neck with his sword a blow neither mortal nor severe, for as was natural at the beginning of so bold a deed he was confused, and Cæsar turning round seized the dagger and held it fast. And it happened that at the same moment he who was struck cried out in the Roman language, "You villain Casca, what are you doing? and he who had given the blow cried out to his brother in Greek, "Brother, help.” Such being the beginning, those who were not privy to the conspiracy were prevented by consternation and horror at what was going on either from flying or going to aid, and they did not even venture to utter a word. And now each of the conspirators bared his sword, and Cæsar being hemmed in all round, in whatever direction he turned meeting blows and swords aimed against his eyes and face, driven about like a wild beast was caught in the hands of his enemies; for it was arranged that all of them should take a part in and taste of the deed of blood. Accordingly Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin. It is said by some authorities, that he defended himself against the rest, moving about his body hither and thither, and calling out, till he saw that Brutus had drawn his sword, when he pulled his toga over his face and offered no further resistance, having been driven either by chance or by the conspirators to the base on which the statue of Pompeius stood. And the base was drenched with blood, as if Pompeius was directing the vengeance upon his enemy who was stretched beneath his feet and writhing under his many wounds; for he is said to have received three and twenty wounds. Many of the conspirators were wounded by one another, while they were aiming so many blows against one body. After Cæsar was killed, though Brutus came forward as if he was going to say something about the deed, the Senators, without waiting to listen, rushed through the door, and making their escape filled the people with confusion and indescribable alarm, so that some closed their houses, and others left their tables and places of business, and while some ran to the place to see what had happened, others who had seen it ran away. But Antonius and Lepidus, who were the chief friends of Cæsar, stole away and fled for refuge to the houses of other persons. The partisan. of Brutus, just as they were, warm from the slaughter, and showing their bare swords, all in a body advanced from the Senate-house to the Capitol, not like men who were flying, but exulting and confident, calling the people to liberty and joined by the nobles who met them. Some even went up to the Capitol with them and mingled with them as if they had participated in the deed, and claimed the credit of it, among whom were Caius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther. But they afterwards paid the penalty of their vanity, for they were put to death by Antonius and the young Cæsar, without having enjoyed even the reputation of that for which they lost their lives, for nobody believed that they had a share in the deed. For neither did those who put them to death, punish them for what they did, but for what they wished to do. On the next day Brutus came down and addressed the people, who listened without expressing disapprobation or approbation of what had been done, but they indicated by their deep silence that they pitied Cæsar and respected Brutus. The Senate, with a view of making an amnesty and conciliating all parties, decrced that Cæsar should be honoured as a god, and that not the smallest thing should be disturbed which he had settled while he was in power; and they distributed among the partisans of Brutus provinces and suitable honours, so that all people supposed that affairs were quicted and had been settled in the best way. But when the will of Cæsar was opened, and it was discovered that he had given to every Roman a handsome present, and they saw the body, as it was carried through the Forum, disfigured with wounds, the multitude no longer kept within the bounds of propriety and order, but heaping about the corpse benches, lattices and tables, taken from the Forum, they set fire to it on the spot and burnt it; then taking the flaming pieces of wood they ran to the houses of the conspirators to fire them, and others ran about the city in all directions seeking for the men to seize and tear them in pieces. But none of the conspirators came in their way, and they were all well protected. One Cinna, however, a friend of Cæsar, happened, as it is said, to have had a strange dream the night before; for he dreamed that he was invited by Cæsar to sup with him, and when he excused himself, he was dragged along by Cæsar by the hand, against his will and making resistance the while. Now when he heard that the body of Cæsar was burning in the Forum, he got up and went there out of respect, though he was somewhat alarmed at his dream and had a fever on him. One of the multitude who saw Cinna told his name to another who was enquiring of him, and he again told it to a third, and immediately it spread through the crowd, that this man was one of those who had killed Cæsar; and indeed there was one of the conspirators who was named Cinna; and taking this man to be him the people forthwith rushed upon him and tore him in pieces on the spot. It was principally through alarm at this that the partisans of Brutus and Cassius after a few days left the city. 60. THE INSECT OF A DAY. TRANSLATED FROM AN ANONYMOUS FRENCH WRITER. ARISTOTLE says that urn the river Hypanis there exist little animals who live only one day. Those who die at eight o'clock in the morning, die in their youth; those who die at five o'clork in the evening, die in a state of decrepitude. Suppose one of the most robust of these Hypanians as old, according to these nations, as time itself; he would have begun to exist at the break of day, and through the strength of his constitution, would have been enabled to support an active life during the infinite number of seconds contained in ten or twelve hours. During so long a succession of instants, by his own experience and by his reflections on all he had seen, he must have acquired great wisdom; he looks upon his fellows vho have died at noon as creatures happily delivered from the great number of nfirmities to which old age is subject. He may have to relate to his grandsons an astonishing tradition of facts anterior to all the memories of the nation. The young swarm, composed of beings who have lived but an hour, approach the venerable patriarch with respect, and listen with