too many cases, in which the interest of one is not considered as the interest of the other. Should these conflict, if the judiciary be gone, the question is no longer of law, but of force. This is a state of things which no honest and wise man can view without horror. Suppose, in the omnipotence of your legislative authority, you trench upon the rights of your fellow-citizens, by passing an unconstitutional law: If the judiciary department preserve its vigour, it will stop you short: Instead of a resort to arms, there will be a happier appeal to argument. Suppose a case still more impressive. The President is at the head of your armies. Let one of his generals, flushed with victory, and proud in command, presume to trample on the rights of your most insignificant citizen: Indignant of the wrong, he will demand the protection of your tribunals, and safe in the shadow of their wings, will laugh his oppressor to scorn. The gentleman from Virginia has mentioned a great nation brought to the feet of one of her servants. But why is she in that situation? Is it not because popular opinion was called on to decide every thing, until those who wore bayonets decided for all the rest? Qur situation is peculiar. At present our national compact can prevent a state from acting hostilely towards the general interest. But let this compact be destroyed, and each state becomes instantaneously vested with absolute sovereignty. Is there no instance of a similar situation to be found in history? Look at the states of Greece. They were once in a condition not unlike to that in which we should then stand. They treated the recommendations of their Amphictionic Council (which was more a meeting of am bassadors than a legislative assembly) as we did the resolutions of the old Congress. Are we wise? So were they. Are we valiant? They also were brave. Have we one common language, and are we united under one head? In this also there was a strong resemblance. But, by their divisions, they became at first victims to the ambition of Philip, and were at length swallowed up in the Roman empire. Are we to form an exception to the general principles of human nature, and to all the examples of history? And are the maxims of experience to become false, when applied to our fate? Some, indeed, flatter themselves, that our destiny will be like that of Rome. Such indeed it might be, if we had the same wise, but vile aristocracy, under whose guidance they became the masters of the world. But we have not that strong aristocratic arm, which can seize a wretched citizen, scourged almost to death by a remorseless creditor, turn him into the ranks, and bid him, as a soldier, bear our Eagles in triumph round the globe! I hope to God we shall never have such an abominable institution. But what, I ask, will be the situation of these states (organized as they now are) if by the dissolution of our national compact, they be left to themselves? What is the probable result? We shall either be the victims of foreign intrigue, and split into factions, fall under the domination of a foreign power, or else, after the misery and torment of civil war, become the subjects of a usurping military despot. What but this compact' What but this specific part of it, can save us from ruin? The judicial power, that fortress of the constitution, is now to be overturned. Yes, with honest Ajax, I would not only throw a shield before it, I would build around it a wall of brass. But I am too weak to defend the rampart against the host of assailants—I must call to my assistance their good sense, their patriotism, and their virtue.- -Do not, gentlemen, suffer the rage of passion to drive reason from her seat. If this law be indeed bad, let us join to remedy the defects. Has it been passed in a manner which wounded your pride, or roused your resentment? Have, I conjure you, the magnanimity to pardon that offence. I entreat, I implore you, to sacrifice those angry passions to the interests of our country. Pour out this pride of opinion on the altar of patriotism. Let it be an expiatory libation for the weal of America. Do not, for God's sake, do not suffer that pride to plunge us all into the abyss of ruin. Indeed, indeed, it will be but of little, very little avail, whether one opinion or the other be right or wrong; it will heal no wounds, it will pay no debts, it will rebuild no ravaged towns. Do not rely on that popular will, which has brought us, frail beings, into political existence. That opinion is but a changeable thing. It will soon change. This very measure will change it. You will be deceived. Do not, I beseech you, in reliance on a foundation so frail, commit the dignity, the harmony, the exist ence of our nation to the wild wind.Trust not your treausure to the waves. Throw not your compass and your charts into the ocean. Do not believe that its billows will waft you into port. Indeed, indeed, you will be deceived. Cast not away this only anchor of our safety. I have seen its progress. I know the difficulties through which it was obtained: I stand in the presence of Almighty God, and of the world; and I declare to you, if you lose this. charter, never! no, never will you get another! We are now, perhaps, arrived at the parting point. Here, even here, we stand on the brink of fate. Pause-Pause-For Heaven's sake Pause !! The difficulty of extracting, and the wish to give variety to our selections, of eloquent and tasteful compositions, must be our excuse for not quoting from the ether able speeches made on this occasion. We will, therefore, now offer an extract from the inaugural oration of His Excellency John Quincy Adams, our present minister at the court of St. James, delivered by him, at his installation as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, in the University of Cambridge. In the course of a history of the progress of Rhetoric and Oratory, the learned Professor thus indulges the enthusiasm of a scholar : sacrifices