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LXXXIII. - CATO'S SOLILOQUY.

BANE, n., poison; ruin.

SO-LIL'O-QUY, n., a talking alone or to one's self.

AN'TI-DOTE, n., a medicine to prevent
the effects of poison.
IN'TI-MATE, v. t., to hint.

Ir must be so.-Plato, thou reasonest well.
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

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

'Tis Heaven itself, that points out a 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;
But shadows, clouds and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,-
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works,— he must delight in virtue ;
And that which he delights in must be happy.

But when? or where? This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures, this must end them.

Thus ID y armed. My death and life, My bane and antidote, are both before me.

*

This in a moment brings me to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

* A dagger.

ADDISON.

+ Plato's treatise on the immortality of the soul.

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Avoid saying win'der for window; foller for follow; wus for worse; weels for wheels; wen for when; neow for now. The th in underneath is vocal as in breathe, not aspirate as in breath. The first e in where'fore should have the sound it has in where. Do not give the a in many (pronounced men'ny) a long sound. Give the u in ingratitude its y sound.

WHEREFORE rejoice that Cæsar comes in triumph?
What conquest brings he home?

What tributaries follow him to Rome,

To grace in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stōnes, you worse than senseless things! O you hard hearts! you cruel men of Rome!

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Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,
To towers, and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The live-long day with patient expectation
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome.

And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made a universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds,
Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way,

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood?.

Begone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude!

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LXXXV.- BARBARITY OF WAR. ~

EN'GINE (ĕn'jin), n., a machine.
DE-LU'SIVE, a., tending to deceive.
IM-PE'RI-OUS, a., commanding.
RE-CIP'RO-CAL, a., acting in return.

A-TRO'CIOUS, a., very wicked.
LAC'ER-ATE (las-), v. t., to tear.
AL-LE'VI-ATE, v. t., to lighten.
SUB-OR'DI-NATE, a., inferior.

Be careful in the pronunciation of the following words: em-bel'lish-ments (not -munts), ten'der-ness, fig'ures, draw'ing-room (not droring-), en-ter-tain'ments, chiv'al-ry (shiv-), wound (woond).

1. ON every side of me I see causes at work which go to spread a most delusive coloring over war, and to remove its shocking barbarities to the background of our contemplations altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the superb appearance of the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive charges. I see it in the poetry which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and transports its many admirers, as, by its images, and its figures, and its nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a scene of legalized slaughter.

2. I see it in the music which represents the progress of the battle; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet-notes of preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing-room are seen to bend over the sentimental entertainment; nor do I hear the utterance of a single sigh to interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of the wounded men, as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless silence.

3. All, all, goes to prove what strange and halfsighted creatures we are. Were it not so, war could never have been seen in any other aspect than that of unmingled hatefulness; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of Christian sentiment upon earth to arrest the strong current of the popular and prevail

ing partiality for war. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay the check of severe principle on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of our nature.

4. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate, and the wakeful benevolence of the gospel, chasing away every spell, will be turned by the treachery of no delusion whatever from its simple but sublime enterprises for the good of the species. Then the reign of truth and quietness will be ushered into the world, and war— cruel, atrocious, unrelenting warwill be stripped of its many and its bewildering fascinations. REV. THOMAS CHALMERS.

5. Nobody sees a battle. The common soldier fires away amid a smoke-mist, or hurries on to the charge in a crowd which hides every thing from him. The officer is too anxious about the performance of what he is specially charged with to mind what others are doing. The commander can not be present every where; he learns from his reports how the work goes on. It is well; for a battle is one of those jobs which men do without daring to look upon.

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6. Over miles of country, at every field-fence, in every gorge of a valley or entry into a wood, there is murder committing — wholesale, continuous, recip'rocal murder. The human form - God's image is mutilated, deformed, lăcerated, in every possible way, and with every variety of torture. The wounded are jolted off in carts to the rear, their bared nerves crushed into maddening pain at every stōne or rut; or the flight and pursuit trample over them, leaving them to writhe and roar without assistance-and fever and thirst, the most enduring of painful sensations, possess them entirely.

7. The ripening grain is trampled down; the garden is trodden into a black mud; the fruit-trees, bending

beneath their luscious load, are shattered by the can non-shot. Churches and private dwellings are used as fortresses, and ruined in the conflict. Barns and stack-yards catch fire, and the conflagration spreads on all sides. And yet the desolation which a battle spreads over the battle-field is as nothing when com pared with the moral blight which war diffuses through all ranks of society in the country where it rages.

8. Such is war, with its sufferings and sorrows. Such is war in Christian and civilized Europe - war in an age when most has been done to alleviate its horrors. Whitewash it as we will, it still remains full of dead men's bones and rottenness within. Those who trust most to it will be sure to feel most severely that it is an engine the direction and efficacy of which defy calculation-which is as apt to recoil upon those who explode it as to carry destruction into the ranks of their adversaries.

LXXXVI. THE PRUSSIAN GENERAL ON THE RHINE.

Pronounce Blucher, Blook'er; yea, yā or ye. The former is most in use.

"T WAS on the Rhine the armies lay:
To France, or not? Is 't yea or nay ?
They pondered long, and pondered well;
At length old Blucher broke the spell:
"Bring here the map to me!

The road to France is straight and free.

Where is the foe?"-"The foe? Why, here!"-
"We'll beat him. Forward! Never fear!

Say, where lies Paris?"- "Paris?-here!".
"We'll take it. Forward! Never fear!

So throw a bridge across the Rhine;
Methinks the Frenchman's sparkling wine
Will taste the best where grows the vine!"
From the German of KOPISCH.

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