him into a frenzy. What most of all disordered him was want of sleep, for he seldom had more than three or four hours' rest in a night; and even then his sleep was not sound, but disturbed by strange dreams; fancying, among other things, that a form representing the ocean spoke to him. Being therefore often weary with lying awake so long, sometimes he sat up in his bed, at others walked in the longest porticos about the house, and from time to time invoked and looked out for the approach of day.

To this crazy constitution of his mind may, I think, very justly be ascribed two faults which he had, of a nature directly repugnant one to the other, namely, an excessive confidence and the most abject timidity. For he, who affected so much to despise the gods, was ready to shut his eyes and wrap up his head in his cloak at the slightest storm of thunder and lightning; and if it was violent, he got up and hid himself under his bed. In his visit to Sicily, after ridiculing many strange objects which that country affords, he ran away suddenly in the night from Messina, terrified by the smoke and rumbling at the summit of Mount Etna. And though in words he was very valiant against the barbarians, yet upon passing a narrow defile in Germany in his light car, surrounded by a strong body of his troops, some one happening to say, "There would be no small consternation amongst us if an enemy were to appear," he immediately mounted his horse, and rode towards the bridges in great haste; but finding them blocked up with camp-followers and baggage-wagons, he was in such a hurry that he caused himself to be carried in men's hands over the heads of the crowd. Soon afterwards, upon hearing that the Germans were again in rebellion, he prepared to quit Rome, and equipped a fleet, comforting himself with this consideration, that if the enemy should prove victorious, and possess themselves of the heights of the Alps, as the Cimbri had done, or of the city, as the Senones formerly did, he should still have in reserve the transmarine provinces. Hence it was, I suppose, that it occurred to his assassins to invent the story intended to pacify the troops who mutinied at his death, that he had laid violent hands upon himself, in a fit of terror, occasioned by the news brought him of the defeat of his army.

CHARLES SUMNER

CHARLES SUMNER. Born in Boston, January 6, 1811; died in Washing. ton, March 11, 1874. United States Senator from Massachusetts, and one

of the leading opponents of slavery.

Author of "Orations and Speeches"; "Works" in twelve volumes.

PERORATION OF THE ORATION ON THE "TRUE GRANDEUR OF NATIONS"

(Delivered in Boston, July 4, 1845)

THAT Future which filled the lofty visions of the sages and bards of Greece and Rome, which was foretold by the prophets and heralded by the Evangelists when man in Happy Isles or in a new Paradise shall confess the loveliness of Peace, may be secured by your care, if not for yourselves, at least for your children. Believe that you can do it, and you can do it. The true golden age is before you, not behind you. If man has been driven once from Paradise, while an angel with a flaming sword forbade his return, there is another Paradise, even on earth, which he may form for himself by the cultivation of the kindly virtues of life, where the confusion of tongues shall be dissolved in the union of hearts, where there shall be a perpetual jocund spring and sweet strains borne on "the odoriferous wings of gentle gales," more pleasant than the vale of Tempe, richer than the garden of the Hesperides, with no dragon to guard its golden fruit.

Let it not be said that the age does not demand this work. The mighty conquerors of the Past, from their fiery sepulchers, demand it; the blood of millions unjustly shed in war crying from the ground demands it; the voices of all good men demand it; the conscience even of the soldier whispers, "Peace." There are considerations, springing from our situation and condition, which fervently invite us to take the lead in this great work. To this should bend the patriotic ardor of the land, the ambition of the statesman, the efforts of the scholar, the pervasive influence of the press, the mild persuasion of the sanctuary, the early teachings of the school. Here, in ampler ether and

diviner air, are untried fields for exalted triumphs, more truly worthy the American name, than any snatched from rivers of blood. War is known as the Last Reason of Kings. Let it be no reason of our Republic. Let us renounce and throw off forever the yoke of a tyranny more oppressive than any in the annals of the world. As those standing on the mountain-tops first discern the coming beams of morning, let us, from the vantage-ground of liberal institutions, first recognize the ascending sun of a new era! Lift high the gates, and let the King of Glory in the King of true Glory of Peace. I catch the last words of music from the lips of innocence and beauty:

"And let the whole earth be filled with His glory!"

