thrown from a frail raft into the deep and angry waters of a wide and rushing western river, thus separated from his only companion through the wilderness, with no human aid for miles and leagues around him, buffeting its rapid current, and struggling through driving cakes of ice, when we behold the stealthy savage, whose aim, against all other marks, is unerring, pointing his rifle deliberately at him, and firing, over and over again,-when we see him riding through showers of bullets on Braddock's fatal field, and reflect that never, during his whole life, was he wounded, or even touched, by a hostile force, do we not feel that he was guarded by an Unseen Hand? Yes, that sacred person was guarded by an unseen hand, warding off every danger. No peril by flood or by field was permitted to extinguish a life consecrated to the hopes of humanity, and to the purposes of Heaven.

For more than sixteen years he rested from his warfare, amid the shades of Mount Vernon, ripening his mind by reading and reflection, increasing his knowledge of practical affairs, entering into the whole experience of a citizen, at home, on his farm, and as a delegate to the Colonial Assembly; and when, at last, the war broke out, and the unanimous voice of the Continental Congress invested him, as the exigency required, with almost unbounded authority, as their commander-in-chief, he blended, although still in the prime of his life, in the mature bloom of his manhood, the attributes of a sage with those of a hero. A more perfectly fitted and furnished character has never appeared on the theater of human action, than when, reining up his war-horse, beneath the majestic and venerable elm, still standing at the entrance of the old Watertown road upon Cambridge Common, GEORGE WASHINGTON unsheathed his sword, and assumed the command of the gathering armies of American liberty.

Ex. CCXXIII-EULOGY ON WEBSTER.

CHOATE.

BUT it is time that the eulogy was spoken. My heart goes back into the coffin there with him, and I would pause. I went, it is a day or two since, alone, to see again the home

which he so dearly loved, the chamber where he died, the grave in which they laid him, all habited as when

"His look drew audience still as night,

Or summer's noontide air,"

till the heavens be no more.

Throughout that spacious and calm scene, all things to the eye showed at first unchanged. The books in the library, the portraits, the table at which he wrote, the scientific culture of the land, the course of agricultural occupation, the coming in of harvests, fruit of the seed his own hand had scattered, the animals and implements of husbandry, the trees planted by him in lines, in copses, in orchards, by thousands, the seat under the noble elm on which he used to sit to feel the south-west wind at evening, or hear the breathings of the sea, or the not less audible music of the starry heavens, all seemed at first unchanged.

The sun of a bright day, from which, however, something of the fervors of midsummer were wanting, fell temperately on them all, filled the air on all sides with the utterances of life, and gleamed on the long line of ocean. Some of those whom on earth he loved best, were still there. The great mind still seemed to preside; the great presence to be with you. You might expect to hear again the rich and playful tones of the voice of the old hospitality. Yet a moment more, and all the scene took on the aspect of one great monument, inscribed with his name, and sacred to his memory.

And such it shall be, in all the future of America! The sensation of desolateness, and loneliness, and darkness with which you see it now, will pass away; the sharp grief of love and friendship will become soothed; men will repair thither, as they are wont to commemorate the great days of history; the same glance shall take in, and the same emotions shall greet and bless the harbor of the Pilgrims and the tomb of Webster.

Ex. CCXXIV.-EDUCATION.

PHILLIPS.

No doubt you have all personally considered-no doubt you have all personally experienced, that of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence to allow us to cultivate,

there is not one which breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a heavenlier aspect, than education. It is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave: at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament: it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius.

Without it, what is man? A splendid slave! a reasoning savage, vacillating between the dignity of an intelligence derived from God, and the degradation of passions participated with brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascendency shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or embracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is this wondrous world of his residence?

"A mighty maze, and all without a plan;"

a dark and desolate and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament, or order. But light up within it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition! The seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties. regulated, and its mysteries resolved!

The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which debase, the superstitions which enslave, vanish before education. Like the holy symbol which blazed upon the cloud before the hesitating Constantine, if man follow but its precepts, purely, it will not only lead him to the victories of this world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of ancient grandeur, once studded with the stars of empire and the splendors of philosophy.

What erected the little state of Athens into a powerful commonwealth, placing in her hand the scepter of legislation, and wreathing round her brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fame? what extended Rome, the haunt of banditti, into universal empire? what animated Sparta with that high, unbending, adamantine courage, which conquered nature herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public virtue, and a proverb of national independence? What but those wise public institutions which strengthened their minds with early application, informed their infancy with the

principles of action, and sent them into the world, too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be shaken by its whirlwinds?

Ex. CCXXV.-A POET'S MISERIES.

"Ah, here it is! I'm famous now;
An author and a poet:

It really is in print.-Ye gods!
How proud I'll be to show it.

And gentle Anna! what a thrill
Will animate her breast,

To read these ardent lines, and know
To whom they are addressed.

"Why, bless my soul! here's something wrong,
What can the paper mean,

By talking of the 'graceful brooks,'

That gander o'er the green?'

And here's a t instead of r,

Which makes it 'tippling rill;'

We'll seek the 'shad,' instead of 'shade,'
And 'hell' instead of 'hill.”

"Thy looks so -what? -I recollect;
'Twas 'sweet,' and then 't was 'kind;'

And now, to think!-the stupid fool-
For 'bland' has printed 'blind.'

Was ever such provoking work?
(Tis curious, by the by,

That any thing is rendered blind
By giving it an i.)

"Thou hast no tears,' the t's left out,
'Thou hast no ears,' instead;
'I hope that thou art dear,' is put,
'I hope that thou art dead.
Who ever saw in such a space
So many blunders crammed?
"Those gentle eyes bedimmed,'
'Those gentle eyes bedammed.

ANON

"The color of the 'rose' is 'nose;"

'Affection' is affliction.'

(I wonder if the likeness holds
In fact as well as fiction ?)
"Thou art a friend.'-The r is gone;
Whoever would have deemed

That such a trifling thing could change
A friend into a fiend?

"Thou art the same,' is rendered lame; It really is too bad!

And here, because an i is out,

My lovely maid' is mad.

They drove her blind by poking in

An i-a process new

And now they've gouged it out again,
And made her crazy too.

"I'll read no more.-What shall I do?
I'll never dare to send it,-
The paper's scattered far and wide,
'Tis now too late to mend it.
Oh, fame! thou cheat of human life,
Why did I ever write?

I wish my poem had been burnt,
Before it saw the light."

"Let's stop and recapitulate:

I've 'dammed' her eyes, that's plain;

I've told her she's a lunatic,

And 'blind,' and 'dead,' and 'lame.'

Was ever such a horrid hash,

In poetry or prose?

I've said she was a 'fiend,'

And praised the color of her 'nose.'

"I wish I had that printer here,
About a half a minute,

I'd bang him to his heart's content,
And with an h begin it.

I'd jam his body, eyes and bones,

And spell it with a d,

And send him to that hill of his

That he spells with an e."