I view him but as yesterday on the burning plains of Plassy, doubtful of life, of health, of victory ;-I see him in the instant when "to be or not to be," were equal chances to the human eye. To be a Lord or a slave-to return loaded with the spoils or remain mingled with the dust of India. Did necessity always justify the severity of a conqueror, the rude tongue of censure would be silent; and however painfully he might look back on scenes of horror, the pensive reflection would not alarm him. Though his feelings suffered, his conscience would be acquitted. The sad remembrance would move serenely, and leave the mind without a wound. But oh, India! thou loud proclaimer of European cruelties, thou bloody monument of unnecessary deaths, be tender in the day of inquiry, and show a christian world thou canst suffer and forgive!

'Departed from India and loaded with the plunder, I see him doubling the Cape, and looking wishfully to Europe. I see him meditating on years of pleasure, and gratifying his ambition with expected honors. I see his arrival pompously announced in every newspaper, his eager eye rambling through the crowd in quest, of homage, and his ear listening lest an expression of applause should escape him. Happily for him he arrived before his fame; and the short interval was a time of rest. From the crowd I follow him to the court; I see him enveloped in the sunshine of sovereign favor, rivalling the great in honors, the proud in splendor, and the rich in wealth. From the court I trace him to the country; his equipage moves like a camp; every village bell proclaims his coming; the wondering peasants admire his pomp, and his heart runs over with joy.

But, alas! not satisfied with uncountable thousands, I accompany him again to India-1 mark the variety of countenances which appear at his landing. Confusion spreads the news. Every passion seems alarmed. The wailing widow, the crying orphan, and the childless parent, remember and lament; the rival nabobs court his favor; the rich dread his power and the poor his severity. Fear and terror march like

pioneers before his camp; murder and rapine accompany it; famine and wretchedness follow in the rear!

SHAKSPEARE'S OTHELLO.

Othello, who is apparently the hero of the fable, is one of the most memorable personages whose character and exploits are recorded either in fictitious or legitimate history. Though the vulgar idea, which figures him black, as an African, is absurd, yet he is unquestionably tawny as a Moor. He is a grim warrior in the wane of life, without any affectation of the courtier's softness, and without the least pretence to toilet beauty. With all a soldier's frankness, he declares that he is but moderately skilled in the arts either of public or private eloquence. He painfully alludes to the character of his complexion, and the harshness of his speech Yet all this is nothing but the amiable modesty of sterling merit. We know from the context, that he is as valiant as Caesar, as frank as Antony, as magnanimous as Themistocles, and as sage as Solon. His intrepidity is of that genuine sort which is always tempered by the coolness of prudence and moderation. His nature is noble, his deportment dignified, his language undissembling, and his heart in his band. The world's suffrage is on his side. He has all the confidence of the state and all the fondness of his friends. He is of royal lineage; and, in the forcible language of the poet, who has immortalized him, is every inch a king. He has the daring courage of an adventurer, and the prescience and sagacity of a statesman. He has experienced all the vicissitudes of life, and has surveyed the wide world both as a soldier and a pilgrim. He is as patient of hardships as Lucius Cataline, nor less in love than he of the arduous, the romantic, and the incredible. The flinty and steel couch of war is his thrice driven bed of down. What is rugged to others is smooth to him. In strange and mysterious alliance, he unites the soul of candor, and the facility of a man of the world, with the stratagem of war, and the dignified reserve of a politician.

SPECIMENS OF ELOQUENCE.

EXTRACT FROM MR. BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA.

As to the wealth which the colonies have drawn from the sea by their their fisheries, you had all that matter fully opened at your bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of value, for they seemed even to excite your envy; and yet the spirit, by which that enterprising employment has been exercised, ought rather, in my opinion, to have raised your esteem and admiration. And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New-England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them amongst the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straights, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctick circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, and engaged under the frozen serpent of the South. Falkland Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat more discouraging to them, than the accumulated winter of both the poles. We know that whilst some of them draw the line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, others run the longitude, and pursue the gi gantic game along the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprize, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent

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people; a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. When I contemplate these things; when I know that the colonies in general owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that they are not compressed into this happy form by the constraints of watchful and suspicious government, but that through a wise and salutary neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power. sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt, and die away within me. My rigor relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

MR. BURKE'S SPEECH AT

GENTLEMEN,

BRISTOL, ON DECLINING THE ELECTION.

I decline the Election.-It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.

I have not canvassed the whole of this city in form. But I have taken such a view of it as satisfies my own mind, that your choice will not ultimately fall upon me. Your city, gentlemen, is in a state of miserable distraction; and I am resolved to withdraw whatever share my pretensions may have had in its unhappy divisions. I have not been in haste; I have tried all prudent means; I have waited for the effect of all contingencies. If I were fond of a contest, by the partiality of my numerous friends (whom you know to be among the most weighty and respectable people of the city) I have the means of a sharp one in my hands. But I thought it far better, with my strength unspent, and my reputation unimpaired, to do, early and from foresight, that which I might be obliged to do from necessity at last.

I am not in the least surprised, nor in the least angry, at this view of things. I have read the book of life for a long time, and I have read other books a little. Nothing has happened to me, but what has happened to men much better than I, and in times and in nations full as good as the age and country that we live in. To say that I am no way concerned, would be neither decent nor true. The representation of Bristol was an object on many accounts dear to me; and I certainly should very far prefer it to any other in the kingdom. My habits are made to it; and it is in general more unpleasant to be rejected after long trial, than not to be chosen at a#.

But, gentlemen, I will see nothing except your former kindness, and I will give way to no other sentiments than those of gratitude. From the bottom of my heart I thank you for what you have done for me. You have given me a long term, which is now expired. I have performed the conditions, and enjoyed all the profits to the full; and I now surrender your estate into your hands without being in a single tile or a single stone impaired or wasted by my use. I have served the public for fifteen years. I have served you. in particular, for six. What is passed is well stored. It is safe, and out of the power of fortune. What is to come, is in wiser hands than ours; and he, in whose hands it is, best knows whether it is best for you and me in parliament, or even in the world.

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman, who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm; and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.

It has been usual for a candidate who declines, to take his leave by a letter to the sheriffs; but I received your trust in the face of day; and in the face of day I accept your dismission. I am not, I am not nor can my presence

at all ashamed to look upon you;