"An

eated the motion (for the abolition), he rejoiced that it had been brought forward thus early, because it showed the cloven foot which had been attempted to be concealed." To this remark Mr. Sheridan very spiritedly replied. honorable baronet," said he, "has talked of a cloven foot; I plead guilty to that cloven foot; but this I will say, that the man who expresses pleasure at the hope of seeing so large a portion of the human race freed from the shackles of tyranny, rather displays the pinions of an angel, than the cloven foot of a demon." He then entered into a view of the slavery of the West Indies, which was unlike all other slavery, and thus concluded: "A Mr. Barclay, to his eternal honor be it spoken, who had himself been a slave owner in Jamaica, and who regretting that he had been so, on a bequest of slaves being made to him, emancipated them; caused them to be conveyed to Pennsylvania, where they were properly instructed, and where their subsequent exemplary conduct was the general theme of admiration. With this fact before him, should he be told, that he must give up all hope of abolishing slavery? No: he would never give it up, but exclaim in the words of the poet,

"I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me when I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd."

FREDERIC THE GREAT.

Previous to the battle of Lutzen, in which eighty thousand Austrians were defeated by an army of thirtysix thousand Prussians, commanded by Frederic the Great, this monarch ordered all his officers to attend him, and thus addressed them: "To-morrow I intend giving the enemy battle; and as it will decide who are to be the future masters of Silesia, I expect every one of you will in the strictest manner do his duty. If any one of you is a coward, let him step forward before he makes others as cowardly as himself; let him step forward I say, and he shall immediately receive his discharge without ceremony or reproach. I see there is none among you who does not possess true heroism, and will not display it in defence of his king, of his country, and of himself. I shall be in the front and in the rear; shall fly from wing to wing; no company will escape my notice; and whoever I then find doing his duty, upon him will I heap honor and favor."

HEROIC NEGRO.

Greater cruelty was perhaps never exercised than by the Europeans to the negroes of Surinam. Stedman relates, that nothing was more common than for old negroes to be broken on the wheel, and young ones burnt alive; and yet the fortitude with which they suffered, was equal to that of the most ardent patriot, or enthusiastic martyr. One of the fugitive, or revolted, slaves, being brought before his judges, who had condemned him previous to hearing what he had to say in his defence, requested to be heard for a few

minutes before he was sent to execution; when leave being granted, he thus addressed them:

"I was born in Africa; while defending the person of my prince in battle, I was taken prisoner, and sold as a slave on the Coast of Guinea. One of our countrymen, who sits among my judges, purchased me. Having been cruelly treated by his overseer, I deserted, and went to join the rebels in the woods. There also I was condemned to become the slave of their chief, Bonas, who treated me with still more cruelty than the whites, which obliged me to desert a second time, determined to fly from the human species forever, and to pass the rest of my life innocently and alone, in the woods. I had lived two years in this manner, a prey to the greatest hardships, and the most dreadful anxiety, merely attached to life by the hope of once more seeing my beloved family, who are perhaps starving, owing to my absence. Two years of misery had thus passed, when I was discovered by the rangers, taken, and brought before this tribunal, which now knows the wretched history of my life."

This speech was pronounced with the greatest moderation, and by one of the finest negroes in the colony. His master, who, as he had remarked, was one of his judges, unmoved by the pathetic and eloquent appeal, made him this atrocious laconic reply: "Rascal, it is of little consequence to us to know what you have been saying; but the torture shall make you confess crimes as black as yourself, as well as those of your detestable accomplices." At these words, the negro, whose veins seemed to swell with indignation and contempt, retorted: "These hands," stretching them forth, "have made tigers tremble, yet you dare to threaten me with that despicable instrument! No; I despise all the torments which you can now invent, as well as the wretch who is about to inflict them." On saying these words, he threw himself on the instrument, where he suffered the most dreadful tortures without uttering a syllable.

PHILIP AND THE ATHENIAN ORATORS. Philip of Macedon was wont to say, "that he was much beholden to the Athenian orators; since by the slanderous and opprobrious manner in which they spoke of him [e. g. that he was a barbarian, an usurper, a cheat; perfidious, perjured, depraved; a companion of rascals, mountebanks, &c.], they were the means of making him a better man, both in word and deed. For," added he, "I every day do my best endeavor, as well as my sayings and doings, to prove them liars."

It would have been well, had Philip always acted up to this encomium on himself. After the battle of Cheronca, he indulged his joy for the victory by getting drunk, dancing all night, and going from rank to rank, calling his prisoners names. Demades, one of them, with the same decent freedom, told Philip that he acted the part of Thersites, rather than that of Agamemnon. Philip was delighted with the smartness of the repartee, and for the sake of this bon mot, dismissed the prisoners without ransom

AEXANDER THE GREAT.

