6 EXERCISE XLVI.-DIALOGUE FROM THE TRIUMPH OF LUCCA." Miss Landon. Scene, the Senate-house: Speakers,-Gonsalvi, Castruccio,* Nobles, Gon. Henceforward Florence claims your fealty ;t Noble. Our treasury's low, my lord. Gon. And so is ours, Exhausted by the late vexatious war, Noble. Urged by the Count Castruccio, not ourselves. The goldsmiths round our market-place are rich : As more obedient, right that they should pay Gon. [Rising.] I leave you till to-morrow, when I bring And will receive your homage and your oaths. [Exit.] Noble. Homage and tribute!—these are bitter words,- To day must fix his fate. Several Nobles. Death! What is his doom? Noble. The noise approaches! look ye to your swords, [While yet speaking, Castruccio enters armed and attended,-having been rescued by the people.] * Pronounced Castroocho :-ch as in church. The Senate of Lucca, actuated by envy of the patriot chief Castruccio, had imprisoned him, and proposed submission to the sway of the Florentines, their enemies. Pronounced Castroocânee's. Cas. Not yet, not by your hand! Thanks, gentlemen, Therefore ye shall not fill my vacant place. Noble. The game is yours.-I, for one, ask not mercy. Cas. Ye do mistake me, signors: all my thoughts Gon. [Re-entering.] I must demand some escort; for the streets Are filled with people, and unwillingly Would I shed blood.-What! Castruccio here? Cas. Ready to give the Count Gonsalvi* audience, Cas. Cas. On what terms? Gon. That ye submit yourselves, and pledge your faith, Gon. These are her chiefs;—in their consent she yields. Cas. -- This to your conqueror? not three weeks have passed Pronounced Lookka. Gon Cas. 'T was an unlucky chance of war. Not so, my lord; there was a higher cause,— Some urged by false ambition, some for spoil. Ye were aggressors, and ye fought like such, Cas. War or submission! sad such choice and stern: We for our homes, our rights, our ancient walls! Gon. Have ye no other answer? Cas. None ;-Cesario is your escort to the gates. Gon. I take your answer.-War, then, to the death!—[Exit.] Cas. Twice have we met them in the open field, Just in the sight of Heaven. Our weakness lies But the free state, where rank is knit By general blessings, freedom shared by all, Noble. [Aside.] Cas. Nobles. see that we must yield, or seem to yield :He's master now. And for this base submission To your hereditary enemies, There is no yoke so galling as the yoke of : EXERCISE XLVII.—EULOGY OF WASHINGTON.-Lord Brougham. [See remarks introductory to EXERCISE XX.] In Washington, we truly behold a marvellous contrast to almost every one of the endowments and vices of Bonaparte, so well fitted to excite a mingled admiration, and sorrow, and abhorrence. With none of that brilliant genius which dazzles ordinary minds;-with not even any remarkable quickness of apprehension,-with knowledge less than almost all persons in the middle ranks, and many well educated of the humbler classes possess; this eminent person is presented to our observation, clothed in attributes as modest, as unpretending, as little calculated to strike or astonish, as if he had passed, unknown, through some secluded region of private life. But he had a judgment sure and sound; a steadiness of ` mind which never suffered any passion, not even any feeling, to ruffle its calm; a strength of understanding which worked, rather than forced, its way, through all obstacles; removing or avoiding rather than overleaping them. His courage, whether in battle or in council, was as perfect as might be expected from this pure and steady temper of soul. A perfectly just man, with a thoroughly firm resolution never to be misled by others, any more than by others overawed; never to be seduced or betrayed, or hurried away by his own weakness or self-delusions, any more than by other men's arts; nor even to be disheartened by the most complicated difficulties, any more than to be spoiled upon the giddy heights of fortune;-such was this great man,whether we regard him sustaining, alone, the whole weight of campaigns all but desperate, or gloriously terminating a just warfare by his resources and courage,-presiding over the jarring elements of political council, alike deaf to the storms of all extremes, or directing the formation of a new government, for a great people, the first time that so vast an experiment had ever been tried by man; or, finally, retiring from the Supreme Power to which his virtue had raised him over the nation he had created, and whose destinies he had guided as long as his aid was required;-retiring from the veneration of all parties, of all nations, of all mankind, in order that the rights of men might be conserved, and that his example might never be appealed to by vulgar tyrants. This is the consummate glory of the great American;-a triumphant warrior where the most sanguine had a right to despair; a successful ruler in all the difficulties of a course wholly untried; but a warrior, whose sword only left its sheath when the first law of our nature commanded it to be drawn; and a ruler, who, having tasted of supreme power, gently and unostentatiously desired that the cup might pass from him, nor would suffer more to wet his lips, than the most solemn and sacred duty to his country and his God required! To his latest breath did this great patriot maintain the noble character of a captain the patron of peace, and a statesman the friend of justice. Dying, he bequeathed to his heirs the sword which he had worn in the war of liberty, charging them 'never to take it from the scabbard, but in selfdefence, or in defence of their country and her freedom; and commanding them, that, when it should thus be drawn, they should never sheath it nor give it up, but prefer falling with it in their hands to the relinquishment thereof,'-words, the majesty and simple eloquence of which, are not surpassed in the oratory of Athens and Rome. It will be the duty of the historian and the sage, in all ages, to omit no occasion of cominemorating this illustrious man; and, till time shall be no more, will a test of the |