With fruitless la || bor Clara bound,
And strove to stanch || the gushing wound;
The Monk with un || availing cares,
Exhausted all || the church's prayers.
This manner of reading, however, would very much interfere with the proper expression of the idea. This is to be corrected by making the caesural pause yield to the sense. The above lines should be read thus:
With fruitless labor || Clara bound,
And strove || to stanch the gushing wound;
The Monk || with unavailing cares,
Exhausted || all the church's prayers,
EXERCISES.
I. DEATH OF FRANKLIN.
(To be read in a solemn tone.)
Franklin is dead. The genius who freed America', and poured a copious stream of knowledge throughout Europe', is returned unto the bosom of the Divinity'. The sage to whom two worlds' lay claim, the man for whom science' and politics' are disputing, indisputably enjoyed au elevated rank in human nature.
The cabinets of princes have been long in the habit of notifying the death of those who were great', only in their funeral orations'. Long hath the etiquette of courts', proclaimed the mourning of hypocrisy'. Nations' should wear mourning for none but their benefactors'. The representatives' of nations should recommend to public homage' only those who have been the heroes of humanity'.
II. BONAPARTE.
He knew no motive' but interst'; acknowledged no criterion' but success'; he worshiped no God' but ambition'; and with an eastern devotion', he knelt at the shrine of his idolatry'. Subsidiary to this, there was no creed' that he did not profess'; there was no opinion' that he did not promulgate': in the hope of a dynasty', he upheld the crescent'; for the sake of a divorce', he bowed before the cross'; the orphan of St. Louis', he became the adopted child of the republic'; and, with a parricidal ingrati-tude', on the ruins both of the throne and the tribune, he reared the throne of his despotism'.
At his touch crowns' crumbled'; beggars' reigned'; systems' van-ished'; the wildest theories' took the color of his whim'; and all that was venerable' and all that was novel', changed places with the rapidity of a drama'. Nature had no obstacle' that he did not surmount'; space, no opposition' he did not spurn'; and whether amid Alpine rocks',—Arabian sands',—or Polar snows',—-he seemed proof' against peril', and empowered with ubiquity'.