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and eautiful tribute paid to their character by one, "whose praises will wear well"-they "judged of the grievance, by the badness of the principle, they augured* misgovernment at a distance, and snuffed the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze"-because they were men, who, in the darkest hour, could say to their oppressors, we have counted the cost, and find nothing so deplorable as voluntary slavery," and who were ready to exclaim with the orator of Virginia, "give me liberty or give me death." Theirs was the same spirit which inspired the immortal Hampden to resist, at the peril of his life, the imposition of ship-money, not because, as remarked by Burke, "the payment of twenty shillings would have ruined his fortune, but because the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle on which it was demanded, would have made him a slave." It was the spirit of liberty which still abides on the earth, and whose home is in the bosoms of the brave-which but yesterday, in “beautiful France," restored their violated charter-which even now burns brightly on the towers of Belgium, and has rescued Poland from the tyrant's grasp-making their sons, aye, and their daughters too, the wonder and the ad. miration of the world, the pride and glory of the human race!

FIFTIETH LESSON.

APPEAL IN BEHALF OF GREECE..
-Lacey.
Section 1.

THE calamities of unhappy Greece | are not only great, but without a parallel. Collect, my brethren, for a moment, the powers of your fancy, and fix them on that afflicted country. What a sad and revolting spectacle | stands before you! The warrior repairs to the field of battle, not like his adversary, in "the pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war"—but in the deep miseries of poverty and consuming care: the ma tron and her lovely daughter | are torn from the sanctuary* 01 their home, driven into hopeless captivity, or forced into lonely deserts to subsist on acorns, and seek a shelter from the storm, *Augured, foretold, foresaw

t Sanctuary, a sacred place.

in the caverns of the earth: the lisping infant, clinging with convulsive grasp | to its flying mother, is overtaken by the savage Turk, and slaughtered | without remorse; a country once verdant with vines, and olives, and generous crops, is blasted by the breath of war, and left “without agriculture, without commerce, and without arts:" the traces of a desolating foe | are marked, not only on the site of lamented Scio, on the ramparts of Ipsara, Missolonghi, and the Acropolis; but in every city, and village, and hamlet, and portion of this devot ed country.

Section 2.

The winds which sweep along the fields, once blooming with groves, sacred to the Muses, and over the ruins of temples erected for the arts and sciences, bear | on their wings | the sighs of expiring widows, and moans of vanquished heroes, and the beseechings of starving infants! And do you not, in the view of such a picture, yield to pity? Oh, can there be a heart so hard, as to remain unmoved | by scenes so sad as these? No, exclaims the philanthropist : all-all I have, is at the service of this afflicted country!

And will not the scholar | respond in the same notes? I am sure he will. There is not a living soul, who ever revelled on the creations of inspired fancy, or hung enchanted | upon the strains of oratory, or followed | with swelling and delicious ad miration | the flowing periods of eloquence, or beheld the magic transformation of the chisel, or the enrapturing beauties of the pencil, who does not feel himself indebted | to unhappy Greece. Oh Greece! Venerated and beloved Greece! Often have we, kneeling at thy shrine, rendered the homage of admiration to thy transcendant genius! It was thy maternal bosom that nourished him, whose immortal song | has been the wonder of the world;-him, whose voice shook the throne of Macedon, controlled the passions of fierce democracy, and perpetuated to the present moment | the power and soul of eloquence ;-him | who bodied forth forms of beauty | from the rugged rock, and gave them, as it were, sentiment and feeling; -him whose moral science the virtuous still revere :-" For her seat is the bosom of God, and her voice the harmony of the world

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Section 3.

Say, then, ye men of letters-shall Greece be given up?— Shall the Turk still pollute the soil sanctified by the brightest genius? desecrate the groves, the temples, and the porticoes, from which have issued living streams that have often laved and refreshed your souls? extinguish the ethereal* fire which quickened the mighty minds of Burke, and Chatham, and Adams, and Henry? Oh, ye who boast of refined and elevated minds, prove, I beseech you, the reality of your pretensions by contributing to the redemption of a country, from whose brilliant genius you have derived your brightest orna

ments.

