you, renew the foul barbarities your insatiate avarice has inflicted on this wretched, unoffending race! But hush, my sighs! fall not, ye drops of useless sorrow! heart-breaking anguish, choke not my utterance. All I entreat is,―send me once more to those you call your enemies. O let me be the messenger of penitence from you; and I shall return with blessings of peace from them. Elvira, you weep! Alas! does this dreadful crisis move no heart but thine? Time flies, words are unavailing,—the chieftains declare for instant battle!

3. O God! thou hast anointed me thy servant, not to curse, but to bless my countrymen; yet now my blessing on their force, were blasphemy against thy goodness. No! I curse your purpose, homicides! I curse the bond of blood, by which you are united. May fell division, infamy, and rout, defeat your projects, and rebuke your hopes! On you, and on your children, be the peril of the innocent blood which shall be shed this day! I leave you, and forever! No longer shall these aged eyes be seared by the horrors they have witnessed.

EXERCISE IX.

RULE 6. Language which is grave, grand, or sublíme, should generally be read on the low pitch, with a distinct and deliberate utterance, slow movement, and prevailing monotone.

THE FIXED STARS.-DR. CHALMERS.

Grandeur and Sublimity.

1. The first thing which strikes a scientific observer of the fixed stars, is their immeasurable distance. If the whole Chalmers, (Thomas,) an eminent Scotch divine.

QUESTION. What is the rule for language that is grave, grand, or sublime ?

planetary system were lighted up into a globe of fire, it would exceed, by many millions of times, the magnitude of this world, and yet only appear a small, lucid point from the nearest of them. If a body were projected from the sun, with the velocity of a cannon-ball, it would take hundreds of thousands of years before it described that mighty interval, which separates the nearest of the fixed stars from our sun and from our system. If this earth, which moves at more than the inconceivable velocity of a million and a half miles a day, were to be hurried from its orbit, and to take the same rapid flight over this immense tract, it would not have arrived at the termination of its journey, after taking all the time which has elapsed since the creation of the world.

2. These are great numbers and great calculations, and the mind feels its own impotency in attempting to grasp them. We can state them in words; we can exhibit them in figures; we can demonstrate them by the powers of a most rigid and infallible geometry; but no human fancy can summon up a lively or an adequate conception; can roam in its ideal flight over this immeasurable largeness; can take in this mighty space in all its grandeur, and in all its immensity; can sweep the outer boundaries of such a creation; or lift itself up to the majesty of that great and invisible arm, on which all is suspended.

3. But what can those stars be, which are seated so far beyond the limits of our planetary system? They must be masses of immense magnitude, or they could not be seen at the distance of place which they occupy. The light which they give must proceed from themselves, for the feeble reflection of light from some other quarter, would not carry through such mighty tracts, to the eye of an observer. These stars are visible to us, not because the sun shines upon them, but because they shine of themselves, because they are so many luminous

bodies scattered over the tracts of immensity; in a word, because they are so many suns, each throned in the center of his own dominions, and pouring a flood of light over his own portion of these illimitable regions.

4. Shall we say, then, of these vast luminaries, that they were created in vain? Were they called into existence for no other purpose than to throw a tide of useless splendor over the solitudes of immensity? Our sun is only one of these luminaries, and we know that he has worlds in his train. Why should we strip the rest, of this princely attendance? Why may not each of them be the center of his own system, and give light to his own worlds? Why resist any longer the grand and interesting conclusion? Each of these stars may be the token of a system as vast and as splendid as the one which we inhabit. Worlds roll in these distant regions; and these worlds must be the mansions of life and intelligence.

5. In yon gilded canopy of heaven, we see the broad aspect of the universe, where each shining point presents us with a sun, and each sun with a system of worlds; where the Divinity reigns in all the grandeur of his attributes; where he peoples immensity with his wonders; and travels in the greatness of his strength through the dominions of one vast and unlimited monarchcy. The contemplation has no limits. If we ask the number of suns and systems,—the unassisted eye of man can take in a thousand, and the best telescope which the genius of man has constructed, can take in not less than one hundred and fifty millions. Fancy may take its flight far beyond the ken of eye or telescope. Shall we have the boldness to say that there is nothing there; that the wonders of the Almighty are at an end; that the creative energy of God has sunk into repose, because the imagination is enfeebled by the magnitude of its efforts?

6. In the same manner as the planets, with their satellites,

revolve round the sun, may the sun with all its tributaries be moving, in common with other stars, around some distant center, from which there emanates an influence to bind and to subordinate them all. Our sun may, therefore, be only one member of a higher family, taking his part, along with millions of others, in some loftier system of mechanism by which they are all subjected to one law, and to one arrangement; describing the sweep of such an orbit in space, and completing the mighty revolution in such a period of time, as to reduce our planetary movements, to a very humble and fractionary rank in the scale of higher astronomy.

7. There is room for all this in immensity; and there is even argument for all this, in the records of actual observation; and from the whole of this speculation do we gather a new emphasis to the lesson, how minute is the place, and how secondary is the importance of our world, amid the glories of such surrounding magnificence!

EXERCISE X.

RULE 7. Language that is solemn or dignified, or whatever partakes of awe, or deep reverence, should generally be read on a low key, with slow movement, and a clear voice approaching monotone.

Solemn and Dignified.

'Tis midnight's holy hour, and silence now

Is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling;-'t is the knell

Of the departed year. No funeral train

Is sweeping past, yet, on the stream and wood,

QUESTION. What is the rule for language that is solemn, dignified, &c. ?

With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand,-

Young spring, bright summer, autumn's solemn form,
And winter, with his aged locks,—and breathe,
In mournful cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,

Gone from the earth forever.

Awe and Reverence.

1. It thunders! Sons of dust, in reverence bow! Ancient of Days! thou speakest from above;— Almighty! trembling, like a timid child,

I hear thy awful voice. Alarmed

afraid

I see the flashes of thy lightning wild,
And in the very grave would hide my head.

2. Now, all is hushed, and still, as death!-
How reverend is this tall pile,

Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads
To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe

And terror to my aching sight.

The tombs and monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.

Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice;

Thy voice; my own affrights me with its echoes.