American people, to the illustrious father of his country! Build it to the skies; you cannot outreach the loftiness of his principles ! Found it upon the massive and eternal rock; you cannot make it more enduring than his fame! Construct it of the peerless Parian marble; you cannot make it purer than his life! Exhaust upon it the rules and principles of ancient and of modern art; you cannot make it more proportionate than his character!

4. But let not your homage to his memory end here. Think not to transfer to a tablet or a column, the tribute which is due from yourselves. Just honor to Washington can only be ren dered by observing his precepts, and imitating his example. He has built his own monument. We, and those who come after us in successive generations, are its appointed, its privileged guardians.

5. This wide-spread Republic is the true monument to Washington. Maintain its independence. Uphold its constitution. Preserve its union. Defend its liberty. Let it stand before the world in all its original strength and beauty, securing peace, order, equality and freedom, to all within its boundaries, and shedding light, and hope, and joy, upon the pathway of human liberty throughout the world, and Washington needs no other monument. Other structures may fitly testify our veneration for him; this, this alone, can adequately illustrate his services to mankind.

6. Nor does he need even this. The Republic may perish; the wide arch of our ranged union may fall; star by star its glories may expire; stone after stone its columns and its capitol may molder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals may be forgotten; but as long as human hearts shall anywhere pant, or human tongues shall anywhere plead, for a true, rational, constitutional liberty, those hearts shall enshrine the memory, and those tongues shall prolong the fame of George Washington!

[See Rule 3, p. 168, and Rule 12, p. 193.]

1. Important as I deem it, to discuss, on all proper occasions, the policy of the measures at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion, in its full, and just extent. Sentiments, lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition to check the freedom of inquiry, by extravagant, and unconstitutional pretenses, the firmer shall be the tone, in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner, in which I shall exercise it.

2. It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvass public measures, and the merits of public men. It is a "home bred right," a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin, in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted, as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth.

3. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those, whose representative I am, shall. find me to abandon. Aiming, at all times, to be courteous, and temperate in its use, except, when the right itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry it to its extent. I shall place myself on the extreme boundary of my right, and bid defiance to any arm, that would move me from my ground.

4. This high constitutional privilege, I shall defend and exercise within this house, and without this house, and in all places; in time of peace, and in all times. Living, I shall assert it; and should I leave no other inheritance to my children, by the blessing of God, I will leave them the inheritance of free principles, and the example of a manly, independent, and consti tutional defense of them.

LESSON XLIX.

GRANDEUR OF ASTRONOMICAL SCIENCE.-N. A. REVIEW.

1. Astronomy is certainly the boldest and most comprehensive of all our speculations. It is the science of the material universe, considered as a whole. Though employed upon objects apparently withdrawn from the sphere of human action and pursuit, it teaches us, nevertheless, that these objects materially affect, nay, constitute our physical condition.

2. The wide-spreading firmament, while it lifts itself above all mortal things, exhibits to us that luminary, which is the light, and life, and glory of our world; and, when this retires from our view, it is lighted up with a thousand lesser fires, that never cease to burn, that never fail to take their accustomed places, and never rest from their slow, solemn, and noiseless march.

3. Among the objects more immediately about us, all is vicissitude and change. It is the destiny of terrestrial things to perpetuate themselves by succession. Plants arise out of the earth, flourish awhile, and decay, and their place is filled by others. Animals, also, have their periods of growth and decline. Even man is not exempt from the general law. His exquisite frame, with all its fine organs, is soon reduced to its original elements, to be molded again into new and humbler forms.

4. Nations are like individuals, privileged only with a more protracted existence. The firm earth itself, the theater of this change, partakes, in a degree, of the common lot of its inhabitants; and the sea once heaved its waves, where now rolls a tide of wealth and population.

5. Situated as we are, in this fleeting, fluctuating state, it is consoling to be able to dwell upon an enduring scene; to contemplate laws that are immutable; an order that has never been interrupted; to fix, not the thoughts only, but the eye, upon

objects that, after the lapse of so many ages, and the fall of so many states, cities, human institutions, and monuments of art, continue to occupy the same places, to move with the same regularity, and to shine with the same pure, fresh, undiminished luster.

6. As the heavens are the most striking spectacle that presents itself to our contemplation, so there is no subject of philosophical inquiry which has more engaged the attention of mankind. The history of astronomy carries us back tɔ the earliest times, and introduces us to the languages and custɔms, the religion and poetry, the sciences and arts, the tastes, talents, and peculiar genius, of the different nations of the earth.

7. The ancient Atlantides,a the Ethiopians, the Egyptian priests, the magib of Persia, the shepherds of Chaldea, the Bramins of India, the mandarins d of China, the Phoenician navigators, the philosophers of Greece, and the wandering Arabs, have contributed to the general mass of knowledge and speculation upon this subject; have added more or less to this vast structure, the common monument of the industry, inven tion, and intellectual resources of mankind.

8. We remark, further, that astronomy is the most improved of all the branches of human knowledge, and that which does the greatest credit to the human understanding. We have in this obtained the object of our researches. We have solved the great problem proposed to us in the celestial motions; and our solution is as simple and as grand as the spectacle itself, and is, in every respect, worthy of so exalted a subject. It is not the astronomer only, who is thus satisfied; but the proof is

a Atlantides, descendants of Atlas, said to have been skilled in astronomy. Magi, a class of priests among the Persians and Medians, said to be in exclusive possession of scientific knowledge. • Bramins, Hindoo priests. d Mandarins, the official nobility of China. •Phoenicians, inhabitants of a country on the eastern part of the Mediterranean sea.

of a nature to carry conviction to the most illiterate and skeptical

9. Our knowledge, extending to the principles and laws which the Author of nature has chosen to impress upon his work, comprehends the future; it resembles that which has been regarded as the exclusive attribute of supreme intelligence. We are thus enabled, not only to explain those unusual appearances in the heavens, which were formerly the occasion of such unworthy fears, but to forewarn men of their occurrence; and, by predicting the time, place, and circumstances of the phenomenon, to disarm it of its terror.

LESSON L.

HYMN TO THE UNIVERSE.

1. Roll on, thou Sun! forever roll,

Thou giant, rushing through the heaven,
Creation's wonder, nature's soul,

Thy golden wheels by angels driven;
The planets die without thy blaze,

And cherubims, with star-dropt wing,
Float in thy diamond-sparkling rays,
Thou brightest emblem of their king!

2 Roll, lovely Earth! and still roll on,
With ocean's azure beauty bound;
While one sweet star, the pearly moon,
Pursues thee through the blue profound;

And angels, with delighted eyes,

Behold thy tints of mount and stream,
From the high walls of paradise,

Swift-wheeling like a glorious dream.