said Mackenzie to his companions. "Should he give any sign to his band, shoot him, and make for the door." Mackenzie advanced, and offered the pipe of peace to the chief, but it was refused. He then made a regular speech, explaining the object of their visit, and proposing to give, in exchange for the rifle, two blankets, an ax, some beads, and tobacco. 6. When he had done, the chief rose, began to address him in a low voice, but soon became loud and violent, and ended by working himself up into a furious passion. He upbraided the white men for their sordid conduct, in passing and repassing through their neighborhood without giving them a blanket or any other article of goods, merely because they had no furs to barter in exchange; and he alluded, with menaces of vengeance, to the death of the Indians, killed by the whites at the skirmish at the Falls. 7. Matters were verging' to a crisis. It was evident the surrounding savages were only waiting a signal from the chief to spring upon their prey. Mackenzie and his companions had gradually risen on their feet during the speech, and had brought their rifles to a horizontal position, the barrels resting in their left hands: the muzzle of Mackenzie's piece was within three feet of the speaker's heart. 8. They cocked their rifles; the click of the locks for a moment suffused the dark cheek of the savage, and there was a pause. They coolly, but promptly advanced to the door; the Indians fell back in awe, and suffered them to pass. The sun was just setting as they emerged' from this dangerous den. They took the precaution to keep along the tops of the rocks as much as possible, on their way back to the canoe, and reached their camp in safety, congratulating themselves on their escape, and feeling no desire to make a second visit to the grim warriors of the Wish-ram." IRVING. 161. THE TOMAHAWK SUBMISSIVE TO ELOQUENCE. TWENTY WENTY tomahawks were raised; twenty ǎrrows drawn to their head. Yet stood Harold, stern and collected, at bay— parleying only with his sword. He waved his arm. Smitten 2 'Vårg' ing. E mërg' ing.--- See Biographical Sketch, p. 114. with a sense of their cow'ardice, perhaps, or by his great dig nity, more awful for his very youth, their weapons dropped, and their countenances were uplifted upon him, less in hatred than in wonder. 2. The old men gathered about him: he leaned upon his saber. Their eyes shone with admiration: such heroic deportment, in one so young-a boy! so intrepid! so prompt! so graceful! so eloquent, too!-for, knowing the effect of eloquence, and feeling the loftiness of his own nature, the innocence of his own heart, the character of the Indians for hospital'ity, and their veneration for his blood, Harold dealt out the thunder of his strength to these rude barbarians of the wilderness, till they, young and old, gathering nearer and nearer in their devotion, threw down their weapons at his feet, and formed a rampart of looked arms and hearts about him, through which his eloquence thrilled and lightened like electricity. The old greeted him with a lofty step, as the patriarch welcomes his boy from the triumph of far-off battle; and the young clave to him and clung to him, and shouted in their self-abandonment, like brothers round a conquering brother. 3. "Warriors!" he said, “Brethren !"—(their tomahawks were brandished simultaneously, at the sound of his terrible voice, as if preparing for the onset). His tones grew deeper, and less threatening. "Brothers! let us talk together of Logan! who have known him, ye agèd men! bear ye testimony to the deeds of his strength. Who was like him? Who could resist him? Who may abide the hurricane in its volley? Who may withstand the winds that uproot the great trees of the mountain! Let him be the foe of Logan. Thrice in one day hath he given battle. Thrice in one day hath he come back victorious. Who may bear up against the strong man-the man of war? Let them that are young, hear me. Let them follow the course of Logan. He goes in clouds and whirlwind-in the fire and in the smoke. Let them follow him. Warriors! Logan was the father of Harold!" They fell back in astonishment, but they 1LOGAN, an Indian chief of the Cayugas, murdered in 1781. He was remarkable for his attachment to the whites until cruelly treated by them, when he took an Indian's revenge. A speech of his, addressed to Lord DUNMORE, is an eloquent rebuke of the conduct of the whites. believed him; for Harold's word was unquestioned, undoubted evidence, to them that knew him. NEAL. JOHN NEAL was born in Portland, Maine, about 1794. He was brought up as a shop-boy, and in 1815 became a wholesale dry-goods dealer in Baltimore, with JOHN PIERFONT, the poet. The concern failed, and NEAL commenced the study of law, and with it the profession of literature, by writing a series of critical essays on the works of BYRON for "The Portico," a monthly magazine. In 1818 he published "Keep Cool," a novel, and in the following year "The Battle of Niagara, Goldau the Maniac Harper, and other Poems," and "Otho,” a tragedy. He wrote a large portion of ALLEN'S "History