Nor are its effects less wonderful than advantageous. The mathematician can do more things than any poet ever yet conceived. He in a map can contract Asia to a span, and in a glass show a city from a single house, and an army from a man. He can set the heavens a thousand years forward, and call all the stars by their names. There is scarcely anything without his reach. He can gauge the channel of the sea, and weigh Saturn. He sees furthest into the art and skill of the Creator, and can write the best comment on the six days' work. Be advised, therefore, to employ yourself rather in the improving of your understanding, than in inflaming your passions, and to prefer realities before appearances. In my mind, to make a dial is harder than to find a motto to it, and a prospect drawn in lines pleasanter than one in words. Instead of descriptions of cool groves and flowery gardens, you may inform yourself of the situation and extent of empires; and while others are wandering in Elysian fields and fancied shades below, you may raise your thoughts to the infinity of space above, and visit all the worlds that shine upon us here; think most of Mercury, when he is furthest off the Sun, and mind little in Venus but her periodic motion. metic. In short, I write altogether upon slate, where I make parallels instead of couplets, and describe nothing but a circle. Let me for the future, therefore, catch no poet in your hands, unless it be Aratus or Dionysius, and follow my counsel, unless you can make one of these studies subservient to the other, your poetry wise and learned, and your mathematics pleasant and ingenious. [GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON. 1788-1824.] ON HIS EXILE AND DOMESTIC DIFFERENCES. THE man who is exiled by a faction has the consolation of thinking that he is a martyr; he is upheld by hope and the dignity of his cause, real or imaginary : he who withdraws from the pressure of debt may indulge in the thought that time and prudence will retrieve his circumstances: he who is condemned by the law has a term to his banishment, or a dream of its abbreviation; or, it may be, the knowledge or the belief of some injustice of the law, or of its administration in his own particular; but he who is outlawed by general opinion, without the intervention of hostile politics, illegal judgment, or embarrassed circumstances, whether he be innocent or guilty, must undergo all the bitterness of exile, without hope, without pride, without alleviation. This case was mine. Upon what grounds the public founded their opinion I am not aware; but it was general, and it was decisive. Of me or of mine they knew little, except that I had written what is called poetry, was a nobleman, had married, became a father, and was involved in differences with my wife and her relatives, no one knew why, because the persons complain To let you see I have got the start of you, I now follow the old rule of Nulla dies sine linea, and am so far advanced in geometry, that I defy any man to make a rounder circle, or cut a line in two more nicely than myself. I am well versed in squares, am no stranger to the doctrine of proportion, and have transposed A, B, C, D, in all the mathematical anagrams they are capable of. My chamber I have surveyed five times over, and have at length found a convenient place for a south dial. I am at present about a bargain of pins, which you shall soon see disposed into bastions and counter-ing refused to state their grievances. The scarps. I felt at first, I must confess, a great confusion in my head between rhymes and angles, fiction and demonstration: but at length Virgil has resigned to Euclid, and poetical feet and numbers to their namesakes in geometry and arith fashionable world was divided into parties, mine consisting of a very small minority : the reasonable world was naturally on the stronger side, which happened to be the lady's, as was most proper and polite. The press was active and scurrilous; and such was the rage of the day, that the un- door may be uppermost, he will kick and fortunate publication of two copies of call on the Speaker and the Sergeant-atverses, rather complimentary than other arms in vain; nothing will remain of all wise to the subjects of both, was tortured his graces, his flexibilities, his fascinating into a species of crime, or constructive facetious fun, his social warmth, nothing petty treason. I was accused of every of his flow of soul, of his dear heavy pleamonstrous vice by public rumour and pri- santry, of his prevailing skill to impart vate rancour my name, which had been disorderly wishes to the purest heart, a knightly or a noble one since my fathers nothing will remain of it all but an heap helped to conquer the kingdom for William of ashes for the parish church of Tamthe Norman, was tainted. I felt that, if worth. He perishes at the moment that what was whispered, and muttered, and he is becoming as powerful in the drawingmurmured was true, I was unfit for Eng-room of courts as in the House of Parlialand; if false, England was unfit for me. I withdrew; but this was not enough. In other countries, in Switzerland, in the shadow of the Alps, and by the blue depths of the lakes, I was pursued and breathed upon by the same blight. I crossed the mountains, but it was the same; so I went a little farther, and settled myself by the waves of the Adriatic, like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. [REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 1771-1845.]