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ATTACHMENT OF A PEOPLE TO THEIR RELIGION. 321

of agitation. What do I say? You will instantly change its anger into joy, its fury into enthusiasm. All who have the Republican sentiment at heart, all who have had a dream of the Republic in their imaginations, all who regret, all who aspire, all who reason, all who dream, in France,--Republicans of the secret societies, Republicans militant, speculative Republicans, the people, the tribunes, the youth, the schools, the journalists, men of hand and men of head,-will utter but one cry, will gather round their standard, will arm to defend it, but will rally, confusedly at first, but in order afterwards, to protect the government, and to preserve society itself behind this government of all ;-a supreme force which may have its agitations, never its dethronements and its ruins; for this government rests on the very foundations of the nation. It alone appeals to all. This government only can maintain itself; this alone can govern itself; this only can unite, in the voices and hands of all, the reason and will, the arms and suffrages, necessary to serve not only the nation from servitude, but society, the family relation, property and morality, which are menaced by the cataclysm of ideas which are fermenting beneath the foundations of this half-crumbled throne. If anarchy can be subdued, mark it well, it is by the Republic! If communism can be conquered, it is by the Republic! If revolution can be moderated, it is by the Republic! If blood can be spared, it is by the Republic! If universal war, if the invasion it would perhaps bring on as the reaction of Europe upon us, can be avoided, understand it well once more, it is by the Republic. This is why, in reason and in conscience, as a statesman, before God and before you, as free from illusion as from fanaticism, if the hour in which we deliberate is pregnant with a revolution, I will not conspire for a counter-revolution. I conspire for none-but if we must have one, I will accept it entire, and I will decide for the Republic!

LXXXVI.—ATTACHMENT OF A PEOPLE TO THEIR
RELIGION.

SYDNEY SMITH.

IF the great mass of the people, environed as they are on every side with Jenkenson's, Percevals, Mellvilles, and other

perils, were to pray for divine illumination and aid, what more could Providence in its mercy do than send them the example of Scotland? For what a length of years was it attempted to compel the Scotch to change their religion: horse, foot, artillery, and armed prebendaries, were sent out after the Presbyterian parsons and their congregations. The Percevals of those days called for blood; this call is never made in vain, and blood was shed; but to the astonishment and horror of the Percevals of those days, they could not introduce the Book of Common Prayer, nor prevent that metaphysical people from going to heaven their true way, instead of our true way. With a little oatmeal for food, and a little sulphur for friction, allaying cutaneous irritation with the one hand, and holding his Calvinistical creed in the other, Sawney ran away to his flinty hills, sung his psalm out of tune his own way, and listened to his sermon of two hours long, amid the rough imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles. But Sawney brought up his unbreeched offspring in a cordial hatred to his oppressors; and Scotland was as much a part of the weakness of England then as Ireland is at this moment. The true and the only remedy was applied; the Scotch were suffered to worship God after their own tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, and privation. No lightnings descended from heaven; the country was not ruined; the world is not yet come to an end; the dignitaries who foretold all these consequences, are utterly forgotten; and Scotland has ever since been an increasing source of strength to Great Britain. In the six-hundredth year of our empire over Ireland, we are making laws to transport a man, if he is found out of his house after eight o'clock at night. That this is necessary, I know too well; but tell me why it is necessary? It is not necessary in Greece, where the

Turks are masters.

LXXXVII.-SPEECH OF ICILIUS TO THE ROMANS.

ALFIERI.

