The thunder's awful rolling, all combined With pilot's shouts, and many a frightful crash, Produced a sound, a harmony, so dire, It seemed the world itself should now expire. Roars the tormented sea, open the skies, The haughty wind groans while it fiercer raves; Sudden the waters in a mountain rise Above the clouds, and on the ship that braves Their wrath pour thundering down: submerged she lies A fearful minute's space beneath the waves, The crew, amidst their fears, with gasping breath, Deemed in salt water's stead they swallowed death. But by the clemency of Providence, As, rising through the sea, some mightywhale Masters the angry surges' violence, Spouts then in showers against the vexing gale, And lifts to sight his back's broad eminence, Whilst in wide circles round the waters quail, So from beneath the ocean rose once more Our vessel, from whose side two torrents pour. Now, Eolus-by chance if it befell, Or through compassion for Castilian woesRecalled fierce Boreas, and, lest he rebel, Would safely in his prison cave inclose, The door he opened. In the selfsame cell Then with unlessening rapidity Seizing on lurid cloud and fleecy rack, [Demosthenes, the greatest orator of Greece, and indeed, of the ancient world, was a native of Athens. The date of his birth is doubtful. Fynes Clinton assigns it to the year 382 B. C.; Thirlwall and other good authorHis father, a wealthy manuities, to the year 385 B. C. facturer, died early, leaving his fortune and children to the care of three guardians, who cruelly abused their The billows from the northern blasts that flee, trust. As soon as Demosthenes came of age he resolved to Assaults with irresistible attack, Whirls them in boiling eddies from their course, The vessel, beaten by the sea and gale, Now on a mountain-ridge of water rides, With keel exposed. Now her top-gallant sail Dips in the threatening waves, against her sides, Over her deck that break. Of what avail, prosecute at law these unfaithful stewards. He gained his case, but much of the property had been already squandered and he only recovered enough to save him from poverty. His success in this and some other civil causes fixed his resolution to devote himself to public life, and he set himself to master the law and politics of his country with a labor and perseverance almost without a parallel. His first care was to conquer the phys ical disadvantages under which he labored. His health was naturally feeble, his voice harsh and tuneless, and his action ungraceful. To strengthen his lungs he The beating of such storm whilst one abides, used to climb steep hills, reciting as he went, or declaim Is pilot's skill? Now a yet fiercer squall The crew and passengers wild clamors raise, on the shores of the sea in stormy weather. To improve his delivery he took instructions from Satyrus the actor, and did not even disdain to study effects before a mirror. His feebleness of health he never fairly overcame, but he obviated the defects of his early training by the severest study, pursued for months at a time without an interruption. Demosthenes first began to take part in public af Who knows not what to order-stunned by fairs in the 106th Olympiad, when he was between fear. Then 'midst the terror that all bosoms craze, Sound opposite commands: "The ship to veer!" Some shout; some "Make for land!" some "Stand to sea!" twenty-seven and thirty years of age, and from that time till his death his history is part of the history of Athens. The States of Greece were at this time miserably weak and divided, and had recklessly shut their eyes to the dangerous encroachments which Philip of Macedon was even now making on their common liberties. The first period of Demosthenes' public life Some "Starboard!" some "Port the helm!" (extending over ten years from 356 B. c.) was spent in some "Helm a-lee!" The danger grows; the terror, loud uproar, Cask, plank, or spar, as other hope were o'er. warning his countrymen to abate their mutual jealousies, and unite their forces against the common enemy, whose crafty and grasping policy he exposed so nobly in 352 B. c. in the oration known as the First Philippic. Three years later Philip became master of Olynthus, the last outpost of Athenian power in the north, which, in a series of splendid harangues-the three Olynthiacs-Demosthenes had implored his countrymen to defend. Peace was now necessary for Athens; and Demosthenes was among the ambasbut sadors sent to negotiate with the conqueror; Macedonian gold had done its work, and Demosthenes, as incorruptible as he was eloquent, saw with despair Whilst dash the surges 'gainst a neighboring that Philip was allowed to seize Thermopyla, the key rock. Flinging white foam to heaven from every shock.-La Araucana, Canto XV. ZUNIGA. of Greece, and become a member of the Amphictyonic league. The peace lasted for six years, during which Philip's incessant intrigues were exposed and denounced by Demosthenes in orations hardly less re |