Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow
O'er the abyss: - his broad-expanded wings
Lay calm and motionless upon the air,
As if he floated there without their aid,
By the sole act of his unlorded will,
That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively
I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still
His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath

And round about; absorbed, he heeded not

The death that threatened him. I could not shoot'Twas liberty!—I turned my bow aside,

The world recedes - it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring.

Lend, lend your wings! I mount, I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?

GUILT CANNOT KEEP ITS OWN SECRET.

Speech of Daniel Webster, on a trial for murder.

N aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own

be, is made the victim of a butcherly

murder, for mere pay. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work. He explores the wrist for the pulse. He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer. It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder no eye has seen him, nor ear has heard him. The secret is his own - and it is safe.

Ah, gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake! Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it, and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of heaven, by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whisper; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or, rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares not acknowledge to God nor man. A vulture is devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or assistance, either from heaven or

earth. The secret which the murderer possesses soon comes to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his heart, rising to his throat, and demanding disclosure. He thinks the whole world sees it in his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions from without begin to embarrass him, and the net of circumstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles, with still greater violence, to burst forth. It must be confessed—it will be confessed there is no refuge from confession but suicide - and suicide is confession!

AMERICAN LABORERS.

THE gentleman, sir, has misconceived the spirit and tendency

of Northern institutions. He is ignorant of Northern character. He has forgotten the history of his country.. Preach insurrection to the Northern laborers! Who are the Northern laborers? The history of your country is their history. The renown of your country is their renown. The brightness of their doings is emblazoned on its every page. Blot from your annals the words and the doings of Northern laborers, and the history of your country presents but a universal blank. Sir, who was he that disarmed the Thunderer; wrested from his grasp the bolts of Jove; calmed the troubled ocean; became the central sun of the philosophical system of his age, shedding his brightness and effulgence on the whole civilized world; whom the great and mighty of the earth delighted to honor; who participated in the achievement of your independence, prominently assisted in moulding your free institutions, and the beneficial effects of whose wisdom will be felt to the last moment of "recorded time?" Who, sir, I ask, was he? A Northern laborer - a Yankee tallow-chandler's son a printer's runaway boy?

And who, let me ask the honorable gentleman, who was he that, in the days of our Revolution, led forth a Northern armyyes, an army of Northern laborers and aided the chivalry of South Carolina in their defence against British aggression, drove

the spoilers from their firesides, and redeemed her fair fields from foreign invaders? Who was he? A Northern laborer, a Rhode Island blacksmith - the gallant General Greene- who left his hammer and his forge, and went forth conquering and to conquer in the battle for our independence! And will you preach insurrection to men like these?

Sir, our country is full of the achievements of Northern laborers! Where is Concord, and Lexington, and Princeton, and Trenton, and Saratoga, and Bunker Hill, but in the North? And what, sir, has shed an imperishable renown on the neverdying names of those hallowed spots, but the blood and the struggles, the high daring, and patriotism, and sublime courage of Northern laborers? The whole North is an everlasting monument of the freedom, virtue, intelligence, and indomitable independence of Northern laborers! Go, sir, go preach insurrection to men like these!

The fortitude of the men of the North, under intense suffering for liberty's sake, has been almost god-like! History has so recorded it. Who comprised that gallant army, without food, without pay, shelterless, shoeless, penniless, and almost naked, in that dreadful winter- the midnight of our Revolution whose wanderings could be traced by their blood-tracks in the snow; whom no arts could seduce, no appeal lead astray, no sufferings disaffect; but who, true to their country and its holy cause, continued to fight the good fight of liberty, until it finally triumphed? Who, sir, were these men? Why, Northern laborers!—yes, sir, Northern laborers! Who, sir, were Roger Sherman, and-? But it is idle to enumerate. To name the Northern laborers who have distinguished themselves, and illustrated the history of their country, would require days of the time of this house. Nor is it necessary. Posterity will do them justice. Their deeds have been recorded in characters of fire!

I

THE SOUTH DURING THE REVOLUTION.

F there be one State in the Union, Mr. President, (and I say it not in a boastful spirit,) that may challenge comparison with any other, for a uniform, zealous, ardent, and uncalculating devotion to the Union, that State is South Carolina. Sir, from

the very commencement of the Revolution, up to this hour, there is no sacrifice, however great, she has not cheerfully made — no service she has ever hesitated to perform. She has adhered to you in your prosperity; but in your adversity she has clung to you with more than filial affection. No matter what was the condition of her domestic affairs - though deprived of her resources, divided by parties, or surrounded with difficulties - the call of the country has been to her as the voice of God. Domestic discord ceased at the sound; every man became at once reconciled to his brethren, and the sons of Carolina were all seen crowding together to the temple, bringing their gifts to the altar of their common country.

What, sir, was the conduct of the South during the Revolution? Sir, I honor New England for her conduct in that glorious struggle. But, great as is the praise which belongs to her, I think at least equal honor is due to the South. They espoused the quarrel of their brethren with a generous zeal, which did not suffer them to stop to calculate their interest in the dispute. Favorites of the mother country, possessed of neither ships nor seamen to create a commercial rivalship, they might have found in their situation a guarantee that their trade would be forever fostered and protected by Great Britain. But, trampling on all considerations either of interest or of safety, they rushed into the conflict, and fighting for principle, perilled all in the sacred cause of freedom. Never was there exhibited, in the history of the world, higher examples of noble daring, dreadful suffering, and heroic endurance, than by the Whigs of Carolina, during the Revolution. The whole State, from the mountains to the sea, was overrun by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The fruits of industry perished on the spot where they were produced, or were consumed by the foe. The "plains of Carolina" drank up the most precious blood of her citizens. Black and smoking ruins marked the places which had been the habitations of her children! Driven from their homes, into the gloomy and almost impenetrable swamps, even there the spirit of liberty survived; and South Carolina, sustained by the example of her Sumters and her Marions, proved, by her conduct, that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible.