MacMillans Reading Books - Book V | Page 6

of civic heroes Bared in Freedom's holy cause.
Yours are Hampden's Russell's glory, Sydney's matchless shade is your,-- Martyrs in heroic story, Worth a thousand Agincourts!
We're the sons of sires that baffled Crown'd and mitred tyranny: They defied the field and scaffold, For their birthrights--so will we.
CAMPBELL.

[Notes: Thomas Campbell, born 1777, died 1844. Author of the 'Pleasures of Hope,' 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' and many lyrics. His poetry is careful, scholarlike and polished. Men whose undegenerate spirit, &c. In prose, this would run, "(Ye) men whose spirit has been proved (to be) undegenerate," &c. The word "undegenerate," which is introduced only as an epithet, is the real predicate of the sentence.
By the foes ye've fought uncounted. "Uncounted" agreeing with "foes."
Fruitless wreaths of fame. A poetical figure, taken from the wreaths of laurel given as prizes in the ancient games of Greece. "Past history will give fame to a country, but nothing more fruitful than fame, unless its virtues are kept alive."
Trophied temples, i.e., Temples hung (after the fashion of the ancients) with trophies.
Arch, i.e., the triumphal arch erected by the Romans in honour of victorious generals.
Pageants = "these are nought but pageants."
And (for) the beasts of civic heroes. Civic heroes, those who have striven for the rights of their fellow citizens.
Hampden, i.e., John Hampden (born 1594, died 1643), the maintainer of the rights of the people in the reign of Charles I. He resisted the imposition of ship-money, and died in a skirmish at Chalgrove during the Civil War.
Russell, i.e., Lord William Russell, beheaded in 1683, in the reign of Charles II. on a charge of treason. He had resisted the Court in its aims at establishing the doctrine of passive obedience.
Sydney, i.e., Algernon Sydney. The friend of Russell, who met with the same fate in the same year.
Sydney's matchless shade. Shade = spirit or memory.
Agincourt. The victory won by Henry V. in France, in 1415.
Crown'd and mitred tyranny. Explain this.]

* * * * *

BARBABA S----.
On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743, just as the clock had struck one, Barbara S----, with her accustomed punctuality, ascended the long, rabbling staircase, with awkward interposed landing-places, which led to the office, or rather a sort of box with a desk in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of the Old Bath Theatre. All over the island it was the custom, and remains so I believe to this day, for the players to receive their weekly stipend on the Saturday. It was not much that Barbara had to claim.
This little maid had just entered her eleventh year; but her important station at the theatre, as it seemed to her, with the benefits which she felt to accrue from her pious application of her small earnings, had given an air of womanhood her steps and to her behaviour. You would have taken her to have been at least five years older. Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses, or where children were wanted to fill up the scene. But the manager, observing a diligence and adroitness in her above her age, had for some few months past intrusted to her the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-consequence of the promoted Barbara.
* * * * *
The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circumstances. The father had practised, I believe, as an apothecary in the town. But his practice, from causes for which he was himself to blame, or perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies some people in their walk through life, and which it is impossible to lay at the door of imprudence, was now reduced to nothing. They were, in fact, in the very teeth of starvation, when the manager, who knew and respected them in better days, took the little Barbara into his company.
At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings were the sole support of the family, including two younger sisters. I must throw a veil over some mortifying circumstances. Enough to say, that her Saturday's pittance was the only chance of a Sunday's meal of meat.
This was the little starved, meritorious maid, stood before old Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's payment. Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical people besides herself say, of all men least calculated for a treasurer. He had no head for accounts, paid away at random, kept scarce any books, and summing up at the week's end, if he found himself a pound or so deficient, blest himself that it was no more.
Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half-guinea. By mistake he popped into her hand a whole one.
Barbara tripped away.
She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake: God knows, Ravenscroft would never have discovered it.
But when she had got down to the first of those uncouth landing-places she became sensible of an