THE celebrated quarrel between Macedon and Persia, we are told, originated in Alexander's refusing to pay the tribute of golden eggs, to which his father had agreed. "The bird that laid the eggs has flown to the other world," is reported to have been the laconic answer of the Macedonian prince to the Persian envoy, who demanded the tribute. After this, Darab (Darius) sent another ambassador to the court of the Grecian monarch, whom he charged to deliver to him a bat, a ball, and a bag of very small seed, called Gunjad.-The bat and ball were meant to throw a ridicule on Alexander's youth, being fit amusement for his age; the bag of seed was intended as an emblem of the Persian army, being innumerable. Alexander took the bat and ball into his hands, and said, "This is the emblem of my power, with which I strike the ball of your monarch's dominion, and this fowl (he had ordered one to be brought) will soon show you what a morsel your numerous army will prove to mine. The grain was instantly eaten up; and Alexander gave a wild melon to the envoy, desiring him to tell his sovereign what he had heard and seen, and to give him that fruit, the taste of which would enable him to judge of the bitter fare which awaited him.

HEROIC ENDURANCE.

When Alexander the Great was on one occasion sacrificing to the gods, one of the noble youths who waited upon him was so severely burnt by a piece of hot coal which fell upon his arm from the censor he carried, that the smell of the scorched flesh affected all who stood by. Yet the boy shrunk not; he exhibited no symptom of pain; but kept his arm immoveable, lest by shaking the censer he should interrupt the sacrifice, or by his groaning should give Alexander any disturbance.

NOBLE BROTHERLY CONTEST.

The emperor Augustus having taken Adiatoriges, a prince of Cappadocia, together with his wife and children, in war, and led them to Rome in triumph, gave orders that the father and the elder of the brothers should be slain. The ministers of execution, on coming to the place of confinement, inquired which was the eldest? On this, there arose an earnest contention between the two young princes, each of them affirming himself to be the elder, that by his own death he might preserve the life of his brother. When they had continued this heroic and fraternal emulation for some time, the afflicted mother with much difficulty prevailed on her son Dytentus, that he would permit his younger brother to die in his stead, hoping that by him she might still

bed, he assembled his children together to fix upon a successor to the throne. On asking his eldest son if he should like to be emperor, he answered, that he was too weak to support so great a burden. The second made a similar answer. But when he put the question to young Kang Hi, who was not quite seven years of age, he replied, "Give me the empire to govern, and you shall see how I will acquit myself." The emperor was much pleased with this bold and simple answer, "He is a boy of courage," said Cham Chi. "Let him be emperor."

CHARLES IX. OF FRANCE.

This prince was only ten years of age when he was crowned. His mother, Catherine de Medicis, mentioning her apprehensions that the fatigue of the ceremony might be perhaps too much for him; he replied, "Madam, I will very willingly undergo as much fatigue, as often as you have a crown to bestow upon me.' When the Constable de Montmorenci died, the young prince, then only seventeen, did not immediately name another person to that high office, saying, "I will carry my own sword in future." And to his mother, who wished to keep him under her own direction, he said, "That he would no longer be kept in a box, like the old jewels of the crown."

THE CHOICE.

A Quaker residing at Paris, was waited on by four of his workmen in order to make their compliments, and ask for their usual new year's gifts. "Well, my friends," said the Quaker, "here are your gifts; choose fifteen francs or the Bible."

"I dont know how to read," said the first," so I take the fifteen francs." "I can read," said the second, "but I have pressing wants." He took the fifteen francs. The third also made the same choice. He now came to the fourth, a young lad of about thirteen or fourteen. The Quaker looked at him with an air of goodness. "Will you too take these three pieces, which you may obtain at any time by your labor and industry?" "As you say the book is good, I will take it, and read from it to my mother," replied the boy. He took the Bible, opened it, and found between the leaves a gold piece of forty francs. The others hung down their heads, and the Quaker told them he was sorry they had not made a better choice.

HOW TO ASK FOR A PENNY.

It has often been said, that the members of the society of Friends are possessed from their youth of more than an ordinary share of acuteness. The following fact may serve as a proof of this assertion: Some time ago, Mr. -, a most respectable iron-founder, of Birmingham, discovered that his son, a boy of five years of age, was accustomed to ask those gentlemen who came to his house to give him money; and immediately extorted a promise from him, under a threat of

The Abbé de Rance, afterward a celebrated monk of La Trappe, made such a rapid profi ciency in Greek, that at the age of twelve he translated Anacreon, and published it with learned notes. He was very little older when he was appointed to a considerable benefice. Some persons at court murmuring at the advancement of so young an Abbé, Caussin, the Jesuit, was directed by the king to examine him. When the little Abbé came to court, Caussin had Homer lying before him, and desired De Rance to read a passage which casually presented itself. The boy read it immediately in French; the Jesuit could not credit such an extraordinary facili ty, but thought he had looked at the Latin version printed in the same page; and covering the Latin with his gloves, was surprised to hear the lad explain the Greck as before. The Jesuit astonished, exclaimed, "Habes lynceos oculos: " "You have lynx eyes, my con, for you can see through a pair of gloves."

