a scene was disclosed! A storm was sweeping through the sky, nearly a mile beneath; and I looked down upon an ocean of rainbows, rolling in indescribable grandeur, to the music of the thunder-peal, as it moaned afar and near, on the coming and dying wind. 11. A frightened eagle had ascended through the tempest, and sailed for minutes by my side, looking at me with panting weariness and quivering mandibles, but with a dilated eye, whose keen iris flashed unsubdued. Proud emblem of my country! As he fanned me with his heavy wing, and looked with a human intelligence at the car, my pulse bounded with exulting rapture. Like the genius of my native land, he had risen above every storm, unfettered and FREE. 12. But my transports were soon at an end. He attempted to light on the balloon, and my heart sunk; I feared his huge claws would tear the silk. I pulled my cord; he rose, as I sank, and the blast swept him from my view in a moment. A flock of wild fowl, beat by the storm, were coursing below, on bewildered pinions; and, as I was nearing them, I knew I was descending. A breaking rift now admitted the sun. The rainbows tossed and gleamed; chains of fleecy rack, shining in prismatic rays of gold, and purple, and emerald, "beautiful exceedingly," spread on every hand. 13. Vast curtains of clouds pavilioned the immensity, brighter than celestial roses; masses of mist were lifted on high, like strips of living fire, more radiant than the sun himself, when his glorious noontide culminates from the equator. A kind of aerial Euroclydon now smote my car, and three of the cords parted, which tilted my gondola to the side, filling me with terror. I caught the broken cords in my hand, but could not tie them. 14. The storm below was now rapidly passing away, and beneath its waving outline, to the south-east, I saw the ocean. Ships were speeding on their course, and their bright sails melting into distance; a rainbow hung afar; and the rolling anthems of the Atlantic came like celestial hymnings to my ear. Presently all was clear below me. The fresh air played around. I had taken a noble circuit; and my last view was better than the first. I was far over the bay, "afloating sweetly to the west." The city, colored by the last blaze of day, brightened remotely to the view. 15. Below, ships were hastening to and fro through the Narrows, and the far country lay smiling like an Eden. Bright rivers ran like ribbons of gold and silver, till they were lost in the vast inland, stretching beyond the view; the gilded mountains were flinging their purple shadows over many a vale; bays were blushing to the farewell day-beams; and now I was passing over a green island. I sailed to the mainland; saw the tall, old trees waving to the evening breeze; heard the rural lowing of herds, and the welcome sound of human voices; and, finally, sweeping over forest tops and embowered villages, at last, descended with the sun, among a kind-hearted, surprised, and hospitable community, in as pretty a town as one could desire to see, "safe and well." Willis Gaylord Clark. I LESSON 22. SPEECH ON THE AMERICAN WAR. CANNOT, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the illusion and darkness which envelop it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colors, the ruin which is brought to our doors. 2. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to its dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them? Measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to ruin and contempt! But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor as to do her reverence. 3. The people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us; supplied with every military store, their interest consulted and their ambassadors entertained by our inveter ate enemy! and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honors the English troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valor; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. 4. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot: your attempts will be forever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, 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 foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms - never, never, never! 5. But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage?-to call into civilized. alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitants of the woods? -to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. 6. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and Nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this House, or in this country! 7. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much upon your attention, but I cannot repress my indignation. I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this House, as men, as Christian men, to protest against such horrible barbarity. "That God and Nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and Nature that noble lord may entertain, I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion and humanity. 8. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and Nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife! — to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring: drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honor. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. 9. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; - upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honor of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. Lord Chatham. 2. Richer am I than he who owns I have a share in every ship I freight them with my untold dreams, Each bears my own picked crew; And nobler cargoes wait for them Than ever India knew,— |