your mind and quickens your heart, and as it fills the mind and quickens the heart of millions around you. Instantly, under such an influence, you ascend above the smoke and stir of this small local strife; you tread 5 upon the high places of the earth and of history; you think and feel as an American for America; her power, her eminence, her consideration, her honor, are yours; your competitors, like hers, are kings; your home, like hers, is the world; your path, like hers, is on the highway 10 of empires; your charge, her charge, is of generations and ages; your record, her record, is of treaties, battles, voyages, beneath all the constellations; her image, one, immortal, golden, rises on your eye as our western star at evening rises on the traveller from his home; no lowering 15 cloud, no angry river, no lingering spring, no broken crevasse, no inundated city or plantation, no tracts of sand, arid and burning on that surface, but all blended and softened into one beam of kindred rays, the image, harbinger, and promise of love, hope, and a brighter day! 20 But if you would contemplate nationality as an active virtue, look around you. Is not our own history one witness and one record of what it can do? This day and all which it stands for, - did it not give us these? This glory of the fields of that war, this eloquence of that revo25 lution, this one wide sheet of flame, which wrapped tyrant and tyranny, and swept all that escaped from it away, forever and forever; the courage to fight, to retreat, to rally, to advance, to guard the young flag by the young arm and the young heart's blood, to hold up and hold on till the 30 magnificent consummation crowned the work, were not all these imparted or inspired by this imperial sentiment? Has it not here begun the master-work of man, the creation of a national life? Did it not call out that prodigious development of wisdom, the wisdom of constructive35 ness which illustrated the years after the war, and the framing and adopting of the constitution? Has it not, in general, contributed to the administering of that govern ment wisely and well since? Look at it! It has kindled us to no aims of conquest. It has involved us in no entangling alliances. It has kept 5 our neutrality dignified and just. The victories of peace have been our prized victories. But the larger and truer grandeur of the nations, for which they are created, and for which they must one day, before some tribunal, give account, what a measure of these it has enabled us already 10 to fulfil! It has lifted us to the throne, and has set on our brow the name, of the Great Republic. It has taught us to demand nothing wrong, and to submit to nothing wrong; it has made our diplomacy sagacious, wary, and accomplished; it has opened the iron gate of the moun15 tain, and planted our ensign on the great tranquil sea. It has made the desert to bud and blossom as the rose; it has quickened to life the giant brood of useful arts; it has whitened lake and ocean with the sails of a daring, new, and lawful trade; it has extended to exiles, flying as 20 clouds, the asylum of our better liberty. It has kept us at rest within all our borders; it has repressed without blood the intemperance of local insubordination; it has scattered the seeds of liberty, under law and under order, broadcast; it has seen and helped Amer25 ican feeling to swell into a fuller flood; from many a field and many a deck, though it seeks not war, makes not war, and fears not war, it has borne the radiant flag, all unstained; it has opened our age of lettered glory; it has opened and honored the age of the industry of the people! CIV.-LINES ON THE ENTRY OF THE AUSTRIANS INTO NAPLES. Moore. [In 1820, a popular revolution broke out in Naples and Sicily, which was soon suppressed by the Austrians, who entered Naples in March, 1821, with very little resistance on the part of the Neapolitans. Lord Castlereagh was at that time secretary of state for the foreign department in Great Britain, and a statesman of strong Tory principles. Filicaia and Petrarch were Italian poets and patriots, the former of the seventeenth, and the latter of the fourteenth century.] 1 Ar, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are! From this hour let the blood in their dastardly veins, 2 On-on, like a cloud, through their beautiful vales, From each slave-mart in Europe, and shadow their shore. 3 Let their fate be a mock-word-let men of all lands 4 And deep, and more deep, as the iron is driven, They had once within reach-that they might have been free. 5 Shame! shame! when there was not a bosom, whose heat That did not, like Echo, your war-hymn repeat, 6 When the world stood in hope—when a spirit that breathed And the swords of all Italy, half-way unsheathed, 7 When around you the shades of your mighty in fame, Filicaias and Petrarchs seemed bursting to view, And their words and their warnings-like tongues of bright flame Over Freedom's apostles — fell kindling on you! 8 Good God! that in such a proud moment of life, Worth ages of history when, had you but hurled One bolt at your tyrant invader, that strife Between freemen and tyrants, had spread through the world. — 9 That then-O, disgrace upon manhood! e'en then You should falter - should cling to your pitiful breath; Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood men, And prefer a slave's life, to a glorious death! 10 It is strange! - it is dreadful! Shout, Tyranny, shout Through your dungeons and palaces, "Freedom is o'er'" If there lingers one spark of her fire, tread it out, And return to your empire of darkness once more. 11 For if such are the braggarts that claim to be free, CV.- JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. SEWARD. [WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD was born in Florida, New York, May 16, 1801. He was graduated at Union College in 1819, and admitted to the bar in 1822. Without neglecting his professional duties, he early engaged in politics, and in 1838 was chosen governor of New York by the Whigs, and was re-elected in 1846. In February, 1849, he was chosen to the senate of the United States, and continued a member of that body till the election of President Lincoln, when he became a member of his cabinet as secretary of state, During his career in the senate, he was remarkable for the ability and consistency with which he maintained the policy and principles of the anti-slavery party, but he by no means confined his attention to this subject, but spoke upon a variety of questions connected with the commercial and industrial relations of the country. He is a man of patient and persevering industry, and his speeches, which are always carefully prepared, are honorably distinguished for their decorum of tone and their great literary merit. His writings have been published in four octavo volumes, with a biographical memoir and historical notes. The following extract is from a eulogy on John Quincy Adams, delivered before the legislature of New York, February 23, 1848.] THE model by which he formed his character was Cicero. Not the living Cicero, sometimes inconsistent, often irreso lute, too often seeming to act a studied part, and always covetous of applause. But Cicero, as he aimed to be, and as he appears revealed in those immortal emanations of his genius which have been the delight and guide of in5 tellect and virtue, in every succeeding age. Like the Roman, Adams was an orator, but he did not fall into the error of the Roman, in practically valuing eloquence more than the beneficence to which it should be devoted. Like him he was a statesman and magistrate worthy to be 10 called "The second founder of the republic," -like him a teacher of didactic philosophy, of morals, and even of his own peculiar art; and like him he made all liberal learning tributary to that noble art, while poetry was the inseparable companion of his genius in its hours of relax15 ation from the labors of the forum and of the capitol. Like him, he loved only the society of good men, and by his generous praise of such, illustrated the Roman's beautiful aphorism, that no one can be envious of good deeds, who has confidence in his own virtue. Like Cicero, 20 he kept himself unstained by social or domestic vices; preserved serenity and cheerfulness; cherished habitual reverence for the Deity, and dwelt continually, not on the mystic theology of the schools, but on the hopes of a better life. He lived in what will be regarded as the virtuous 25 age of his country, while Cicero was surrounded by an overwhelming degeneracy. He had the light of Christianity for his guide, and its sublime motives as incitements to virtue; while Cicero had only the confused instructions of the Grecian schools, and saw nothing cer30 tainly attainable but present applause and future fame. In moral courage, therefore, he excelled his model, and rivalled Cato. But Cato was a visionary, who insisted upon his right to act always without reference to the condition of mankind, as he would have acted in Plato's imaginary 35 republic. Adams stood, in this respect, midway between the impracticable stoic and the too flexible academician. |