PRESENCE OF MIND.

In

In the insurrection headed by Wat Tyler, Richard the Second owed the preservation of his life to his intrepidity and presence of mind. the meeting at Smithfield, when the insurgents saw their leader fall by the sword of the Lord Mayor, Walworth, they crew their bows to revenge his fall. Richard, then only fourteen years of age, galloped up to the archers, and exclaimed, "What are you doing, my lieges? Tyler was a traitor; come with me, and I will be your leader." Wavering and disconcerted, they followed him into the fields at Islington, and falling on their knees, begged for mercy. This monarch gave several other proofs of his courage at an early age.

SIR PHILIP SYDNEY. "When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, What might be public good: myself I thought Born to that end; born to promote all truth, All righteous things." Paradise regained. Sir Philip Sydney was one of the brightest ornaments of Queen Elizabeth's court. In early youth he discovered the strongest marks of genius and understanding. Sir Fulk Greville, Lord Brook, who was his intimate friend, says of him,

though I lived with him and knew him from a child, yet I never knew him other than a man, with such steadiness of mind, lovely and familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above greater years. His talk was ever of knowledge; and his very play tended to enrich his mind."

CHRISTMAS PIE.

An eminent preacher of the present day had, when a boy, committed some offence, for which his father had decreed as a punishment, that he should be excluded from the family table on Christmas day. When the young delinquent saw the vast culinary preparations made for the feast from which he was debarred, he was moved less with envy, than with a contempt for the sort of punishment which had been imposed on him; but mixing in his disposition a good deal of the satiric with the serious, he resolved not to be without his joke on the occasion. He contrived to obtain secret access to a veal pasty, on which the cook had exhausted all her skill, and carefully taking off the cover, so as to avoid any mark of fracture or disturbance, he took out the greater part of the meat, and filling up the dish with a quantity of grass, replaced the cover as it was.

The company met, and the dish was served up to them in this state: it fell to the lot of the young wag's father to break up the pie, and his surprise on doing so may be more easily conceiv ed than described. Stirring the grass about in a fit of rising indignation, his fork encountered a small slip of paper, on taking out which, he read on it these words: "All flesh is grass!"

SECRET WELL KEPT.

It was originally customary for the senators of Rome to take their sons along with them into the senate. On one occasion, Papyrius Prætextatus having accompanied his father thither, heard an affair of great importance discussed, the determination of which was deferred till the following day, the strictest injunctions being given, that in the mean time no one should divulge a syllable of the matter in hand. When young Papyrius went home, his mother asked him, "What the fathers had done that day in the senate?" He answered, "that it was a secret which he could not disclose." The curiosity of the lady was only the more stimulated by this denial, and she pressed the boy so hard, that to get rid of her importunity, he was driven to make use of the following pleasant fiction. "It was," saith he, "debated in the senate, which would be more advantageous to the commonwealth, that one man should have two wives, or that one woman should have two husbands?" The lady, wonderfully stirred by this singular piece of information, instantly left the house, and told what she had discovered to a number of ladies, among whom the projected change in their condition was discussed with no small degree of vehemence and alarm.

Having so deep an interest in the decision of the question, they thought it but right that the senate should know their feelings respecting it; and next day accordingly they went in a body, and surrounding the doors of the senate, cried out with vast clamor, "That rather than one man should marry two women, one woman should marry two men.

The scrators were in great astonishment at this strange cry; and sent out to know what the women meant? On this, young Papyrius stepped forth, and told them what his

Gon

Joannes Gonzaga having lost at dice a large sum of money, his son Alexander, who was present, could not help heaving a deep sigh. zaga observing this, said to the by-standers, "Alexander the Great hearing of a victory that his father had gained, is reported to have shown himself very sad at the news, as fearing that there would be nothing left for him to conquer; but my son Alexander is afflicted at my loss, as fearing that there will be nothing left for him to lose."- "Yes," replied the youth smartly; "and had Philip lost his all, Alexander would never have had the means of conquering any. thing."

DR. WATTS.

It was so natural for Dr. Watts, when a child, to speak in rhyme, that even at the very time he wished to avoid it, he could not. His father was displeased at this propensity, and threatened to whip him if he did not leave off making verses. One day, when he was about to put his threat in execution, the child burst out into tears, and on his knees said,

"Pray, father, do some pity take,
And I will no more verses make.'

