malignant misrepresentation; it was by bold and inflexible adherence to truth, by loving his country better than himself, preferring its interest to its favour, and serving it, when it was unwilling and unthankful, in a manner that no other person could, that he rose; and the true popularity, the homage that is paid to virtue, followed him. It was not in the power of party or envy to pull him down; but he rose with the refulgence of a star, till the very prejudice that could not reach, was at length almost ready to adore him.

It is indeed, no imagined wound that inflicts so keen an anguish. Since the news of his death, the novel and strange events of Europe have succeeded each other unregarded; the nation has been enchained to its subject, and broods over its grief, which is more deep than eloquent, which, though dumb, can make itself felt without utterance, and which does not merely pass, but, like an electric shock, at the same instant smites and astonishes, as it passes from Georgia to New-Hampshire.

There is a kind of force put upon our thoughts by this disaster, which detains and rivets them to a closer contemplation of those resplendent virtues, that are now lost, except to memory, and there they will dwell for ever.

That writer would deserve the fame of a public benefactor, who could exhibit the character of HAMILTON, with the truth and force, that all who intimately knew him, conceived it: his example would then take the same ascendant, as his talents. The portrait alone, however exquisitely finished, could not inspire genius where it is not; but, if the world should again have possession of so rare a gift, it might awaken it when it sleeps, as by a spark from Heaven's own altar; for, surely, if there is any thing like divinity in man, it is his admiration of virtue.

But who alive can exhibit this portrait? If our age, on that supposition, more fruitful than any other, had produced two HAMILTONS, one of them might then have depicted the other. To delineate genius, one must feel its power: HAMILTON, and he alone, with all its inspirations, could have transfused its whole fervid soul into the picture, and swelled its liniaments into life. The writer's mind, expanding with its own peculiar enthusiasm, and

glowing with kindred fires, would then have streached to the dimensions of his subject.

Such is the infirmity of human nature, it is very difficult for a man, who is greatly the superior of his associates, to preserve their friendship without abatement; yet, though he could not possibly conceal his superiority, he was so little inclined to display it, he was so much at ease in his possession, that no jealousy or envy chilled his bosom, when his friends obtained praise. He was, indeed, so entirely the friend of his friends, so magnanimous, so superior, or, more properly, so insensible to all exclusive selfishness of spirit; so frank, so ardent, yet so little overbearing, so much trusted, admired, beloved, almost adored, that his power over their affections was entire, and lasted through his life. We do not believe, that he left any worthy man his foe, who had ever been his friend.

Men of the most elevated minds, have not always the readiest discernment of character. Perhaps he was sometimes too sudden and too lavish in bestowing his confidence: his manly spirit disdaining artifice, suspected none. But while the power of his friends over him seemed to have no limits, and really had none, in respect to those things which were of a nature to be yielded, no man, not the Roman Cato himself, was more inflexible on every point that touched, or seemed to touch integrity and honour. With him, it was not enough to be unsuspected; his bosom would have glowed like a furnace, at its own whispers of reproach. Mere purity would have seemed to him below praise; and such were his habits, and such his nature, that the pecuniary temptations which many others can only with great exertion and self-denial, resist, had no attractions for him. He was very far from obstinate; yet, as his friends assailed his opinions with less profound thought, than he had devoted to them, they were seldom shaken by discussion. He defended them, however, with as much mildness as force, and evinced, that if he did not yield, it was not for want of gentleness or modesty.

The tears that flow on this fond recital will never dry up. My heart, penetrated with the remembrace of the man, grows liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like water. I could weep too for my country, which, mourn

ful as it is, does not know the half of its loss. It deeply laments, when it turns its eyes back, and sees what HAMILTON was; but my soul stiffens with despair, when I think what HAMILTON would have been.

Extracts from an Oration delivered by RICHARD Rush, on the 4th of July, 1812, in the Hall of the House of Representatives, at the Capitol, Washington. Delivered at the request of the committee of arrangement for the celebration of that day, and, at their request published.

