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saved his country, and he could not endure that it should be said he had ever deserted it. He loved his country; but it was for his own honour, which he could preserve, rather than for his country's freedom, which he despaired of, that he returned to his post when escape was still possible. He might have remained silent, but he opened the floodgates of his eloquence. When indeed he had once launched himself on the torrent he lost all self-command; he could neither retrace nor moderate his career; he saw the rocks before him, but he dashed himself headlong against them.

C. MERIVALE

221.

CHARLES THE FIFTH, HIS RESIGNATION OF HIS HEREDITARY DOMINIONS TO HIS SON PHILIP, A. D. 1555. Charles then rose from his seat; and leaning on the shoulder of the prince of Orange, because he was unable to stand without support, he addressed himself to the audience, and from a paper which he held in his hand, in order to assist his memory, he recounted with dignity but without ostentation all the great things which he had undertaken and performed since the commencement of his administration. He observed, that from the seventeenth year of his age he had dedicated all his thoughts and attention to public objects, reserving no portion of his time for the indulgence of his ease, and very little for the enjoyment of private pleasure; that, either in a pacific or hostile manner, he had visited Germany nine times, Spain six times, France four times, Italy seven times, the Low Countries ten times, England twice, Africa as often, and had made eleven voyages by sea; that while his health permitted him to discharge his duty, and the vigour of his constitution was equal, in any degree, to the arduous office of governing such extensive dominions, he had never shunned labour nor repined under fatigue; that now when his health was broken, and his vigour exhausted by the rage of an incurable distemper, his growing infirmities admonished him to retire, nor was he so fond of reigning, as to retain the sceptre in an impotent hand, which was no longer able to protect his subjects, or to secure to them the happiness which he wished they should enjoy; that instead of a sovereign worn out with diseases, and scarcely half alive, he gave them one in the prime of life, accustomed already to govern, and who added to the vigour of youth all the attention and sagacity of maturer

years; that if, during the course of a long administration, he had committed any material error in government, or if, under the pressure of so many and great affairs, and amidst the attention which he had been obliged to give to them, he had either neglected or injured any of his subjects, he now implored their forgiveness; that, for his part, he should ever retain a grateful sense of their fidelity and attachment, and would carry the remembrance of it along with him to the place of his retreat, as his sweetest consolation, as well as the best reward for all his services, and in his last prayers to Almighty God would pour forth his most earnest petitions for their welfare.

W. ROBERTSON

222.

BOUNTIFULNESS OF NATURE. All things about us do minister (or at least may do so, if we would improve the natural instruments and the opportunities afforded us) to our preservation, ease or delight. The hidden bowels of the earth yield us treasures of metals and minerals; the vilest and most common stones we tread on (even in that we tread on them) are useful, and serve to many good purposes beside the surface of the earth how is it bespread all over, as a table well furnished, with variety of delicate fruits, herbs and grains to nourish our bodies, to please our tastes, to cheer our spirits, to cure our diseases! How many fragrant and beautiful flowers offer themselves for the comfort of our smell and the delight of our sight! Neither can our ears complain, since every wood breeds a quire of natural musicians, ready to entertain them with easy and unaffected harmony: the woods, I say, which also adorned with stately trees afford us a pleasant view and a refreshing shade, shelter from weather and sun, fuel for our fires, materials for our houses and our shipping, with divers other needful utensils. Even the barren mountains send us down fresh streams of water, so necessary to the support of our lives, so profitable for the fructification of our grounds, so commodious for conveyance of our wares and maintaining intercourse among us.

I. BARROW

223. THE BATTLE OF SALICES, A. D. 377. The evening was already far advanced and the two armies prepared themselves for the approaching combat at the dawn of day. While the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the

Goths was confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath; and, as they advanced to meet the enemy, the rude songs which celebrated the glory of their forefathers were mingled with their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding eminence; but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the light, was maintained on either side by the personal and obstinate efforts of strength, valour, and agility. The legions of Armenia supported their fame in arms, but they were oppressed by the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude: the left wing of the Romans was thrown into disorder, and the field was strewed with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced, however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camp, neither of them could claim the honours or the effects of a decisive victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were so deeply confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps unexpected, resistance, that they remained seven days within the circle of their fortifications.

