this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas! Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra-where is she? So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless and enervate Ottoman ! In his hurried march, time has but looked at their imagined immortality; and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not, one day, be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, that, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant! PHILLIPS.

140.--SPEECH ON THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

WHERE, I ask, where are those Protestant petitions against the Catholic claims, which we were told would by this time have borne down your table? We were told in the confident tone of prophecy, that England would have poured in petitions from all her counties, towns and corporations, against the claims of Ireland. I ask, where are those petitions? Has London, her mighty capital, has the university of Dublin, mocked the calamities of your coun try, by petitioning in favour of those prejudices that would render us less able to redress them? Have the people of England raised a voice against their Catholic fellow subjects? No; they have the wisdom to see the folly of robbing the empire, at such a time, of one-fourth of its

strength, on account of speculative doctrines of faith. They will not risk a kingdom on account of old men's dreams about the prevalence of the pope. They will not sacrifice an empire because they dislike the sacrifice of the mass.

I say, then, England is not against us. She has put ten thousand signatures upon your table in our favour. And what says the Protestant interest in Ireland! Look at their petition-examine the names-the houses-the families. Look at the list of merchants-of divines. Look, in a word, at Protestant Ireland, calling to you in a warning voice-telling you that if you are resolved to go on, till ruin breaks with a fearful surprise upon your progress, they will go on with you-they must partake your danger, though they will not share your guilt.

Ireland, with her imperial crown, now stands before you You have taken her parliament from her, and she appears in her own person at your bar. Will you dismiss a kingdom without a hearing? Is this your answer to her zeal, to her faith, to the blood that has so profusely graced your march to victory-to the treasures that have decked your strength in peace. Is her name nothing-her fate indifferent-are her contributions insignificant-her six millions revenue-her ten millions trade-her two millions absentee -her four millions loan? Is such a country not worth a hearing? Will you, can you dismiss her abruptly from your bar? You cannot do it-the instinct of England is against it. We may be outnumbered now and again—but in calculating the amount of the real sentiments of the people-the ciphers that swell the evanescent majorities of an evanescent minister, go for nothing.

Can Ireland forget the memorable era of 1788? Can others forget the munificent hospitality with which she then freely gave to her chosen hope all that she had to give? Can Ireland forget the spontaneous and glowing cordiality with which her favours were then received? Never! Never! Irishmen grew justly proud in the consciousness of being subjects of a gracious predilection-a predilection that required no apology, and called for no renunciationa predilection that did equal honour to him who felt it, and to those who were the objects of it. It laid the grounds of a great and fervent hope-all a nation's wishes crowding to a point, and looking forward to one event, as the

great coming, at which every wound was to be healed, every tear to be wiped away. The hope of that hour beamed with a cheering warmth and a seductive brilliancy. Ireland followed it with all her heart-a leading light through the wilderness, and brighter in its gloom. She followed it over a wide and barren waste it has charmed her through the desert, and now, that it has led her to the confines of light and darkness, now, that she is on the borders of the promised land, is the prospect to be suddenly obscured, and the fair vision of princely faith to vanish for ever!-I will not believe it-I require an act of parliament to vouch its credibility-nay more, I demand a miracle to convince me that it is possible! GRATTAN

141. THE PATRIOT'S HOpe.

SIR, Our republic has long been a theme of speculation among the savans of Europe. They profess to have cast its horoscope, and fifty years was fixed upon by many as the utmost limit of its duration. But those years passed by, and beheld us a united and happy people; our political atmosphere, agitated by no storm, and scarce a cloud to obscure the serenity of our horizon; all of the present was prosperity; all of the future, hope.-True, upon the day of that anniversary two venerated fathers of our free dom and of our country fell; but they sunk calmly to rest, in the maturity of years and in the fulness of time; and their simultaneous departure on that day of jubilee, for another and a better world, was hailed by our nation as a propitious sign, sent to us from heaven. Wandering the other day in the alcoves of the library, I accidentally opened a volume containing the orations delivered by many distinguished men on that solemn occasion, and I noted some expressions of a few who now sit in this hall, which are deep fraught with the then prevailing, I may say universal feeling. It is inquired by one, "Is this the effect of accident or blind chance, or has that God, who holds in his hand the destiny of nations and of men, designed these things as an evidence of the permanence and perpetuity of our institutions ?" Another says, "Is it not stamped with the seal of divinity?" And a third, descanting on

the prospects, bright and glorious. which opened on our beloved country, says, "Auspicious omens cheer us."

Yet it would have required but a tinge of superstitious gloom, to have drawn from that event darker forebodings of that which was to come. In our primitive wilds, where the order of nature is unbroken by the hand of man; there, where majestic trees arise, spread forth their branches, live out their age, and decline; sometimes will a patriarcha! piant, which has stood for centuries the winds and storms, fall when no breeze agitates a leaf of the trees that surround it. And when, in the calm stillness of a summer's noon, the solitary woodsman hears on either hand the heavy crash of huge, branchless trunks, falling by their own weight to the earth whence they sprung, prescient of the future, he foresees the whirlwind at hand, which shall sweep through the forest, break its strongest stems, upturn its deepest roots, and strew in the dust its tallest, proudest heads. But I am none of those who indulge in gloomy anticipation. I do not despair of the republic. My trust is strong, that the gallant ship, in which all our hopes are embarked, will yet outride the storm; saved alike from the breakers and billows of disunion, and the greedy whirlpool-the all-ingulfing maelstroom of executive power, that unbroken, if not unharmed, she may pursue her prosperous voyage far down the stream of time; and that the banner of our country, which now waves over us so proudly, will still float in triumph-born on the wings of heaven, fanned by the breath of fame, every stripe, bright and unsullied, every star fixed in its sphere, ages after each of us now here shall have ceased to gaze on its majestic folds for ever.

EWING.

142. CHARACTER OF TRUE ELOQUENCE.

WHEN public bodies are to be addressed on momentous occasions, when great interests are at stake, and strong passions excited, nothing is valuable, in speech, farther than it is connected with high intellectual and moral endowments. Clearness, force, and earnestness, are the qualities which produce conviction. True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far

Labour and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it-they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments, and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then, words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then, patriotism is eloquent; then, self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object-this, this is eloquence: or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence,—it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action. WEBSTER.

143. THE BEST OF CLASSICS.

THERE is a classic, the best the world has ever seen, the noblest that has ever honoured and dignified the language of mortals. If we look into its antiquity, we discover a title to our veneration, unrivalled in the history of literature. If we have respect to its evidences, they are found in the testimony of miracle and prophecy; in the ministry of man, of nature and of angels, yea, even of "God, manifest in the flesh," of "God, blessed for ever." If we consider its authenticity, no other pages have survived the lapse of time, that can be compared with it. If we examine its authority, for it speaks as never man spake, we discover, that it came from heaven, in vision and prophecy, under the sanction of Him, who is Creator of all things, and the Giver of every good and perfect gift. If we reflect on its truths, they are lovely and spotless, sublime and holy, as