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"That every male, of Hebrew mother born,
"Must die." O do I live to tell it thee?
Must die a bloody death! My child! my son,
My youngest born, my darling must be slain!
Mir. The helpless innocent! and must he die ?
Joch. No if a mother's tears, a mother's prayers,
A mother's fond precautions can prevail,

He shall not die. I have a thought, my Miriam !
And sure the God of mercies, who inspir'd,
Will bless the secret purpose of my soul,

To save his precious life.

Mir.

Hop'st thou that Pharaoh

Joch. I have no hope in Pharaoh; much in God; Much in the Rock of Ages.

Mir.

Think, O think,

What perils thou already hast incurr'd;

And shun the greater, which may yet remain.

Three months, three dangʼrous months thou hast preserv'd Thy infant's life, and in thy house conceal'd him!

Should Pharaoh know!

Joch. O let the tyrant know,

And feel what he inflicts!

Yes, hear me, Heav'n !

-But hush,

Send the right aiming thunderbolts-
My impious murmurs! Is it not thy will,
Thou infinite in mercy? Thou permit'st
This seeming evil for some latent good.
Yes, I will laud thy grace, and bless thy goodness
For what I have, and not arraign thy wisdom
For what I fear to lose. O, I will bless thee,
That Aaron will be spar'd! that my first-born
Lives safe and undisturb'd! that he was given me
Before this impious persecution rag'd!

Mir. And yet who knows, but the fell tyrant's rage May reach his precious life?

Joch.

I fear for him,

For thee, for all. A doting parent lives

In many lives; through many a nerve she feels;
From child to child the quick affections spread,
Forever wand'ring, yet forever fix'd.

Not

Nor does division weaken, nor the force
Of constant operation e'er exhaust
Parental love. All other passions change,
With changing circumstances: rise or fall,
Dependent on their object; claim returns;
Live on reciprocation, and expire

Unfed by hope. A mother's fondness reigns
Without a rival, and without an end.

Mir. But say what Heaven inspires, to save thy son? Joch. Since the dear fatal morn which gave him birth, I have revolv'd in my distracted mind

Each mean to save his life and many a thought,
Which fondness prompted, prudence has oppos'd
As perilous and rash. With these poor hands
I've fram'd a little ark of slender reeds!

With pitch and slime I have secur'd the sides.
In this frail cradle I intend to lay

My little helpless infant, and expose him

Upon the banks of Nile.

Mir.

'Tis full of danger.

Joch. 'Tis danger to expose, and death to keep him. Mir. Yet O reflect! Should the fierce crocodile, The native and the tyrant of the Nile,

Seize the defenceless infant!

Joch.

O, forbear!

Spare my fond heart. Yet not the crocodile,
Nor all the deadly monsters of the deep,

To me are half so terrible as Pharaoh,

That heathen king, that royal murderer !!

Mir.

Should he escape, which yet I dare not hope,
Each sea-born monster; yet the winds and waves
He cannot 'scape.

Joch.
Know, God is every where;
Not to one narrow, partial spot confin'd;
No, not to chosen Israel. He extends
Through all the vast infinitude of space.
At his command the furious tempests rise,
The blasting of the breath of his displeasure:
He tells the world of waters when to roar;

And

And at his bidding, winds and seas are calm.
In Him, not in an arm of flesh I trust;
In Him, whose promise never yet has fail'd,
I place my confidence.

Mir.
What must I do?
Command thy daughter, for thy words have wak’d
An holy boldness in my youthful breast.

Joch. Go then, my Miriam ; go, and take the infant, Buried in harmless slumbers, there he lies;

Let me not see him. Spare my heart that pang.
Yet sure, one little look may be indulg'd;
One kiss; perhaps the last. No more, my soul !
That fondness would be fatal. I should keep him.
I could not doom to death the babe I clasp'd:
Did ever mother kill her sleeping boy?

I dare not hazard it. The task be thine.
O do not wake my child; remove him softly;
And gently lay him on the river's brink.

