should one place the two armies without their ensigns, I am persuaded he would not know to which of them he is consul? I esteem it no small advantage, soldiers, that there is not one among you who has not often been an eye-witness of my exploits in war-not one, of whose valour I myself have not been a spectator, so as to be able to name the times and places of his noble achievements; that with soldiers, whom I have a thousand times praised and rewarded, and whose pupil I was before I became their general, I shall march against an army of men, strangers to one another.

On what side soever I turn my eyes, I behold all full of courage and strength; a veteran infantry; a most gallant cavalry; you, my allies, most faithful and valiant; you, Carthaginians, whom not only your country's cause, but the justest anger impels to battle. The hope, the courage of assailants is always greater than those who act upon the defensive. With hostile banners displayed, you are come down upon Italy; you bring the war. Grief, injuries, indignities fire your minds, and spur you forward to revenge! First they demanded me—that I, your general, should be delivered up to them; next all of you, who had fought at the siege of Saguntum; and we were to be put to death by the extremest tortures. Proud and cruel nation! Everything must be yours, and at your disposal! You are to prescribe to us with whom we shall make war, with whom we shall make peace! You are to set us bounds, to shut us up within hills and rivers; but you you are not to observe the limits which yourselves have fixed. Pass not the Iberus. What next? Touch not the Saguntines; is Saguntum upon the Iberus? Move not a step toward that city. Is it a small matter, then, that you have deprived us of our ancient possessions, Sicily and Sardinia; you would have Spain too? Well, we shall yield Spain! and thenyou will pass into Africa. Will pass, did I say? This very year they ordered one of their consuls into Africa, the other into Spain. No, soldiers, there is nothing left for us but what we can vindicate with our swords. Come on, then. Be men. The Romans may with more safety be cowards they have their own country behind them, have places of refuge to flee to, and are secure from danger

in the roads thither; but for you there is no middle fortune between death and victory. Let this be but well fixed in your minds, and once again, I say, you are conquerors.

JUNIUS BRUTUS OVER THE DEAD BODY
OF LUCRETIA.

YES, noble lady! I swear by this blood, which was once so pure, and which nothing but royal villany could have polluted, that I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius the proud, his wicked wife, and their children, with fire and sword; nor will I ever suffer any of that family, or of any other whatsoever, to be king in Rome. Ye gods, I call you to witness this my oath! There, Romans, turn your eyes to that sad spectacle the daughter of Lucretius, Collatinus' wifeshe died by her own hand.

See there a noble lady, whom the lust of a Tarquin reduced to the necessity of being her own executioner, to attest her innocence! Hospitably entertained by her as a kinsman of her husband's, Sextus, the perfidious guest, became her brutal ravisher. The chaste, the generous Lucretia could not survive the insult.

Glorious woman!

but once only treated as a slave, she thought life no longer to be endured. Lucretia, a woman, disdained a life that depended on a tyrant's will; and shall we, shall men, with such an example before our eyes, and after five-and-twenty years of ignominious servitude, shall we, through a fear of dying, defer one single instant to assert our liberty? No, Romans, now is the time; the favourable moment we have so long waited for is come. Tarquin is not at Rome. The patricians are at the head of the enterprise. The city is abundantly provided with men, arms, and all things necessary. There is nothing wanting to secure the success, if our own courage do not fail us. Can all these warriors, who have ever been so brave when foreign enemies were to be subdued, or when conquests were to be made to gratify the ambition and avarice of Tarquin, be then only cowards when they are to deliver themselves from slavery? Some of you are perhaps intimidated by the army which Tarquin now commands. The soldiers, you imagine, will

take the part of their general. Banish so groundless a fear. The love of liberty is natural to all men. Your fellow-citi

zens in the camp feel the weight of oppression with as quick a sense as you that are in Rome: they will as eagerly seize the occasion of throwing off the yoke. But let us grant that there may be some among them who, through baseness of spirit or a bad education, will be disposed to to favour the tyrant, the number of these can be but small, and we have means sufficient in our hands to reduce them to reason. They have left us hostages more dear to them than life: their wives, their children, their fathers, their mothers, are here in the city. Courage, Romans! The gods are for us-those gods, whose temples and altars the impious Tarquin has profaned with sacrifices and libations made with polluted hands-polluted with blood, and with numberless unexpiated crimes committed against his subjects. Ye gods, who protected our forefathers, ye genii, who watch for the preservation and glory of Rome, do you inspire us with courage and unanimity in this glorious cause! and we will, to our last breath, defend your worship from profanation!

ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

CATILINE, how far art thou to abuse our forbearance? How long are we to be deluded by the mockery of thy madness? Where art thou to stop, in this career of unbridled licentiousness? Has the nightly guard at the Palatium nothing in it to alarm you; the patrols throughout the city, nothing; the confusion of the people, nothing; the assemblage of all true lovers of their country, nothing; the guarded majesty of this assembly, nothing; and all the eyes that at this instant are rivetted upon yours-have they nothing to denounce, nor you to apprehend? Does not your conscience inform you, that the sun shines upon your secrets? And do you not discover a full knowledge of your conspiracy, revealed on the countenance of every man around you? Your employment on the last night-your occupations on the preceding night-the place where you met-the persons who met and the plot fabricated at the

meeting:-of these things, I ask not, who knows; I ask, who, among you all, is ignorant?

But, alas! for the times thus corrupted; or, rather, for mankind, who thus corrupt the times! The senate knows all this! The consul sees all this! And yet the man who sits there-lives. Lives! Aye-comes down to your senate-house; takes his seat as councillor for the commonwealth; and with a deliberate destiny in his eye, marks out our members, and selects them for slaughter; while for us, and for our country, it seems glory sufficient to escape from his fury-to find an asylum from his sword.

There has-yes, there has been, and lately been, a vindicatory virtue, an avenging spirit in this republic, that never failed to inflict speedier and heavier vengeance on a noxious citizen than on a national foe. Against you, Catiline, and for your immediate condemnation, what, therefore, is wanting? Not the grave sanction of the senate-not the voice of the country-not ancient precedents-not living law. But we are wanting-I say it more loudly-we, the consuls ourselves.

When the senate committed the republic into the hands of the consul, L. Opimius, did presumptive sedition palliate the punishment of Caius Gracchus? Or could his luminous line of ancestry yield even a momentary protection to his person? Was the vengeance of the executive power on the consular Fulvius and his children arrested for a single night? When similar power was delegated to the consuls, C. Marius and L. Valerius, were the lives which the prætor Servilius, and the tribune Saturninus, had forfeited to their country,' prolonged for a single day? But, now, twenty days and nights have blunted the edge of our axes and our authorities. Our sharp-pointed decree sleeps, sheathed in the record that very decree which, a moment after its promulgation, was not to find you a living man. You do live, and live not in the humiliating depression of guilt, but in the exultation and triumph of insolence. Mercy, conscript fathers, is my dearest delight, as the vindication of the constitution is my best ambition; but I now stand self-condemned of guilt in mercy, and I own it as a treachery against the state.

Conscript fathers, a camp is pitched against the Roman

republic within Italy, on the very borders of Etruria. Every day adds to the number of the enemy. The leader of those enemies, the commander of that encampment, walks within the walls of Rome, takes his seat in this senate, the heart of Rome; and with venomous mischief, rankles in the inmost vitals of the commonwealth. Catiline, should I, on the instant, order my lictors to seize and drag you to the stake, some men might, even then, blame me for having procrastinated punishment; but no man could criminate me for a faithful execution of the laws. They shall be executed. But I will neither act, nor will I suffer, without full and sufficient reason. Trust me, they shall be executed; and then, even then, when there shall not be found a man so flagitious, so much a Catiline, as to say, you were not ripe for execution.

Was not the night before the last sufficient to convince you, that there is a good genius protecting that republic, which a ferocious demoniac is labouring to destroy? I aver, that on that same night, you and your complotters assembled in the house of M. Loca. Can even your own tongue deny it? Yet secret! Speak out, man; for if you do not, there are some I see around me who shall have an agonising proof that I am true in my assertion.

Good and great gods, where are we? What city do we inhabit? Under what government do we live ? Here here, conscript fathers, mixed and mingled with us allin the centre of this most grave and venerable assembly— are men sitting, quietly incubating a plot against my life, against all your lives-the life of every virtuous senator and citizen; while I, with the whole nest of traitors brooding beneath my eyes, am parading in the petty formalities of debate; and the very men appear scarcely vulnerable by my voice, who ought long since to have been cut down with the sword. Proceed, Catiline, in your honourable career. Go where your destiny and your desire are driving you. Evacuate the city for a season. The gates stand open. Begone! What a shame that the Manlian army should look out so long for their general! Take all your loving friends along with you; or if that be a vain hope, take, at least, as many as you can, and cleanse the city for some short time. Let the walls of Rome be