must recollect the tragical story of young Emmet, the Irish patriot: it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland, he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young, so intelligent, so brave, so everything that we are apt to like in a young man; his conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid; the noble indignation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his country, the eloquent vindication of his name, and his pathetic appeal to posterity in the hopeless hour of condemnation, all these entered deeply into every generous bosom."

My lords, "what have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced on me, according to law?" I have nothing to say that can alter your predetermination, nor that it will become me to say with any view to the mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and by which I must abide. But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and which you have labored, as was necessarily your office in the present circumstances of this oppressed country, to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has been heaped upon it.

Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by your tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without a murmur: but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner will, through the ministry of that law, labor in its own vindication to consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere, whether in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must determine.

A man in my situation, my lords, has not only to encounter the difficulties of fortune, and the force of power over minds which it has corrupted or subjugated, but the

difficulties of established prejudice. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not perish, that it may live in the respect of my countrymen, I seize upon this opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against me.

When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port, when my shade shall have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood on the scaffold and in the field in defense of their country and virtue, this is my hope: I wish that my memory and name may animate those who survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that perfidious government, which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most High; which displays its power over man as over the beasts of the forest; which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God, against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or less than the government standard, a government which is steeled to barbarity by the cries of the orphans, and the tears of the widows, which its cruelty has made.

I swear by the throne of heaven, before which I must shortly appear, by the blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me, that my conduct has been, through all this peril, and all my purposes, governed only by the conviction which I have uttered, and by no other view than that of the emancipation of my country from the superhuman oppression under which she has so long and too patiently travailed; and I confidently and assuredly hope that (wild and chimerical as it may appear) there is still union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise.

95.-Emmet's last Speech. - Part II.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor. Let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the Provisional Government1 speaks for my views. No inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarity or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treach ery from abroad.

I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant. In the dignity of freedom I would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemy should enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. And am I, who lived but for my country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and watchful oppressor, and now to the bondage of the grave, only to give my countrymen their rights, and my country her independence, - am I to be loaded with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No: God forbid ! 2

1 Provisional Government, the | Emmet to say that his sentiments scheme for the temporary govern- disgraced his father, Dr. Emmet, ment of Ireland, planned by the who was a man, that, if alive, patriots with whom Emmet asso- would not approve of such opinciated. ions. This fact will explain the eloquent and touching apostrophe that follows.

2 God forbid! Here Lord Norbury, the chief justice, interrupted

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and cares of those who were dear to them in this transitory life, O, ever dear and venerated shade of my departed father! look down with scrutiny upon the conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have even for a moment deviated from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to offer up my life.

My lords, you seem impatient for the sacrifice. The blood for which you thirst is not congealed by the artificial terrors1 which surround your victim. It circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for noble purposes, but which you are now bent to destroy for purposes so grievous that they cry to Heaven. Be yet patient! I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my cold and silent grave. My lamp of life is nearly extinguished. My race is run. The grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom.

I have but one request to make at my departure from this world: it is the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed until other times, and other men, can do justice to my character. When my country shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.

ROBERT EMMET.

1 terrors; i.e., the British soldiery present in the courthouse.

96.-The Blind Preacher.

The following celebrated descriptive sketch is by William Wirt (1772-1834), a native of Maryland, and at one time attorney-general of the United States. The blind preacher referred to was Rev. James Waddell of Virginia.

1

It was one Sunday, as I traveled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous old wooden house, in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before, in traveling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.

Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shriveled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of palsy; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.

The first emotions which touched my breast were those of mingled pity and veneration. But, ah, how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than were

8

1 Orange; i.e., Orange County | story it is related that bees settled Virginia.

on the lips of the infant Plato, in token that he was to be honeyIn Greek tongued (mellifluous).

2 prognostic, prophetic. . . bees.

8 Plato