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Would you thus frustrate all my pains to save you?
Judge you so poorly of me as to think

I nurse a brute revenge that blood of yours

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Mac. No! Be a man, - and live! Look up, Lamont!

Hark!

I hear angry

voices. Your pursuers

In thicker numbers crowd.

They will be here

In half a minute. Come! This way lies safety.
They little know the secrets of my hold.

We'll foil them. Do not doubt it. You shall hide

Here in my house till I can guide you safely

To Inverary to your friends. Delay not.
Will you bring added woe upon my head?
Moments are precious. Come!

Lam. One word from you,

And only one, shall from this spot uproot me,
And that word is forgiveness!

Mac. I forgive you.

As I would be forgiven, I forgive you.

Lam. (Gives him his hand.)

Lead on, then, my preserver!

O, let my future tell how much you lift
From this despairing heart in that one word,-
You do forgive me!

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Now guide me and bestow me as you will!
Henceforth, above all prayers, shall rise this prayer,*
That I may live to comfort and requite you!

* The prayer was signally fulfilled. It happened that in the year 1633 there was an unjust act passed by the government, under which Macgregor lost his property and was hunted for his life. And now Lamont had the opportunity for which he had longed. Macgregor took shelter in his house. Lamont received him with tears of welcome, provided liberally for him and his family, and thanked Heaven for the gracious opportunity.

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A questor in ancient Rome was a receiver of taxes. A pre'tor was a sort of judge. Vēr'rēs, against whom Cicero here utters his eloquent indignation, was questor over Sicily, B. C. 82. He was so rapacious that no class of citizens were exempt from his extortions. He accumulated an immense fortune, but was finally brought to trial, and Cicero conducted the prosecution. Verres, seeing that the case was going against him, escaped to Marseilles.

See in Index, OFFENSE or OFFENCE, CICERO. The members of the Senate of ancient Rome were called Patres Conscripti, or Conscript Fathers.

1. AN opinion has long prevailed, Fathers, that, in public prosecutions, men of wealth, however clearly convicted, are always safe. This opinion, so injurious to your order, so detrimental to the state, it is now in your power to refute. A man is on trial before you who is rich, and who hopes his riches will secure his acquittal; but whose life and actions are his sufficient condemnation in the eyes of all candid men. I speak of Ca'ius Verres, who, if he now receives not the sentence his crimes deserve, it shall not be through lack of a criminal, nor of a prosecutor; but through the failure of the ministers of justice to do their duty.

2. Passing over the shameful irregularities of his youth, what does the questorship of Verres exhibit but one continued scene of villainies? The public treasure squandered, a Consul stripped and betrayed, an army deserted and reduced to want, a province robbed, the civil and religious rights of a people trampled on! But his pretorship in Sicily has crowned his career of wickedness, and completed the lasting monument of his infamy. His decisions have violated all law, all prècedent, all right.

3. His extortions from the industrious poor have been beyond computation. Our most faithful allies' have been treated as enemies. Roman citizens have,

like slaves, been put to death with tortures. Men the most worthy have been condemned and banished without a hearing, while the most atrocious criminals have, with money, purchased exemption from the punishment due to their guilt.

4. I ask now, Verres, what have you to advance against these charges? Art thou not the tyrant prētor, who, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, dared to put to an infamous death, on the cross, that ill-fated and innocent citizen, Publius Ga'vius Cosa'nus? And what was his offense? He had declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against your brutal persecutions! For this, when about to embark for home, he was seized, brought before you, charged with being a spy, scourged and tortured.

5. In vain did he exclaim: "I am a Roman citizen! I have served under Lucius Pre'tius, who is now at Panor'mus, and who will attest my innocence!" Deaf to all remonstrance, remorseless, thirsting for innocent blood, you ordered the savage punishment to be inflicted! While the sacred words, "I am a Roman citizen," were on his lips, words which, in the remotest regions, are a passport to protection, — you ordered him to death, to a death upon the cross!

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6. O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred, now trampled on! Is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his whole power from the Roman People, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture, and put to an infamous death, a Roman citizen?

7. Shall neither the cries of innocence, expiring in agony, the tears of pitying spectators, the majesty of the Roman com'monwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the merciless monster, who, in the confidence of his riches, strikes at the very root

of liberty, and sets mankind at defiance? And shall this man escape? Fathers, it must not be! It must not be, unless you would undermine the very foundations of social safety, strangle justice, and call down anarchy, massacre, and ruin, on the commonwealth!

CXXXII. THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

TENNYSON.

The incident here commemorated in enduring verse took place during the Crimean war, at the battle of Balaklava, October 25, 1854. A brigade of light-horse, under Captain Nolan, attached to the English army, charged on a Russian battery, and returned from the attack with only 150 men left out of 630. The charge was said to have been ordered under a mistake; but this has been disputed. That it was a desperate affair, the result proved. Heed the imitative measure of the first two lines. It is suggestive of the regular gallop of cavalry.

See in Index, HUNDRED, SABRE or SABER, TENNYSON.

I.

HALF a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

II.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldiers knew

Some one had blundered!
Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

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