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EXERCISE XCIII.

MIRABEAU, the celebrated French orator and publicist, so remarkable for personal deformity, for the hardships endured during the season of his youth, for the fierce passions that swayed his manhood, for the fiery and impetuous eloquence wherewith he moved, as by a miracle, the men of his times, was born near Sens, March 9th, 1749, and died in Paris, April 2d, 1791. The following eulogy was delivered, in June, 1790, before the National Assembly of France, of which he was then a member.

EULOGY ON FRANKLIN.*

MIRABEAU.

1. Franklin is dead! The genius, that freed America and poured a flood of light over Europe, has returned to the bosom of Divinity.

2. The sage whom two worlds claim as their own, the man for whom the history of science and the history of empires contend with each other, held, without doubt, a high rank in the human race.

3. Too long have political cabinets taken formal note of the death of those who were great only in their funeral panegyrics. Too long has the etiquette of courts prescribed hypocritical mourning. Nations should wear mourning only for their benefactors. The Representatives of nations should recommend to their homage none but the heroes of humanity.

4. The Congress has ordained, throughout the United States, a mourning of one month for the death of Franklin; and, at this moment, America is paying this tribute of veneration and gratitude to one of the fathers of her Constitution.

5. Would it not become us, gentlemen, to join in this religious act, to bear a part in this homage, rendered, in the face of the world, both to the rights of man and to the philosopher who has most contributed to extend their sway over the whole earth? Antiquity would have raised altars to this mighty genius, who, to the advantage of mankind, compassing in his mind the heavens and earth, was able to restrain alike thunderbolts and tyrants. Europe, enlightened and free, owes at least a token

* See Exercise CXXXIII.

of remembrance and regret to one of the greatest men who have ever been engaged in the service of philosophy and of liberty

EXERCISE XCIV.

RICHARD BAXTER, an eminent English divine, was born in Shropshire, in the year 1615. He died in 1691. In the civil wars, he took part with the Parliament, though he had no sympathy with those who compassed the death of Charles I. He denounced Cromwell's assumption of supreme power, and advocated the return of Charles II. He received, consequently, considerable favor from the king, though always harassed by persecuting enemies. After the accession of James II., in 1685, he was arrested and brought before the merciless Jeffreys, where occurred the shocking scene described in the piece following. It should be added that he was, also, a voluminous writer, chiefly on religious subjects. He is best known, however, by his "Saints' Everlasting Rest" and his "Call to the Unconverted."

GEORGE JEFFREYS, an English judge, whose brutality has condemned his name to immortal infamy, was born in Wales, in the year 1648, and died in the Tower of London in 1689. James II., whose tool he was, made him a peer in 1685, and soon after, in the same year, lord high chancellor: these offices being among the rewards of his infamous services.

JAMES STEPHEN, author of the following graphic sketch, is one of the ablest of English critics and reviewers. The extract, given below, is from an article published in the Edinburgh Review in 1839.

TRIAL OF RICHARD BAXTER.

JAMES STEPHEN.

1. The judge entered the court with his face flaming: "he snorted and squeaked, blew his nose and clenched his hands, and lifted up his eyes, mimicking their manner, and running on furiously, as he said they used to pray." The ermined buffoon extorted a smile from the Nonconformists themselves. Pollexfen, the leading counsel for the defense, gave into the humor, and attempted to gain attention for his argument by a jest "My lord," he said, 30me will think it a hard measure to stop these men's mouths, and not to let them speak through their roses."

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2. "Pollexfen," said Jeffreys, "I know you well. You are

the patron of the faction; this is an old rogue who has poisoned the world with his Kidderminster doctrine. He encouraged all the women to bring their bodkins and thimbles, to carry on the war against their king, of ever blessed memory. An old schismatical knave-a hypocritical villain." "My lord," replied the counsel," Mr. Baxter's loyal and peaceable spirit King Charles would have rewarded with a bishopric, when he came in, if he would have conformed." "Ay," said the judge, we know that; but what ailed the old blockhead, the unthankful villain, that he would not conform ? Is he wiser or better than other men? He hath been, ever since, the spring of the faction. I am sure he hath poisoned the world with his linsey-wolsey doctrine, a conceited, stubborn, fanatical dog."

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3. After one counsel and another had been overborne by the fury of Jeffreys, Baxter himself took up the argument. "My lord," he said, "I have been so moderate with respect to the Church of England, that I have incurred the censure of many of the Dissenters on that account." "Baxter for bishops!" exclaimed the judge, "is a merry conceit, indeed. Turn to it, turn to it!" On this one of the counsel turned to a passage in the libel, which stated that "great respect is due to those truly called bishops amongst us."

