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Hang my idle armor up on the wall,
Let it be the spider's banquet hall;
He must be fenced with stronger mail
Who would seek and find the Holy Grail."

10. The castle gate stands open now,

And the wanderer is welcome to the hall
As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough;
No longer scowl the turrets tall,

The Summer's long siege at last is o'er;
When the first poor outcast went in at the door
She entered with him in disguise,

And mastered the fortress by surprise;

There is no spot she loves so well on ground,

She lingers and smiles there the whole year round.
The meanest serf on Sir Launfal's land
Has hall and bower at his command;

And there is no poor man in the North Countree
But is lord of the earldom as much as he.

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Daniel Webster, the greatest of American orators, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782. He received his early education at district schools, and at the age of fourteen was sent to Phillips Academy, Exeter, N. H., where he remained one year. He entered Dartmouth College in 1797, and finished his course with the highest credit. He was admitted to the bar in 1805, and, returning to N. H., began the practice of his profession in Boscawen, and afterwards continued it at Portsmouth. He at once took a commanding position at the bar, and, in 1812, was elected a member of Congress. In 1816 he removed to Boston and devoted himself to his profession, soon establishing a reputation as the ablest advocate in the United States. He was elected a Representative in Congress from Boston district in 1822, and

held his seat for six years, when he was chosen Senator. He continued to represent the State in the Senate for twelve years and was then appointed Secretary of State by President Harrison. During these eighteen years of public life his fame was steadily rising, until he had attained a national reputation as the foremost of constitutional lawyers and parliamentary debaters. He returned to the Senate in 1845 and in 1850 was appointed Secretary of State by President Fillmore, which position he resigned in 1852, on account of failing health, and died October 24 of the same year. The following extract is taken from his famous reply to Hayne of South Carolina in the debate in the Senate on Nullification, in 1830.

MR. PRESIDENT: I have thus stated the reasons of

dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of having detained you and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous deliberation such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous sentiments.

2. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to relinquish it without expressing once more my deep conviction that, since it respects nothing less than the union of the States, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country.

3. That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness.

4. I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counselor in the affairs of this Government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the union may be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be broken up and destroyed.

God grant that behind. When

5. While the union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise. on my vision never may be opened what lies my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

6. Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first, and Union afterward;" but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart-Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!

LESSON XXXI.

THE BLIND PREACHER.

BY WILLIAM WIRT.

William Wirt was born at Bladensburg, Maryland, in 1772. He received his early education in the private school of a Presbyterian clergyman, where he acquired a taste for reading, and enriched his mind with the contents of his master's library. He was admitted to the bar in his twentieth year, and began the practice of law in Virginia. WIRT was appointed Attorney-General of the United States in 1817, and held the position for twelve years. His public speeches were learned, glowing, and graced with the flowers of rhetoric, their effect being heightened by his handsome person, elegant manners, and musical voice. He published two volumes of essays, The British Spy and The Old Bachelor, and a very popular and fascinating Life of Patrick Henry. He died at Washington in 1834. The extract that follows is from The British Spy:

IT

T was one Sunday, as I traveled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous old wooden house in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before, in traveling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.

2. Devotion alone should have stopped me to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriveled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy, and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.

3. The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But, ah! how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than were the lips of this holy man. It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Savior. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times;

I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose that, in the wild woods of America, I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed.

4. As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.

He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Savior; his trial before Pilate, his ascent up Calvary, his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history, but never, until then, had I heard the whole circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored.

5. It was all new, and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate that his voice trembled in every syllable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His peculiar phrases had that force of description that the original scene appeared at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews; the staring, frightful distortions of malice and rage; we saw the buffet. My soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clinched.

6. But when he came to touch on the patience, the forgiving meekness, of our Savior; when he drew, to the life, His blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; His voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on His enemies: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do," the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered, grew fainter and fainter, until, his utterance being nearly obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect was inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.

7. It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual,

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