worthy motives are to be inspired. A profound religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated, under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education. Mothers who are faithful to this great duty will tell their children, that neither in political nor in any other concerns of life, can man ever withdraw himself from the perpetual obligations of conscience and of duty; that in every act, whether public or private, he incurs a just responsibility; and that in no condition is he warranted in trifling with important rights and obligations.

They will impress upon their children the truth, that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty, of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; and that every man and every measure he supports, has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own. It is in the inculcation of high and pure morals, such as these, that, in a free republic, woman performs her sacred duty, and fulfills her destiny. FROM WEBSTER.

LVII.-MARIE ANTOINETTE.

MARIE ANTOINETTE, the wife of Louis XVI, was executed with her husband in 1792, being among the first victims of the French Revolution.

EDMUND BURKE, from one of whose speeches this extract is taken, was among the most eloquent orators and most able statesmen of England.

It is now some years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in; glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. O! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall!

Little did I dream, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she

would ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom! Little did I dream that I should have to live to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers ! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. FROM BURKE.

LVIII-RIENZI.-SCENE I.

THIS and the succeeding scene may be spoken in connection, or independently, as each is complete in itself.

MAN-DO-LIN; a kind of harp.

CHARACTERS.-Rienzi the Tribune and Claudia his daughter.

Rienzi. CLAUDIA! nay, start not! Thou art sad to-day;

I found thee sitting idly, 'mid thy maids;

A pretty, laughing, restless band, who plied

Quick tongue and nimble finger. Mute, and pale

As marble, those unseeing eyes were fixed
On vacant air; and that fair brow was bent
As sternly, as if the rude stranger, Thought,
Age-giving, mirth-destroying, pitiless Thought,
Had knocked at thy young, giddy brain.
Claudia. Nay, father,

Mock not thine own poor Claudia.

Rie. Claudia used

To bear a merry heart with that clear voice,
Prattling, and that light, busy foot, astir
In her small housewifery, the blithest bee
That ever wrought in hive.

Cla. Oh! mine old home!

Rie. What ails thee, lady-bird?

Cla. Mine own dear home!

Father, I love not this new state; these halls,

Where comfort dies in vastness; these trim maids,

Whose service wearies me.

Oh! mine old home!

My quiet, pleasant chamber, with the myrtle,
Woven round the casement; and the cedar by,
Shading the sun; my garden, overgrown

With flowers and herbs, thickset as grass in fields;
My pretty, snow-white doves; my kindest nurse;

And old Camillo. Oh! mine own dear home!

Rie. Why, simple child, thou hast thine old, fond nurse, And good Camillo, and shalt have thy doves,

Thy myrtles, flowers, and cedars: a whole province
Laid in a garden if thou wilt. My Claudia,
Hast thou not learnt thy power? Ask orient gems,
Diamonds, and sapphires, in rich caskets, wrought
By cunning goldsmiths; sigh for rarest birds,
Of farthest Ind, like wing-ed flowers to flit
Around thy stately bower; and, at thy wish,
The precious toys shall wait thee. Old Camillo ?
Thou shalt have nobler servants; emperors, kings,
Electors, princes! Not a bachelor

In Christendom but would right proudly kneel
To my fair daughter.

Cla. Oh! mine own dear home!

Rie. Wilt have a list to choose from? Listen, sweet!

If the tall cedar, and the branchy myrtle,

And the white doves, were telltales, I would ask them,
Whose was the shadow on the sunny wall?

And if, at eventide they heard not oft

A tuneful mandolin, and then, a voice,

Clear in its manly depth, whose tide of song
O'erwhelmed the quivering instrument; and then,
A world of whispers, mixed with low responses,
Sweet, short, and broken as divided strains
Of nightingales?

Cla. Oh, father! father!

Young Angelo? Yes? Said'st thou yes? That heart,
That throbbing heart of thine, keeps such a coil,
I can not hear thy words. He is returned

To Rome. He left thee on mine errand, dear one;
And now, is there no casement, myrtle-wreathed,
No cedar in our courts, to shade to-night
The lover's song?

Cla. Oh, father! father!

Rie. Now,

Back to thy maidens, with a lightened heart,
Mine own belov-ed child. Thou shalt be first
In Rome, as thou art fairest; never princess
Brought to the proud Colonna such a dower
As thou. Young Angelo hath chosen his mate
From out an eagle's nest.

Cla. Alas! alas!

I tremble at the hight.

Whene'er I think

Of the hot barons, of the fickle people,

And the inconstancy of power, I tremble
For thee, dear father.

Rie. Tremble? let them tremble.

I am their master, Claudia, whom they scorned,
Endured, protected. Sweet, go dream of love!
I am their master, Claudia.

FROM MITFORD.

LIX.-RIENZI.-SCENE II.

THIS represents the defeat of a design to assassinate Rienzi, at a banquet in honor of his daughter's marriage with Angelo Colonna, son of one of the conspirators. Rienzi, having discovered their plot, substitutes his own maskers for theirs.

CHARACTERS.-Rienzi, Tribune of Rome; Colonna, Ursini, Savelli, and Frangi, noblemen and conspirators; Angelo, Colonna's son; Camillo, an attendant of Rienzi; and maskers, who are Rienzi's guards.

(Enter Savelli and Frangi.)

Savelli. RIENZI bears him like a prince, save that he lacks The port serene of majesty. His mood

Is fitful; stately now, and sad; anon,

Full of hurried mirth; courteous awhile,

And mild; then bursting, on a sudden, forth,
Into sharp biting taunts.

Frangi. And at the altar,

When he first found the proud and angry mother
Refused to grace the nuptials, even the nuncio
Quailed at his fiery threats. I saw Colonna
Gnawing his lip for wrath.

Sav. Why, this new power
Mounts to the brain like wine.
Your skillful leech lets blood.
Fra. Suspects he aught

For such disease,

Of our design? We hunt a subtil quarry.

Sav. But with a wilier huntsman. (Enter Ursini.)
Ursini,

Hath every point been guarded? Are the maskers
Valiant and strongly armed? Have ye taken order
To close the gates, to seize his train, to cut
The cordage of the bell, that none may summon
The people to his rescue?

Ursini. All is cared for,

And vengeance certain. Before set of sun,

We shall be masters of ourselves, of Rome,

And Rome's proud ruler. This quiet mask of ours

(Enter Rienzi and Colonna, at opposite points. Camillo follows

Rienzi.)

Rienzi. A fair good welcome, noble friends. Your chairs.

(Takes the chair of state.)

Bring mirth! I brook no pause of revelry.

Have ye no mask?

Sav. (To Ursini.) He rushes in the toils. Now weave the meshes round him.

Urs. Sooth, my lord,

We had plotted to surprise the gentle bride

With a slight mask; a toy, an antic.

Rie. Ay, and when?

Urs. Soon as the bell tolled four, the maskers Were bid to enter.

Rie. Four? And how attired?

Urs. Turbaned and robed, and with swart visages.