notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. Even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment. But there stood Fox and Sheridan. There was Burke, in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination, superior to every orator, ancient or modern. There appeared the finest gentleman of the age-his face beaming with intelligence and spirit -the ingenious, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded by such men, did the youngest manager pass unnoticed. Those who have listened with delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost.-MACAULay.

DEFENCE OF PELTIER.

(In 1803, M. Peltier published some articles in a periodical paper reflecting severely on Napoleon; who, taking advantage of the peace (see p. 293) at that time subsisting between France and Britain, instituted an action for libel in the English courts against Peltier. Sir James Mackintosh was retained for the defence.)

GENTLEMEN,―There is one point of view in which this case seems to merit your most serious attention. The real prosecutor is the master of the greatest empire the civilized world ever saw,—the defender, a defenceless, proscribed exile. I consider this case as the first of a long series of conflicts between the greatest power in the world, and THE ONLY FREE PRESS remaining in Europe. Gentlemen, this distinc

tion of the English press is new,—it is a proud and a melancholy distinction. Before the great earthquake of the French Revolution swallowed up all the asylums of free discussion on the Continent, we enjoyed that privilege more fully than others; but we did not exclusively enjoy it. In Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of Germany, the press was either legally or practically free. Holland and Switzerland are no more; and since the commencement of this prosecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased from the list of independent states by one dash of the pen. Three or four still preserve a precarious and trembling existence.

I

will not say by what compliances they must purchase its continuance. I will not insult the feebleness whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly deplore.

These governments formed a most interesting part of the ancient system of Europe. The perfect security of such feeble states, their undisturbed tranquillity amidst the wars and conquests around them, attested the moderation, the justice, the civilisation, to which Christian Europe had reached in modern times. Their weakness was protected only by the reverence for justice that, during a series of ages, had grown up in Christendom. This was the only fortification which defended them against those mighty monarchs to whom they offered so easy a prey. And, till the French Revolution, this was sufficient. Call to mind that happy period when we scarcely dreamed more of the subjugation of the weakest state in Europe than of her mightiest empire, and tell me if you can imagine a spectacle more beautiful to the moral eye, or a more striking proof of progress in the noblest principles of civilisation. These feeble states, these monuments of justice,—the asylums of peace, of industry, and of literature,—the organs of public reason, the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, have perished with those ancient principles which were their sole guardians. They are destroyed, and gone for ever.

There is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most important concerns of society, where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts of the proudest and the most powerful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is guarded by the free constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded by the hearts and arms of Englishmen; and I trust I may venture to say that, if it be to fall, it will fall only under the ruins of the British empire. It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Every other monument of European liberty has perished. That ancient fabric, gradually reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers, still stands. It stands, thanks be to God, solid and entire, but it stands alone, and it stands amid ruins! Believing, then, as I do, that we are on the eve of a great struggle, that this is only the first battle between reason and power, that you have now in your hands, committed to your trust, the only remains of free discussion in Europe; addressing you, therefore, as the guardians of the most important interests of mankind,-convinced that the unfettered

exercise of reason depends more on your verdict than on any other that ever was delivered by a jury,—I trust I may rely with confidence on the issue, and that you will consider yourselves as the advanced guard of liberty,—as having this day to fight the first battle for free discussion, and against the most formidable enemy that it ever encountered.

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

POETRY.

LAST VERSES OF CHAUCER, WRITTEN ON HIS DEATH-BED.

Fly from the press,2 and dwell with soothfastness;
Suffice unto thy good,3 though it be small;
For hoard hath hate, and climbing tickleness,
Press hath envỳ,5 and weal is blent o'er all
Savour no more than thee behoven shall ;7
Redes well thyself, that other folk canst rede,
And truth shall thee deliver-'tis no drede.9

Painé1o thee not each crooked to redress,
In trust of herll that turneth as a ball;
Great rest standèth12 in little business;

;

Beware also to spurn against a nalle ;13
Strive not as doth a crocké14 with a wall
Deemeth15 thyself that deemest other's deed,
And truth thee shall deliver-'tis no drede.

;

1 Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, Spenser's "well of pure English undefiled," was born at London 1328, and died in 1406. His age was that of the birth of modern literature in England and in Europe, (see pp. 257, 323). Our extract is from Chambers's Cyclopædia of English Literature.