It is a beautiful picture in Grecian story, that there was at least one spot, the small Island of Delos, dedicated to the Gods, and kept at all times sacred from war, where the citizens of hostile countries met and united in a common worship. So let us dedicate our beloved country! The Temple of Honor shall be surrounded by the Temple of Concord, so that the former can be entered only through the portals of the latter; the horn of Abundance shall overflow at its gates; the angel of Religion shall be the guide over its steps of flashing adamant: while within Justice, returned to the earth from her long exile in the skies, shall rear her serene and majestic front. And the future chiefs of the Republic, destined to uphold the glories of a new era, unspotted by human blood, shall be "the first in Peace, and the first in the hearts of their countrymen." But while we seek these blissful glories for ourselves, let us strive to extend them to other lands. Let the bugles sound the Truce of God to the world forever. Let the selfish boast of the Spartan women become the grand chorus of mankind, that they have never seen the smoke of an enemy's camp. Let the iron belt of martial music which now encompasses the earth, be exchanged for the golden cestus of Peace, clothing all with celestial beauty. History dwells with fondness on the reverent homage that was bestowed, by massacring soldiers, on the spot occupied by the Sepulcher of the Lord. Vain man! to restrain his regard to a few feet of sacred mold! The whole earth is the Sepulcher of the Lord; nor can any righteous man profane

any part thereof. Let us recognize this truth, and now, on this Sabbath of our country, lay a new stone in the grand Temple of Universal Peace, whose dome shall be as lofty as the firmament of Heaven, as broad and comprehensive as the earth itself.

(From the Phi Beta Kappa oration of 1846, entitled "The Scholar, the Jurist, the Artist, the Philanthropist")

CLASSICAL AND MODERN LITERATURE

THE classics possess a peculiar charm from the circumstance that they have been the models, I might almost say the masters, of composition and thought in all ages. In the contemplation of these august teachers of mankind, we are filled with conflicting emotions. They are the early voice of the world, better remembered and more cherished still than all the intermediate words that have been uttered, as the lessons of childhood still haunt us, when the impressions of later years have been effaced from the mind. But they show with most unwelcome frequency the tokens of the world's childhood, before passion had yielded to the sway of reason and the affections. They want the highest charm of purity, of righteousness, of elevated sentiments, of love to God and man. It is not in the frigid philosophy of the Porch and the Academy that we are to seek these; not in the marvelous teachings of Socrates, as they come mended by the mellifluous words of Plato; not in the resounding lines of Homer, on whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. No; these must not be our masters; in none of these are we to seek the way of life. For eighteen hundred years the spirit of these writers has been engaged in weaponless contest with the Sermon on the Mount, and those two sublime commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets. The strife is still pending. Heathenism, which has possessed itself of

such Siren forms, is not yet exorcised. It still tempts the young, controls the affairs of active life, and haunts the meditations of age.

Our own productions, though they may yield to those of the ancients in the arrangement of ideas, in method, in beauty of form, and in freshness of illustration, are immensely superior in the truth, delicacy, and elevation of their sentiments - above all, in the benign recognition of that great Christian revelation, the brotherhood of mankind. How vain are eloquence and poetry compared with this heaven-descended truth! Put in one scale that simple utterance, and in the other all the lore of Antiquity, with all its accumulating glosses and commentaries, and the last will be light and trivial in the balance. Greek poetry has been likened to the song of the nightingale as she sits in the rich, symmetrical crown of the palm tree, trilling her thick-warbled notes; but even this is less sweet and tender than the music of the human heart.

JONATHAN SWIFT

JONATHAN SWIFT. Born in Dublin, November 30, 1667; died there, October 19, 1745. Author of "Gulliver's Travels," "Tale of a Tub," "Battle of the Books," "A Meditation upon a Broomstick," "Argument to Prove the Inconvenience of Abolishing Christianity," "Journal to Stella," "A Modest Proposal," for serving up Irish children as articles of food.

Besides these matchless satires, the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral was a prolific writer upon ecclesiastical affairs and political topics.

In Swift, the element of the unexpected keeps his readers always on the alert; there are grotesque conceits, a vast variety of whimsicalities, of clever absurdities, calm audacities; and the caustic element is never lacking, with the airing of a keen cutting wit, as if there were a fascinating sword play.

As a master of English style, his works are of perennial interest to the student of literature. Nor is there any writer in the language whose personality is pictured by his own books more clearly than Swift.

A MEDITATION UPON A BROOMSTICK

THIS single stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected corner, I once knew in a flourishing state in