MAN, in his individual nature, becomes virtuous by constant struggles against his own imperfections. His intellectual eminence, which puts him at the head of created beings, is attained also, by long toil, and painful selfdenials, bringing with them, but too often, despondence to his mind, and hazards to his frame. It would seem to be a law of his existence, that great enjoyment is only to be obtained as the reward of great exertion. "She shall go to a wealthy place," but her way shall be "through fire and through water." It seems the irreversible lot of nations, that their permanent well being is to be achieved also through severe probations. Their origin is often in agony and blood, and their safety to be maintained only by constant vigilance, by arduous efforts, by a willingness to encounter danger, and by actually and frequently braving it. Their prosperity, their rights, their liberties, are, alas! scarcely otherwise to be placed upon a secure and durable basis! It is in vain that the precepts of the moralists, or the maxims of a sublimated reason, are levelled at the inutility, if not the criminality of wars; in vain that eloquence pourtrays, that humanity deplores the misery they inflict. If the wishes of the philanthropist could be realised, then, indeed, happily for us, happily for the whole human race, they would be banished for ever from the world. But while selfishness, ambition, and the lust of plunder, continue to infest the bosoms of the rulers of nations, wars will take place: they always have taken place, and the nation that shall, at this day,

hope to shelter itself by standing, in practice, on their abstract impropriety, must expect to see its very foundations assailed-assailed by cunning aud artifice, or by the burst and fury of those fierce, ungoverned, passions, which its utmost forbearance would not be able to deprecate or appease. It would assuredly fall, and with fatal speed, the victim of its own impracticable virtue.

Thirty years, fellow citizens, is a long time to have been exempt from the calamities of war. Few nations of the world, in any age, have enjoyed so long an exemption. It is a fact that affords, in itself, the most honourable and incontestible proof, that those who have guided the destinies of this nation have ardently cherished peace; for, it is impossible, but that during the lapse of such a period, abundant provocation must have presented, had not our government and people been slow to wrath, and almost predetermined against wars. It is a lamentable truth, that during the whole of this period we have been the subjects of unjust treatment at the hands of other nations, and that the constancy of our own forbearance has been followed up by the constant infliction of wrongs upon ourselves. When, let us ask with exultation, when have ambassadors from other countries been sent to our shores to complain of injuries done by the American states? What nation have the American states plundered? What nation have the American states outraged? Upon what rights have the American states trampled? In the pride of justice and of true honour, we answer none; but we have sent forth from ourselves the messengers of peace and conciliation, again and again, across seas and to distant countries-to ask, earnestly to sue, for a cessation of the injuries done to us. They have gone charged with our well founded complaints, to deprecate the longer practice of unfriendly treatment; to protest, under the sensibility of real suffering, against that course which made the persons and the property of our countrymen the subjects of rude seizure and rapacious spoliation. These have been the ends they were sent to obtainends too fair for protracted refusals, too intelligible to have been entangled in evasive subtilties, too legitimate to have been neglected in hostile silence. When their ministers have been sent to us, what has been the aim

of their missions? To urge redress for wrongs done to them, shall we again ask? No, the melancholy reverse! For in too many instances they have come to excuse, to palliate, or even to endeavor, in some shape, to rivet those inflicted by their own sovereigns upon us.

Perhaps the annals of no nation, of the undoubted résources of this, afford a similar instance of encroachments upon its essential rights, for so long a time, without some exertion of the public force to check or to prevent them. The entire amount of property of which, during a space of about twenty years, our citizens have been plundered, alternately by one or the other, or by both, of the two great belligerent powers of Europe, would form, could it be ascertained, a curious and perhaps novel record of persevering injustice on the part of nations professing to be at peace. Unless recollection be awakened into effort, we are not ourselves sensible, and it requires at this day some effort to make us so, of the number and magnitude of the injuries that have been heaped upon us. They teach in pythology, that the most violent impressions lose the power of exciting sensation, when applied gradually and continued for a long time. This has been strikingly true in its application to ourselves as a nation. The aggressions we have received have made a regular, and the most copious part of our national occurrences, and stand incorporated, under an aspect more prominent than any other, with our annual history. Our state papers have scarcely, since the preseat government began, touched any other subject; and our statute book will be found to record as well the aggressions themselves as peaceful attempts at their removal, in various fruitless acts of legislative interposition. It may strike, even the best informed, with a momentary surprise when it is mentioned, that for eighteen successive years the official communication from the head of the executive government to both Houses of Congress, at the opening of the annual sessions, has embraced a reference to some well ascertained infringement of our rights as an independent state! Where is the parallel of this in the history of any nation holding any other than a rank of permanent weakness or inferiority? As subsequent and supe rior misfortunes expel the remembrance of those which