employments but virtue and ability. She appoints me to officiate in the most august ceremonies of religion; she confides to my care the most important negotiations.

My poverty does not lessen the weight and influence. of my counsels in the Senate. The Roman people honor me for that very poverty which King Pyrrhus considers a disgrace. They know the many opportunities I have had to enrich myself without censure; they are convinced of my disinterested zeal for their prosperity; and if I have anything to complain of, it is only in the excess of their applause.

What value, then, can I put upon thy gold and thy silver? What king can add anything to my fortune? Always attentive to discharge the duties incumbent upon me, I have a mind free from self-reproach, and I have an honest fame.

PLINY.

4. VINDICATION OF VIRGINIUS.

VIRGINIA, the beautiful daughter of Lucius Virginius, a brave Roman general, and betrothed to Lucius Icilius, a Roman tribune, was claimed by Marcus Claudius as a slave; and he submitted the question of title to the decemvir, Appius Claudius, on whose behalf he had seized the maiden. Virginius reached the tribunal only in time to find that she had been declared a slave. To save her from dishonor, he thrust his dagger through her breast. The people dragged Claudius to prison, where he killed himself. Virginius joined his command in the field, where he fully vindicated his action, about the year 449 B. C.

HOLDING aloft the bloody knife, he exclaimed, “With this dagger I have slain my child, my only child, to preserve her from dishonor!"

(Yells of horror and bitter execration rose from the whole army; and a thousand swords flashed in the sun's bright beams).

"Soldiers," he cried, "I am like this blasted tree! Two years ago, the Ides of May (May 15th), three lusty sons

went with me to the field. In one illustrious fight they perished. A daughter, beautiful as the day, yet remained. 'Tis but a week ago you saw her here, bearing to her aged sire home-comforts, prepared by her own hands, and sharing with him the evening meal; and you blessed her as she passed. You'll never more see her that weekly came, with the soft music of her voice and spells of home, to cheer our hearts.

"As on the way to school she crossed the forum, Appius Claudius, through his minion, Marcus, claimed her as his slave. With desperate haste I rode to Rome. Holding my daughter by my hand, and by my side her uncle, her aged grand-sire, and Icilius, her betrothed, I claimed my child. The judge, that he might gain his end, decides that in his house and custody she must remain till I, by legal process, prove my right! The guards approach. Trembling, she clings about my neck, her hot tears upon my cheeks. Snatching this knife from a butcher's stall, I plunged it in her breast, that her pure virgin soul might go free and unstained to her mother and her ancestors.

"And this is the reward a grateful country gives her soldiers! Soldiers, the deadliest foes of our liberties are behind, not before us. They are not the Equi, the Volschi, and the Sabines, who meet us in fair fight; but that pampered aristocracy who chain you by the deathpenalty to the camp, that in your absence they may work their will among those whom you have left behind.

But why do I seek to kindle a fire in ice? Why seek to arouse the vengeance of those who care for no miseries but their own, and are enamoured of their fetters? I, indeed, can lose no more. Misfortune hath emptied her quiver. She hath no other shaft for this bleeding breast. But flatter not yourselves that the lust of Appius Claudius has expired with the defeat of his purpose. Your homes also invite the destroyer. Into your folds the grim

wolf will leap.

revel, his jaws

Among the lambs of your flock will he dripping with blood. For you, also, the bow is bent, the arrow drawn to its head, and the string impatient of its discharge.

"By all that I have lost, and that you imperil by delay, avenge this accursed wrong! If you have arms, use them; liberties, vindicate them; patriotism, save the tottering State; natural affection, protect the domestic hearth; piety, appease the wrath of the gods by avenging the blood that cries to Heaven!

"To arms to arms! or your swords will leap from their scabbards, the trumpets sound the onset; and the standards, of themselves, advance to rebuke your delay!"

ELIJAH KEllogg.

5. REGULUS BEFORE THE ROMAN

SENATE.

REGULUS, a Roman consul during the First Punic War against Carthage, begun about the year 264 B. C., after several victories in Africa, was captured, but was sent back to Rome to negotiate terms of peace, on the condition that in case of failure to secure satisfactory terms, he should return to captivity. He denounced the proposed treaty, returned to Carthage, and there suffered a cruel death. His address to the Roman Senate is memorable as one of the most exalted illustrations of selfimmolation for the sake of country.

IT ill becomes me, Senators of Rome, me, Regulus, after having so often stood in this venerable Assembly, clothed with the supreme dignity of the republic, to stand before you to-day, a captive, the captive of Carthage. Though outwardly free, though no fetters encumber the limbs or gall the flesh, yet the heaviest of chains, the pledge of a Roman Consul, makes me the bondsman of the Carthaginians. They have my promise to return to them in the event of the failure of this their embassy.

But, Conscript Fathers, Senators, there is but one course to be pursued. Abandon all thought of peace! Reject the overtures of Carthage! Reject them wholly and unconditionally! What? What? Give back to her a thousand able-bodied men, and receive in return this one, attenuated, war-worn, fever-wasted frame, this weed, whitened in a dungeon's darkness, pale and sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze, can ever restore to life and vigor? It must not, shall not be! Oh, were Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews and enervated his limbs, he might pause; he might think he were worth a thousand of the foe; he might say, "Make the exchange, Rome shall not lose by it!" But now, alas, 't is gone, that impetuosity of strength which could once make him a leader indeed, to penetrate a phalanx, or guide a pursuit. His very armor would be a burden now! His battlecry would be drowned in the din of onset! His sword would fall harmless upon his opponent's shield!

But if he cannot live, he can at least die, for his country. Do not deny him this supreme consolation. Consider! Every indignity, every torture which Carthage shall heap on his dying hours, will be better than a trumpet's call to your armies. They will remember only Regulus, that fellow-soldier and their leader. They will forget his defeats. They will regard only his services to the Republic. Tunis, Sicily, Sardinia, every well-fought field, won by his blood and theirs, will flash on their remembrance and kindle their avenging wrath!

And so shall Regulus, though dead, fight as he never fought before against the foe.

Conscript Fathers, there is another theme, my family. Forgive the thought. To you and to Rome, I commit them. I leave them no legacy but my name, no testament but my example.

And you, ambassadors of Carthage, now in this august presence, I have spoken, not as you expected. I am your captive. Lead me back to whatever fate may await me. Doubt not that you shall find that to Roman hearts country is dearer than life, and integrity more precious than freedom.

EPES SARGENT.

6. SEPARATION FROM TRAITORS.

EXTRACT from the address of Marcus Tullius Cicero, before the Roman Senate, B. C. 62, upon the exposure of the conspiracy of Catiline.

It is now a long time, Conscript Fathers, that we have trod amidst the perils and plots of this conspiracy. I do not know how it comes to pass; but the full maturity of all these crimes and of this long-ripening rage and insolence has broken forth now, in the period of my consulship. If Catiline alone shall be removed from this powerful band of traitors, it may abate, perhaps, for a while, our fears and our anxieties; but the danger will still remain and continue to lurk in the veins and vitals of the Republic.

For, as men, oppressed with a severe fit of sickness and laboring under the raging heat of fever, are, at first, seemingly relieved by a draught of cold water, but afterwards find the disease return upon them with redoubled fury, so this distemper which has seized the Commonwealth, eased a little by the punishment of this traitor, Catiline, will, from his surviving associates, soon assume new force. Wherefore, let the wicked retire. Let them separate themselves from the honest. Let them rendezvous in one place. In fine, as I have often said, let a wall be between them and us. Let them cease to lay