781. READINGS, RECITATIONS, PATRIOTISM.-TRIBUTE TO WASHINGTON. HARRISON. Hard, hard indeed, was the contest for freedom, and the struggle for independence. The golden sun of liberty had nearly set, in the gloom of an eternal night, ere its radiant beams illumined our western horizon. Had not the tutelar saint of Columbia hovered around the American camp, and presided over her destinies, freedom must have met with an untimely grave. Never, can we sufficiently admire the wisdom of those statesmen, and the skill and bravery of those unconquerable veterans, who, by their unwearied exertions in the cabinet and in the field, achieved for us the glorious evolution. Never, can we duly appreciate the merits of a Washington, who, with but a handful of undisciplined yeomanry, triumphed ever a royal army, and prostrated the lion of England at the feet of the American Eagle. His name, so terrible to his foes, so welcome to his friends,-shall live, for ever, upon the brightest page of the historian, and be remem bered with the warmest emotions of gratitude and pleasure, by those, whom he has contributed to make happy, and by all mankind, when kings, and princes, and nobles, for ages, shall have sunk into their merited oblivion. Unlike them, he needs not the assistance of the sculptor, or the architect, to perpetuate his memory: he needs no princely dome, no monumental pile, no stately pyramid, whose towering height shall pierce the stormy clouds, and rear its lofty head to heaven, to tell posterity his fame. His deeds, his worthy deeds, alone have rendered him immortal! When oblivion shail have swept away thrones, kingdoms, and principalities-when every vestige of human greatness, and grandeur, and glory, shall have mouldered into dust, eternity itself shall catch the glowing theme, and dwell, with increasing rapture. on his name! 782. THE FAMINE IN IRELAND.-8. 8. PRENTISS. THERE lies, upon the other side of the wide Atlantic, a beautiful island, famous in story, and in song. It has given to the world, more than its share, of genius and of greatness. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. Its brave and generous sons have fought, successfully, in all battles but its own. In wit and humor, it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears, by its sweet but melancholy pathos. In this fair region, God has seen fit to send the most terrible of all those fearful ministers, who fulfil his inscrutible decrees. The carth has failed to give her increase; the common mother has forgotten her offspring, and her breast no longer affords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its strangling grasp; and unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a moment, the gloomy history of the past. In battle, in the fulness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier, whether the hissing bullet sing his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he, who dies of hunger, wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends, to cheer him in the terrible conflict; for if he had friends, how ccald he die of hunger? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him; for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins. Who will hesitate to give his mite, to avert such awful results? Give, then, generously, and freely. Recollect, that in so doing, you are exercising one of the most godlike qualities of your nature, and at the same time enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought to thank our Maker, that he has permitted us to exercise, equally with himself, that noblest of even the Divine attributes, benevolence. Go home, and look at your family, smiling in rosy health, and then, think of the pale, faminepinched cheeks of the poor children of Ireland; and you will give, according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you-not grudgingly, but with an open hand; for the quality of benevolence, like that of mercy, "Is not strained; It droppeth like the gentle rain from Heaven, Upon the place beneath. It is TWICE blessed: It blesses him, that gives, and him, that takes." 783. WASHINGTON, A MAN OF GENIUS.-E. P. WHIPPLE How many times, have we been told, that Washington was not a man of genius, but a person of excellent common sense, of admirable judgment, of rare virtues! He had no genius, it seems. O no! genius, we must suppose, is the peculiar and shining attribute of some orator, whose tongue can spout patriotic speeches; or some versifier, whose muse can Hail Columbia, but not of the man, who supported states on his arm, and carried America in his brain. What is genius? Is it worth any thing? Is splendid folly the measure of its inspiration? Is wisdom its base, and summit-that which it recedes from, or tends towards? And, by what definition, do you award the name, to the creator of an epic, and deny it to the creator of a country? On what principle is it to be lavished on him, who sculptures, in perishing marble, the image of possible excellence, and withheld from him, who built up in himself, a transcendent character, indestructible as the obligations of duty, and beautiful as her rewards? Indeed, if by the genins of action, you mean will, enlightened by intelligence, and intelligence energized by will.