"That ev'ry male, of Hebrew mother born,
"Muft die." Oh! do I live to tell it thee?
Muft die a bloody death! My child, my fon,
My youngest born, my darling must be flain!
Mir. The helpless innocent! and must he die?
Joch. No: if a mother's tears, a mother's pray'rs,
A mother's fond precautions can prevail,

He shall not die. I have a thought, my Miriam !
And fure the God of mercies, who infpir'd,
Will bless the secret purpofe of my foul,

To fave his precious life.

Mir.

Hop'ft thou that Pharaoh—

Joch. I have no hope in Pharaoh; much in God; Much in the Rock of Ages.

Mir.

Think, O think, What perils thou already haft incurr'd;

And fhun the greater which may yet remain. [ferv'd Three months, three dang'rous months thou haft preThy infant's life, and in thy house conceal'd him! Should Pharaoh know! .

Foch. Oh! let the tyrant know,

And feel what he inflicts! Yes, hear me, Heav'n!
Send the right aiming thunderbolts-But hush,
My impious murmurs! Is it not thy will,
Thou infinite in mercy? Thou permitt❜ft
This feeming evil for fome latent good.

Yes, I will laud thy grace, and blefs thy goodness
For what I have, and not arraign thy wifdom
For what I fear to lofe. O, I will blefs thee,
That Aaron will be fpar'd! that my first born
Lives fafe and undisturb'd! that he was given me
Before this impious perfecution rag'd!

Mir. And yet who knows, but the fell tyrant's rage May reach his precious life?

Foch.

I fear for him,

For thee, for all. A doting parent lives

In many lives; through many a nerve she feels;
From child to child the quick affections spread,
Forever wand'ring, yet forever fix'd.

Nor does divifion weaken, nor the force
Of conftant operation e'er exhauft
Parental love. All other paffions change,
With changing circumftances; rise or fall,
Dependent on their object; claim returns ;
Live on reciprocation, and expire

Unfed by hope. A mother's fondness reigns
Without a rival, and without an end.

Mir. But fay what Heav'n infpires, to fave thy fon? Foch. Since the dear fatal morn which gave him birth, I have revolv'd in my diftracted mind

Each mean to fave his life and many a thought,
Which fondness prompted, prudence has oppos'd,
As perilous and rafh. With thefe poor hands
I've fram'd a little ark of flender reeds;
With pitch and flime I have fecur'd the fides.
In this frail cradle I intend to lay

My little helpless infant, and expofe him
Upon the banks of Nile.

Mir.

'Tis full of danger.

Joch. 'Tis danger to expose, and death to keep him. Mir. Yet, Oh reflect! Should the fierce crocodile, The native and the tyrant of the Nile,

Seize the defencelefs infant!

Joch.

Oh, forbear!

Spare my fond heart. Yet not the crocodile,
Nor all the deadly monsters of the deep,

To me are half fo terrible as Pharaoh,

That heathen king, that royal murderer !

Mir. Should he escape, which yet I dare not hope,
Each fea-born monfter; yet the winds and waves
He cannot 'scape.

Foch.
Know, God is ev'ry where;
Not to one narrow, partial fpot confin'd;
No, not to chofen Ifrael. He extends
Through all the vaft infinitude of space.
At his command the furious tempefts rife,
The blafting of the breath of his displeasure :
He tells the world of waters when to roar;

And at his bidding, winds and seas are calm.
In Him, not in an arm of flesh I trust;
In Him, whofe promife never yet has fail'd,
I place my confidence.

Command thy daughter, for thy words have wak'd
An holy boldness in my youthful breast.

Joch. Go then, my Miriam ; go, and take the infant. Buried in harmless flumbers, there he lies:

Let me not fee him. Spare my heart that pang.
Yet fure, one little look may be indulg'd;
One kifs; perhaps the laft. No more, my foul!
That fondness would be fatal. I fhould keep him.
I could not doom to death the babe I clafp'd:
Did ever mother kill her fleeping boy?

I dare not hazard it. The talk be thine.
Oh! do not wake my child; remove him foftly;
And gently lay him on the river's brink.

