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lfs RO 1 s R mon with that illustrious man! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock and a PòrO W to br R C F W to RO teus upon my religion. This is a British influence which I can never | shake off.

29. IRISH AGITATORS, 1834.-Richard L. Sheil.

The population of Ireland has doubled since the Union. What is the condition of the mass of the people? Has her capital increased in the same proportion? Behold the famine, the wretchedness and pestilence of the Irish hovel, and if you have the heart to do so, mock at the calamities of the country, and proceed in your demonstrations of the prosperity of Ireland. The mass of the people are in a condition more wretched than that of any nation in Europe; they are worse housed, worse covered, worse fed, than the basest boors in the provinces of Russia; they dwell in habitations to which your swine would not be committed; they are covered with rags which your beggars would disdain to wear, and not only do they never taste the flesh of the animals which crowd into your markets, but while the sweat drops from their brows, they never touch the bread into which their harvests are converted. For you they toil, for you they delve; they reclaim the bog, and drive the plow to the mountain's top, for you. And where does all this misery exist? In a country teeming with fertility, and stamped Iwith the beneficent intents of God! When the famine of Ireland prevailed,-when her cries crossed the Channel, and pierced your ears and reached your hearts, the granaries of Ireland were bursting with their contents; and while a people knelt down and stretched out their hands for food, the business of deportation, the absentee tribute, was going on! Talk of the prosperity of Ireland! Talk of the external magnificence of a poor-house, gorged with misery within!

But the Secretary for the Treasury exclaims: “If the agitators would but let us alone, and allow Ireland to be

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tranquil!" The agitators, forsooth! Does he venture he the intrepidity—to speak thus? Agitators! Against deep potations let the drunkard rail; - at Crockford's let there be homilies against the dice-box; - let every libertine lament the progress of licentiousness, when his Majesty's ministers deplore the influence of demagogues, and whigs complain of agitation! How did you carry the Reform? Was it not by impelling the people almost to the verge of revolution? Was there a stimulant for their passions, was there a provocative for their excitement, to which you did not resort? If you have forgotten, do you think that we shall fail to remember, your meetings at Edinburgh, at Paisley, at Manchester, at Birmingham? Did not three. hundred thousand men assemble? Did they not pass resolutions against taxes? Did they not threaten to march on London? Did not two of the cabinet ministers indite to them epistles of gratitude and of admiration? and do they now dare - have they the audacity—to speak of agitation? Have we not as good a title to demand the restitution of our Parliament, as the ministers to insist on the reform of this House?

30. MILITARY QUALIFICATIONS DISTINCT FROM CIVIL, 1828.

It has been maintained that the genius which constitutes a great military man is a very high quality, and may be equally useful in the cabinet and in the field,— that it has a sort of universality equally applicable to all affairs. That the greatest civil qualifications may be found united with the highest military talents is what no one will deny who thinks of Washington. But that such a combination is rare and extraordinary, the fame of Washington sufficiently attests. If it were common, why was he so illustrious?

I would ask, what did Cromwell, with all his military genius, do for England? He overthrew the monarchy and

he established dictatorial power in his own person.

And what happened next? Another soldier overthrew the dictatorship and restored the monarchy. The sword effected both. Cromwell made one revolution, and Monk another. And what did the people of England gain by it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! The rights and liberties of Englishmen, as they now exist, were settled and established at the Revolution in 1688. Now, mark the difference! By whom was that revolution begun and conducted? Was it by soldiers? by military genius? by the sword? No! It was the work of statesmen and of eminent lawyers,― men never distinguished for military exploits. The faculty-the dormant faculty-may have existed. That is what no one can affirm or deny. But it would have been thought an absurd and extravagant thing to propose, in reliance upon this possible dormant faculty, that one of those eminent statesmen and lawyers should be sent, instead of the Duke of Marlborough, to command the English forces on the continent!

