e is sandy as to hair and complexion, and stubby
as to hands and feet and nose. Yet he begins: "Ye call me
chief----"

How often, while practising the lines up in the attic, he
has attained to an exalted sense of his leadership! How
often he has leaned metaphorically upon his sword and
surveyed with scornful contempt the fawning groundlings, the
Roman Adonises, the shouting rabble! He was Spartacus then.
But now--now he is a small boy with a doubtful memory; and
mother, from the front row of benches, has to prompt him
twice.

This thrilling old piece of declamation, this address of
Spartacus to the Gladiators, was written by the Rev. Elijah
Kellogg, who also wrote a great many books for boys--"The
Elm Island Series," the "Pleasant Cove Series," the
"Whispering Pine Series," and others which are still read.
He was born in Portland, Maine, May 20, 1813; went to
Bowdoin College and Andover Theological Seminary; served as
a minister and chaplain from 1843 to 1865, and thereafter
devoted himself almost exclusively to writing until his
death, at Harpswell, Maine, March 17, 1901.

Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long
years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire
of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one
among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my
actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be
three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come
on. And yet I was not always thus--a hired butcher, a savage chief of
still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled
among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella.

My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at
noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the
shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in
the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together
our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all
seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old
man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a
little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a
whole army.

I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know