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daily smeared with blood of men or beasts. One day--shall I forget it ever ?-ye were present;-I had fought long and well. Exhausted as I was, your munerator, your lord of the games, bethought him, it were an equal match to set against me a new man, younger and lighter than I, but fresh and valiant. With Thracian sword and buckler, forth he came, a beautiful defiance on his brow! Bloody and brief the fight. "He has it !" cried the people; "habet! habet!" But still he lowered not his arm, until, at length, I held him, gashed and fainting, in my power. I looked around upon the Podium, where sat your Senators and men of State, to catch the signal of release, of mercy. But not a thumb was reversed. To crown your sport, the vanquished man must die! Obedient brute that I was, I was about to slay him, when a few hurried words—rather a welcome to death than a plea for life-told me he was a Thracian. I stood transfixed. The arena vanished. I was in Thrace, upon my native hills! The sword dropped from my hands. I raised the dying youth tenderly in my arms. Oh, the magnanimity of Rome! Your haughty leaders, enraged at being cheated of their deathshow, hissed their disappointment, and shouted, "Kill!" I heeded them as I would heed the howl of wolves. Kill him? -They might better have asked the mother to kill the babe smiling in her face. Ah! he was already wounded unto death; and, amid the angry yells of the spectators, he died. That night I was scourged for disobedience. I shall not forget it. Should memory fail, there are scars here to quicken it. Well; do not grow impatient. Some hours after, finding myself, with seventy fellow-gladiators, alone in the amphitheatre, the laboring thought broke forth in words. I said,I know not what. I only know that, when I ceased, my comrades looked each other in the face-and then burst forth the simultaneous cry-"Lead on! lead on, O Spartacus !" Forth we rushed,-seized what rude weapons chance threw in our way, and to the mountains speeded. There, day by day, our little band increased. Disdainful Rome sent after us a handful of her troops, with a scourge for the slave SparTheir weapons soon were ours. She sent an army; and down from old Vesuvius we poured, and slew three thousand. Now it was Spartacus, the dreaded rebel ! A larger army, headed by the Prætor, was sent, and routed; then another still. And always I remembered that fierce cry, riving my heart, and calling me to "kill!" In three pitched battles, have I not obeyed it? And now affrighted Rome

tacus.

sends her two Consuls, and puts forth all her strength by land and sea, as if a Pyrrhus or a Hannibal were on her borders!

Envoys of Rome! To Lentulus and Gellius bear this message: "Their graves are measured !" Look on that narrow stream, a silver thread, high on the mountain's side! Slenderly it winds, but soon is swelled by others meeting it, until a torrent, terrible and strong, it sweeps to the abyss where all is ruin. So Spartacus comes on! So swells his force, small and despised at first, but now resistless! On, on to Rome we come! The gladiators come! Let Opulence tremble in all his palaces! Let Oppression shudder to think the oppressed may have their turn! Let Cruelty turn pale at thought of redder hands than his! Oh! we shall not forget Rome's many lessons. She shall not find her training wasted upon indocile pupils. Now, begone! Prepare the Eternal City for our games! Sargent's Standard Speaker.

221.-GRAY'S ELEGY.

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The plowman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower,
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell forever laid,

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,

No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care;
No children run to lisp their sire's return,

Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth, e'er gave,
Await alike the inevitable hour:-

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,

If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust,

Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death?

Perhaps, in this neglected spot is laid

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene,

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined, Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,

And shut the gates of mercy on mankind:

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife
Their sober wishes never learned to stray;
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,

Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate;

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,-
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,

To meet the sun upon the upland lawn. "There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,

"

That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful, wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.
"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,
Along the heath and near his favorite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he.

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon agéd thorn."

THE EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth,
A Youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send :
He gave to Misery all he had,—a tear,

He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished), a friend.
No further seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God.

Thomas Gray, 1757.

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Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown-paper wrapper!

Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the famous performers from the four quarters of the globe. Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk, and officiates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming juncture. At that spot where you seem to see a speck of

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