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cable office. But the cabinet council of English creditors would not suffer their Nabob of Arcot to sign the treaty, nor even to give to a prince', at least his equal, the ordinary titles of respect, and courtesy. I From that time forward, a continued plot' was carried on within the divan, | black, and white, of the Nabob of Arcot', | for the destruction of this Hyder Ali. | As to the outward members of the double, or rather treble government of Madras, which had signed the treaty, they were always prevented by some overruling influence | (which they do not describe, but which cannot be misunderstood) | from performing what justice, and interest | combined so evidently to enforce. |

When at length Hyder Ali | found that he had to do with men, who either would sign no convention, | or whom no treaty, and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible, and predestinated criminals, | a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind, capacious of such things, | to leave the whole Carnatic | an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation, | as a barrier between him, and those | against whom, the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together, was no protection.

He became at length | so confident of his force, and so collected in his might, | that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful resolution. | Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common interest against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter, whatever a savage ferocity | could add to his new rudiments in the art of destruction; and, compounding all the materials of fury, | hav'oc, and desola'tion, | into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors of all these evils, were idly, and stupidly

|

gazing on this menacing meteor | (which blackened all the horizon) it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents | upon the plains of the Carnatic. |

Then ensued a scene of wo; | the like of which no eye had seen, nor heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war, before known, or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire', blasted every field, consumed every house, and destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, | in part, were slaughtered; others, | without regard to sex', to age', to rank', or sacredness of function- fathers torn from their children, | husbands, from wives, | enveloped in a whirlwind of cav'alry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing hor'ses, were swept into captivity in an unknown, and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, | fled to the walled cities; but escaping from fire', sword', and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. |

For eighteen months', without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore,; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march, they did not see one man, not one woman', not one child, not one fourfooted beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence | reigned over the whole region. |

11

DARKNESS.

(BYRON.)

1

I had a dream | which was not all' a dream
The bright sun was extinguish'd; and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space, |

Rayless, and path less; and the icy earth |

Swung blind and black'ning in the moonless air. |
Morn came, and went, and came, and brought no day;
And men forgot their passions | in the dread
Of this their desolation; | and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light. |

I

And they did live by watch'-fires; and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings — the huts',
The habitations of all things which dwell, |
Were burn'd for bea.cons. | Cities were consum'd; |
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes |
To look once more into each other's face,. |
Happy were they who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanoes, and their mountain-torch. |
A fearful hope, I was all the world contain'd;\
Forests were set on fire; and hour by hour
They fell and faded and the crackling trunks |
Extinguish'd with a crash, and all was black. |

I

The brows of men, by the despairing light, |
Wore an unearthly as pect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them. Some lay down, |
And hid their eyes, and wept ; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clinched hands, and smil'd; |
And others hurried to and fro, | and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky', |
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses, cast them down upon the dust', |
And gnash'd their teeth, and howl'd. |

The wild birds shriek'd, | And, terrified, I did flutter on the ground, | And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes' | Came tame, and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd, | And twin'd themselves among the multitude, | Hissing, but sting less. They were slain for food; | And war, which, for a moment, was no more, |

Did glut' himself again: | a meal was bought
With blood; and each sat sullenly apart, |
Gorging himself in gloom. |

No love' was left; | All earth was but one thought; and that was death, | Immediate, and inglo'rious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all en trails. | Men

I

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; |
The meager by the meager were devour'd. |
Ev'n dogs' assail'd their masters; | all, save one, |
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds, and beasts, and famish'd men at bay', |
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead |
Lured their lank jaws. Himself sought out no food, |
But with a piteous, and perpetual moan, |
And a quick, desolate cry, | licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress, he died. 1

The crowd was famish'd by degrees. ; but two'
Of an enormous city, did survive ; |
And they were enemies. They met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place, |

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things |
For an unholy u'sage: they rak'd up, |

And, shivering, scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands, |
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath |
Blew for a little life, and made a flame |

Which was a mockery. Then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter', and beheld
Each other's as 'pects- I saw, and shriek'd', and died: |
Ev'n of their mutual hid'eousness they died, |
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow |
Famine had written fiend. ]

The world was void; | The populous, and the powerful was* a lump, |

*Some, being anxious to correct what is already right, have substituted were for was.

Seasonless, herb.less, tree less, | man'less, | life less
A lump of death a chaos of hard clay. |
The rivers, lakes', and o'cean, | all stood still; |
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths. |
Ships, sai lorless, | lay rotting on the sea; |
And their masts fell down piece-meal; as they dropp'd,]
They slept on the abyss, without a surge. |
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,— |
The moon, their mistress, had expired before ; |
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air; |
And the clouds perish'd. | Darkness had no need
was the universe. |

Of aid from them,

| she

CATO'S SENATE.
(ADDISON.)

Lucius, Sempronius, and Senators.

Semp. Rome still survives in this assembl'd sen ate! | Let us remember we are Ca'to's friends, | And act like men who claim that glorious title. | Luc. Cato will soon be here, and open to us The occasion of our meeting. Hark! he comes ! | May all the guardian gods of Rome direct him! | [Enter CATO.]

[Flourish of Trumpets.

Cato. Fathers, we once again are met in council— | Cæsar's approach has summon'd us together; | And Rome attends her fate from our resolves. | How shall we treat this bold aspiring man? | Success still follows him, and backs his crimes、: | Pharsalia gave him Rome'; | Egypt has since Receiv'd his yoke; and the whole Nile' is Cæsar's. I Why should I mention Juba's overthrow, | And Scipio's death? | Numidia's burning sands Still smoke with blood. | 'Tis time we should decree What course to take. Our foe advan'ces on us, | And envies us e'en Libya's sultry deserts.