victories, and to be celebrated throughout all the communes of the republic. Now your fathers, your mothers, your wives, and your sisters, will rejoice in your success, and take pride in their relation to you.

Yes, soldiers, you have done much; but more still remains for you to do. Shall it be said of us, that we know how to conquer, but not to profit by our victories? Shall posterity reproach us with having found a Capua in Lombardy? But already I see you fly to arms. You are fatigued with an inactive repose. You lament the days that are lost to your glory! Well, then, let us proceed; we have other forced marches to make, other enemies to subdue; more laurels to acquire, and more injuries to avenge.

Let those who have unsheathed the daggers of civil war in France; who have basely assassinated our ministers; who have burnt our ships at Toulon; let them tremble; the knell of vengeance has already tolled!

But to quiet the apprehensions of the people, we declare ourselves the friends of all, and particularly of those who are the descendants of Brutus, of Scipio, and those other great men whom we have taken for our models.

To re-establish the capital; to replace the statues of those heroes who have rendered it immortal; to rouse the Roman people entranced in so many ages of slavery; this shall be the fruit of your victories. It will be an epoch for the admiration of posterity; you will enjoy the immortal glory of changing the aspect of affairs in the finest part of Europe. The free people of France, not regardless of moderation, shall accord to Europe a glorious peace; but it will indemnify itself for the sacrifices of every kind which it has been making for six years past. You will again be restored to your firesides and homes; and your fellow-citizens, pointing you out, shall say, "There goes one who belonged to the army of Italy!"

30. THE SCRIPTURES AND THE SAVIOR.-Rousseau.

The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment, and the sanctity of the gospel addresses itself to my heart. Look at the volumes of the philosophers, with all their pomp: how contemptible do they appear in comparison to this! Is it possible, that a book at once so simple and sublime, can be the work of man? Can he who is the subject of its history, be

himself a mere man?
of an ambitious sectary?
his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his instruc-
tions! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom
in his discourses! What presence of mind, what sagacity and
propriety in his answers! How great the command over his
passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who
could so live, suffer, and die, without weakness and without
ostentation! When Plato described his imaginary good man,
covered with all the disgrace of crime, yet worthy of all the
rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus
Christ. The resemblance was so striking, it could not be mis-
taken, and all the fathers of the church perceived it. What pre-
possession, what blindness must it be to compare the son of
Sophronius, to the son of Mary! What an immeasurable dis-
tance between them! Socrates, dying without pain, and without
ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his
death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have
been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any
thing more than a mere sophist. He invented, it is said, the
theory of moral science. Others, however, had before him put
it in practice; and he had nothing to do but to tell what they
had done, and to reduce their examples to precept. Aristides
had been just, before Socrates defined what justice was; Le-
onidas had died for his country, before Socrates made it a duty
to love one's country. Sparta had been temperate before Soc-
rates eulogized sobriety: and before he celebrated the praises
of virtue, Greece had abounded in virtuous men. But from
whom of all his countrymen, could Jesus have derived that
sublime and pure morality, of which he only has given us both
the precepts and example? In the midst of the most licentious
fanaticism, the voice of the sublimest wisdom was heard; and
the simplicity of the most heroic virtue crowned one of the
humblest of all the multitude.

Was his the tone of an enthusiast, or
What sweetness! What purity in

The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophising with his friends, is the most pleasant that could be desired! That of Jesus, expiring in torments, outraged, reviled, and execrated by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner who presented it; but Jesus in the midst of excruciating torture, prayed for his merciless tormentors. Yes! if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. Shall we say that the evangelical history is a mere fiction-it does not bear the stamp of fiction, but the contrary. The history of Socrates,

which nobody doubts, is not as well attested as that of Jesus Christ. Such an assertion in fact only shifts the difficulty, without removing it. It is more inconceivable that a number of persons should have agreed to fabricate this book, than that one only should have furnished the subject of it.

The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality, contained in the gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing man than the hero.

31.

POLITICAL CUPIDITY REPROVED.- -Sheridan.

In such an hour as this, at a moment pregnant with the national fate, can it be, that people of high rank, and professing high principles, that they or their families should seek to thrive on the spoils of misery, and fatten on the meals wrested from industrious poverty? Can it be, that this should be the case with the very persons who state the unprecedented peril of the country as the sole cause of their being found in the ministerial ranks?

