Be not too tame either, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of Nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to Nature, to show Virtue her own feature, Scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must, in your allowance, o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh, there be players that I have seen play—and heard others praise, and that highly-not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, or man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

218. Demonstrative and Diffusive. The following selections begin with median stress (§ 102) and orotund quality (§ 137); they end with terminal stress (§ 101) and the aspirated orotund (§ 138).

58. IGNORANCE IN OUR COUNTRY A CRIME.--Horace Mann.

In all the dungeons of the Old World, where the strong champions of freedom are now pining in captivity beneath the remorseless power of the tyrant, the morning sun does not send a glimmering ray into their cells, nor does night draw a thicker veil of darkness between them and the world, but the lone prisoner lifts his iron-laden

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arms to heaven in prayer that wé, the depositaries of freedom and of

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human hopes, may be faithful to our sacred trùst; - while, on the

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from our shores, to note the first breach of faith or act of perfidy

amongst us, and to convert them into arguments against | liberty and the rights of man.

There is not a shout sent up by an insane mob, on thĩs side of the

Atlantic, but it is echoed by a thousand | presses and by ten | thou

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sand tongues along every mountain | and valley, on the other. to opposite f There is not a conflagration | kindled | here | by the ruthless hand of

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zenith. On each occurrence of a flagitious scene, whether it be an act of turbulence | and devastation, or a deed of perfidy | or breach

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plore us to think more of the character of our people than of its

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numbers; to look upon our vast | natural | resources, not as tempt

ers to ostentation and príde, but as a means to be convérted, by the

refining | alchemy of educátion, into mèntal | and spìritual | trèasures; they supplicate us to seek for whatever complacency or self

satisfaction we are disposed to indulge, not in the extent of our

térritory, or in the products | of our sóil, but in the expansion | and

perpetuation of the means of human | happiness; they beseech us

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voices assert the eternal | truth that, in a Repùblic, ignorance |

is a crìme; and that private | immorality is not less an opprobrium

to the state than it is guilt | in the perpetrator.

59. CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.-Charles Phillips.

Sir, it matters very little what immediate spot may have been the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon. of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had past, how pure was the climate that it cleared! how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us!

In the production of Washington it does really appear as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some single qualification: Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and, like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model and the perfection of every master.

As a general, he marshaled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied, by discipline, the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views and the philosophy of his

counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it.

If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens, or her soldiers, her heroes, or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created?

Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!

60. DESTINY OF AMERICA.-Charles Phillips.

Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? Who shall say for what purpose mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have buried all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new! When its temples and its trophies shall have mouldered into dust,-when the glories of its name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its achievements live only in song, philosophy will revive again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington.

Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it even improbable? I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend

chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra-where is she! So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens in'sulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected, in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant!

61. EULOGY ON LAFAYETTE.-Edward Everett.

There have been those who have denied to Lafayette the name of a great man. What is greatness? Does goodness belong to greatness, and make an essential part of it? If it does, who, I would ask, of all the prominent names in history, has run through such a career with so little reproach,