fortune often bestows with no impartial hand; if it bring to mind the hopes, that thought no office too high, no wealth too enormous, no literary glories too lofty to be reached by our exertions. It also recalls the memory of the chilling of those youthful aspirations, the checking of those lofty hopes, and the gradual intrusion of the dark realities of life, into the picture coloured in rainbow tints by our youthful imaginations. In a more especial manner does this celebration awaken the remembrance of those with whom we jointly received the instructions of the same teachers, but who have been snatched from the world before the expectations of their Alma Mater were realized; or of those of more advanced standing, who, although full of honours and glory, have been called from the fields of their usefulness, too soon for their friends and their country. If such thoughts are excited by the very nature of our meeting, let them not be repressed. The value of the living friend is enhanced by the memory of him that it is dead; and we now hail with more of intense pleasure the few survivors of a numerous class, than we should some years since have greeted the whole. Here, as in all other cases, our sorrows tend to heighten our enjoyments; and the temperate conviviality of our banquet will be the better relished, that we have paid our just tribute of respect to to those whose places know them no longer. Such are the views with which I acceded to the request of your committee, to deliver before you on this occasion a discourse in honour of one of our departed associates; departed indeed before our last meeting, but at too short an interval to admit of his worth being then commemorated. Many of you there are, more competent than I to this task; more learned, more eloquent, more in the habit of addressing a public assemblage; many more intimate with the illustrious deceased, the close associates of his private life, the followers of his political fortunes. But why such a one was not selected, it became not me to inquire; and the very sense I entertained of my own unfitness enhanced the compliment paid me, and precluded my declining what I feel as an honour of the most gratifying description. To be asked to address you ere so many of my seniors have performed that task, to be the first to whom an opportunity has been offered of fulfilling this interesting but mournful duty of our association, and more than all, to have such a theme assigned me, are favours for which I am far more indebted to your kindness than to my own merit. It has then become my melancholy privilege, to be the organ to express your regrets at the loss of the most distinguished of our members, who, if he had lived long enough for glory and an enduring reputation, died in the pride of his strength, and the acme of his mental vigour. If, indeed, it be not only a matter of duty, but of feeling, that we shall commemorate our departed associates, rarely will occasions present themselves where the tribute is so appropriate or so justly due. No alumnus of this institu tion has ever filled a greater space in the eye of the public than the late Dewitt Clinton; none has contributed more to the honour of his country, none so much to the prosperity of his native state; while we of the younger order of graduates, whose acquaintance with our alma mater, even by tradition, hardly extends beyond the time of her change of name, look up to him as the first matriculated student of Columbia College. What however render our expressions of respect most appropriate, his public acts and national services, make the task an arduous one. Every quarter of the Union has teemed with eulogies of our departed associate; and it is hopeless to attempt to elicit new views of his character, or invent new expressions to emblazon his exalted worth. Nor would a simple biographical sketch possess either novelty or interest, were I to have recourse to such a mode of occupying your attention. The task of writing a memoir of the life of of Clinton, has already been performed by one, who, by long personal intimacy, by constant observation of his character, and by the most industrious research, has done all that talent, affection, and zeal could perform.* To this duty he was called by the united voice, of the literary and scientific institution of which Clinton was so long the illustrious head; of the fathers of our city, over whose deliberations Clinton had long presided; and of the citizens at large, who mourned the loss of the most conspicuous of their number. * David Hosack, M. D. F. R. S. whose memoir is already before the public. His family has conferred the appointment of Biographer of Clinton, upon one distinguished alike by station and by talent, with whose duties it would be improper in me to interfere, with whose talents and opportunities it would be presumption in me to compete.* But although his literary and scientific fellows, his former civic compeers, and the public in general, have paid their tribute of remembrance through so appropriate a channel; although the affection of his family has named a biographer to récord those services which will form to his remotest descendant an escutcheon of honour; the Alumni of Columbia College have a duty to perform in their collective capacity, and owe to their alma mater that they shall not refrain from bearing their part in the general mourning at his loss; their testimony of regard for their illustrious. brother; their assent to the general acclaim which pronounces him first and worthiest of their members. Like the beautiful and delicate insect, which for a single day in each year whitens our trees with its pinions, and at eve strews the ground with the snowy relics of its short-lived happiness, our association has but an ephemeral existence; on but one day can it act or move, assume the livery of sorrow, or bear the badges of joy. This short and fleeting life it for the present year devotes to the remembrance of Clinton. *The Hon John C. Spencer. Universal custom might lead me first to speak of his descent and lineage. The industrious research of the author of the memoir to which I have already referred, traces these to an English gentleman who espoused the royal cause, in the time of the first Charles, and losing his property in the failure of the fortunes of that monarch, sought new fields of enterprize in Ireland. Other circumstances would lead us to infer, that a heraldic antiquary might deduce the line from those whom Englishmen consider as the founders of their nobility, the conquerors of Hastings. But our country admits no such titles to honour, rarely can the merit of the progenitor advance the interest even of a worthy descendant; never can it be permitted to palliate the failings, or cast a veil over the vices and degeneracy of the unworthy. Yet so far as our country will admit of pride of birth, the family of Clinton was as illustrious as a republic can know. His father, and still more his uncle, had distinguished themselves in times of danger, difficulty, and dismay, as soldiers, patriots, and statesmen. In a country where every man must be the maker of his own character, and in most cases the architect of his own fortune, one's immediate progenitors are all that can influence his fate, or determine his usefulness. Thus far Clinton may have been considered fortunate, but far more so, in having been born soon enough to enjoy the advantage of the example of these two illustrious men, and in having witnessed their labours and exertions, while the success of the honourable cause they had espoused |