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LESSON CVII.

Van Den Bosch persuades Philip Van Artevelde to accept the command of Ghent.-HENRY TAYLOR.

Artevelde. THIS is a mighty matter, Van den Bosch, And much to be revolv'd ere it be answered.

Van den Bosch. The people shall elect thee with one voice. I will ensure the White-Hoods, and the rest

Will eagerly accept thy nomination,

So to be rid of some that they like less.
Thy name is honour'd both of rich and poor,
For all are mindful of the glorious rule

Thy father bore, when Flanders, prosperous then,
From end to end obey'd him as one town.

Art. They may remember it-and, Van den Bosch,
May I not, too, bethink me of the end

To which this people brought my noble father?
They gorged the fruits of his good husbandry,
Till, drunk with long prosperity, and blind
With too much fatness, they tore up the root

From which their common weal had sprung and flourished.
Van den B. Nay, Master Philip, let the

past be past.
Art. Here on the doorstead of my father's house,
The blood of his they spilt is seen no more.
But when I was a child I saw it there;
For so long as my widow-mother lived
Water came never near the sanguine stain.
She lov'd to show it me, and then with awe,-
But hoarding still the purpose of revenge,
I heard the tale-which, like a daily prayer
Repeated, to a rooted feeling grew—

How long he fought, how falsely came like friends
The villains Guisebert Grutt and Simon Bette,—
All the base murder of the one by many!
Even such a brutal multitude as they

Who slew my father-yea, who slew their own,

(For like one had he ruled the parricides,) Even such a multitude thou'dst have me govern.

Van den B. Why, what if Jacques Artevelde was killed? He had his reign, and that for many a year,

And a great glory did he gain thereby.
And as for Guisebert Grutt and Simon Bette,
Their breath is in their nostrils as was his.

If you be as stout-hearted as your father,
And mindful of the villainous trick they play'd him,
Their hour of reckoning is well nigh come.
Of that, and of this base false-hearted league
They're making with the earl, these two to us
Shall give account.

Art. They cannot render back

The golden bowl that's broken at the fountain,
Or mend the wheel that's broken at the cistern,
Or twist again the silver cord that's loosed.
Yea, life for life, vile bankrupts as they are,-
Their worthless lives, for his of countless price,—
Is their whole wherewithal to pay their debt.
Yet retribution is a goodly thing,

And it were well to wring the payment from them
Even to the utmost drop of their hearts' blood.

Van den B. Then will I call the people to the square,

And speak for your election.

Art. Not so fast.

Your vessel, Van den Bosch, hath felt the storm:

She rolls dismasted in an ugly swell,

And you would make a jury-mast of me,

Whereon to spread the tatters of

your canvass.

And what am I?-Why, I am as the oak
Which stood apart, far down the vale of life,
Growing retired beneath a quiet sky.

Wherefore should this be added to the wreck?

Van den B. I pray you, speak it in the Burghers' tongue

I lack the scholarship to talk in tropes.

Art. The question, to be plain, is briefly this:

Shall I, who, chary of tranquillity,

Not busy in this factious city's broils,

Nor frequent in the market-place, eschew'd

The even battle,-shall I join the rout?

Van den B. Times are sore changed, I see; there's none

in Ghent

That answers to the name of Artevelde.

Thy father did not carp nor question thus

When Ghent invoked his aid. The days have been

When not a citizen drew breath in Ghent

But freely would have died in Freedom's cause.

Art. The cause, I grant thee, Van den Bosch, is good;
And were I link'd to earth no otherwise

But that my whole heart centred in myself,
I could have toss'd you this poor life to play with,
Taking no second thought. But as things are,
I will revolve the matter warily,

And send thee word betimes of my conclusion.

Van den B. Betimes it must be, for the White-Hood chiefs

Meet two hours hence, and ere we separate

Our course must be determined.

Art. In two hours,

If I be for you, I will send this ring

In token I have so resolved.

