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I joy not in no earthly bliss;

I weigh not Croesus' wealth a straw:
For care, I care not what it is;

I fear not fortune's fatal law;
My mind is such as may not move
For beauty bright, or force of love.
I wish but what I have at will;

I wander not to seek for more;
I like the plain, I climb no hill;

In greatest storms I sit on shore,
And laugh at them that toil in vain
To get what must be lost again.
I kiss not where I wish to kill;

I feign not love where most I hate;
I break no sleep to win my will;
I wait not at the mighty's gate.
I scorn no poor, I fear no rich;
I feel no want, nor have too much.
The court nor cart I like nor loathe;

Extremes are counted worst of all;
The golden mean betwixt them both

Doth surest sit, and fears no fall;
This is my choice; for why, I find
No wealth is like a quiet mind.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defence;

I never seek by bribes to please,
Nor by desert to give offence,
Thus do I live, thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!

23-CRIMINALITY OF DUELLING.

ELIPHALET NOTT.

Hamilton yielded to the force of an imperious custom; and yielding, he sacrificed a life in which all had an interest; and he is lost-lost to his country-lost to his family-lost to us. For this act, because he disclaimed it and was penitent, I for give him. But there are those whom I cannot forgive. I mean not his antagonist, over whose erring steps, if there be tears in heaven, a pious mother looks down and weeps. If he be capable of feeling, he suffers already all that humanity can suffer. Suffers, and wherever he may fly will suffer, with the poignant recollection of having taken the life of one who was too magnanimous in return to attempt his own. Had he

known this, it must have paralyzed his arm while he pointed at so incorruptible a bosom the instrument of death. Does he know this now, his heart, if it be not adamant, must soften; if it be not ice, it must melt. But on this article I forbear. Stained with blood as he is, if he be penitent I forgive him; and if he be not, before these altars, where all of us appear as suppliants, I wish not to excite your vengeance, but rather, in behalf of an object rendered wretched and pitiable by crime, to wake your prayers.

But I have said, and I repeat it, there are those whom I cannot forgive. I cannot forgive that minister at the altar, who has hitherto forborne to remonstrate on this subject. I cannot forgive that public prosecutor, who, entrusted with the duty of avenging his country's wrongs, has seen these wrongs and taken no measures to avenge them. I cannot forgive that judge upon the bench, or that governor in the chair of state, who has lightly passed over such offences. I cannot forgive the public, in whose opinion the duellist finds a sanctuary. I cannot forgive you, my brethren, who till this late hour have been silent, whilst successive murders were committed. No; I cannot forgive you, that you have not, in common with the freemen of this state, raised your voice to the powers that be, and loudly and explicitly demanded an execution of your laws; demanded this in a manner, which, if it did not reach the ear of government, would at least have reached the Heavens, and have pleaded your excuse before the God that filleth them: in whose presence, as I stand, I should not feel myself innocent of the blood which crieth against us had I been silent. But I have not been silent. Many of you who hear me are my witnessesthe walls of yonder temple, where I have heretofore addressed you, are my witnesses-how freely I have animadverted on this subject, in the presence both of those who have violated the laws, and of those whose indispensable duty it is to see the laws executed on those who violate them.

I enjoy another opportunity; and would to God, I might be permitted to approach for once the last scene of death! Would to God, I could there assemble on the one side the disconsolate mother with her seven fatherless children, and on the other those who administer the justice of my country! Could I do this, I would point them to these sad objects. I would entreat them, by the agonies of bereaved fondness, to listen to the widow's heartfelt groans; to mark the orphans' sighs and tears; and having done this, I would uncover the breathless corpse of Hamilton-I would lift from his gaping wound his

bloody mantle-I would hold it up to Heaven before them, and I would ask, in the name of God I would ask, whether at the sight of it they felt no compunction. Ye who have hearts of pity-ye who have experienced the anguish of dissolving friendship-who have wept, and still weep, over the mouldering ruins of departed kindred, ye can enter into this reflection.

Oh, thou disconsolate widow! robbed, so cruelly robbed, and in so short a time, both of a husband and a son! what must be the plenitude of thy sufferings! Could we approach thee, gladly would we drop the tear of sympathy, and pour into thy bleeding bosom the balm of consolation. But how could we comfort her whom God hath not comforted! To His throne, let us lift up our voice and weep. O God! if Thou art still the widow's husband, and the father of the fatherless-if, in the fullness of Thy goodness, there be yet mercies in store for miserable mortals, pity, O pity this afflicted mother, and grant that her hapless orphans may find a friend, a benefactor, a father in Thee!