Oh, ye friends of liberty! ye | wno have been nursed in the lap of freedom, and cradled in the storms of emancipation,† will you not contribute | to the release of such a people? Will you look on, without concern, and see the sons of Sparta, of Athens, of Thermopylæ, crushed beneath the sceptre of the Porte? Will you make no effort | for their redemption? Shall they still bend their neck | to the cruel yoke | for the want of your assistance? Oh, if this be the fact, the time will come, when you will repent of your present apathy. When the sighs of expiring hope, the clank of chains binding the Greeks | to the car of tyranny, shall be wafted | over the wide wastes of the Atlantic, and sink into your reluctant ears, you will lament, (but, alas! too late) the inglorious supineness‡ | which had led to this result. If the cause of Greece be lost, the cause of liberty will suffer. In permitting this event, you will descend | from your high position, and commence a preparation | for servitude and chains. When the Greek republic | shall have ceased its struggles, and sunk into the iron grasp of Moslem tyranny, the current of civil liberty | will not improbably change its course, and the chill of death, striking to the heart of freedom, commence the dissolution | of our own govern

ment.

Ethereal, airy, heavenly.
Emancipation, act of setting free

Supineness, indolence

FIFTY-FIRST LESSON.

ANCIENT ORATORY.-Fordyce.

Ir will not, I think, be pretended, that any of our public speakers have often occasion to address more sagacious, learned, or polite assemblies, than those which were composed of the Roman senate, or the Athenian people, in their most enlightened times. But it is well known | what great stress the most celebrated orators of those times | laid on action; how exceedingly imperfect they reckoned eloquence | without it, and what wonders they performed with its assist ance; performed upon the greatest, firmest, most sensible, and most elegant spirits | the world ever saw. I transport myself in imagination | to old Athens. I mingle with the popular assembly, I behold the lightning, I listen to the thunder of Demosthenes. I feel my blood thrilled, I see the auditory lost and shaken, like some deep forest | by a mighty storm. I am filled with wonder at such marvellous effects. I am hurried almost out of myself. In a little while, I endeavor to be more collected. Then I consider the orator's address. I find the whole inexpressible. But nothing strikes me more | than his action. I perceive the various passions | he would inspire, rising in him by turns, and working from the depth of his frame. Now he glows | with the love of the public; now he flames with indignation | at its enemies; then he swells with disdain, of its false, indolent, or interested friends, anon he melts with grief | for its misfortunes; and now he turns pale | with fear of yet greater ones. Every feature, nerve, and circumstance about him is intensely animated; each almost seems as if it would speak. I discern his inmost soul, I see it as only clad in some thin, transparent vehicle. It is all on fire. I wonder no longer at the effects of such eloquence. I only wonder at their causes

FIFTY-SECOND LESSON.

SPEECH DENYING THE RIGHT OF PARLIAMENT TO ENACT A LAW TO UNITE IRELAND AND ENGLAND.-Plunket.

Section 1.

I, IN the most express terms, deny the competency of parliament to do this act. I warn you, do not dare to lay your hand on the constitution-I tell you that if, circumstanced as you are, you pass this act, it will be a nullity, and that no man in Ireland will be bound to obey it. I make the assertion deliberately-I repeat it, and I call on any man who hears me, to take down my words;-you have not been elected | for this purpose-you are appointed to make laws | and not legislatures—you are appointed to act | under the constitution, not to alter it—you are appointed to exercise the functions of legislators, and not to transfer them-and if you do so, your act is a dissolution of the government-you resolve society into its original elements, and no man in the land | is bound to obey you.

Yourselves you may extinguish, but parliament | you cannot extinguish-it is enthroned | in the hearts of the people-it is enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution-it is immortal

as the island | which it protects; as well might the frantic suicide hope that the act | which destroys his miserable body | should extinguish his eternal soul. Again, I therefore warn you, do not dare to lay your hands on the constitution; it is above your power.

Section 2.

Sir, I do not say that the parliament | and the people, by mutual consent and co-operation, may not change the form of the constitution.

But thank God, the people have manifested no such wish; so far as they have spoken, their voice is decidedly | against this daring innovation. You know that no voice has been ́uttered in its favor, and you cannot be infatuated enough | to take confidence from the silence | which prevails in some parts of the kingdom; if you know how to appreciate* that silence!

* Appreciate, value

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