admiration to his instructive discourse. Every thing he relates to them, appears a prodigy to this generation whose life has been so short. A day appears to them the entire duration of time, and the dawn of day would be called, in their chronology, the great era of their creation. Suppose now that the venerable insect, this Nestor of the Hypanis, a short time before his death, about the hour of sunset, assembles all his descendants, his friends and acquaintances, to give them, with his dying breath, his last advice. They gather from all parts under the vast shelter of a mushroom and the dying sage addresses them in the following manner :— Friends and compatriots, I feel that the longest life must have an end. The term of mine has arrived, and I do not regret my fate, since my great age has become a burden to me, and there is nothing new under the sun for me. The revolutions and calamities that have desolated my country, the great number of particular accidents to which we are all subject, the infirmities that afflict our species, and the misfortunes which have happened in my own family, all that I have seen in the course of a long life, has only too well taught me this great truth, that happiness, placed in things which do not depend upon ourselves, can never be certain and lasting. An entire generation has perished by a violent wind; a multitude of our imprudent youth has been swept into the water by a brisk and unexpected breeze. What terrible floods a sudden rain has caused! Our firmest shelters even are not proof against a hail storm. A dark cloud causes the most courageous hearts to tremble. I lived in the early ages, and conversed with insects of larger growth, of stronger constitutions, and I may say of greater wisdom than any of the present generation. I conjure you to give credit to my last words, when I assure you that the sun which now appears beyond the water, and which seems not far from the earth, I have scen in times past fixed in the middle of the heavens, its rays darting directly upon us. The earth was much lighter in past ages, the air was much warmer, and our ancestors were more sober and more virtuous. Although my senses are enfeebled, my memory is not; I can assure you that this glorious luminary moves. I have seen it rising over the summit of that mountain, and I began my life about the time that it commenced its immense career. It has, during several centuries, advanced in the heavens with an astonishing heat and brilliancy, of which you can have no idea, and which assuredly you could not have supported; but now, by its decline, and the sensible diminution of its vigour, I foresee that all nature must shortly terminate, and that this world will be buried in darkness in less than a hundred minutes. Alas! my friends, how I flattered myself at one time with the deceitful hope of always living on this earth! how magnificent were the cells I had hollowed out for myself! what confidence did I put in the firmness of my limbs, and in the elasticity of their joints, and in the strength of my wings! But I have lived long enough for nature and for glory, and none of those I leave behind me will have that same satisfaction in the century of darkness and decay that I see about to begin. 61. THE SCHOOLMASTER. VERPLANCK. [MR. VERPLANCK is a living American writer, who, like many of the most distinguished authors and scholars of the United States, has filled situations of political responsibility.] It has been to me a source of pleasure, though a melancholy one, that in rendering this public tribute to the worth of our departed friend, the respectable members of two bodies, one of them the most devoted and efficient in its scientific enquiries, the other comprising so many names eminent for philanthropy and learning, have met to do honour to the memory of a Schoolmaster. There are prouder themes for the eulogist than this. The praise of the statesman, the warrior, or the orator, furnish more splendid topics for ambitious eloquence; but no theme can be more rich in desert, or more fruitful in public advantage. The enlightened liberality of many of our state governments (amongst which we may claim a proud distinction for our own) by extending the common school system over their whole population, has brought elementary education to the door of every family. In this State, it appears from the Annual Reports of the Secretary of the State, there are, besides the fifty incorporated academies and numerous private schools, about nine thousand school districts, in each of which instruction is regularly given. These contain at present half a million of children taught in the single State of New York. To these may be added nine or ten thousand more youth in the higher seminaries of learning, exclusive of the colleges. Of what incalculable influence, then, for good or for evil, upon the dearest interests of society, must be the estimate entertained for the character of this great body of teachers, and the consequent respectability of the individuals who compose it? At the recent general election in this State, the votes of above three hundred thousand persons were taken. In thirty years the great majority of these will have passed away; their rights will be exercised, and their duties assumed by those very children, whose minds are now open to receive their earliest and most durable impressions from the ten thousand schoolmasters of this State. What else is there in the whole of our social system of such extensive and powerful operation on the national character? There is one other influence more powerful, and but one. It is that of the MOTHER. The forms of a free government, the provisions of wise legislation, the schemes of the statesman, the sacrifices of the patriot, are as nothing compared with these. If the future citizens of our republic are to be worthy of their rich inheritance, they must be made so principally through the virtue and intelligence of their mothers. It is in the school of maternal tenderness that the kind affections must be first roused and made habitual—the early sentiment of piety awakened and rightly directed-the sense of duty and moral responsibility unfolded and enlightened. But next in rank and in efficacy to that pure and holy source of moral influence is that of the schoolmaster. It is powerful already. What would it be if in every one of those school districts which we now count by annually increasing thousands, there were to be found one teacher well-informed without pedantry, religious without bigotry or fanaticism, proud