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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,—
How there was one in pity might exceed

The sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sate
Upon the throne of greatness-great indeed!
For those that he had under him were great-
The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails,
Was a Bashaw-Bashaws have horses' tails.

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
And sister too-but happily that none

Did live within harm's length of one another,
Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze

To endless night, and shorten'd the Moon's days.

III.

Despotic power, that mars a weak man's wit,
And makes a bad man-absolutely bad,+
Made Ali wicked-to a fault :-'tis fit

Monarchs should have some check-strings; but he had
No curb upon his will-no, not a bit-

Wherefore he did not reign well-and full glad
His slaves had been to hang him-but they falter'd,
And let him live unhang'd-and still unalter'd,

IV.

Until he got a sage-bush of a beard,

Wherein an Attic owl might roost-a trail
Of bristly hair-that, honour'd and unshear'd,
Grew downward like old women and cow's tail,
Being a sign of age-some grey appear'd,

Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale ;
But yet, not so poetic as when Time

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
To leave the very city of his fame

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,
And turn old woman, though he still should wear
Breeches like coats,* and totter in proof-male;
That he himself might be of those that are
Childish, without a child,-though they entail
Their likeness on the world, 'tis but an heir
"Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing,"
Such as Republicans do choose their king. +

VII.

Therefore he chose a lady for his love,

Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear;
So call'd, because her lustrous eyes, above
All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear;
Then, through his Muftis piously he strove,

And drumm'd with proxy prayers Mohammed's ear:
Knowing a boy for certain must come of it,
Or else he was not praying to his Profit.

VIII.

Beer will grow mothery, and ladies fair
Will grow
like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame:
Ben Ali hoping for a son and heir,

Boy'd up his hopes, and even chose a name
Of mighty hero that his child should bear ;

He made so certain ere his chicken came :-
But oh! all worldly wit is little worth,

Nor knoweth what to-morrow may bring forth!

IX.

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow's sun
A little daughter to this world of sins,-
Miss-fortunes never come alone-so one

Brought on another, like a pair of twins:
Twins! female twins!-it was enough to stun
Their little wits and scare them from their skins
To hear their father stamp, and curse, and swear,
Pulling his beard because he had no heir.

X.

Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down
This his paternal rage, and thus addrest:
"O! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown,
And box the compass of thy royal chest?
Ah! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I own
I love to gaze on!-Prythee, thou hadst best
Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin
Your beard you'll want a wig upon your chin!"

XI.

But not her words, nor e'en her tears, could slack
The quicklime of his rage that hotter grew:
He call'd his slaves to bring an ample sack
Wherein a woman might be poked a few
Dark grimly men felt pity and look'd black

At this sad order; but their slaveships knew
When any dared demur, his sword so bending
Cut off the "head and front of their offending."

* 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,
A crooked blade, guilty of human gore-
The trophies it had lopp'd from many an elf
Were stuck at his head-quarters by the score-
Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf,

But jested with it, and his wit cut sore;
So that (as they of Public Houses speak)
He often did his dozen butts a week.

XIII.

Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears,
Came with the sack the lady to enclose;
In vain from her stag-eyes" the big round tears
Coursed one another down her innocent nose;
In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears;

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Though there were some felt willing to oppose,
Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute,
Though 'twas a piteous case, they put her in it.

'XIV.

And when the sack was tied, some two or three
Of these black undertakers slowly brought her
To a kind of Moorish Serpentine; for she

Was doom'd to have a winding sheet of water.
Then farewell earth-farewell to the green tree-
Farewell the sun-the moon-each little daughter!

She's shot from off the shoulders of a black,
Like a bag of Wall's-End from a coalman's back.

XV.

The waters oped, and the wide sack full fill'd
All that the waters oped, as down it fell;
Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill'd
A ring above her like a water knell ;

A moment more, and all its face was still'd,

And not a guilty heave was left to tell
That underneath its calm and blue transparence
A dame lay drowned in her sack like Clarence.

XVI.

But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore,-
The moon in black eclipse deceased that night,
Like Desdemona smother'd by the Moor-

The lady's natal star with pale affright
Fainted and fell-and what were stars before,
Turn'd comets as the tale was brought to light;
And all look'd downward on the fatal wave,
And made their own reflections on her grave.

XVII.

Next night a head-a little lady head,

Push'd through the waters a most glassy face,
With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread,
Comb'd by 'live ivory, to show the space
Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed
A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace

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,
So pale it seem'd near drowned to a white,-
She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush
Of music bubbling through the surface light;
The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush

To listen to the air-and through the night
There come these words of a most plaintive ditty,
Sobbing as they would break their hearts with pity.

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,
My mother's own daughter-the last of her race-
She's a corpse, poor body! and lies in this basin,
And sleeps in the water that washes her face.

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

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