-if force and insight be its characteristics, and influence its test, and if great effects suppose a cause proportionally great, a vital, causative mind,-then, was Washington, most assuredly, a man of genius, and one, whom no other American has equalled, in the power of working, morally and mentally, on other minds. His genius was of a peculiar kind, the genius of character, of thought, and the objects of thought, solidified and concentrated into active faculty. He belongs to that rare class of men,-rare as Homers and Miltons, rare as Platos and New. tons,-who have impressed their characters upon nations, without pampering rational vices. Such men have natures broad enough, to include all the facts of a people's practical life, and deep enough, to discern the spiritual laws. which underlie, animate, and govern those facts. 784. NEW ENGLAND AND THE UNION.-6. 8. PRENTISS. I well as free; whether popular power may be GLORIOUS New England! thou art still true to thy ancient fame, and worthy of thy ancestral honors. On thy pleasant valleys, rest, like sweet dews of morning, the gentle recollections of our early life; around thy hills, and mountains, cling, like gathering mists, the mighty memories of the revolution; and far away in the horizon of thy past gleam, like thy own bright northern lights, the awful virtues of our Pilgrim sires! But while we devote this day to the remembrance of our native land, we forget not that in which our happy lot is cast. We exult in the reflection, that though we count, by thousands, the miles, which separate us from our birthplace, still, our country is the same. We are no exiles, meeting upon the banks of a foreign river, to swell its waters with our homesick tears. Here, floats the same banner, which rustled above our boyish heads, except that its mighty folds are wider, and its glittering stars increased in number. The sons of New England are found in every state of the broad republic! In the East, the South, and the unbounded West, their blood mingles, freely, with every kindred current. We have but changed our chamber in the paternal mansion; in all its rooms, we are at home, and all who inhabit it, are our brothers. To us, the Union has but one domestic hearth; its household gods are all the same. Upon us, then, peculiarly devolves the duty of feeding the fires, upon that kindly hearth; of guarding. with pious care, those sacred household gods. We cannot do with less, than the whole Union; to us, it admits of no division. In the veins of our children, flows northern and southern blood: how shall it be separated? who Phall put asunder the best affections of the heart, the noblest instincts of our nature? We love the land of our adoption; so do we that of our birth. Let us ever be true to both; and aways exert ourselves, in maintaining the unity of our country, the integrity of the republic. Accursed, then, be the hand, put forth to loosen the golden cord of union! thrice accursed, the traitorous lips, which shall propose its severance! 785. THE SPIRIT OF HUMAN LIBERTY.-WEBSTER. THE spirit of human liberty, and of free government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty, in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty, is to show, in our own examples, that this spirit, is a spirit of health, as well as a spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength, that its efficiency, to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force, with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn, whether free states may be stable, as trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous self-government is a vision, for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth, established, illustrated. and brought into practice. in the country of Washington. whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races For the earth, which we inhabit. and the of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment If our example shall prove to be one, not of If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else, shall the world look for free models? If this great western sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world? 786. SPECTACLES.-BYROM. A CERTAIN artist, (I've forgot his name,) Asked how he liked 'em?