of paganism to her three hundred. thousand gods, amidst her sagacious and solemn consultations over the entrails of slaughtered brutes, on the flight of birds, and the feeding of fowls, it had never entered her imagination to call upon the pontiff, the haruspex, or the augur, for discourses to the Maker, their fellow-mortals, and themselves. people, on the nature of their duties to their This was an idea, too august to be mingled with the absurd and ridiculous, or profligate and barbarous rites of her deplorable superkind are indebted to christianity; introduced stition. It is an institution, for which manby the Founder himself of this divine religion, and in every point of view worthy of its high original. Its effects have been to mankind; not in so high a degree as benesoften the tempers and purify the morals of volence could wish, but enough to call forth our strains of warmest gratitude to that good At the revival of letters in modern Europe, being, who provides us with the means of eloquence, together with her sister muses, promoting our own felicity, and gives us awoke, and shook the poppies from her brow. power to stand, though leaving us free to fall. But their torpors still tingled in her veins. In Here then is an unbounded and inexhaustible the interval her voice was gone; her favour- field for eloquence, never explored by the ite languages were extinct; her organs were ancient orators; and here alone have the no longer tuned to harmony, and her hearers modern Europeans cultivated the art with could no longer understand her speech. The much success. In vain should we enter the discordant jargon of feudal anarchy had halls of justice, in vain should we listen to banished the musical dialects, in which she the debates of senates for strains of oratory, had always delighted. The theatres of her worthy of remembrance, beyond the duraformer triumphs were either deserted, or tion of the occasion, which called them forth. they were filled with the babblers of sophistry The art of embalming thought by oratory, and chicane. She shrunk intuitively from like that of embalming bodies by aromatics, the forum; for the last object she remembered would have perished, but for the exercises of to have seen there was the head of her dar- religion. These alone have in the latter ages ling Cicero, planted upon the rostrum. She furnished discourses, which remind us, that ascended the tribunals of justice; there she eloquence is yet a faculty of the human found her child, Persuasion, manacled and mind. pinioned by the letter of the law; there she Sons of Harvard! You, who are ascending beheld an image of herself, stammering in with painful step and persevering toil the barbarous Latin, and struggling under the eminence of science, to prepare yourselves lumber of a thousand volumes. Her heart for the various functions and employments fainted within her. She lost all confidence of the world before you, it cannot be necesin herself. Together with her irresistible sary to urge upon you the importance of the powers, she lost proportionably the conside- art, concerning which I am speaking. Is it ration of the world, until, instead of com- the purpose of your future life to minister in prising the whole system of public education, the temples of Almighty God, to be the messbe found herself excluded from the circle of sciences, and declared an outlaw from the realms of learning. She was not however doomed to eternal silence. With the progress of freedom and of liberal science, in various parts of modern Europe, she obtained access to mingle in the deliberations of their parliaments. With labour and difficulty she learned their languages, and lent her aid in giving them form and polish. But she has never recovered the graces of her former beauty, nor the energies of her ancient vigour. * Religion indeed has opened one new avenue to the career of eloquence, Amidst the * sengers of heaven upon earth, to enlighten with the torch of eternal truth the path of your fellow-mortals to brighter worlds? Remember the reason, assigned for the appointment of Aaron to that ministry, which you purpose to assume upon yourself. I KNOW, THAT HE CAN SPEAK WELL; and, in this testimonial of Omnipotence, receive the injunction of your duty. Is it your intention to devote the labours of your maturity to the cause of justice; to defend the persons, the property, and the fame of your fellow citizens from the open assaults of violence, and the secret encroachments of fraud? Fill the fountains of your eloquence from inexhausti " ble sources, that their streams, when they shall begin to flow, may themselves prove in exhaustible. Is there among you a youth, whose bosom burns with the fires of honourable ambition; who aspires to immortalize his name by the extent and importance of his services to his country; whose visions of futurity glow with the hope of presiding in her couneils, of directing her affairs, of appearing to future ages on the rolls of fame, as her ornament and pride? Let him catch from the relics of ancient oratory those unresisted powers, which mould the mind of man to the will of the speaker, and yield the guidance of a pation to the dominion of the voice. Under governments purely republican, where every citizen has a deep interest in the affairs of the nation, and in some form of public assembly or other, has the means and opportunity of delivering his opinions, and of communicating his sentiments by speech; where government itself has no arins but those of persuasion; where prejudice has not acquired an uncontrolled ascendency, and faction is yet confined within the barriers of peace; the voice of eloquence will not be heard in vain. March then with firm, with steady, with undeviating step, to the prize of your high calling. Gather fragrance from the whole paradise of science, and learn to destil from your lips all the honies of persuasion. Consecrate, above all, the faculties of your life to the