LABOUR.

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301

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gorgeous palace and the tapering spire and the stately dome. Labour, diving deep into the solid earth, brings up its long-hidden stores of coal to feed ten thousand furnaces, and in millions of habitations to defy the winter's cold. Labour explores the rich veins of deeply buried rocks, extracting the gold and silver, the copper and tin. Labour smelts the iron, and moulds it into a thousand shapes for use and ornament, from the massive pillar to the tiniest needlefrom the ponderous anchor to the wire gauze, from the mighty flywheel of the steam-engine to the polished purse-ring or the glittering bead. Labour hews down the gnarled 5 oak, and shapes the timber, and builds the ship, and guides it over the deep, plunging through the billows and wrestling with the tempest, to bear to our shores the produce of every clime. Labour, laughing at difficulties, spans majestic rivers, carries viaducts over marshy swamps, suspends bridges over deep ravines 7 pierces the solid mountains with its dark tunnel, blasting rocks and filling hollows, and while linking together with its iron but loving grasp all nations of the earth, verifying, 3 in a literal sense, the ancient prophecy, "Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low :" labour draws forth its delicate iron thread and stretching it from city to city, from province to province, through mountains and beneath the sea, realizes more than fancy ever fabled, while it constructs a chariot on which speech may outstrip the wind, compete with the lightningfor the telegraph flies as rapidly as thought itself. Labour, a mighty magician, walks forth into a region uninhabited and waste; he looks earnestly at the scene, so quiet in its desolation; then, waving his wonder-working wand, those dreary valleys smile with golden harvests; those barren mountains' slopes are clothed with foliage; the furnace blazes; the anvil rings; the busy wheel whirls round; the town appears; the mart of commerce, the hall of science, the temple of religion, rear high their lofty fronts; a forest of masts gay with varied pennons, rises from the harbour: representatives of faroff regions make it their resort; 11 Science enlists the elements of earth and heaven in its service; Art, awaking, clothes its strength with beauty; Civilization smiles; Liberty is glad: Humanity rejoices; Piety exults-for the voice of industry and gladness is heard on every side. NEWMAN HALL.

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MEANINGS: 1. Benefactions, works that do good. 2. Gossamer, delicately thin. 3. Raiment, clothing. 4. Smelts, separates from the ore. 5. Gnarled, rough with knots. 6. Viaducts, bridges for carrying roads or railways over rivers, deep valleys, etc. 7. Ravines, clefts in the mountain. 8. Verifying, making true. 9. Delicate iron thread, the telegraph wires. 10. Foliage, leaves of trees. 11. Inhabitants of distant lands come there to trade.

LORD BROUGHAM AND VAUX.

Born 1778-Died 1869.

SPEECH ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 1830.

SIR, I trust that, at length, the time is come when parliament will no longer bear to be told that slaveowners are the best lawgivers on slavery; no longer allow an appeal from the British public to such communities as those in which men are persecuted to death for teaching the gospel to the negroes, and others holden in affectionate respect for torture and murder; no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right-I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes-the same throughout the world, the same in all times-such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another all unutterable woes;-such it is at this day. It is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations; the covenants of the Almighty, whether the old covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by one shameful compact you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yes; in despite of law and treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass! Not, assuredly, by parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters bewarelet their assemblies beware-let the Government at home bewarelet the parliament beware! The same country is once more awake, -awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave trade; and, if it shall descend again, they, on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God.

LORD MACAULAY.

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LORD MACAULAY.

Born 1800-Died 1859.

SPEECH ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 1831.

