The howling storms at midnight's hour 6. Ye tremble when my legions come, When my quivering sword leaps out 7. The hieroglyphs on the Persian wall, 8. At length the hour of light is here, The words of Truth and Freedom's rays Are from my pinions hurled; And soon the light of better days Shall rise upon the world. George W. Cutter. MR LESSON 132. DANIEL WEBSTER. R. WEBSTER'S love of agriculture, of sports in the open air, of the outward world in starlight and storms, and sea and boundless wilderness, all displayed a man in whom the most various intercourse with the world, the longest career in strife and honors, the consciousness of intellectual supremacy, the coming in of a wide fame, constantly enlarging, left as he was at first, natural, simple, manly, genial, kind. 2. I have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory, that in the last months of his life the whole affectionateness of his nature-his consideration for others, his gentleness, his desire to make them happy and to see them happy seemed to come out in more and more beautiful and habitual expression than ever before. The long day's public tasks were felt to be done; the cares, the uncertainties, the mental conflicts of high place were ended; and he came home to recover himself for the few years which he might still expect would be his, before he should go hence, to be here no more. 3. And there, I am assured and fully believe, no unbecoming regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for injustice suffered or expectations unfulfilled; no selfreproach for anything done or anything omitted by himself; no irritation, no peevishness unworthy of his noble nature; but, instead, love and hope for his country, when she became the subject of conversation; and for all around him, the dearest and the most indifferent, for all breathing things about him, the overflow of the kindest heart growing in gentleness and benevolence; paternal, patriarchal affections, seeming to become more natural, warm, and communicative every hour. Softer and yet brighter grew the tints on the sky of parting day; and the last lingering rays, more even than the glories of noon, announced how divine was the source from which they proceeded; how incapable to be quenched; how certain to rise on a morning which no night should follow. It was 4. Such a character was made to be loved. loved. Those who knew and saw it in its hour of calm -those who could repose on that soft green-loved him. His plain neighbors loved him; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, "How lonesome the world seems!" Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the Gospel, the general intelligence of the country, the masses afar off, loved him. 5. True, they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the people; so much of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many phrases of humanity and philanthropy: and some had told them he was lofty and cold,—solitary in his greatness: but every year they came nearer and nearer to him, and as they came nearer they loved him better; they heard how tender the son had been, the husband, the brother, the father, the friend, the neighbor; that he was plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable,— the heart larger than the brain; that he loved little children, and reverenced God, the Scriptures, the Sabbath-day, the Constitution, and the law; and their hearts clave to him. More truly of him than even of the great naval darling of England might be said, that "his presence would set the church-bells ringing, and give schoolboys a holiday,—would bring children from school and old men from the chimney-corner, to gaze on him ere he died." The great and unavailing lamentation first revealed the deep place he had in the hearts of his countrymen. 6. You are now to add to this his extraordinary power of influencing the convictions of others by speech, and you have completed the survey of the means of his great ness. And here again I begin by admiring an aggregate made up of excellences and triumphs ordinarily deemed incompatible. He spoke with consummate ability to the Bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon of taste and ethics, the Bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed. 7. In the halls of Congress; before the people assembled for political discussion in masses; before audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some solemn commemoration of the past or of the dead;-in each of these, again, his speech, of the first form of ability, was exactly adapted also to the critical proprieties of the place; each achieved, when delivered, the most instant and specific success of eloquence, some of them in a splendid and remarkable degree; and yet, stranger still, when reduced to writing as they fell from his lips, they compose a body of reading, in many volumes, solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony,— a classical and permanent political literature. 8. And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly adapted each to its stage and its end, were stamped with his image and superscription; identified by characteristics incapable to be counterfeited and impossible to be mistaken. The same high power of reason, intent in every one to explore and display some truth; the same sovereignty of form, of brow, and eye, and tone, and manner, everywhere the intellectual king of men, standing before you; the same marvelousness of qualities and results, residing, I know not where, in words, in pictures, in the ordering of ideas, in felicities indescribable, by means whereof, coming from his tongue, all things seemed mended; truth seemed more true; probability more plausible; greatness more grand; goodness more awful; every affection more tender than when coming from other tongues; all these are in his eloquence. Rufus Choate. IT. LESSON 133. CESAR AT THE RUBICON. T is related of Cæsar, that, on the ever-memorable night when he had resolved to take the first step (and in such a case, the first step, as regarded the power of retreating, was also the final step) which placed him in arms against the state, it happened that his head-quarters were at some distance from the little river Rubicon, which formed the boundary of his province. 2. With his usual caution, that no news of his motions might run before himself, on this night Cæsar gave an entertainment to his friends, in the midst of which he slipped away unobserved, and with a small retinue proceeded through the woods to the point of the river at which he designed to cross. The night was stormy, and by the violence of the wind all the torches of his escort were blown out, so that the whole party lost their road, and wandered about through the whole night, until the early dawn enabled them to recover their true course. 3. The light was still gray and uncertain, as Cæsar and his retinue rode down upon the banks of the fatal river,— to cross which, with arms in his hands, since the further bank lay within the territory of the Republic, proclaimed any Roman a rebel and a traitor. No man, the firmest or the most obtuse, could be otherwise than deeply agitated, when looking down upon this little brook, so insignificant in itself, but invested by law with a sanctity so awful. The whole course of future history, and the fate of every nation, would necessarily be determined by the irretrievable act of the next half hour. 4. In these moments, and with the spectacle before him, and contemplating these immeasurable consequences for the last time that could allow him a retreat, impressed also by the solemnity and deep tranquillity of the silent dawn, whilst the exhaustion of his night-wanderings pre |