Mir. Did thofe magicians, whom the fons of Egypt
Confult, and think all-potent, join their skill,
And was it great as Egypt's fons believe;
Yet all their fecret wizzard arts combin'd,
To fave this little ark of bulrushes,

Thus fearfully expos'd, could not effect it.
Their fpells, their incantations, and dire charms
Could not preferve it.

Joch.

Know this ark is charm'd

With fpells, which impious Egypt never knew.
With invocations to the living God,

I twifted every flender reed together,

And with a prayer did every ofier weave.

Mir. I go.

Joch. Yet e'er thou go'ft, obferve me well. When thou haft laid him in his watry bed,

O leave him not; but at a distance wait,

And mark what Heavn's high will determines for him.
Lay him among the flags on yonder beach,
Juft where the royal gardens meet the Nile.
I dare not follow him. Sufpicion's eye

Would note my wild demeanor; Miriam, yes,
The mother's fondness would betray the child.
Farewell! God of my fathers, Oh protect him!

SPEECH OF CAIUS CASSIUS TO HIS COLLECTED FORCES, AFTER THE DEATH OF CESAR.

SOLDIERS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,

THE

THE unjust reproaches of our enemies we could eafily difprove, if we were not, by our numbers, and by the fwords which we hold in our hands, in condition to defpife them. While Cefar led the armies of the republic against the enemies of Rome, we took part in the fame fervice with him; we obeyed him; we were happy to ferve under his command. But when he declared war against the commonwealth, we became his enemies; and when he became an ufurper and a tyrant, we refented, as an injury, even the favours which he prefumed to bestow upon ourselves.

Had he been to fall a facrifice to private refentment, we should not have been the proper actors in the execution of the sentence against him. He was willing to have indulged us with preferments and honors; but we were not willing to accept as the gift of a mafter, what we were entitled to claim as free citizens. We conceived that, in prefuming to confer the honors of the Roman republic, he encroached on the prerogatives of the Roman people, and infulted the authority of the Roman fenate. Cefar cancelled the laws, and overturned the conftitution of his country; he ufurped all the powers of the commonwealth, fet up a monarchy, and himself affected to be a king. This our ancestors, at the expulfion of Tarquin, bound themfelves and their pofterity, by the most folemn oaths, and by the moft direful imprecations never to endure. The fame obligation has been entailed upon us as a debt by our fathers; and we, having faithfully paid and discharged

it, have performed the oath, and averted the confequences of failure from ourselves, and from our pofterity.

In the station of foldiers, we might have committed ourfelves, without reflection, to the command of an officer, whose abilities and whofe valor we admired; but, in the character of Roman citizens, we have a far different part to fuftain. I muft fuppofe, that I now fpeak to the Roman people, and to citizens of a free republic; to men who have never learned to depend upon others for gratifications and favours; who are not accustomed to own a fuperior, but who are themselves the mafters, the difpenfers of fortune and of honor, and the givers of all thofe dignities and powers by which Cefar himself was exalted, and of which he affumed the entire difpofal.

Recollect from whom the Scipios, the Pompeys, and even Cefar himself derived his honors; from your ancestors, whom you now represent, and from yourselves, to whom, according to the laws of the republic, we, who are now your leaders in the field, addrefs ourselves as your fellow-citizens in the commonwealth, and as perfons depending on your pleasure for the juft reward and retribution of our fervices. Happy in being able to restore to you what Cefar had the prefumption to appropriate to himself, the power and the dignity of your fathers, with the fupreme difpofal of all the offices of truft that were established for your fafety, and for the prefervation of your freedom; happy in being able to restore to the tribunes of the Roman people the power of protecting you, and of procuring to every Roman citizen that juftice, which, under the late ufurpation of Cefar, was withheld, even from the facred perfons of those magiftrates themselves.

An ufurper is the common enemy of all good citizens; but the task of removing him could be the business only of a few. The fenate and the Roman people, as soon as it was proper for them to declare their judgment, pronounced their approbation of thofe who were con