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The brand is here, burned in the living flesh,

That bears its mark to the grave; that dagger's plunged
Into the central pulses of the heart;

The act is the mind's suicide, for which
There is no after-health, no hope, no pardon!

11. CATILINE'S DEFIANCE.-Rev. George Croly.

The scene, in Croly's tragedy of "Catiline," from which the following is taken, represents The Roman Senate in session, Lictors present, a Consul in the chair, and Cicero on the floor as the prosecutor of Catiline and his fellow-conspirators. Catiline enters, and takes his seat on the Senatorial bench, whereupon the Senators go over to the other side. Cicero repeats his charges in Catiline's presence; and the latter rises and replies, "Conscript Fathers, I do not rise," &c. Cicero, in his rejoinder, produces proofs, and exclaims:

"Tried and convicted traitor! Go from Rome!"

Catiline haughtily tells the Senate to make the murder as they make the law. Cicero directs an officer to give up the record of Catiline's banishment. Catiline then utters those words: "Banished from Rome," &c.; but when he tells the Consul,

"He dares not touch a hair of Catiline,"

the Consul reads the decree of his banishment, and orders the Lictors to drive the "traitor" from the temple. Catiline, furious at being thus baffled, catches at the word "traitor," and terminates the scene with his audacious denunciation,-"Here I devote your Senate," &c. At the close, he rushes through the portal, as the Lictors and Senators crowd upon him.

CONSCRIPT FATHERS!

I do not rise to waste the night in words;
Let that Plebeian talk; 't is not my trade;

But here I stand for right, let him show proofs,
For Roman right; though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me.
Ay, cluster there!
Cling to your master, judges, Romans, slaves!
His charge is false;-I dare him to his proofs.
You have my answer. Let my actions speak!

But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong!
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me, - turning out
The Roman from his birthright; and, for what?

To fling your offices to every slave!

[Looking round him.

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top,
Of this huge, mouldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler man below!

Come, consecrated Lictors, from your thrones;

[To the Senate.

Fling down your sceptres; take the rod and axe,
And make the murder as you make the law!

Banished from Rome! What 's banished, but set free
From daily contact of the things I loathe?

"Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this?
Who 'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?
Banished! I thank you for 't.
I held some slack allegiance till
But now my sword's my own.

It breaks my chain!
this hour;
Smile on, my

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your lazy dignities.

But here I stand and scoff you! here, I fling
Hatred and full defiance in your face!

Lords!

Your Consul 's merciful. — For this, all thanks.
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline!

Traitor!" I go; but, I return. This trial!
Here I devote your Senate! I've had wrongs
To stir a fever in the blood of age,

Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel.

This day 's the birth of sorrow! This hour's work
Will breed proscriptions! Look to your hearths, my Lords!
For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus! - all shames and crimes!
Wan Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn:
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;

Naked Rebellion, with the torch and axe,
Making his wild sport of your blazing Thrones;

Till Anarchy comes down on you like Night,
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave.
I go; but not to leap the gulf alone.

I go; but, when I come, 't will be the burst

Of ocean in the earthquake,

rolling back

In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!

You build my funeral-pile; but your best blood

Shall quench its flame! Back, slaves! [To the Lictors.] 1

will return!

12.

PRIDE OF ANCESTRY.- Adaptation from Rev. George Croly. My lack of noble blood!

Then that's the bar
perjury

Disqualifies my suit! - makes

Of slight account against me! I'm untitled!

Parchments and money-bags have precedence

In Cupid's Court, as elsewhere! Sir, your daughter-
But I'll not stoop my free, recovered heart,
To play the mendicant! Farewell to love:

Henceforth, let venerable oaths of men,

And women's vows, though all the stars of Heaven
Were listening, be forgotten, light as dust!

True, true, I should have learnt humility:
True, I am nothing: nothing have - but hope!
I have no ancient birth, no heraldry;

No motley coat is daubed upon my shield;
I cheat no rabble, like your charlatans,
By flinging dead men's dust in idiots' eyes;
I work no miracles with buried bones;
I belt no broken and distempered shape

With shrivelled parchments plucked from mouldy shelves;
Yet, if I stooped to talk of ancestry,

I had an ancestor, as old and noble

As all their quarterings reckon, mine was Adam!

The man who gave me being, though no Lord

Was nature's nobleman, an honest man!