· (To Sir Robert Peel.) A CRUEL attack upon me, Sir Robert, to attribute all my interference with the arbitary proceedings of railroads to personal fear. Nothing can be more ungrateful and unkind: I thought only of you and for you, as many Whig gentlemen will bear me testimony who rebuked me for my anxiety. I said to myself and to them, our lovely and intrepid Minister may be overthrown on the rail, the locked ment, at the moment when Hullah (not I have no doubt of your bravery, Sir courteous attack enemies who cannot re- I am, Sir, SECTION VII. ORATORICAL. [QUEEN ELIZABETH. 1533-1603.] ADDRESS TO HER ARMY AT TILBURY FORT. MY LOVING PEOPLE,-We have been persuaded of some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but, I assure you, I do not live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself, that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you, as you see at this time, not for any recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king-ay, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm: to which, rather than dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and recorder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already for your forwardness you have deserved crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the meantime, my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince com manded more noble or worthy subject; not doubting, but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valour in the field; we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, my kingdom, and my people. WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1564-1616.] HAMLET'S INSTRUCTION TO THE PLAYERS. SPEAK the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town crier had spoke my lines. And do not saw the air too much with your hand thus; but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. Oh; it offends me to the soul, to hear a robusteous, perriwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I could have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing_termagant; it out-herod's Herod. Pray you, avoid it. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature : for anything so overdone is from the pur D D pose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve, the censure of one of which must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to speak it profanely), that neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them: for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too: though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: -that's villanous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Hamlet. BRUTUS ON THE DEATH OF CÆSAR. ROMANS, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause; and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe. Censure me in your wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Cæsar's, to him I say, that Brutus' love to Cæsar was no less than his. If then that friend demand, why Brutus rose against Cæsar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Cæsar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Cæsar were living, and die all slaves; than that Cæsar were dead, to live all freemen? As Cæsar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There are tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honour for his valour, and death for his ambition. Who's here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who's here so rude, that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who's here so vile, that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended--I pause for a reply- None?-then none have I offended. I have done no more to Cæsar than you should do to Brutus. The question of his death is inrolled in the Capitol; his glory not extenuated, wherein he was worthy; nor his offences inforced for which he suffered death. Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Anthony; who, though he had no hand in his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place in the commonwealth; as which of you shall not? With this I depart, that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death.Julius Cæsar. www [WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. ON THE CRIME OF BEING SIR,-The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man. In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder. PROTEST AGAINST THE AMERICAN WAR. [Delivered in the House of Lords, on the Address to the Throne, at the opening of Parliament, on the 18th of November, 1777.] I RISE, my lords, to declare my sentiments on this most solemn and serious subject. It has imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, nothing can remove; but which impels me to endeavour its alleviation, by a free and unreserved communication of my sentiments. In the first part of the address I have the honour of heartily concurring with the noble earl who moved it. No man feels sincerer joy than I do; none can offer more genuine congratulations on every accession of strength to the Protestant succession. I therefore join in every congratulation on the birth of another princess, and the happy recovery of her Majesty. But I must stop here. My courtly complaisance will carry me no further. I will not join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. I cannot concur in a blind and servile address, which approves, and endeavours to sanctify, the monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace and misfortune upon us. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery cannot now avail; cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must dispel the delusion and the darkness which envelope it; and display, in its full danger and true colours, the ruin that is brought to our doors. This, my lords, is our duty. It is the proper function of this noble assembly, sitting, as we do, upon our honours in this House, the hereditary council of the crown. Who is the minister, where is the |