wed it not--perhaps felt it, in a less degree than usual; it
might be, it was crushed within him for the time, by the magnitude of vast
interests, the consciousness of right motives, the necessity of
extraordinary efforts.

He rose; advanced a step or two, in front of his curule chair, and in a
clear slow voice gave utterance to the solemn words, which formed the
exordium to all senatorial business.

"May this be good, and of good omen, happy, and fortunate to the Roman
people, the Quirites; which now I lay before you, Fathers, and Conscript
Senators."

He paused, emphatically, with the formula; and then raising his voice a
little, and turning his eyes slowly round the house, as if in mute appeal
to all the senators.

"For that," he said, "on which you must this day determine, concerns not
the majesty or magnitude of Rome--the question is not now of insolent foes
to be chastised, or of faithful friends to be rewarded--is not, how the
city shall be made more beautiful, the state more proud and noble, the
empire more enduring. No, conscript fathers; for the round world has never
seen a city, so flourishing in all rare beauty, so decorated with the
virtue of her living citizens, so noble in the memories of her dead
heroes--the sun has never shone upon a state, so solidly established; upon
an empire so majestical and mighty; extending from the Herculean columns,
the far limits of the west, beyond the blue Symplegades; from Hyperborean
snows, to the parched sands of Ethiopia!--no! Conscript Fathers, for we
have no foes unsubdued, from the wild azure-tinctured hordes of Gaul to
the swart Eunuchs of the Pontic king--for we have no friends unrewarded,
unsheltered by the wings of our renown.

"No! it is not to beautify, to stablish, to augment--but to preserve the
empire, that I now call upon you; that I now urge you, by all that is
sweet, is sacred, is sublime in the name of our country; that I implore
you, by whatever earth contains of most awful, and heaven of most holy!

"I said to preserve it! And do you ask from whom? Is there a Gallic
tumult? Have Cimbric myriads again scaled the Alps, and poured their
famished deluge over our devastated frontiers? Hath Mithridates trodden on
the neck of Pompey? By the great gods! hath Carthage revived from her
ashes? is Hannibal, or a greater one than Hannibal, again thundering at
our gates, with Punic engines visible from the Janiculum?

"If it were so, I should not despair of Ro