shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. 9. Meantime the guilty soul can not keep its own secret. It is false to itself-or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself-it labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant; it finds itself preyed on by a torment which it dares not acknowledge to God or man. A vulture is devouring it, and it asks no sympathy or assistance either from heaven or earth. 10. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master; it betrays his discretion; it breaks down his courage; it conquers his prudence. 11. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstances to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater viölence to burst forth. It must be confessed; it will be confessed; there is no refuge from confession but in suicide, and suicide is confession. DANIEL WEBSTER. IV. 153. SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS AT CAPUA. IT T had been a day of triumph in Căpuä. Len'tulus, returning with victorious eagles, had amused the populace, with the sports of the amphitheater, to an extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious' city. The shouts of revelry had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had retired from the banquet; and the lights in the palace of the victor were extinguished. 1 Căp'u a, a fortified city of Naples. It was built out of the ruins of ancient Capuä, the city here referred to, the remains of which, about two miles E., include a gate, and portions of a very large amphitheater. 2 Luxurious, (lug zure ůs), delighting in the pleasures of the table; devoted to pleasure 2. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the dew-drops on the corslet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters of the Vulturnus' with a wavy, tremulous light. No sound was heard, save the last sob of some retiring wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach; and then all was still as the breast when the spirit has departed. 3. In the deep recesses of the amphitheater, a band of glădiators' were assembled,—their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam upon their lips, the scowl of battle yet lingering on their brows,-when Spar'tacus,' starting forth from amid the throng, thus addressed them : 4. "Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long years, has met upon the arēna every shape of man or beast the broad empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yět lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth, and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. 5. "And yet, I was not always thus,-a hired butcher, a savage chief of still mōre savage men! My ancestors camc from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal. 6. "One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my 1 Vul turnus, now Volturno, (voltår no), a river of Naples. 2 Glǎd' i ā tor, a sword-player; a prize-fighter. 3 Sparta cus, a celebrated glad iator, a Thracian by birth, who having escaped from Capuä along with some of his companions, was soon followed by other gladiators, and by slaves, robbers, pirates, and other desperate men. After having de. feated four of the consular armies of Rome, he was met and completely routed by the pretor Crassus, having lost not less than forty thou sand of his followers. Spartacus behaved with great valor; and when he fell, B. C. 71, it was upon a heap of Romans whom he had sacrificed to his fury. grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon' and Leuctra,' and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and både me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. 7. "That very night, the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse; the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in the arēna; and when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me,-smiled faintly,-gasped,-and died ;the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled some lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph. 8. "I told the pretor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Ay! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arēna, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercèst gladiator turn pale and tremble at the sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the pretor drew back as I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans!' And so, fellow-gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs. 9. "O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given, to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the mărrow of his foe!—to gaze into the glaring eye-balls of the fierce Numidiän lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he 1 Măr a thon, a plain of Greece, not many miles from Athens, renowned for the victory of Miltiades, over the army of Xerxes, B. C. 490. 2 Leuctra, (luk' tra), a maritime village, now called Leftro, in Morea a peninsula, the S. portion of the kingdom of Greece. shall pay thee back, till the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled! 10. "Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis,' breathing sweet per'fume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces2 upon your blood! Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours,—and a dainty meal for him ye will be! 11. "If ye are brutes, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife: if ye are men,-follow me! strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at Old Thermopyla!' Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians!if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle!" ELIJAH KELLOGG. SECTION XXXIII. I. 154. ONE YEAR AGO. WH HAT stars have faded from our sky! Tolls through the soul, "one year ago." 1 A dōnis, in mythology, a youth in width. It is hemmed in on one famed for his beauty, the son of Cinyras. side by precipitous rocks of from four hundred to six hundred feet in 2 Sěs' terce, a Roman coin, about height, and on the other side by the four cents. 3 Ther mop' y læ, a famous pass of Greece, about five miles long, and originally from fifty to sixty yards sea and an impassable morass. Here Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans died in defending Greece against the invasion of Xerxes. 2. Where is the face we loved to greet, The smile that won, no longer there; And we who linger only know, 4. Beside her grave the marble white, 5. But why repine? a few more years, To which she passed "ONE YEAR AGO!" II. 155. DEATH OF LITTLE NELL. C. C. Cox. HE was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for the breath of life: not one who had lived and suffered death. Her couch was dressed with here and there some winter-berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. "When I die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always." These were her words. 2. She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird-a poor, slight thing the pressure of a finger |