Acres. A quietus!

Sir L. For instance, now-if that should be the case-would you choose to be pickled, and sent home?—or would it be the same to you to lie here in the Abbey?—I'm told there is very snug lying in

the Abbey.

Acres. Pickled!-Snug lying in the Abbey !-Odds tremors! Sir Lucius, don't talk so!

Sir L. I suppose, Mr. Acres, you never were engaged in an affair of this kind before.

Acres. No, Sir Lucius, never before, [aside] and never will again, if I get out of this.

Sir L. But, there-fix yourself so [placing him], let him see the broadside of your full front. [Sir Lucius places him face to face, then turns.-Acres has in the interim turned his back in great perturbation.] Oh, bother! do you call that the broadside of your front? [Acres turns reluctantly.] There- now a ball or two may pass clean through your body, and never do you any harm at all.

Acres. Clean through me!- -a ball or two clean through me!

Sir L. Ay-may they-and it is much the genteelest attitude into the bargain.

Acres. Lookye! Sir Lucius-I'd just as lieve be shot in an awkward posture as a genteel one--so, by my valour! I will stand edgeways.

us.

Sir L. [looking at his watch]. Sure they don't mean to disappoint

Acres [aside]. I hope they do.

Sir L. Hah! no, 'faith-I think I see them coming.

Acres. Hey?-what!-coming!

Sir L. Ay, who are those yonder, getting over the stile?

Acres. There are two of them, indeed! well, let them come-hey, Sir Lucius?—we—we--we—we—won't run [takes his arm].

Sir L. Run!

Acres. No, I say—we won't run, by my valour!

Sir L. What the devil's the matter with you?

Acres. Nothing--nothing-my dear friend—my dear Sir Luciusbut I—I—I don't feel quite so bold, somehow, as I did.

Sir L. O fie! consider your honour.

Acres. Ay, true-my honour-do, Sir Lucius, edge in a word or two, every now and then, about my honour.

Sir L. [looking]. Well, here they're coming.

Acres. Sir Lucius, if I wa'n't with you, I should almost think I was afraid-if my valour should leave me !-valour will come and go.

Sir L. Then pray keep it fast, while you have it.

Acres. Sir Lucius-my valour is going! it is sneaking off!-I feel it oozing out, as it were, at the palms of my hands!- -Sir Lucius, I give up my claim: if I can't get a wife without fighting, by my valour I'll live and die a Bachelor.

(212.) LITERATURE AND LIBERTY.

Edward Everett, an American author and orator, b. 1794, d. 1865. He was educated for the Church, but in 1814 was appointed to the chair of Greek Literature at Harvard College, of which College he became the president in 1845. He also became the editor of the North American Review, which he continued to edit till 1824. His addresses and speeches have placed him in the first rank of American orators. He was elected a member of Congress, and in 1852 was appointed Secretary of State by President Fillmore.

Literature is the voice of the age and the state. The character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds. They are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but, under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires. They do not create, they obey the Spirit of the age;-the serene and beautiful Spirit descended from the highest heaven of liberty, who laughs at our preconceptions, and, with the breath of his mouth, sweeps before him the men and the nations that cross his path. By an unconscious instinct, the mind, in the action of its powers, adapts itself to the number and complexion of the other minds with which it is to enter into communion or conflict. As the voice falls into the key which is suited to the space to be filled, the mind, in the various exercises of its creative faculties, strives with curious search for that master-note, which will awaken a vibration from the surrounding community, and which, if it do not find it, is itself too often struck dumb.

For this reason, from the moment, in the destiny of nations, that they descend from their culminating point and begin to decline, from that moment the voice of creative genius is hushed, and, at best, the age of criticism, learning, and imitation succeeds. When Greece ceased to be independent, the forum and the stage became mute. Nay, though the fall of greatness, the decay of beauty, the waste of strength, and the wreck of power have ever been among the favourite themes of the pensive Muse, yet not a poet arose in Greece to chant her own elegy. The freedom and the genius of a country are thus invariably gathered into a common tomb.

(213.) THE DEATH OF CASTLEWOOD.

[The Earl of Castlewood having suspected that Lord Mohun has succeeded in estranging from him the affection of his (Castlewood's) wife, secretly challenges Mohun. To avoid any possibility of the duel being prevented, the combatants agree to meet as if on friendly terms. Harry Esmond is cousin to Lord Castlewood, and has unknowingly been defrauded by him of his title and estates. This fact Castlewood makes a deathbed confession to the priest. The piece is considered to be the most dramatic in the works of Thackeray.]

It was midnight, but the night was bright enough for the unhappy purpose they came about. All six entered the fatal square, the chairmen keeping the gate, lest any person should disturb the duel. After not more than a couple of minutes, a cry caused Esmond to look round. He ran up to the place, where he saw his dear master was down.

My Lord Mohun was standing over him. "Are you much hurt,

Frank?" he asked in a hollow voice.

"I believe I'm a dead man,” my lord said from the ground.