224.

E. GIBBON

PERCEPTION OF THE SUBLIME. A little reflection will easily convince any one, that, so far from the feelings of self-preservation being necessary to the sublime, their greatest action is totally destructive of it; and that there are few feelings less capable of its perception than those of a coward. But the simple conception or idea of greatness of suffering or extent of destruction is sublime, whether there be any connexion of that idea with ourselves or not. If we were placed beyond the reach of all peril or pain, the perception of these agencies in their influences on others would not be less sublime; not because peril and pain are sublime in their own nature, but because their contemplation, exciting compassion or fortitude, elevates the mind and renders meanness of thought impossible. Beauty is not so often felt to be sublime; because, in many kinds of material beauty, there is some truth in Burke's assertion, that 'littleness' is one of its elements. But he who has not felt that there may be beauty without littleness, and that such beauty is a source of the sublime, is yet ignorant of the meaning of the ideal in art. J. RUSKIN

225. VESTIGES OF THE PAST. For, indeed, a change was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era. The paths trodden by the footsteps of ages were broken up: old things were passing away, and the faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a dream. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit, which they had so laboriously built for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer. And now it is all gonelike an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the cathedrals, only as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their tombs, some faint conceptions float before us of what these men were when they were alive; and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar creation of mediæval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world. J. A. FROUDE

226. SALUTARY INNOVATION. The great stream of time is perpetually flowing on; all things around us are in ceaseless motion; and we vainly imagine to preserve our relative position among them by getting out of the current and standing stock still on the margin. The stately vessel we belong to glides down: our bark is attached to it; we might 'pursue the triumph and partake the gale;' but worse than the fool who stares expecting the current to flow down and run out, we exclaim, Stop the boat!--and would tear it away to strand it, for the sake of preserving its connexion with the vessel. All the changes that are hourly and gently going on in spite of us and all those which we ought to make, that violent severances of settled relations may not be effected, far from exciting murmurs of discontent, ought to be gladly hailed as dispensations of a bountiful Providence, instead of filling us with a thoughtless and preposterous alarm.

LORD BROUGHAM

227. EFFECT PRODUCED IN LONDON BY THE NEWS OF THE BATTLE OF THE BOYNE. The good news from Ireland reached London at a moment when good news was needed. The English flag had been disgraced in the English seas. A foreign enemy threatened the coast. Traitors were at work within the realm. Mary had exerted herself beyond her strength. Her gentle nature was unequal to the cruel anxieties of her position; and she complained that she could scarcely snatch a moment from business to calm herself by prayer. Her distress rose to the highest point when she learned that the camps of her father and her husband were pitched near to each other, and that tidings of a battle might be hourly expected. She stole time for a visit to Kensington, and had three hours of quiet in the garden, then a rural solitude. But the recollection of days passed there with him whom she might never see again overpowered her. place," she wrote to him, "made me think how happy I was there when I had your dear company. But now I will say no more: for I shall hurt my own eyes, which I want now more than ever. Adieu. Think of me, and love me as much as I

shall you, whom I love more than my life."

"The

LORD MACAULAY

228. DEATH OF CATHERINE OF ARRAGON, QUEEN OF HENRY VIII. She died in the fiftieth year of her age. A little before she expired, she wrote a very tender letter to the King, in which she gave him the appellation of 'her most dear Lord, King, and Husband!' She told him, that as the hour of her death was now approaching, she laid hold of this last opportunity to inculcate on him the importance of his religious duty, and the comparative emptiness of all human grandeur and enjoyment: that though his fondness towards these perishable advantages had thrown her into many calamities, as well as created to himself much trouble, yet she forgave him all past injuries, and hoped that his pardon would be ratified in heaven; and that she had no other request to make, than to recommend to him his daughter, the sole pledge of their loves; and to crave his protection for her maids and servants. She concluded with these words, 'I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things.' The King was touched, even to the shedding of tears, by this last tender proof of Catherine's affection.

D. HUME

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