of the American Revolution," which appeared in 1821. Four novels, "Logan," ** Randolph," "Errata," and "Seventy-six," some of which were republished in London, followed in quick succession. Meanwhile the author had studied law; been admitted, and was practicing as energetically as he was writing. Near the close of 1823 he went abroad; and, soon after his arrival in London, became a contributor to several periodicals, making his first appearance in "Blackwood's Magazine," in "Sketch of the Five American Presidents and the Five Candidates for the Presidency," a paper which was widely republished. After passing four years in Great Britain and on the Continent, in which time appeared his "Brother Jonathan," a novel, he came back to his native city of Portland, where he now resides. He has since published “Rachel Duer," "Authorship," "The Down Easters," and "Ruth Elder;" edited "The Yankee," a weekly gazette, two years, and contributed largely to other periodicals. His novels are original, and written from the impulses of his heart, containing numerous passages marked by dramatic power, and brilliancy of sentiment and expression; but most of them were produced rapidly, and are without unity, aim, or continuous interest. Mr. NEAL's poems have the unquestionable stamp of genius. His imagination is marked by a degree of sensibility and energy rarely surpassed. But, having little just sense of proportion, he exhibits a want of skill in using his rich and abundant materials. 162. MARIUS IN PRISON. THE peculiar sublimity of the Roman mind does not express itself, nor is it at all to be sought, in their poëtry. Poetry, according to the Roman ideal of it, was not an adequate organ for the grander movements of the national mind. Roman sublimity must be looked for in Roman acts, and in Roman sayings. Where, again, will you find a more adequate expression of the Roman majesty, than in the saying of Trajan'-Imperatorem 1 TRAJAN, one of the most illustrious emperors of Rome, was born near Seville, in Spain, in the year 53. By his great victories over the Dacians, Germans, and Parthians, he fixed securely the boundaries of the Roman empire on the banks of the Rhine and the Tigris. His internal administration was equally glorious, his reign being celebrated for its great clemency, and rigid discipline of justice, and for its human ity to Christians. He died at Selinus, a town in Cilicia, August 117. oportere stantem mori-that Cæsar' ought to die standing?—9 speech of imperatorial grandeur. Implying that he, who was "the foremost man of all this world," and, in regard to all other nations, the representative of his own, should express its characteristic virtue in his farewell act-should die in procinctu and should meet the last enemy as the first, with a Roman countenance and in a soldier's attitude. If this had an imperatorial, what follows had a consular majesty, and is almost the grandest story upon record. 2. Marius, the man who rose to be seven times consul, was in a dungeon, and a slave was sent in with commission to put him to death. These were the persons-the two extremities of exalted and forlorn humanity, its vanward and its rearward man, a Roman consul and an abject slave. But their natural relations to each other were, by the caprice of fortune, monstrously inverted the consul was in chains; the slave was for a moment the arbiter of his fate. By what spells, what magic, did Marius reïnstate himself in his natural prerogatives? By what marvels drawn from heaven or from earth, did he, in the twinkling of an eye, again invest himself with the purple, and place between himself and his assassin a host of shadowy lictors? 3. By the mere blank supremacy of great minds over weak ones. He fascinated the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. Standing "like Teneriffe," he smote him with his eye, and said, "Tune, homo, audes occidere C. Marium?"-Dost thou, fellow, presume to kill Caius Marius? Whereat, the rep'tile, quaking under the voice, nor daring to affront the consular eye, sank gently to the ground, turned round upon his hands and feet, and, crawling out of the prison like any other vermin, left Marius standing in solitude as steadfast and immovable as the capitol. DE QUINCEY. 163. SCENE FROM KING RICHARD III. Brakenbury. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day! 1CÆSAR, see p. 209, note 4.—2 In procinctu, about to join battle; ready for action.MARIUS, one of the greatest generals and dictators of the Roman republic, born about 157, and died в. c. 86 - See Biographical Sketch, p. 97. So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams, Brak. What was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me Clar. Methought that I had broken from the tower, And was embark'd to cross to Bur'gundy, And in my company my brother Gloster, Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd toward England, O heaven! Methought what pain it was to drown! All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea. Some lay in dead men's skulls; and in those holes Clar. Methought I had; and often did I strive |
