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Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To its full height! On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fetched from fathers of war proof!
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,

Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game 's afoot;
Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge,
Cry-God for Harry! England! and St. George!

SHAKSPEARE.

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XIII. Christian II., King of Denmark, having made himself master of Sweden, confined Gustavus at Copenhagen; but he, making his escape, contrived to reach the Dalecarlian mountains, where he worked at the mines like a common slave. Having seized a favorable opportunity, he declared himself to the miners and peasants, whom he incited to join his cause. Fortune befriended him, and in the year 1527 he gained the throne of Sweden. SWEDES! countrymen! behold at last, after a thousand dangers past, your chief, Gustavus, here! Long have I sighed 'mid foreign bands, long have I roamed in foreign lands; - at length, 'mid Swedish hearts and hands, I grasp a Swedish spear! looking forth, although I see none but the fearless and the free, sad thoughts the sight inspires; for where, I think, on Swedish ground, save where these mountains frown around, can that best heritage be found the freedom of our sires?—Yes, Sweden pines beneath the yoke; the galling chain our fathers broke is round our country now! On perjured craft and ruthless guilt his power a tyrant Dane has built, and Sweden's crown, all blood-bespilt, rests on a foreign brow.

GUSTAVUS VASA TO THE DALECARLIANS.

Yet,

On you your country turns her eyes. on you, on you, for aid relies, scions of noblest stem! The foremost place in rolls of fame, by right your fearless fathers claim; yours is the glory of their name - 't is yours to equal them. As rushing down, when winter reigns, resistless to the shaking plains, the torrent tears its way, and all that bars its onward course sweeps to the sea with headlong force, so swept your sires the Dane and Norse :- can ye do less than they?

Rise! reässert your ancient pride, and down the hills a living tide of fiery valor pour. Let but the storm of battle lower, back to his den the foe will cower; then, then shall Freedom's glorious hour strike for our land once more! What! silent

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GERMANICUS TO HIS MUTINOUS TROOPS.

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motionless, ye stand? Gleams not an eye? Moves not a hand? Think ye to fly your fate? Or till some better cause be given, wait ye? Then wait! till, banished, driven, ye fear to meet the face of Heaven;

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till ye are slaughtered, wait! But no! your kindling hearts gainsay the thought. Hark! Hear that bloodhound's bay! Yon blazing village see! Rise, countrymen! Awake! Defy the haughty Dane! Your battlecry be Freedom! We will do or die! On! Death or victory!

XIV.

GERMANICUS TO HIS MUTINOUS TROOPS.

A. D. 14, the Roman soldiers on the lower Rhine mutinied on receiving the news of the death of the Emperor Augustus, and the accession of Tiberius. According to Tacitus, the following speech, by German'icus, the consul, recalled the mutinous troops to their duty, and restored discipline. To this audience what name shall I give? Can I call you soldiers? Soldiers! you who have beset with arms the son of your emperor · - confined him in your trenches? Citizens, can I call you? you who have trampled under your feet the authority of the Senate; who have violated the most awful sanctions, even those which hostile states have ever held in respect the rights of ambassadors and the laws of nations?

Julius Cæsar, by a single word, was able to quell a mutiny: he spoke to the men who resisted his authority he called them Romans, and they returned to their allegiance. Augustus showed himself to the legions who fought at Actium, and the majesty of his countenance awed them into submission. The distance between myself and these illustrious characters I know is great; and yet, descended from them, with their blood in my veins, I should resent with indignation a parallel outrage. from the soldiers of Syria or of Spain; and will you, men of the first and the twentieth legions, the former enrolled by Tiberius himself, the other his constant companions in so many battles, and by him enriched with so many bounties, - will you thus requite his benefits ?

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From every other quarter of the empire Tiberius has received none but joyful tidings; and must I wound his ears with the news of your revolt? Must he hear from me, that neither the soldiers raised by himself, nor the veterans who fought under him, are willing to own his authority? Must he be told that neither exemptions from service, nor money lavishly bestowed, can appease the fury of ungrateful men? Must 1 tell him that hore centurions are butchered, trib'unes expelled, ambassadors

imprisoned; the camp and the rivers polluted with blood; and that a Roman general drags out a precarious existence at the mercy of men implacable and mad?

Wherefore, on the first day that I addressed you, did you wrest from me that sword which I was on the point of plunging into my heart? Officious friends! Greater was the kindness of that man who proffered me a sword. At all events, I should have fallen ere I had become aware of the enormities committed by my army. You would have chosen a general who, though he might leave my death unatoned for, would yet avenge the massacre of Varus and his three legions. May that revenge be still reserved for the Roman sword! May the gods withhold from the Belgic states, though now they court the opportunity, the credit and renown of retrieving the Roman name, and of humbling the German nations! May thy spirit, O, deified Augustus! which is received into heaven, thy image, my father Drusus! prevail with these soldiers, who, even now, I see, are touched with a noble remorse! May your inspiration dispel the disgrace that sits heavy upon them; and may the rage of civil discord discharge itself on the enemies of Rome!

