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ROMANCE AND REALITY.
169

would any public man stoop now to such a degradation! But Milton and Sydney! look at the glorious old age of the one, when his thoughts, like the ravens of the prophet, brought him heavenly food, and he worked in pride and power at the noble legacy he bequeathed to his native tongue. Look at the glorious death of the other, sealing with his blood those principles of equity and liberty, whose spirit has since walked so mightily abroad, though even now but in its infancy! Never tell me but that these had a prophet's sympathy with centuries to come: I do believe that the power of making the future their present is one of the first gifts with which Providence endows a great man."

Lord Etheringhame.—"But, even supposing I had the power, which I have not, and the inclination, which I have still less, of mixing in the feverish and hurried strife called the world, of what import is an individual?—I see thousands and thousands rushing to every goal to which human desires can tend—and what matters it if one individual loiter on the way? I see, too, thousands and thousands daily swept off, and their places filled up, leaving not a memory to say that they have been—