vated station. But let it not be forgotton, that ours is peculiarly the country of individual and social enterprise, of individual and social patronage, not merely in business and pleasure, but in all the improvements of Education, Literature and Religion. These are peculiarly the property of the People. A few may found their institutions, and give the impulse; but the People only can sustain and encourage them. All then are co-workers in the same glorious cause; for Religion, Literature, Education are ONE. To each of us then, as to every other individual, through all our borders, is allotted some share in the task. What though we are not worthy to fill the presidencies or the professorships of our colleges! what though we cannot rival the illustrious in literature or science! what though we must gaze, and gaze in vain, at the greatness of Edwards and Dwight, at the fame of Channing, Cooper and Irving? Yet each of us may, and if he value his duty to God and to Man, he must do something; if it be only to cast a widow's mite into this treasury of our country. Remember that even a single act, done for the improvement of Education, for the promotion of Literature, for the advancement of Christianity, is that widow's mite. And where is the man, however narrow his means, however imperfect his education, who can not, even in a short life, cast in his hundreds, if not his thousands, of such offerings?

Whilst we thus remember our social and individual duties, we can never forget our common parentage. To consult the interests of this college, as opportunity may serve, and other obligations permit; to watch over her fair fame, to honor the renowned of her sons, whether among the living or the dead; and above all, according to our years, to cherish with a brother's friendship, or venerate with filial love, the memory of her late illustrious President, will be at once honorable and delightful. And if, in aught that has been said, I have seemed to speak irreverently or unthankfully of the great and the good of my own or of any other land, of the founders, and patrons, and instructors of this or of other institutions, I know that realities do not justify the appearance. I have, indeed, spoken with the sincerity of Christian candor, with the free spirit of an American, with the enthusiasm, if not with the judgment and taste, of an accomplished Scholar. For all, that has been done, by the eminent in talent, and learning, and virtue of former days,

I have a heart, that overflows with admiration and gratitude. And, as to all that is now doing, in our own country, and throughout the world, by the Statesman and the Orator, by the Philosopher and the Philanthropist, by the Patriot, the Christian, and the Scholar, I have a soul to realize the magnitude of our obligation, the dignity of their enterprise, and its glorious rewards in time and Eternity.

Nor, Gentlemen, while we remember our fellowship, and our common parentage, let us forget our common inheritance, our country. We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection, too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal, too stedfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her vallies, with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her giant canal, with her frontiers of the Lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest-sea and her inland-isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio, and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, our COUNTRY? I Come not here to speak the dialect, or to give the counsels of the patriot-statesman. But I come a patriotscholar, to vindicate the rights, and to plead for the interests of American Literature. And be assured, Gentlemen, that we cannot, as patriot-scholars, think too highly of that country or sacrifice too much for her. And let us never forget, let us rather remember with a religious awe, that the union of these States is indispensable to our Literature, as it is to our national independence and civil liberties, to our prosperity, happiness, and improvement. If, indeed, we desire to behold a Literature like that, which has sculptured, with such energy of expression, which has painted so faithfully and vividly, the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe: if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war; the glittering march of armies and the revelry of the camp; the shrieks and blasphemies, and all the horrors of the battlefield; the desolation of the harvest, and the burning cottage;

the storm, the sack, and the ruin of cities: If we desire to unchain the furious passions of jealousy and selfishness, of hatred, revenge and ambition, those lions, that now sleep harmless in their den: If we desire, that the lake, the river, the ocean, should blush with the blood of brothers; that the winds should waft from the land to the sea, from the sea to the land, the roar and the smoke of battle; that the very mountain-tops should become altars for the sacrifice of brothers; if we desire that these, and such as these-the elements to an incredible extent, of the Literature of the old world-should be the elements of our Literature, then, but then only, let us hurl from its pedestal the majestic statue of our union, and scatter its fragments over all our land. But, if we covet for our country the noblest, purest, loveliest Literature, the world has ever seen, such a Literature, as shall honor God, and bless Mankind; a Literature, whose smiles might play upon an Angel's face, whose tears "would not stain an Angel's cheek;" then let us cling to the Union of these States, with a Patriot's love, with a Scholar's enthusiasm, with a Christian's hope. In her heavenly character, as a holocaust self-sacrificed to God; at the hight of her glory, as the ornament of a free, educated, peaceful, Christian people, American Literature will find that THE

INTELLECTUAL SPIRIT IS HER VERY TREE OF LIFE, AND THAT UNION, HER GARDEN OF PARADISE.

NOTES.