TACITUS.

XV. THE SONG OF MINA'S SOLDIERS.

WE heard thy name, O Mina!

Far through our hills it

rang;

A sound more strong than tempests,
More keen than armor's clang.
The peasant left his vintage,

The shepherd grasped the spear-
We heard thy name, O Mina!
The mountain bands are here.

As cagles to the day-spring,
As torrents to the sea,

From every dark sierra

So rushed our hearts to thee.

Thy spirit is our banner,

Thine eye our beacon-sign.
Thy name our trumpet, Mina!
The mountain bands are thine.

MRS. HIEMANS.

PART FOUR.-THE BEMA.*

I. AGAINST BRIBERY.

Ir were better, O Athenians! to die ten thousand deaths, than to be guilty of a servile acquiescence in the usurpations of Philip. Not only is he no Greek, and no way allied to Greece, but he sprang from a part of the barbarian world unworthy to be named-from Macedonia, where formerly we could not find a slave fit to purchase! And why is it that the insolence of this man is so tamely tolerated? Surely there must be some cause why the Greeks, who were once so jealous of their liberty, now show themselves so basely submissive. It is this, Athenians! They were formerly impelled by a sentiment which was more than a match for Persian gold; a sentiment which maintained the freedom of Greece, and wrought her triumphs by sea and land, over all hostile powers. It was no subtle or mysterious element of success. It was simply this: an abhorrence of traitors; of all who accepted bribes from those princes who were prompted by the ambition of subduing, or the base intent of corrupting, Greece. To receive bribes was accounted a crime of the blackest die a crime which called for all the severity of public justice. No petitioning for mercy, no pardon, was allowed. Those favorable conjunctures with which fortune oftentimes assists the supine against the vigilant, and renders men, even when most regardless of their interests, superior to those who exert their utmost efforts, could never be sold by orator or general, as in these degenerate days. Our mutual confidence, our settled hatred and distrust of all tyrants and barbarians, could not be impaired or turned aside by the force of money.

But now, opportunity, principles, private honor, and the public good, are exposed to sale as in a market; and in exchange we have that pernicious laxity which is destroying the safety, the very vitals, of Greece. Let a man receive a bribe, he is envied; let him confess it, he provokes laughter; let him be convicted, he is pardoned! His very accusation only awakens resentment, so thoroughly is public sentiment corrupted! Richer, more powerful, better prepared, than ever before, we lose all our advantages through these traffickers in their country's welfare.

* The Bema was a raised place, or step, from which the Athenian orators spoke. We have included under this head a specimen of Roman oratory.

How was it formerly? Listen to the decree which your ancestors inscribed upon a brazen column erected in the citadel: "Let Arthmius of Zelia, the son of Pythonax, be accounted infamous, and an enemy to the Athenians and their allies, both he and all his race!" Then comes the reason of his sentence: "Because he brought gold from Media into Peloponnes'us." This is the decree. And now, in the name of all the gods, think upon it! Think what wisdom, what dignity appeared in this action of our ancestors! This receiver of bribes they declare an enemy to them and their confederates, and that he and his posterity shall be infamous! And the sentence imported something more; for, in the laws relating to capital cases, it is enacted, that "when the legal punishment of a man's crime can not be inflicted, he may be put to death." And it was accounted meritorious to kill him!

"Let not the infamous man," says the law, "be permitted to live;" implying that the citizen is free from guilt who executes this sentence ! Such was the detestation in which bribery was held by our fathers! And hence was it that the Greeks were a terror to the barbarians- not the barbarians to the Greeks! Hence was it that wars were fair and open; that battles were fought, not with gold, but steel; and won, if won at all, not by treachery, but by force of arms !

DEMOSTHENES.

II. THE SUBVERSION OF THE CONSTITUTION.

THERE are those who may ask you, Athenians, “What real advantage have we derived from the speeches of Demosthenes? He rises when he thinks proper; he deafens us with his harangues; he declaims against the degeneracy of present times; he tells us of the virtues of our ancestors; he transports us by his airy extravagance; he puffs up our vanity; and then- - he sits down."

But, Athenians, could these my speeches produce but their due effect upon your minds, so incalculable would be the advantages conferred upon my country, that were I to attempt to speak them, they would seem visionary to many; yet still must I assume the merit of doing some service by accustoming you to hear salutary truths. From the inveterate habit of listening to falsehoods to every thing rather than your real interestsyour ears have become distempered; and they must first be cured, if your counselors would be of any real service to you and your country.

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My countrymen, vouchsafe me a patient hearing! It lately

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