But perhaps others will say, "We ask no money from your gratitude we only demand that you should pay your own expenses." And who, I pray, is to judge of their necessity? Why, the king — (and with all due reverence to his sacred majesty, he understands the real wants of his distant subjects as little as he does the language of the Choctaws.) Who is to judge concerning the frequency of these demands? The ministry. Who is to judge whether the money is properly expended? The cabinet behind the throne. In every instance, those who take are to judge for those who pay. If this system is suffered to go into operation, we shall have reason to esteem it a great privilege that rain and dew do not depend upon parliament; otherwise they would soon be taxed and dried.

Ac

But, thanks to God, there is freedom enough left upon earth to resist such monstrous injustice. The flame of liberty is extinguished in Greece and Rome, but the light of its glowing embers is still bright and strong on the shores of America. tuated by its sacred influence, we will resist unto death. But we will not countenance anarchy and misrule. The wrongs that a desperate community have heaped upon their enemies, shall be amply and speedily repaired. Still, it may be well for some proud men to remember that a fire is lighted in these colonies, which one breath of their king may kindle into such fury that the blood of all England cannot extinguish it.

Mrs. L. M. Child.

XXVII.

WEBSTER IN THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.

THE HE Dartmouth College case forms an important era in Mr. Webster's life. His argument in that case stands out among his other arguments, as his speech in reply to Mr. Hayne, among his other speeches. No better argument has been spoken in the English tongue in the memory of any living man, nor is the child that is born to-day likely to liye to hear a better. Its learning is ample but not ostentatious; its logic irresistible; its cloquence vigorous and lofty. Judge Story often spoke with great animation of the effect he then produced upon the court. "For the first hour," said he, "we listened to him with perfect

astonishment; for the second hour, with perfect delight; and for the third hour with perfect conviction." It is not too much to say that he entered the court on that day a comparatively unknown name, and left it with no rival but Pinkney. All the words he spoke on that occasion have not been recorded. When he had exhausted the resources of learning and logic, his mind passed naturally and simply into a strain of feeling not common to the place. Old recollections and early associations came over him, and the vision of his youth rose up.

The genius of the institution where he was nurtured seemed standing by his side in weeds of mourning, with a countenance of sorrow. With suffused eyes, and faltering voice, he broke into an unpremeditated strain of emotion, so strong and so deep, that all who heard him were borne along with it. Heart answered to heart as he spoke, and, when he ceased, the silence and tears of the impassive bench, as well as of the excited audience, were a tribute to the truth and power of the feeling by which he had been inspired.

G. S. Hillard.

XXVIII.

THE AMBITION OF WEBSTER.

He desired the But on this sub

MR. WEBSTER was an ambitious man. highest office in the gift of the people. ject, as on all others, there was no concealment in his nature. And ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy. With him it was a noble passion, because it rested upon noble powers. He was a man cast in a heroic mould. His thoughts, his wishes, his passions, his aspirations, were all on a grander scale than those of other men. Unexercised capacity is always a source of rusting discontent. The height to which men may rise is in proportion to the upward force of their genius, and they will never be calm till they have attained their predestined elevation. Lord Bacon says, as in nature things move violently to their place and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority, settled and calm." Mr. Webster had a giant's brain and a

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.

HIS is

THIS

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 ac-. complished 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:

but now insulted Nature begins to claim her revenge.

That

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