NOTE A. p. 157.

THE question may then be asked why does Classical Literature still survive? I believe of the Authors of Greece and Rome, as Ovid says of his Metamorphoses, "nomenque erit indelebile nostrum," but it will be chiefly, if not altogether, in the Biographical Dictionary, and in the library of the Scholar, not in Christian Schools and Academies. Good sense and virtuous sentiment, have already banished Ovid and Plautus pretty generally from the course of education: and they will do the same, in due time, with Horace, Virgil, “et id genus omne.' But why do the Classics live in our seminaries? for they have been long abandoned as materials of Literature, in all its departments. I answer, because the neglect of the Bible, as the only true basis of all education in point of duty, usefulness and Literature, and the only cement of its whole superstructure, permits them to live, a standing dishonor to Christians, a monument of that zeal and of those dissensions, which banish all religious instruction from our Schools and Colleges, rather than not have it sectarian. But this state of things cannot last in any Christian country, and above all not in this. Good sense, religious principles, and Christian liberality, will not tolerate it.

NOTE B. p. 119.

The Oriental taste, as exhibited in the Persian and Arabian Literature, corresponds exactly to their voluptuous and delightful climate, to the richness and luxuriance of their scenery, to the costly and magnificent style of their Architecture, to their dress and habits of life, to their private and social character, and to the splendor and ostentation of their forms of government. But the Orientalism of Hebrew Literature is of a higher and nobler order; because it did not spring from the corresponding sources just mentioned, as the very causes which produced both the author and the work, but arose as altogether subordinate to the grand and severe, the simple and solemn truths of the Scriptures.

NOTE C. p. 120.

This position, if it be correct, and the more I have thought of it, the more am I convinced that it is, appears to me to demonstrate that Classical Literature cannot live. If it be not a storehouse of materials, it cannot live. Now, as far as poetry is concerned, it contains no materials worth having, except such as are common to all nations and countries: and these, no poet, unless he belonged to the plagiarist school of Virgil, or the artificial school of Pope, would ever think of studying in Greek or Latin; for he would find them original, fresher, brighter in the landscape of nature, and in the scenery of human life. The mythology of Greece and Rome, belong no more to the materials of modern poetry, than the

ancient religion of Mexico and Peru. It is worth nothing, but to fur nish illustrations: and what is remarkable, the allusions of the gifted modern are far more poetical, than the same thing in the Greek or Latin poet, as a part of the material of his poem. Of what use to us are the materials of ancient eloquence? What interest have we in the concerns of Athens and Rome ? These can never be the materials of our eloquence. Ours are of a nobler order, of a richer diversity. It is much the same, with their Philosophy, whether natural, mental, moral or political, and with their Geography, History and Biography. Whatever in them is worth preserving, we have made our own, with vast improvements and if all the Greek and Latin writers, not even excepting Plutarch, the favorite of Gaza and Budæus, were to be cut off in one night, we should have nothing to regret on the score of materials. If such an event were to occur; I believe that the eagle wing of modern genius would ascend by a wider circuit, to a loftier hight. Genius then, glorying in the freedom of intellectual power, would exhibit all the rich and admirable achievements, so beautifully sketched by Cawthorne,

Scholars ought to be-the freest of the free; and yet it is lamentable to witness the little freedom they actually enjoy. If there be no censor ship of the press, there is at least the censorship of classical Literature, as rigid and inexorable as that of the Elder Cato. The common position, that the Ancients never have been and never can be rivaled, much less surpassed, is the very creed of an idolatrous superstition, that must enslave and narrow the mind. When Guido was asked where his model of beauty was, he pointed to his ugly color-grinder; when some one enquired of Rembrandt for his antiques, he showed a heap of old rusty armor; when a brother-Sculptor 'asked Michael Angelo for his compases, he replied, they are in my eye. These are specimens of the independence of genius. Scholars, both as philosophers, and statesmen, have almost totally abandoned the ancient philosophy and politics; yet they adhere to the forms of Ancient Literature, as though a conformity to the classic model, were an article of the Christian Faith. It is not surprising, that the Moderns have done so little, (for I myself think that they have done far less than they could have done,) since they have almost universally traveled the same round of imitation.

NOTE E. p. 121.

The common failure of translators is always appealed to as a trium-phant proof of the absolute necessity of studying the Greek and Latin authors in the original. The error of the argument lies in this, that as a general rule only inferior writers translate: and where superior men condescend to be translators, it is a hundred to one, but they choose a work for which they are unfit. Thus, Pope selected Homer, and Dry