"No! no! not so," says the other. "I call Heaven to witness, Frank Esmond, that I would have asked your pardon had you but given me a chance. I swear no one was to blame but me, and that my lady-"

"Hush!" says my poor lord viscount, lifting himself up, "don't let her name be heard in the quarrel. It was a dispute about the cards!-Harry, my boy, I loved thee, and thou must watch over my little Frank, and carry this little heart to my wife.”

They carried him to a surgeon in Long Acre, the house was wakened up, and the victim carried in.

Lord Castlewood was laid on a bed, very pale and ghastly, with that fixed fatal look in his eyes which betokens death. Faintly beckoning all away from him he cried, “Only Harry Esmond,” and his hand fell powerless on the coverlet.

"Thou art all but a priest, Harry!" he gasped, with a faint smile and pressure of his cold hand, “let me make thee a death-bed confession."

With sacred Death waiting, as it were, at the bedfoot, as an awful witness of his words, the poor dying soul gasped out his last wishes, his contrition for his faults, and his charity towards the world he was leaving. The ecclesiastic we had sent for arrived, hearing which, my lord asked, squeezing Esmond's hand, to be left alone with him. At the end of an hour the priest come out of the room looking hard at Esmond, and holding a paper.

"He is on the brink of God's awful judgment," the priest whispered. "He has made his breast clean to me."

"God knows," sobbed out Esmond, seemingly unconscious of the words, "my dearest lord has only done me kindness all his life." The priest put the paper into Esmond's hand.

He looked at it. It swam before his eyes. ""Tis a confession," he said.

""Tis as you please," said the priest.

There was a fire in the room. Esmond went to the fire and threw the paper into it.

""Tis only a confession, Mr. Atterbury. Let us go to him."

They went into the next chamber; the dawn had broke, and showed the poor lord's pale face and wild appealing eyes, which wore the awful fatal look of coming dissolution. He turned his sick eyes towards Esmond.

"My lord viscount," says the priest, "Mr. Esmond hath burned the paper."

"My dearest master," Esmond cried.

My lord viscount sprung up in his bed and flung his arms round Esmond. "God-bl-bless" was all he said. The blood rushed from his mouth. He was no more.

"Benedicti Benedicentes," whispers the priest. And Esmond groaned "Amen."

(214.) GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING.

Henry Ward Beecher, American clergyman, b. 1813, son of the late Dr. Beecher. In 1847 he became pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, the largest congregation in the United States.

To every young man who indulges in the least form of gambling I raise a warning voice. Under the specious name of AMUSEMENT you are laying the foundation of gambling. Playing is the seed from which comes up gambling. It is the light wind which brings the storm. It is the white frost which preludes the winter.

There is a downward climax in this sin. The opening and ending are fatally connected, and drawn toward each other with almost irresistible attraction. If gambling is a vortex, playing is the outer ring of the maelstrom. The thousand-pound stake, the whole estate put up on a game-what are these but the instruments of kindling that tremendous excitement which a diseased heart craves? What is the amusement for which you play but the excitement of the game? I do not call every man who plays a gambler, but a gambler in

embryo. Let me trace your course from the amusement of innocent playing to its almost inevitable end.

Scene the first. A genteel coffee-house, whose humane screen conceals a line of grenadier bottles, and hides respectable blushes from impertinent eyes. There is a quiet little room opening out of the bar, and here sit four jovial youths. The cards are out, the wines are in. The fourth is a reluctant hand; he does not love the drink nor approve the game. He anticipates and fears the result of both. Why is he here? He is a whole-souled fellow, and is afraid to seem ashamed of any fashionable gaiety. He will sip his wine upon the importunity of a friend newly come to town, and is too polite to spoil that friend's pleasure by refusing a part in the game. They sit, shuffle, deal; the night wears on, the clock telling no tale of passing hours-the prudent liquor-fiend has made it safely dumb. The night is getting old; its dank air grows fresher; the east is gray; the gaming and drinking and hilarious laughter are over, and the youths wending homeward. What says conscience? No matter what it says; they did not hear, and we will not. Whatever was said, it was very shortly answered thus: "This has not been gambling; all were gentlemen; there was no cheating; simply a convivial evening; no stakes except the bills incident to the entertainment. If anybody blames a young man for a little innocent exhilaration on a special occasion, he is a superstitious bigot; let him croak!" Such a garnished game is made the text to justify the whole round of gambling. Let us then look at

Scene the second. In a room so silent that there is no sound except the shrill cock crowing the morning, where the forgotten candles burn dimly over the long and lengthened wick, sit four men. Carved marble could not be more motionless, save their hands. Pale, watchful, though weary, their eyes pierce the cards or furtively read each other's faces. Hours have passed over them thus. At length they rise without words; some, with a satisfaction which only makes their faces brightly haggard, scrape off the piles of money; others, dark, sullen, silent, fierce, move away from their lost money. The darkest and fiercest of the four is that young friend who first sat down to make out a game. He will never sit so innocently again. What says he to his conscience now? "I have a right to gamble; I have a right to be damned, too, if I choose; whose business is it?" Scene the third. Years have passed on. He has seen youth ruined, at first with expostulation, then with only silent regret, then consenting to take part of the spoils; and, finally, he has himself decoyed, duped, and stripped them without mercy. Go with me into that