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bered-Charlotte Corday must be regarded as the Joan of Arc of the Revolution. She was inspired by an idea. She imagined herself called, like a Hebrew maiden or matron, to avenge, not her king merely, but her country. The sentiments she held were shared with her by the intelligence of Normandy. The majority of the citizens there desired not the death of the king; and they held the deeds of the Mountain, the faction opposed to the Girondists, but the leading and most democratic party, in abhorrence. This young lady was the grand-daughter of no less a person than Corneille, the great master of French tragedy. It is saying little to assert that her whole deportment was worthy of the most magnificent conceptions of the tragedian. Such are not the actions likely to result from the study of Christianity. But her conduct was a combination of Roman fortitude and Grecian grace. She was sustained throughout by her ideas; no one person appears to have shared her confidence; all went on within. cannot charge with madness a person acting for such an end. With such method, there can be no doubt that the maiden committed a grave mistake -she met brutality by brutality. But the higher, nobler gospel had been but little preached or known. Tried by Pagan standards, by the virtue of the land of the Cæsars and the Catos or the Leonidas,

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she transcends in heroic status and dignity, and soars above them all.

Poor girl! she staked a whole life—she staked her all, upon an idea; it was but a throw for the stake so precious-and she lost; yet this is the characteristic of all true greatness; this is the soul of all action-faith in an idea./

"What I admire," said Turgot, in "Christopher Columbus," "is, not that he discovered the New World, but that he went to look for it on the faith of an idea."

The great mind has faith in its convictions, and follows the light of its convictions; but then it also knows what to reject, as well as what to accept : the great spirit is a discerning spirit. Charlotte Corday fell into the error of strong individualities, -the supposition that one could do the work of all: her arm fell for judgment upon the murderous social anarchist and bandit; but that was all: she forgot that the nation who could tolerate in its councils such a fiend, was worthy of such a councillor. But the idea haunted her: youth, beauty, love, learning, life, fame-that idea claimed them all, and she sacrificed them all. The idea possessed her mind-it enchanted her life-to liberate her country from the fangs of such a beast; to be torn to pieces now, but to be honoured as a liberator in distant centuries. And so young!-twenty years

of age.

Great revolutions produce many sublime spectacles, and the French Revolution produced many; but it did not produce one more sublime than this youthful beauty upon the tumbril, her arms bound behind her, the waves of her hair flying in the wind, receiving, in her own mind, her obsequies as a triumph.

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CHAPTER X.

THE CONSOLATIONS OF BIOGRAPHY.

NOR may we forget, amongst the other uses, the Consolations of Biography. Who shall say how much heroism has been imparted by the study of some nobly-enduring character, the portrait of some noble nature struggling in almost overmastering agony? There is a passage in "The Caxtons," which has always seemed to us finely illustrative of the influence of such a life over suffering.

"After breakfast, the next morning, I took my hat to go out, when my father, looking at me, and seeing by my countenance, that I had not slept, said, gently

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My dear Pissistratus, you have not tried my medicine yet.'

"What medicine, sir?'

"Robert Hall.'

it

"No, indeed, not yet,' said I, smiling.

"Do so, my son, before you go out; depend on you will enjoy your walk more.'

"I confess that it was with some reluctance I obeyed. I went back to my own room, and sat resolutely down to my task. Are there any of you, my readers, who have not read 'The Life of Robert Hall? If so, in the words of the great Captain Cuttle, when found, make a note of it.' Whatever thou art, orthodox or heterodox, send for the Life of Robert Hall. It is the life of a man that it does good to manhood itself to contemplate. I had finished the biography, which is not long, and I was musing over it, when I heard the captain's cork leg upon the stairs. I opened the door for him, and he entered, book in hand, as I also, book in hand, stood ready to receive him.

“Well, sir,' said Roland, seating himself; 'has the prescription done you any good?'

"Yes, uncle, great.'

"And me, too. By Jupiter, Sisty, that same Hall was a fine fellow! I wonder if the medicine has gone through the same channels in both? Tell me first, how it affected you.'

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"All that is very well said;' quoth the captain, but it did not strike me. What I have seen in

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