sons of Brutus. Few situations could have been more terribly affecting than this, of a father placed as a judge upon the life and death of his own children; impelled by justice to condemn, and by nature to spare them.

5. The young men, when accused, did not attempt to say a word; but with conscious guilt awaited their sentence in silent agony. The other judges who were present, felt all the pangs of nature; Collatinus wept, and Valerius could not repress his sentiments of pity. Brutus alone seemed to have lost all the softness of humanity, and all the yearnings of parental affection. With a stern countenance, and a tone of voice that marked his fixed resolu tion, he demanded of his two sons if they could make any defence to the crimes with which they had been charg ed. This demand he made three several times; but receiving no answer, he at length turned himself to the lic tors, "Now, (exclaimed he,) it is your part to perform the rest."

6. Thus saying, he resumed his seat with an air of de termined majesty; nor could all the sentiments of paternal pity, the imploring looks of the people, nor the dreadful situation of the young men who were preparing for exe cution, alter his stern decision. The executioner having stripped, and then whipped the conspirators with rods, presently after beheaded them; Brutus all the time beholding the cruel spectacle with a steady look and unaltered countenance, while the multitude gazed on with all the mingled sensations of pity, wonder, and horror.

PASSAGE OF THE ALPS BY HANNIBAL.

1. HANNIBAL had been the sworn foe of Rome, almost from his infancy; for while only nine years of age, his father, having performed a sacrifice, brought him before the altar, and obliged him to take an oath, that he never would be in friendship with the Romans, nor desist from opposing their power, while life and opportunity allowed, until he or they should be no more. In those terms

he swore, and he was faithful to his engagements.

2. On his first appearance in the field, he united in his own person the most masterly method of commanding,

with the most perfect obedience to his superiors. Thus he was equally beloved by his generals and by the troops he was appointed to lead. He was possessed of the greatest courage in opposing danger, and the greatest presence of mind in obviating it. No fatigue was able to subdue his body, nor any misfortune to break his spirit; equally patient of heat and cold, he only took sustenance to content nature, and not to gratify his appetite. His seasons for repose or labour were never regular or fixed he was always ready when difficulties or his country demanded his aid.

3. He was frequently found stretched on the ground among his sentinels covered with a watch coat. His dress differed in nothing from the most ordinary men of his army, except that he affected peculiar elegance in his horses and armour. He was the best horseman, and the swiftest runner of his time. He was ever foremost to engage, and the last to retreat; he was prudent in his de-, signs, which were extensive; and ever fertile in expedients to perplex his enemies, or to rescue himself from danger. He was experienced, sagacious, provident, and bold.

4. Such were the valuable qualities of this illustrious soldier, who is universally allowed to be the greatest general of antiquity. On the other hand he was cruel and faithless, without honour, without religion, and yet possessed the art of dissimulation to such a degree, that he assumed the appearance of them all. From such a soldier and politician, the Carthaginians justly formed the greatest expectations; and his taking Saguntum shortly after confirmed their original opinion of his abilities. But he soon gave proofs of a much more extensive genius than they had ever given him credit for.

5. Having overrun all Spain, and levied a large army of various languages and nations, he resolved to carry the war into Italy, as the Romans had before carried it into the dominions of Carthage. For this purpose, leaving Hanno with a sufficient force to guard his conquests in Spain, he crossed the Pyrenean mountains in Gaul, with an army of fifty thousand foot, and nine thousand horse. He quickly traversed that country, though filled with nations that were his declared enemies.

6. In vain its forests and rivers interposed difficulties in his way; in vain the Rhone, with its rapid current, and its

banks covered with enemies, or the Dura branched out into numberless channels, opposed his march; he passed them all with an undaunted spirit, and in ten days arrived at the foot of the Alps, over which he determined to explore a new passage into Italy. It was in the midst of winter, when this astonishing project was formed. The season added new horror to the scene, which nature had already crowded with objects of dismay.

7. The prodigious height and tremendous steepness of the mountains, which were capped with snow; the rude cottages that seemed to hang upon the sides of the preci pices; the cattle, and even the wild beasts, stiff with cold, or enraged with famine; the people, barbarous and fierce, dressed in skins, with long shaggy hair, presented picture that would have impressed ordinary spectators with astonishment and terror. But nothing was capable of subduing the courage of the Carthaginian general: after baring harangued his army, he undertook to lead them up the sides of the mountain, animating his soldiers by the assur ance that they were now scaling, not the walls of Italy, but of Rome.