cause of truth, of freedom, and of humanity. So shall your country ever gladden at the sound of your voice, and every talent, added to your accomplishments, become another blessing to mankind. From some of the sentiments in the second paragraph, we must beg leave, with deference, to dissent; but no one, we apprehend, can fail to admire the fine spirit of clasic lore which lives and breathes through the whole passage. The following extracts are from the pen of as fine a genius, as accomplished à scholar, and as good a man, as ever graced our schools, or consecrated his talents to the pulpit. They are from an Address, pronounced by the Rev. J. S. Buckminster, before the Society of . B. K. of Harvard College, Cambridge, on the Dangers and Duties of men of letters. Every where there are dangers and evils, of which some affect the intellectual improvement, and others are uufavourable to the moral worth of literary men. In this country, especially, it too often happens, that the young man, who is to live by his talents, and to make the most of the name of a scholar, is tempted to turn his literary credit to the quickest account, by early making himself of consequence to the people, or rather to some of their factions. From the moment that he is found yielding himself up to their service, or hunting after a popular favour, his time, his studies, and his powers, yet in their bloom, are all lost to learning. Instead of giving his days and nights to the study of the profound masters of political wisdom, instead of patiently receiving the lessons of history and of practical philosophy, he prematurely takes a part in all the dissentions of the day. His leisure is wasted on the profligate productions of demagogues, and his curiosity bent on the minutiae of local politics. The consequence is, that his mind is so much dissipated, or his passions disturb. ed, that the quiet speculations of the scholar can no longer detain him. He hears at a distance the bustle of the Comitia-He rushes out of the grove of Egeria, and Numa and the muses call after him in vain. The infirmities of noble minds are often so consecrated by their greatness, that an unconscious imitation of their peculiarities, which are real defects, may sometimes be pardoned in their admirers. But to copy their vices, or to hunt in their works for those very lines, which, when dying, they would most wish to blot, is a different offence. I know of nothing in literature so unpardonable as this. He who poaches among the labours of the learned only to find what there is polluted in their language, or licentious in their works; he who searches the biography of men of genius to find precedents for his follies, or palliations of his own stupid depravity, can be compared to nothing more through the gallery of antiques, and every strongly than to the man, who should walk day gaze upon the Apollo, the Venus, or the Laocoon, and yet, proh pudor! bring away an imagination impressed with nothing but the remembrance that they were naked. I should be unfaithful to myself and to the subject, if I should leave it without mentioning it as the most solemn of our obligations as scholars, to take care that we give no currency to error or sanction to vice. Unfortu in the world; and when the mind has once nately, there is enough of corrupt literature begun to make that its poison, which ought to be its medicine, I know not how the soul is to be recovered, except by the power of God in his word. Scholars! I dare not say, that the cause of religion depends upon the fidelity of the learned; but I do say, that gratitude and every motive of virtue demand of you a reverence for the gospel. Protes tant Christianity has in former times given learning such support, as learning never can repay. The history of Christendom bears receive such praise, and from us, he witness to this. The names of Erasmus, of can equal or surpass. of science, who rise up like a wall of fire Grotius, of Bacon, and a host of luminaries With the plan of the valedictory, around the cause of Christianity, will bear immethodical and desultory as it is, witness to this. They cry out in the language we do not intend to find much fault, as of Tully; O vitae dux! o virtutis indagatrix, the occasion did not, perhaps, demand, expultrixque vitiorum! quid non modo nos, sed omnino vita hominum sine te esse potuis- though it certainly would have permitset. Without this for the guide and termi- ted a more systematic discourse. Sysnus of your studies, you may "but go down tem, however, does not appear to chahell, with a great deal of wisdom." My racterize the mind, or the efforts of Mr. friends, infidelity has had one triumph in our Sampson. He is, we think, better caldays; and we have seen learning, as well as virtue, trampled under the hoofs of its infu- culated to produce effect by a succes riated steeds, let loose by the hand of impie- sion of animated sallies, than regular ty. Fanaticism, too, has had more than one and well-elaborated trains of thought. day of desolation; and its consequences have We do not deny him talents, but we think been such, as ought always to put learning on its guard. Remember, then, the place them active, rather than profound, and where we have been educated, and the pious apprehend he is happier in catching rebounty which has enriched it for our sakes! semblances, than in marking differenThink of the ancestors who have transmitted to us our Christian liberties! Nay, bear the voice of posterity, pleading with you for her peace, and beseeching you not to send down your names, stained with profligacy and irreligion. Ces. He is much more imaginative than logical, and has more generosity of sentiment, and warmth of feeling, than justness of thought and comprehensiveness of views. We have not room for any further The faults of the production before. extracts, but these are sufficient to show us, however, appertain more to the the manly modes of thinking and speak- manner, than the matter; for the mat ing that distinguish wise and able men, ter is, on the whole, very generally corwhen engaged on important subjects, and must forever cast into the shade the effeminate and tricked-out style of modern sentimentalists, whether at the bar or before popular assemblies. 