and steady principles of America; that you might destroy their towns, and cut them off from the superfluities, perhaps, the conveniences of life; but that they were prepared to despise your power, and would not lament their loss, while they have-what, my lords? their woods and their liberty!

7. When your lordships look at the papers transmitted us from America; when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you can not but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow, that, in all my reading and observation, and it has been my favorite study, I have read *Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master states of the world-that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men, can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia.

8. I trust it is obvious to your lordships, that all attempts to impose servitude upon such men; to establish despotism over such a mighty continental nation, must be vain; must be fatal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract; let us retract while we can, not when we must. I say we must necessarily undo these violent, oppressive acts; they must be repealed; you will repeal them; I pledge myself for it, that you will, in the end, repeal them; I stake my reputation on it; I will consent to be taken for an idiot, if they are not finally repealed. Avoid, then, this humiliating, this disgraceful necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, to peace, and happiness; for that is your true dignity, to act with prudence and justice.

9. Every motive, therefore, of justice and of policy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America, by a removal of your troops from Boston; by a repeal of your acts of parliament, and by a demonstration of your amicable disposition toward your colonies. On the other hand, every danger and every hazard impend, to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures. Foreign war is hanging over your heads by a slight and brittle thread, and France and Spain are watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors.

10. To conclude, my lords, if the ministers thus persevere in misadvising and misleading the king, I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from his crown; but I will affirm, that they will make the crown not worth his wearing! I will not say, that the king is betrayed; but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone!

CXXVI.-BATTLE OF BEAL' AN DUINE.
FROM WALTER SCOTT.

BEAL' AN DUINE, an abbreviation for Beallach an Duine, is the name of a pass or defile between two eminences, where the battle described in this extract is supposed to have taken place. The parties in this battle were the forces of James V. of Scotland, on one side, and those of Roderick Dhu, a rebel subject of the king, on the other. Roderick himself had been previously taken prisoner, and was now confined.

The minstrel who describes the battle is admitted to see his captive master, Roderick, and at his command portrays, in this wild burst of poetry, the engagement and utter defeat of the rebel troops.

Trosach was the name of the region in which lay the glen of Beal' an Duine. Moray and Mar were the chiefs at the head of the king's forces. Clan-Alpine was the name of Roderick's clan, and the forces of this party lay concealed in the glen, intending to surprise their enemies as they approached, but were themselves entirely defeated, as described in this sketch.

TIN'CHELL; a circle of hunters closing round the game.
ERNE; the sea-eagle or ospray.

1. THE Minstrel came once more to view

The eastern ridge of Benvenue,

For ere he parted, he would say
Farewell to lovely Loch Achray.
Where shall he find, in foreign land,
So lone a lake, so sweet a strand?
There is no breeze upon the +fern,
No ripple on the lake,

Upon her aerie nods the erne,

The deer has sought the brake;

The small birds will not sing aloud,
The springing trout lies still,
So darkly glooms yon thunder-cloud,
That swathes, as with a purple shroud,
Benledi's distant hill.

2. Is it the thunder's solemn sound

That mutters deep and dread,

Or echoes from the groaning ground
The warrior's measured tread?
Is it the lightning's quivering glance
That on the thicket streams,
Or do they flash on spear and lance
The sun's retiring beams?

I see the dagger-crest of Mar,

I see the Moray's silver star,
Wave o'er the cloud of Saxon war,

That up the lake comes winding far!
To hero, bound for battle strife,

Or bard of martial lay,

'T were worth ten years of peaceful life, One glance at their array!

3. Their light-armed archers far and near,
Surveyed the tangled ground,

Their center ranks, with pike and spear,
A twilight forest frowned,

Their barbed horsemen, in the rear,
The stern battalia crowned.
No cymbal clashed, no clarion rang,
Still were the pipe and drum;
Save heavy tread, and armor's clang,
The sullen march was dumb.

4. There breathed no wind their crests to shake, Or wave their flags abroad;

Scarce the frail *aspen seemed to quake,
That shadowed o'er their road;
Their vanward scouts no tidings bring,
Can rouse no lurking foe,

Nor spy a trace of living thing,

Save when they stirred the roe;
The host moves, like a deep sea-wave,
Where ride no rocks, its pride to brave,
High-swelling, dark, and slow.

The lake is passed, and now they gain
A narrow and a broken plain,

Before the Trosach's rugged jaws:

And here, the horse and spearmen pause,
While to explore a dangerous glen,
Dive through the pass the archer-men.

5. At once there rose so wild a yell
Within that dark and narrow dell,

As all the fiends, from heaven that fell,
Had pealed the banner-cry of hell!
Forth from the pass in tumult driven,
Like chaff before the wind of heaven,
The archery appear;

For life! for life! their flight they ply;
While shriek, and shout, and battle-cry,
And plaids and bonnets waving high,
And broadswords flashing to the sky,
Are maddening in the rear.

6. Onward they drive, in dreadful race, Pursuers and pursued;

แ

Before that tide of flight and chase,
How shall it keep its rooted place,

The spearmen's twilight wood?

'Down! down!" cried Mar, "your lances down!
Bear back both friend and foe!"

Like reeds before the tempest's frown,
That serried grove of lances brown
At once, lay leveled low;

And closely shouldering side to side,
The bristling ranks the onset bide,
"We'll quell the savage *mountaineer,
As their Tinchell cows the game!
They come as fleet as mountain deer,
We'll drive them back as tame."

7. Bearing before them in their course
The relics of the archer force,
Like wave with crest of sparkling foam,
Right onward did Clan-Alpine come.
Above their tide, each broadsword bright
Was brandishing like gleam of light,
Each targe was dark below;
And with the ocean's mighty swing,
When heaving to the tempest's wing,
They hurled them on the foe.
I heard the lance's shivering crash,
As when the whirlwind rends the ash;
I heard the broadsword's deadly clang,
As if a hundred anvils rang;
But Moray wheeled his rearward rank
Of horsemen on Clan-Alpine's flank,
"My banner-man, advance!

I see," he cried, "their column shake:
Now, gallants! for your ladies' sake,
Upon them with the lance!"

8. The horsemen dashed among the rout
As deer break through the broom;
Their steeds are stout, their swords are out,
They soon made lightsome room.
Clan-Alpine's best are backward borne;
Where, where was Roderick then?
One blast upon his bugle-horn

Were worth a thousand men.
And refluent through the pass of fear,
The battle's tide was poured;
Vanished the Saxon's struggling spear,
Vanished the mountain sword.

As Bracklinn's chasm, so black and steep
Receives her roaring *linn,

As the dark caverns of the deep
Suck the wild whirlpool in,
So did the deep and darksome pass
Devour the battle's mingled mass;
None linger now upon the plain,
Save those who ne'er shall fight again.

CXXVII.--THE BAPTISM.

FROM WILSON.

JOHN WILSON, for more than thirty years Professor in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, is better known as the principal editor of Blackwood's Magazine, and its chief contributor, under the name of Christopher North. He has written numerous interesting tales, descriptive of Scotch life and manners.

KIRK; Scotch for Church. KITTLE; dangerous, ticklish.

1. THE rite of baptism had not been performed for several months in the kirk of Lanark. It was now the hottest time of persecution; and the inhabitants of that parish found other places in which to worship God and celebrate the ordinances of religion. It was now the sabbath-day, and a small congregation of about a hundred souls, had met for divine service, in a place more magnificent than any temple