pit is false to its trust. I call on the fair merchant, who has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist in Scourging from those seas the worst pirates which ever infested them. That ocean, which seems to wave with 50 a gentle magnificence to waft the burdens of an honest commerce, and to roll along its treasures with a conscious pride, that ocean, which hardy industry regards, even when the winds have ruffled its surface, as a field of grateful toil; what is it to the victim of this oppres55 sion, when he is brought to its shores, and looks forth upon it, for the first time, from beneath chains, and bleeding with stripes? What is it to him, but a wide spread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death? Nor do the skies smile longer, nor is the air longer fragrant 60 to him. The sun is cast down from heaven. An inhuman and accursed traffic has cut him off in his manhood, or in his youth, from every enjoyment belonging to his being, and every blessing which his Creator intended for him. Webster.

59. Dream of Clarence.

O, I have passed a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christain faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night,
5 Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days:
So full of dismal terror was the time.

Methought, that I had broken from the Tower,
And was embarked to cross to Burgundy;

And, in my company, my brother Gloster, 10 Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches; thence we looked toward England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befallen us. As we pac'd along

15 Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought, that Gloster stumbled; and, in falling,
Struck me, that sought to stay him, overboard,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.

O, then methought, what pain it was to drown!

20 What dreadful noise of waters in my ears! What sights of ugly death within my eyes! Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks; A thousand men, that fishes gnawed upon; Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl, 25 Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels;

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men's sculls; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
30 That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
-Often did I strive

To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth
35 To find the empty, vast, and wandering air;
But smother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
My dream was lengthened after life;
O, then began the tempest to my soul!
40 I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger-soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;
45 Who cried aloud- "What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?"
And so he vanished. Then came wandering by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair

Dabbled in blood! and he shrieked out aloud-
50" Clarence is come-false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
-That stabbed me in the field by Tewksbury;-
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!"-
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, and howled in mine ears

55 Such hideous cries, that with the very noise,
I trembling waked; and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell;
Such terrible impression made my dream.

Shakspeare.

With virtue? which of nature's regions vast
Can in so many forms produce to sight
Such powerful beauty? beauty which the eye
5 Of hatred cannot look upon secure :

Which envy's self contemplates, and is turned
Ere long to tenderness, to infant smiles,
Or tears of humblest love. Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
10 The summer's noontide groves, the purple eve
At harvest home, or in the frosty morn

Glittering on some smooth sea, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship as the honoured roof
Whither from highest heaven immortal love
15 His torch etherial and his golden bow
Propitious brings, and there a temple holds
To whose unspotted service gladly vowed
The social band of parent, brother, child,
With smiles and sweet discourse and gentle deeds
20 Adore his power? What gift of richest clime
E'er drew such eager eyes, or prompted such
Deep wishes, as the zeal that snatches back
From slander's poisonous tooth a foe's renown;
Or crosseth danger in his lion walk,

25 A rival's life to rescue? as the young

Athenian warrior sitting down in bonds, That his great father's body might not want A peaceful, humble tomb? the Roman wife Teaching her lord how harmless was the wound 30 Of death, how impotent the tyrant's rage, Who nothing more could threaten to afflict Their faithful love? Or is there in the abyss, Is there, among the adamantine spheres Wheeling unshaken through the boundless void, 35 Aught that with half such majesty can fill The human bosom, as when Brutus rose Refulgent, from the stroke of Cæsar's fate Amid the crowd of patriots; and, his arm

Aloft extending, like eternal Jove

When guilt brings down the thunder, called aloud
40 On Tully's name, and shook the crimson sword
Of justice in his wrapt astonished eye,
And bade the father of his country hail,
For lo the tyrant prostrate on the dust-
And Rome again is free?-

61. Character of Brutus.

Akenside.

Ask any one man of morals, whether he approves of assassination; he will answer, No. Would you kill your friend and benefactor? No. The question is a horrible, insult. Would you practise hypocrisy and 5 smile in his face, while your conspiracy is ripening, to gain his confidence and to lull him into security, in order to take away his life? Every honest man, on the bare suggestion, feels his blood thicken and stagnate at his heart. Yet in this picture we see Brutus. It would 10 perhaps, be scarcely just to hold him up to abhorrence; it is, certainly, monstrous and absurd to exhibit his conduct to admiration.

He did not strike the tyrant from hatred or ambition; his motives were admitted to be good; but was not the 15 action nevertheless, bad?

To kill a tyrant, is as much murder, as to kill any other man. Besides, Brutus, to extenuate the crime, could have had no rational hope of putting an end to the tyranny; he had foreseen and provided nothing to 20 realize it. The conspirators relied, foolishly enough, on the love of the multitude for liberty-they loved their safety, their ease, their sports, and their demagogue favourites a great deal better. They quitely looked on, as spectators, and left it to the legions of Antony, and 25 Octavius, and those of Syria, Macedonia, and Greece, to decide, in the field of Philippi, whether there should be a republic or not. It was accordingly, decided in favour of an emperor; and the people sincerely rejoiced in the political calm, that restored the games of the cir30 cus, and the plenty of bread.

Those, who cannot bring their judgments to condemn the killing of a tyrant, must nevertheless agree that the blood of Cæsar was unprofitably shed. Liberty gained nothing by it, and humanity lost much; for it cost eigh35 teen years of agitation and civil war, before the ambition of the military and popular chieftains had expended its means, and the power was concentrated in one

man's hands.

r

Shall we be told, the example of Brutus is a good one, 40 because it will never cease to animate the race of tyrant-killers-But will the fancied usefulness of assassination overcome our instinctive sense of its horror? Is it to become a part of our political morals, that the chief of a state is to be stabbed or poisoned, whenever a fan45 atick, a malecontent, or a reformer shall rise up and call him a tyrant? Then there would be as little calm in despotism as in liberty.

But when has it happened, that the death of an usurper has restored to the public liberty its departed life? 50 Every successful usurpation creates many competitors for power, and they successively fall in the struggle. In all this agitation, liberty is without friends, without resources, and without hope. Blood enough, and the blood of tyrants too, was shed between the time of the 55 wars of Marius and death of Antony, a period of about sixty years, to turn a common grist-mill; yet the cause of the public liberty continually grew more and more desperate. It is not by destroying tyrants, that we are to extinguish tyranny; nature is not thus to be exhaust60 ed of her power to produce them. The soil of a republic sprouts with the rankest fertility; it has been sown with dragon's teeth. To lessen the hopes of usurping demagogues, we must enlighten, animate and combine the spirit of freemen; we must fortify and guard the 65 constitutional ramparts about liberty. When its friends become insolent or disheartened, it is no longer of any importance how long-lived are its enemies: they will prove immortal.

Ames.