Who achieved the freedom and the independence of this our own country? Washington effected much in the field; but where were the Franklins, the Adamses, the Hancocks, the Jeffersons, and the Lees, the band of sages and patriots whose memory we revere? They were assembled in council. The heart of the Revolution beat in the halls of Congress. There was the power which, beginning with appeals to the king and to the British nation, at length made an irresistible appeal to the world, and consummated the Revolution by the declaration of independence, which Washington established with their authority, and bearing their commission, supported by arms. And what has this band of patriots, of sages and of statesmen given to us? Not what Cæsar gave to Rome; not what Cromwell gave to England, or Napoleon to France: they established for us the great principles of civil, political and religious liberty, upon the strong foundations on which they have hitherto stood. There

may have been military capacity in Congress; but can any one deny that it is to the wisdom of sages,-Washington being one, we are indebted for the signal blessings we enjoy?

213. Antithetical and Ironical: Circumflex Inflections. Predominating Compound Stress (§ 103) on emphatic syllables.

31. THE RIGHT TO TAX AMERICA.-Edmund Burke.

1. "But, Mr. Speaker, we have a right to tax Amèrica." Oh, inêstimable right! Oh, wonderful, transcendent right! the assertion of which has cost this country thirteen | provinces, six | islands, one hundred thousand | líves, and seventy | millions of money! Oh,

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invâluable right! for the sake of which we have sacrificed our rank | WRC to m SRC

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among nations, | our importance | abróad, | and our happiness | at

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home! Oh, right, more dear to us than our existence, | which has

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already cost us so | much, | and which seems | likely | to cost us our

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all! Infatuated | man! miserable | and undone | country! not to

is nùgatory and idle. We have a rìght to tax America, the noble

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lord tells us, therefore we ought to tax America. This is the pro

found | logic | which comprises the whole | chàin | of his rèasoning. | | |

2. Not inferior to this was the wisdom of him | who resolved

to shear the wôlf. What, shear a wolf! Have you considered the W 1 SLC

resistance, the difficulty, | the dănger, | of the attémpt? Nò, says

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the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a

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right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and, therefore, I will 1 во wh BC tr and to h BC shear the wolf. How wonderful that a nation could be thus deluded! But the noble lord dèals in cheats and delùsions. They are the daily | traffic of his invention; and he will continue to play off his cheats

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on this house, so long as he thinks them necessary to his pùrpose,

and so long as he has money enough at command to bribe | gentle

slowly

men to pretend that they beliève him. But a black | and bitter

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day of reckoning | will surely còme; and whenêver that day comes, I trust I shall be able, by a parliamentary impeachment, to bring

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upon the heads of the âuthors of our calamities the punishment they deserve.

32. THE PARTITION OF POLAND, 1800.-Charles J. Fox.

Now, sir, what was the conduct of your own allies to Pôland? Is there a single | atrocity | of the French in Itály, in Switzerland, in Egypt, if you pléase, more unpríncipled and inhúman than that of Rússia, Aústria, and Prússia, in Póland? What has there been

in the conduct of the French to foreign powers; what in the viola1fROF w 1 R C W 1 tion of solemn | trèaties; what in the plùnder, devastation, and dis

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memberment of unoffending countries; what in the horrors and R OF WR C murders perpetrated upon the subdued victims of their rage in àny 8 C and down

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district which they have overrùn,— worse than the conduct of those three great | põwers in the miserable, devoted, and trampled-on

Kingdom of Poland, and who have been, or are, òur | allìes in this war for religion, social | ôrder, and the rîghts of nâtions? Ô, but

back

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regretted the violence, and that is all you did.

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the atrocity. But they are your allies; and though they overran and BOW m tr B C to s BC

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divided Poland, there was nothing, perhaps, in the mânner of doing 8 prone B C

it which stamped it with pecûliar infamy and of Poland, perhaps, was mêrciful and mîld!

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superior to Bonaparte in bravery, and in the

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disgrace. The hero He was "as much

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