the human mind, but simply to show how intimately our literature and national existence have been connected.

It was a mutual and most felicitous thought, to call the learned men of all times and nations a Republick of Letters; for with them, in every age, have been found the true doctrines of political liberty and the seeds of civil institutions. The learned, as a body, have favoured freedom of opinion, and the sacred rights of man, even in the courts of tyrants, and in the faces of their creatures. The learned priests of Egypt wrested from their kings rights for themselves, and protection for the people. In the walks of the academy and the \ halls of science, the mind threw off its shackles; and in the contemplation of the laws of nature, and of the moral world, and in the pursuit of science and the arts, it lost its reverence for hereditary claims to eminence, and looked directly with a philosophical eye to the fitness of things, thoughtless of arbitrary distinctions among men. In a community where the operations of the mind may be watched in its advancements in knowledge, those cast by nature in a superiour mould will attract the attention and receive that homage which in some form or other genius will for ever secure. The institutions of learning in our country had, it is true, some of the forms and shows of the relicks of aristocracy, in the arrangements of their catalogues, or some trifling ceremonies; but there never existed purer fountains of political justice, and true equality, than were to be found in them. The right once established to judge of religious doctrines, of reasoning upon human, angelick, and divine natures, embraces in it the right of judging upon the political, civil, and moral conduct of men, in, or out of power. The student, surrounded by the lights of mind which had illumined the world in every age, and holding, every day, converse, through their works, with the mighty dead, felt no great respect or reverence for emptyheaded vanity, or ignorant pride, however bloated by consequence, or elated by the possession of power; for he knew that, at best, for him who possessed it, power could not be permanent, or with us hereditary; he therefore saw, as he looked forward into his country's history, one generation of little oppressors pass off after another, as insects of a day, or creatures of a moment. If all the scholar felt could not have been fully communicated to his fellow actors as he entered into life, yet sufficient of his spirit might have been diffused to have given a similarity to the feelings and reasonings of others, and to have prepared the community to reason and think for themselves on all subjects involving their rights and privileges. Every educated man who had left these walks of learning, became a Hierophant of liberty among the people, and taught them, at once, the means and the blessings of freedom. The love of freedom with them was no phosphorick light

or flickering blaze from putrescent masses, or occasional ignition, but a steady flame, which burnt like the sacred fire on the altars of Greece, in the temple of liberty, or that holier flame of the lamp of God in the house of the Lord, which burnt day and night to keep the hallowed fane from darkness and pollution. The liberty they asked was only British liberty, such as the people of England enjoyed, and still enjoy: that they should be taxed by their own representatives, and by none others.

LECTURE VII.

"The true patriot is found in all classes of men; his name is sacred, his deeds are glorious; he is not seduced by honours or rewards; he is above all bribes; he is destitute of all selfishness; he is ready to pour out his blood as water for his country's good; he labours for great ends by honest means; he fears luxury as a national evil; he dreads parsimony as a national curse; he thinks no man lives for himself alone; he subdues his pride, and humbles his sense of importance, by thinking how short is human life; he represses his vanity by knowing how many are his superiours; he feels rightly; thinks correctly; judges candidly; acts wisely; hopes humbly; and dies in the full assurance of immortality-favoured by men, or if not that, beloved by God." The Patriot's Manual.

DURING the long agony of our revolutionary conflict, our small seminaries of learning were generally closed, and the course of instruction in colleges and high schools was interrupted; yet the minds of the people were never more active. Every publick square and every private dwelling, were places of discussion, and of inquiry into the general principles of liberty of thinking, and acting. The fervour of passion had passed away; and that cool determination succeeded, which denotes a firmness of purpose, and which is not to be shaken, and that high resolve which nothing can break down. The publick documents of that day, fully show this calm and quiet temper, for in them there is nothing spiteful, irritable, or feverish. A careless observer might think that the hearts of the people were not in this cause, all things were conducted with such serenity. It is a fact worthy of notice, that on the 17th of June, 1775, the provincial congress of Massachusetts was in session at Watertown, not

more than six miles, if so much, from Charlestown heights; yet their records show that they were busy throughout that. eventful day, in their deliberations. Notwithstanding the incessant roar of musketry and cannon, and the awful conflagration of Charlestown, the dwellings of their friends and neighbours, yet not a man left his seat; and the journal of their proceedings on that day is very full, and marked with precision and fine chirography. Not the slightest allusion is to be found on these records, to the alarm of the neighbourhood, or the possibility of defeat in the contest. It was not until three days after the fight, that even the probability of the death of their President, General Warren, was suggested, and that only on a motion to proceed to the choice of another, to fill his place. These conscript fathers would not give the people any intimation that they would shrink from personal danger, while in the discharge of their duties as statesmen. Their first account of this event is prepared with great deliberation; not a word of boasting is contained in it, nor is there even a just account of American bravery to be found in it. In fact, they were not apprised of the honour of that fight, at that time. The language of the continental congress also, at that time, is full of the same modesty, which the enemy took for timidity and fear. The addresses which came from this body were not tinctured with the slightest boasting, even when arguing with friends or foes. They made no flattering appeal to the people they wished to arouse to action, and prepare for disasters and blood-shed, in every form of attack, from their enemies.