-Like 'em? Not a bit. READINGS, RECITATIONS, 788. OUR MERCHANTS AND SHIP-MASTERS THE Commerce of our own country is coextensive with the globe. We are thoroughly a mercantile people. We have vexed questions of tariff and free trade; but, whatever are our opinions on them, there can be no one opposed to the just maintenance and protection of what involves the interests of manufacturer and merchant, and gives the farmer an inducement to labor beyond necessity, by offering him means to dispose of his surplus. All classes, with us, are connected with commerce, and are, in some way, interested in its welfare. There is gloom over society when the ship stops too long at the wharf, and the prices current manifest depression. Anxiety is not confined to faces on "'change." There are haggard looks among laboring men wanting work, and the stilluess in the shop of the mechanic, denotes the state of trade. The mill wheel groans at half speed; the mule works lazily; the crowded warehouse will not admit another yard, and the stockholder consoles himself for no dividends, by abusing government. But the ship has hauled into the stream, and the sailor heayes cheerily at the anchor. The merchant moves briskly, and looks as though chancery had always been a mythical conception. The hard featured bank smiles grimly, as it loosens its stringent gripe, and the original phrase of " tightness in the money market" is dropped for a season. There is stir and bustle in the street; the sound of the saw and hammer is heard again; manufacturing stock looks up at the brokers' board, and the government is not so very bad, after all. The American merchant is a type of this restless, adventurous, onward going race and people. He sends his merchandise all over the earth; stocks every market; makes wants that he may supply them; covers the New Zealander with Southern cotton woven in Northern looms; builds blocks of stores in the Sandwich Islands; swaps with the Feejee cannibal; sends the whale ship among the icebergs of the poles, or to wander in solitary seas, till the log-book tells the tedious sameness of years, and boys become men; gives the ice of a northern winter to the torrid zone, piles up Fresh Pond on the banks of the Hoogly, gladdens the sunny savannahs of the dreamy South, and makes life tolerable in the bungalow of an Indian jungle. The lakes of New England awake to life by the rivers of the sultry East, and the antipodes of the earth come in contact at this "meeting of the waters." The white canvas of the American ship glances in every nook of every ocean. Scarcely has the slightest intimation come of some obscure, unknown corner of a remote sea, when the captain is Consulting his charts, in full career for the "terra incognita." His anxieties commence with his promotion. Responsibility is upon him. Life, and charac vigilance. He mingles with men of all nations, ter, and fortune, depend on his skill and gathers information in all climes, maintains the maritime reputation of his country, and shows his model of naval architecture wherever there is sunshine and salt sea. He has books, and he reads them. He hears strange languages, and he learns them. His hours of leisure are given to cultivation, and him for well-earned ease and respectability in prepare looked for, when he shall hear the roaring those halcyon days to come, so earnestly wind and pelting rain about his rural home. and shall not feel called upon to watch the storm. 789. WHAT COMMERCE HAS DONE.-G. R. RUSSELL that its history should be explored, its philosoWHAT has Commerce done for the world. phy illustrated, its claim advanced among the influences which impel civilization. peculiarities of climate or position, to make It has enabled man to avail himself of the that division of labor which tends to equalize society, to distribute the productions of earth, and to teach the benefit of kindly dependence. It unites distant branches of the human family, cultivates the relation between them, encourages an interest in each other, and promotes that brotherly feeling, which is the strongest guaranty of permanent friendship. People differing in creed, in language. in dress, in customs, are brought in contact, to find how much there is universal to them all; and to improve their condition. by supplying the wants of one from the abundance of the other. The friendly intercourse, created by commerce, is slowly, but surely, revolutionizing the earth. There was a time when men met only on the field of battle, and there was but one name for stranger and enemy. Now, wherever a ship can float, the various emblems of sovereignty intermingle in harmony, and the sons of commerce, the wide world through, in consulting their own intefests, advance the cause of humanity and peace. control the progress of the human race, the In looking for the mighty influences that vision of man ranges within the scope of his own ephemeral existence, and he censures the justice which is steadfastly pursuing its course through the countless ages. We turn away bewildered by the calamities, which extinguish nationality in blood, and give, to the iron hand, fetters forged for the patriot. Let him who desponds for