10. Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up To such a sudden flood of mutiny.

They that have done this deed are honorable;

What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it: They are wise and honorable:
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts •

I am no orator, as Brutus is;

But as you know me all, a plain, blunt man,
That love my friend: and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him;
11. For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,

Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech
To stir men's blood. I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Cæsar's wounds, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me: But, were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Cæsar that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny!

SHAKSPEARE

12. AGAINST THE EXECUTION OF LOUIS XVI.

[Vergniaud, the most eloquent orator of the celebrated party known as the Girondists during the French Revolution, was born in 1749; executed in 1793. His speech at the opening of the Assembly for the trial of Louis XVI. produced the greatest sensation on his hearers, of all parties, even the most reckless; Robespierre himself, thunder-struck by his earnest and persuasive eloquence, remained silent, and did not attempt to reply to it.]

T is said that it behooves the Convention to show courage sufficient to pass judgment on the king, without calling on the opinion of the people for its support. Courage! It required courage to attack Louis XVI. in the height of his power. Does it require as much to send Louis vanquished and dis

armed to execution?

2. A soldier entered the prison of Marius with the intention of murdering him. Terrified at the sight of his victim, he fled without daring to strike. Had this soldier been a member of a senate, do you suppose he would have hesitated to vote the death of a tyrant? What courage do you find in the performance of an act of which a coward would be capable?

3. Have you not heard in this place and elsewhere men cryng out, "If bread is dear, the cause of it is in the Temple?" If we are shocked every day by the sight of beggary, the cause of it is in the Temple.

4. And yet those who hold this language well know that the dearness of bread, the want of circulation in provisions, the maladministration of the armies, and the indigence whose sight afflicts us, spring from other causes than those in the Temple.

5. What, then, are their designs? Who will guarantee that these same men, who are continually striving to degrade the Convention, and who might possibly have succeeded if the majesty of the people which resides in it could depend on their perfidies; that those same men who are everywhere proclaiming that a new revolution is necessary-who are de claring this or that section in a state of permanent insurrection; who say that when the Convention succeeded Louis we only changed tyrants, and that we want another 10th of August; that these same men who talked of nothing but plots, deaths, traitors, proscriptions; who insist in their meetings and in their writings that a Defender ought to be appointed for the Republic, and that nothing but a chief can save it ;-who, say, will guarantee to me that these very men will not, fter the death of Louis, cry out with greater violence than ever, "If bread is dear, the cause of it is in the Convention! if money is scarce, if our armies are scantily supplied, the cause of this is in the Convention !"

VERGNIAUD.

13. THE RISING OF THE VENDEE.

[La Vendée is a district on the western coast of France, the inhabitants of which were royalists, and fought bravely against the revolutionary govern ment in France, 1793.]

IT

L.

was a Sunday morning, and sweet and pure the air,

And brightly shone the Summer sun upon the day of prayer And silver-sweet the village bells o'er mount and valley tolled, And in the Church of St. Florent were gathered young and old, When rushing down the woodland hill, in fiery haste was seen, With panting steed and bloody spur, a noble Angevine; And bounding on the sacred floor, he gave his fearful cry, "Up! up for France! the time is come for France to live or die !"

II.

"Your queen is in the dungeon; your king is in his gore;
O'er Paris waves the flag of death, the fiery tri-colour;
Your nobles in their ancient halls are hunted down and slain;
In convent cells and holy shrines the blood is poured like rain.
The peasant's_vine is rooted up, his cottage given to flame;
His son is to the scaffold sent, his daughter sent to shame.
With torch in hand and hate in heart, the rebel host is nigh.
Up! up for France! the time is come for France to live or
die !"

III.

That live-long night the horn was heard from Orleans to

Anjou,

And poured from all their quiet fields our shepherds bold an true.

Along the pleasant banks of Loire shot up the beacon-fires, And many a torch was blazing bright on Luçon's stately spires The midnight cloud was flushed with flame, that hung o'er Parthenay;

The blaze that shone o'er proud Brissac was like the breaking

day,

Till east, and west, and north and south, the loyal beacons

shone

Like shooting stars from haughty Nantes to sea-begirt Olonne.

IV.

And through the night, on horse and foot, the sleepless summons flew,

And morning saw the Lily-flag wide-waving o'er Poitou.
And many an ancient musketoon was taken from the wall,
And many a jovial hunter's steed was harnessed in the stall,
And many a noble's armory gave up the sword and spear,
And many a bride, and many a babe, was left with kiss and
tear,

And many a homely peasant bade farewell to his old dame,
As in the days when France's king unfurled the Oriflamme.

There, leading his bold marksmen, rode the eagle-eyed Lescure,
And dark Stofflet, who flies to fight as an eagle to his lure;
And fearless as the lion roused, but gentle as the lamb,
Came marching at his people's head the great and good
Bonchamp;

Charette, where honor was the prize, the hero sure to win;
And there, with Henri Quatre's plume, young Rochejacquelein;
And there, in peasant garb and speech-the terror of the foe-
A noble, made by Heaven's own hand, the great Cathelineau.

VI.

We marched by tens of thousands, we marched by day and night,

The Lily-standard in our front, like Israel's holy light.

Around us rushed the rebels, as the wolf upon the sheep-
We burst upon their columns as a lion roused from sleep;
We tore their bayonets from their hands, we slew them at
their guns;

Their boasted horsemen fled like chaff before our forest sons.

That night we heaped their baggage high their lines of dead between,

And in the centre blazed to heaven their blood-dyed guillotine !

VII.

In vain they hid their heads in walls; we rushed on stout Thouar;

What cared we for shot or shell, for battlement or bar?

We burst its gates; then like a wind we rushed on Fontenay; We saw its flag with morning light-'twas ours by setting

day;

We crushed like ripened grapes Montreuil, we bore down old Vihiers;

We charged them with our naked breasts, and took them with a cheer.

We'll hunt the robbers through the land, from Seine to sparkling Rhone;

Now, "Here's a health to all we love our kiny shall have his own !"

CROLY.

14. LORD STRAFFORD'S DEFENCE.

[Lord Strafford, an ardent supporter of Charles I., was impeached, and finally beheaded in consequence, by the House of Commons, towards the close of the reign of that unfortunate monarch. His defence was characterized by a depth of passion, breaking forth at times in passages of startling power or tenderness, which we find only in the highest class of oratory. The pathos of the conclusion has been much admired, and if we go back in imagination to the scene as presented at Westminster Hall-the once proud Earl, standing amid the wreck of his fortunes, with that splendid Court around him, which lately bowed submissive to his will; with his humbled monarch looking on from behind the screen that concealed his person, unable to interpose or arrest the proceedings; with that burst of tenderness at the thought of earlier days, and of his wife, the Lady Arabella Hollis, "that saint in heaven," to whose memory he had always clung amid the power and splendor of later life; with his body bowed down under the pressure of intense physical suffering, and his strong spirit utterly subdued, and poured out like water In that startling cry, "My Lords, my Lords, my Lords: Something more I had intended to say, but my voice and my spirit fall me,”—we cannot but feel