children, save such as his warm heart has adopted. The Hermitage is, indeed, filled with devoted friends, and is resorted to by almost worshipping crowds. The regard of an admiring world still follows him in his retirement. His eye is still open and intent to discern the progress of events, and the growing greatness of his country. His heart still throbs with its accustomed pulse of patriotism, and with his youthful love of freedom. Every foot of our national domain, every point of our national honour, every star and stripe in our country's flag, is as dear to his heart as when, in the ardour of young blood, he devoted himself to the cause of America. But, nevertheless, his few remaining years are years of quiet meditation and communion with his God. Another world is dawning on his vision. His heart is holding converse with spiritual truth. THE INFINITE, with its endless being, its illimitable extent, its immeasureable power-that grand idea, before which the soul of the greatest stands reverent and humble-that Infinite, and he, the greatest of living men, are now face to face; and Jackson bows down before the presence of his GOD, as a little child in his docility and meekness-as a little child in his love of faith.

In his sick room, behold his constant companion in that wellthumbed Bible! From his evening solitude, hearken to the accents of his prayer! Around his dying pillow, give ear to those words of comfort and those ejaculations of Christian joy and hope that fall from his venerable lips. "Do not weep," said he to those who beheld his bodily anguish, "my sufferings are less than those of Christ upon the cross!"

The hero's last hour has come, in the stillness of the Sabbath, in the sweetness of early summer, in the presence of all who are dearest to his affectionate heart. He speaks to them of the goodness and glory of God; of the love and atonement of Jesus; of the joys of heaven. And now, as his family cluster around him, and the last breath flutters upon his lips, he exclaims, "Dear children, servants, and friends, I trust to meet you all in heaven, both white and black-all, both white and black;" and with this affectionate farewell, the spirit of him, "the foremost man of all this world,” escapes to immortality!

"Socrates died like a philosopher" but it was the happier lot of Jackson to die like a Christian. Fit consummation to a life like his. Devoted for nearly eighty years to the cause of the republic, his dying breath bears witness to the truth of that religion on which alone the republic can safely found its institutions. His life is its own best monument-his own best eulogy. It sprang from the dark valley of obscurity, like the peaks of his favourite Alleghanies from the valleys of the west, into the sight and the admiration of a world -rough, rugged, and sublime, piercing through every cloud, it towered aloft till its summit was bathed in the light of Heaven.

EULOGY

DELIVERED AT WILKESBARRE, PA., JULY 4, 1845,

BY THE

HON. HENDRICK B. WRIGHT.

FELLOW CITIZENS :-The Roman triumvir said in Cæsar's funeral "that he came to bury Cæsar, not to praise him." He knew too well that the trophies, recent in the recollection of the people, which graced the car of the mighty conqueror, in the triumphal entry into the gates of the imperial city, required at his hands no eulogy. The history of the great warrior was fully recorded on the battle fields of the whole Roman empire. The subjugated nations which acknowledged the Roman empire, and which, by the law of arms, were made tributary to it, were matters familiar to the lowest classes of citizens. The meanest scavenger who swept the streets of Rome, knew "Great Cæsar,” and could recount his history-and when Mark Antony desired to obtain the public ear, to have commenced by telling the people that he was going to speak in praise of him, while they were as well acquainted with the subject as the speaker himself, would have been but poorly calculated to command their attention. He therefore said, “He came to bury Cæsar." He came to bestow the rights of sepultureto tender the last offices to the distinguished and illustrious dead.

On this day, and in the hearing of this audience, no finesse is required on my part, in reference to the subject and the occasion that have called us together, to obtain from you a patient and attentive hearing. It is true, we come to bury the illustrious dead; but also to speak of his many virtues-his valour, and his love of country.

I see collected before me, old age, supported by the tottering staff; vigorous and matured manhood; and buoyant and elastic youth; men who belong to the two great political parties of the land, are here; but they come here under no flags and banners of partisan devices. A call has summoned us together; 'tis the funeral dirge, which announces to us that one of the nation's great men has gone

to the receptacle of the dead. That spot, sacred (at least), because it terminates the warm and excited feelings of political strife; sacred, because the tenant in his winding sheet is relieved from the throes which too frequently lacerate the bleeding heart by the obstacles which are reared up by emulous ambition! Sacred, because, however much the living man may be censured and condemned, who has the temerity to assail the dead?

We come here, on this, our nation's birth-day, as the children of one parental government; with one mind, and one object only; sons of the same soil; supporters of the same republican liberty, and endowed with the same equal and unalienable rights, to show our respect, and bear honourable testimonial to the memory of a man, who, through all the vicissitudes of an eventful life, has ever been found, in peace or war, between his enemies and the altar of our common country.

With such opinions, then, on the part of those whom it is my pleasure to address, I can assure you in all sincerity, I feel an honest pride and gratification, of which the power of speech can convey but a vague and indefinite notion. It presents a grand moral and instructive spectacle, that, although the nation is bereaved of one of its brightest ornaments, there is a consolation foreign to most governments on the globe, that the individual sympathies of that nation are most sensibly and keenly manifested. It is alike honourable to the American heart and American character. It affords most ample evidence that the republican simplicity of our constitution and laws, operate upon the finest feelings of the heart, and produce a generosity that is strictly national in its complexion, and elsewhere unknown.

