The troubled Tiber chafing with his shores,
Cæsar says to me, Darest thou, Cassius, now
Leap in with me into this angry flood,
And swim to yonder point?-Upon the word,
Accoutred as I was, I plunged in,
And bade him follow: so indeed he did.
The torrent roar'd, and we did buffet it
With lusty sinews; throwing it aside,
And stemming it with hearts of controversy.
But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Cæsar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink!
I, as Eneas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy, upon his shoulder

The old Anchises bear; so, from the waves of Tiber

Did I the tired Cæsar. And this man

Is now become a god; and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend his body,
If Cæsar carelessly but nod on him!

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And when the fit was on him, I did mark

How he did shake. 'Tis true, this god did shakeHis coward lips did from their colour fly,

And that same eye, whose bend does awe the world, Did lose its lustre! I did hear him groan;

Ay, and that tongue of his, that bade the Romans
Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,—
Alas! it cried-Give me some drink, Titinius-
As a sick girl! Ye gods! it doth amaze me,
A man of such a feeble temper, should
So get the start of the majestic world,
And bear the palm alone!—

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus!-and we, petty men,
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about,
To find ourselves dishonourable graves!

Men at some times are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus

and Cæsar-what should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, your's is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with them,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Cæsar!
Now, in the name of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat does this our Cæsar feed,
That he has grown so great?-Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
and I have heard our fathers say,

Oh! you
There was a Brutus once, that would have brook'd
The infernal devil to keep his state in Rome,
As easily as a king.

ENGLAND.

ENGLAND was great and glorious while her religion was Popery. She then reared her head above the nations, outstripped them all in the career of improvement, and soared above them towards the heaven of liberty. The great charter of her freedom was then wrested from unwilling power: commerce and manufactures were raising her citizens, burgesses, and merchants, to wealth and intelligence, and placing them side by side with her barons; while, from contending elements, arose the harmony of representative government. She was great while that change called Reformation was proceeding, or retarded, or subsiding into

fixedness, through successive reigns. She then began to wave her flag of sovereignty over the sea; her laws were framed in wisdom; and her literature, splendid in genius, profound in learning, and mighty in originality, advanced with giant step. She was great at that tremendous period when the crown was trampled in the dust, a regal head fell on the scaffold, and Cromwell sat on an ungarnished throne. Episcopacy was not her religion then. The Church of England fled to the wilderness; the mitre was crushed under sectarian feet, and the crosier snapped asunder by unconsecrated hands:-yet then she was great; not a nation but cringed for her friendship, and trembled at her frown. Was there persecution, oppression, or insult, on the Continent? she lifted her voice of thunder, and Europe's hills were moved; her mountains quaked and trembled to their foundations. And while Episcopacy has been Church-of-Englandism, our country has been great and glorious still; yes, through vicissitude, great; in adversity and disappointment, in privation and suffering, in all changes and chances, in arms and arts, in literature and benevolence. The monuments of her majesty reflect the glittering of every star of heaven; and not a wind can blow that has not wafted from her shores some freight of charity. And she would be great, were this patronized sect lost in oblivion, with all its robes, and forms, and wealth, and creeds: still to her would the nations look, as to an elder sister of the earth, pre-eminent in wisdom, grace, and majesty.

Yes; England, independently of adventitious circumstances, or predominant sects, must be admired and loved by all who can rightly think and feel; nor would the hand that might not object to pull down the clustering ivy from the oak, whose strength it wasted, and impaired its beauty, touch profanely one leaf of the hallowed tree. Oh, my country!-land of my birth, my love, and my pride-land of freedom and of glory-land of bards and heroes, of statesmen, philosophers, and patriots-land of Alfred and of

Sydney, of Hampden and of Russel, of Newton, Locke, and Milton; may thy security, liberty, generosity, peace, and pre-eminence, be eternal! May thy children prize their birthright, and well guard and extend their privileges! From the annals of thy renown, the deeds of thy worthies, the precious volumes of thy sages, may they imbibe the love of freedom, of virtue, of their country! May the pure gospel be their portion! Through every future age, may they arise, as of yore, the protectors of the oppressed, the terror of tyrants, the guardians of the rights and peace of nations, the champions of civil and religious liberty; and may they be the possessors and diffusers of genuine Christianity to all countries, through all generations!

THE GLADIATOR.

THE seal is set.-Now welcome thou dread power!
Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour
With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;
Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene
Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear,
That we become a part of what has been,
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.

And here the buzz of eager nations ran,
In murmur'd pity or loud-roar'd applause,
As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man!
And wherefore slaughter'd?-wherefore, but because
Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,
And the Imperial pleasure! Wherefore not?
What matters where we fall to fill the maws

Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot! Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his droop'd head sinks gradually lowAnd through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him!—He is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who

won.

He heard it, but he heeded not: his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away:
He reck'd not of the life he lost, nor prize;—
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday!

All this rush'd with his blood. Shall he expire,
And unavenged?-Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

CATO'S SOLILOQUY.

IT must be so- -Plato, thou reason'st well!

Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or, whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?—
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us:

'Tis Heaven itself, that points out—an hereafter,
And intimates-Eternity to man.
Eternity!-thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide-the unbounded prospect, lies before me;

T