tween literature and science. Changes in legal reasoning, and the causes

of it. Theology, its trials, its virtues, and its literature.

LECTURE VIII.

102

Physicians and clergymen, the same for many years. The early physicians and

surgeons. The diseases they had to contend with; periods of the preva-

lence of the small pox. Thomas Thatcher's book. Robert Child. Ger-

shom Bulkley. Dr. Douglass' work. Dr. Boylston. Botanists; Catesby,

and Clayton, Dudley, and others. Hippocrates' description of a quack:

The physicians who figured as officers in the revolutionary war. The

heads of medical schools; Rush, Middleton, Warren, Dexter, Waterhouse,

Smith, and others. Character of Dr. Holyoke, his great age and wonder-

ful serenity of mind. Slight notices of several historians and biographers,

Medical writers, and those who have touched both history and fiction.

Periodicals, newspapers, &c. The disposition of the English softening

towards our writers, and the country generally.

LECTURE IX.

118

A general description of poetry and its uses. A succinct view of English

poetry from its early dawn in the twelfth century, to the time of Shakspeare,

or to the time this country was settled. American poetry and poets.

John Smith. Poetry of Morton's New-England Memorial. Hooker's,

Norton's, Woodbridge's elegiack verses. Bradford's, Elliot's, Wiggles-

worth's labours. Thomas Makin's verse, and Governor Wolcott's, with

anonymous ballads, and love-lorn elegies. Green, Byles, Osborn, God-

frey, and Pratt.

LECTURE X.

139

The state of American poetry at the commencement of the revolution.

Hopkins, Dwight, Barlow, Humphreys, Hopkinson, Trumbull, Freneau.

Sewell, Linn. Lathrop, Paine, Prentiss, Boyd, Clifton, Isaac Story, Allen,

Osborn, Spence, Brainard. A prepared supplement to Gray's Elegy.

Reason for not mentioning living poets. Change of opinion on the possi-

bility of uniting ornament with strength in our prose writing. Our own

country as good for poetry as any other, and our own citizens as poeti-

cal.
163

LECTURE XI.

The fine arts of a later growth than poetry; the causes. The artists who

were born or flourished in America. Smybert, Copley, West, Johnson,

Hancock. Stuart, a portrait. Malbone. Trumbull, a short memoir. De-

scription of his four pictures, the property of the United States. Stan-

dard painting. Engraving. Sculpture.
189

LECTURE XII.

The faculty of speech the prerogative of man; and eloquence at all times his
boast. The eloquence of Aaron. Its uses in all times and nations. In-
dian history is full of the passion for eloquence. The Winnebagoes; their
speeches. The eloquence of Tecumseh. The varieties of eloquence.
First, second, and third orders of public speaking. The great opportunities
in our free country for becoming good speakers; the pulpit, the bar, and

the numerous publick assemblies, so many schools for learning the art of

speaking. The eloquence in Congress. Our language not patrimonial,

but maternal, by a just discrimination in forming the word to describe it.

The vernacular. The eloquence of our early ages. A sketch of a few of

our orators of a later period. Patrick Henry, Mr. Madison, John Adams,

Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, Fisher Ames, Samuel Phillips,

Samuel Dexter, Pinckney; with attempts to mark the style of each as far

as a slight sketch would convey their different manners.
209

LECTURE XIII.

Our military character. The wars the colonies were engaged in. Character

of King Philip. Exploit of Mrs. Duston. The attack on Norridgewock.

Lovewell's fight. The sufferings of Virginia. The numerous attacks or

preparations for attack on Canada. The affair of Louisbourg. The suc-

ceeding events. Braddock's defeat. Johnson's fight. Montcalm, on Lake

George. The Indian Chief Hendrick. Shirley. Abercrombie, Lord

Howe. Amherst, Wolfe. The close of that war. The revolutionary war.

The people loyal; the pangs of separation, the awful opening of the great

drama of the revolution. The battle of Bunker Hill. Death of Warren.

The uses of the blood spilt. The necessity of being provided for war to

prevent it.
227

LECTURE XIV.

Washington's first appearance at the head of the army. The veneration he was

held in. The expedition to Quebeck, daring and hazardous. Washington's

character developed at the battle of Trenton and Princeton. The taking

of Burgoyne. A sketch of him. The battles which followed as showing

their bearing upon events, and as showing the character of the American

people. The debt the present generation owe the past. How the hero should

be rewarded when living, and honoured when dead. What was prepared to

be done, to perpetuate the memory of Washington. Hale, the martyr.

243

Pulaski. Kosciusko. L'Enfant. Daniel Boone. West Point.

LECTURE XV.

The naval character of our country. Its earliest beginnings. The naval

force at the capture of Louisbourg, as taken from ancient documents. The

exertion for a naval force in Massachusetts. In Congress. Washington's

prompt conduct in regard to captures. The great success of the American

navy. The probable number of vessels captured. A few of our naval

heroes of that age mentioned. The close of this war. The resuscitation

of the navy arising from commercial enterprise. The proceedings in Con-

gress, 1794. The quasi war of 1798. The doings of our navy at that

time. Truxton, Shaw, and others. The reduction of the navy in 1801.

Its immediate increase for the war of Tripoli. Remarks upon that; some

of those distinguished mentioned. The certainty of our continuing to be a

maritime people, and keeping up a navy, drawn from the deep rooted par-

tiality seen for this kind of defence in every expression of publick senti-

LECTURE I.

"Words are things."

Mirabeau.

ALMOST every thing the people of the United States now possess, has grown from their own sagacity, industry, and perseverance. The little patrimony they had, has been multiplied ten thousand fold; for they have been blessed by a kind providence, in their basket and their store. Their institutions, if in some measure copied from those of other countries, have been modelled to suit the genius and habits of the people, and have been changed and enlarged to correspond with the growth of the nation. Their language alone is theirs by inheritance. They received it from their progenitors, and have kept it unpolluted and unchanged. It has been in different ages here a little modified, as in England, to be a more explicit medium of thought; and taste and euphony have, at times, made some exertions to drop one class of words and assume another; but they have destroyed none; and as occasion requires, those left out of fashionable use, for a season, have, after a while, been called up and restored to their former places in good company.

From the extension of commercial relations, and from the numerous conquests of the mother country, it would have been natural to expect that her language would have, in process of time, become somewhat a different one from that of her colonies in this country: but our commerce has followed hers so closely, and we have had so entirely the benefit of her mass of literature as soon as it was known to her own people, that the first adoption of a foreign word, or the slightest change in the use of one of her old stock, has been noticed on this side of the Atlantic; and we have wisely followed the public taste of the mother country, nor vainly thought that it would be wisdom to struggle for an independency in letters, as far as they regarded the use of our vernacular. This language was our birthright as Englishmen, and its preservation in its purity clearly shows how much we value it. The language that is addressed to the ear alone is soon changed or lost, but that which is addressed to the eye as well as the ear, is long preserved by a twofold impression upon the mind. The sight is more faithful than the ear, and preserves her knowledge longer; both are necessary to keep a