now the deception was at an end; and requesting of his parliament to devise the most speedy and efficacious means of putting an end to the public calamities; instead of which they heard a speech breathing little less than vengeance, misery, and blood.

Those who are ignorant of the personal character of the sovereign, and who imagine the speech to originate with him, might be led to suppose that he was an unfeeling despot, rejoicing in the horrid sacrifice of the liberty and lives of his subjects, who, when all hope of victory was vanished, still thirsted for revenge. The ministers, who advised this speech, I affirm to be a curse to the country, over the affairs of which they have too long been suffered to preside. From that unrivalled pre-eminence which we so lately possessed, they have made us the object of ridicule and scorn to the surrounding nations.

A noble lord has, indeed, thought fit to ascribe the American war, and all its attendant calamities, to the speeches of opposition. Oh! wretched and incapable minister, whose measures are framed with so little foresight, and executed with so little firmness, that because a rash and intemperate invective is uttered against them, in the House of Commons, they shall instantly crumble in pieces, and bring down ruin upon the country! Miserable statesman! to allow for no contingencies of fortune; no ebullition of passion, no collision of sentiment! Can he expect the concurrence of every individual in this House; and is he so weak or wicked, as to contrive plans of government of such a texture, that the intervention of circumstances, obvious and unavoidable, will occasion their total failure, and hazard the existence of the empire?

Ministers must expect to hear of the calamities in which they have involved the empire, again and again,-not merely in this House, but, as I trust, at the tribunal of justice. For the time will surely come, when an oppressed and irritated people will firmly call for signal punishment on those whose counsels have brought the nation so near to the brink of destruction.

EXERCISE XX.-INFLUENCE OF THE CHARACTER OF WASHING

TON.-Webster.

From the Address delivered at the completion of the Bunker-Hill Monument.

[This piece demands full feeling, and vivid expression, with sustained dignity of tone and action.]

America has furnished to the world the character of Washington! And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

Washington!" First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen !"-Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him, prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honour on his country and its institutions. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington!

This structure, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city, or a single Statc,-ascends the colossal grandeur of his character, and his life. In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration and renown,-it is an American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of our transatlantic liberty. Born upon our soil,-of parents also born upon it, never for a moment having had a sight of the old world,-instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions provide for the children of the people, growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society,-growing up amidst our

*Bunker-Hill Monument.

expanding, but not luxurious, civilization, partaking in our great destiny of labour, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man,-our agony of glory, the war of independence, our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union and the establishment of the Constitution,-he is all-all our own! That crowded and glorious life,—

"Where multitudes of virtues passed along,
Each pressing foremost, in the mighty throng
Contending to be seen, then making room
For greater multitudes that were to come;"-

that life was the life of an American citizen.

I claim him for America. In all the perils, in every darkened moment of the state, in the midst of the reproaches of enemies and the misgiving of friends,-I turn to that transcendant name for courage and for consolation. To him who denies, or doubts, whether our fervid liberty can be combined with law, with order, with the security of property, with the pursuit and advancement of happiness,-to him who denies that our institutions are capable of producing exaltation of soul, and the passion of true glory,--to him who denies that we have contributed anything to the stock of great lessons and great examples,-to all these I reply by pointing to Washington!

EXERCISE XXI.-CATARACT OF LODORE.*-Southey.

[This piece is intended as an exercise in modulation, and should be read in that vivid style which makes the 'sound'' seem an echo to the sense.']

HOW DOES THE WATER COME DOWN AT LODORE ?

Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Here smoking and frothing,
Its tumult and wrath in,

It hastens along, conflicting, and strong,

Now striking and raging,

As if a war waging,
Its caverns and rocks among.

Rising and leaping,

Sinking and creeping,

Swelling and flinging,

Showering and springing,

* A celebrated fall, on Derwent water, in Cumberland.

Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Twining and twisting
Around and around,-
Collecting, disjecting,

With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,

Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.

Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and growing,
And running and stunning,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And dinning and spinning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And heaving and cleaving,
And thundering and floundering.

And falling and crawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,

And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,

And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering,

And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,

And thumping and flumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar ;-
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

EXERCISE XXII.-THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.- -Sir Robert Peel. From the speech at the Peel banquet, Glasgow, 1837.

[This extract is an example of noble and impressive declamation. The tone should be powerful and inspiring,—the style of gesture, lofty and commanding.]

When we are told of the general diffusion of the light of knowledge, of the long settled and virtuous habits of the people, of the existence of a high standard of morality, how, I ask, were all these blessings attained? Do virtuous habits, a high standard of morality, proficiency in the arts and embellishments of life, depend upon physical formation, or the latitude in which we are placed? Do they not depend upon the civil and religious institutions which distinguish the country?

If the testimony which I have quoted from Lord John Russell, be true, as it is disinterested, and if you are convinced that the habits of a country must be formed by its institutions, and if you are also convinced that our institutions are superior to those of other countries, let us take his lordship's advice, and determine to cling to our native gov

ernment.

I never have desponded. When I have been fighting the battle with a small minority, I never desponded. I knew the time would come,-after the first agitation naturally accompanying the mighty changes which have been made,-I knew the time would come when the old honest heart of England and Scotland, would rally round its still dearlybeloved institutions.