MacMillan's Reading Books Part 12

Ho! gallant n.o.bles of the League, look that your arms be bright: Ho! burghers of St. Genevieve, keep watch and ward to- night, For our G.o.d hath crush'd the tyrant, our G.o.d hath raised the slave, And mock'd the counsel of the wise, and the valour of the brave.

Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are; And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre!

MACAULAY.

[Notes: _D'Aumale_, The Duke of; another leader of the League.

_The Flemish Court_. Count Egmont, the son of the Count Egmont, whose death on the scaffold in 1568, in consequence of the resistance he offered to the tyranny of Philip II. of Spain, has made the name famous.

The son, on the other hand, was the attached servant of Philip II.; and was unnatural enough to say, when reminded of his father, "Talk not of him, he deserved his death."

_Remember St. Bartholomew_, i.e., the ma.s.sacre of the Protestants on St.

Bartholomew's day, 1572.

_Maidens of Vienna: matrons of Lucerne_. In reference to the Austrian and Swiss Allies of the League.

_Thy Mexican pistoles_. Alluding to the riches gained by the Spanish monarchy from her American colonies.

_Ho! burghers of St. Genevieve_ = citizens of Paris, of which St.

Genevieve was held to be the patron saint.]

NECESSITY THE MOTHER OF INVENTION.

And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted, as particularly a chair or a table; for without these I was not able to enjoy the few comforts I had in the world; I could not write or eat, or do several things with so much pleasure without a table.

So I went to work; and here I must needs observe that, as reason is the substance and original of the mathematics, so by stating and squaring everything by reason, and by making the most rational judgment of things, every man may be in time master of every mechanic art. I had never handled a tool in my life, and yet in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools; however, I made abundance of things, even without tools, and some with no more tools than an adze and a hatchet, which perhaps were never made that way before, and that with infinite labour; for example, if I wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I had brought it to be as thin as a plank, and then dubb it smooth with my adze. It is true, by this method, I could make but one board out of a whole tree, but this I had no remedy for but patience, any more than I had for the prodigious deal of time and labour which it took me up to make a plank or board; but my time or labour was little worth, and so it was as well employed one way as another.

However, I made me a table and a chair, as I observed above, in the first place, and this I did out of the short pieces of boards that I brought on my raft from the s.h.i.+p: but when I had wrought out some boards, as above, I made large shelves of the breadth of a foot and a half one over another, all along one side of my cave, to lay all my tools, nails, and iron-work, and in a word, to separate everything at large in their places, that I might come easily at them; I knocked pieces into the wall of the rock to hang my guns and all things that would hang up. So that had my cave been to be seen, it looked like a general magazine of all necessary things, and I had everything so ready at my hand, that it was a great pleasure to me to see all my goods in such order, and especially to find my stock of all necessaries so great.

DEFOE'S _Robinson Crusoe._

[Notes: _Reason is the substance and original of the mathematics_.

Original here = origin or foundation.]

_The most rational judgment_ = the judgment most in accordance with reason.]

ANCIENT GREECE.

Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

Shrine of the mighty! can it be That this is all remains of thee?

Approach, thou craven crouching slave: Say, is not this Thermopylae?

These waters blue that round you lave,-- Oh servile offspring of the free!-- p.r.o.nounce what sea, what sh.o.r.e is this?

The gulf, the rock of Salamis!

These scenes, their story not unknown, Arise, and make again your own; s.n.a.t.c.h from the ashes of your sires The embers of their former fires; And he who in the strife expires Will add to theirs a name of fear That Tyranny shall quake to hear, And leave his sons a hope, a fame, They too will rather die than shame: For Freedom's battle once begun, Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, Though baffled oft is ever won.

Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!

Attest it many a deathless age!

While kings, in dusty darkness hid, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy heroes, though the general doom Hath swept the column from their tomb, A mightier monument command, The mountains of their native land!

There points thy Muse to stranger's eye The graves of those that cannot die!

'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, Each step from splendour to disgrace, Enough--no foreign foe could quell Thy soul, till from itself it fell; Yes! Self-abas.e.m.e.nt paved the way To villain-bonds and despot sway.

BYRON.

[Notes: _Lord Byron_, born 1788, died 1824. The most powerful English poet of the early part of this century.

_Thermapylae._ The pa.s.s at which Leonidas and his Spartans resisted the approach of the Persians (B.C. 480).

_Salamis_. Where the Athenians fought the great naval battle which destroyed the Persian fleet, and secured the liberties of Greece.]

THE TEMPLE OF FAME.