It is a matter of profound congratulation, and of the deepest moment to our country, that among all the distinguished generals and statesmen who, from time to time, have been invested with command in the field, or at the head of the government in its civil regulations, with but one or two exceptions, they have proved true to the great cause of republican freedom, and civil and religious liberty. During the great struggle of the Revolution, there was but one Arnold, and his fame is eternal infamy. During the late war, there was but one Hull. Cowardice was the crime of thistreason of that one, and as regards the national fame, or their own, there is but little to choose between the two. The example of lofty and sincere patriotism set by Washington, reached. the subordinate as well as the ranks; and the examples of Hancock, and Adams, and Jefferson, and Franklin, and Henry, in the councils of the nation, were of such a stamp and character, as to leave their impress upon the whole American people. They lived for their country; and rather than soil the escutcheon of the nation's flag, they were ready at all times to offer up their lives.

That matchless instrument which has just been repeated in your hearing, shows by its language the determination of its framers, and the actions of the men corresponded fully with the nature and tone of the instrument itself. The pledge to the cause of their "lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honours," was no idle boast-no vain and unmeaning cant.

The same patriotism which kindled up the hearts of the colonists in 1776, to a blaze, was equally manifest in 1812, and the sons of the heroes of the former war proved most conclusively that their ancestors' blood coursed through their veins. How widely different has been the fate of other nations. Bonaparte was the volunteer of a republic, and at the outset of his brilliant career in arms, held himself out to France and the world, as an advocate of representative government; but with unlimited success, these notions, if he ever seriously entertained them, vanished with the rapidity of the succession of his victories, and when the government of France changed rulers it was under the name of a consularship; but for no other reason than to allay the tide of the popular commotion. It was in fact a dynasty—and a little more assurance, and the accumulation of a little more power, made the consul an emperor. Simon Bolivar, more recently, was dignified by the high-sounding title of Liberator, but who, after the sceptre of power passed into his hands, heard of his republican principles or acts? Till power was obtained he was for a free government-when obtained he became a tyrant. The same results have almost uniformly attended the efforts of every people to become free but our own. And do I assume too much in imputing the cause, in our case, to the stern virtues of the men who commanded our armies and achieved our victories? They were honest. Their subsequent conduct corresponded with their professions. Republicans at the commencement -republicans at the end! In power, and out of it the same stern and unbending patriots.

Probably among them all, this spirit was not more manifest than in the exalted character whose death has brought us together on this occasion. Because, however much the nation may be divided as to some of the leading measures of his administration, and the effect they are to produce hereafter-there is but one opinion as to his long and successful career as a soldier. And that opinion is recorded deep and lasting on the hearts of his grateful countrymen-an opinion that finds a ready response on every tongue-that the laurels that covered the brow of the hero, and which will grow green for ever-were the honest reward of true merit, and about which there is no dispute. This feature in the life of Andrew Jackson, together with all others, has now become a part, and an important part of the history of the age in which he lived-and let me say, there are few indeed, during that time, who will occu

py so full a page. Nor will I confine the assertion I have made to the narrow limits of the lines which designate the width and breadth of the United States of America-no indeed. His fame as a great captain, and most accomplished and brave soldier has extended "to the utmost limits of the civilized world." And by common consent, in all nations, professing civilization, the name of Andrew Jackson will be classed among the most distinguished generals of ancient or modern history.

The space of time for an exercise, like the present, will not allow me to go into detail. A glance at the most distinguished events in the life of this individual must answer the occasion. Andrew Jackson was born on the 15th of March, 1767, in what was then the colony of South Carolina, whither his father, an emigrant from Ireland, had settled some years anterior to that date. Thrown into life at a time when the long and angry disputes about taxation and the right of representation, between the colonies and the mother country were fast approaching a crisis by an appeal to arms— and at a time, too, when the aggressions of Great Britain were the subject and theme of conversation in all circles and upon all occasions, it is not a matter of surprise that his youthful mind was strongly operated upon by those aggressions.

At the age of fourteen, we find the youthful soldier armed, and fighting for his country. The school-books give place to the musket and bayonet; and the retirement of domestic life to the bustle and turmoil of the camp. Taken a prisoner of war, and treated with all the rigour and harshness which signalized the Southern campaign, over any other portion of the country, it helped to mature and cherish those feelings of a strong love of country, which his whole life exhibited in after times, as well as a most inveterate dislike of his country's foes. All are familiar with the insult offered him by a British officer in directing him to perform a menial service, and an indignant refusal of which very nearly cost him his life. His arm received the sabre which was directed at his head. The same brutal treatment caused the death of his only surviving brother, who was in confinement with him at the time, whose life was the forfeit for refusing to discharge the mean drudgery of the British camp. His elder brother having fallen in battle, Andrew was the only son left of this noble and gallant family. This treatment, and the entire destruction of his own family, created in his breast a feeling of the most inveterate hostility, and his career in after life, at every step, was marked by this precept of his early education, toward the British government. Having gone through the exciting scenes of the Revolution, we pass from this period of his history, omitting his legal education-his removal to Tennessee -the several engagements with the Creeks and Seminoles-the battle of the Horseshoe, and the many incidents, which the pen