8. The Carthaginians, however, in this march, had num berless and unforeseen calamities to encounter; the intenseness of the cold, the height of the precipices, the smoothness of the ice, but above all, the opposition of the inhabitants, who assailed them from above, and rolled down huge rocks upon them in their march, all contributed to dispirit the army, and to impede their progress. At length, after nine days' painful and interrupted ascent, Hannibal gained the top of the mountains, where he rejoiced his soldiers, by showing them the charming and fertile vales of Italy, which were stretched out beneath.

9. Here he allowed two days' respite, and then prepared to descend:-a work of more danger even than the former. Prodigious quantities of snow having lately fallen, as many were swallowed up in it as had before been destroyed by the enemy. Every new advance seemed but to increase the danger, till, at last, he came to the verge of a precipice above three hundred yards perpendicular, which seemed utterly impassable. It was then that despair appeared in every face but Hannibal's; for he still remained unshaken. His first object was to endeavour, by a circuitous route, to find a more commodious passage. This only increasing

his difficulty, he resolved to undertake levelling the rock. To effectuate this, great numbers of large trees were fell ed; and a huge pile raised against it, and set on fire.

10. The rock being thus heated, says Livy, was softened by vinegar, and a way opened, through which the whole army might safely pass. After this, no obstacles of any comparative moment occurred; for as he descended, the vallies between the mountains became more fertile; so tha the cattle found pasture, and the soldiers had time to re pose. Thus at the end of fifteen days, spent in crossing the Alps, the Carthaginian found himself in the plains of Italy with about half his army remaining; the rest having died with the cold, or were cut off by the natives.

Note. Rome, the ancient seat of the Roman empire, is on the river Tiber, 800 miles southeast from London, in about 42° north latitude.-Spain, a kingdom of Europe, is 700 miles long and 500 broad. It is bounded on the northeast by the Pyrenees, which mountains separate Spain from France.-Italy, a country of Europe, lies west of the Gulf of Venice, between 380 and 47° north lati tude. The Alps, the highest mountains in Europe, sepa rate Italy from France and Germany.

QUEBEC.

1. THIS seat of ancient dominion-now hoary with the lapse of two centuries-formerly the seat of a French Empire in the west-lost and won by the blood of gallant armies, and of illustrious commanders-throned on a rock, and defended by all the proud defiance of war, is the strongest town in America, and with the exception of Gibraltar, is the strongest in the world. It is situated on a bold promontory, formed at the junction of the river St. Charles with the St. Lawrence, and rising above 300 feet above the level of the water.

2. It is, therefore, possessed of great natural advantages; the lofty perpendicular precipices of rock, which, on the south and east, separate a great part of the lower town from the upper, constitute, in themselves, on those sides, one in Burmountable barrier; the river Charles, with its shallow

waters, and low flats of sand and mud, drained almost dry, by the retiring of the tide, forms an insuperable impediment to the erection of commanding works, or to the location of ships on the east and north, not to mention that all this ground is perfectly commanded by the guns above.

3. The only vulnerable point is on the west and south from the plains of Abraham. Cape Diamond, the highest point of the town, it is true, is rather more elevated than any part of the plains, but the highest ground on the plains of Abraham commands most of the works on this side of the town; besides, there is no barrier of rock, no river, ravine, or marsh, or other natural obstacle, to hinder an approach upon this side; this is the vulnerable side of Quebec, and here, therefore, it is fortified with the most anxious care.

4. The distance across the peninsula, from one river to the other, is very nearly one mile. The circuit within the walls is two miles and three quarters; immediately without it is probably three miles, and the average diameter is very nearly six sevenths of a mile. A complete wall of massy stone, hewn and laid up with elegance, as well as strength, completely encircles the town, and is furnished with strong massy arches and gates, and with deep ditches. The walls vary much, in different parts, in height and thickness. Every where, however, they are high enough to render escalade very difficult, and a breach almost hopeless.

5. In the strongest parts, next to the plains of Abraham, they are fifty feet thick, and equally as high. Even the lofty precipices of naked rock are surmounted with a stone wall, and with cannon, and the highest points are crowned with towers and distinct batteries. In general, the curtains of the walls are looped for musketry, and projecting bastions present their artillery to the assailant in every direction, and of course so as to rake the ditches Immediately adjacent to the inner wall, which we have already remarked is fifty feet thick, runs a deep ditch, and then there is an exterior but lower wall, and other ditch, both of which must be scaled, before the main wall can be approached..

6. A storming party would be dreadfully exposed while mounting this exterior wall. The avenue to the Gate St Louis, which opens to the plains of Abraham, is bounded on both sides by a high wall, and makes several turns in zig