dead clouds when the sunlight left them last night, and the west wind blew them before it like withered leaves?

5. All has passed unregretted or unseen; or, if the apathy be ever shaken off, even for an instant, it is only by what is extraordinary. And yet, it is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, not in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind, that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. God is not always so eloquent in the earthquake, nor in the fire, as in "the still, small voice." They are but the blunt and the low faculties of our nature which can only be addressed through lamp-black and lightning.

6. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual, - that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood, — things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally, which are never wanting and never repeated, which are to be found always yet each found but once, it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given.

RUSKIN

1. WALK with the Beautiful and with the Grand,
Let nothing on the earth thy feet deter;
Sorrow may lead thee weeping by the hand,
But give not all thy bosom thoughts to her;
Walk with the Beautiful.

2. I hear thee say, "The Beautiful! what is it?"
O, thou art darkly ignorant! Be sure

"T is no long weary road its form to visit,
For thou canst make it smile beside thy door;
Then love the Beautiful.

3. Ay, love it; 't is a sister that will bless,

And teach thee patience when the heart is lonely;
The angels love it, for they wear its dress,

And thou art made a little lower only;

Then love the Beautiful.

4. Some boast its presence in a Grecian face;
Some, in a favorite warbler of the skies;

But be not fooled! whate'er thine eye may trace,
Seeking the Beautiful, it will arise;

Then seek it everywhere.

5. Thy bosom is its mint; the workmen are

Thy thoughts, and they must coin for thee: believing
The Beautiful exists in every star,

Thou mak'st it so; and art thyself deceiving,
If otherwise thy faith.

6. Dost thou see Beauty in the violet's cup?-
I'll teach thee miracles! Walk on this heath,
And say to the neglected flower, "Look up,
And be thou Beautiful!"-if thou hast faith,
It will obey thy word

7. One thing I warn thee: bow no knee to gold,
Less innocent it makes the guileless tongue :
It turns the feelings prematurely old:
And they who keep their best affections young
Best love the Beautiful!

1. CLEAR the brown path to meet his coulter's gleam!
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team,

With Toil's bright dew-drops on his sun-burnt brow,
The lord of earth, the hero of the plough!
First in the field before the reddening sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is done,
Line after line, along the bursting sod,

Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod.

2. Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide;
The smooth, fresh furrow opens, deep and wide;
Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves;
Mellow and dark the ridgy corn-field cleaves ;E
Up the steep hill-side, where the laboring train
Slants the long track that scores the level plain,
Through the moist valley, clogged with oozing clay,
The patient convoy breaks its destined way;
At every turn the loosening chains resound,
The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round,
Till the wide field one billowy waste appears,
And wearied hands unbind the panting steers.

3. These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings
The peasant's food, the golden pomp of kings;
This is the page whose letters shall be seen
Changed by the sun to words of living green;
This is the scholar whose immortal pen
Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men;

These are the lines, O, heaven-commanded Toil,
That fill thy deed — the charter of the soi.!

4. O, gracious mother, whose benignant breast
Wakes us to life, and lulls us all to rest,
How sweet thy features, kind to every clime,
Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of Time.
We stain thy flowers, they blossom o'er the dead;
We rend thy bosom, and it gives us bread;
O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn
Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn;
Our maddening conflicts scar thy fairest plain,-
Still thy soft answer is the growing grain.

HOLMES.

CXXV. - ELOQUENCE OF STATESMEN.

1. DEGENERACY OF ATHENS.- Demosthenes.

Sucп, О, men of Athens! were your ancestors: so glorious in the eye of the world; so bountiful and munificent to their country; so sparing, so modest, so self-denying, to themselves. What resemblance can we find, in the present generation, to these great men? At a time when your ancient competitors have left you a clear stage, when the Lacedemonians are disabled, the Thebans employed in troubles of their own, when no other state whatever is in a condition to rival or molest you, in short, when you are at full liberty, when you have the opportunity and the power to become once more the sole arbiters of Greece,― you permit, patiently, whole provinces to be wrested from you; you lavish the public money in scandalous and obscure uses; you suffer your allies to perish in time of peace, whom you preserved in time of war; and, to sum up all, you, yourselves, by your mercenary court, and servile resignation to the will and pleasure of designing, insidious leaders, abet, encourage, and strengthen, the most dangerous and formidable of your enemies. Yes, Athenians, I repeat it, you yourselves are the contrivers of your own ruin.

