Nothing, by the assembling of the Senate in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all here present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed? that thy wretched conspiracy is laid bare to every man's knowledge, here in the Senate? that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of the night before; the place of meeting, the company convoked, the measures concerted?

Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The Senate. understands all this. The Consul sees it. Yet the traitor lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council; takes part in our deliberations; and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, think we have amply discharged our duty to the State, if we but shun this madman's sword and fury!

Long since, O Catiline, ought the Consul to have ordered. thee to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable, than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless, because forbearing. We have a decree, though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbard,—a decree, by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes.

And should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late, than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since deserved. Then will I doom thee, when no man is found, so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized, by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the Republic, without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason; the walls

NEW EC. S.-5

of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Proceed, plot, conspire as thou wilt. There is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can attempt, which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand.

FROM CICERO.

V. CATILINE'S DEFIANCE.

PLE-BE-IAN, (ple-be'-yan,) refers to Cicero, the Consul.

CONSCRIPT FATHERS!

I do not rise to waste the night in words;
Let that Plebeian talk, 't is not my trade;

But here I stand for right,-let him show proofs,—
For Roman right; though none, it seems, dare stand
To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there!
Cling to your masters, judges, Romans, slaves!
His charge is false. I dare him to his proofs.
You have my answer. Let my actions speak.

But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong!
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me; turning out

The Roman from his birthright; and, for what?

To fling your offices to every slave!

Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top,
Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler man below!

Come, consecrated Lictors, from your thrones;

Fling down your scepters; take the rod and ax,

And make the murder as you make the law!

Banished from Rome! What 's banished, but set free
From daily contact of the things I loathe?
"Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this?
Who 'll prove it, at his peril, on my head?
Banished! I thank you for 't. It breaks my chain!
I held some slack allegiance till this hour;
But now my sword 's my own.

Smile on, my lords!

I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs,
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your lazy dignities.

But here I stand and scoff you! here, I fling
Hatred and full defiance in your face!

Your Consul 's merciful. For this all thanks.
He dares not touch a hair of Catiline!

"Traitor!" I go; but, I return. This-trial!

UNIVE

CALTE

Here I devote your Senate! Look to your hearths, my lords!
For there, henceforth, shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus! all shames and crimes!
Wan treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and ax,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till Anarchy comes down on you like night,
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave.

I go; but not to leap the gulf alone.

I go; but, when I come, 't will be the burst
Of ocean in the earthquake; rolling back
In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!
You build my funeral-pile; but your best blood
Shall quench its flame!
FROM CROLY.

VI.-EXPULSION OF CATILINE.

Ar length, Romans, we are rid of Catiline! We have driven him forth, drunk with fury, breathing mischief, threatening to revisit us with fire and sword. He is gone. He is fled. He has escaped. He has broken away. No longer, within the very walls of the city, shall he plot her ruin. We have forced him from secret plots into open rebellion. The bad citizen is now the avowed traitor. His flight is the confession of his treason. Would that his attendants had not been so few.

Be speedy, ye companions of his dissolute pleasures. Be speedy, and you may overtake him before night, on the Aurelian road. Let him not languish, deprived of

J

your society. Haste to join the congenial crew that compose his army; his army, I say, for who doubts that the army under Manlius expect Catiline for their leader? And such an army! Outcasts from honor, and fugitives from debt; gamblers and felons; miscreants, whose dreams are of rapine, murder, and conflagration!

Against these gallant troops of your adversary, prepare, O Romans, your garrisons and armies. And first, to that maimed and battered gladiator, oppose your Consuls and Generals. Next, against that miserable, outcast horde, lead forth the strength and flower of all Italy! On the one side chastity contends; on the other, wantonness: here purity, there pollution: here integrity, there treachery here piety, there profaneness: here constancy, there rage here honesty, there baseness: in short, equity, temperance, fortitude, prudence, struggle with iniquity, luxury, cowardice, rashness: every virtue with every vice: and, lastly, the contest lies between well-grounded hope and absolute despair. In such a conflict, were even human aid to fail, would not the immortal gods empower such conspicuous virtue to triumph over such complicated vice? FROM CICERO.

VII. POWER OF A FREE PEOPLE.

IN the efforts of the people; of the people struggling for their rights; moving, not in organized, disciplined masses, but in their spontaneous action, man for man, and heart for heart; there is something glorious. They can then move forward without orders, act together without combination, and brave the flaming lines of battle without intrenchments to cover or walls to shield them. No dissolute camp has worn off from the feelings of the youthful soldier the freshness of that home, where his mother and his sisters sit waiting, with tearful eyes and aching hearts, to hear good news from the wars. No long service in the ranks of a conqueror has turned the veteran's heart into marble. Their valor springs not from recklessness, from habit, from indifference to the preservation of a life, knit by no

pledges to the life of others. In the strength and spirit of the CAUSE alone, they act, they contend, they bleed. In this they conquer.

The people always conquer. They always must conquer. Armies may be defeated, kings may be overthrown, and new dynasties imposed, by foreign arms, on an ignorant and slavish race, that care not in what language the covenant of their subjection runs, nor in whose name the deed of their barter and sale is made out. But the people never invade. When they rise against the invader, they are never subdued. If they are driven from the plains, they fly to the mountains. Steep rocks and everlasting hills are their castles; the tangled, pathless thicket, their palisado; and nature, God, is their ally!

Now, He overwhelms the hosts of their enemies beneath his drifting mountains of sand. Now, He buries them beneath a falling atmosphere of polar snows. He lets loose His tempests on their fleets. He puts a folly into their counsels, a madness into the hearts of their leaders. He never gave, and never will give, a final triumph over a virtuous and gallant people, resolved to be free.

"For Freedom's battle once begun,

Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."

FROM EVERETT.

VIII. TRUE HONOR OF A NATION.

I

THE great distinction of a Nation, the only one worth possessing, and which brings after it all other blessings, is the prevalence of pure principle among the citizens. wish to belong to a state in the character and institutions of which I may find a spring of improvement, of which I can speak with an honest pride; in whose records I may meet great and honored names, and which is fast making the world its debtor by its discoveries of truth, and by an example of virtuous freedom.

O, save me from a country which worships wealth, and cares not for true glory in which intrigue bears rule: in