may graciously please him that immediate orders be given to General Gage for removing His Majesty's forces from the town of Boston. And this, my lords, upon the most mature and deliberate grounds, is the best advice I can give you at this juncture. Such conduct will convince America that you mean to try her cause in the spirit of freedom and inquiry. and not in letters of blood. There is no time to be lost. Every hour is big with danger. Perhaps while I am now speaking, the decisive blow is struck, which may involve millions in the consequence. And believe me, the very first drop of blood which is shed will cause a wound which may never be healed.

I.

XLV. HYDER ALI'S REVENGE.- BURKE.

WHEN at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection.

2. He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the art of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains. Whilst the authors

of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic.

3. Then ensued à scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and of which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank or sacredness of function, fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest fled to the walled cities; but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters of their art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region.

XLVI. HAVELOCK'S HIGHLANDERS. - W. BROCK.

THE Highlanders had never fought in that quarter of India before, and their character was unknown to the foe. Their advance has been described by spectators as a beautiful illustration of the power of discipline. With sloped arms and rapid tread, through the broken and heavy lands, and through

the well-directed fire of artillery and musketry, linked in their unfaltering lines they followed their mounted leaders, the mark for many rifles. They did not pause to fire; did not even cheer; no sound from them was heard as that living wall came on and on, to conquer or to die. Now they are near the village; but their enemies occupy every house, and from every point a galling fire is poured on them from the heavy guns. The men lie down till the iron storm passes over. It was but for a moment. The general gave the word, "Rise up! Advance!" and wild cheers rung out from those brave lines, wilder even than their fatal fire within a hundred yards; and the pipes sounded the martial pibroch, heard so often as earth's latest music by dying men. The men sprung up the hill covered by the smoke of their crushing volley, almost with the speed of their own bullets; over and through all obstacles, the gleaming bayonets advanced; and then followed those moments of personal struggle, not often protracted, when the Mahratta learned, too late for ife, the power of the Northern arm. The position was theirs. All that stood between them and the guns fled the field or was cut down. General Havelock was with his men. Excited by the scene, some letter-writers say he exclaimed, "Well done, Seventy-eighth. You shall be my own regiment. Another charge like that will win the day."

XLVII. KING HENRY'S REBUKE TO THE PRINCE.
Prince. I never thought to hear you speak again.
Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.

King.

Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair,

That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honors
Before thy hour be ripe? O, foolish youth!
Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.
Thou hast stol'n that which, after some few hours,
Were thine without offence; and at my death

Thou hast seal'd upon my expectation :
Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself;
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear,
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head:
Only compound me with forgotten dust;
Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
For now a time is come to mock at form :

Harry the Fifth is crown'd: : - up vanity!

Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence !
And to the English Court assemble now,

From every region, apes of idleness!

Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,

Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit

The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more;
England shall give him office, honor, might;
For the Fifth Harry from curb'd license plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth in every innocent.
O, my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!
Prince. O, pardon me, my liege! but for my tears,
The moist impediments unto my speech,

I had forestall'd this dear and deep rebuke,
Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard
The course of it so far. There is your crown;

And He that wears the crown immortally
Long guard it yours!

Coming to look on you, thinking you dead, —
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
I spake unto the crown as having sense,

And thus upbraided it: The care on thee depending
Hath fed on the body of my father;

Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold:
Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,

Preserving life in medicine portable;

Thus, my most royal liege,

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try with it as with an enemy

That had before

my

face murder'd my father

But, if it did infect my blood with joy,

Or swell my thoughts with any strain of pride,
Let God forever keep it from my head.

XLVIII. HERVÉ RIEL.

ROBERT BROWNING,

PART I.

I.

On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French

woe to France !

And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.

II.

'T was the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase. First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville; Close on him fled, great and small,

Twenty-two good ships in all;

And they signalled to the place,

Help the winners of a race!

Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick —or, quicker still, Here's the English can and will!"