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Lives there a man who has confidence enough to deny it? Let him arise and assign, if he can, any other cause of the success and prosperity of Philip. But," you reply, "what Athens may have lost in reputation abroad she has gained in splendor at home. Was there ever a greater appearance of prosperity and plenty? Is not the city enlarged? Are not the streets better paved, houses repaired and beautified?" Away with such trifles! Shall I be paid with counters? An old square new

vamped up! a fountain! an aqueduct !-Are these acquisitions to boast of? Cast your eyes upon the magistrate under whose ministry you boast these precious improvements. Behold the despicable creature, raised all at once from dirt to opulence, from the lowest obscurity to the highest honors. Have not some of these upstarts built private houses and seats vying with the most sumptuous of our public palaces? And how have their fortunes and their power increased, but as the Commonwealth has been ruined and impoverished?

2. THE VALUE OF LITERATURE. - Cicero.

Had I not, by deeply pondering the precepts of philosophy, and the lessons of the historian and the poet, imbued my mind with an early and intimate conviction that nothing in life is worthy of strenuous pursuit but honor and renown, and that, for the attainment of these, the extremes of bodily torture, and all the terrors of exile and of death, ought to be regarded as trifles, never should I have engaged in such a series of deadly conflicts for your safety, nor have exposed myself to these daily machinations of the most profligate of mankind. But the literature, the wisdom, the consentaneous voice of antiquity, all teem with glorious examples examples which would have been forever buried in oblivion, but for the redeeming light of letters. How many instances of heroic daring and devotedness are pictured on the Greek and Roman page, not for our study only, but for our imitation! With these illustrious models" incessantly before my eyes, I have labored to form my mind and character by intense meditation on their excellence.

3. ON TAXING THE AMERICAN COLONIES, 1775.- Lord Chatham. What foundation have we for our claims over America? What is our right to persist in such cruel and vindictive measures against that loyal, respectable people? They say you have no right to tax them without their consent. They say truly. Representation and taxation must go together. Repeal, therefore, my lords. But bare repeal will not be enough. What! repeal a bit of paper! repeal a piece of parchment! That alone will not do, my lords. You must go through the work; you must declare you have no right to tax the colonists; you must repeal their fears and resentments;- then they may trust you; then you may hope for their love and gratitude. All attempts to impose servitude upon such men, to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we

can, not when we must. Avoid the humiliating, the disgracefu. necessity. Make the first advances towards peace.

There is no time to be lost. Every moment is big with dan gers. While I am speaking the decisive blow may be struck, and millions involved in the consequence. The very first drop will make a wound which years, perhaps ages, may not heal. I would not encourage America to proceed beyond the right line. I reprobate all acts of violence. But, when her inherent constitutional rights are invaded, then I own myself an American, and, feeling myself such, I shall, to the verge of my life, vindicate those rights against all men who would trample on or deny them.

The majesty of Justice, in the eyes of Mr. Hastings, is an object "not to be approached without solicitation; an object to be propitiated with offerings and worshipped with sacrifices. But Justice is not this halt and miserable object. It is not an Indian pagod. It is not the portentous phantom of despair. It is not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse of reason. and found in some unhallowed grove of superstitious darkness and political dismay. No, my lords; in the happy reverse of all these, I turn from the disgusting caricatures to the real image! Justice I have now before me, august' and pure, the abstract idea of all that would be perfect in the spirit and aspirings of men; where the mind rises, where the heart expands; where the countenance is ever placid and benign; where her favorite attitude is to stoop to the unfortunate, to hear their cry and to help them, to succor and to save, to rescue and relieve; majestic from its mercy, venerable from its utility, uplifted without pride, firm without obduracy, beneficent in each preference, lovely though in her frown. On that justice I rely.

5. IMPEACHMENT OF HASTINGS. - Burke.

I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him, in the name of the Commons of Great Britain, in parliament assembled, whose parliamentary trust he has betrayed. I impeach him, in the name of all the Commons of Great Britain, whose national character he has dishonored. I impeach him, in the name of the people of India, whose laws, rights, and liberties, he has subverted; whose properties he has destroyed, whose country he has laid waste and desolate. I impeach him, in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of justice which he has violated. I impeach him, in the name of human nature itself, which he has cruelly out.