soon know, and in any event have reason to lament, what may have happened since. As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible.

You may swell every expense and every effort still more 5 extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German prince that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign despot; your efforts are forever vain and impotent- doubly so from this mercenary aid on 10 which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a for15 eign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms

never- never

never.

XXX. THE DEATH OF CHATHAM.

BELSHAM.

(WILLIAM BELSHAM, an English author, was born in 1752, and died in 1827. In 1806, he published a "History of Great Britain, to the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens, in 1802," in twelve volumes. He was an ardent friend of civil and religious liberty, and his history is written in a corresponding spirit. He was also the author of numerous other productions of an historical and political character.]

THE mind feels interested in the minutest circumstances relating to the last day of the public life of this renowned statesman and patriot. He was dressed in a rich suit of black velvet, with a full wig, and covered up to the 5 knees in flannel. On his arrival in the house, he refreshed himself in the lord chancellor's room, where he stayed till prayers were over, and till he was informed that business was going to begin. He was then led into the house by his son and son-in-law, Mr. William Pitt and Lord Viscount Mahon, all the lords standing up out of respect,

and making a lane for him to pass to the earl's bench, he bowing very gracefully to them as he proceeded.

He looked pale and much emaciated, but his eye retained all its native fire; which, joined to his general 5 deportment, and the attention of the house, formed a spectacle very striking and impressive. When the Duke of Richmond had sat down, Lord Chatham rose, and began by lamenting that his bodily infirmities had so long, and at so important a crisis, prevented his attendance on the 10 duties of parliament. He declared that he had made an effort almost beyond the powers of his constitution, to come down to the house on this day, perhaps the last time he should ever be able to enter its walls, to express the indignation he felt at the idea which he understood was 15 gone forth of yielding up the sovereignty of America.

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'My Lords," continued he, "I rejoice that the grave has not yet closed upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the load of infirm20 ity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture; but, my Lords, while I have sense and memory, I never will consent to tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions.

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Shall a people, so lately the terror of the world, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon ? It is impossible! In God's name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and if peace cannot be preserved with honor, why is not war commenced without hesitation? 30 I am not, I confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. Any state, my Lords, is better than despair. Let us at least make one effort, and if we must fall, let us fall like men."

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The Duke of Richmond, in reply, declared himself to be "totally ignorant of the means by which we were to resist,

with success, the combination of America with the house of Bourbon. He urged the noble lord to point out any possible mode, if he were able to do it, of making the Americans renounce that independence of which they were 5 in possession. His Grace added, that if he could not, no man could; and that it was not in his power to change his opinion on the noble lord's authority, unsupported by any reasons but a recital of the calamities arising from a state of things not in the power of this country now to 10 alter."

Lord Chatham, who had appeared greatly moved during the reply, made an eager effort to rise at the conclusion of it, as if laboring with some great idea, and impatient to give full scope to his feelings; but, before he could utter a 15 word, pressing his hand on his bosom, he fell down sud

denly, in a convulsive fit. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Temple, and other lords near him, caught him in their arms. The house was immediately cleared; and his lordship being carried into an adjoining apartment, the 20 debate was adjourned. Medical assistance being obtained, his lordship in some degree recovered, and was conveyed to his favorite villa of Hayes, in Kent, where, after lingering some few weeks, he expired May 11, 1778, in the seventieth year of his age.

XXXI. CHARACTER OF CHATHAM.

GRATTAN.

[HENRY GRATTAN, the celebrated Irish patriot and orator, was born in Dublin, July 3, 1746, and died in London May 14, 1820. He entered the Irish parliament in 1775, and immediately devoted himself, with great energy and eloquence, to lighten the burdens, political and commercial, under which his country then languished. The ability and courage which he displayed and the results he accomplished, made him the idol of the Irish people. He opposed the Union, but after it had been effected, sat in the imperial parliament, where he maintained the cause and rights of Ireland with unabated eloquence and spirit He was a zealous advocate of Roman Catholic emancipation,

His public life was honest and nobly consistent and his private character was without a blemish. His style of speaking was vivid, impassioned, and epigrammatic. His eloquence owed nothing to personal advantages, for he was below the medium height, and not prepossessing in appearance.

This character of Chatham was written by Grattan when quite a young man, and published in a newspaper of the day.]

THE secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns 5 thought royalty so impaired in his presence that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was 10 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. 15 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 suggestion of an understanding 20 animated by ardor and enlightened by prophecy.

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 25 came occasionally into our system to counsel and to decide.

A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the treasury trembled at the name of Pitt, through all the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found 30 defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsist

ency 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, 5 familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres.

He did not, like Murray, conduct the understanding 10 through the painful subtlety of argumentation; nor was he, like Townshend, forever on the rack of exertion; but rather lightened 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. Upon the whole, there was 15 in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or 20 overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through the universe.

XXXII. - THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

PIERPONT.

[JOHN PIERPONT was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, April 6, 1785, and was graduated at Yale College in 1804. He was originally a lawyer, but afterwards studied theology, and in 1819 was ordained minister of the Hollis Street Church in Boston, where he remained till 1845. Since then he has been settled over congregations in Troy, New York, and Medford, Massachusetts. He has been an active laborer in behalf of temperance, anti-slavery, the improvement of prison discipline, and other reforms; and many of his poems have been called

* William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, held a seat in parliament, and was an orator of most persuasive elegance and subtle powers of argumentation. He was appointed chief justice of the Kings Bench in 1756. Charles Townshend entered parliament in 1747. He held various high offices during his life. He supported the stamp act and the taxation of the American colonies. He had great parliamentary abilities and oratorical powers.