once or twice has it happened to me to be concerned on the side of the government in any criminal prosecution whatever; and never, until the present occasion, in any case affecting life.

But I very much regret that it should have been thought necessary to suggest to you that I am brought here "to hurry you against the law and beyond the evidence." I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own character, to attempt either; and were I to make such an attempt, I am sure that in this court nothing can be carried against the law, and that gentlemen, intelligent and just as you are, are not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, when it is supposed that I may be in some degree useful in investigating and discovering the truth respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty incumbent upon me, as on every other citizen, to do my best and my utmost to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how great soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing, this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime at the bar of public justice.

(WEBSTER: The White Murder Case)

A ROYAL DEATH CHAMBER

Within an upper chamber lay the king,
His white face, 'gainst the pillow scarce as white,
Gleamed ghastly—lip and hand and brow

Were chilling with the icy touch of him

Who comes but once

who comes alike to all.

About the room the waxen tapers tall

Lit up the shadows, while the black-robed priests Stood round the couch with "Host and Crucifix," The ceremonial of the sacrament.

But the king sees them not; his soul is back

With the past years he whispers! Ha! he dreams! He sees the streets of Paris all aglow

With gleaming fire of the torch and lamp;

He stands beside his window from below

the cry

Thro' all the streets he hears the ceaseless tramp
Of armed men the crash of arms
Of gathering forces; on the midnight air
He hears the wild, wild accents of despair
In groans and curses, as the throng go by;
And 'bove them all, o'er every sight and sound
He hears the bell of St. Germain slow toll
The signal for the massacre; - the ground
Beneath his feet is red with blood; the roll
Of musketry is drowned in dying groans!

(MOORE: The Death of Charles the Ninth)

AGAINST STRICT CONSTRUCTION OF THE

CONSTITUTION

As preliminary to the very able discussions of the Constitution which we have heard from the Bar, and as having some influence on its construction, reference has been made to the political situation of these States ante

rior to its formation. It has been said that they were sovereign, were completely independent, and were connected with each other only by a league. This is true. But when these allied sovereigns converted their league into a government, when they converted their Congress of ambassadors, deputed to deliberate on their common concerns and to recommend measures of general utility, into a legislature empowered to enact laws on the most interesting subjects, the whole character in which the States appear underwent a change, the extent of which must be determined by a fair consideration of the instrument by which that change is effected.

This instrument contains an enumeration of powers expressly granted by the people to their government. It has been said that these powers ought to be construed strictly. But why ought they to be so construed? Is there one sentence in the Constitution which gives countenance to this rule? In the last of the enumerated powers, that which grants expressly the means for carrying all others into execution, Congress is authorized "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper "for that purpose. But this limitation on the means which may be used is not extended to the powers which are conferred; nor is there one sentence in the Constitution which has been pointed out by the gentlemen of the bar, or which we have been able to discern, that prescribes this rule. We do not therefore think ourselves justified in adopting it.

(MARSHALL: Interstate Commerce)

BRUTUS CONDEMNS CÆSAR

(Brutus) It must be by his death: and for my pai I know no personal cause to spurn at him,

But for the general. He would be crown'd:

How that might change his nature, there's the question.
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder:
And that craves wary walking. Crown him?

that;

And then, I grant, we put a sting in him,

That at his will he may do danger with.

The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power; and, to speak truth of Cæsar,
I have not known when his affections sway'd
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. So Cæsar may.

Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel
Will bear no color for the thing he is,
Fashion it thus: that what he is, augmented,
Would run to these and these extremities;
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous,
And kill him in the shell.

(SHAKESPEARE: Julius Cæsar)

NIGHTFALL IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

The last beams of day were now fairly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the Abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monuments as

sumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant foot-fall of a verger, traversing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out of the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes.

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown, and the certainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of death-his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name. Time is ever silently turning over his pages: we are too much engrossed by the story of the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of to(IRVING: Westminster Abbey)

morrow.

THANATOPSIS

To him who in the love of nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks