could use in so long a voyage by sea and land, am come to meet them at the foot of the Alps. Was it then my inclination to avoid a contest with this tremendous Hannibal? and have I met with him only by accident and unawares? or am I come on purpose to challenge him to the combat? I would gladly try whether the earth, within these twenty years, has brought forth a new kind of Carthaginians; or whether they be the same sort of men who fought at the Ægates; and whom, at Eryx, you suffered to redeem themselves at eighteen denarii per head; whether this Hannibal, for labours and journeys, be, as he would be thought, the rival of Hercules; or whether he be, what his father left him, a tributary, a vassal, a slave of the Roman people. Did not the consciousness of his wicked deed at Saguntum torment him, and make him desperate, he would have some regard, if not to his conquered country, yet surely to his own family, to his father's memory, to the treaty written with Amilcar's own hand. We might have starved him at Eryx; we might have passed into Africa with our victorious fleet, and in a few days have destroyed Carthage. At their humble supplication, we pardoned them; we released them, when they were closely shut up, without a possibility of escaping; we made peace with them, when they were conquered. When they were distressed by the African war, we considered them, we treated them, as a people under our protection. And what is the return they make us for all these favours? Under the conduct of a hare-brained young man, they come hither to overturn our state, and lay waste our country. I could wish, indeed, that it were not so; and that the war we are now engaged in concerned only our glory, and not our preservation. But the contest at present is not for the possession of Sicily and Sardinia, but of Italy itself. Nor is there behind us another army, which, if we should not prove the conquerors, may make head against our victorious enemies. There are no more Alps for them to pass, which might give us leisure to raise new forces. No, soldiers; here you must make your stand, as if you were just now before the walls of Rome. Let every one reflect that he is now to defend, not his own person only, but his wife, his children, his helpless infants. Yet, let not private considerations alone possess our minds; let us remember that the eyes of the senate and people of Rome are upon us; and that, as our force and courage shall now prove, such will be the fortune of that city, and of the Roman empire. SPEECH OF HANNIBAL TO HIS SOLDIERS.-Livy. I know not, soldiers, whether you or your prisoners be encompassed by fortune with the stricter bonds and necessities. Two seas enclose you on the right and left-not a ship to flee to for escaping. Before you is the Po, a river broader and more rapid than the Rhone; behind you are the Alps, over which, even when your numbers were undiminished, you were hardly able to force a passage. Here then, soldiers, you must either conquer or die, the very first hour you meet the enemy. But the same fortune which has laid you under the necessity of fighting, has set before your eyes those rewards of victory, than which no men are ever wont to wish for greater from the immortal gods. Should we by our valour recover only Sicily and Sardinia, which were ravished from our fathers, those would be no inconsiderable prizes. Yet, what are these? The wealth of Rome, whatever riches she has heaped together in the spoils of nations, all these, with the masters of them, will be yours. You have been long enough employed in driving the cattle upon the vast mountains of Lusitania and Celtiberia; you have hitherto met with no reward worthy of the labours and dangers you have undergone. The time is now come to reap the full recompense of your toilsome marches over so many mountains and rivers, and through so many nations, all of them in arms. This is the place which fortune has appointed to be the limits of your labours; it is here that you will finish your glorious warfare, and receive an ample recompense of your completed service. For I would not have you imagine that victory will be as difficult as the name of a Roman war is great and sounding. It has often happened that a despised enemy has given a bloody battle, and the most renowned kings and nations have by a small force been overthrown. And if you but take away the glitter of the Roman name, what is there wherein they may stand in competition with you? For (to say nothing of your service in war for twenty years together, with so much valour and success) from the very Pillars of Hercules, from the ocean, from the utmost bounds of the earth, through so many warlike nations of Spain and Gaul, are you not come hither victorious? And with whom are you now to fight? With raw soldiers, an undisciplined army, beaten, vanquished, besieged by the Gauls the very last summer; an army unknown to their leader, and unacquainted with him. Or shall I, who was born I might almost say, but certainly brought up, in the tent of my father, that most excellent general; shall I, the conqueror of Spain and Gaul, and not only of the Alpine nations, but, which is greater yet, of the Alps themselves, shall I compare myself with this halfyear captain? A captain before whom should one place the two armies without their ensigns, I am