CXXVII. GRATTAN'S REPLY TO CORRY

Has the gentleman done? Has he completely done He was unparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech. There was scarce a word he uttered that was not a violation of the privileges of this house. But I did not call him to order. Why? Because the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them to be severe without being unparliamentary.

2. But, before I sit down, I shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same time. On any other occasion, I should think myself justifiable in treating with silent contempt any thing which might fall from that honorable member; but there are times when the insignificance of the accuser is lost in the magnitude of the accusation.

3. I know the difficulty the honorable gentleman labored under when he attacked me, conscious that, on a comparative view of our characters, public and private, there is nothing he could say which would injure me. The public would not believe the charge. I despise the falsehood. If such were made by an honest man, I would answer it in the manner I shall do before I sit down. But I shall first reply to it when not made by an honest

man.

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4. The right honorable gentleman has called me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not "traitor" qualified by any epithet? I will tell him: it was because he durst not. It was the act of a coward, who raises his arm to strike but has not courage to give the blow.

5. He has charged me with being connected with the rebels. The charge is utterly, totally and meanly false. Does the honorable gentleman rely on the report of the House of Lords for the foundation of his assertion? If

he does, I can prove to the committee there was a physical impossibility of that report being true.

6. The right honorable member has told me I deserted a profession where wealth and station were the reward of industry and talent. If I mistake not, that gentleman endeavored to obtain those rewards by the same means; but he soon deserted the occupation of a barrister for that of a parasite.

7. He fled from the labor of study to flatter at the . table of the great. He found the lords' parlor a better sphere for his exertions than the hall of the four courts; the house of a great man, a more convenient way to power and to place; and that it was easier for a statesman of middling talents to sell his friends, than a lawyer of no talents to sell his clients.

8. The right honorable gentleman says I fled from the country after exciting rebellion, and that I have returned to raise another. No such thing. The charge is false. The civil war had not commenced when I left the kingdom, and I could not have returned without taking a part. On the one side was the camp of the rebel, on the other the camp of the minister, a greater traitor than the rebel.

9. I agree that the rebel who rises against the government should have suffered; but I missed on the scaffold the right honorable gentleman. Two desperate parties were in arms against the constitution. The right honorable gentleman belonged to one of these parties, and deserved death. I could not join the rebel - I could not join the government; I could take part with neither. I was, therefore, absent from a scene where I could not be active without self-reproach, nor indifferent with safety.

10. Many honorable gentlemen thought differently from me. I respect their opinions, but I keep my own:

and I think now, as I thought then, that the treason of the minister against the liberties of the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion of the people against the minister.

11. I have returned, not, as the right honorable member has said, to raise another storm-I have returned to discharge an honorable debt of gratitude to my country, which conferred on me a great reward for past services. I have returned to protect that constitution, of which I was the parent and the founder, from the assassination of such men as the right honorable gentleman and his unworthy associates.

12. They are corrupt, they are seditious, and they, at this moment, are in a conspiracy against their country. I have returned to refute a libel, as false as it is malicious, given to the public under the appellation of a report of the committee of the lords.

13. Here I stand, ready for impeachment or trial. I dare accusation. I defy the honorable gentleman; I defy the government; I defy their whole phalanx. Let them come forth. I tell the ministers, I will neither give them quarter nor take it. I am here to lay the shattered remains of my constitution on the floor of this house, in defense of the liberties of my country.

HENRY GRATTAN.

CXXVIII.-THREE GRAINS OF CORN.

A little Irish boy dying with hunger during the famine in Ireland, in 1847, asked his mother for three grains of corn which she had found.

1. Give me three grains of corn, mother

Only three grains of corn;

It will keep the little life I have

Till the coming of the morn.

I am dying of hunger and cold, mother
Dying of hunger and cold,

And half the agony of such a death
My lips have never told.

2. It has gnawed like a wolf at my heart, mother,
A wolf that is fierce for blood,

All the livelong day, and the night beside,
Gnawing for lack of food.

I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother,
And the sight was heaven to see;
I awoke with an eager, famishing lip,
But you had no bread for me.

3. How could I look to you, mother,
How could I look to you,

1

For bread to give to your starving boy,
When you were starving too?

For I read the famine in your cheek,
And in your eye so wild,

And I felt it in your bony hand
As you laid it on your child.

4. Come nearer to my side, mother,

Come nearer to my side,

And hold me fondly, as you held
My father when he died;

Quick, for I can not see you, mother;
My breath is almost gone;

Mother! dear mother! ere I die

Give me three grains of corn.

MISS EDWARDS.

A firefly shines only when on the wing. So it is with the mind, when it idles, we darken.

CXXIX.-ROOM AT THE TOP.

1. To the young men annually making their entrance upon active life with great ambitions, conscious capacities and high hopes, the prospect is, in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, most perplexing. They see every avenue in prosperity thronged with their superiors in experience, in social advantages and in the possession of all the elements and conditions of success. Every post is occupied, every office filled, every path crowded. Where shall they find room?

2. It is related of Mr. Webster that, when a young lawyer suggested to him that the profession to which he had devoted himself was overcrowded, the great man replied, "Young man, there is always room enough at the top." Never was a wiser or more suggestive word said. There undoubtedly is always room enough where excellency lives.

3. Mr. Webster was not troubled for lack of room. Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun were never crowded. Mr. Evarts and O'Connor have plenty of space around them. Dr. Storrs and Dr. Hall would never know, in their personal experience, that it was hard to obtain a desirable ministerial charge. The profession is not crowded where they are. Dr. Brown-Sequard, Dr. Willard Parker, and Dr. Hammond, are not troubled for space for their elbows. When Nélaton died in Paris, he died, like Moses, on a mountain. When Von Graefe died in Berlin, he had no neighbor at his altitude.

4. It is well, first, that all young men remember that nothing will do them so much injury as quick and easy success, and that nothing will do them so much good as a struggle which teaches them exactly what there is in them, educates them gradually to its use, instructs them o personal economy, drills them into patient and per