Rie. Camillo, hark! Admit these revelers;
Mark me—(Gives orders in a low voice, to Camillo.)
Urs. (Aside.) Now, vengeance, thou art mine!
Rie. Wine! wine! (To an attendant.)

Fill me a goblet high with sparkling wine! (Rises.)
Claudia Rienzi

And Angelo Colonna! Blessed be they

And we in their fair union! Doubly cursed
Whoever in wish or thought would loose that tie,
The bond of peace to Rome!

Hark, Camillo !

Go bid the fountains, from their marble mouths,
Pour the rich juice of the Sicilian grape,

A flood of molten rubies, that our kind
And drouthy fellow-citizens may chorus

Hail to the gentle bride. Let the phantom, fear,
And doubt, that haunts round princes; and suspicion,
That broods, a harpy o'er the banquet; flee

Down to the uttermost depths.

Urs. Of what doubt

Speaks our great Tribune?

Rie. A fit tale of mirth,

To crown the goblet! (Enter the maskers, at different sides.)

Doubt! Spake I of doubt?

Fear! Said I fear? So fenced around by friends,

Allies, and kinsmen, what have I to fear

From treason or from traitors! Say yon band

Were rebels, ye would guard me!

Ye would avenge me.
Urs. Ay, by death.
Rie. And thou?

Col. By death!

Rie.

Call them murderers,

Seize the foul traitors. (To the maskers, who seize the nobles.) Ye have passed

Your own just sentence. Yield, my masters, yield!
Your men are overpowered; your maskers chained:
The courts are lined with guards, and at one stroke,
One touch upon the bell, the strength of Rome,

All that hath life within the walls, will rise

To crush you.

To wear them!

Yield your swords. Do ye not shame
Yield your swords. (Enter Angelo.)

Angelo. Rienzi-(Then to one of the guards, who seizes Col onna.) Villain!

An thou but touch the lord Colonna, ay,

An thou but dare to lay thy ruffian hand

Upon his garment

Seize his sword.

Rie.

Ang. Again!

Art frenetic, Rienzi!

Rie. Seek of them.

Ang. Father, in mercy speak! Give me a cause,
And though a legion hemmed thee in, thy son
Should rescue thee. Speak but one word, dear father,
Only one word! Sure as I live, thou art guiltless.
Sure as the sun tracks his bright path in heaven,

Thy course is pure. Yet speak!

Rie. He is silent.

Ang. Speak.

Rie. Doth not that silence answer thee? Look on them. Thou knowest them, Angelo; the bold Savelli,

The Frangipani, and the Ursini;

Ay, and the high Colonna; well thou knowest
Each proud and lofty visage; mark them now.
They should be signed, as Cain of old, for guilt,
Detected, baffled, murderous guilt, hath set
His bloody hand upon them. Son, thou shudderest!
Their tawny maskers should have slain me, here,
Here, at thy bridal;

Here, in my festive hour; the mutual cup

Sparkling; the mutual pledge half spoke; the bread,
Which we have broke together, unconsumed

Upon the board; joyful and full of wine;
Sinful and unconfessed, so had I fallen;

And so, the word was death. From their own lips
Came their own righteous sentence-death!

Ang. Oh, mercy!

Mercy! Thou livest. 'T was but the intent

Rie. My death

Were nothing; but through me, the traitors struck
At peace, at liberty, at Rome, my country;
Bright and regenerate, the world's mistress once,
And doomed, like the old fabled bird, to rise
Strong from her ashes. Did ye think the people
Could spare their Tribune? Did ye deem them weary
Of equal justice; and mild law; and freedom
As liberal as the air; and mighty fame,
A more resplendent sun? Sirs, I am guarded
By the invisible shield of love, which blunts

The darts of treachery. I can not die,

While Rome commands me live. For you, foul traitors,
I pardon you, and I despise you. Go!

Ye are free.

Ang. (To Rienzi.) Oh, thanks, my father.

Rie. Yet mark me, seigniors. Tame your rebel blood;
Be faithful subjects to the good estate;

Demolish your strong towers, which overtop
Our beautiful city with barbarian pride,
Loosing fell rapine, discord, and revenge,

From out their dens accursed. Be quiet subjects,

And ye shall find the state a gentle mistress. (Exeunt.)

WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable in speech, further than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction.

True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It can not be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they can not compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it; they can not reach it. It comes, if it comes at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force.

The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of

higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, selfdevotion is eloquent.

The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object, this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence. It is action, noble, sublime, godlike action!

FROM WEBSTER.

LXI.-HAMLET TO THE PLAYERS.

SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you; trippingly, on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of the players do, I had as lief the town-crier had spoke my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hand; but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh! it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious, periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise. Pray, you avoid it.

Be not too tame either: but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it makes the unskillful laugh, can not but make the judicious grieve; the censure of one of which must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theater of others. Oh! there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that NEW EC. S.-12

highly, that, neither having the accent of Christian, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity so abominably. FROM SHAKSPEARE.

LXII.-AFFECTATION IN THE PULPIT.

IN man or woman, but far most in man,
And most of all in man that ministers
And serves the altar, in my soul I loathe
All affectation. 'Tis my perfect scorn;
Object of my implacable disgust.

What! will a man play tricks? Will he indulge
A silly, fond conceit of his fair form,
And just proportion, fashionable mien,
And pretty face,-in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand,
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock!

Therefore, avaunt all attitude, and stare,
And start theatric, practiced at the glass!
I seek divine simplicity in him

Who handles things divine; and all besides,
Though learned with labor, and though much admired
By curious eyes and judgments ill-informed,

To me is odious as the nasal twang
Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,.
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid.

I venerate the man whose heart is warm,
Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life,
Coincident, exhibit lucid proof

That he is honest in the sacred cause.

To such I render more than mere respect,

Whose actions say that they respect themselves.