And prouder am I, at this hour, to stand,
Unpedestalled, but on his lowly grave,
Than if I towered upon a monument
High as the clouds with rotten infamy!

13. LOCHIEL'S WARNING. - Thomas Campbell

Locatel, a Highland chieftain, while on his march to join the Pretender, is met by one of the Highland seers, or prophets, who warns him to return, and not incur the certain ruin which awaits the unfortunate prince and his followers, on the field of Culloden.

Seer. Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the day

When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array!
For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight,
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in fight:
They rally, they bleed, for their country and Crown
Woe, woe, to the riders that trample them down!
Proud Cumberland prances, insulting the slain,
And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain.
But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of war,
What steed to the desert flies frantic and far?
'Tis thine, O Glenullin! whose bride shall await,
Like a love-lighted watch-fire, all night at the gate.
A steed comes at morning: no rider is there;
But its bridle is red with the sign of despair!
Weep, Albin! to death and captivity led!
O! weep! but thy tears cannot number the dead;
For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave
Culloden, that reeks with the blood of the brave!

Lochiel. Go preach to the coward, thou death-telling seer.
Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight,

This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright!

Seer. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn?

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn !
Sa", rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth

From his home in the dark-rolling clouds of the North ?
Lo! the death-shot of foemen out-speeding, he rode
Companionless, bearing destruction abroad;

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high!
Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh.
Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast
Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast?
'Tis the fire-shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven
From his eyry, that beacons the darkness of Heaven.
O, crested Lochiel! the peerless in might,
Whose banners arise on the battlements' height,
Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn;
Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return!

For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood,
And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood!

Lochiel. False wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan: Their swords are a thousand, — their bosoms are one!

They are true to the last of their blood and their breath,
And like reapers descend to the harvest of death.
Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock!
Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock!
But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause,
When Albin her claymore indignantly draws!
When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd,
Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud,
All plaided and plumed in their tartan array

Seer. Lochiel! Lochiel! beware of the day!
For, dark and despairing, my sight I may seal,
But man cannot cover what God would reveal.
'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.
I tell thee, Culloden's dread echoes shall ring
With the bloodhounds that bark for thy fugitive King.
Lo! anointed by Heaven with the vials of wrath,
Behold, where he flies on his desolate path!
Now in darkness and billows he sweeps from my sight;
Rise! rise! ye wild tempests, and cover his flight!
"T is finished. Their thunders are hushed on the moors;
Culloden is lost, and my country deplores.

But where is the iron-bound prisoner? Where?

For the red eye of battle is shut in despair.

Say, mounts he the ocean-wave, banished, forlorn,

Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn?

Ah! no; for a darker departure is near;

The war-drum is muffled, and black is the bier;
His death-bell is tolling; O! mercy, dispel
Yon sight, that it freezes my spirit to tell!
Life flutters, convulsed, in his quivering limbs

And his blood-streaming nostril in agony swims!
Accursed be the fagots that blaze at his feet,
Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat,
With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale

Lochiel. Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale! For never shall Albin a destiny meet

So black with dishonor, so foul with retreat.

Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore
Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore,

Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains,

While the kindling of life in his bosom remains,

Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low,

With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe!

And, leaving in battle no blot on his name,

Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame!

14 'HILIP VAN ARTEVELDE'S DEFENCE OF HIS REBELLION. - Henry Taylor
You speak of insurrections: bear in mind
Against what rule my father and myself
Have been insurgent; whom did we supplant?
There was a time, so ancient records tell,
There were communities, scarce known by name
In these degenerate days, but once far-famed,
Where liberty and justice, hand in hand,

Ordered the common weal; where great men grew
Up to their natural eminence, and none,

Saving the wise, just, eloquent, were great.

Whom may we now call free? whom great? whom wise?
Whom innocent? - the free are only they

Whom power makes free to execute all ills
Their hearts imagine; they are only great

Whose passions nurse them from their cradles up
In luxury and lewdness, whom to see
Is to despise, whose aspects put to scorn
Their station's eminence; the wise, they only
Who wait obscurely till the bolts of Heaven
Shall break upon the land, and give them light
Whereby to walk; the innocent, alas!

Poor Innocency lies where four roads meet,

A stone upon her head, a stake driven through her,-
For who is innocent that cares to live?

The hand of power doth press the very life

Of Innocency out!

What, then, remains,

But in the cause of nature to stand forth,

And turn this frame of things the right side up?

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