call for this accumulation of armies and of navies? No-she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains, which the British ministry have so long been forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we any thing new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable, and all has been in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms can we find which have not already been exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, Sir, deceive ourselves any longer. We have done every thing which could be done to avert the storm which is coming on. We have petitioned-we have remonstrated-we have supplicated-we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and the parliament. Our petitions have been slighted-our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult our supplications have been disregarded, and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain after these things may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free-if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending-if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained-we must fight! -I repeat it, Sir-we must fight!-an appeal to arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left us. They tell us that we are weak-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, Sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. VOL. V. But we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery-our chains are forged-their clanking may be heard upon the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable, and let it come. It is in vain to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace. But there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery! Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me-(cried he, his arms raised aloft, his brow knit, and his whole frame as if on fire with the enthusiasm which inflamed him) give me liberty or give me death! The appeal was decisive-his proposal was carried in despite of all opposition, and the House of Burgesses adjourned to a particular day, amid the shouts of the Virginians and the impotent denunciations_of Lord Dunmore, their Governor. Indeed it is almost impossible, even in this country, and at this distance of time, to read this speech in the closet, without feeling the force of its reasoning, and the sublime intrepidity of its enthusiasm. What must it not have done then in such an assembly, aided by a delivery which is described as almost miraculous. The members are represented as having remained in a sort of trance for some moments after he had ceased, which was followed by an involuntary echo of his last words" Liberty or Death!" We find it quite impossible to do justice to this interesting subject within the limits of a single article; and we must, although reluctantly, defer the remainder until our next number. It still remains to exhibit Henry in a new character; to shew him fertile in resources and vigorous in enterprise; to complete our view of his senatorial and forensic course; and to describe the closing scenes of his active and honourable life. 21 THE STAG-EYED LADY. A MOORISH TALE. Scheherazade immediately began the following story. I. ALI Ben Ali (did you never read His wond'rous acts that chronicles relate,— The sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sate II. Ali was cruel-a most cruel one! "Tis rumour'd he had strangled his own motherHowbeit such deeds of darkness he had done, Tom Hood 'Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother Did live within harm's length of one another, To endless night, and shorten'd the Moon's days. III. Despotic power, that mars a weak man's wit, Monarchs should have some check-strings; but he had Wherefore he did not reign well-and full glad IV. Until he got a sage-bush of a beard, Wherein an Attic owl might roost-a trail Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale ; Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime. V. Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex His royal bosom that he had no son, No living child of the more noble sex+ To stand in his Morocco shoes-not one To make a negro-pollard-or tread necks When he was gone-doom'd when his days were done Without an Ali to keep up his name. Surnamed Brother of the Sun and Moon. + This is better than "power that makes weak men wicked, makes wicked men mad.”(See Preface to the Expedition of Orsua, and the Crimes of Aguirre, by Mr. Southey. The ladies may complain here, that they ought to be the distinguished sex; but in truth they are not so entitled. They must all have heard, fond as they are of China, of mandarines, but who ever heard of womandarines ?. VI. He knew that man with many years must fail, VII. Therefore he chose a lady for his love, Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear; And drumm'd with proxy prayers Mohammed's ear: VIII. Beer will grow mothery, and ladies fair Boy'd up his hopes, and even chose a name He made so certain ere his chicken came :- Nor knoweth what to-morrow may bring forth! IX. To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun Brought on another, like a pair of twins: X. Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down XI. But not her words, nor e'en her tears, could slack At this sad order; but their slaveships knew * George Fox, in "The Fashions of this World made manifest," says, ther to get breeches like a coat." He can mean nothing else but a petticoat. † Printer's Devil. What does the author mean here? Author. Nothing. " and fur XII. For Ali had a sword, much like himself, But jested with it, and his wit cut sore; XIII. Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears, Though there were some felt willing to oppose, 'XIV. And when the sack was tied, some two or three Was doom'd to have a winding sheet of water. She's shot from off the shoulders of a black, XV. The waters oped, and the wide sack full fill'd A moment more, and all its face was still'd, And not a guilty heave was left to tell XVI. But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore,- The lady's natal star with pale affright XVII. Next night a head-a little lady head, Push'd through the waters a most glassy face, Over their sleepy lids-and so she raised Her aqualine nose above the stream, and gazed. The author is wrong here: Clarence was not drowned in Sack, but in a butt of Malmsbury.-A True Critic. XVIII. She oped her lips-lips of a gentle blush, To listen to the air-and through the night THE WATER PERI'S SONG. 1. Farewell, farewell, to my mother's own daughter, The child that she wetnursed is lapp'd in the wave; The Mussulman coming to fish in this water Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. 2. This sack is her coffin, this water's her bier, This greyish bath cloak is her funeral pall; And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hear Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all! 3. Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, INCOG. FINE ARTS-EDINBURGH. WILLIAMS'S VIEWS IN GREECE, &c. THERE has been lately exhibited at the Calton Convening room, Edinburgh, a collection of views in Greece, Italy, Sicily, and the Ionian Isles, painted in water colours by Mr. Hugh Williams, a native of Scotland, which themselves do honour to the talents of the artist, as the attention they have excited does to the taste of the northern capital. It is well; for the exhibition in that town of the works of living artists (to answer to our Somerset House exhibition) required some set-off. Mr. Williams has made the amende honorable, for his country, to the of fended genius of art, and has stretched out under the far-famed Calton Hill, and in the eye of Arthur's Seat, fairy visions of the fair land of Greece, that Edinburgh belles and beaux repair to see with cautious wonder and well-regulated delight. It is really a most agreeable novelty to the passing visitant, to see the beauty of the North, the radiant beauty of the North, enveloped in such an atmosphere, and set off by such a back-ground. Oriental skies pour their molten lustre on Caledonian charms. The slender, lovely, taper waist (made more taper, more lovely, more slender by the staymaker), instead of being cut in two by the keen blasts that rage in Prince's street, is here supported by warm languid airs, and a thousand sighs, that breathe from the vale of Tempe. Do not those fair tresses look brighter as they are seen hanging over a hill in Arcadia, than when they come in contact with the hard grey rock of the castle? Do not those fair blue eyes look more trans |