"Listen to my words, O people of Rome! I who heretofore have never been deceitful, who have never either betrayed or sold my honour; who boast an ignoble origin, but a noble heart! hear me. This innocent free maid is daughter of Virginius. At such a name, I see your eyes flash with resplendent fire. Virginius is fighting for you in the field: think on the depravity of the times; meanwhile, exposed to shame, the victim of outrage, his daughter remains in Rome. And who outrages her? Come forward, O Marcus! show yourself. Why tremble you? He is well known to you: the last slave of the tyrant Appius and his first minister--of Appius, the mortal enemy of every virtue--of Appius, the haughty, stern, ferocious oppressor, who his ravished from you your freedom, and, to embitter the robbery, has left you your lives. Virginia is my promised bride: I love her. Who I am, I need not say: some one may perhaps remind you. I was your tribune, your defender; but in vain. You trusted rather the deceitful words of another than my free speech. We now suffer, in common slavery, the pain of your delusion. Why do I say more? The heart, the arm, the boldness of Icilius is known to you not less than the name. From you I demand my free bride. This man does not ask her: he styles her slave--he drags her, he forces her. Icilius or Marcus is a liar: say, Romans, which it is."[8] That Schiller was a great dramatic and lyric poet, need be told to none who have the slightest acquaintance with European literature; but his great oratorical powers are not so generally appreciated, for they have been lost in the blaze of his poetic genius. They were, however, of the very highest order, as will at once appear from the following translation (imperfect as it, of course, is) in prose, which we have attempted of the celebrated speeches of Shrewsbury and Burleigh, who discussed before Queen Elizabeth the great question of Queen Mary's execution, in his noble tragedy of _Maria Stuart_:-- SHREWSBURY.