"Never stepped a finer creature, "When she was a simple maid; "But she did, like many others, "Loved a man and was betrayed. I have seen her in her carriage, "Diamonds flaming in her hair; "And I've seen her starving (starving"Do you hear?) and now she's there."

Up the worn and slippery stair

With a quicken'd pulse I sprung;
Famine, Filth, and mean Despair,
Round about the darkness hung;
No kind vision met my glances;
Friend or helper of the poor;
So the crazy room I entered

And look'd down upon the floor.

There on the rough and naked boards,
A long, gaunt, wasted figure lay,
Murder'd in its youth by hunger;

And all its beauties wrinkled clay.
Life's poor wants had left her nothing;
Clothes nor fuel-food nor bed:
Nothing-save some ragged letters,
Whereon lay the ghastly head.

"Nothing!"-yet what more could Pity Crave for one about to die,

Than sweet words from one she worshipped, (Sweet! tho' every word a lie ;

In the morning of her pleasure,

In the midnight of her pain,
They were all her wealth, her comfort-
Treasured-aye! and not in vain.

And with her they now lie mouldering ;
And a tale upon a stone

Telleth where (to end the story),

Love's

poor outcast lies alone.

Mourn not—for at length she sleepeth

The soft slumber of the dead;
Resting on her loved love-letters,
Last fit pillow for her head.

BARRY CORNWALL.

WILLIAM TELL'S SPEECH.

YE crags and peaks, I'm with you once again!
I hold to you, the hands you first beheld,
To show they still are free. Methinks I hear
A spirit in your echoes answer me,

And bid your tenant welcome to his home
Again! O sacred forms, how proud you look!
How high you lift your heads into the sky!

How huge you are! how mighty, and how free!
Ye are the things that tower, that shine-whose smile
Makes glad, whose frown is terrible; whose forms,
Robed, or unrobed, do all the impress wear
Of awe divine! Ye guards of liberty,
I'm with you once again! I call to you
With all my voice! I hold my hands to you,
To show they still are free. I rush to you
As though I could embrace!

Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow,
O'er the abyss. His broad expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up! Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His aëry circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath;
And round about, absorbed, he heeded not

The death that threatened him! I couldn't shoot!
'Twas liberty! I turn'd my bow aside

And let him soar away.

When I wedded thee,

The land was free! O with what pride I used
To walk these hills, and look up to my God,
And bless him that it was so! It was free!
From end to end, from cliff to lake, 'twas free!—
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plough our valleys without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow
In very presence of the regal sun!

How happy was I in it then! I loved

Its very storms! Yes, Emma, I have sat

In my boat, at night, when down the mountain gorge
The wind came roaring-sat in it, and eyed
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master, save his own!
You know the jutting cliff, round which a track
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow
To such another one? O'ertaken there
By the mountain-blast, I've laid me flat along;
And while gust followed gust more furiously,
As if 'twould sweep me o'er the horrid brink,
And I have thought of other lands, whose storms
Are summer-flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there. The thought that mine was free
Has checked that wish; and I have raised my head,
And cried, in thraldom, to that furious wind,

"Blow on!-This is the land of liberty!"

SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

SELECTIONS IN PROSE.

ANCIENT ORATORY.

C. MARIUS TO THE ROMANS,

ON THEIR HESITATING TO APPOINT HIM GENERAL IN THE EXPEDITION AGAINST JUGURTHA, MERELY ON ACCOUNT OF HIS EXTRACTION.

IT is but too common, my countrymen, to observe a material difference between the behaviour of those who stand candidates for places of power and trust, before and after their obtaining them. They solicit them in one manner and execute them in another. They set out with a great appearance of activity, humility, and moderation; and they quickly fall into sloth, pride, and avarice. It is undoubtedly, no easy matter to discharge, to the general satisfaction, the duty of a supreme commander in troublesome times. I am, I hope, duly sensible of the importance of the office I propose to take upon me, for the service of my country. To carry on, with effect, an expensive war, and yet be frugal of the public money-to oblige those to serve, whom it may be delicate to offendto conduct, at the same time, a complicated variety of operations to concert measures at home answerable to the state of things abroad—and to gain every valuable end, in spite of opposition from the envious, the factious, and the disaffected-to do all this, my countrymen, is more difficult than is generally thought. And, beside the disadvantages which are common to me, with all others, in eminent stations, my case is, in this respect, peculiarly hard; that, whereas a commander of patrician rank, if he is guilty of a neglect, or breach of duty, has his great connexions-the antiquity of his family-the important services of his ancestors-and the multitudes he has by power engaged in his interest-to screen him from condign punishment; my whole safety depends upon myself, which renders it the more indispensably necessary for me

to take care that my conduct be clear and unexceptionable. Besides, I am well aware, my countrymen, that the eye of the public is upon me: and that, though the impartial, who prefer the real advantages of the commonwealth to all other considerations, favour my pretensions, the patricians want nothing so much as an occasion against me. It is, therefore, my fixed resolution to use my best endeavours, that you be not disappointed in me, and that their indirect designs against me may be defeated. I have, from my youth, been familiar with toils and with dangers. I was faithful to your interest, my countrymen, when I served you for no reward but that of honour. It is not my design to betray you, now that you have conferred upon me a place of profit. You have committed to my conduct the war against Jugurtha. The patricians are offended at this. But where would be the wisdom of giving such a command to one of their honourable body-a person of illustrious birth, of ancient family, of innumerable statues, but of no experience? What service would his fong line of dead ancestors, or his multitude of motionless statues, do his country in the day of battle? What could such a general 'do, but, in his trepidation and inexperience, have recourse to some inferior commander for direction in difficulties, to which he was not himself equal? Thus your patrician general would, in fact, have a general over him; so that the acting commander would still be a plebeian. So true is this, my countrymen, that I have myself known those who have been chosen consuls begin then to read the history of their own country, of which, till that time, they were totally ignorant; that is, they first obtained the employment, and then bethought themselves of the qualifications necessary for the proper discharge of it. I submit to your judgment, Romans, on which side the advantage lies, when a comparison is made between patrician haughtiness and plebeian experience. The very actions, which they have only read, I have partly seen, and partly myself achieved. What they know by reading I know by action. They are pleased to slight my mean birth. I despise their mean characters. Want of birth and fortune is the objection against me: want of personal wealth, against them. But are not all men of the same species? What can