2 Crowd.

5 Striving in the objects of the mass of mankind produces ill feeling.

6 Diffused, if taken from blend; shrunk, withered, if viewed as the participle of blench. 7 Taste or mingle with nothing more than thy duty demands. Compare "Thou savourest not the things," &c., Matt. xvi. 23.

8 Counsel; advise.

9 There is no fear.

11 Fortune.

10 In the writers of Chaucer's age, and subsequently, the French final é was sounded in English versification.

12 The verbal accent was made to depend on the accentuation of the verse.

13 Nail; in allusion to Acts ix. 5.

14 Earthen pitcher (Fr. cruche; German, krug), hence crockery. 15 Judge; eth is the termination of the old English imperative.

That thee is sent, receive in buxomness;2
The wrestling of this world askèth a fall;
Here is no home-here is but wilderness;

Forth, Pilgrim, forth!-Beast, out of thy stall!
Look up on high, and thank thy God of3 all.
Waiveth thy lust, and let thy ghost5 thee lead,
And truth shall thee deliver-'tis no drede.

MASQUE OF THE SEASONS.6

Then came the jolly Summer, being dight
In a thin silken cassock coloured green,
That was unlinéd all to be more light;
And on his head a girlond well beseen
He wore, from which, as he had chaféd been,
The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore
A bow and shafts, as he in forest green

Had hunted late the libbards and the boar, And now would bathe his limbs with labour heated sore.

Then came the Autumn all in yellow clad,

As though he joyéd in his plenteous store,
Laden with fruits that made him laugh full glad
That he had banished hunger, which to-fore
Had by the belly oft him pinchéd sore;
Upon his head a wreath, that was enroll'd
With ears of corn of every sort, he bore,
And in his hand a sickle he did hold

To reap the ripened fruits, the which the earth had yold.9

Lastly came Winter, clothed all in frieze,10
Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill;
While on his hoary beard his breath did freeze,11

1 Supply which.

bowsome; buxom is yielding.

2 Submission; compliance; from the verb to bow;
3 For.
Spirit; conscience.

• Natural temper and inclination; desire. Allegorical pictures of this kind constitute a conspicuous feature of the elder English, French, and Italian poetry.

The homeliness of imagery in the taste of our ancestors often offends a modern ear. 8 Leopard.

The old participle for yielded; like sell, sold. It is a pity that the regularity of modern grammar is extinguishing our old picturesque irregular forms.

10 Said to be derived from Phrygia or Friesland; Holland was, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the seat of active woollen manufactures. The term is applied to lining or embroidery, and is used here as applicable to any warm covering. The poet, in accordance with the literary vice of his age, perhaps means to pun.

11 The modern principles of rhyme do not admit the same sound to succeed, but this canon was not established in Spenser's days.

Ꮓ

And the dull drops that from his purpled bill,1
As from a limbeck, did adown distil;

In his right hand a tipped staff2 he held,
With which his feeble steps he stayed still;
For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld,3
That scarce his looséd1 limbs he able was to weld.5
SPENSER.6

EXTRACTS FROM SHAKESPEARE."

REDEMPTION.

All the souls that were,8 were forfeit once;
And he, that might the 'vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If he, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? oh, think on that:
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,9

Like man new made.

Measure for Measure, Act II., Scene 7.

INSOLENCE IN OFFICE.

Isab. Could great men thunder

As Jove himself does, Jove would ne'er be quiet;
For every pelting, petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder;

Nothing but thunder.

Merciful heav'n!

Thou rather, with thy sharp and sulph'rous bolt,

2 Hence tip-staff, a constable, a bailiff. 5 Wield.

4 Relaxed.

1 See note 7, p. 337: limbec, an alembic. 3 Old age; hence elder. • Edmund Spenser (1553-1588) is the author of the "Fairy Queen" (from which our extract is taken), the great embodiment, in an English shape, of the Italian Romance poetry. The stanza, from the poet, is termed the Spenserian.

7 William Shakespeare (1564-1616), the greatest of the world's dramatists, was born in comparatively humble life, at Stratford-on-Avon in Warwickshire. Without any of the advantages of education, the "myriad-minded" poet was gifted by Nature with the 'golden keys" that unlock the sources of every passion, and with the eye that at once spans the vast creation, and comprehends the minutest bud that blooms, and the "poorest beetle" that crawls.

8 This is false divinity.

We should read, "all the souls that are."-Warburton. This is a fine thought, and finely expressed: the meaning is, that mercy will add such grace to your person, that you will appear as amiable as man come fresh out of the hands of his Creator.-Warburton.