The constitution is in danger, religion is in danger, the very existence of the nation itself is endangered; all personal and party considerations ought to vanish; the war must be supported by every possible exertion, and by every possible sacrifice; the people must not murmur at their burdens; it is for their salvation; their all is at stake. The time is come when all honest and disinterested men should rally round the throne as a standard:-for what, ye honest and disinterested men? to receive for your own private emolument a portion of those very taxes which you yourselves wring from the people, on the pretence of saving them from the poverty and distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care that no enemy shall be able to aggravate.

Oh! shame! shame! is this a time for selfish intrigues, and the little dirty traffick for lucre and emolument? Does it suit the honor of a gentleman to ask at such a moment? Does it become the honesty of a minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Or, even where there is no principle in the bosom, why does not prudence hint to the mercenary and the vain, to abstain awhile at least, and wait the fitting of the times?

Improvident impatience! Nay, even from those who seem to have no direct object of office or profit, what is the language which their actions speak?

The throne is in danger! we will support the throne; but let us share the smiles of royalty—the order of nobility is in danger! I will fight for nobility, says the viscount, but my zeal would be much greater if I were made an earl. Rouse all the marquis within me! exclaims the earl, and the peerage never turned forth a more undaunted champion in its cause than I shall prove. Stain my green riband blue, cries out the illustrious knight, and the fountain of honor will have a fast and faithful

servant!

What are the people to think of our sincerity? What credit are they to give to our professions? Is this a system to be persevered in? Is there nothing that whispers to that right honorable gentleman, that the crisis is too big, that the times are too gigantic, to be ruled by the little hackneyed and every-day means of ordinary corruption!-or are we to believe, that he has within himself a conscious feeling, that disqualifies him from rebuking the ill-timed selfishness of his new allies?

32. ON THE COMPETENCY OF PARLIAMENT TO PASS THE

MEASURE OF UNION.-Plunket.

Sir,-I, in the most express terms, deny the competency of parliament to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hand on the constitution-I tell you that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this act, it will be a nullity, and that no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately I repeat it, and I call on any man who hears me, to take down my words;-you have not been elected for this purpose you are appointed to make laws and not legislatures -you are appointed to act under the constitution, not to alter it-you are appointed to exercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer them-and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the government-you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land is bound to obey you.

Yourselves you may extinguish, but parliament you cannot extinguish—it is enthroned in the hearts of the people—it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution-it is immortal as the island which it protects-as well might the frantic suicide hope that the act which destroys his miserable body should

extinguish his eternal soul. Again, I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution; it is above your power. Sir, I do not say that the parliament and the people, by mutual consent and co-operation, may not change the form of the constitution.

But thank God, the people have manifested no such wisho far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been uttered in its favor, and you cannot be infatuated enough to take confidence from the silence which prevails in some parts of the kingdom; if you know how to appreciate that silence it is more formidable than the most clamorous opposition—you may be rived and shivered by the lightning before you hear the peal of the thunder! But, sir, we are told we should discuss this question with calmness and composure. I am called on to surrender my birthright and my honor, and I am told I should be calm, composed.

National pride! Independence of our country! These, we are told by the minister, are only vulgar topics fitted for the meridian of the mob, but unworthy to be mentioned in such an enlightened assembly as this; they are trinkets and gewgaws fit to catch the fancy of childish and unthinking people like you, sir, or like your predecessor in that chair, but utterly unworthy of the consideration of this house, or of the matured understanding of the noble lord who condescends to instruct it! Gracious God! we see a Perry re-ascending from the tomb and raising his awful voice to warn us against the surrender of our freedom, and we see that the proud and virtuous feelings which warmed the breast of that aged and venerable man, are only calculated to excite the contempt of this young philosopher, who has been transplanted from the nursery to the cabinet, to outrage the feelings and understanding of the country.

33. THE PHILOSOPHY OF HATRED.-Canning.

My honorable friend has expended abundant research and subtility upon this inquiry, and having resolved the phrase into its elements, in the crucible of his philosophical mind, has produced it to us purified and refined, to a degree that must command the admiration of all who take delight in metaphysical alchemy. My honorable and learned friend began by telling us, that, after all, hatred is no bad thing in itself. "I hate a