one of the worst traits in our modern civilization. We are, if I may say so, in an unfortunate dilemma in this matter. Our political civilization has opened the way for multitudes to wealth, and created an insatiable desire for it; but our mental civilization has not gone far enough, to make a right use of it. If wealth were employed in promoting mental culture at home, and works of philanthropy abroad; if it were multiplying studios of art, and building up institutions of learning around us; if it were every way raising the intellectual and moral character of the world, there could scarcely be too much of it. But if the utmost aim, effort, and ambition of wealth, be to procure rich furniture, and provide costly entertainments, I am inclined to say, that there could scarcely be too little of it. "It employs the poor," do I hear it said? Better that it were divided with the poor. Willing enough am I, that it should be in few hands, if they will use it nobly-with temperate self-restraint and wise philanthropy. But on no other condition, will I admit that it is a good, either for its possessors or for any body else. I do not deny that it may lawfully be, to a certain extent, the minister of elegancies and luxuries, and the handmaid of hospitality and physical enjoyment; but this I say, that just in such proportion as its tendencies, divested of all higher aims and tastes, are running that way, are they running to evil and to peril.

That peril, moreover, does not attach to individuals and families alone; but it stands, a fearful beacon, in the experience of cities and empires. The lessons of past times, on this subject, are emphatic and solemn. I undertake to say, that the history of wealth has always been a history of corruption and downfall. The people never existed that could stand the trial.

Boundless profusion-alas! for humanity-is too

little likely to spread for any people, the theatre of manly energy, rigid self-denial, and lofty virtue. Where is the bone and sinew and strength of a country? Where do you expect to find its loftiest talents and virtues? Where, its martyrs to patriotism or religion? Where are the men to meet the days of peril and disaster? Do you look for them among the children of ease and indulgence and luxury?

All history answers. In the great march of the races of men over the earth, we have always seen opulence and luxury sinking before poverty and toil and hardy nurture. It is the very law that has presided over the great processions of empire. Sidon and Tyre, whose merchants possessed the wealth of princes; Babylon and Palmyra, the seats of Asiatic luxury; Rome, laden with the spoils of a world, overwhelmed by her own vices more than by the hosts of her enemies-all these, and many more, are examples of the destructive tendencies of immense and unnatural accumulation. No lesson in history is so clear, so impressive, as this.

I trust, indeed, that our modern, our Christian cities and kingdoms are to be saved from such disastrous issues. I trust that, by the appropriation of wealth, less to purposes of private gratification, and more to purposes of Christian philanthropy and public spirit, we are to be saved. But this is the very point on which I insist. Men must become more generous and benevolent, not more selfish and effeminate, as they become more rich, or the history of modern wealth will follow in the sad train of all past examples; and the story of American prosperity and of English opulence, will be told as a moral, in empires beyond the Rocky Mountains, or in the newly-discovered continents of the Asiatic Seas!

MISCELLANEOUS AND OCCASIONAL.

XIV.

AN ORATION DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE, BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF PHI BETA KAPPA, AUGUST, 1830.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,

THIS Society was formed for the promotion, though chiefly by an indirect influence, of a sound and healthful literature. And the use of this anniversary festival, for I think it has a use, beyond the pleasure that it brings with it,-is to strengthen the bonds of literary duty and friendship; to rekindle the fires which, separate and solitary, are apt to die away; to revive that zeal for study, which is too liable to fail, or to falter at least, in its struggle with professional cares. From the midst of those cares, from the labours of the pulpit, from the toils of the bar, from the watchings of the sick room, from the weariness of the teacher's form, our tribes have come up to pay the annual offering, and keep the yearly jubilee.

What are the principles which, on our return to those fields, will ensure us the most successful cultivation of them? What is the true science, the rationale, if I may say so, of thorough improvement and refinement? What are the true means of spreading at once wealth and beauty over the paths of literary labour?

From the wide range of discussion which this question opens to us, I shall select two views, two principles of intellectual culture-(this is my general subject)the one practical, the other theoretical; both of which derive urgent claims to attention, as I think, from the character of the literature that is prevalent at the present day, and from the state of our little republic of letters. My practical principle is, that the loftiest attainments of the mind in every sphere of its exertion, are immediately-much as the original tendency or temperament may vary-are immediately the fruit of nothing but the deepest study; that, for instance, the great poet and the great artist, as well as the profound metaphysician or astronomer, is by nothing more distinguished than by his thorough and patient application; that natural genius, as it is called, appears in nothing else, and is nothing else, but the power of application; that there is no great excellence without great labour; that the inspirations of the muse are as truly studies, as the lucubrations of philosophy. In other words, it is the deepest soil that yields not only the richest fruits, but the fairest flowers; it is the most solid body which is not only the most useful, but which admits of the highest polish and brilliancy; it is the strongest pinion, which not only can carry the greatest burden, but which soars to the loftiest flight.

That the most intense study is necessary to the loftiest attainments in every department, whether of philosophy or poetry, of science or imagination, of reality or fiction, of judgment or taste, would perhaps be best made to appear, by showing the strict and close connexion there is between them; and that there is such a connexion is indeed my theoretical principle. To some suggestions on these subjects, as all that the

present occasion permits,-to some suggestions, I must say, rather than discussions, let me now invite your attention.

My position then, in theory, is, that between these various qualities of mind and departments of literature, of which I have just spoken, there is no incongruity, none of the commonly supposed warfare, but perfect harmony. These extremes, as they are usually considered, do actually meet and mingle in every perfect mind and in every perfect literature. In fact, the most distinguishing trait in all the greatest minds of the world, the preeminent seal of genius upon all its noblest works, has been this union of opposite qualities; of sense and sprightliness, of philosophy and fancy, of acuteness and invention.

The maxim that "extremes meet," has, indeed, been commonly received, and too often exemplified in a very different sense. The too constant imperfection of our own experiments in the science of the mind, has nearly overthrown what in theory is the only perfect rule. It is true, that metaphysical speculation, for instance, when it goes to what is called an extreme; when it goes beyond fact, beyond the range of simple induction, runs into transcendental mysticism, and is at war with plain good sense, and tends to chill the fervour of fancy and feeling. The hoary wisdom of learning, too, sometimes verges very nearly upon childish pedantry; the extreme of acuteness sinks, in some instances, into a trifling and petty accuracy about details; and extreme good sensealas! it is sometimes dull and unmeaning as nonAnd there is nothing, indeed, that is more sure to become vapid and tedious, than the incessant, even though it be for a time the successful, endeavour to be brilliant and sprightly; as the agreeable trifling

sense.