On come her gallant mariners! What now avail Rome's boasted charms ? Where are the Spaniard's vaunts of eager wrath ? His hopes of conquest now? And hark! the angry winds arise, The winds and waves against the invaders fight, Howling around his palace-towers, Long over Biscay's boisterous surge, SOUTHEY. THE SURGEON'S TALE. T'was on a dark December evening; Wind and rain, and cold and darkness, Muffled to the teeth that evening, Peer'd from out a gloomy doorway, And with trembling croak it said, "In the left-hand empty garret "You will find a woman dead. "Never stepped a finer creature, "When she was a simple maid; "But she did, like many others, "Loved a man and was betrayed, "I have seen her in her carriage, " Diamonds flaming in her hair; "And I've seen her starving (starving"Do you hear?) and now she's there." Up the worn and slippery stair And look'd down upon the floor. There on the rough and naked boards, And all its beauties wrinkled clay. 'Nothing!"-yet what more could Pity Crave for one about to die, Than sweet words from one she worshipped, (Sweet! tho' every word a lie); In the morning of her pleasure, In the midnight of her pain, And with her they now lie mouldering; Telleth where (to end the story), Love's poor outcast lies alone. Mourn not-for at length she sleepeth The soft slumber of the dead; BARRY CORNWALL. WILLIAM TELL'S SPEECH. YE crags and peaks, I'm with you once again! And bid your tenant welcome to his home How high you lift your heads into the sky! How huge you are! how mighty, and how free! Of awe divine! Ye guards of liberty, my hands to you, Í rush to you Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow, Of measuring the ample range beneath; And round about, absorbed, he heeded not The death that threatened him! I couldn't shoot! 'Twas liberty! I turn'd my bow aside let him soar away. When I wedded thee, The land was free! O with what pride I used In Its very storms! Yes, Emma, I have sat In my boat, at night, when down the mountain gorge The wind came roaring-sat in it, and eyed The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled Have wished me there. The thought that mine was free "Blow on!-This is the land of liberty!" SHERIDAN KNOWLES. SELECTIONS IN PROSE. ANCIENT ORATORY. C. MARIUS TO THE ROMANS, ON THEIR HESITATING TO APPOINT HIM GENERAL IN THE EXPEDITION AGAINST JUGURTHA, MERELY ON ACCOUNT OF HIS EXTRACTION. Ir is but too common, my countrymen, to observe a material difference between the behaviour of those who stand candidates for places of power and trust, before and after their obtaining them. They solicit them in one manner and execute them in another. They set out with a great appearance of activity, humility, and moderation; and they quickly fall into sloth, pride, and avarice. It is, undoubtedly, no easy matter to discharge, to the general satisfaction, the duty of a supreme commander in troublesome times. I am, I hope, duly sensible of the importance of the office I propose to take upon me, for the service of my country. To carry on, with effect, an expensive war, and yet be frugal of the public money-to oblige those to serve, whom it may be delicate to offendto conduct, at the same time, a complicated variety of operations to concert measures at home answerable to the state of things abroad—and to gain every valuable end, in spite of opposition from the envious, the factious, and the disaffected-to do all this, my countrymen, is more difficult than is generally thought. And, beside the disadvantages which are common to me, with all others, in eminent stations, my case is, in this respect, peculiarly hard; that, whereas a commander of patrician rank, if he is guilty of a neglect, or breach of duty, has his great connexions--the antiquity of his family-the important services of his ancestors-and the multitudes he has by power engaged in his interest-to screen him from condign punishment; my whole safety depends upon myself, which renders it the more indispensably necessary for me |