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the city of David. They came forth gloriously, but woe in all their steps-the stars upon their helmets dim-their robes stained-tears flowing down their celestial beauty. “Let us go hence!" was their song of sorrow. "Let us go hence!" was answered by sad echoes of the mountains. "Let us go hence!” swelled upon the night to the furthermost limits of the land.

The procession lingered long upon the summit of the hill. The thunders pealed, and they rose at the command, diffusing waves of light over the expanse of heaven. The chorus was heard, still magnificent and melancholy, when their splendour was diminished to the brightness of a star. Then the thunder roared again the cloudy Temple was scattered on the wind --and darkness, the omen of the grave, settled upon Jerusalem.

XXIII. OSSIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN.-Macpherson's Ossian. O THOU that rollest above, round as the shield of my fathers! Whence are thy beams, O Sun; thy everlasting light? Thou comest forth in thy awful beauty-the stars hide themselves in the sky; the moon, cold and pale, sinks in the western wave. But thou thyself movest alone: who can be a companion of thy course?

The oaks of the mountains fall; the mountains themselves decay with years; the ocean shrinks and grows again; the moon herself is lost in heaven: but thou art for ever the same-rejoicing in the brightness of thy course.

When the world is dark with tempests; when thunder rolls, and lightning flies; thou lookest in thy beauty from the clouds, and laughest at the storm. But to Ossian thou lookest in vain; for he beholds thy beams no more, whether thy yellow hairs flow on the Eastern clouds, or thou tremblest at the gates of the West.

But thou art perhaps like me-for a season: thy years will have an end; thou shalt sleep in the clouds, careless of the voice of the morning. Exult then, O Sun, in the strength of thy youth! Age is dark, and unlovely: it is like the glimmering light of the moon when it shines through broken clouds the mist is on the hills; the blast of the north is on the plain; the traveller shrinks in the midst of his journey.

XXIV.-EULOGIUM ON MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.

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It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morning star; full of life, and splendour, and joy. Oh! what a revolution!—and what a heart must I have, to contemplate, without emotion, that elevation and that fall!

Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom;-little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men,-in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.

Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

XXV.-CHARACTER OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.-Phillips.

HE is fallen! We may now pause before that splendid prodigy, which towered amongst us like some ancient ruin, whose frown terrified the glance its magnificence attracted.

Grand, gloomy, and peculiar, he sat upon the throne, a sceptred hermit, wrapped in the solitude of his own originality. A mind bold, independent, and decisive-a will, despotic in its dictates, an energy that distanced expedition, and a

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conscience pliable to every touch of interest, marked the outline of this extraordinary character-the most extraordinary perhaps, that, in the annals of the world, ever rose, or reigned, or fell.

Flung into life in the midst of a Revolution that quickened every energy of a people who acknowledged no superior, he commenced his course a stranger by birth, and a scholar by charity. With no friend but his sword, and no fortune but his talents, he rushed into the lists where rank and genius had arrayed themselves; and competition fled from him as from the glance of destiny. He knew no motive but interesthe acknowledged no criterion but success-he worshiped no God but ambition; and with an Eastern devotion, he knelt at the altar of his idolatry. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed that he did not profess, there was no opinion that he did not promulgate: in the hope of a dynasty, he upheld the crescent; for the sake of a divorce, he bowed before the Cross; the orphan of St. Louis, he became the adopted child of the republic; and, with a parricidal ingratitude, on the ruins both of the crown and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism. A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretended patriot, he impoverished the country; and, under the name of Brutus, he grasped without remorse, and wore without shame, the diadem of the Cæsars!

Through this pantomime of his policy, fortune played the clown to his caprices. At his touch, crowns crumbled, beggars reigned, systems vanished, the wildest theories took the colour of his whims; and all that was venerable, and all that was novel, changed places with the rapidity of a drama. Even apparent defeat assumed the appearance of victory-his flight from Egypt confirmed his destiny-ruin itself only elevated him to empire. But, if his fortune was great, his genius was transcendent; decision flashed upon his counsels; and it was the same to decide and to perform. To inferior intellects, his combinations appeared perfectly impossible, his plans perfectly impracticable; but, in his hands, simplicity marked their development, and success vindicated their adoption. His person partook of the character of his mind; if the one never yielded in the cabinet, the other never bent in the field. Nature had no obstacles that he did not surmount, space no opposition that he did not spurn;-and whether amid Alpine rocks, Arabian sands, or polar snows, he seemed proof against peril, and empowered with ubiquity. The whole continent of Europe trembled at beholding the audacity of his designs,

