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"At least King Charles, if God decrees he must be lord of

Spain,

Shall witness that the Leonese were not aroused in vain ;
He shall bear witness that we died as lived our sires of old,-
Nor only of Numantium's pride shall minstrel tales be told.

"The LION that hath bathed his paws in seas of Libyan gore,
Shall he not battle for the laws and liberties of yore?
Anointed cravens may give gold to whom it likes them well,
But steadfast heart and spirit bold Alphonso ne'er shall sell.

LXXVII-MACLAINE'S CHILD

MACKAY.

"MACLAINE! you 've scourged me like a hound;—
You should have struck me to the ground;
You should have played a chieftain's part,-
You should have stabbed me to the heart.

"You should have crushed me into death;—
But here I swear with living breath,
That for this wrong which you have done,
I'll wreak my vengeance on your son,—

"On him, and you, and all your race!"-
He said, and bounding from his place,
He seized the child with sudden hold-
A smiling infant, three years old.

And, starting like a hunted stag,
He scaled the rock, he clomb the crag,
And reached, o'er many a wide abyss,
The beetling seaward precipice.

And, leaning o'er its topmost ledge,
He held the infant o'er the edge:-
"In vain the wrath, thy sorrow vain;
No hand shall save it, proud Maclaine !"

With flashing eye and burning brow,
The mother followed, heedless how,
O'er crags with mosses overgrown,
And stair-like juts of slippery stone;

But, midway up the rugged steep,
She found a chasm she could not leap,
And, kneeling on its brink, she raised
Her supplicating hands, and gazed.

"Oh! spare my child, my joy, my pride; Oh! give me back my child!" she cried: "My child! my child!" with sobs and tears, She shrieked upon his callous ears.

"Come, Evan," said the trembling chief,-
His bosom wrung with pride and grief,—
"Restore the boy, give back my son,
And I'll forgive the wrong you've done!"

"I scorn forgiveness, haughty man!
You've injured me before the clan;
And nought but blood shall wipe away
The shame I have endured to-day."

And, as he spoke, he raised the child,
To dash it 'mid the breakers wild,
But, at the mother's piercing cry,
Drew back a step, and made reply:

"Fair lady, if your lord will strip,
And let a clansman wield the whip;
Till skin shall flay, and blood shall run,
I'll give you back your little son."

The lady's cheek grew pale with ire,
The chieftain's eyes flashed sudden fire;
He drew a pistol from his breast,

Took aim, then dropped it, sore distressed.

"I might have slain my babe instead.
Come, Evan, come," the father said,
And through his heart a tremor ran ;
"We'll fight our quarrel man to man."

"Wrong unavenged I've never borne,"
Said Evan, speaking loud in scorn;
"You've heard my answer, proud Maclaine:
I will not fight you,-think again.”

The lady stood in mute despair,

With freezing blood and stiffening hair;
She moved no limb, she spoke no word;--
She could but look upon her lord.

He saw the quivering of her eye,
Pale lips and speechless agony,-
And, doing battle with his pride,
"Give back the boy,-I yield," he cried.

A storm of passion shook his mind,—
Anger, and shame, and love combined;
But love prevailed, and, bending low,
He bared his shoulders to the blow.

"I smite you,"
"said the clansman true;
"Forgive me, chief, the deed I do!
For by yon Heaven that hears me speak,
My dirk in Evan's heart shall reek!"

But Evan's face beamed hate and joy;
Close to his breast he hugged the boy:
"Revenge is just, revenge is sweet,
And mine, Lochbuy, shall be complete."
Ere hand could stir, with sudden shock,
He threw the infant o'er the rock,-
Then followed with a desperate leap,
Down fifty fathoms to the deep.

They found their bodies in the tide;
And never till the day she died

Was that sad mother known to smile-
The Niobe of Mulla's isle.

They dragged false Evan from the sea,
And hanged him on a gallows tree;
And ravens fattened on his brain,
To sate the vengeance of Maclaine.

Ex. LXXVIII.—CHARACTER OF CHATHAM.

GRATTAN.

THE secretary stood alone; modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original, and unaccommodating, the features

of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sank him to the vulgar level of the great; but overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous.

France sank beneath him. With one hand, he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded, with the other, the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect, not England, and the present age only, but Europe, and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardor, and enlightened by prophecy.

The ordinary feelings which render life amiable and indolent were unknown to him. No domestic difficulty, no domestic weakness reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came, occasionally, into our system, to counsel and to decide. A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, and so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age; and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman; and talked much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, refuted her.

Nor were his political abilities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in the senate; peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments, and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully, it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. He did not, like Murray, conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation, nor was he, like Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion; but, rather, lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by flashings of the mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

Upon the whole, there was something in this man that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilder

ness of free minds with unbounded authority-something that could establish or overwhelm empires, and strike a blow in the world, which should resound throughout the universe,

Ex. LXXIX.-VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

THE king was on his throne,
The satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deemed divine-
Jehovah's vessels-hold

The godless heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,

And wrote as if on sand:

The fingers of a man,-
A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw-but knew no more

BYRON.

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