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offended, trust to their returning reason to do you justice, and should that hope fail, where you cannot serve with honor, you can retire with dignity. You did not seek power and you can readily leave it, since you are qualified for retirement, and since you carry into it the proud consolation of having done your duty.

But should you ever be called to act the stern, yet glorious part which these patriot statesmen performed, you will not fail in the requisite energy. It may be, that, not as of old, another robust barbarian from Thrace, like Maximin-not a new gladiator slave, like Spartacusbut some frontier Cataline may come up with the insolent ambition to command you and your children. More dangerous still, the people may be bartered away as other sovereigns have been, by faithless favorites, just as the very guards at Rome sold the empire at open auction to the highest bidder, Julian. The same arts which succeeded of old, may not be unavailing here-a conspiracy of profligate men, pandering to the passions of the people, may inflame them to their ruin-and the country, betrayed into the hands of its worst citizens, may be enslaved with all the appearances of freedom. Should that day come, remember never to capitulate-never to compromise-never to yield to the country's enemies. Remember that crime is not the less guilty-it is only the more dangerous by success. If you should see the cause betrayed by those who ought to defend it, be you only the more faithful. Never desert the country-never despond over its fortunes. Confront its betrayers, as madmen are made to quail beneath the stern gaze of fearless reason. They will denounce you. Disregard their outcries it is only the scream of the vultures whom you scare from their prey. They will seek to destroy you. Rejoice that your country's enemies are yours. You can

never fall more worthily than in defending her from her own degenerate children. If overborne by this tumult, and the cause seems hopeless, continue self-sustained and self-possessed. Retire to your fields, but look beyond them. Nourish your spirits with meditation on the mighty dead who have saved their country. From your own quiet elevation, watch calmly this servile route as its triumph sweeps before you. The avenging hour will at last come. It cannot be that our free nation can long endure the vulgar dominion of ignorance and profligacy. You will live to see the laws re-established; these banditti will be scourged back to their caverns-the penitentiary will reclaim its fugitives in office, and the only remembrance which history will preserve of them, is the energy with which you resisted and defeated them.

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Up, and away! the squadron'd horse
Approach in fierce array;
They'll mar thy poor dishonor'd corse,
And tread thy form; away!

Madly o'er faint and dead they pour,

And hoof and fetlock smoke with gore.

Thou heed'st me not; thou hearest not
The trumpet echoing near;

And even the roaring cannon-shot
Flies soundless by thine ear,
Thy leader shouts-away, away!
Ah, soldier! thou canst not obey!

An hour ago thou wert all life,
With fiery soul and eye,
Rushing amid the kindling strife,
To do thy best, and die—
And now a gory mass of clay
Is stretch'd upon the warrior's way.

Why are those trappings on thy form?
The harness could not shield
Thy bosom from the iron storm,
That hurtled o'er the field.

Men fled the terrors of thy brow-
The vulture does not fear thee now!

A thousand like thyself, ah me!
Are stretch'd upon the ground;
While the glad trump of victory
Is pealing round and round:

Hark, how the victors shout and cheer?
It matters not-the dead are here!

Arise! the Pæan rings aloud,

The battle field is won;

Up, up, and join the eager crowd,
Before the booty's done:

What-wilt not take the meed of toil,

Thy share of glory and of spoil?

Silent, and grim, and sad to view,
Thou liest upon the plain;

To bleach or fester in the dew,

The sun, the winds, the rain:

What art thou now, poor luckless tool? A murderer's mark, a tyrant's fool.

14*

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