1 RO W to br CF W of the youthful | mind and heart of the nation. Their gathered | to m RO 1 RO voices | assert the eternal | truth that, in a Republic, ignorance | RO is a crime; and that private | immorality is not less an opprobrium to the state than it is guilt | in the pèrpetrator. 59. CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.-Charles Phillips. Sir, it matters very little what immediate spot may have been the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had past, how pure was the climate that it cleared! how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! In the production of Washington it does really appear as if Nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances, no doubt, there were, splendid exemplifications of some single qualification: Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and, like the lovely masterpiece of the Grecian artist, to exhibit, in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model and the perfection of every master. As a general, he marshaled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied, by discipline, the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views and the philosophy of his counsels, that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage! A conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command. Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens, or her soldiers, her heroes, or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism! 60. DESTINY OF AMERICA.-Charles Phillips. Search creation round, where can you find a country that presents so sublime a view, so interesting an anticipation? Who shall say for what purpose mysterious Providence may not have designed her! Who shall say that when in its follies or its crimes, the old world may have buried all the pride of its power, and all the pomp of its civilization, human nature may not find its destined renovation in the new! When its temples and its trophies shall have mouldered into dust,-when the glories of its name shall be but the legend of tradition, and the light of its achievements live only in song, philosophy will revive again in the sky of her Franklin, and glory rekindle at the urn of her Washington. Is this the vision of romantic fancy? Is it even improbable? I appeal to history! Tell me, thou reverend chronicler of the grave, can all the illusions of ambition realized, can all the wealth of a universal commerce, can all the achievements of successful heroism, or all the establishments of this world's wisdom, secure to empire the permanency of its possessions? Alas, Troy thought so once; yet the land of Priam lives only in song! Thebes thought so once; yet her hundred gates have crumbled, and her very tombs are but as the dust they were vainly intended to commemorate! So thought Palmyra—where is she! So thought the countries of Demosthenes and the Spartan; yet Leonidas is trampled by the timid slave, and Athens insulted by the servile, mindless, and enervate Ottoman! In his hurried march, Time has but looked at their imagined. immortality, and all its vanities, from the palace to the tomb, have, with their ruins, erased the very impression of his footsteps! The days of their glory are as if they had never been; and the island that was then a speck, rude and neglected, in the barren ocean, now rivals the ubiquity of their commerce, the glory of their arms, the fame of their philosophy, the eloquence of their senate, and the inspiration of their bards! Who shall say, then, contemplating the past, that England, proud and potent as she appears, may not one day be what Athens is, and the young America yet soar to be what Athens was! Who shall say, when the European column shall have mouldered, and the night of barbarism obscured its very ruins, that that mighty continent may not emerge from the horizon, to rule, for its time, sovereign of the ascendant! 61. EULOGY ON LAFAYETTE.-Edward Everett. There have been those who have denied to Lafayette the name of a great man. What is greatness? Does goodness belong to greatness, and make an essential part of it? If it does, who, I would ask, of all the prominent names in history, has run through such a career with so little reproach, justly or unjustly bestowed? Are military courage and conduct the measure of greatness? Lafayette was intrusted by Washington with all kinds of service,- the laborious and complicated, which required skill and patience; the perilous, that demanded nerve: and we see him performing all with entire success and brilliant reputation. Is the readiness to meet vast responsibilities a proof of greatness? The memoirs of Mr. Jefferson show us that there was a moment, in 1789, when Lafayette took upon himself, as the head of the military force, the entire responsibility of laying down the basis of the Revolution. Is the cool and brave administration of gigantic power a mark of greatness? In all the whirlwind of the Revolution, and when, as commander-in-chief of the National Guard, an organized force of three millions of men, who, for any popular purpose, needed but a word, a look, to put them in motion, we behold him ever calm, collected, disinterested; as free from affectation as selfishness; clothed not less with humility than with power. Is the voluntary return, in advancing years, to the direction of affairs, at a moment like that, when, in 1815, the ponderous machinery of the French Empire was flying asunder,- stunning, rending, crushing thousands on every side,—a mark of greatness? Lastly, is it any proof of greatness to be able, at the age of seventythree, to take the lead in a successful and bloodless revolution; to change the dynasty; to organize, exercise and abdicate a military command of three and a half millions of men; to take up, to perform, and lay down the most momentous, delicate, and perilous duties, without passion, without hurry, without selfishness? Is it great to disregard the bribes of title, office, money; to live, to labor and suffer for great public ends alone; to adhere to principle under all circumstances; to stand before Europe and America conspicuous, for sixty years, in the most responsible stations, the acknowledged admiration of all good men? There is not, throughout the world, a friend of liberty who has not dropped his head when he has heard that Lafayette is no more. Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, the South American republics -- every country where man is struggling to recover his birthright,- have lost a benefactor, a patron, in Lafayette. And what was it, fellowcitizens, which gave to our Lafayette his spotless fame? The love of liberty. What has consecrated his memory in the hearts of good men? The love of liberty. What nerved his youthful arm with strength, and inspired him, in the morning of his days, with sagacity and counsel? The living love of liberty. To what did he sacrifice power, and rank, and country, and freedom itself? To the horror of licentiousness, to the sanctity of plighted faith,-to the love of liberty protected by law. Thus the great principle of your Revolutionary fathers, and of your Pilgrim sires, was the rule of his life-the love of liberty protected by law. 62. THE TRUE KINGS OF THE EARTH.-John Ruskin. Mighty of heart, mighty of mind—“ magnanimous "to be this is indeed to be great in life; to become this unceasingly is indeed to "advance in life "-in life itself— not in the trappings of it. Do you remember that old Scythian custom? How, when the head of a house died, he was dressed in his finest dress, and set in his chariot, and carried about to his friends' houses; and each of them placed him at his table's head, and all feasted in his presence. Suppose it were offered to you in plain words, as it is offered to you in dire facts, that you should gain this Scythian honor, gradually, while you yet thought yourself alive. Suppose the offer were this: You shall die slowly; your blood shall daily grow cold, your flesh petrify, your heart beat at last only as a rusty group of iron valves. Your life shall fade from you, and sink through the earth into the ice of Caina; but, day by day, your body shall |