the earth.

fRO1 R O

f h RC

Again and again | did that | unflinching | man | feel |

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his steed sink down, | till fìve | had been shot | under him.

h

Then, with his uniform | riddled | with bullets, and his face | R C near face m f RC prone

singed and blackened | with powder, | he marched on foot, with m f RC prone

drawn | sabre, | at the head | of his men.

In vain | did the artillery | hurl its storm | of fire | and lead | push fm B C forward

forward

turn to left to right into that living | mass; up to the very muzzles they pressed, | and push fm B C push f m B C driving the artillery-men | from their places, | pushed on | through W m RCF to ms RCF and

forward

the English lines. But at that moment | a file of soldiers, who change to ms C pr

m

8 с

had lain | flat on the ground | behind a low | ridge | of earth, RC Ft on waist

shR C

W RC tr to

turn to left

suddenly rose and poured a volley | into their very faces. Another

slowly

and another fòllowed, till one | broad | sheet of flame | rolled on

their bosoms, and in such a fierce and unexpected | flow, ❘ that

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L C
|

human courage | could not withstand it. They reeled, || shòok, ||

S LC

w tr LC to br and to back L C

staggered back, then turned || and fled.

(The fate of Napoleon was writ. The star that had blazed so brightly over the world went down in blood; and the Bravest of the Brave had fought his last battle.)

40. REGULUS TO THE CARTHAGINIANS.-E. Kellogg.

The beams of the rising sun had gilded the lofty domes of Carthage, and given, with its rich and mellow light, a tinge of beauty even to the frowning ramparts of the outer harbor. Sheltered by the verdant shores, an hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflicts with the fleets of Rome.

No murmur of business or of revelry arose from the city. The artisan had forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal,

the priest the sanctuary, and even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement to mingle with the crowd that, anxious and agitated, were rushing toward the senatehouse, startled by the report that Regulus had returned to Carthage.

Onward, still onward, trampling each other under foot, they rushed, furious with anger and eager for revenge. Fathers were there, whose sons were groaning in fetters; maidens, whose lovers, weak and wounded, were dying in the dungeons of Rome, and gray-haired men and matrons, whom the Roman sword had left childless.

But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and the Carthaginians,- the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. But calm, cold and immovable as the marble walls around him stood the Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming cohorts of Rome.

The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the lip; and so intense was the silence, that the clanking of the brazen manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear in that vast assembly, as he thus addressed them:

"Ye doubtless thought-for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own-that I would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance. If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike ancestry,

were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had remained at home, and broke my plighted oath to save my life.

"I am a Roman citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will upon this mass of flesh and bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover them. Here, in your capital, do I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies, fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental agony that heaves my frame.

"The moon has scarce yet waned since the proudest of Rome's proud matrons, the mother upon whose breast I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood, or the fierce toil of war nerved my sinews, did with fondest memory of bygone hours entreat me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field, did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick and fast down the hard corselet scales,- I have seen her tear her gray locks and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to Carthage; and all the assembled senate of Rome, grave and reverend men, proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to welcome me withal, shall be, to what I have endured, even as the murmur of a summer's brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach.

66

Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange ominous sound: it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness clanging as they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xanthippus, the Spartan general, by whose aid you conquered me, and, with a voice low as when the solemn wind moans through the leafless

forest, he thus addressed me: 'Roman, I come to bid thee curse, with thy dying breath, this fated city; know that in an evil moment, the Carthaginian generals, furious with rage that I had conquered thee, their conqueror, did basely murder me. And then they thought to stain my brightest honor. But, for this foul deed, the wrath of Jove shall rest upon them here and hereafter.' And then he vanished.

66

'And now, go bring your sharpest torments.

The woes

I see impending over this guilty realm shall be enough to sweeten death, though every nerve and artery were a shooting pang. I die! but my death shall prove a proud triumph; and, for every drop of blood ye from my veins do draw, your own shall flow in rivers. Woe to thee, Carthage! Woe to the proud city of the waters! I see thy nobles wailing at the feet of Roman senators! thy citizens in terror! thy ships in flames! I hear the victorious shouts of Rome! I see her eagles glittering on thy ramparts. Proud city, thou art doomed! The curse of God is on thee-a clinging, wasting curse. It shall not leave thy gates till hungry flames shall lick the fretted gold from off thy proud palaces, and every brook runs crimson to the sea."

41. SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA.-E. Kellogg.

It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dew-drops on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of the Vulturnus with a wavy, tremulous light. No sound was heard, save the last sob of some retiring wave. telling

its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach; and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre a band of gladiators were assembled, their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet lingering on their brows, when Spartacus, starting forth from amid the throng, thus addressed them:

"Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arēna every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus,- a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron-groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when at noon I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together of our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the