"A traitor sold him to his foes;
Oh, deed of deathless shame!
I charge thee, boy, if e'er thou meet
With one of Assynt's name—
Be it upon the mountain side,
Or yet within the glen,
Stand he in martial gear alone,
Or backed by armed men—
Face him, as thou would'st face the man
Who wronged thy sire's renown;
Remember of what blood thou art,
And strike the caitiff down!"
The poet goes on to describe his riding to the place of execution in a cart, with hands tied behind him, and amidst the jeers and taunts of his enemies; but his noble bearing subdued the hearts of many even of his bitter foes. Arrived at the place of execution, the "Great Marquis" looks up to the scaffold, and exclaims:
"Now by my faith as belted knight,
And by the name I bear,
And by the red St. Andrew's cross
That waves above us there—
Ay, by a greater, mightier oath,
And oh! that such should be!—
By that dark stream of royal blood
That lies 'twixt you and me—
I have not sought on battle-field
A wreath of such renown,
Nor dared I hope, on my dying day,
To win a martyr's crown!
"There is a chamber far away,
Where sleep the good and brave,
But a better place ye have named for me
Than by my father's grave.
For truth and right 'gainst treason's might,
This hand has always striven,
And ye raise it up for a witness still
In the eye of earth and heaven.
Then raise my head on yonder tower,
Give every town a limb,
And God who made, shall gather them;
I go from you to Him!"
We know of few sublimer deaths than this, in which the poet has taken no liberties with historical facts.
A cunning old fox is Rothschild, the greatest banker in the world. He said, on one occasion, to Sir Thomas Buxton, in England, "My success has always turned upon one maxim. I said, 'I can do what another man can;' and so I am a match for all the rest of 'em. Another advantage I had: I was always an off-hand man. I made a bargain at once. When I was settled in London, the East India Company had eight hundred thousand pounds in gold to sell. I went to the sale, and bought the whole of it. I knew the Duke of Wellington must have it. I had bought a great many of his bills at a discount. The Government sent for me, and said they must have it. When they had got it, they didn't know how to get it to Portugal, where they wanted it. I undertook all that, and I sent it through France; and that was the best business I ever did in my life.
"It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it. If I were to listen to one half the projects proposed to me, I should ruin myself very soon.
"One of my neighbors is a very ill-tempered man. He tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine close to my walk. So when I go out, I hear first, 'Grunt, grunt,' then 'Squeak, squeak.' But this does me no harm. I am always in good-humor. Sometimes, to amuse myself, I give a beggar a guinea. He thinks it is a mistake, and for fear I should find it out, he runs away as hard as he can. I advise you to give a beggar a guinea sometimes—it is very amusing."