and the miracle of their execution. Scepticism bowed to the prodigies of his performance; romance assumed the air of history; nor was there aught too incredible for belief, or too fanciful for expectation, when the world saw a subaltern of Corsica waving his imperial flag over her most ancient capitals. All the visions of antiquity became common-places in his contemplation; kings were his people-nations were his outposts; and he disposed of courts, and crowns, and camps, and churches, and cabinets, as if they were the titular dignitaries of the chess-board.

Amid all these changes, he stood immutable as adamant. It mattered little whether in the field, or the drawing-roomwith the mob, or the levee-wearing the jacobin bonnet, or the iron crown-banishing a Braganza, or espousing a Hapsburgh -dictating peace on a raft to the Czar of Russia, or contemplating defeat at the gallows of Leipsic-he was still the same military despot.

Cradled in the field, he was to the last hour the darling of the army; and whether in the camp or the cabinet, he never forsook a friend, or forgot a favour. Of all his soldiers, not one abandoned him, till affection was useless; and their first stipulation was for the safety of their favourite. They knew well that, if he was lavish of them, he was prodigal of himself; and that, if he exposed them to peril, he repaid them with plunder. For the soldier, he subsidized every people; to the people, he made even pride pay tribute. The victorious veteran glittered with his gains; and the capital, gorgeous with the spoils of art, became the miniature metropolis of the universe. In this wonderful combination, his affectation of literature must not be omitted. The gaoler of the press, he affected the patronage of letters; the proscriber of books, he encouraged philosophy; the persecutor of authors, and the murderer of printers, he yet pretended to the patronage of learning; the assassin of Palm, the silencer of De Stael, and the denouncer of Kotzebue, he was the friend of David, the benefactor of De Lille, and sent his academic prize to the philosopher of England. Such a medley of contradictions, and at the same time such an individual consistency, were never united in the same character. A royalist, a republican, and an emperor-a Mahometan, a Catholic, and a patron of the Synagogue-a traitor and a tyrant-a Christian and an Infidel-he was, through all his vicissitudes, the same stern, impatient, inflexible original-the same mysterious, incomprehensible self-the man without a model, and without a

shadow. His fall, like his life, baffled all speculation. In short, his whole history was like a dream to the world; and no man can tell how or why he was awakened from the reverie.

Kings may learn from him that their safest study, as well as their noblest, is the interest of the people; the people are taught by him that there is no despotism however stupendous, against which they have not a resource; and to those who would rise upon the ruins of both, he is a living lesson, that, if ambition can raise them from the lowest station, it can also prostrate them from the highest.

XXVI. "PRESS ON."-Anonymous.

THIS is a speech, brief, but full of inspiration, and opening the way to all victory. The mystery of Napoleon's career was this, under all difficulties and discouragements, "PRESS ON!" It solves the problem of all heroes, it is the rule by which to weigh rightly all wonderful successes, and triumphal marches to fortune and genius. It should be the motto of all, old and young, high and low, fortunate and unfortunate so called.

"PRESS ON!" Never despair; never be discouraged, however stormy the heavens, however dark the way; however great the difficulties, and repeated the failures, "PRESS ON!"

If fortune has played false with thee to-day, do thou play true for thyself to-morrow. If thy riches have taken wings and left thee, do not weep thy life away; but be up and doing, and retrieve the loss by newnergies and action. If an unfortunate bargain has deranged thy business, do not fold thy arms, and give up all as lost; but stir thyself and work the more vigorously.

If those whom thou hast trusted have betrayed thee, do not be discouraged, do not idly weep, but "PRESS ON!" find others; or, what is better, learn to live within thyself. Let the foolishness of yesterday make thee wise to-day. If thy affections have been poured out like water in the desert, do not sit down and perish of thirst, but "PRESS ON!"—a beautiful oasis is before thee, and thou mayest reach it if thou wilt. If another has been false to thee, do not thou increase the evil by being false to thyself. Do not say, the world hath lost its poetry and beauty; 'tis not so; and even if it is so, make thine own poetry and beauty-by a brave, a true, and, above all, a religious life.

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