persuaded he would not know to which of them he is consul? I esteem it no small advantage, soldiers, that there is not one among you, who has not often been an eye-witness of my exploits in war; not one of whose valour I myself have not been a spectator, so as to be able to name the times and places of his noble achievements; that with soldiers, whom I have a thousand times praised and rewarded, and whose pupil I was before I became their general, I shall march against an army of men, strangers to one another. On what side soever I turn my eyes, I behold all full of courage and strength; a veteran infantry, a most gallant cavalry; you, my allies, most faithful and valiant; you, Carthaginians, whom not only your country's cause, but the justest anger, impels to battle. The hope, the courage of assailants, is always greater than of those who act upon the defensive. With hostile banners displayed, you are come down upon Italy; you bring the war. Grief, injuries, indignities, fire your minds, and spur you forward to revenge. First, they demand me; that I, your general, should be delivered up to them; next, all of you who had fought at the siege of Saguntum; and we were to be put to death by the extremest tortures. Proud and cruel nation! every thing must be yours, and at your disposal! You are to prescribe to us with whom we shall make war, with whom we shall make peace! You are to set us bounds; to shut us up within hills and rivers; but you-you are not to observe the limits which yourselves have fixed! Pass not the Iberus. What next? Touch not the Saguntines; is Saguntum upon the Iberus? move not a step towards that city. Is it a small matter, then, that you have deprived us of our ancient possessions, Sicily and Sardinia? you would have Spain too? Well, we shall yield Spain; and then-you will pass into Africa! Will pass, did I say?-this very year they ordered one of their consuls into Africa, the other into Spain. No, soldiers, there is nothing left for us but what we can vindicate with our swords. Come on, thenThe Romans may with more safety be cowards; they have their own country behind them, have places of refuge to flee to, and are secure from danger in the roads thither; but for you, there is no middle fortune between death and victory. Let this be but well fixed in your minds, and once again, I say, you are conquerors. be men. MODERN ORATORY. SPEECH OF JOHN PYM, ON THE TRIAL OF LORD My lords, many days have been spent in maintenance of the impeachment of the Earl of Strafford by the House of Commons, whereby he stands charged with high treason; and your lordships have heard his defence with patience, and with as much favour as justice will allow. We have passed through our evidence; and the result is, that it remains clearly proved that the Earl of Strafford hath endeavoured by his words, actions, and counsels, to subvert the fundamental laws of England and Ireland, and to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical government. This is the envenomed arrow for which he inquired in the beginning of his replication this day, which hath infected all his blood; this is that intoxicating cup (to use his own metaphor) which hath tainted his judgment, and poisoned his heart! From hence was infused that specifical deference which turned his speeches, his actions, his counsels into treason-not cumulative, as he expressed it, as if many misdemeanours could make one treason; but formally and essentially. It is the end that doth inform actions, and doth specificate the nature of them, making not only criminal, but even indifferent, words and actions, to be treason, when done and spoken with a treasonable intention. That which is given to me in charge is to show the qua lity of the offence, how heinous it is in the nature, how mischievous in the effect of it; which will best appear, if it be examined by that law to which he himself appealed, that universal, that supreme law, SALUS POPULI. This is the element of all laws, out of which they are derived; the end of all laws, to which they are designed, and in which are they perfected. How far it stands in opposition to this law, I shall endeavour to show; in some considerations, which I shall present to your lordships, arising out of the evidence which hath been opened. The first is this-it is an offence comprehending all other offences. Here you shall find several treasons, murthers, rapines, oppressions, perjuries. The earth hath a seminary virtue, whereby it doth produce all herbs and plants, and other vegetables: there is in this crime a seminary of all evils hurtful to a state; and if you consider the reasons of it, it must needs be so. The law is that which puts a difference betwixt good and evil, betwixt just and unjust. If you take away the law, all things will fall into a confusion. Every man will become a law to himself, which, in the depraved condition of human nature, must needs produce many great enormities. Lust will become a law, and envy will become a law, covetousness and ambition will become laws; and what dictates, what decisions such laws will produce, may easily be discerned in the late government of Ireland! The law hath a power to prevent, to restrain, to repair evils. Without this, all kinds of mischief and distempers will break in upon a state. It is the law that doth entitle |