nd their oath on thee was laid;
To thee the clarions raised their swell,
And the dying warrior prayed.
Thou wert, through an age of death and fears,
The image of pride and power,
Till the gathered rage of a thousand years,
Burst forth in one awful hour.

And then, a deluge of wrath, it came,
And the nations shook with dread;
And it swept the earth, till its fields were flame,
And piled with the mingled dead.
Kings were rolled in the wasteful flood,
With the low and crouching slave;
And together lay, in a shroud of blood,
The coward and the brave.

NOTES.--Roman legions. The Roman standard was the image of an eagle. The
soldiers swore by it, and the loss of it was considered a disgrace.

One awful hour. Alluding to the destruction of Rome by the northern
barbarians.

LXVII. POLITICAL TOLERATION. (253)

Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, the third President of the United States, and
the author of the Declaration of Independence, was born in Albemarle
County, Virginia. He received most of his early education under private
tutors, and at the age of seventeen entered William and Mary College,
where he remained two years. At college, where he studied industriously,
he formed the acquaintance of several distinguished men, among them was
George Wythe, with whom he entered on the study of law. At the age of
twenty-four he was admitted to the bar, and soon rose to high standing in
his profession. In 1775 he entered the Colonial Congress, having
previously served ably in the legislature of his native state. Although
one of the youngest men in Congress, he soon took a foremost place in that
body. He left Congress in the fall of 1776, and, as a member of the
legislature, and later as Governor of Virginia, he was chiefly
instrumental in effecting several important reforms in the laws of that
state,--the most notable were the abolition of the law of primogeniture,
and the passage of a law making all religious denominations equal. From
1785 to 1789 he was Minister to France. On his return to America he was
made Secretary of State, in the first Cabinet. While in this office, he
became the leader of the Republican or Anti-Federalist party, in
opposition to the Federalist party led by Alexander Hamilton. From 1801 to
1809 he was President. On leaving his high office, he retired to his
estate at "Monticello," where he passed the closing years of his life, and
died on the 4th of July, just fifty years after the passage