CHARACTER OF PITT.

(ROBERTSON.)

The secretary stood alone: modern degeneracy had not reached him. | Original, and unaccommodating, I the features of his character, had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind over-awed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chica nery, no narrow system of vicious politics, no idle contest for ministerial vic'tories, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but over-bearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame.. |

Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other, the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; | and his schemes were to affect, not England, not the present age only, but Europe, and posterity. | Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished always seasonable, always adequate, | | the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour, and enlightened by prophecy. Į

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The ordinary feelings which make life amiable, and indolent, were unknown to him. No domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness reached him; | but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system, to counsel, and to decide. |

A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, | I so authoritative, | astonished a corrupt age- and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt | through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, |

Såv'er-inż. b + Shẻ-kanår rẻ. c Untractable.

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and

that she had found defects' in this statesman, talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered, and refuted her. |

Nor were his political abilities his only talents: | his eloquence was an era in the senate, peculiar, and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments, and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tul·ly ; || it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtlety of argumentation; nor was he, like Townshend, | for ever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened I upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of the mind', which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. I

Upon the whole, there was in this man | something that would create', | subvert', | or reform; | an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence, to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asun'der, something to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded author'ity; something that could establish, or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world, that should resound through the universe. |

CLARENCE'S DREAM.

(SHAKSPEARE.)

- A Room in the Tower of London.

SCENE

[Enter CLARENCE and BRACKENBURY.]

Brack. Why looks your grace so heavily to-day? |
Clar. O I have pass'd a miserable night, |

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, I
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night, |
Though 't were to buy a world of happy days: |
So full of dismal terror was the time. |

Brack. What was your dream, my lord? | I you, tell me. |

pray

Clar. Methought that I had broken from the tow'er, ] And had embark'd to cross to Burgundy; | And, in my company, my brother Gloster, Who from my cabin, tempted me to walk Upon the hatches; thence we look'd toward England, | And cited up a thousand heavy times, During the wars of York, and Lancaster, | That had befallen us. As we pac'd along Upon the giddy footing of the hatches, | Methought that Gloster stumbled, and, in falling, Struck me that thought to stay him, o'ver-board | Into the tumbling billows of the main. | O methought what pain it was to drown.! | What dreadful noise of water in mine, ears' la| What sights of ugly death within mine, eyes! | Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks', | A thousand men that fishes gnaw'd upon, | Wedges of gold', great anchors, heaps of pearl', | Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, | All scatter'd in the bottom of the sea. |

'Some lay in dead men's skulls.; and, in those holes Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept, (As 't were in scorn of eyes) | reflecting gems | That woo'd the slimy bottom of the deep, | And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by. I Brack. Had you such leisure in the time of death, gaze upon these secrets of the deep'? |

Το

Clar. Methought I had; | and often did I strive
To yield the ghost; but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth |
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air, |
But smother'd it within my panting bulk, |
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea. I

Mine ears; not mine-nears.

Mine eyes; not mine-nize.

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Brack. Awak'd you not with this sore ag'ony? | Clar. O no, my dream was lengthen'd after life,; | O then began the tempest to my soul: [ I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood With that grim ferryman which poets write of, | Unto the kingdom of perpetual night. | The first that there did greet my stranger soul, Was my great father-in-law, | renowned Warwick, | Who cried aloud, "What scourge for perjury | Can this dark monarchy | afford false Clarence?" | And so he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by A shadow like an, an'gel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood; and he shriek'd out aloud,1 "Clarence is come, false, fleet'ing, perjur'd Clarence That stabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury; -| Seize on him, fu`ries, | take him to your torments!" | With that, methought a legion of foul fiends Environ'd me, and howled in mine, ears Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise', | I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after, Could not believe but that I was in hell, Such terrible impression made my dream. Į Brack. No marvel, lord, that it affrighted you- | I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

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Clar. O Brackenbury, I have done these things |
That now give evidence against my soul,

For Edward's sake; and, see how he requites me!-{
I pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep..!

I

[Clarence reposes himself on a chair.

Brack. I will, my lord. |

Sorrow breaks seasons, and repo'sing hours, |
Makes the night morning, and the noon-tide night. |
Princes have but their titles for their glories |
An outward honour for an inward toil; |
And, for unfelt imaginations,

They often feel a world of restless_cares : |
So that, between their titles, and low name, |
There's nothing differs | but the outward fame. |

TO THE URSA MAJOR.
(H. WARE, JUN.)

With what a stately, and majestic step |
That glorious constellation of the north |
Treads its eternal circle! | going forth
Its princely way amongst the stars in slow,
And silent brightness. Mighty one, all-hail'! |
I joy to see thee, on thy glowing path, |
Walk like some stout, and girded giant
Unwearied, resolute, whose toiling foot
Disdains to loiter on its destined way. I

| stern,

The other tribes forsake their midnight track, |
And rest their weary orbs beneath the wave; |
But thou dost never close thy burning eye, |
Nor stay thy steadfast step. But on, still on', |
While systems change, and suns retire, and worlds
Slumber, and wake, I thy ceaseless march proceeds. |
The near horizon tempts to rest in vain. |
Thou, faithful sentinel, | dost never quit
Thy long-appointed watch; but, sleepless still, |
Dost guard the fix'd light of the universe,
And bid the north for ever know its place. |

Ages have witness'd thy devoted trust, |
Unchang'd, unchanging. When the sons of God |
Sent forth that shout of joy, which rang thro' heaven, |
And echoed from the outer spheres that bound
The illimitable universe, thy voice

Join'd the high chorus; from thy radiant orbs |
The glad cry sounded, swelling to his praise,
Who thus had cast another sparkling_gem, |
Little, but beautiful, amid the crowd
Of splendours | that enrich his firmament. |
As thou art now so wast thou then the same. I

Ages have roll'd their course; and time grown grey;|
The seas have chang'd their beds; the eternal hills