Farewell!

Van den B. Philip Van Artevelde, a greater man Then ever Ghent beheld, we'll make of thee,

If thou be bold enough to try this venture.

God give thee heart to do so.

Fare thee well.

[Exit VAN DEN BOSCH.

Art. (after a long pause). Is it vain glory that thus whis

pers me,

That 'tis ignoble to have led my life

In idle meditations-that the times

Demand me, that they call my father's name?
Oh! what a fiery heart was his! such souls
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.
Thy hfe is eloquent, and more persuades
Unto dominion than thy death deters!

Oh! my

father!

LESSON CVI...

Van Artevelde's Defence of his Rebellion.-HENRY TAYLOR.

You speak of insurrections: bear in mind
Against what rule my father and myself

Have been insurgent; whom did we supplant?—
There was a time, so ancient records tell,
There were communities, scarce known by name
In these degenerate days, but once far-famed,
Where liberty and justice, hand in hand,
Ordered the common weal; where great men grew
Up to their natural eminence, and none,
Saving the wise, just, eloquent, were great;
Where power was of God's gift, to whom he gave
Supremacy of merit, the sole means

And broad highway to power, that ever then
Was meritoriously administered,

Whilst all its instruments from first to last,
The tools of state for service high or low,
Were chosen for their aptness to those ends
Which virtue meditates.

To shake the ground,

Deep-founded whereupon this structure stood,
Was verily a crime; a treason it was,
Conspiracies to hatch against this state

And its free innocence.

But now, I ask,

Where is there on God's earth that polity

Which it is not, by consequence converse,

A treason against nature to uphold?

Whom may we now call free? whom great? whom wise?

Whom innocent ?-the free are only they,

Whom power makes free to execute all ills
Their hearts imagine; they are only great

Whose passions nurse them from their cradles up
In luxury and lewdness,-whom to see
Is to despise, whose aspects put to scorn
Their station's eminence; the wise, they only
Who wait obscurely till the bolts of heaven
Shall break upon the land, and give them light
Whereby to walk; the innocent, alas!

Poor innocency lies where four roads meet,

A stone upon

her head, a stake driven through h For who is innocent that cares to live?

power doth

The hand of
Of innocency out!

press the very life

What then remains

But in the cause of nature to stand forth,
And turn this frame of things the right side up ?
For this the hour is come, the sword is drawn,
And tell your masters, vainly they resist.

Nature, that slept beneath their poisonous drugs,
Is
up and stirring, and from north and south,
From east and west, from England and from France,
From Germany, and Flanders, and Navarre,
Shall stand against them like a beast at bay.
The blood that they have shed will hide no longer
In the blood-sloken soil, but cries to heaven.
Their cruelties and wrongs against the poor
Shall quicken into swarms of venomous snakes,
And hiss through all the earth, till o'er the earth,
That ceases then from hissings and from groans,
Rises the song-How are the mighty fallen!
And by the peasant's hand! Low lie the proud!
And smitten with the weapons of the poor-
The blacksmith's hammer and the woodman's axe!
Their tale is told; and for that they were rich,
And robbed the poor; and for that they were strong,
And scourged the weak; and for that they made laws
Which turned the sweat of labour's brow to blood,—
For these their sins the nations cast them out.
These things come to pass

From small beginnings, because God is just.

LESSON CIX.

Character of Columbus.-W. IRVING.

THE poetical temperament of Columbus is discernible throughout all his writings, and in all his actions. It spread a golden and glorious world around him, and tinged every thing with its own gorgeous colours. It betrayed him into visionary speculations, which subjected him to the sneers and cavillings of men of cooler and safer, but more groveling minds. Such were the conjectures formed on the

coast of Paria, about the form of the earth, and the situa tion of the terrestrial paradise; about the mines of Ophir, in Hispaniola, and of the Aurea Chersonesus, in Veragua;

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