His charge is false; I

You have my answer.

dare him to his proofs.
Let my actions speak!

Cic. (Interrupting him.) Deeds shall convince you! Has the traitor done?

Cat. But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn to hide my sense of wrong;
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me,-turning out

The Roman from his birthright; and for what?
To fling your offices to every slave;

Vipers that creep where man disdains to climb;
And, having wound their loathsome track to the top
Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler man below.

Cic. This is his answer! Must I bring more proofs ?
Fathers, you know there lives not one of us
But lives in peril of his midnight sword;
Lists of proscription have been handed round,
In which your general properties are made
Your murderer's hire.

[An officer enters with letters for CICERO; who, after
glancing at them, sends them round the Senate.]

Fathers of Rome! If man can be convinced
By proof as clear as daylight, here it is!
Look on these letters! Here's a deep-laid plot
To wreck the provinces; a solemn league.
Made with all form and circumstance. The time
Is desperate, all the slaves are up; Rome shakes!
The heavens alone can tell how near our graves
We stand even here! The name of Cataline
Is foremost in the league. He was their king.
Tried and convicted traitor, go from Rome!

Cat. (Rising.) Come, consecrated lictors, from your thrones; Fling down your scepters-take the rod and ax,

And make the murder as you make the law.

Cic. (To an officer.) Give up the record of his banishment.

[The officer gives it to the consul in the chair.]

Cat. Banished from Rome! What's banished, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe ?

"Tried and convicted traitor"!

Who'll prove it, at his peril, on

Who says this? my head?

Banished-I thank you for 't. It breaks my chain!
I held some slack allegiance till this hour,

But now my sword's my own.

Smile on, my lords!
I scorn to count what feelings, withered hopes,
Strong provocations, bitter, burning wrongs.
I have within my heart's hot cells shut up,
To leave you in your lazy dignities.

But here I stand and scoff you; here I fling
Hatred and full defiance in your face.

Your consul's merciful. For this, all thanks,
He dares not touch a hair of Cataline.

The Consul. (Reads.) "Lucius Sergius Cataline: By the decree of the Senate you are declared an enemy and alien to the state, and banished from the territory of the commonwealth."

Lictors, drive the traitor from the temple!

Cat. (Furious.) "Traitor"!-I go-but I return.

This trial!

Here I devote your Senate! I've had wrongs

So stir a fever in the blood of age,

Or make the infant's sinews strong as steel.

This day's the birth of sorrows! this hour's work

Will breed proscriptions; look to your hearths, my lords!
For there, henceforth shall sit, for household gods,
Shapes hot from Tartarus!3-all shames and crimes;

Now Treachery, with his thirsty dagger drawn;
Suspicion, poisoning his brother's cup;
Naked Rebellion, with the torch and ax,
Making his wild sport of your blazing thrones;
Till Anarchy comes down on you like Night,
And Massacre seals Rome's eternal grave!

The Senators. Go, enemy and parricide, from Rome!
Cic. Expel him, lictors! Clear the senate house!
Cat. I go, but not to leap the gulf alone,
I go but where I come, 't will be the burst
Of ocean in the earthquake-rolling back

In swift and mountainous ruin. Fare you well!
You build my funeral pile, but your best blood
Shall quench its flame. Back, slaves! I will return!

Definitions.-Leagued, combined, united with. It is from a French word meaning to bind. The word league is commonly used of a combination of weak forces to resist stronger. Lěv'ied, raised, collected. Rites, solemn ceremonies of a religious or political nature. Pro serip'tion, the offer of a reward for the head of an enemy. Lie'tors, officers whose duties it was to attend the magistrates of Rome, and to punish criminals. They bore axes bound in rods, called fasces, as emblems of their office. Prov o ca'tion, that which excites anger. To provoke implies the awakening of some decided expression of anger. Păr'ri çīde, one who murders a parent, or one to whom reverence is due. This latter definition is the meaning of the text.

NOTES.-I. Cataline was of a noble Roman family, but was thoroughly depraved. After being banished from Rome he marched toward Gaul, but in an engagement with the Roman general who pursued him, Cataline and his whole army were slain, B. C. 62.

2. Cicero, who, as Consul, secured Cataline's banishment and saved the city, was the greatest of the orators of Rome.

3. Gaul, the ancient name of France.

4. Tartarus, according to the ancient Greeks, a place as far below Hades as Heaven is above the earth, where the spirits of the wicked were said to be punished.

19. THE CUP OF WATER.

CHARLOTTE M. YONGE (1823-18-) was born in England. In 1844 Abbeychurch, her first work, appeared; and in 1853 The Heir of Redclyffe, her most finished and popular work. It passed rapidly through many editions, and was translated into several languages. The Daisy Chain, scarcely less popular, was written three years later, and has been followed by Landmarks of History, A Modern Telemachus, and A Book of Golden Deeds, from which the following is taken. Miss Yonge's books are written with grace and spirit, in a healthful, religious tone.

I.

1. No touch in the history of the minstrel-king David1 gives us a more warm and personal feeling towards him than his longing for the water at the well of Bethlehem. Standing as the incident does in the summary of the characters of his mighty men, it is apt to appear to us as if it had taken place in his latter days; but such is not the case-it befell while he was still under thirty, in the time of his persecution by Saul.

2. It was when the last attempt at reconciliation with the king had been made, when the affectionate parting with the generous and faithful Jonathan had taken place, when Saul was hunting him like a partridge on the mountains on the one side, and the Philistines had nearly taken his life on the other, that David, outlawed yet loyal at the heart, sent his aged parents to the land of Moab for refuge, and himself took up his abode in the caves of the wild limestone hills that had become familiar to him when he was a shepherd.

3. Brave captain and Heaven-destined king as he was, his name attracted round him a motley group of those that were in distress, or in debt, or discontented, and among them were the "mighty men whose brave deeds won them the foremost parts in the army with which David was to fulfill the ancient promises to his people. There were his three nephews, Joab the ferocious and imperious, the chival

rous Abishai, and Asahel, the fleet of foot; there was the warlike Levite Benaiah, who slew lions and lion-like men, and others who, like David himself, had done battle with the gigantic sons of Anak.

4. Yet even these valiant men, so wild and lawless, could be kept in check by the voice of their young captain; and, outlaws as they were, they spoiled no peaceful villages, they lifted not their hands against the persecuting monarch, and the neighboring farms lost not one lamb through their violence. Some at least listened to the song of their warlike minstrel :

Come, ye chidren, and hearken to me,

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is he that lusteth to live,
And would fain see good days?
Let him refrain his tongue from evil
And his lips that they speak no guile;
Let him eschew evil and do good,

Let him seek peace and ensue it.

5. With such strains as these, sung to his harp, the warrior gained the hearts of his men to enthusiastic love, and gathered followers on all sides, among them eleven fierce men of Gad, with faces like lions and feet swift as roes, who swam the Jordan in time of flood, and fought their way to him, putting all enemies in the valleys to flight.

6. But the eastern sun burnt on the bare rocks. A huge fissure, opening in the mountain ridge, encumbered at the bottom with broken rocks, with precipitous banks, scarcely affording a footing for the wild goats-such is the spot where, upon a cleft on the steep precipice, still remain the foundations of the "hold," or tower, believed to have been David's retreat; and near at hand is the low-browed entrance of the galleried cave, alternating between narrow passages and spacious halls, but all oppressively hot and close.

7. Waste and wild, without a bush or a tree, in the feverish atmosphere of Palestine, it was a desolate region, and at