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Majesty," replies Blount, "has been correctly informed; I admire my father's conduct." "What!" says James, "in opposing his king?" Blount quickly answered, "A king, my liege, is the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth, and is so hereditarily while he obeys the laws of that Commonwealth, whose power he represents; but when he usurps the direction of that power, he is king no longer, and such was the case with your royal father." With a scowl of defiance on his face, King James left the Freethinker, and sought more congenial company; and as Anne Rogers told the story, each eye was dimmed with tears. The moon had risen high in the heavens ere the mourners prepared to depart--the first streaks of dawn broke through the Eastern sky, and revealed the grave watered with tears, where the most chivalrous Freethinker of his age reposed, in that sleep which knows of no awakening. "A. C." PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Percy Bysshe Shelley (the son and heir of a wealthy English baronet, Sir Timothy Shelley, of Castle Goring, in the county of Sussex) was born at Field Place, near Horsham, in that county, on the 4th of August, 1792. Ushered into the world in the midst of wealth and fashion, with all the advantages of family distinction, the future of Shelley's life appeared a bright one; but the sunshine of the morning only served to render the darkness which came over his noontide more dark, and to make poor Shelley still more susceptible of the hardships he had to encounter. First educated at Eton, his spirit there manifested itself by an unflinching opposition to the fagging system, and by revolt against the severe discipline of the school; in his "Revolt of Islam" Shelley has thus portrayed his feeling:-- "I do remember well the hour which burst My spirit's sleep; a fresh May dawn it was When I walked forth upon the glittering grass And wept, I knew not why: until there rose From the near school-room voices that, alas! Were but one echo from a world of woes, The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. And then I clasped my hands and looked around, And none was near to mock my streaming eyes, Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground; So, without shame, I spake--' I will be wise, And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power, for I grow weary to behold The selfish, and the strong still tyrannize Without reproach or chec
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