2. You put on the garment of manhood, and assume its obligations in the midst of the most wanton, wicked, unprovoked, and unpardonable rebellion that has been witnessed in the annals of the human race. It has no parallel but in the rebellion of the fallen angels; and it has the same source, disappointed ambition and malignant hate. 3. Against the most beneficent government, the most equal laws, and a system carrying within itself a recognized and peaceful mode of adjusting every real or imaginary wrong or hardship, a portion of the people of the United States without a single wrong specified on the part of the national government have risen in rebellion against it, robbing its treasuries, and even its hospitals; firing upon and treading under foot, the flag of our country; and menacing its capital with armed hordes. tul 4. Honor, loyalty, truth, stood aghast for a while incredulously in the presence of this enormous crime; but when Sumter fell, the free people of this nation rose, yes! rose as no like uprising has been witnessed before, and now who shall stay the avenging arm? Who, with traitor lips shall talk of compromise, or with shaking knees clamor for peace? Compromise with what? peace with whom? 5. It is no question of this or that system of policy, it is a question of existence. To be or not to be,it is all there. There is no such thing as half being and half not being. Either we are a nation, or a band of anarchical outlaws; a grand continental AngloSaxon republic, such as our fathers made, one and indivisible, e pluribus unum, under a constitution equal for all and supreme over all, or an accidental assem blage of petty, jealous, barbarous, warring tribes, who acknowledge no law but the sword, and from among whom the sword will not depart. 6. My young friends, you enter upon life at the very moment this great question is under the issue of war Shrink not back from it. It must be decided now and forever. The baleful doctrine of secession must be finally and absolutely renounced. The poor quibble of double allegiance must be disavowed. An Americanand not a New Yorker, nor a Virginian-is the noble title by which we are to live, and which you, my young friends, must, in your respective spheres, contribute to make live, however it may cost in blood and money. 7. Go forth, then, my friends, go forth as citizens of the great continental American republic, to which your first, your constant, your latest hopes in life should attach, and abating no jot of obedience to municipal or State authority within the respective limits of each, - bear yourselves always, and everywhere, as Americans, as fellow-countrymen of Adams, and Ellsworth, and Jay, and Patterson, and Carroll, and Washington, and Pinckney, as heirs of the glories of Bunker Hill and Saratoga, and Monmouth and Yorktown, and Eutaw Springs and New Orleans, and suffer no traitor hordes to despoil you of such rich inheritance, or of so grand and glorious a country! LXIII. THE SONG OF THE FORGE. See in Index, ARMADA, COLTER or COULTER, PLOW or PLOUGH, SAUNTER, WORD, BANNOCkburn, Leonidas, Marston, NILE, TYROL. Pronounce ea in HEARTH as in heart (though in the poem, erroneously made to rhyme with birth); E'ER, as if air; HEAVEN, hěv'n (as if in one syllable); the o in FORGE long (see § 11). Delivery. A good and effective reading exercise for a class may be made by throwing this piece, as we have here done, into the dialogue form, marking a portion of it for simultaneous utterance by all. The First Speaker should stand apart from the rest, or he may be personated by the teacher, and should regulate, by a motion of his hand, the time of the Words marked for All. All. Clang, clang! First Voice. The massive anvils ring. - First Voice. A hundred hammers swing: Like the thunder-rattle of a tropic sky The mighty blows still multiply. All. Clang, clang! First Voice. Say, brothers of the dusky brow, All. Clang, clang! We forge the cōlter now. To genial rains, to sun and wind, All. Clang, clang! Third Voice. Our colter's course shall be On many a sweet and sheltered lea, By many a streamlet's silver tide; Amid the song of morning birds, Amid soft breezes which do stray Fourth Voice. When regal Autumn's bounteous hand Of each resplendent slope is rolled A ruddy stream of living gold, We bless, we bless the plow! All. Clang, clang! First Voice. Again, my mates, what glows Beneath the hammer's pōtent blows? All. Clink, clank! we forge the giant CHAIN Which bears the gallant vessel's strain 'Mid stormy winds and adverse tides. Fifth Voice. Secured by this, the good ship braves The rocky roadstead, and the waves Which thunder on her sides. Anxious no more, the merchant sees Calmly he rests, though far away In boisterous climes his vessels lie, Reliant on our skill. Sixth Voice. Say on what sands these links shall sleep, Fathoms beneath the solemn deep : — By Afric's pestilential shore? By many an iceberg lone and hoar? By many a palmy western isle, Basking in Spring's perpetual smile? Seventh Voice. Say, shall they feel the vessel reel, The crashing broadside makes reply? Or else, as at the glorious Nile, Hold grappling ships that strive the while All. Hurrah!-cling, clang! First Voice. Once more, what glows, The tempest of your iron blows, The furnace's red breath? All. Clang, clang!-a burning shower, clear Around and up, in the dusky air, As our hammers forge... the SWORD! Clink, clank, clang! Eighth Voice. The sword! extreme of dread! yet when Upon the freeman's thigh 't is bound, While for his altar and his hearth, While for the land that gave him birth, The war-drum rolls, the trumpets sound, How sacred is it then! Ninth Voice. Whenever for the truth and right It flashes in the van of fight; Whether in some wild mountain pass, Like that where fell Leonidas; Or on some sterile plain and stern, It gleams above the stormy tide, Is Liberty, where men do stand For justice and their native land, LXIV. ON THE ACT OF HABEAS CORPUS. CURRAN. In 1804, an act was passed by the British Parliament, by which it was enacted that a warrant from a court in Great Britain might be transmitted to Ireland, be indorsed and executed there by a Justice of the Peace, and the accused party transferred for trial to the court from which the warrant issued. Under this act Mr. Justice Johnson was arrested for libel, but a Habeas Corpus was issued, the cause was brought up in the Court of Exchequer, February 4th, 1805, before Chief Justice Lord Avonmore and the other Barons, and Curran made a speech in the prisoner's behalf, from which we take the following passages. The judgment of the court was given against the prisoner's release. See in Index, ABSTRACT, AXE or AX, CHARTA (kar'ta), DRAMA, EXTRAOR DINARY, HABEAS CORPUS, LEGISLATIVE, MY, OFFENSE or OFFENCE, PRETENSE or PRETENCE, CI'MON, EPAMINON'DAS, FABRICIUS, LUCRECE, VIRGINIA, CUrran. Delivery. Among specimens of forensic eloquence this speech occupies a high rank. It should be read chiefly in a middle pitch, though in the third paragraph a low pitch may be properly introduced. From the tenth paragraph to the end, the reader, in order to impart the right effect, must be sensible to the rare beauty and charm of the language. 1. IT has fallen to my lot, either fortunately or unfortunately, as the event may be, to rise as counsel for my client, on this most important and momentous occasion. I appear before you in consequence of a writ issued by his Majesty, commanding that cause be shown to this his court why his subject has been deprived of |