humanity, and mourns for faith misplaced, for hopes betrayed, for expectations unrealized, look back. Has revolution and change done nothing? is there no advance from kingly prerogative, and priestly intolerance; no improvement on feudal tenure? The end is not yet. Let the downcast be cheered, for the Eternal The American ship-master is an able coad-Right watches over all, and it moves onward, jutor of the merchant. He is as intelligent in to overcome in its good time. trade as in navigation, and combines all the requisites of seaman and commercial agent, He serves his rough apprenticeship in the forecastle, and enters the cabin door through any a hard gale, and weary night watch, Among the great agencies, by which the wisdom of God works out the problem of human destiny, the importance of Commerce will be acknowledged, whenever its philoso phical history shall be written. 790. ALL LABOR EQUALLY HONORABLE. G. R. RUSSELL. I WILL inquire, whether the scholar would not occasionally consult his own welfare, by adopting an active pursuit, in which he might become distinguished, instead of clinging to mediocrity in a high profession, simply because he has received a degree from an university, and fears that he might fall from Brahmin to Pariah, and lose caste in the descent. There is an aristocracy of letters, and it cannot only be borne, but regarded with reverence, when its claims are founded on intellectual superiority, or acquisition of knowledge surpassing that of ordinary men. But, the pride that cannot read its diploma, without the aid of grammar and dictionary, should not be offended at the suggestion, that there are other roads to success than through the Court Room, Hospital, or Divinity School There is esteem, respect, veneration, for the profound, conscientious lawyer, the skilful, scientific physician, and the fearless, truth-telling minister of God. They are "all, all honorable men;" no earthly position can be higher, no sphere of usefulness more extensive But it is another thing to adopt a profession, merely because it is considered respectable; to be a nuisance in an unswept chamber, garnished with dusty newspapers, and a few dog-eared. bilious looking volumes, where the gaunt spider holds undisturbed possession, no fratricidal hand ejecting him from his cobweb office, for there is a tacit understanding between the occupants, and they practice in company, with that bond of sympathy, which arises from kindred employment; or, to become co-partner with death, as the sulky rattles and squeaks on the highway, with barely acquirement enough in it to pass for Doctor, reputation depending on some happy blunder, in the course of a series of experiments instituted on the ground that there is luck in many trials; or to drag heavily along, where the spirit is weak and the flesh is unwilling, the six days' task a labor of desperation, reluctantly worried through, that there may be much endurance on the seventh. The common notion, that a collegiate education is a preparation for a learned profession alone, has spoiled many a good carpenter, done great injustice to the sledge and anvil, and committed fraud on the corn and potatoe field. It turns a cold shoulder to the leather apron, sustains Rob Roy's opinion of weavers and spinuers, looks superciliously on trade, and has an unqualified repugnance for every thing that requires the labor of hands as well us head. It keeps up the absurdity, that the farmer's son should not return to the plough, that the young mechanic must not again wield the hammer, and that four years are lost, when the graduate finds himself over the merchant's Letter-Book, instead of Blackstone's Commentaries; as though education could not be useful out of an allotted line, and would not compensate its possessor, whether the sign over his door proclaims him shoemaker, or attorney at law. He is wise, who, discovering for what he is qualified, dares do what he feels he can do well. What matters it, that a strip of parchment attests his prescriptive claim to scholastic honors, and a college catalogue wafts his name to posterity? If he has a genius for making shoes, or laying stone wall, let him make shoes, or lay stone wall. Either is as honorable as filling writs, prescribing doses, or writing sermons because Sunday is coming. 791. PRESS ON. PRESS on! surmount the rocky steeps, He wins, who dares the hero's march Tramp on eternal snows its way, Slip back, and stumble, harder try; Danger and death, they're sure to fly. To-day, to-morrow she'll be true; Makes up for follies, past and gone: Come wealth, and honor, and renown, 792. THE PLOUGH.-ANONYMOUS LET them sing, who may, of the battle fray, And the deeds, that have long since past; Let them chant, in praise of the tar, whose days would render to these, all the worship you please, Are spent on the ocean vast; I I would honor them, even Now, But I'd give far more, from my heart's full store, Full many there be, that we daily see, With a selfish and hollow pride, From his hand, than to wealthiness bow; And ne'er shall the victor's brow, READINGS, RECITATIONS, &c. 793. WORK ENOUGH FOR ALL.