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giant's heart, and he wanted a giant's work. He found repose in those strong conflicts and great duties which crush the weak and madden the sensitive. He thought that, if he were elevated to the highest place, he should so administer the government as to make the country honored abroad, and great and happy at home. He thought, too, that he could do something to make us more truly one people. This, above everything else, was his ambition. And we, who knew him better than others, felt that it was a prophetic ambition, and we honored and trusted him accordingly.

G. S. Hillard.

XXIX.

THE DANGER OF EXCLUSIVE DEVOTION TO BUSINESS.

THIS
HIS is a world of inflexible compensations.

Nothing is

ever given away, but everything is bought and paid for. If, by exclusive and absolute surrender of ourselves to material pursuits, we materialize the mind, we lose that class of satisfactions of which the mind is the region and the source. A young man in business, for instance, begins to feel the exhilarating glow of success, and deliberately determines to abandon himself to its delirious whirl. He says to himself, I will think of nothing but business till I shall have made so much money, and then I will begin a new life. I will gather round me books and pictures and friends. I will have knowledge, taste, and cultivation, the perfume of scholarship, and winning speech, and graceful manners. I will see foreign countries, and converse with accomplished men. I will drink deep of the fountains of classic lore. Philosophy shall guide me, history shall instruct, and poetry shall charm me. Science shall open to me her world of wonders. I shall remember my present life of drudgery as one recalls a troubled dream when the morning has dawned.

He keeps his self-registered vow. He bends his thoughts downward and nails them to the dust. Every power, every affection, every taste, except those which his particular occupa tion calls into play, is left to starve. Over the gates of his mind he writes in letters which he who runs may read, "No admittance except on business." In time he reaches the goal of his hopes;

That

but now insulted Nature begins to claim her revenge. which was once unnatural is now natural to him. The enforced constraint has become a rigid deformity. The spring of his mind is broken. He can no longer lift his mind from the ground. Books and knowledge and wise discourse, and the amenities of art, and the cordial of friendship, are like words in a strange tongue. To the hard, smooth surface of his soul, nothing genial, graceful, or winning will cling; he cannot even purge his voice of its fawning tone, or pluck from his face the mean moneygetting mask which the child does not look at without ceasing to smile. Amid the graces and ornaments of wealth, he is like a blind man in a picture-gallery. That which he has done he must continue to do. He must accumulate riches which he cannot enjoy, and contemplate the dreary prospect of growing old without anything to make age venerable or attractive; for age without wisdom and without knowledge is the winter's cold without the winter's fire.

G. S. Hillard

XXX.

SPEECH OF PATRICK HENRY, IN THE CONVENTION OF DELEGATES OF VIRGINIA, MARCH, 1775.

MR.

R. PRESIDENT,- It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in the great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.

-

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know, what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry, for the last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately

received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss! Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with. those warlike preparations, which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation! Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled, that force must be called in to win back our love! Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation, the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministers have been so long forging.

And what have we to oppose to them?-Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer on the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated, we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned from the foot of the throne.

In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, — if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have

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pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained, we must fight; I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts, is all that is left us!

XXXI.

THE SAME CONCLUDED.

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THEY tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed; and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the active, the vigilant, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election ! If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, - and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

-

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry peace! peace! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. gentlemen wish?

Why stand we here idle?
What would they have?

What is it that Is life so dear, or

peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Heaven! — I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

XXXII.

REPLY TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.

MY Lords, I am amazed; yes, my Lords, I am amazed at his Grace's speech. The noble Duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this House to his successful exertion in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honorable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an accident? To all these noble Lords, the language of the nobl Duke is as applicable and insulting as it is to myself. But I do not fear to meet it single and alone. No one venerates the peerage more than I do; but, my Lords, I must say, that the peerage solicited me, not I the peerage.

Nay, more; I can say, and will say, that as a Peer of Parliament, as a Speaker of this right honorable House, as Keeper of the Great Seal, as Guardian of his Majesty's conscience, as Lord High Chancellor of England,—nay, even in that character alone, in which the noble Duke would think it an affront to be considered, but which character none can deny me, as a MAN, I am, at this moment, as respectable, - I beg leave to add, I am as much respected, as the proudest peer I now look down upon.

Lord Thurlow.

JUDG

XXXIII.

THE PROSPECTS OF CALIFORNIA.

UDGING from the past, what have we not a right to expect in the future. The world has never witnessed anything equal or similar to our career hitherto. Scarcely two years ago, California was almost an unoccupied wild. With the exception of a præsidium, a mission, a pueblo, or a lonely ranch, scattered here and there, at tiresome distances, there was nothing to show that the uniform stillness had ever been broken by the footsteps of civilized man. The agricultural richness of her valleys

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