ing it by a compleat Conquest, should now come of my own Motion, to ask a Peace; I am glad that it is of you, Scipio, I have the Fortune to ask it. Nor will this be among the least of your Glories, that Hannibal, victorious over so many Roman Generals, fubmitted at last to You. I could with, that our Fathers and we had confin'd our Ambition within the Limits, which Nature seem'd to have prescrib'd to it; the shores of Africa, and the Shores of Italy. The Gods did not give us that Mind. On both sides we have been so eager after foreign Poffeffions, as to put our own to the Hazard of War. Rome and Carthage have had, each in their Turn, the Enemy at her Gates But since Errors paft may be more easily blamed than corrected, let it now be the Work of you and me, to put an End, if poffible, to the obstinate Contention. For my own Part, my Years, and the Experience I have had of the Instability of Fortune, inclines me to leave nothing to her Determination which Reason can decide. But much I fear, Scipio, that your Youth, your want of the like Experience, your uninterrupted Success, may render you averse from the Thoughts of Peace. He whom Fortune has never fail'd, rarely reflects upon her Inconstancy. Yet without recurring to former Examples, my own may perhaps suffice to teach you Moderation. I am that same Hannibal who, after my Victory at Cannæ, became Master of the greatest Part of your Country, and deliberated with myself what Fate I should decree to Italy and Rome. And now see the Change ! Here, in Africa, I am come to treat with a Roman, for my own Preservation and my country's. Such are the Sports of Fortune. Is she then to be trusted because she smiles ? An advantageous Peace is preferable, to the Hope of Victory. The one is in your own Power, the other at the Pleasure of the Gods. Should you prove victorious, it would add little to your own Glory, or the Glory of your Country; if vanquilh'd, you lose in one Hour all the Honour and Reputation you have been so many Years acquiring. But what is my Aim in all this? That you should content yourself with our Cefsion of Spain, Sicily, Sardinia, and all the Illands between Italy and Africa. A Peace on these Conditions will, in my Opinion, not only secure the future Tranquility of Carthage, but be fufficiently glorious for you, and for the Roman Name. And do not tell me, that some of our Citizens dealt fraudulently with you in the late Treaty : It is I, Hannibal, that now ask a Peace; I ask it, because I think it ex-' pedient pedient for my Country; and, thinking it expedient, I will inviolably maintain it. LESSON XIII. The Answer of SCIPIO was to this Effeet. TKNEW very well, Hannibal, that it was the hope of I your Return which embolden'd the Carthaginians to break the 'Truce with us, and to lay aside all Thoughts of a Peace, when it was just upon the Point of being concluded; and your present Proposal is a Proof of it. You retrench from their Concessions every thing but what we are, and have been long, possessed of. But as it is your Care that your FellowCitizens should have the Obligations to you of being eased from a great Part of their Burthen, so it ought to be mine, that they draw no Advantage from their Perfidiousness. No body is more sensible than I am of the Weakness of Man, and the Power of Fortune, and that whatever we enterprize is subject to a thousand Chances. If before the Romans palled into Africa, you had of your own Accord quitted Italy, and made the Offers you now make, I believe they would not have been rejected. But as you have been forced out of Italy, and we are Masters here of the open Country, the Situation of things is much altered. And what is chiefly to be confider'd, the Carthaginians by the late Treaty, which we entered into at their Request, were, over and above what you offer, to have restored to us our Prisoners without Ransom, deliver'd up their Ships of War, paid us five thousand Talents, and to have given Hostages for the Performance of all. The Senate accepted these Conditions, but Carthage failed on her Part; Carthage deceived us. What then is to be done? Are the Carthaginians to be released from the most important Articles of the Treaty, as a Reward of their Breach of Faith? No, certainly. If to the Conditions before agreed upon, you had added some new Articles to our Advantage, there would have been Matter of Reference to the Roman People; but when, instead of adding, you retrench, there is no Room for Deliberation. The Carthaginians therefore must submit to us at Discretion, or must vanquish us in Battle. N. B. The Battle was fought, the Romans gained the Victory, and the Carthaginians submitted to Rome. This ended gbe fecond Punic War, and acquired Scipio the Surname of Africanus, THE T HE following Speeches are selected from Shakespear, 1 and 'tis hoped they will be useful and agreeable to the Boys, as they will serve to give a Variety to their Talks, and to bring them acquainted with the higher and more poetical Stile of their own Language. I have taken fome fmall Liberties hore and there in altering an obsolete Word, or even a sentence, when I thought the Construction of it (which fometimes happens in Shakespear) too hard or too obscure for Boys to understand. But this Liberty, it will be perceiv'd, I have used but very sparingly; and never with the Presumption of hoping to mend Shakespear, but only to make him more fit and proper for my Purposes. With what Judgment the Speeches are chosen must be left to the Determination of judicious Masters, wha will be at Liberty to make use of any others, which they may think more praper. The two or three laft are given as Interludes for several Boys to practise on together. LESSON I. As YOU LIKE IT. "A LL the World's a Stage, A And all the Men and Women merely Players; His His youthful Hose well fav’d, a World too wide LES SON II. To be, or not to be: That is the Question. 1 Whether 'tis nobler in the Mind, to suffer And · And thus the native Hue of Resolution LESSON III. A Speech of King Henry the Fourth, upon his receiving News in the Night, of the Rebellion of the Earl of Northumberland. TJOW many Thousands of my poorest Subjects Tl Are at this Hour asleep! O gentle Sleep! LESSON d, wet sea partial Death he nippaanging on |