-G. R. RUSSELL. IT is a common complaint, perpetually re terated, that the occupations of life are filied to overflowing; that the avenues to wealth, or distinction, are so crowded with Competitors, that it is hopeless to endeavor to make way in the dense and jostling masses. Long before Cheops had planted the basement stone of his pyramid, when, Sphinx and Colossi had not yet been fashioned into their huge existence, and the untouched quarry had given out neither temple nor monument, the young Egyptian, as he looked along the Nile, may have mourned that he was born too late. Fate had done him injustice, in withholding his individual being till the destinies of man were accomplished. His imagination warmed at what he might have been, had his chances been commensurate with his merits; but what remained for him now, in this worn out, battered, used up hulk of a world, but to sorrow for the good old times, which had exhausted all resources! The Roman youth, as he assumed the "toga virilis," and, in all the consciousness of newly acquired dignity, folded about him his fresh insignia of manhood, thought that it should have been put on some centuries earlier. Standing amidst memorials of past glories, where arch and column told of triumphs, which had secured boundless dominion, he felt that nothing was left for the exercise of his genius, or the energies of his enterprise. The mournful lamentation of antiquity has not been weakened in its transmission, and it is not more reasonable now, than when it groaned by the Nile and Tiber. There is always room enough in the world, and work waiting for willing hands. The charm that conquers obstacle and commands success, is strong Will and strong Work. Application is the friend and ally of genius. The laborious scholar, the diligent merchant, the industrious mechanic, the hard-working farmer, are thriving men, and take rank in the world, while genius, by itself, lies in idle admiration of a fame that is ever prospective. The hare sleeps or amuses himself by the wayside, and the tortoise wins the race. Even the gold of California requires hard work. It cannot be had for the gathering, nor is it to be coaxed out with kid gloves. The patents of nobility, on the Sacramento, are the hard hand and the sun-burned face of the laboring man. Genius will, alone, do but little in this matter of fact, utilitarian, hard-working world. He who would master circumstances must come down from the clouds, and bend to anremitting toil. To few of the sons of men is given an exception from the common doom. The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, MAY glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven," and yet, in all that space, encounter nothing but air, too impalpable to be wrought into a local habitation or a name. His suspended pen may wait in vain for the inspiration that is to bring immortality and when, at last. it descends on the expectant foolscap, it is, perhaps, only to chronicle rhymes which shall jingle, for a day, in some weekly newspaper. He who draws on genius alone, is oftentimes answered by-no funds; his drafts are unexpectedly protested, and he finds himself bankrupt, even while unlimited wealth seems glittering around him. It is not revealed how much of the celebrity of gifted men has been dependent on "hard digging." The rough drafts of inspiration are not printed; the pen-crossings, those modernized marks of the inverted stylum. curl up chimney. There may have been much perplexity, before smooth verses, which fall so harmoniously on the ear, were tortured into existence; many a trial, before the splendid figure could be hammered into shape. The wondrous efforts of the mightiest masters of art have something in them besides genius. The transfign: ed divinity of Raphael, and the walls covered over by a pencil which seems to have been dipped in sunbeams, are records not only of the mind, that could image to itself those creations, but of the intense study which, it is known, he devoted to the elements of his at Not by sudden flashes came the graceful proportions, which give such exceed. ing beauty to his works. Genius trusted not to itself alone, but gathered from science illustrated in the anatomical room, and from untiring contemplation of dead and living model, every auxiliary that could contribute to excellence. When Michael Angelo hewed out his thought in marble, or personated, in fresco, the awful conceptions of the bard he loved so well, giving material form to more than the ideal of Dante, he produced the result of profound meditation, mingled with the severest application to the acquirement of all knowledge that could aid his unrivalled power. |