Mir. Did those magicians, whom the sons of Egypt
Consult, and think all-potent, join their skill,
And was it great as Egypt's sons believe;
Yet all their secret wizard arts combin'd.,
To save this little ark of bulrushes, a
Thus fearfully expos'd, could not effect it.
Their spells, their incantations, and dire charms
Could not preserve it.

Joch.

Know, this ark is charm'd

With spells, which impious Egypt never knew.
With invocations to the living God,

I twisted every slender reed together,

And with a prayer did ev'ry osier weave.

Mir. I go.

Joch. Yet ere thou go'st, observe me well. When thou hast laid him in his wat'ry bed,

O leave him not; but at a distance wait,

And mark what Heav'n's high will determines for him.. Lay him among the flags on yonder beach,

Just where the royal gardens meet the Nile.

I dare not follow him. Suspicion's eye,

Would

Would note my wild demeanor; Miriam, yes,
The mother's fondness would betray the child.
Farewell! God of my fathers, Oh protect him!

SPEECH OF CAIUS CASSIUS TO HIS COLLECTED FORCES, AFTER THE DEATH OF CESAR.

SOLDIERS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS,

THE

HE unjust reproaches of our enemies we could easily disprove, if we were not, by our numbers, and by the swords which we hold in our hands, in condition to despise them. While Cesar led the armies of the republic against the enemies of Rome, we took part in the same service with him; we obeyed him; we were happy to serve under his command. But when he declared war against the commonwealth, we became his enemies; and when he became an usurper and a tyrant, we resented, as an injury, even the favours, which he presumed to bestow upon ourselves.

Had he been to fall a sacrifice to private resentment, we should not have been the proper actors in the exccution of the sentence against him. He was willing to have indulged us with preferments and honors; but, we were not willing to accept, as the gift of a master, what we were entitled to claim as free citizens. We conceived, that, in presuming to confer the honors of the Roman republic, he encroached on the prerogatives of the Roman people, and insulted the authority of the Roman senate. Cesar cancelled the laws, and overturned the constitution of his country; he usurped all the powers of the commonwealth, set up a monarchy, and himself affected to be a king. This our ancestors, at the expulsion of Tarquin, bound themselves and their posterity, by the most solemn oaths, and by the most direful imprecations, never to endure. The same obligation has been entailed upon us as a debt by our fathers; and we, having faithfully paid and discharged

it, have performed the oath, and averted the consequences of failure from ourselves, and from our posterity.

In the station of soldiers, we might have committed ourselves, without reflection, to the command of an officer, whose abilities and whose valour we admired; but, in the character of Roman citizens, we have a far different part to sustain. I must suppose, that I now speak to the Roman people, and to citizens of a free republic; to men who have never learned to depend upon others for gratifications and favours; who are not accustomed to own a superior, but who are themselves the masters, the dispensers of fortune and of honor, and the givers of all those dignities and powers by which Cesar himself was exalted, and of which he assumed the entire disposal.

Recollect from whom the Scipios, the Pompeys, and even Cesar himself derived his honors from your ancestors, whom you now represent, and from yourselves, to whom, according to the laws of the republic, we, who are now your leaders in the field, address ourselves as your fellow-citizens in the commonwealth, and as persons depending on your pleasure for the just reward and retribution of our services. Happy in being able to restore to you what Cesar had the presumption to appropriate to himself, the power and the dignity of your fathers, with the supreme disposal of all the offices of trust that were established for your safety, and for the preservation of your freedom; happy in being able to restore to the tribunes of the Roman people the power of protecting you, and of procuring to every Roman citizen that justice, which, under the late usurpation of Cesar, was withheld, even from the sacred persons of those magistrates themselves.

An usurper is the common enemy of all good citizens; ut the task of removing him could be the business only f a few. The senate and the Roman people, as soon it was proper for them to declare their judgment, ronounced their approbation of those who were con

cerned