For some new honors that are heap'd on Cæsar.

Cas. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus; and we, petty men,

Walk under his huge legs, and peep about,

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some times are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Cæsar: What should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it does become the mouth as well ;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar.-
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,

Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed,

That he hath grown so great? Age, thou art shamed:
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man!
When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
Oh! you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his seat in Rome,
As easily as a king.

Bru. That you do love me, I am nothing jealous;
What you would work me to I have some aim:
How I have thought of this, and of these times,
I shall recount hereafter; for this present
I would not-so with love I might entreat you-
Be
any further moved. What you have said

I will consider; what you have to say

I will with patience hear; and find a time
Both meet to hear and answer such high things.

Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this;

Brutus nad rather be a villager,

Than to repute himself a son of Rome,
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.

SHAKSPEARE

62. PETER PLYMLEY'S LETTERS.

[During one of the periodical anti-Catholic excitements which were so common in England in the early part of the present century, Sydney Smith, under the assumed naure of P. Plymley, wrote a series of papers abounding in good sense, sound logic, and brilliant wit and humor.]

EAR ABRAHAM: A worthier and better man than yourself does not exist; but I have always told you, from the time of our boyhood, that you were a bit of a goose.

2. Your parochial affairs are governed with exemplary order and regularity; you are as powerful in the vestry as Mr. Perceval in the House of Commons,-and, I must say, with much. more reason; nor do I know any church where the faces and smock-frocks of the congregation are so clean, or their eyes so uniformly directed to the preacher.

3. There is another point upon which I will do you ample justice; and that is, that the eyes so directed towards you are wide open; for the rustic has, in general, good principles, though he cannot control his animal habits; and however loud he may snore, his face is perpetually turned towards the fountain of orthodoxy.

4. Having done you this act of justice, I shall proceed, according to our ancient intimacy and familiarity, to explain to you my opinions about the Catholics, and to reply to yours. In the first place, my sweet Abraham, the Pope is not landed, nor are there any curates sent out after him; nor has he been hid at St. Alban's, by the Dowager Lady Spencer, nor dined privately at Holland House, nor been seen near Dropmore.

5. If these fears exist (which I do not believe), they exist only in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; they

emanate from his zeal for the Protestant interest; and though they reflect the highest honor upon the delicate irritability of his faith, must certainly be considered as ambiguous proofs of the sanity and vigor of his understanding.

6. By this time, however, the best informed clergy in the neighborhood of the metropolis are convinced that the rumor is without foundation; and, though the Pope is probably hovering about our coast, in a fishing smack, it is most likely he will fall a prey to the vigilance of our cruisers; and it is certain he has not yet polluted the Protestantism of our soil.

7. Exactly in the same manner, the story of the wooden gods seized at Charing Cross, by an order from the Foreign Office, turns out to be without the shadow of a foundation; instead of the angels and archangels, mentioned by the informer, nothing was discovered but a wooden image of Lord Mulgrave, going down to Chatham as a head-piece for the Spanker gun-vessel; it was an exact resemblance of his lordship in his military uniform, and, therefore, as little like a god as can well be imagined. Having set your fears at rest as to the extent of the conspiracy formed against the Protestant religion, I will now come to the argument itself.

8. You say these men interpret the Scriptures in an orthodox manner; and that they eat their God. Very likely. All this may seem very important to you, who live fourteen miles from a market town and, from long residence upon your liv ing, are become a kind of holy vegetable; and, in a theological sense, it is highly important.

9. But I want soldiers and sailors for the State; I want to make a greater use than I now can do of a poor country full of men; I want to render the military service popular among the Irish; to check the power of France; to make every possible exertion for the safety of Europe, which, in twenty years' time, will be nothing but a mass of French slaves; and then you, and ten thousand other such bodies as you, call out: "For God's sake, do not think of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland! . . . . They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a

different manner from what we do!.... They eat a bit of wafer every Sunday, which they call their God !"

10. I wish to my soul they would eat you, and such reasoners as you are. What! when Turk, Jew, heretic, infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this country; when men of every religious persuasion, and no religious persuasion; when the population of half the globe is up in arms against us, are we to stand examining our generals and armies as a bishop examines a candidate for holy orders? and to suffer no one to bleed for England who does not agree with you about the 2d of Timothy?

11. You talk about the Catholics! If you and your brotherhood have been able to persuade the country into a continuation of this grossest of all absurdities, you have ten times the power which the Catholic clergy ever had in their best days. Louis XIV., when he revoked the Edict of Nantes, never thought of preventing the Protestant from fighting his battles, and gained, accordingly, some of his most splendid victories by the talents of his Protestant generals.

12. No power in Europe, but yourselves, has ever thought, for these hundred years past, of asking whether a bayonet is Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Lutheran; but whether it is sharp and well-tempered. A bigot delights in public ridicule, for he begins to think he is a martyr. I can promise you the full enjoyment of this pleasure, from one extremity of Europe to the other.

SYDNEY SMITH,

63. THE REFORM BILL.

[The writings of the late Rev. Sydney Smith, an Episcopal clergyman of England, are characterized by brilliant wit and rich humor, that were always under the control of a warm and good heart. The following is an extract from a speech delivered in consequence of the rejection by the House of Lords of a reform bill which had been passed by the House of Commons:]

I

HAVE spoken so often on this subject, that I am sure both you and the gentlemen here present will be obliged

to me for saying but little, and that favor I am as willing to confer as you can be to receive it. I feel most deeply the event which has taken place, because, by putting the two Houses of Parliament in collision with each other, it will impede the public business and diminish the public prosperity.

2. I feel it as a churchman, because I cannot but blush to see so many dignitaries of the Church arrayed against the wishes and happiness of the people. I feel it, more than all, because I believe it will sow the seeds of deadly hatred between the aristocracy and the great mass of the people.

3. The loss of the bill I do not feel, and for the best of all possible reasons-because I have not the slightest idea that it is lost. I have no more doubt, before the expiration of the winter, that this bill will pass, than I have that the annual tax bills will pass; and greater certainty than this no man can have, for Franklin tells us there are but two things certain in this world-death and taxes.

4. As for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing, ere long, a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd notion that ever entered into human imagination. I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion.

5. In the winter of 1824 there set in a great flood upon that town-the tide rose to an incredible height-the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every thing was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house, with mop and feathers, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean.

6. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a