REPLY TO THE REFLECTIONS OF MR. WALFOLE.

SIR, the atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honorable gentleman has, with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies cease with their youth; and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.

Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining; but surely, age may become justly contemptible if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object of either abhorrence or contempt; and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred - who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country.

But youth, sir, is not my only crime. of acting a theatrical part.

I have been accused

A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture; or, dissimulation of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opinions and language of another man.

In the first sense the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language: and though I may, perhaps, have some ambition, yet to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction, or his mien; however matured by age, or modeled by experience. If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part I should have avoided their censure; the heat

FROM CICERO'S ORATION AGAINST VERRES.

I ASK now, Verres, what have you to advance against this charge? Will you pretend to deny it? Will you pretend that anything false, that even anything exaggerated is alleged against you? Had any prince, or any state, committed the same outrage against the privileges of Roman citizens, should we not think we had sufficient reason for declaring immediate war against them? What punishment, then, ought to be inflicted on a tyrannical and wicked prætor, who dared, at no greater distance than Sicily, within sight of the Italian coast, to put to the infamous death of crucifixion that unfortunate and innocent citizen, Publius Gavius Cosanus, only for his having asserted his privilege of citizenship, and declared his intention of appealing to the justice of his country against a cruel oppressor, who had unjustly confined him in prison at Syracuse, whence he had just made his escape? The unhappy man, arrested as he was going to embark for his native country, is brought before the wicked prætor. With eyes darting fury, and a countenance distorted with cruelty, he orders the helpless victim of his rage to be stripped, and rods to be brought; accusing him, but without the least shadow of evidence, or even of suspicion, of having come to Sicily as a spy. It was in vain that the unhappy man cried out, "I am a Roman citizen, I have served under Lucius Pretius, who is now at Panormus, and will attest my innocence." The bloodthirsty prætor, deaf to all he could urge in his own defense, ordered the infamous punishment to be inflicted. Thus, fathers, was an innocent Roman citizen publicly mangled with scourging; whilst the only words he uttered amidst his cruel sufferings were, "I am a Roman citizen!" With these he hoped to defend himself from violence and infamy. But of so little service was this privilege to him, that while he was asserting his citizenship, the order was given for his execution— for his execution upon the cross!

O liberty! O sound once delightful to every Roman ear! O sacred privilege of Roman citizenship! once sacred, now trampled upon! But what then!- is it come to this? Shall an inferior magistrate, a governor, who holds his power of the Roman people, in a Roman province, within sight of Italy, bind, scourge, torture with fire and red-hot plates of iron, and at last put to the infamous death of the cross, a Roman citizen? Shall neither the cries of innocence expiring in agony, nor the tears of pitying spectators, nor the majesty of the Roman commonwealth, nor the fear of the justice of his country, restrain the

licentious and wanton cruelty of a monster, who, in confidence of his riches, strikes at the root of liberty and sets mankind at defiance?

FROM CICERO'S FIRST ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

How far wilt thou, O Catiline! abuse our patience? How long shall thy madness outbrave our justice? To what extrem ities art thou resolved to push thy unbridled insolence of guilt! Canst thou behold the nocturnal arms that watch the palatium, the guards of the city, the consternation of the citizens; all the wise and worthy clustering into consultation; this impregnable situation of the seat of the senate, and the reproachful looks of the fathers of Rome? Canst thou, I say, behold all this, and yet remain undaunted and unabashed? Art thou sensible that thy measures are detected?

Art thou sensible that this senate, now thoroughly informed, comprehend the full extent of thy guilt? Point me out the senator ignorant of thy practices, during the last and the preceding night; of the place where you met, the company you summoned, and the crime you concerted. The senate is conscious, the consul is witness to this: yet mean and degenerate! the traitor lives! Lives! did I say? y? He mixes with the senate; he shares in our counsels; with a steady eye he surveys us; he anticipates his guilt; he enjoys his murderous thoughts, and coolly marks us out for bloodshed. Yet we, boldly passive in our country's cause, think we act like Romans if we can escape his frantic rage.

Long since, O Catiline! ought the consul to have doomed thy life a forfeit to thy country; and to have directed upon thy own head the mischief thou hast long been meditating for ours. Could the noble Scipio, when sovereign pontiff, as a private Roman kill Tiberius Gracchus for a slight encroachment upon the rights of his country; and shall we, her consuls, with persevering patience endure Catiline, whose ambition is to desolate a devoted world with fire and sword?

There was there was a time, when such was the spirit of Rome, that the resentment of her magnanimous sons more sternly crushed the Roman traitor, than the most inveterate enemy. Strong and weighty, O Catiline! is the decree of the senate we can now produce against you; neither wisdom is wanting in this state, nor authority in this assembly; but we, the consuls, we are defective in our duty,

BOLINGBROKE AGAINST NORFOLK.

FIRST, (heaven be the record of my speech!)
In the devotion of a subject's love,

Tendering the precious safety of my prince,
And free from other misbegotten hate,

Or

Come I appellant to this princely presence.-
Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,
And mark my greeting well; for what I speak
My body shall make good upon this earth,
my
divine soul answer it in heaven.
Thou art a traitor, and a miscreant;
Too good to be so, and too bad to live;
Since, the more fair and crystal is the sky,
The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.
Once more, the more to aggravate the note,
With a foul traitor's name stuff I thy throat;
And wish, (so please my sovereign,) ere I move,

What my tongue speaks, my right-drawn sword may prove
Pale, trembling coward, there I throw my gage,
Disclaiming here the kindred of a king;
And lay aside my high blood's royalty,
Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.
If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength
As to take up mine honor's pawn, then stoop;
By that, and all the rites of knighthood else,
Will I make good against thee, arm to arm,
What I have spoke, or thou canst worse devise.

Look, what I speak my life shall prove it true;
The Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles,
In name of lendings for your highness' soldiers;
The which he hath detained for lewd employments,
Like a false traitor and injurious villain.
Besides, I say, and will in battle prove,
Or here, or elsewhere, to the furthest verge
That ever was survey'd by English eye,
That all the treasons, for these eighteen years
Complotted and contrived in this land,

Fetch from false Mowbray their first head and spring.
Further I say, and further will maintain

-

-

Upon his bad life, to make all this good, -
That he did plot the duke of Gloster's death;
Suggest his soon believing adversaries ;
And, consequently like a traitor coward,

Sluiced out his innocent soul through streams of blood:
Which blood, like sacrificing Abel's, cries,
Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth,
To me, for justice, and rough chastisement;
And, by the glorious worth of my descent,
This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

SHAKSPEARR

MEETING OF DEATH AND SATAN.

"WHENCE, and what art thou, execrable shape!
That darest, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way

To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass,
That be assured, without leave asked of thee:
Retire or taste thy folly; and learn by proof,
Hell-born! not to contend with spirits of heaven!"
To whom the goblin, full of wrath, replied-
"Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he,

Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms
Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons
Conjured against the Highest; for which both thou
And they, outcast from God, are here condemned
To waste eternal days in woe and pain?

Ι

And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of heaven,
Hell-doomed! and breath'st defiance here and scorn,
Where I reign king, and, to inflame thee more,
Thy king and lord! Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deformed: on the other side,
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Leveled his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and such a frown