66 66 12. They waited but a few minutes before they deter mined in favor of the younger brother. The judge said, 'Gentlemen, are you agreed; and who shall speak for you?” "We are all agreed, my lord," replied one; our foreman shall speak for us." "Hold, my lord," replied the milier, "we are not all agreed." "Why," said the judge, in a very surly manner, "what's the matter with you? what reasons have you for disagreeing?" 13. "I have several reasons, my lord," replied the miller. "The first is, they have given to all these gentlemen of the. jury ten broad pieces of gold, and to me but five; which, you know, is not fair. Besides, I have many objections to make to the false reasonings of the pleaders, and the contradictory evidence of the witnesses." Upon this, the miller began a discourse, which discovered such vast penetration of judgment, such extensive knowledge of law, and was expressed with such energetic and manly eloquence, that it astonished the judge and the whole court. 66 14. As he was going on with his powerful demonstrations, the judge, in a surprise of soul, stopped him. "Where did you come from, and who are you?" "I came from Westminster Hall," replied the miller; my name is Matthew Hale. I am lord chief justice of the King's Bench. I have observed the iniquity of your proceedings this day; therefore, come down from a seat which you are no ways worthy to hold. You are one of the corrupt parties in this iniquitous business. I will come up this moment and try the cause all over again." 15. Accordingly, Sir Matthew went up, with his miller's dress and hat on, began the trial from its very commencement, and searched every circumstance of truth and falsehood. He evinced the elder brother's title to the estate from the contradictory evidence of the witnesses, and the false reasoning of the pleaders; unraveled all the sophistry to the very bottom, and gained a complete victory in favor of truth and justice. LESSON CIX. CHARACTER OF MR. BROUGHAM.a 1. BROUGHAM is a thunderbolt. He may come in the dark, he may come at random, his path may be in the viewless and graspless air, but still, give him something solid, let him come in contact with the earth, and be it beautiful or barren it feels the power of his terrible visitation. You see not, or rather you heed not, the agent which works; but just as when the arch-giant of physical destroyers rends his way, you see the kingdoms of nature yielding at his approach, and the mightiest of their productions brushed aside as though they were dust, or torn as though they were gossamer. 2. While he raises his voice in the house, while he builds firmly and broadly the bases of his own propositions, and snatches from every science a beam to enlarge and strengthen his work; and while he indignantly beats down and tramples upon all that has been reared by his antagonist, you feel as if the wind of annihilation were in his hand, and the power of destruction in his possession. 3. There cannot be a greater treat than to hear Brougham upon one of those questions which give scope for the mighty swell of his mind, and which permit him to launch the bolts of that tremendous sarcasm, for which he has not now, and perhaps never had, an equal in the house. When his display is a reply, you see his long and lathy figure drawn aside from others, and coiled up within itself like a snake, and his eyes glancing from under the slouched hat, as fiery and as fatal as those of the basilisk; you mark the twin demons of irony and contempt playing about the tense and compressed line of his mouth. 4. Up rises the orator slowly and clumsily. His body ■ Brougham (Brow'am); an eminent English statesman and orator, born 1779. b Gossamer, a filmy substance, like cobwebs, floating in the air. c Basilisk; a kind of serpent, with a very pointed head and fiery eyes, said to have been found in the deserts of Africa. It is supposed by some that this animal, as described by the ancients, was fabulous. swung into an attitude which is none of the most graceful. His long and sallow visage seems lengthened and deepened in its hue. His eyes, his nose and mouth, seem huddled together, as if, while he presses every illustration into his speech, he were at the same time condensing all his senses There is a lowering sublimity in his brows, which one seldom sees equalled; and the obliquity of the light shows the organization of the upper and lateral parts of his forehead, proud and palpable as the hills of his native north. into one. 5. His left hand is extended with the palm, prepared as an anvil, upon which he is ever and anon to hammer, with the forefinger of his right, as the preparation to that full swing which is to give life to every muscle, and motion to every limb. He speaks! In the most powerful and sustained, and at the same time the most close, clear, and logical manner, does he demolish the castle which his opponent had built for himself. You hear the sounds, you see the flash, you look for the castle, and it is not. Stone after stone, turret after turret, battlement after battlement, and wing after wing, are melted away, and nothing left save the sure foundation, upon which the orator himself may build. LESSON CX. GENIUS WAKING. 1. SLUMBER'S heavy chain hath bound thee; Feebler wings are gathering round thee; Shall they hover higher? Can no power, no spell, recall thee From inglorious dreams? O, could glory so appal thee With his burning beams! 2. Thine was once the highest pinion With a proud and sure dominion, Like the herald, winged with lightning, 3 Where the pillared props of heaven Where no darkling clouds are driven, Far above the rolling thunder, 4. From that cloudless region stooping, Not with pinion faint and drooping, Up again undaunted soaring, Thou didst pierce the cloud, When the warring winds were roaring 5. Hark! his rustling plumage gathers Closer to his side, Close, as when the storm-bird weathers Ocean's hurrying tide. Now his nodding beak is steady; Wide his burning eye; And his aim, how high! 6. Now he curves his neck, and proudly Now is stretched for flight; Hark! his wings, they thunder loudly, a Olympian; pertaining to Olympus, a high mountain of ancient Greece, now in the southern part of Turkey in Europe. And their flash, how bright! LESSON CXI. BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE." WOLFE. [Charles Wolfe, a young Irish divine, and author of the following ode, which Byron pronounced "the most perfect in the language,” was born in Dublin in 1791, and died in 1823.] 1. Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 2. We buried him darkly, at dead of night, 3. No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet, nor in shroud, we bound him ; 4. Few and short were the prayers we said, 5. We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed, Sir John Moore; a distinguished general who was born in Glasgow, 1761, and fell in battle of Corunna, in Spain, in 1809. |