"Cut off this watch, these seals." "He's Where is his daily living earned, or won ? In the streets, both night and day, sir, hot or cold.” "He has none." 3. None-none! No par'ent! Like the cuckoo's young, Cast on the lap of chance, for life, for bread; Amongst the starved and sinful roughly flung; By felons taught; by nightly plunder fed! Help, angels! who his birth-day cărol sung, Teach him, or take him quickly to the dead! Household Words. XCIV. DUTIES OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN. 1. LET us cherish, fellow-citizens, a deep and solemn conviction of the duties which have devolved upon us. This lovely land, this glorious liberty, these benign institutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past, and generations to come, hold us responsible for this sacred trust. 2. Our fathers, from behind, admonish us, with their anxious paternal voices; posterity calls out to us from the bosom of the future; the world turns hither its solicitous eyes — all, all conjure us to act wisely and faithfully in the relation which we sustain. We We can never, indeed, pay the debt which is upon us; but by virtue, by morality, by religion, by the cultivation of every good principle and every good habit, we may hope to enjoy the blessing through our day, and to leave it unimpaired to our children. 3. Let us feel deeply how much of what we are, and of what we possess, we owe to this liberty, and these institutions of gov *Here is supposed to commence a conversation between the judge and the police-officer who has brought before him the juvenile culprit. The reader will imitate the supposed tones of voice of the two characters; the one tone being that of authoritative inquiry, the other that of deferential reply ernment. Nature has indeed, given us a soil which yields bounteously to the hands of industry; the mighty and fruitful ocean is before us, and the skies over our heads shed health and vigor. But what are lands, and seas, and skies, to civilized men, without society, without knowledge, without morals, without religious culture? and how can these be enjoyed, in all their extent, and all their excellence, but under the protection of wise institutions and a free government ? 4. Fellow-citizens, there is not one of us, there is not one of us here present, who does not at this moment, and at every moment, experience in his own condition, and in the condition of those most near and dear to him, the influence and the benefit of this liberty, and these institutions. 5. Let us, then, acknowledge the blessing, let us feel it deeply and powerfully; let us cherish a strong affection for it, and resolve to maintain and perpetuate it. The blood of our fathers let it not have been shed in vain; the great hope of posterity let it not be blasted. DANIEL WEBSTER. The following account of Charles the Second is a specimen of what is called irony. The word is from the Greek, and signifies a mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words. When we say of a notoriously indolent youth, "He is wearing himself out with hard work," there is irony in the remark. It cannot be called false, because the spirit or intent is true, although the form is not. Irony does not aim at deception; it is, however, a rather dangerous weapon. Language, as a general rule, should be true in the letter, as well as the spirit. 1. THERE never were such profligate times in England as under Charles the Second. Whenever you see his portrait, with his swarthy, ill-looking face and great nose, you may fancy him in his court at Whitehall, surrounded by some of the very worst1 vagabonds in the kingdom (though they were lords and ladies), drinking, gambling, indulging in vicious conversation and committing every kind of profligate excess. 2. It has been a fashion to call Charles the Second "The Merry Monarch." Let me try to give you a general ideä of some of the merry things that were done in the merry days when this merry gentleman sat upon his merry throne in merry England.32 3. The first merry proceeding was, of course, to declare that he was one of the greatest, the wisest, and the noblest kings that ever shone, like the blessed sun itself, on this benighted earth. The next merry and pleasant piece of business was for the parliament, in the humblest manner, to give him one million two hundred thousand pounds a year. EI 4. Then, General Monk being made Earl of Al-bemarle, and a few other royalists similarly rewarded, the law went to work to see what was to be done to those persons (they were called Regicides) who had been concerned in making a martyr of the late king. Ten of these were merrily executed; that is to say, six of the judges, one of the council, Colonel Hacker and another officer who had commanded the Guards, and Hugh Peters, a preacher who had preached against the martyr with all his heart. 5. These executions were so extremely merry, that every hor rible circumstance which Cromwell had abandoned was revived with appalling cruelty. Still, even so merry a monarch could not force one of these dying men to say that he was sorry for what he had done. Nay, the most memorable thing said among them was, that if the thing were to do again, they would do it. 6. Sir Harry Vane, who had furnished the evidence against Strafford, and was one of the most staunch * of the republicans, was also tried, found guilty, and ordered for execution. When he came upon the scaffold on Tower Hill, after conducting his own defence with great power, his notes of what he had meant to say to the people were torn away from him, and the drums were ordered to sound lustily and drown his voice. 7. For the people had been so much impressed by what the regicides had calmly said with their last breath, that it was the custom now to have the drums and trumpets always under the scaffold, ready to strike up. Vane said no more than this: "It *The au of this word has the first elementary goun 1 See Exercises. page 34. is a bad cause which cannot bear the words of a dying man!' and bravely died. 8. These merry scenes were succeeded by another, perhaps even merrier. On the anniversary of the late king's death, the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Ireton and Bradshaw, were torn out of their graves in Westminster Abbey, dragged to Tyburn hanged there on a gallows all day long, and then beheaded. 9. Imagine the head of Oliver Cromwell set upon a pole to be stared at by a brutal crowd, not one of whom would have dared to look the living Oliver in the face for half a moment. Think, after you have read of this reign, what England was under Oliver Cromwell, whose body was torn out of its grave and under this merry monarch, who sold it, like a merry Judas over and over again. Dickens. XCVI. THE MODERN PUFFING SYSTEM. FROM AN EPISTLE TO SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ. 1. UNLIKE those feeble gales of praise Our modern puffs are of a kind We find them the best "trade-winds" going. 2. What steam is on the deep and more Is the vast power of Puff on shore; And makes "immortal" and "divine" of us 3. In old times, when the god of song See Apollo, in the Explanatory Index. Their luggage, a few close-packed rhymes 4 But, now, how different is the story With our new galloping sons of glory, Who, scorning all such slack and slow time, - Raise but one general blast of Puff MOOR 1. AMONG the first colonists from Europe to this part of America, there were some, doubtless, who contemplated the distant consequences of their undertaking, and who saw a great futurity; but, in general, their hopes were limited to the enjoy * An allusion to the Edinburgh Review, the Edinburgh edition of which has blue covers, backed with yellow. + Murray, the publisher of the London Quarterly Review. |