THE question of Parliamentary Reform is still behind. But signs, of which it is impossible to misconceive the import, do most clearly indicate, that unless that question also be speedily settled, property and order, and all the institutions of this great monarchy, will be exposed to fearful peril. Is it possible that gentlemen, long versed in high political affairs, cannot read these signs? Is it possible that they can really believe that the representative system of England, such as it now is, will last till the year 1860? If not, for what would they have us wait? Would they have us wait merely that we may show to all the world how little we have profited by our own recent experience? Would they have us wait that we may once again hit the exact point where we can neither refuse with authority nor concede with grace? Would they have us wait that the numbers of the discontented party may become larger, its demands higher, its feeling more acrimonious, its organization more complete? Would they have us wait till the whole tragic comedy of 1827 has been acted over again,―till they have been brought into office by a cry of "No Reform!" to be reformers, as they were once before brought into office by a cry of "No Popery!" to be emancipators? Have they obliterated from their minds-gladly perhaps would some among them obliterate from their minds-the transactions of that year? And have they forgotten all the transactions of the succeeding year? Have they forgotten how the spirit of liberty in Ireland, debarred from its natural outlet, found a vent by forbidden passages? Have they forgotten how we were forced to indulge them in all the licence of rebels, merely because we chose to withhold from them the liberties of subjects? Do you wait for associations more formidable than that of the Corn Exchange-for contributions larger than the rent-for agitators more violent than those who, three years ago, divided with the king and the parliament the sovereignty of Ireland? Do they wait for the last and most dreadful paroxysm of popular rage, for that last and most cruel test of military fidelity?

Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them to think that any high honour or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtained by a policy like this. Let them wait, if this strange and fearful infatuation be indeed upon them,-that they should not see with their eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their hearts. But let us know our interests and our duty better; turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us reform, that we may preserve. Now, therefore, while everything at home and

abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age; now while the crash of the proudest thrones of the Continent is still resounding in our ears; now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings; now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted and great societies dissolved; now, while the heart of England is still sound; now, while the old feelings and the old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away; now, in this your accepted time; now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel, not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which are past, of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by their own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, the finest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing regret, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.

JOHN BRIGHT.

Born 1810.

SPEECH ON THE CRIMEAN WAR, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER, 1854.

Now, sir, I have only to speak on one more point. My honourable friend the member for the West Riding,tin what he said about the condition of the English army in the Crimea, I believe, expressed only that which all in this house feel, and which I trust every person in this country, capable of thinking, feels. When I look at gentlemen on that bench, and consider all their policy has brought about within the last twelve months, I scarcely dare to trust myself to speak of them, either in or out of their presence. We all know what we have

lost in this house. Here, sitting near me, very often sat the member for Frome, Colonel Boyle. I met him a short time before he went out, near Hyde Park Corner. I asked him whether he was going out? He answered, he was afraid he was; not afraid in the sense of personal fear-he knew not that; but he said, with a look and a tone I shall never forget, "It's no light matter for a man who has a wife and five little children." The stormy Euxine is now his grave; his wife is a widow, his children orphans. On the other side of the house sat a member, with whom I was not acquainted, who has lost his life, and another of whom I knew something, Colonel Blair. Who is there that does not recollect his frank, amiable, and manly countenance? I doubt whether there were any men on either side of the house more capable of fixing the goodwill and affection of those with whom they were associated. Well, but the place that knew him shall know him no more for ever. I have specified but two; but there are one hundred officers who have been killed in battle, or have died of their wounds; forty have died of disease; and more than two hundred others have been wounded more or less severely. This has been a terribly destructive war for officers. They have been, as one would have expected them to be, the first in valour as the first in place; they have suffered more in proportion to their numbers than the commonest soldiers in the ranks. This has spread sorrow over the whole country. I was in the House of Lords when the vote of thanks was moved. In the gallery were many ladies, three-fourths of whom were dressed in the deepest mourning. Is this nothing? And, in every village, cottages are to be found into which sorrow has entered, and, as I believe, through the policy of the Ministry, which might have been avoided. No one supposes that the Government wished to spread the pall of sorrow over the land; but this we had a right to expect, that they would, at least, with becoming gravity, discuss a subject the appalling consequences of which may come home in this terrible way to individuals and to the nation. I recollect when Sir Robert Peel made a speech on subjects which threatened hostilites with the United States. I recollect the gravity of his countenance, the solemnity of his tone, his whole demeanour showing that he felt, in his soul, the responsibility that rested on him. I have seen this, and I have seen the present Ministry. There was the buffoonery at the Reform Club. Was that becoming a matter of this grave nature? Has there been a solemnity of manner in the speeches heard in connection with this war; and have they become statesmen and Christian men speaking on a subject of this nature. It is very easy for the noble lord, the member for Tiverton, to rise and say, that I am against war under all circumstances; and that if an enemy were to land on our shores, I should make a calculation as to whether it would be cheaper to take him in or keep him out, and that my opinion on this question is not to be taken either by parliament or the country. I am not