sive and populous country; had made laws and treaties; had sent forth armies; had set up and pulled down princes; and in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. A person, small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated, also, habitual self-possession and selfrespect; a high and intellectual forehead; a brow, pensive, but not gloomy; a mouth of inflexible decision; a face, pale and worn, but serene, on which a great and wellbalanced mind was legibly written: such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.

The charges, and the answers of Hastings, were first read. This ceremony occupied two whole days. On the third, Burke rose. Four sittings of the court were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendor of diction, which more than satisfied the highly raised expectations of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India; recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic Empire of Britain had originated; and set forth the constitution of the Company and of the English Presidencies.

Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings, as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration from all; and, for a moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to

display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams. were heard, and some were even carried out in fits.

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At length the orator concluded. Raising his voice, till the old arches of Irish oak resounded- "Therefore," said he, "hath it with all confidence been ordered by the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach him in the name of the Commons House of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation, whose ancient honor he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all."

NOTES.-Warren Hastings (b. 1732, d. 1818) was Governor general of British India. He was impeached for maladministration, but, after a trial which extended from Feb. 13th, 1788, to April 23d, 1795, and occupied one hundred and fortyeight days, he was acquitted by a large majority on each separate count of the impeachment.

William Rufus, or William II. (b. 1056, d. 1100), built Westminster Hall in which the trial was held. Bacon; see biographical notice, pages 332 and 333. Somers, John (b. 1651, d. 1716) was impeached for maladministration while holding the office of lord chamberlain. Strafford, Thomas Wentworth, earl of, (b. 1593, d. 1641,) was impeached for his mismanagement while governor of Ireland. He conducted his own defense with such eloquence that the original impeachment was abandoned, although he was immediately condemned for high treason and executed. Charles I. (b. 1600, d. 1649), after a war with Parliament, in which the rights of the people were at issue, was captured, tried, and condemned to death.

The House of Brunswick is one of the oldest families of Germany. A branch of this family occupies the British throne. Siddons, Sarah (b. 1755, d. 1831), was a famous English actress. Gibbon, Edward (b. 1737, d. 1794), was a celebrated English historian. Cicero; see note on page 156. Tacitus (b. about 55, d. after 117 A. D.) was a Roman orator and historian, who conducted the prosecution of Marius, proconsul of Africa. Reynolds, Sir Joshua (b. 1723, d. 1792), an English portrait painter of note. Parr, Samuel (b. 1747, d. 1825), was an English author. Burke, Edmund; see biographical sketch accompanying the following lesson.

CVIII. DESTRUCTION OF THE CARNATIC.

Edmund Burke, 1730-1797, one of the most able and brilliant of England's essayists, orators, and statesmen, was born in Dublin, and was the son of an able lawyer. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1748. As a student, he was distinguished for ability and industry. From 1750 to 1766 he was in London writing for periodicals, publishing books, or serving as private secretary. His work on "The Sublime and Beautiful" appeared in 1756. From 1766 to 1794 he was a member of Parliament, representing at different times different constituencies. On the first day of his appearance in the House of Commons he made a successful speech. "In the three principal questions which excited his interest, and called forth the most splendid displays of his eloquence - the contest with the American Colonies, the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and the French Revolution-we see displayed a philanthropy the most pure, illustrated by a genius the most resplendent." Mr. Burke's foresight, uprightness, integrity, learning, magnanimity, and eloquence made him one of the most conspicuous men of his time; and his writings stand among the noblest contributions to English literature.

WHEN at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human intercourse itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and to put perpetual desolation

as a barrier between him and those against whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together was no protection.

He became at length so confident of his force, so collected in his might, that he made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy and every rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from every quarter whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts of destruction; and compounding all the materials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of the mountains.

Whilst the authors of all these evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor which blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic.

Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which no tongue can adequately tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of, were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or sacredness of function,—fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and, amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity, in an unknown and hostile land.

Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities; but escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine.

The alms of the settlement of Madras, in this dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal, and all was done by charity that private charity could do; but it was a people in beg

gary; it was a nation which stretched out its hands for food.

For months together these creatures of sufferance, whose very excess and luxury in their most plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, without sedition or disturbance, almost without complaint, perished by a hundred a day in the streets of Madras; every day seventy at least laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary of India.

I was going to wake your justice toward this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens, by bringing before you some of the circumstances of this plague of hunger. Of all the calamities which beset and waylay the life of man, this comes the nearest to our heart, and is that wherein the proudest of us all feels himself to be nothing more than he is.

But I find myself unable to manage it with decorum. These details are of a species of horror so nauseous and disgusting; they are so degrading to the sufferers and to the hearers; they are so humiliating to human nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I find it more advisable to throw a pall over this hideous object, and to leave it to your general conceptions.

For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic, for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man not one woman - not one child -not one four-footed beast of any description whatever! One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region.

With the inconsiderable exceptions of the narrow vicinage of some few forts, I wish to be understood as speaking