded with jealousy, a war broke out which lasted several years. Among the chiefs of the people of Ghent was Philip van Artevelde, on whose story a dramatic romance has been founded. I the scene from which the following passage is taken the envoys of the Earl have been allowed to address the people and make certain overtures. After they have spoken, Van Artevelde replies in the following speech. See in Index, MINE, RECREANT, TAYLOR.

I.

SIRS, ye have heard these knights discourse to you
Of your ill fortunes, telling on their fingers

The worthy leaders ye have lately lost.

True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs;
And ill would it become us to make light

Of the great loss we suffer by their fall.
They died like heroes; for no recreant step
Had e'er dishonored them, no stain of fear,
No base despair, no cowardly recoil.
They had the hearts of freemen to the last,
And the free blood that bounded in their veins
Was shed for freedom with a liberal joy.

II.

But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed,

The great examples which they died to show

Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here,

That men should say, "For liberty these died,

Wherefore let us be slaves," - had they thought this,

O, then, with what an agony of shame,
Their blushing faces buried in the dust,

Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven!

III.

What! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth

To write, that in five bodies were contained

The sole brave hearts of Ghent! which five defunct,
The heartless town, by brainless counsel led,
Delivered up her keys, stript off her robes,
And so with all humility besought

Her haughty lord that he would scourge her lightly!
It shall not beno, verily! for now,

Thus looking on you as ye stand before me,
Mine eye can single out full many a man
Who lacks but opportunity to shine
As great and glorious as the chiefs that fell.

IV.

But, lo! the Earl is "mercifully minded”!
And surely, if we, rather than revenge
The slaughter of our bravest, cry them shame,
And fall upon our knees, and say we've sinned,
Then will my Lord the Earl have mercy on us,
And pardon us our strike for liberty!

V.

O, Sirs! look round you, lest ye be deceived.
Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue,
Forgiveness may be written with the pen,

But think not that the parchment and mouth pardon
Will e'er eject old hatreds from the heart.
There's that betwixt you been which men remember
Till they forget themselves, till all 's forgot, -
Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed
From which no morrow's mischief rouses them.

VI.

There's that betwixt you been which you yourselves,
Should ye forget, would then not be yourselves;
For must it not be thought some base men's souls
Have ta'en the seats of yours and turned you out,
If, in the coldness of a craven heart,

Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man

For all his black and murderous monstrous crimes!

СІІІ. THE USES OF THE PASSIONS.

REV. SYDNEY SMITH.

See in Index, IMAGERY, MAUSOLEUM, MOULDER or MOLDER, PHILIPPIC, SACRIFICE, SIMILE, BURKE, CICERO, COR'TES, PRUSSIA, SMITH.

In the twelfth paragraph, the author alludes to the celebrated retreat of ten thousand Greeks, under Xenophon and others, from the invasion of Persia. The CARDUCHIAN (kar-du'ke-an) mountains lie along the northeastern margin of the valley of the Tigris.

Delivery. The style, though didactic, is brilliant, animated, and eloquent, and should be read with corresponding warmth and spirit.

1. THE passions are in morals what motion is in physics: they create, preserve, and animate; and without them, all would be silence and death. Avarice guides men across the deserts of the ocean; pride covers the earth with trophies, and mausoleums, and pyramids; love turns men from their savage rudeness; ambition shakes the very foundation of kingdoms.

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2. By the love of glory weak nations swell into magnitude and strength. Whatever there is of terrible, whatever there is of beautiful in human events, all that rouses the soul, and is remembered while thought and flesh cling together, all these have their origin from the passions. As it is only in storms, and when their coming waters are driven up into the air, that we cătch a sight of the depths of the sea, it is only in the season of perturbation that we have a glimpse of the real internal nature of man.

3. To all efforts of the imagination, a certain degree of passion appears highly favorable;—anger quickens wit, multiplies images and words, and gives a flow and a fecundity, of which the mind is utterly destitute in its ordinary state. Every man is eloquent in speaking of himself, from the direct influence which his passions have upon his imagination. The finest and most affecting parts of Cicero are always about himself. In that noble conclusion of the second philippic, which after

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