The petitions and addresses to the king of Great Britain were modest, patient, and manly; those to the people of England, affectionate and full of sorrow, that such times should have come, and such evils, as they suffered, should exist. The declaration of independence, in which, it might be supposed, was concentrated all their wrongs and sufferings, is still expressed in the calm language of enduring philosophy and patriotism, without one particle of rage or vengeance, but still strong, clear, bold, and impressive.

The pamphlets and letters of that period are, with a few exceptions, models of plain unsophisticated reasoning, and addressed to the understandings of the people, rather than to their passions. Nothing of the tumid, vapouring, trash of the electioneering style of later days was known to those who brought on our independence, at the price of blood and treasure, which price was not fixed to any limits, nor bounded by any measure. The addresses of the governors, presidents, and commanders-in-chief of the militia of the several states, partook of the same spirit; and as strange as it may seem, a better day of taste in literary composition had never been

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known amongst us, than that when the danger was the greatest, and the minds of men might be thought to be the most perturbed.

The authors of that day, not only availed themselves of the productions of the philosophers and sages of antiquity, whose works abound in all the doctrines of liberty, expressed in every beauty of language and charm of literature, but also of those pithy writers of a later date, that political circumstances had brought out, in Italy, France, and England; but particularly those of the United Netherlands; these last were of great service, their history resembling our own more distinctly than that of any other nation. Their articles of confederation were, confessedly, the basis of ours, at the commencement of the revolution.

Charleston, in South Carolina, has the honour of making the first celebration of the 4th of July. This was in 1778, two years only after the declaration of independence. On that day, Doctor Ramsay, since so well known to every child in the United States, as a politician and historian, appeared as the orator. Whoever will turn over the pages of that excellent address, will rejoice to find how fairly and faithfully the blessings of independence are enumerated in it; not in the swollen language of vanity, striving for importance, but in the strong, bold, flowing periods, of one who had reasoned and felt upon all the great matters he was discussing. In all probability, this custom has been kept alive there ever since; if not exactly annually, yet with sufficient regularity to answer the purpose of a proper political stimulant. In 1785, on the 4th of July, Doctor Josiah B. Ladd, a gentleman of high standing in the literary world, was solicited in that city, to make an address before the executive authority of South Carolina. This tasteful effort has been preserved for our instruction and guide.

In every stage of the contest, the literary men of our country did every thing in their power, to raise the flame of patriotism in the breasts of their countrymen. The aphorisms of the poets and sages of all times and countries were brought forth to enlighten and animate our people; and the striking instances of patriotism in history were made also to bear upon every crisis in our political affairs, with great judgement. An instance of this I will give you. On the 5th of July, the fourth having been Sunday, in the year 1779, Judge Breckenridge, of Philadelphia, delivered an "EULOGIUM ON THE BRAVE MEN WHO HAD FALLEN IN THE CONTEST WITH GREAT BRITAIN." It was a happy thought; the subject was natural and classical, and was treated with great taste and effect. There was a law of the Athenians, that after a battle in which her brave men had fallen, an orator should be elected by the court of Areopagus, to pronounce an eulogy on the deceased before the ci

tizens of the Republic. In the 87th Olympiad, 431 years before the christian era, Pericles was appointed by the court to pronounce an eulogium upon those citizen-soldiers who fell in the first Peloponnesian war. The oration of this eminent scholar and statesman has been preserved in the pages of Thucydides, and is one of the noblest specimens of eloquence which has come down to us from antiquity. He began with commending to the notice of his audience their ancestors-the Athenians of other times; their valour, their love of liberty, their attention to arts and arms, were touched with the skill of a master hand. The charms of civil society, of refined manners, and of the sweets of intellectual superiority, were admirably portrayed. The privileges of the people of Greece, above all other men, were not forgotten, nor the value of existence kept out of view; but at the same time, the honour of dying in the field of glory was fully set forth. The duty of the publick to the offspring of those who were slain fighting the battles of the country, was distinctly stated, and the ordinance on that subject recited; "that those children made fatherless by such a cause, should be educated at the public expense."

The American orator had a still more noble theme. The Athenians had engaged in this war, not from necessity, but from pride and a love of military glory. They might have avoided it, and yet have retained their splendour and liberties, and all those charms which the orator dwelt upon, as sweetening life. The mighty Athenian said, that one of the great motives which influenced the brave citizens, and led them to rush on death, was revenge, revenge. The citizen-soldiers of our republic had nothing of revenge in their dispositions, which brought them to the ensanguined field, and laid them low in the dust. To use the American orator's words, "it was the pure love of virtue and freedom, burning bright within their minds, that alone could engage them to embark in an undertaking of so bold and perilous a nature. They were not soldiers by profession; they were men in the easy walks of life, mechanicks of the city, merchants of the counting-house, youths engaged in literary studies, and husbandmen, peaceful cultivators of the soil, happy in the sociability and conversation of the town, the simplicity of the country village, or the philosophick ease of academick leisure, and the sweets of social life; they wished not a change of these scenes of pleasure for the dangers and calamities of war."

The American orator is more impassioned than his great prototype of Athens; his language glows with more warmth; there was less ambition in his strain of eloquence, and more of humanity than the orator of Athens allowed in his philosophy. Both orators called up the fathers and the sons of those who fell, to comfort them by