Till from their tombs our warriour sires come forth, BISHOP OF CARLISLE'S SPEECH IN DEFENCE OF RICHARD IL WOULD Heaven, that any in this noble presence Of noble Richard; then true nobleness would And he himself not present? O forbid it, Heaven, Shall here inhabit, and this land be called Lest children's children cry against you-Wo! ATROCITIES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.-Mde. Roland. FRANCE has become a vast amphitheatre of carnage, a bloody arena, on which her own children are tearing one another to pieces. The enemy, favoured by her intestine dissensions, advances in every quarter; the cities of the North fall into their hands; Flanders and Alsace are about to become their prey; the Spaniard is ravaging Rousillon; the Savoyards reject an alliance, which anarchy renders hateful; they return to their old master, whose troops invade our frontiers; the rebels of la Vendée continue to lay waste a large extent of territory; the Lyonnese, indiscreetly provoked, burst into open resistance; Marseilles prepares for their succour; the neighbouring departments take arms; and in this universal agitation, and in the midst of these multiplied disorders, there is nothing uniform but the measures of the foreign powers, whose conspiracy against freedom and mankind our excesses have sanctified. Our government is a species of monster, of which the form and the actions are equally cdious: it destroys whatever it touches, and devours its very self. The armies, ill conducted, and worse provided, fight and fly alternately with desperate energy. The most able commanders are accused of treason, because certain representatives, utterly ignorant of war, blame what they do not comprehend, and stigmatise as aristocrats all those who are more enlightened than themselves. A legislative body, characterised by debility from the moment of its existence, presented us at first with animated debates, which lasted as long as there existed among the members sufficient wisdom to foresee dangers, and courage enough to announce them. The just and generous spirits, who had nothing in view but the welfare of their country, and dared attempt to establish it, are sacrificed by ignorance and fear to intrigue and peculation; chased from that body of which they were the soul, they left behind them an extravagant and corrupt minority, who exercise despotic sway, and who, by their follies and their crimes, are digging their own graves: but it is, alas! in consummating the ruin of the republic! The nation has accepted a constitution essentially vicious, which, even if unexceptionable, should have been rejected with indignation, because nothing can be accepted from the hands of villany without degredation to the receiver. They still talk of security and freedom, though they see them both violated with impunity in the persons of their representatives! They can only change their tyrants; they are already under a rod of iron, and every change appears to them a blessing; but incapable of effecting it themselves, they expect it from the first master, who shall choose to assume the sovereign command. O Brutus! thou, whose daring hand emancipated the depraved Romans, we have erred in vain, like thee! Those just and enlightened men, whose ardent spirits longed for liberty, and who had prepared themselves for it by the tranquil studies, and in the silent retreats of philosophy, flattered themselves, like thee, that the subversion of despotism would establish the throne of justice and peace. Alas! it has only served as the signal for the most hateful passions, and the most execrable vices! THE SAME CONTINUED. THE hour of indignation is past; it is too evident that we have no longer a right to hope for anything good, or to be astonished at any species of evil. Will history ever paint these dreadful times, or the abominable monsters who fill them with their barbarities? They surpass the cruelties of Marius, and the sanguinary achievements of Sylla. The latter, when he shut up and slaughtered six thousand men, who had surrendered to him, in the neighbourhood of the senate, which he encouraged to proceed in the debate amid their dreadful cries, acted like a tyrant, abusing the power he had usurped: but to what can we compare the domination of those hypocrites, who, always wearing the mask of justice, and speaking the language of the law, have created a tribunal to serve as the engine of their personal vengeance, and send to the scaffold, with formalities insultingly judicial, every individual, whose virtues offend them, whose talents excite their jealousy, or whose opulence calle forth their lust of wealth? What Babylon ever presented a prototype of Paris, polluted with debauchery and blood, and governed by magistrates whose profession it is to circulate falsehoods, to sell calumny, and to panegyrize assassination? What people ever depraved their morals and their nature to such a degree, as to contract an appetite for blood, to foam with fury when an execution is delayed, and to be ever ready to exercise their ferocity on all who attempt to calm or mitigate their rage? The days of September were the sole work of a small number of inebriated tigers: on the 31st of May and the 2d of June the triumph of guilt was confirmed by the apathy of the Parisians, and their tame acquiescence in slavery. Since that epoch the progression has been sudden and dreadful; the faction of the Convention called the Mountain, offers nothing to the eye but a band of robbers, clothed and swearing like watermen, preaching massacre, and setting the example of rapine. Crowds of people surround the courts of justice, and vociferate their threats against the judges, who are thought too tardy in the condemnation of innocence. The prisons are gorged with public functionaries, with generals, and private individuals, of characters that graced and ennobled humanity: a zeal to accuse is received as a proof of civism, and the search and detention of persons of merit and property, comprehend all the duties of an ignorant and unprincipled magistracy. The victims of Orleans are fallen. Charlotte Corday has not produced the smallest movement in a city, which did not deserve to be delivered from a monster. Brissot, Gensonné, and a multitude of other members, still remain under impeachment: proofs are wanting, but the fury of their enemies knows no bounds; and for want of reasons to condemn them, an appeal is made to the perverted will of the sovereign people, who impatiently expect their heads, as a wild beast awaits his prey. Custine is no more; Robespierre triumphs; Hebert marks the victims; Chabot counts them; the tribunal is in haste to condemn, while the populace is preparing to accelerate and generalize the work of death. In the meantime, famine invades the land; pernicious laws put an end to all industry, stop the circulation of commodities, and annihilate commerce; the public money is squandered; disorganization becomes general; and in this total overthrow of the public fortune, men, devoid of shame, wallow in ill-acquired wealth, set a price upon all their actions, and draw up a bill of rates for the life and death of their fellow citizens. PERPETUAL PROGRESS OF THE SOUL IN VIRTUE TOWARDS THE PERFECTION OF ITS NATURE.-Logan. LET me exhort you to a progressive state of virtue, from the pleasant consideration that it has no period. There are limits and boundaries set to all human affairs. There is an ultimate point in the progress, beyond which they never go, and from which they return in a contrary direction. The flower blossoms but to fade, and all terrestrial glory shines to disappear. Human life has its decline as well as its maturity: from a certain period the external senses begin to decay, and the faculties of the mind to be impaired, till dust returns to dust. Nations have their day. States and kingdoms are mortal, like their founders. When they have arrived at the zenith of their glory, from that moment they begin to decline: the bright day is succeeded by a long night of darkness, ignorance and barbarity. But in the progress of the soul to intellectual and moral perfection, there is no period set. Beyond these heavens, the perfection and happiness of the just is carrying on, but shall never come to a close. God shall behold his creation forever beautifying in his eyes; forever drawing nearer to himself, yet still infinitely distant from the fountain of all goodness. There is not in religion a more joyful and triumphant consideration, than this perpetual progress, which the soul makes to the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at its ultimate period. Here truth has the advantage of fable. No fiction, however bold, presents to us a conception so elevating and astonishing, as this interminable line of heavenly excellence. To look upon the glorified spirit, as going on from strength to strength; adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; making approaches to goodness which is infinite; forever adorning the heavens with new beauties, and brightening in the splendours of moral glory throughout all the ages of eternity, has something in it so transcendent and ineffable, as to satisfy the most unbounded ambition of an immortal spirit. Christian! Does not thy heart glow at the thought, that there is a time marked out in the annals of Heaven, when thou shalt be what the angels are now; when thou shalt shine with that glory, in which principalities and powers |