EXERCISE LXV.-PRINCE HENRY'S CHALLENGE TO HOTSPUR.

Shakspeare.

Scene from Henry IV. Part I.-Speakers,-King Henry, Prince Henry, Worcester; other lords attending. Scene,—the king's camp, near Shrewsbury.

[See remarks introductory to previous examples of dramatic dia

logue.]

K. Hen. How bloodily the sun begins to peer

Above yon dusky hill!

At his distemperature.

P. Hen.

The day looks pale

The southern wind

Doth play the trumpet to his purposes,
And, by his hollow whistling in the leaves,
Foretells a tempest, and a blustering day.

K. Hen. Then, with the losers let it sympathize;
For nothing can seem foul to those that win.-

[Enter Worcester.]
How now, my lord of Worcester? 't is not well
That you and I should meet upon such terms
As now we meet. You have deceived our trust,
And made us doff our easy robes of peace,
To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel.
That is not well, my lord: this is not well.
What say you to 't? Will you again unknit
This churlish knot of all abhorred war,
And move in that obedient orb, again,
Where you did give a fair and natural light;
And be no more an exhaled meteor,
A prodigy of fear, and a portent

Of broached mischief to the unborn times?
Wor. Hear me, my liege.

For mine own part, I could be well content
To entertain the lag-end of my life

With quiet hours; for, I do protest,

I have not sought the day of this dislike.

K. Hen. You have not sought for it! How comes it, then?

Wor. It pleased your majesty, to turn your looks

Of favour from myself, and all our house;

And yet, I must remember you, my lord,
We were the first and dearest of your friends.
For you, my staff of office did I break,

In Richard's time, and posted, day and night,
To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,

When yet you were, in place and in account,
Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.
It was myself, my brother, and his son,
That brought you home, and boldly did outdare
The dangers of the time. You swore to us,-
And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,-
That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state,
Nor claim no farther than your new-fallen right,
The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster:
To this we swore our aid. But, in short space,
It rained down fortune, showering on your head;
And such a flood of greatness fell on you,-
What with our help,-what with the absent king,—
What with the injuries of a wanton time,-
The seeming sufferances that you had borne, -
And the contrarious winds that held the king
So long in his unlucky Irish wars,

That all in England did repute him dead,—
And, from this swarm of fair advantages,
You took occasion to be quickly wooed
To gripe the general sway into your hand,—
Forgot your oath to us, at Doncaster;
And, being fed by us, you used us so
As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo's bird,
Useth the sparrow,-did oppress our nest,
Grew, by our feeding to so great a bulk,
That even our love durst not come near your sight,
For fear of swallowing, but, with nimble wing
We were enforced, for safety's sake, to fly
Out of your sight, and raise this present head;
Whereby we stand oppressed by such means
As you yourself have forged against yourself,
By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,
And violation of all faith and troth,

Sworn to us, in your younger enterprise.

K. Hen. These things, indeed, you have articulated, Proclaimed at market crosses, read in churches,

To face the garment of rebellion

With some fine colour, that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings, and poor discontents,
Which gape, and rub the elbow, at the news
Of hurly-burly innovation;

And never yet did insurrection want
Such water colours, to impaint his cause,

Nor moody beggars, starving for a time
Of pellmell havock and confusion.

P. Hen. In both our armies, there is many a soul
Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,

If once they join in trial.-Tell your nephew,
The prince of Wales doth join with all the world
In praise of Henry Percy. By my hopes,-

This present enterprise set off his head,—

I do not think, a braver gentleman,

More active-valiant, or more valiant-young,
More daring, or more bold, is now alive,
Το grace this latter age with noble deeds.
For my part, I may speak it to my shame,-
I have a truant been to chivalry;

And so, I hear, he doth account me too:
Yet this, before my father's majesty,-
this,-before

I am content that he shall take the odds

Of his great name and estimation,

And will,-to save the blood on either side,

Try fortune with him in a single fight.

