As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and humor'd thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and-farewell king!
4. Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence; throw away respect,
Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while :
I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief,
Need friends:-Subjected thus,

How can you say to me-I am a king?

LESSON CXLV.

Darkness.-BYRON.

1. I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguished,—and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless-and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:

2. And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,

The habitations of all things which dwell,

Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the
eye
Of the volcanos,and their mountain torch :
A fearful hope was all the world contain❜d;
Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour
They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black.

3. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed

Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up

With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd.

4.

The wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd And twin'd themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:

5. And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again ;—a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought—and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails-men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh.
6. The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan

And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress-he died.

7. The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies; they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up

Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died— Even of their mutual hideousness they died,

Unknowing who he was upon whose brow

Famine had written Fiend.*

Pronounced Feend.

8.

The world was void,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge

9. The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave; The moon, their mistress, had expired before;

The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd: Darkness had no need
Of aid from them-She was the universe.

LESSON CXLVI.

Hannibal to Scipio Africanus, at their interview preceding the Battle of Zama.t

1. SINCE fate has so ordained it, that I, who began the war, and who have been so often on the point of ending it by a complete conquest, should now come of my own motion, to ask a peace I am glad that it is of you, Scipio, I have the fortune to ask it. Nor will this be among the least of your glories, that Hannibal, victorious over so many Roman Generals, submitted at last to you.

of

*Hannibal, a celebrated Carthaginian, and one of the greatest generals of antiquity, was born 252 years, B. C. At 9 years of age, his father, Hamilcar, made him swear on the altar, eternal enmity to Rome. At 25 years age, he took upon him the command of the army, and having conquered the Roman forces in Spain, he led his army over the Pyrenees and Alps into Italy. Here he gained many important victories; and during 16 years, he overthrew every army which the Romans sent against him. At the end of this time the Romans sent an army into Africa, under the command of Scipio, and the Carthaginians called Hannibal, out of Italy, to defend his own country. He was defeated by Scipio at the battle of Zama, and was obliged to flee his country. He led a wandering life at the courts of Antiochus and Prusias, in Asia, and at last destroyed himself by poison, when he was going to be delivered into the hands of the Romans, B. C. 182, aged 70. †The battle of Zama was fought 196 years B. C. in which the Carthaginians were totally defeated, and an end put to the second Punic War. The three wars between Rome and Carthage were called Punic Wars. The first Punic War commenced 264 years B. C. and lasted 23 years. The second commenced 218 years B. C. and lasted 22 years. The third commenced 149 years B. C. and lasted 3 years; when Carthage was entirely destroyed, 146 years B. C.

2. I could wish, that our fathers and we had confined our ambition within the limits which nature seems to have prescribed to it; the shores of Africa, and the shores of Italy. The gods did not give us that mind. On both sides we have been so eager after foreign possessions, as to put our own to the hazard of war. Rome and Carthage have had, each in her turn, the enemy at her gates.

3. But since errors past may be more easily blamed than corrected, let it now be the work of you and me, to put an end, if possible, to the obstinate contention. For my own part, my years, and the experience I have had of the instability of fortune, incline me to leave nothing to her determination which reason can decide. But much, I fear, Scipio, that your youth, your want of the like experience, your uninterrupted success, may render you averse from the thoughts of peace.

4. He whom fortune has never failed, rarely reflects upon her inconstancy. Yet without recurring to former examples, my own may perhaps suffice to teach you moderation. I am the same Hannibal, who, after my victory at Cannæ, became master of the greatest part of your country, and deliberated with myself what fate I should decree to Italy and Rome.

5. And now see the change! Here, in Africa, I am come to treat with a Roman, for my own preservation and my country's. Such are the sports of fortune. Is she then to be trusted because she smiles? An advantageous peace is preferable to the hope of victory. The one is in your own power, the other at the pleasure of the gods. Should you prove victorious, it would add little to your own glory, or the glory of your country; if vanquished, you lose in one hour, all the honor and reputation you have been so many years acquiring.

6. But what is my aim in all this? That you should content yourself with our cession of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and all Islands between Italy and Africa. A peace on these conditions, will, in my opinion, not only secure the future tranquility of Carthage, but be sufficiently glorious for you, and for the Roman name. And do not tell me, that some of our citizens dealt fraudulently with you in the late treaty.-It is I, Hannibal, that now ask a peace :-I ask it, because I think it expedient for my country; and thinking it expedient, I will inviolably maintain it.

LESSON CXLVII.

Scipio's Reply to Hannibal.

1. I KNEW very well, Hannibal, that it was the hope of your return, which emboldened the Carthaginians to break the truce with us, and lay aside all thoughts of peace, when it was just upon the point of being concluded; and your present proposal is a proof of it. You retrench from their concessions, every thing but what we are and have been long possessed of.

2. But as it is your care, that your fellow citizens should have the obligation to you, of being eased from a great part of their burden, so it ought to be mine, that they draw no advantage from their perfidiousness. Nobody is more sensible than I am of the weakness of man, and the power of fortune, and that whatever we enterprise, is subject to a thousand chances.

3. If before the Romans passed into Africa, you had, of your own accord, quitted Italy, and made the offers you now make, I believe they would not have been rejected. But, as you have been forced out of Italy, and we are masters here of the open country, the situation of things is much altered.

4. And what is chiefly to be considered, the Carthaginians, by the late treaty, which we entered into at their request, were, over and above what you offer, to have restored to us our prisoners without ransom, delivered up their ships of war, paid us five thousand talents, and to have given hostages for the performance of all.

5. The senate accepted these conditions, but Carthage failed on her part: Carthage deceived us. What then is to be done? Are the Carthaginians to be released from the most important articles of the treaty, as a reward for their breach of faith? No, certainly.

6. If to the conditions before agreed upon, you had added some new articles, to our advantage, there would have been matter of reference to the Roman people; but when, instead of adding, you retrench, there is no room for deliberation. The Carthaginians, therefore, must submit to us at discretion, or must vanquish us in battle.

Publius Cornelius Scipio, an illustrious Roman and brave general. While Hannibal was in the northern part of Italy, the Roman Senate sent Scipio into Africa to carry war to the gates of Carthage. He defeated the Carthaginians under Hannibal at the battle of Zama, and obtained the honorable surname of Africanus. He was afterwards treated with ingratitude and baseness by the Romans, and fled from the public clamors and died in retirement B. C. 180.