A ANTONY'S ORATION. (From "Julius Cæsar," Act III., Scene 2.) I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. He hath brought many captives home to Rome, When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff; Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. You all do know this mantle: I remember The first time ever Cæsar put it on; 'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent : That day he overcame the Nervii: Look! in this place, ran Cassius' dagger through; See, what a rent the envious Casca made! Through this, the well beloved Brutus stabb'd; And, as he pluck'd his cursed steel away, This was the most unkindest cut of all: And, in his mantle muffling up his face, O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Our Cæsar's vesture wounded? Look you here, Here is himself, marr'd, as you see, with trait ors. I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir Who, you all know, are honourable men: I will not do them wrong; I rather choose you up, To such a a sudden flood of mutiny. able; What private griefs they have, alas, I know not, That made them do it; they are wise and honourable, And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you. I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts; I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man, That love my friend: and that they know full well That gave me public leave to speak of him. For I have neither wit nor words, nor worth, Action, nor utterance, nor the power of ANTONY TO CESAR'S BODY. (From Julius Cæsar," Act III., Scene 1.) ANTONYO, pardon me, thou piece of That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man, That ever lived in the tide of times. To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue; A curse shall light upon the limbs of men; That mothers shall but smile, when they be hold Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war; All pity chok'd with custom of fell deeds; And, Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge, With Ate by his side, come hot from hell, Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice, Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war; WILLIAM SHAKSPERE. WILLIAM WALKER. (Having accompanied the filibuster Walker to Nicaragua, the poet thus describes the chieftain and the course of the ill-fated expedition.) A (Extracts.) PIERCING eye, a princely air, A sash of silk, where flashing swung And Spanish spurs with bells of steel, That dashed and dangled at the heel; The famous filibuster chief Stood by his tent 'mid tall brown trees That top the fierce Cordilleras, With brawn arm arch'd above his brow; Stood still; he stands a picture now, Long gazing down the sunset seas. What strange strong-bearded men are these Who boasted not though more than bold, Men dared the West when giants were, Who erred, yet bravely dared to err; A remnant of that early few Who held no crime or curse or vice As dark as that of cowardice; With blendings of the worst and best Ill comes disguised in many forms; Fair winds are but a prophecy Of foulest winds full soon to be The brighter these, the blacker they; The clearest night has darkest day, The brightest days bring blackest storms, There came reverses to our arms; I saw the signal-light's alarms At night red-crescenting the bay. The foe poured down a flood next day As strong as tides when tides are high, And drove us bleeding in the sea, In such wild haste of flight that we Had hardly time to arm and fly. Two deep, a musket's length they stood, A-front, in sandals, nude, and dun As death and darkness wove in one, Their thick lips thirsting for his blood. He took their black hands one by one, And smiling, with a patient grace, Forgave them all, and took his place. He bared his broad brow to the sun, Gave one long last look to the sky, The white-winged clouds that hurried by, The olive hills in orange hue; A last list to the cockatoo That hung by beak from cocoa bough And nations on his eye suspended wait; Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day! But did not chance at length her error mend? To point a moral, or adorn a tale. NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. (From "Heroes and Hero-Worship.") SAMUEL JOHNSON. "IS notions of the world, as he expresses them there at St. Helena, are almost tragical to consider. He seems to feel the most unaffected surprise that it has all gone so; that he is flung out on the rock here, and the world is still moving on its axis. France is great, and all-great; and, at bottom, he is France. England itself, he says, is by nature only an appendage of France; "Another Isle of Oleren to France." So it was by nature, by Napoleon-nature; and yet look how in fact-Here am I: He cannot understand it; inconceivable that the reality has not corresponded to his programme of it; that France was not all-great; that he was not France. "Strong delusion," that he should believe the thing to be which it is not! The compact, clear-seeing, Italian nature of him, strong, genuine, which he once had, has enveloped itself, half dissolved itself, in a turbid atmosphere of French fanfaronade. The world was not disposed to be trodden down underfoot, to be bound into masses, and built together, as he liked, for a pedestal for France and him; the world had quite other purposes in view! Napoleon's astonishment is extreme. But alas, what help now? He had gone that way of his; and nature also had gone her way. Having once parted with reality, he tumbles helpless in vacuity; no rescue for him. He had to sink there, mournfully as man seldom did; and break his great heart, and die-this poor Napoleon; a great implement, too soon wasted, till it was useless; our last great man! THOMAS CARLYLE. ARCO GRIFFONI was the last of an ancient family, a family of royal merchants; and the richest citizen in Genoa, perhaps in Europe. His parents dying while yet he lay in the cradle, his wealth had accumulated from the year of his birth; and so noble a use did he make of it when he arrived at manhood, that wherever he went he was followed by the blessings of the people. He would often say, "I hold it only in trust for others;" but Genoa was then at her old amusement, and the work grew on his hands. Strong as he was, the evil he had to struggle with was stronger than he. His cheerfulness, his alacrity, left him; and, having lifted up his voice for peace, he withdrew at once from the sphere of life he had moved in, to become, as it were, another man. From that time, and for full fifty years, he was to be seen sitting, like one of the founders of his house, at his desk among his money-bags, in a narrow street near the Porto Franco; and he, who in a famine had filled the granaries of the State, sending to Sicily, and even to Egypt, now lived only as for his heirs, though there were none to inherit; giving no longer to any, but lending to all; to the rich on their bonds, and the poor on their pledges; lending at the highest rate, and exacting with the utmost rigor. No longer relieving the miserable, he sought only to enrich himself by their misery; and there he sate in his gown of frieze, till every finger was pointed at him in passing, and every tongue exclaimed: "There sits the miser!" But in that character, and amidst all that obloquy, he was still the same as ever, still acting to the best of his judgment for the good of his fellow-citizens; and when the measure of their calamities was full; when peace had come, but had come to no purpose; and the lesson, as he flattered himself, was graven deep in their minds; then, but not till then, though his hair had long grown gray, he threw off the mask and gave up all he had, to annihilate at a blow his great and cruel adversaries, those taxes which, when excessive, break the hearts of the people; a glorious achievement for an individual, though a bloodless one, and such as only can be conceived possible in a small community like theirs. Alas! how little did he know of human nature! How little had he reflected on the ruling passion of his countrymen, so injurious to others, and at length so fatal to themselves! Almost instantly they grew arrogant and quarrelsome; almost instantly they were in arms again; and, before the statue was up that had been voted to his memory, every tax, if we may believe the historian, was laid on as before, to awaken vain regrets and wise resolutions. SAMUEL ROGERS. |