sheltered from responsibility. The independence of the judiciary was the felicity of our constitution. It was this principle which was to curb the fury of party on sudden changes. The first moments of power, gained by a 5 struggle, are the most vindictive and intemperate. Raised above the storm, it was the judiciary which was to control the fiery zeal, and to quell the fierce passions of a victorious faction.

We are standing on the brink of that revolutionary tor10 rent which deluged in blood one of the fairest countries of Europe.

France had her national assembly, more numerous, and equally popular with our own. She had her tribunals of justice, and her juries. But the legislature, and her courts. 15 were but the instruments of her destruction. Acts of proscription, and sentences of banishment and death, were passed in the cabinet of a tyrant. Prostrate your judges at the feet of party, and you break down the mounds which defend you from this torrent. I have done. I 20 should have thanked my God for greater power to resist a measure, so destructive to the peace and happiness of the country. My feeble efforts can avail nothing. But it was my duty to make them. The meditated blow is mortal, and from the moment it is struck, we may bid a final 25 adieu to the constitution.

LESSON CCXXIX.-MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON AND FRANK-
LIN. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

[From Mr. Adams' speech on the reception, by Congress, of the battle sword of Washington, and the staff of Franklin.]

The sword of Washington! The staff of Franklin! Oh! sir, what associations are linked in adamant with these names! Washington, whose sword, as my friend* has said, was never drawn but in the cause of his country, and never 5 sheathed when wielded in his country's cause! Franklin, the philosopher of the thunderbolt, the printing-press, and the plough-share!-What names are these in the scanty catalogue of the benefactors of human kind!

Washington and Franklin! What other two men, 10 whose lives belong to the eighteenth century of Christendom, have left a deeper impression of themselves upon the age in which they lived, and upon all after time?

Washington, the warrior and the legislator! In war, contending, by the wager of battle, for the independence of his

*Geo. W. Summers.

country, and for the freedom of the human race; ever manifesting, amidst its horrors, by precept and example, his reverence for the laws of peace, and for the tenderest sympathies of humanity; in peace, soothing the ferocious spirit 5 of discord, among his own countrymen, into harmony and union; and giving to that very sword, now presented to his country, a charm more potent than that attributed, in ancient times, to the lyre of Orpheus.

FRANKLIN!-The mechanic of his own fortune; teach10 ing, in early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness; in the maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its terrors, the lightning of its fatal blast; and wresting from the tyrant's hand the still more effective 15 sceptre of oppression: while descending into the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic ocean, braving, in the dead of winter, the battle and the breeze, bearing in his hand the charter of Independence, which he had contributed to form, and tendering, from the self-created nation, to the mighti20 est monarchs of Europe, the olive-branch of peace, the mercurial wand of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to the man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable cruelty and merciless rapacity of war.

And, finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore win25 ters upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, returning to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate of his adopted commonwealth, after contributing by his counsels, under the presidency of Washington, and recording his name, under the sanction of de30 vout prayer, invoked by him to God, to that Constitution under the authority of which we are here assembled, as the representatives of the North American people, to receive, in their name and for them, these venerable relics of the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great con35 federated republic,-these sacred symbols of our golden age. May they be deposited among the archives of our government! and every American, who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate a mingled offering of praise to that Supreme Ruler of the Universe, by whose tender mercies 40 our Union has been hitherto preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolutions of this turbulent world,—and of prayer for the continuance of these blessings, by the dispensations of Providence, to our beloved country, from age to age, till time shall be no more!

LESSON CCXXX.-DIALOGUE FROM HENRY IV.-Shakspeare.

[Northumberland, Worcester, and Hotspur.]

Hot. Speak of Mortimer ?

Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy, if I do not join with him:

Yea, on his part, I'll empty all these veins,
5 And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer

As high in the air as this unthankful king,

As this ingrate and cankered Bolingbroke. [To Worcester. North. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad. 10 Wor. Who struck this heat up, after I was gone? Hot. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners;

And when I urged the ransom once again

Of my

wife's brother, then his cheek looked pale; And on my face he turned an eye of death, 15 Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

Wor. I cannot blame him: Was he not proclaimed,
By Richard that dead is, the next of blood?

North. He was: I heard the proclamation :
And then it was, when the unhappy king

20 (Whose wrongs in us God pardon!) did set forth
Upon his Irish expedition;

From whence he, intercepted, did return

To be deposed, and shortly murdered.

Wor. And for whose death, we in the world's wide mouth

25 Live scandalized, and foully spoken of.

30

Hot. But, soft, I pray you; Did king Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer

Heir to the crown?

North. He did; myself did hear it.

Hot. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king,
That wished him on the barren mountains starved.
But shall it be, that you, that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man;

And, for his sake, wear the detested blot
35 Of murderous subornation,-shall it be,
That you a world of curses undergo;
Being the agents, or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?
Oh! pardon me, that I descend so low,

40 To show the line, and the predicament,

Wherein you range under this subtle king.

Shall it, for shame, be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power,

Did 'gage them both in an unjust behalf,-
5 As both of you, God pardon it! have done,-
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke?
And shall it, in more shame, be further spoken,
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
10 By him, for whom these shames ye underwent ?
No; yet time serves, wherein you may redeem
Your banished honors, and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again:
Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt
15 Of this proud king, who studies, day and night,
To answer all the debt he owes to you,

Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore, I say,-

Wor. Peace, cousin, say no more:
20 And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving discontents
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous;
As full of peril, and advent'rous spirit,
As to o'er-walk a current, roaring loud,
25 On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.

Hot. If he fall in, good night-or sink or swim :— Send danger from the east unto the west,

So honor cross it from the north to south,

And let them grapple ;-Oh! the blood more stirs, 30 To rouse a lion, than to start a hare.

North. Imagination of some great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

Hot. By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon; 35 Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honor by the locks;
So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear,
Without corrival, all her dignities:

40 But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

Wor. He apprehends a world of figures here,
But not the form of what he should attend.-
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
Hot. I cry you mercy.

Wor. Those same noble Scots,

That are your prisoners,

Hot. I'll keep them all;

By heaven, he shall not have a Scot of them; 5 No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not: I'll keep them, by this hand.

10

Wor. You start away,

And lend no ear unto my purposes.-
Those prisoners you shall keep.

Hot. Nay, I will; that's flat:

He said, he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him, when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I'll holla-Mortimer!

15 Nay,

I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but Mortimer, and give it him,
To keep his anger still in motion.

Wor. Hear you,

20 Cousin; a word.

Hot. All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:

And that same sword-and-buckler prince of Wales,-
But that I think his father loves him not,

25 And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I'd have him poisoned with a pot of ale.

Wor. Farewell, kinsman! I will talk to you,

When you are better tempered to attend.

North. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool

30 Art thou, to break into this woman's mood;

Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own?

Hot. Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods,
Nettled, and stung with pismires,* when I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.

35 In Richard's time,-What do you call the place?-
A plague upon 't!—it is in Gloucestershire;-
'Twas where the mad-cap duke his uncle kept;
His uncle York;-where I first bowed my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke,

40 When you and he came back from Ravenspurg.
North. At Berkley castle.

Hot. You say true:

Why, what a candy deal of courtesy

* Pronounced pizmire