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11. ON RESISTANCE TO BRITISH OPPRESSION.

- Patrick Henry.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the active, the vigilant, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election! If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry Peace! peace! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Heaven! I know not what course others may take; but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

12. THE AMERICAN UNION.·

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Webster.

When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and union afterward; " but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart, — Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

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Yes, I have ambition; but it is the ambition of being the humble instrument, in the hands of Providence, to reconcile a distracted people, once more to revive concord and harmony in a distracted land, the pleasing ambition of contemplating the glorious spectacle of a free, united, prosperous, and fraternal

people! If there be any who want civil war, — who want to see the blood of any portion of our countrymen spilt, I am not one of them. I wish to see war of no kind; but, above all, do I not desire to see a civil war. When war begins, whether civil or foreign, no human foresight is competent to foresee when, or how, or where, it is to terminate. But when a civil war shall be lighted up in the bosom of our own happy land, and armies are marching, and commanders are winning their victories, and fleets are in motion on our coast, tell me, if you can, tell me, if any human being can tell, its duration! God alone knows where such a war will end!

CXXVI. ELEGYEI WKITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD,

1. THE curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

2. 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;

3. 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.

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

The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

5. 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.
6. 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.

7. 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!

8. 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.
9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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?

12. 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:

13. But Knowledge to their121 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.

14. 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.

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

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To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,1

17. Their lot forbăde; nor circumscribed alone

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Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. Yet even these bōnes from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,

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

21. 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.
22. 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?
23. On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ;
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

24. 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, -
25. 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.
26. "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.
27. "Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies, would he rove,
Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.
28. "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:

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

Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne.
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

The Epitaph.

30. 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.

31. 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 ('t was all he wished) a friend.

32. 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.

GRAY.

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1. ARCHIMEDES was born in the year 287 before the Christian era, in the island of Sicily and city of Syracuse. Of his childhood and early education we know absolutely nothing, and nothing of his family, save that he is stated to have been one of the poor relations of King Hiero, who came to the throne when Archimedes was quite a young man, and of whose royal patronage he more than repaid whatever measure he may have enjoyed. There is no more characteristic anecdote of this great philosopher than that relating to his detection of a fraud in the composition of the royal crown. Nothing, certainly, could more vividly illus'trate the ingenuity, the enthusiasm, and the complete concentration and abstraction of mind, with which he pursued whatever problem was proposed to him.

2. King Hiero, or his son Gelon, it seems, had given out a certain amount of gold to be made into a crown, and the workman to whom it had been intrusted had at last brought back a crown of corresponding weight. But a suspicion arose that it had been alloyed with silver, and Archimedes was applied to by the king, either to disprove or to verify the allegation. The great problem, of course, was to ascertain the precise bulk of the crown in its existing form; for, gold being so much heavier than silver, it is obvious that if the weight had been in any degree made up by the substitution of silver, the bulk would be proportionately increased. Now, it happened that Archimedes went to take a bath while this problem was exercising his mind, and, on approaching the bath-tub, he found it full to the very brim. It instantly occurred to him that a quantity of water of the same bulk with his own body must be displaced before his body could be immersed.

3. Accordingly, he plunged in; and while the process of displacement was going on, and the water was running out, the idea suggested itself to him, that by putting a lump of gold of

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