4. "Ay," said Jeffreys, "this is your Presbyterian cant; truly called to be bishops; that is of himself and such rascals, called the bishops of Kidderminster, and other such places. The bishops set apart by such factious, sniveling Presbyterians as himself; a Kidderminster bishop he means, according to the saying of a late learned author, every parish shall maintain a tithe-pig metropolitan."

5. Baxter offering to speak again, Jeffreys exploded in the following apostrophe: "Richard! Richard! dost thou think here to poison the court? Richard, thou art an old fellow-an old knave; thou hast written books enough to load a cart, every one as full of sedition, I might say treason, as an egg is full of meat. Hadst thou been whipped out of thy writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy. I know that thou hast a mighty party, and I see a great many of the brotherhood in corners

waiting to see what will become of their mighty don, and a doctor of your party at your elbow; but I will crush you all Come, what do you say for yourself, you old knave-come, speak up; what doth he say? I am not afraid of him, or of all the sniveling calves you have got about you,"-alluding to some persons who were in tears at this scene.

6. "Your lordship need not," said Baxter, "for I'll not hurt you. But these things will surely be understood one day; what fools one sort of Protestants are made, to prosecute the other." Then lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said," I am not concerned to answer such stuff, but am ready to produce my writings, in confutation of all this; and my life and conversation are known to many in this nation."

7. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and but for the resistance of other judges, Jeffreys would have added whipping through the city to the sentence of imprisonment. It was to continue until the prisoner should have paid five hundred marks. Baxter was at that time in his 70th year. A childless widower, groaning under the agonies of bodily pain, and reduced by former persecutions to sell all that he possessed; he entered the King's Bench prison in utter poverty, and remained there for nearly two years, hopeless of any other abode on earth.

8. But the hope of a mansion of eternal peace and love raised him beyond the reach of human tyranny. He possessed his soul in patience. Wise and good men resorted to his prison, and brought back greetings to his distant friends, and maxims of piety and prudence. Happy in the review of a well spent life, and still happier in the prospect of its early close, his spirit enjoyed a calm for which his enemies might have well exchanged their miters and their thrones. The altered policy of the court restored him for awhile to the questionable advantage of bodily freedom. But age, sickness, and persecution had done their work. In profound lowliness, with a settled reliance on the Divine mercy, and breathing out benedictions on those who encircled his dying bed, he soon passed away from a life of almost unequaled toil and suffering to a new condition of existence

EXERCISE XCV.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN, an English dramatist and politician, was born in Dublin in 1751, and died in 1816. As a dramatist, his most brilliant and popular works are "The Rivals" and "The School for Scandal,"—two comedies of almos' unrivaled excellence. In 1780 he was elected a member of Parliament. His first attempt, as a speaker, in Parliament, was considered a failure; but he afterward shone as a Parliamentary orator. In 1787, he brought forward the charge against the celebrated Warren Hastings in respect to the spoliation of the princesses of Oude. This he did in a speech which is regarded by some as the best of his life. From this we take the following beautiful extract.

FILIAL PIETY.

SHERIDAN.

FILIAL PIETY!-It is the primal bond of society—it is that instinctive principle which, panting for its proper good, soothes, unbidden, each sense and sensibility of man!—it now quivers on every lip!—it now beams from every eye!—it is an emanation of that gratitude, which, softening under the sense of recollected good, is eager to own the vast, countless debt it ne'er, alas! can pay, for so many long years of unceasing solicitudes, honorable self-denials, life-preserving cares!-it is that part of our practice where duty drops its awe!-where reverence refines into love!-it asks no aid of memory !-it needs not the deductions of reason!-pre-existing, paramount over all, whether law, or human rule, few arguments can increase, and none can diminish it!-it is the sacrament of our nature !—not only the duty-but the indulgence of a man-it is his first great privilege-it is among his last, most endearing delights!—it causes the bosom to glow with reverberated love!—it requites the visitations of nature, and returns the blessings that have been received!—it fires emotion into vital principle-it renders habituated instinct into a master passion-sways all the sweetest energies of man-hangs over each vicissitude of all that must pass away-aids the melancholy virtues in their last sad tasks of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude and age-explores the thought-elucidates the aching eye!—and breathes sweet consolation even in the awful moment of dissolution!

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