K. Hen. And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee

Albeit, considerations, infinite

Do make against it.-No, good Worcester, no:

We love our people well,-even those we love,
That are misled upon your cousin's part;
And,-will they take the offer of our grace,—
Both he and they, and you, yea, every man,
Shall be my friend, again, and I be his :
So tell your cousin, and bring me word
What he will do.-But, if he will not yield,
Rebuke and dread correction wait on us;
And they shall do their office. So, begone:
We will not now be troubled with reply:
We offer fair,-take it advisedly.

[Exit Wor.]

P. Hen. It will not be accepted, on my life:

The Douglas and the Hotspur, both together,

Are confident against the world in arms.

K. Hen. Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge! For, on their answer, will we set on them ;

And God befriend us, as our cause is just!

EXERCISE LXVI. WASHINGTON'S PREPARATORY TRAINING FOR PUBLIC STATION.-C. W. Upham.

[An example of the style of narrative rising to the dignity of history. The style, both in the composition and the external manner, partakes of the oratorical character: the utterance is full and impressive.]

Among the mountain passes of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, a youth is seen employed in the manly and invigorating occupations of a surveyor, and awakening the admiration of the hardy backwoodsmen and savage chieftains, by the strength and endurance of his frame, and the resolution and energy of his character. In his stature and conformation, he is a noble specimen of a man. In the various exercises of muscular power, on foot and in the saddle, he excels all competitors. His admirable physical traits are in perfect accordance with the properties of his mind and heart; and over all, crowning all, is a beautiful, and, in one so young, a strange dignity of manners and of mien, a calm seriousness, a sublime self-control, which at once compels the veneration, attracts the confidence, and secures the favour of all who behold him. That youth is the leader whom Heaven is preparing to conduct America through her approaching trial."

As we see him voluntarily relinquishing the enjoyments, and luxuries, and ease, of the opulent refinement in which he was born and bred, and choosing the perils and hardships of the wilderness; as we follow him, fording swollen streams, climbing rugged mountains, breasting the forest storms, wading through snow-drifts, sleeping in the open air, living upon the coarse food of hunters and of Indians, we trace, with devout admiration, the divinely-appointed education he was receiving to enable him to meet and endure the fatigues, exposures, and privations, of the war of Independ

ence.

Soon he is called to a more public sphere of action, on the same theatre; and we again follow him, in his romantic adventures, as he traversed the far-off western wilderness, a special messenger to the French commander on the Ohio, and afterwards when he led forth the troops of Virginia in the same direction, or accompanied the ill-starred Braddock to the blood-stained banks of the Monongahela. Everywhere we see the hand of God conducting him into danger, that he might extract from it the wisdom of an experience not otherwise to be attained, and develope those heroic quali

ties by which alone danger and difficulty can be surmounted, but all the while covering him, as with a shield.

When we think of him, at midnight and in mid-winter, thrown from a frail raft into the deep and angry waters of a wide and rushing western river, thus separated from his only companion through the wilderness, with no human aid for miles and leagues around him, buffeting its rapid current, and struggling through driving cakes of ice,-when we behold the stealthy savage, whose aim, against all other marks, is unerring, pointing his rifle deliberately at him, and firing, over and over again,-when we see him riding through showers of bullets on Braddock's fatal field, and reflect that never, during his whole life, was he wounded, or even touched, by a hostile force, do we not feel that he was guarded by an Unseen Hand? Yes, that sacred person was guarded by an unseen hand, warding off every danger. No peril by flood or by field was permitted to extinguish a life consecrated to the hopes of humanity, and to the purposes

of heaven.

For more than sixteen years he rested from his warfare, amid the shades of Mount Vernon, ripening his mind by reading and reflection, increasing his knowledge of practical affairs, entering into the whole experience of a citizen, at home, on his farm, and as a delegate to the colonial Assembly; and when, at last, the war broke out, and the unanimous voice of the Continental Congress invested him, as the exigency required, with almost unbounded authority, as their Commander-in-Chief, he blended, although still in the prime of his life, in the mature bloom of his manhood, the attributes of a sage with those of a hero. A more perfectly fitted and furnished character, has never appeared on the theatre of human action, than when, reining up his war-horse, beneath the majestic and venerable elm, still standing at the entrance of the old Watertown road upon Cambridge Common, GEORGE WASHINGTON unsheathed his sword, and assumed the command of the gathering armies of American liberty.