o be Romans
who would otherwise be Sybarites. But I would say, that times of public
danger, as they call into circulation the miser's hoard and the proud
man's bullion, and so add to the circulating wealth of the country,
do also call into action many a brave and noble spirit, which would
otherwise lie torpid, give no example to the living, and bequeath no
name to future ages. Society knows not, and cannot know, the mental
treasures which slumber in her bosom, till necessity and opportunity
call forth the statesman and the soldier from the shades of lowly
life to the parts they are designed by Providence to perform, and the
stations which nature had qualified them to hold. So rose Oliver--so
rose Milton--so rose many another name which cannot be forgotten--even
as the tempest summons forth and displays the address of the mariner."

"You speak," said Peveril, "as if national calamity might be, in some
sort, an advantage."

"And if it were not so," replied Bridgenorth, "it had not existed in
this state of trial, where all temporal evil is alleviated by something
good in its progress or result, and where all that is good is close
coupled with that which is in itself evil."

"It must be a noble sight," said Julian, "to behold the slumbering
energies of a great mind awakened into energy, and to see it assume the
authority which is its due over spirits more meanly endowed."

"I once witnessed," said Bridgenorth, "something to the same effect;
and as the tale is brief, I will tell it you, if you will:--Amongst
my wanderings, the Transatlantic settlements have not escaped me; more
especially the country of New England, into which our native land has
shaken from her lap, as a drunkard flings from him his treasures, so
much that is precious in the eyes of God and of His children. There
thousands of our best and most godly men--such whose righteousness might
come of cities--are content to be the inhabitants of the desert, rather
encountering the unenlightened savages, than stooping to extinguish,
under the oppression practised in Britain, the light that is within
their own minds. There I remained for a time, during the wars which the
colony maintained with Philip, a great Indian Chief, or Sachem, as they
were called, who seemed a messenger sent from Satan to buffet them.
His cruelty was great--his dissimulation profound; and the skill
and promptitude with which he maintained a destructive and desultory
warfare, inflicted many