LISTEN to my words, O people of Rome! I who heretofore have never been deceitful, who have never either be trayed or sold my honor; who boast an ignoble origin, but a

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noble heart! hear me. This innocent free maid is daughter of Virginius. At such a name, I see your eyes flash with resplendent fire. Virginius is fighting for you in the field: think on the depravity of the times; meanwhile, exposed to shame, the victim of outrage, his daughter remains in Rome. And who outrages her? Come forward, O Marcus! show yourself. Why tremble you? He is well known to you; the last slave of the tyrant Appius and his first minister-of Appius the mortal enemy of every virtue of Appius the haughty, stern, ferocious oppressor, who has ravished from you your freedom, and, to embitter the robbery, has left you your lives. Virginia is my promised bride; love her. Who I am, I need not say; some one may perhaps remind you, I was your tribune, your defender; but in vain. You trusted rather the deceitful words of another than my free speech. We now suffer in common slavery, the pain of your delusion. Why do I say more? The heart, the arm, the boldness of Icilius is known to you not less than the name. From you I demand my free bride. This man does not ask her; he styles her slave-he drags her, he forces her. Marcus is a liar; say, Romans, which it is.

Icilius or

LXXXVIII-VISIONS OF JOAN OF ARC AND BISHOP OF BEAUVAIS.

DE QUINCEY

BISHOP of Beauvais! thy victim died in fire upon a scaffold-thou upon a down bed. But for the departing minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer have the same truce from carnal torments; both sink together into sleep; together both, sometimes, kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering fast upon you two, Bishop and Shepherd girl-when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains about you-let us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher the flying features. of your separate visions.

The shepherd girl that had delivered France-she, from her dungeon, she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from her

duel with fire, as she entered her last dream-saw Domrémy, saw the fountain of Domrémy, saw the pomp of forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter festival, which man had denied to her languishing heart-that resurrection of spring-time, which the darkness of dungeons had intercepted from her, hungering after the glorious liberty of forests were by God given back into her hands, as jewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With these, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can stretch into ages), was given back to her by God the bliss of childhood. By special privilege, for her might be created, in this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first; but not, like that, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the rear. This mission had now been fulfilled. The storm was weathered, the skirts even of that mighty storm was drawing off. The blood, that she was to reckon for, had been exacied; the tears, that she was to shed in secret, had been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, had been suffered, had been survived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold she had triumphed gloriously; victoriously she had tasted the stings of death. For all, except this comfort from her farewell dream, she had died-died, amidst the tears of ten thousand enemies-died, amidst the drums and trumpets of armies died, amidst peals redoubling upon peals, volleys upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs.

LXXXIX.--THE SAME-CONTINUED.

DE QUINCEY.

BISHOP of Beauvais ! because the guilt-burthened man is in dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes, and because upon that fluctuating mirror —rising (like the mocking mirrors of mirage in Arabian deserts) from the fens of death-most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, Bishop, that you, also, entering your final dream, saw Domrémy-the fountain of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to your eyes in pure morning dews; but neither dews, nor the holy dawn could cleanse away the bright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By the fountain, Bishop,

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you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But as you draw near, the woman raises her wasted features. Would Domrémy know them again for the features of her child? Ah, but you know them, Bishop, well! Oh, mercy, what a groan was that which the servants, waiting outside the Bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his laboring heart, as at this moment he turned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold before he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find a respite? What a tumult, what a gathering of feet is there! In glades, where only wild deer should run, armies and nations are assembling; towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms that belong to departed hours. There is the great English Prince, Regent of France. There is my lord of Winchester, the princely Cardinal, that died and made no sign. There is the Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What building is that which hands so rapid are raising? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will they burn the child of Domrémy a second time? No it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds; and two nations stand around it, waiting for a trial. Shall my lord of Beauvais sit again upon the judgment-seat, and again number the hours for the innocent? Ah! no: he is the prisoner at the bar. Already all is waiting; the mighty audience is gathered, the court is hurrying to their seats, the witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judge is going to take his place. Oh! but this is sudden. My lord, have you no counsel? "Counsel I have none: in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counsellor there is none now that would take a brief from me: all are silent." Is it, indeed, come to this? Alas, the time is short, the tumult is wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity, but yet I will search in it for somebody to take your brief: I know of somebody that will be your counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domrémy? Who is she that cometh in bloody coronation robes from Rhéims? Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the furnaces of Rouen ? This is she, the Shepherd girl, counsellor that had none for herself, whom I choose, Bishop, for yours. She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, Bishop, that would plead for you: yes, Bishop, SHE -when heaven and earth are silent.

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