DECIUS. Does Cato send this answer back to Cæsar, DECIUS. Your high unconquered heart makes you forget That you're a man. You rush on your destruction But I have done. When I relate hereafter The tale of this unhappy embassy, All Rome will be in tears. JOSEPH ADDISON. LXXXIII.-A VICTIM OF THE BASTILE. UPON the accession of Louis Sixteenth to the throne, the ministers then in office, moved by humanity, began their administration with an act of clemency and justice. They inspected the registers of the Bastile, and set many prisoners at liberty. Among them was an old man who had groaned in confinement for forty-seven years, between four thick and cold stone walls. Hardened by adversity, which strengthens both the mind and constitution, when they are not overpowered by it, he had resisted the horrors of his long imprisonment with an invincible and manly spirit. His locks, white, thin, and scattered, had almost acquired the rigidity of iron; whilst his body, environed for so long a time by a coffin of stone, had borrowed from it a firm and compact habit. The narrow door of his tomb, turning upon its grating hinges, opened not as usual by halves, and an unknown voice announced his liberty, and băde him depart. Believing this to be a dream, he hesitated; but at length rose up and walked forth with trembling steps, amazed at the space he traversed. The stairs of the prison, the halls, the court, seemed to him vast, immense, and almost without bounds. He stopped from time to time, and gazed around like a bewildered travěler. His vision was with difficulty reconciled to the clear light of day. He contemplated the heavens as a new object. His eyes remained fixed, and he could not even weep. Stupefied with the newly-acquired power of changing his position, his limbs, like his tongue, refused, in spite of his efforts, to perform their office. At length he got through the formidable gate. When he felt the motion of the carriage, which was prepared to transport him to his former habitation, he screamed out, and uttered some inarticulate sounds; and as he could not bear this new movement, he was obliged to descend. Supported by a benevolent arm, he sought out the street where he had formerly resided; he found it, ⚫ but no trace of his house remained; one of the public edifices occupied the spot where it had stood. He saw nothing which brought to his recollection, either that particular quarter, the city itself, or the objects with which he was formerly acquainted. The houses of his nearest neighbors, which were fresh in his memory, had assumed a new appearance. In vain were his looks directed to all the objects around him; he could discover nothing of which he had the smallest remembrance. Terrified, he stopped and fetched a deep sigh. To him what did it import, that the city was peopled with living creatures? None of them were alive to him; he was unknown to all the world, and he knew no body; and whilst he wept, he regretted his dungeon. At the name of the Bastile, which he often pronounced, and even claimed as an asylum, and the sight of his clothes which marked his former age, the crowd gathered around him; curiosity, blended with pity, excited their attention. The most agèd asked him many questions, but had no remembrance of the circumstances which he recapitulated. At length accident brought to his way an ancient domestic, now a superannuated °porter, who, confined to his lodge for fifteen years, had barely sufficient strength to open the gate. Even he did not know the master he had served; but informed him that grief and misfortune had brought his wife to the grave thirty years before; that his children were gone abroad to distant climes, and that of all his relations and friends, none now remained. This recital was made with the indifference which people discover for the events long passed and almost forgotten. The miserable man groaned, and groaned alone. The crowd around, offering only unknown features to his view, made him feel the excess of his calamities even more than he would have done in the dreadful solitude which he had left. Overcome with sorrow, he presented himself before the minister, to whose humanity he owed that liberty which was now become a burden to him. Bowing down, he said, "Restore me again to that prison from which you have taken me. I cannot survive the loss of my nearest relations; of my friends; and in one word, of a whole generation. Is it possible in the same moment to be informed of this universal destruction and not to wish for death? "This general mortality, which to others comes slowly and by degrees, has to me been instantaneous, the operation of a moment. Whilst secluded from society, I lived with myself only; but here I can neither live with myself, nor with this new race, to whom my anguish and despair appear only as a dream." The minister was melted; he caused the old domestic to attend this unfortunate person, as only he could talk to him of his family. This discourse was the single consolation which he received; for he shunned intercourse with the new race, born since he had been exiled from the world; and he passed his time in the midst of Paris in the same solitude as he had done whilst confined in a dungeon for almost half a century. But the chagrin and mortification of meeting no person who could say to him, "We were formerly known to each other," soon put an end to his existence. ANONYMOUS. LXXXIV.-HYMN TO THE FLOWERS. Day stars! that ope your eyes with morn to twinkle, Ye matin worshipers! who, bending lowly Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty 'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth, Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column But to that fane most catholic and solemn, Which God hath planned! To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply, Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder, Its dome the sky! Through the lone aisles, or stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder The ways of God Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preachers, From loneliest nook! Floral apostles! that in dewy splendor "Thou wast not, Solomon, in all thy glory, In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly Artist! Of love to all! Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for pleasure, "Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary For such a world of thought could furnish scope? Each fading calyx a memento mori, Yet fount of hope! 'Post'humous glories! angel-like collection! Upraised from seed or bulb intèrred in earth, Ye are to me a type of resurrection And second birth. Were I, O God! in churchless lands remaining, My soul would find, in flowers of thy ordaining, Priests, sermons, shrines! HORACE SMITH, LXXXV.-CHARACTER OF COLUMBUS. COLUMBUS was a man of great and inventive genius. The operations of his mind were energetic, but irregular; bursting forth at times with that irresistible force which characterizes intellect of such an order. His mind had gråsped all kinds of knowledge connected with his pursuits; and though his information may appear limited at the present day, and some of his errors palpable, it is because Knowledge, in his peculiar department of science, was but scantily developed in his time. His own discoveries enlightened the ignorance of that age; guided conjecture to certainty; and dispelled numerous errors with which he himself had been obliged to struggle. His ambition was lofty and noble. He was full of high thoughts, and anxious to distinguish himself by great achievements. It has been said that a mercenary feeling mingled with his views, and that his stipulations with the Spanish court were selfish and avaricious. The charge is inconsiderate and unjust. He aimed at dignity and wealth in the same lofty spirit in which he sought renown; but they were to arise from the territories he should discover, and be 'commensurate in importance. He asked nothing of the sovereigns but a command of the countries he hoped to give them, and a share of the profits to upport the dignity of his command. The gains that promised to arise from his discoveries, he intended to appropriate in the same princely and pious spirit in which they were demanded. He contemplated works and achievements of benevolence and religion, vast contributions for the relief of the poor of his native city; the foundation of churches, where masses should be said for the souls of the departed; and armies for the recovery of the holy sepulchre in Palestine. Columbus was a man of quick sensibility, liable to great excitement, to sudden and strong impressions, and powerful impulses. He was naturally irritable and impetuous, and keenly sensible to injury and injustice, yet the quickness of his temper was 'counteracted by the benevolence and generosity of his heart. The magnanimity of his nature shone forth through all the troubles of his stormy career. Though continually outraged in his dignity, and braved in the exercise of his command; though foiled in his plans and endangered in his person by the seditions of turbulent and worthless men, and that, too, at times when suffering under anxiety of mind and anguish of body sufficient to exasperate the most patient, he restrained his valiant and indignant spirit; and, by the strong powers of his mind, brought himself to forbear, and reason, and even to supplicate: nor should we fail to notice how free he was from all feeling of revenge, how ready to forgive and forget, on the least signs of repentance and |