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LIV.

Speech of Lord Chancellor THURLOW in the House of Lords, in reply to the Duke of Grafton.*

I AM amazed at the attack the noble duke has made on me. Yes, my lords, [considerably raising his voice] 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 exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it as honourable to owe it to these, as to being the accident of an accident? To all these noble lords the language of the noble duke is as applicable and as 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 speaker of this right honourable house, as keeper of the

* The Duke of Grafton had reproached Lord Thurlow with his plebeian extraction, and his recent admission into the peerage. "Lord Thurlow rose from the woolsack, and advanced slowly to the place from which the chancellor generally addresses the house: then fixing on the duke the look of Jove when he grasps the thunder, in a level tone of voice, he spoke as above.

"The effect of this speech, both within the walls and out of them, was prodigious. It gave lord Thurlow an ascendency in the house which no chancellor had ever possessed; it invested him, in public opinion, with a character of independence and honour; and this, though he was ever on the unpopular side in politics, made him always popular with the people."

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,- -as A MAN, I am at this moment as respectable,-I beg leave to add,--I am at this time as much respected, as the proudest peer I now look down upon.

LV.

The Union of the Statesman and the Man of Letters.*-N. BIDDLE.

Or the ancient and modern world, the best model of the union of the man of letters and the statesman was he with whose writings your studies have made you familiar-Cicero. The most diligent researches, the most various acquirements, prepared him for the active career of public life, which he mingled with laborious studies, so as never, for a moment, to diminish the vigour of his public character. How often, and how well he served his country, all history attests. When the arts and the arms of Catiline had nearly destroyed the freedom of Rome, it was this great man of letters who threw himself into the midst of that band of desperate conspirators, and by his single intrepidity and eloquence rescued the republic.

When that more noble and dangerous criminal, Cæsar, broke down the public liberty; after vainly striving to resist the tide of infatuation,

*

From his Address before the Alumni Association of Nassan Hall, Princeton, delivered September 30, 1835.

Cicero retired to his farm, where he composed those deep philosophical works which have been the admiration of all succeeding time. But they could not avert his heart from his country: and on that day-on that very hour when the dagger of Casca avenged the freedom of Rome, he was in the senate; and the first words of Brutus on raising his bloody steel, were to call on Cicero-the noblest homage this which patriotism ever paid to letters.

Let it not diminish your admiration_that Cicero was proscribed and put to death. They who live for their country must be prepared to die for it. For the same reason-hatred to those who enslaved his country, his great predecessor, Demosthenes, shared a similar fate. But both died in their country's service-and their great memories shall endure for ever, long after the loftiest structures of the proudest sovereigns. There were kings in Egypt who piled up enormous monuments with the vain hope of immortality. Their follies have survived their history. No man can tell who built the pyramids. But the names of these great martyrs of human liberty have been in all succeeding time the trumpet call to freedom. Each word which they have spoken is treasured, and has served to rally nations against their oppressors.

LVI.

Thanatopsis.-Bryant.

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language. For his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,—
Go forth unto the open sky, and list

To nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more

In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,

To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place

Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between ;

The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty; and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadow green; and, poured
round all,

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-
Are but the solemn decorations all

Of the great tomb of man.

The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are shining on the sad abodes of death,

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce;
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings; yet-the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall

come,

And make their bed with thee. As the long train,

Of ages glide away, the sons of men,

The youth in life's green spring, and he who

goes

In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off,-
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,

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