66 rect, while the manner is radically bad, and the language abounds with offences against taste. As a specimen of the former, in our opinion, the best in the address, we refer to the account Mr. We, perhaps, ought to apologize to Sampson gives of the truly great orator. the author of the Valedictory," for There is some repugnance among the placing him by the side of such men, ideas even in this, but they appear to with whom, we are persuaded, his have arisen principally from a want of modesty would never allow him to com- patience in qualifying and finishing pare himself, even to his own disadvan- off his thoughts, if we may so say, tage. We can only say that we should and as it is the most striking passage not have done it, if we had not wished in the oration, we will copy most of it. to excite and fix on good models, the "The great orator," says Mr. Sampattention of those among us, whose am- son, "is the great man of real life, bition it may be to add their names to and [is] born for action. A daring spithe catalogue of those, who have con- rit, a decisive will, give impulse to the tributed by their eloquence to the glo- convictions of his mind. His argury of their country, while we were ments may be like the bow of Ulysses warning them against the bad taste of in the hands of common meu, but in his that description of rhetoric of which own, impel the shaft to the feather in Mr. Sampson seems to think most high- the mark. The whole character of his His eloly, and which it appears to be his wish mind is vehement reason. to imitate; nay, which, we think, if it quence is not the display of sentiment, were any object with Mr. Sampson te er the subtility of disputation, but the Vǝl, 1, No. III. 2 A He may, perhaps, resemble the orator, when he " flings his brush at the picture," but, though we well remember the story of the great Italian, we doubt whether a whole picture, attempted in this way, would exhibit much correctness of drawing, or truth of expression. burst of feeling, and the flash of mind description of the true orator, in other that carries conviction. His true cha- instances, whose "imagination is not racteristic is force, and he delights to the fancy of the poet, loving to repose exert it. He does not seek to delight among its own visions; who trusts not to his hearers, but to hurry them into ac- the glow of his colours, and does not go tion. Doubt and dismay vanish at his in pursuit of tropes and figures." look, feebler minds pay homage to the energy of his character, and, clinging to his protection, take their opinions from his eye, and acquire courage in the thunder of his voice. The tragic passions, terror and pity, are the springs of his eloquence, and inaccessible to any but the loftiest impulses of our nature, he ever assumes the noblest sentiments as Among the specimens of incongruous furnishing motives to action." The fore- figures, we notice the following. "The going is more of an abstract than an ex- spirit of the dove," Mr. Sampson says, tract, though it is all in Mr. Sampson's (p. 7.) " descending upon our underlanguage. We have only laid out of standings, brings with it, in its wings, the picture those parts which injured the sublime emotions of a mysterious the likeness and deformed the symme- faith." Now, part of this figure is spitry, and offer it as an accurate and ritual, and part material, and therefore well drawn miniature, or rather sketch mixed and absurd; and whether the of a great orator. There is, throughout dove be "in the body, or out of the the whole of this composition, a most body, we cannot tell." If "out of the ravening appetite for tropes, and figures, body," if the spirit of the dove, that is, and epithets, and in almost every in- the moral qualities thus frequently destance of metaphor and simile, there is scribed, be intended as the carrier of an incongruity, while his epithets are, too the emotions, then the carrier is identioften, applied without much discrimi- fied with what is carried; and if " in nation, making tautology, or weakening the body," if the dove itself be meant the force of the sentence. A principal to be the carrier, then, we do not think ingredient of strength is simplicity. It she could light upon the understanding, is a great mistake to suppose that an which, moreover, is not the proper reaccumulation of epithets, is an increase cipient of emotions. Besides, we do of energy. They more often encum- not understand how emotions can be carber than invigorate, and when injudi- ried in a pair of wings; if Mr. Sampciously employed, like scaffolding round son had said motions, we should have a tower, they obscure the meaning and understood him. A little lower, on the degrade the majesty of the simple sub- same page, there is a hand grasping at a stantive. thrill, and a dimming eye is affirmed to Nouns of importance, those on which beam with hope; which last clause has the sentence mainly depends, are much another inaccuracy, the use of dimming like genuine female beauty, "when in a neuter sense, when it is always an unadorn'd, adorn'd the most." Mr. active participle. We do not perceive, Sampson, according to his own decision, furthermore, the propriety of raising a would scarcely make an eloquent storm on the mountains and along shore, preacher, for in the pulpit, eloquence in order to exhibit the intrepidity and is seen not in the vain pomp of words;" skill of a helm's-man at sea; nor can we nor would be suit the senate entirely, well imagine how the same individual -for there, " eloquence assumes a grave can rise upon the wave, and ride aspect;" nor does he answer to his own upon the storm," and all the while have |