A meeting of conspirators was held
Under his roof, with mystic rites, and oaths,
Pledged round the body of a murdered slave.
To these he has no answer.

Catiline. [rising calmly]. Conscript fathers!
I do not rise to waste the night in words;
Let that plebe'ian' talk; 'tis 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 masters; judges, Romans-slaves!
His charge is false; I dare him to his proofs.
You have my answer. Let my actions speak!

Cic. [interrupting him]. Deeds shall convince you! Has the traitor done?

Cat. 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? [Looking round. To fling your offices to every slave ;

Vipers that creep where man disdains to climb;

And having wound their loathsome track to the top

Of this huge moldering monument of Rome,

Hang hissing at the nobler man below.

Cic. This is his answer! Must I bring more proofs?
Fathers, you know there lives not one of us,
But lives in peril of his midnight sword.
Lists of proscription have been handed round,
In which your general properties are made
Your murderer's hire.

[A cry is heard without-" More prisoners!" An officer enters with letters for CICERO; who, after glancing at them, sends them round the Senate. CATILINE is strongly perturbed. Cic. Fathers of Rome! If man can be convinced

By proof, as clear as daylight, here it is!

1 Plebeian, (ple bè' yan), one of the common people or lower ranks of men;-usually applied to the common people of ancient Rome.

The time

Look on these letters! Here's a deep-laid plot
To wreck the provinces: a solemn league,
Made with all form and circumstance.
Is desperate, all the slaves are up ;-Rome shakes!
The heavens alone can tell how near our graves
We stand even here!-The name of Catiline
Is foremost in the league. He was their king.
Tried and convicted traitor! go from Rome!

Cat. [haughtily rising]. Come, consecrated lictors, from your

thrones:

[To the Senate.

Fling down your scepters :-take the rod and ax,
And make the murder as you make the law.
Cic. [interrupting him]. Give up the record of his banishment.

[The officer gives it to the CONSUL.]

[To an officer.

Cal. 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. It breaks my chain!
I held some slack allegiance till this hour—
But now my sword's my own.

Sinile on, my lords!

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.

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

[The Consul reads]:-"Lucius Sergius Catiline: by the
decree of the Senate, you are declared an enemy and
alien to the State, and banished from the territory of
the Commonwealth."

The Consul. Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple! Cat. [furious]. "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 sorrows!-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 ax,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones ;
Till Anarchy comes down on you like Night,
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave!

[The Senators rise in tumult and cry out,

Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome!

Cic. Expel him, lictors! Clear the Senate-house!

[They surround him. Cat. [struggling through them]. I go, but not to leap the gulf

alone.

I go-but when I come, 'twill 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 lactors.]-I will [He rushes out.]

return!

CROLY.

GEORGE CROLY, LL.D., for many years rector of St. Stephens, Walbrook, London, was born in Ireland, toward the close of the last century, and was edu cated at Trinity College, Dublin. Talented, and astonishingly industrious, he wrote much both in prose and verse. Among his productions are his tragedy of "Catiline;" his comedy of "Pride shall have a Fall;" "Salathiel," a romance; "Political Life of Burke;" "Tales of the Great St. Bernard," and "Marston." He was a correct and elegant poet. His prose style is clear, rich, idiomatic, and at times remarkably eloquent. He died in 1860.

SECTION XXIII.

I.

125. SELECT PASSAGES IN VERSE.

B

I. PATRIOTISM.-SCOTT.

REATHES there a man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said, "This is my own-my native land!"

'Tǎr ta rus, in Homer's Iliad, a place beneath the earth, as far below

Hades as heaven is above the earth, and closed by iron gates. Later poets

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned,

From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel's raptures swell.
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,-
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

II. AMBITION.-BYRON.

HE who ascends to mountain-tops shall find

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow:

He who surpasses or subdues mankind

Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow

Contending tempests on his naked head;

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

III. INDEPENDENCE.-THOMSON.

I CARE not, Fortune, what you me deny;

You can not rob me of free Nature's grace;
You can not shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora' shows her brightening face;
You can not bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream, at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibers brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave:
Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, naught can me bereave!

describe this as the place of punishment in the lower world; also as Ilades, or the lower world in general.

1 Aurora, (â rồ′ rå), the goddess of the morning red. It is said, in my thology, at the close of every night she rose from the couch of her spouse,

Tithonus, and, on a chariot drawn by the swift horses Lampus and Phaethon, ascended up to heaven from the river Oceanus, to announce the coming light of the sun to gods as well as to mortals: hence, the dawning light; the morning.

IV. THE CAPTIVE'S DREAMS.-MRS. HEMANS.

I DREAM of all things free! of a gallant, gallant bark,

That sweeps through storm and sea like an arrow to its mark;
Of a stag that o'er the hills goes bounding in its glee ;
Of a thousand flashing rills,-of all things glad and free.
I dream of some proud bird, a bright-eyed mountain king:
In my visions I have heard the rushing of his wing.

I follow some wild river, on whose breast no sail may be ;
Dark woods around it shiver,—I dream of all things free :
Of a happy forest child, with the fawns and flowers at play,
Of an Indian midst the wild, with the stars to guide his way;
Of a chief his warriors leading; of an archer's greenwood tree :
My heart in chains is bleeding, and I dream of all things free!

V. WILLIAM TELL.-BRYANT.

CHAINS may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee,
TELL, of the iron heart! they could not tame!
For thou wert of the mountains; they proclaim
The everlasting creed of liberty.

That creed is written on the untrampled snow,

Thundered by torrents which no power can hold,
Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold,
And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow:
Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around,
Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught,
And to thy brief captivity was brought
A vision of thy Switzerland unbound.

The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee
For the great work to set thy country free.

VI. TELL ON SWITZERLAND.-KNOWLES.1

ONCE Switzerland was free! With what a pride
I used to walk these hills,-look up to Heaven,
And bless God that it was so! It was free

'James Sheridan Knowles, an English poet, one of the most successful of modern actors and tragic dramatists, was born in Cork, Ireland, in 1784. His second play; "Virginius," appeared in 1820, and had an extraordinary run of success. All his plays have been collected and repub

lished, of which, perhaps, none is more deservedly popular than “Wil liam Tell," from which the above was extracted. A few years since, he became a zealous and eloquent preacher of the Baptist denomination. He died at Forquay, England, No vember 30th, 1862.