"That you can not doubt that Richard Crowninshield was the perpetrator of that crime.

"That you can not doubt that the prisoner at the bar was in Brown-street on that night.

If there, then it must be by agreement, to countenance, to aid the perpetrator; and if so, then he is guilty as a principal. Gentlemen,-Your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner's life, but then it is to save other lives. If the prisoner's guilt has been shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such reasonable doubts of guilt still remain, you will acquit him. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public, as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You can not pretend to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless, we would all judge him in mercy. Toward him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but toward him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.

"With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we can not either face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded.

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the seas, duty performed' or duty violated is still with us for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We can not escape their power nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselve surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it."

There is no need to enhance the merit of eloquence like this; but I recollect to have heard that this immense effort was made immediately after a journey of unparalleled rapidity and fatigue which would have completely exhausted the energy of any man but Mr. Webster.

XIX.

OLD AUTHORS.

BEN JONSON.

"O RARE Ben Jonson!" so said his cotemporaries, and those cotemporaries the greatest dramatic poets, the greatest poets of any age or clime. "O rare Ben Jonson!" says his tomb in Westminster Abbey ; O rare Ben Jonson," echo we. But I doubt much whether our praises be not founded on very different qualities from those which were hailed with such acclaim by the marvelous assembly of wits who congregated at the "Mermaid." Hear what Beaumont, in his celebrated epistle to Jonson, says of that fair company. He writes to him from the country:

"Methinks the little wit I had is lost

Since I saw you; for wit is like a rest
Held up at Tennis, which men do the best

With the best gamesters.

What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid!' heard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtile flame,

As if that every one, from whom they came,

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life; then, when there hath been shown

Wit able enough to justify the town

For three days past; wit that might warrant be

For the whole city to talk foolishly

Till that were canceled; and when that was gone,

We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Right witty; though but downright fools, mere wise."

These men, admirable judges although they were, seem to have regarded with what we can not but think an over-admiration the art which wanted the crowning triumph of looking like nature, and the learning, which displayed rather than pervading,

overlays and encumbers his finely-constructed but heavy and unwieldy plays. We of this age, a little too careless perhaps of learned labor, would give a whole wilderness of Catilines and Poetasters, and even of Alchemists and Volpones, for another score of the exquisite lyrics which are scattered carelessly through the plays and masques which-strange contrast with the rugged verse in which they are imbedded-seem to have burst into being at a stroke, just as the evening primrose flings open her fair petals at the close of the day. Lovelier songs were never written than these wild and irregular ditties. Here are some of them.

HYMN TO DIANA, IN "CYNTHIA'S REVELS."

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver car,

State in wonted manner keep.
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright!

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made

Heaven to clear, when day did close.
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright!

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal shining quiver;

Give unto the flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever.
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright!

SONG, FROM THE SAME.

Slow, slow fresh fount, keep time with my salt tears,
Yet slower, yet, O faintly, gentle springs!

List to the heavy part the music bears,

Woe weeps out her division when she sings.
Droop herbs and flowers,

Fall grief in showers,

Our beauties are not ours.
OI could still

(Like melting snow upon some craggy hill)

Drop, drop, drop, drop,

Since summer's pride is now a withered daffodil.

L

SONG OF NIGHT, IN THE MASQUE OF "THE VISION OF DELIGHT."

Break, Phantasie, from thy cave of cloud,
And spread thy purple wings;
Now all thy figures are allowed,

And various shapes of things.
Create of airy forms a stream,

It must have blood, and naught of phlegm;
And though it be a waking dream,
Chorus. Yet let it like an odor rise
To all the senses here,

And fall like sleep upon their eyes;
Or music in their ear.

CHORUS, FROM THE SAME.

In curious knots and mazes so,
The spring at first was taught to go;
And Zephyr, when he came to woo
His Flora, had their motions too:
And thus did Venus learn to lead
The Idalian brawls, and so to tread

As if the wind, not she, did walk,

Nor pressed a flower, nor bowed a stalk.

SONG, IN "THE MASQUE OF BEAUTY."

So Beauty on the waters stood

When Love had severed Earth from Flood!

So, when he parted Air from Fire,

He did with concord all inspire!
And then a motion he them taught
That elder than himself was thought;

Which thought was yet the child of earth,
For Love is elder than his birth.

SONG, FROM "THE SILENT WOMAN."

(A lesson, dear ladies.)

Still to be neat, still to be drest

As you were going to a feast;

Still to be powdered, still perfumed :
Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me,
Than all the adulteries of art;

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

FROM A CELEBRATION OF CHARIS.

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth;

Each that draws is a swan or a dove,

And well the car Love guideth.

As she goes all hearts do duty

Unto her beauty,

And enamored do wish that they might

But enjoy such a sight,

That they still were to run by her side

Thorough swords, thorough seas wheresoever she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes, they do light
All that love's world compriseth!

Do but look on her hair, it is bright
As love's star, when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother

Than words that soothe her!

And from her arched brows such a grace

Sheds itself through the face,

As alone there triumphs to the life

All the gain, all the good, of the elements' strife!

Have you seen but a bright lily grow

Before rude hands have touched it?

Have you marked but the fall o' the snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?

Ha' you felt the wool of the beaver,

Or swan's down ever?

Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?

Or the hand in the fire?

Or have tasted the bag of the bee?

O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!

SONG.

Oh! do not worship with those eyes,
Lest I be sick with seeing!

Nor cast them down, but let them rise,
Lest shame destroy their being.