and fond of his profession, and honoured in the discharge of its duties! How wide would be the intellectual, the moral influence of such a body of men! Many such we have already amongst us-men humbly wise and obscurely useful, whom poverty cannot depress, nor neglect degrade. But to raise up a body of such men, as numerous as the wants and the dignity of the country demand, their labours must be fitly remuLerated, and themselves and their calling cherished and honoured. The schoolmaster's occupation is laborious and ungrateful; its rewards are scanty and precarious. He may indeed be, and he ought to be, animated by the consciousness of doing good, that best of all consolations, that noblest of all motives. But that, too, must be often clouded by doubt and uncertainty. Obscure and inglorious as his daily occupation may appear to learned pride or worldly ambition, yet to be truly successful and happy, he must be animated by the spirit of the same great principles which inspired the most illustrious benefactors of mankind. If he bring to his task high talent and rich acquirements, he must be content to look into distant years for the proof that his labours have not been wasted-that the good seed which he daily scatters abroad does not fall on stony ground and wither away, or among thorns to be choked by the cares, the delusions, or the vices of the world. He must solace his toils with the same prophetic faith that enabled the greatest of modern philosophers, amidst the neglect or contempt of his own times, to regard himself as sowing the seeds of truth for posterity and the care of Heaven. He must arm himself against disappointment and mortification, with a portion of that same noble confidence which soothed the greatest of modern poets when weighed down by care and danger, by poverty, old age, and blindness, still In prophetic dream he saw Imbibe each virtue from his sacred page." He must know, and he must love to teach his pupils, not the meagre elements of knowledge, but the secret and the use of their own intellectual strength, exciting and enabling them hereafter to raise for themselves the veil which covers the majestic form of Truth. He must feel deeply the reverence due to the youthful mind fraught with mighty though undeveloped energies and affections, and mysterious and eternal destinies. Thence he must have learnt to reverence himself and his profession, and to look upon its otherwise ill-requited toils as their own exceeding great reward. If such are the difficulties and the discouragements-such the duties, the motives, and the consolations of teachers who are worthy of that name and trust; how im perious then the obligation upon every enlightened citizen who knows and feels the value of such men to aid them, to cheer them, and to honour them! But let us not be content with barren honour to buried merit. Let us prove our gratitude to the dead by faithfully endeavouring to elevate the station, to enlarge the usefulness, and to raise the character of the schoolmaster amongst us. Thus shall we best testify our gratitude to the teachers and guides of our own youth, thus best serve our country, and thus, most effectually, diffuse over our land light, and truth, and virtue. 02.-APOPHTHEGMS.-III. REAL COURAGE. I have read of a bird, which hath a face like, and yet will prey upon, a man; who coming to the water to drink, and finding there by reflection, that he had killed one like himself, pineth away by degrees, and never afterwards enjoyeth itself. Such is in some sort the condition of Sir Edward Harwood. This accident, that he had killed one in a private quarrel, put a period to his carnal mirth, and was a covering to his eyes all the days of his life. No possible provocations could afterwards tempt him to a duel; and no wonder that one's conscience loathed that whereof he had surfeited. He refused all challenges with more honour than others accepted them; it being well known, that he would set his foot as far in the face of his enemy as any man alive.-FULLER. Worthies.—Article, Lincolnshire. PRECOCIOUS INTELLIGENCE.-Four merchants were sharers in a sum of a thousand pieces of gold, which they had mixed together, and put into one purse, and they went with it to purchase merchandise, and, finding in their way a beautiful garden, they entered it, and left the purse with a woman who was the keeper of that garden. Having entered, they diverted themselves in a tract of the garden, and ate aud drank, and were happy; and one of them said, "I have with me some perfume. Come, let us wash our heads with this running water; and perfume ourselves." Another said, "We want a comb." And another said, "We will ask the keeper; perhaps she hath with her a comb." And upon this, one of them rose and went to the keeper, and said to her, "Give me the purse." She replied, “When ye ail present yourselves, or thy companions order me to give it thee." Now his com panions were in a place where the keeper could see them, and she could hear their words. And the man said to his companions, "She is not willing to give me aught." So they said to her, "Give him.” And when she heard their words, she gave him the purse; and he went forth fleeing from them. Therefore when he had wearied them by the length of his absence, they came to the keeper, and said to her, "Wherefore didst thou not give him the comb ?" And she replied, "He demanded of me nothing but the purse, and I gave it not to him save with your permission, and he hath departed hence and gone his way." And when they heard the words of the keeper, they slapped their faces, and seized her with their hands, saying to her, "We gave thee not permission save to give the comb." She replied, "He did not mention to me a comb." And they seized her and took her up to the Kádee, and when they presented themselves before him, they stated to him the case; whereupon he bound the keeper to restore the purse, and bound a number of her debtors to be answerable for her. So she went forth perplexed, not knowing her way; and there met her a boy, whose age was five years; and when the boy saw her so perplexed, he said to her, "What is the matter, O my mother?" But she returned him not an answer, despising him on account of the smallness of his age. And he repeated his question to her a first, a second, and a third time. So at length she told him what had happened to her. And the boy said to her, "Give me a piece of silver that I may buy some sweetmeats with it, and I will tell thee something by which thine acquittance may be |