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Cas.

Not yet, not by your hand! Thanks, gentlemen,
For an indifferent lodging. I have learned
That prisons tenanted with thoughts of death,
Are not a punishment to order lightly;

Therefore ye shall not fill my vacant place.

Noble. The game is yours.-I, for one, ask not mercy.
And therefore worthier to have unasked.

Cas.

Ye do mistake me, signors: all my thoughts
To you are grateful ones. But for your rash
And ill-advised attempt, I had not known
How true the love on which my power is built,―
How strong the cause the people trust with me!

Gon. [Re-entering.]

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, And ask, what are the terms he brings from Florence? Gon. With these, the representatives of Lucca,t I have arranged our treaty.

Cas.

Cas.

On what terms?

Gon. That ye submit yourselves, and pledge your faith,
True vassals unto Florence; and each year
Remit your tribute,-twenty thousand florins!
Tribute and homage!-Can they sink so low,
Men who have met ye bravely in the field?
Now hear me, Count Gonsalvi: Lucca rather
Would see her walls dismantled, than consent
To yield such base submission.

Gon. These are her chiefs;-in their consent she yields.

Cas.

You see that they are silent.-By my voice
Does Lucca speak: she would be glad of peace,
An equal, sure and honourable peace :-

To terms like these, she has but one reply-defiance.

Gon. Florence will teach you better in the field!

Cas.

This to your conqueror? not three weeks have passed
Since, in the field we met. I think
you found
More service from your spurs than from your swords.

* Pronounced Gonzalvee. † Pronounced Lookka.

Gon. 'T was an unlucky chance of war.

Cas.

Not so, my lord; there was a higher cause,-
The right against the wrong.
Your army came,
A mercenary and a selfish band,

Some urged by false ambition, some for spoil.
No noble motive, noble impulse gave,

Ye were aggressors, and ye fought like such,
I tell you, Count, with not a third your numbers
I chased your flying hosts within your gates.
Gon. I came not for a boast but for an answer,-
War or submission?

Cas.

wrong

War or submission! sad such choice and stern:
Vast is the suffering-great the wrong of war!
But, and all Lucca speaketh in the words,-
Rather we take the suffering; and the
Rests on the oppressor's head, than we submit:
Not while one hand can strike on Lucca's side,
Not while one stone is left on Lucca's walls,
Will Lucca stoop beneath a foreign yoke.
Ye only fight for conquest or for spoil:

We for our homes, our rights, our ancient walls!
The sword is drawn.-God be the judge between us!

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.] Noble. Are ye not rash in this? how weak our state, Compared with Florence!

Cas.

Twice have we met them in the open field,
Each time they fled before us. Oh! my friends,
If I may call ye such, we are not weak
Who have our swords, and urge a war

Just in the sight of Heaven. Our weakness lies
In our dissensions, in the small base aims
That disunite us from the common cause.
Lucca were strong, had Lucca but one heart;
Why should ye be mine enemies? I seek
Yours in the general good. I stand between
Ye and a people whom ye would oppress.
Know ye not, love has stronger rule than fear?
A country, filled with tyrants and with slaves,
What waits upon her history?—crime and shame!

But the free state, where rank is knit

By general blessings, freedom shared by all, There is prosperity, there those great names Whose glory lingers though themselves be gone. It is not you I serve, it is your country! [Applause.] Noble. [Aside.]

Cas.

Nobles.

I 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
Foreign invaders, placed upon your neck.
The heavy and the arbitrary sway

That ye would fix upon your countrymen,
Would soon be on yourselves.-Lucca is free:-
To keep her so is trusted to your swords!
I march to meet the Florentines to-morrow;
Will ye not follow me, for Lucca's sake?
We will.

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 commemorating this illustrious man; and, till time shall be no more, will a test of the

progress which our race made in wisdom and in virtue, be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington.

EXERCISE XLVIII.-NECESSITY OF REFORM IN PARLIAMENT.

Lord Grey.

From his speech in the House of Commons, on the petition of the Friends of the People.

[This piece exemplifies the tones of earnest and animated declamation: it requires an attention to spirited utterance.]

I am aware of the difficulties I have to encounter in bringing forward this business; I am aware how ungracious it would be for this House to show that they are not the real representatives of the people; I am aware that the question has been formerly agitated on different occasions, by great and able characters, who have deserted the cause from despair of success; and I am aware that I must necessarily go into what may perhaps be supposed trite and worn-out arguments. I come forward on the present occasion, actuated solely by a sense of duty, to make a serious and important motion, which, I am ready fairly to admit, involves no less a consideration than a fundamental change in the government.

I feel, in the strongest manner, how very formidable an adversary I have to encounter in the right honourable gentleman opposite, (Mr. Pitt,) formidable from his talents, formidable from the influence of his situation; but still more formidable from having once been friendly to the cause of reform, and becoming its determined opponent, drawing off others from its standard.

With that right honourable gentleman I will never condescend to bargain, nor shall he endeavour to conciliate my favour by any mode of compliment; I have never disguised the objections I have to the way in which he came into power, and to the whole system of his government, since.

At the Revolution, the necessity of short parliaments was asserted; and every departure from these principles, is in some shape a departure from the spirit and practice of the constitution; yet, when they are compared with the present state of the representation, how does the matter stand? Are the elections free or are parliaments free? With respect to shortening the duration of parliament, it does not appear to me that it would be advantageous, without a total alteration of the present system.

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