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Magnanimity.

"Ingenium res

Adversæ nudare solent, celare secundæ."-HORACE.

"The vision of the hangman frights not me:
The sight of whips, racks, gibbets, axes, fires,
Are scaffoldings whereon my soul climbs up
To an eternal habitation."
Virgin Martyr.

THERE is no depth of Fortune where the mind
Of the Magnanimous is not sustained
By its own virtue-See Columbus chain'd
By Bobadilla!" Ye shall not unbind,”
He cried to those who would have unconfin'd
His wrists, so much the oppressor he disdain'd,
"These manacles, until it be ordain'd

"By the Queen's word, though to my bones they grind.

"Then, while I live, shall they before me lie,

"To show what debt of gratitude and gain

"Was earn'd by him, who Ocean freed,* and gave "A World unto the Sovereigns of Spain, "Castille and Arragon; and when I die,

"Let my son lay them by me in my grave."

* See Columbus' letter to Isabella, from Veragua, wherein he records his vision, in which the voice says to him, "Of the gates of the ocean sea shut up with such mighty chains he delivered thee the keys."

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"Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero."-HORACE.

"Stone walls do not a prison make

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free,

Angels alone that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty."-LOVELACE.

ENJOY the hour; nor heed to-morrow's ill;
Sufficient is the evil for the day.

In the Lord's hand we are the potter's clay,
And He will shape our changes to His will.
But chance what may, I can find comfort still.
Be the road rough, no thieves beset the way,
Or they left liberty, and did not slay.

Plunge me in dungeons, Hope the gloom shall fill

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Sleep soothe my nights: Thought, free as air, shall fly
Where'er she list; and Memory unroll

The painted past: bind to the torturer's stake
These limbs, mine innocence he cannot shake;
Bid me condemn'd by unjust sentence die,
Tyrants may kill the hody, not the soul.

Lecture.

Οὐκ ἔστι θνητῶν ὅστις ἔστ ̓ ἐλεύθερος :
ή χρημάτων γὰρ δοῦλος ἔστιν ἡ τυχῆς :
ἢ πλήθος αὔτον πόλεος, ή νομῶν γράφαι
εἴργουσι χρήσθαι μὴ κατὰ γνώμην τροποῖς.

Hecuba.

Not if Athene's self should stoop to teach,
Would Youth, constrained, attend with willing ear—
Oh! freedom from control, dream ever near,

Ever beyond, and just beyond our reach!

The school-boy forward looks, while tutors preach,
To college for his liberty from school;

There finds as stern, although a different rule.
Thence to the world at large we turn, till each
By custom grown familiar to restraint,
Brooks usages, forms, laws, without complaint.
Pursue the thought, and is not each the slave,
Through life, of tyrant passions; be the reign
Of Love, Ambition, or the Lust-of-gain;
And liberty is reach'd but with the grave?

On Profane History.

"Clashing of swords! brother opposed to brother!"

BEAUMONT and FLETCHER.

"Themselves the conquerors

Make war upon themselves: brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self 'gainst self. O! preposterous

And frantic courage."-Richard the Third, Act ii. Scene 4.

PERUSE Man's story down from Pyrrha's flood;
How foul a volume shall thine hand unroll-
Surely some Cain-like finger on the scroll
Traced out this long, this sick'ning tale of blood;
Battle the theme; warriors the only good;
Brother 'gainst brother; soul in arms with soul;
Passions of Nations bursting from control;
Murder their task; a glut of crime their food:
Short pause of peace, to rally for fresh war;
Each evil deed gloss'd with some specious name,
"Liberty"—"Love of Country"—" Courage”-
"Fame!

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And rare doth timid Virtue dare to pour

Her lustre o'er the page; faint as the light

Of some lone star struggling through stormy night.

On Profane History.

(Continued.)

"Some write a narrative of wars and feats
Of heroes little known, and call the rant
An history."-COWPER.

"The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with them."-SHAKSPEARE.

AND is the story fairly told and read?
Though fiercer eloquence may chain the throng,
Do not the tale of love, the tide of song,

Gush o'er Earth's vales, as from a fountain-head?
Though many a hand its fellow's blood hath shed,
Myriads have still been stainless; only strong
In Friendship's grasp, not the red cause of Wrong;
The dance more known than marches' measured
tread.

Like to a hasty traveller, History

Views but the Vast; her glance is on the peaks

Of mountains, and their headlong torrents foam :
She pauseth not; with beauty-loving eye

No flowers that mantle round their base she seeks:-
Her voice is of Man's country, not his home.

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