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THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.

bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lowered,

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice ere the morning I dreamed it again.

Methought, from the battle-field's dreadful array,
Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn and sunshine arose on the way

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To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back. I flew to the pleasant fields, traversed so oft

In life's morning march, when my bosom was young; I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,

And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,

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And my wife sobbed aloud in her fulness of heart. 'Stay, stay with us — rest; thou art weary and worn!” And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay

But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

WAT TYLER'S ADDRESS TO THE KING.

ING of England,

Ketitioning for pity is most weak —

The sovereign people ought to demand justice.
I lead them here against the Lord's anointed,
Because his ministers have made him odious!
His yoke is heavy, and his burden grievous.

Why do ye carry on this fatal war,

To force upon the French a king they hate;

Tearing our young men from their peaceful homes,
Forcing his hard-earned fruits from the honest peasant,
Distressing us to desolate our neighbors ?

Why is this ruinous poll-tax imposed,
But to support your court's extravagance,
And your mad title to the crown of France?
Shall we sit tamely down beneath these evils,
Petitioning for pity? King of England,
Why are we sold like cattle in your markets,
Deprived of every privilege of man?

Must we lie tamely at our tyrant's feet,

And, like your spaniels, lick the hand that beats us? You sit at ease in your gay palaces:

The costly banquet courts your appetite;

Sweet music soothes your slumbers: we, the while,
Scarce by hard toil can earn a little food,

And sleep scarce sheltered from the cold night-wind,
Whilst your wild projects wrest the little from us
Which might have cheered the wintry hours of age!
The Parliament forever asks more money;

We toil and sweat for money for your taxes;
Where is the benefit- what good reap we
From all the counsels of your government?

Think you that we should quarrel with the French?
What boots to us your victories, your glory?
We pay, we fight- you profit at your ease;
Do you not claim the country as your own?
Do you not call the venison of the forest,

The birds of heaven, your own? — prohibiting us,
Even though in want of food, to seize the prey
Which nature offers? King! is all this just?
Think you we do not feel the wrongs we suffer?
The hour of retribution is at hand,

And tyrants tremble-mark me, King of England!

BATTLE HYMN.

ATHER of earth and heaven! I call thy name!

My eyes are dazzled with the rustling flame;
Father! sustain an untried soldier's soul.
Or life, or death, whatever be the goal
That crowns or closes round the struggling hour,
Thou knowest, if ever from my spirit stole
One deeper prayer, 't was that no cloud might lower
On my young fame! Oh, hear! God of eternal power!

Now for the fight! Now for the cannon-peal!

Forward through blood, and toil, and cloud, and fire!
Glorious the shout, the shock, the crash of steel,
The volley's roll, the rocket's blasting spire!
They shake! like broken waves their squares retire!
On them, hussars! Now give them rein and heel;
Think of the orphaned child, the murdered sire:
Earth cries for blood! In thunder on them wheel!
This hour to Europe's fate shall set the triumph-seal!

ORATION AGAINST CATILINE.

Cicero, the greatest of Roman orators, was born at Arpinum, 106 B. C., two hundred and sixteen years after the death of Demosthenes. Having taken part against Antony, after the assassination of Cæsar, Cicero was proscribed. He was murdered by a party of soldiers, headed by Popilius Lænas, whose life he had formerly saved by his eloquence; and his head and hands were publicly exhibited on the rostrum at Rome. He perished in his sixty-fourth year, 43 B. C. His writings are voluminous. As an orator, Cicero ranks next to Demosthenes; and his orations against Catiline and Verres are masterpieces of denunciatory eloquence.

OW far, O Catiline, wilt thou abuse our patience. How

HOW

extreme wilt thou carry thy audacity? Art thou nothing daunted by the nightly watch posted to secure the Palatium? Nothing, by the city guards? Nothing, by the rally of all good citizens? Nothing, by the assembling of the Senate in this fortified place? Nothing, by the averted looks of all here present? Seest thou not that all thy plots are exposed?-that thy wretched conspir

acy is laid bare to every man's knowledge here in the Senate? that we are well aware of thy proceedings of last night; of the night before; - the place of meeting, the company convoked, the measures concerted? Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! The Senate understands all this. The consul sees it. Yet the traitor lives! Lives? Ay, truly, and confronts us here in council - takes part in our deliberations—and, with his measuring eye, marks out each man of us for slaughter! And we, all this while, strenuous that we are, think we have amply discharged our duty to the state, if we but shun this madman's sword and fury!

Long since, O Catiline, ought the consul to have ordered thee to execution, and brought upon thy own head the ruin thou hast been meditating against others! There was that virtue once in Rome, that a wicked citizen was held more execrable than the deadliest foe. We have a law still, Catiline, for thee. Think not that we are powerless because forbearing. We have a decree -though it rests among our archives like a sword in its scabbarda decree by which thy life would be made to pay the forfeit of thy crimes. And, should I order thee to be instantly seized and put to death, I make just doubt whether all good men would not think it done rather too late than any man too cruelly. But, for good reasons, I will yet defer the blow long since deserved. Then will I doom thee, when no man is found so lost, so wicked, nay, so like thyself, but shall confess that it was justly dealt. While there is one man that dares defend thee, live! But thou shalt live so beset, so surrounded, so scrutinized by the vigilant guards that I have placed around thee, that thou shalt not stir a foot against the republic without my knowledge. There shall be eyes to detect thy slightest movement, and ears to catch thy wariest whisper, of which thou shalt not dream. The darkness of night shall not cover thy treason -the walls of privacy shall not stifle its voice. Baffled on all sides, thy most secret counsels clear as noonday, what canst thou now have in view? Proceed, plot, conspire as thou wilt; there is nothing you can contrive, nothing you can propose, nothing you can attempt, which I shall not know, hear, and promptly understand. Thou shalt soon be made aware that I am even more active in providing for the preservation of the state than thou in plotting its destruction!

ROBESPIERRE'S LAST SPEECH.

The day after this speech-delivered July 28th, 1794, and addressed to an assembly bent on his destruction - Robespierre was executed, at the early age of thirty-five, under circumstances of accumulated horror. His fate is a warning to rulers who would cement even the best of governments with blood. Robespierre's character is still an enigma; some regarding him as an honest fanatic, and others as a crafty dema gogue. Perhaps the traits of either predominated at times. "Destitute," says Lamartine, "of exterior graces, and of that gift of extemporaneons speaking which pours forth the unpremeditated inspirations of natural eloquence, Robespierre had taken so much pains with himself-he had meditated so much, written and erased so much— he had so often braved the inattention and the sarcasms of his audiences-that, in the end, he succeeded in giving warmth and suppleness to his style, and in transforming his whole person, despite his stiff and meagre figure, his shrill voice, and abrupt gesticulation, into an engine of eloquence, of conviction, and of passion."

Tthey would grovel at my feet. I should gorge them with

THE enemies of the republic call me tyrant! Were I such,

gold-I should grant them impunity for their crimes—and they would be grateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished, far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty support. There would be a covenant between them and me. Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of tyranny-whither does their path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What tyrant is my protector? To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction, since the beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many detected traitors? You - the people-our principles are that faction! A faction to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of the day is banded!

The confirmation of the republic has been my object; and I know that the republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality. Against me, and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is formed. My life? oh! my life, I abandon without a regret! I have seen the past; and I foresee the future. What friend of his country would wish to survive the moment when he could no longer serve it - when he could no longer defend innocence against oppression? Wherefore should I continue in an order of things where intrigue eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most abject, or fears the most absurd, override the sacred interests of humanity? In witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that I have sometimes feared that I

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