LORD HOWE

Admiral Earl Howe, when a youth, served on board the Burford, Captain Lushington. This vessel made an unsuccessful attack on the town of La Guita, in which the captain was killed.-The attempt having failed, a court-martial was

neld relative to the conduct of the Burford.Young Howe was particularly called upon for his evidence. He gave it in a clear and collected manner, till he came to relate the death of his captain. He could then proceed no further; but burst into tears, and retired.

"HE NEVER TOLD A LIE."

Mr. Park, in his Travels through Africa, relates that a party of armed Moors having made a predatory attack on the flocks of a village at which he was stopping, a youth of the place was mortally wounded in the affray. The natives placed him on horseback and conducted him home, while his mother preceded the mournful group, proclaiming all the excellent qualities of her boy, and by her clasped hands and streaming eyes, discovered the inward bitterness of her soul. The quality for which she chiefly praised the boy formed of itself an epitaph so noble, that even civilized life could not aspire to a higher. "He never," said she with pathetic energy, "6 never, never, told a lie."

INFANT HERO.

"From the gay sire, whose trembling hand
Could hardly buckle on his brand;
To the raw boy, whose shaft and bow
Were yet scarce terror to the crow;
Each valley, each sequestered glen,
Muster'd his little horde of men."

Scott.

This poetical description given by Mr. Scott, of the gathering of the Clan Alpin, in Balquhidder, by the order of Roderick Dhu, was realized on a far greater scale, and in the prosecution of a nobler purpose, in the Tyrol, during the late war. Not only the women engaged in the great cause, and guarded the prisoners that were taken, but the little children, whose age would not permit them to bear arms, still lingered about the ranks of their fathers, and sought by any little offices to render themselves useful in the common cause. One of these, a son of Speckbacher, a Tyrolese leader, and the companion of Hofer, a boy of ten years of age, followed his father into the battle, and continued by his side in the hottest of the fire.

He was

several times desired by his father to retire; and at length, when he was obliged to obey, he ascended a little rising ground, where the balls from the French struck, and gathering them in his hat, carried them to such of his countrymen as he understood were in want of ammunition.

HOGARTH.

Hogarth's youth was rather unpromising. He was bound apprentice to a mean engraver of arms on plate; but did not remain long in this occupation, before an accidental circumstance discovered the impulse of his genius, and that it was directed to painting. One Sunday be set out with two or three of his companions on an excursion to Highgate. The weather being hot, they went into a public house, where

they had not been long before a quarrel arose between two persons in the room, one of whom struck the other on the head with a quart pot, and cut him very much. Hogarth drew out his pencil, and produced an extremely ludicious picture of the scene. What rendered this piece the more pleasing was, that it exhibited an exact likeness of the man, with the portrait of his antagonist, and the figures in caricature of the persons gathered round him.

THE PAGE.

Frederick the Great one day ringing his bell, but nobody coming, he opened the door of the antichamber, and found his page sleeping on a chair. In going to awaken him, he saw a written paper hanging out of his pocket. This excited the king's curiosity and attention; he drew it out, and found it to be a letter from the page's mother, wherein she thanked her son for his kind assistance in sending part of his wages; for which Heaven would certainly reward him, if he continued faithful to his majesty. The king immediately fetched a rouleau of ducats, and slipped it, with the letter, into the page's pocket. Soon after he rung the bell and awoke the page, who made his appearance. 'Surely you have been asleep," said the king. The boy stammered part of an excuse and part of a confession, and putting his hand in his pocket, found, to his surprise, the roll of ducats. He drew it out, pale and trembling, but unable to speak a syllable. "What is the matter?" said the king. "Alas! your majesty," said the page, falling on his knees," my ruin is intended: I know nothing of this money." "Why," said the king, "whenever fortune does come, she comes sleeping; you may send it to your mother, with my compliments, and assure her I will provide for you both." This scene has produced a' comedy, by Professor Engle, entitled, "The Noble Youth."

HANDEL.

The father of Handel had destined him to the study of the law, but he evinced very early a propensity to music, which nothing could restrain. He was strictly forbidden to touch any musical instrument; but notwithstanding this injunction, he found means to get a clarichord privately conveyed to a room at the top of the house, to which he constantly stole when the family were asleep. While he was yet under seven years of age, he went with his father to the court of Saxe-Weisenfels, to the prince of which his half-brother was valet-de-chambre. His father had refused to let your. Handel accompany him, but he followed the chaise on foot, and by his entreaties was taken into the chaise and carried to court. Here playing one day on the organ in the church after the service was over, he attracted the notice of the duke, who induced the father to suffer him to study music. At the age of nine years, he began to compose the church service for voices and instruments, and from that time actually composed