24.-ROLLA TO THE PERUVIANS.

R. B. SHERIDAN.

My brave associates,-partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame!-can Rolla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your hearts? No! You have judged, as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude you. Your generous spirit has compared, as mine has, the motives which, in a war like this, can animate their minds and ours. They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule: we, for our country, our altars, and our homes. They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate: we serve a monarch whom we love-a God whom we adore. Where'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress! Whene'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship. They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error! Yes: they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride! They offer us their protection: yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs— covering and devouring them! They call on us to barter all of good we have enhanced and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain

answer this: The throne we honor is the people's choice; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy; the faith we follow teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind and die with hope of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your in vaders this; and tell them, too, we seek no change,—and, leas of all, such change as they would bring us!

25. THE FLOOD OF YEARS.
W. C. BRYANT.

A Mighty Hand, from an exhaustless urn,
Pours forth the never-ending Flood of Years
Among the nations. How the rushing waves
Bear all before them! On their foremost edge,
And there alone, is Life; the Present there
Tosses and foams and fills the air with roar
Of mingled noises. There are they who toil,
And they who strive, and they who feast, and they
Who hurry to and fro. The sturdy hind-
Woodman and delver with the spade-are there,
And busy artisan beside his bench,

And pallid student with his written roll.

A moment on the mounting billow seen

The flood sweeps over them and they are gone.
There groups of revelers, whose brows are twined
With roses, ride the topmost swell awhile,
And as they raise their flowing cups to touch
The clinking brim to brim, are whirled beneath
The waves and disappear. I hear the jar
Of beaten drums, and thunders that break forth
From cannon, where the advancing billow sends
Up to the sight long files of arméd men,
That hurry to the charge through flame and smoke
The torrent bears them under, whelmed and hid,
Slayer and slain, in heaps of bloody foam.
Down go the steed and rider; the pluméd chief
Sinks with his followers; the head that wears
The imperial diadem goes down beside

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The felon's with cropped ear and branded cheek,
A funeral train-the torrent sweeps away
Bearers and bier and mourners. By the bed
Of one who dies men gather sorrowing,
And women weep aloud; the flood rolls on;
The wail is stifled, and the sobbing group

Borne under. Hark to that shrill sudden shout-
The cry of an applauding multitude

Swayed by some loud-tongued orator who wields

The living mass as if he were its soul.
The waters choke the shout and all is still.

Lo, next, a kneeling crowd and one who spreads
The hands in prayer; the engulfing wave o'ertakes
And swallows them and him. A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows.
To beauty; at his easel, eager-eyed,

A painter stands, and sunshine, at his touch,
Gathers upon the canvas, and life glows;
A poet, as he paces to and fro,

Murmurs his sounding lines. Awhile they ride
The advancing billow, till its tossing crest

Strikes them and flings them under while their tasks
Are yet unfinished. See a mother smile

On her young babe that smiles to her again-
The torrent wrests it from her arms; she shrieks,
And weeps, and 'midst her tears is carried down.
A beam like that of moonlight turns the spray
To glistening pearls; two lovers, hand in hand,
Rise on the billowy swell and fondly look
Into each other's eyes. The rushing flood

Flings them apart; the youth goes down; the maid,
With hands outstretched in vain and streaming eyes,
Waits for the next high wave to follow him.
An aged man succeeds; his bending form
Sinks slowly: mingling with the sullen stream
Gleam the white locks, and then are seen no more.

Lo, wider grows the stream; a sea-like flood
Saps earth's walled cities; massive palaces
Crumble before it: fortresses and towers
Dissolve in the swift waters; populous realms
Swept by the torrents, see their ancient tribes
Engulfed and lost, their very languages
Stifled, and never to be uttered more.

I pause and turn my eyes, and, looking back,
Where that tumultuous flood has passed, I see
The silent Ocean of the Past, a waste

Of waters weltering over graves, its shores

Strewn with the wreck of fleets, where mast and hull Drop away piecemeal; battlemented walls

Frown idly, green with moss, and temples stand

Unroofed, forsaken by the worshipers.

There lie memorial stones, whence time has gnawed
The graven legends, thrones of kings o'erturned,
The broken altars of forgotten gods,

Foundations of old cities and long streets
Where never fall of human foot is heard
Upon the desolate pavement. I behold
Dim glimmerings of lost jewels far within

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