trous, as in Europe it has been convulsive and portentous, they are nevertheless already established here beyond contradiction; if for a moment eclipsed in the east, yet there and here and every where destined to be soon the spell to disenchant and reform the world.

Our enviable associate General La Fayette has enjoyed the singular happiness of sharing their fortunes for the half century of their existence. Disciple of Franklin, intimate of his legitimate successor, for many years the president of this society, who carried into the presidency of the country the benevolent, economical, just and pacific doctrines of the philosophy of the age-he has uniformly under all vicissitudes in both worlds maintained it from the first, till rewarded by the brilliant present; when part of his requital is a popular coronation, to which the triumph of old or any modern pageant bears but a faint resemblance. For cold and cheerless is bespoken and organised pomp. No spectacle is either physically or morally comparable in magnificence to that of a rejoicing nation. No government can rouse a people like their own awakening. No

treasury can afford the means, no ordinance can produce the effects of the gratuitous ostentation of an unanimous people. America does not forge, the romantic forthcoming of the most generous consistent and heroic of the knights of the old world to the rescue of the new. She has always dwelt delighted on the constancy of the nobleman who could renounce titles and wealth, for more historical and philanthropic honors; the commander renouncing power, who never shed a drop of blood for conquest or vain glory. She has often trembled, but never blushed, for her oriental champion, when tried by the alternate caresses and rage of the most terrific mobs, and imposing monarchs. She knows that his hospitable mansion was the shrine at which her citizens in France consecrated their faith in independence.

Thither did all her valiant youth resort,

And from his memory inflame their breasts
To matchless valour, and adventures high.

Invited to revisit the scenes of his first eminence, the very idolatry of the welcome abounds with redeeming characteristics of self government. A squadron of steam boats brought him to the

shore. A steam boat of larger dimensions than the ships of war to which, in the time of Henry the Great, those of all the rest of Europe vailed their flags, has been a vehicle of his pleasures— emblematic of the enterprise, mobility, abundance, comfort and equality of the country which the last time our distinguished guest assisted at a meeting of this society, July, 1785, was poor, in debt, feeble and uncertain of its destiny.A population more numerous, homogeneous, and incomparably more intelligent than that of England, when Louis, the Fourteenth with half a million of regular soldiers, was chased to the gardens of Versailles; better housed, clothed, and fed than any other; stand forth, in mass, more than ten millions strong, covering two thousand miles square of territory, a martial and a lofty nation, without any impulse of government, displaying their happiness, their strength and their gratitude, by a national jubilee to signalise the arrival of their guest. The sons of sires whom he led to battle in calamitous resistance to a trifling tax are ready to lavish their last cent to make him welcome. An industrious people, who earn their

daily bread by labour, suspend all occupation but rejoicing with him. His voluntary escort consists of larger bodies of well equipped troops than could be raised throughout the revolution. Hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts, of all sexes, ages and conditions, are daily and nightly thronged together in his train, without disorder, confusion, or crime. Learned and pious societies, the female sex, all ages, the church, the professions, the various trades, the swarms of innumerable schools, city corporations, the magistrates of four and twenty sovereign states, and of the adult empire of their Union-all business laid aside-the courts of justice shut-party, and avarice, and every other passion hushed-from every private dwelling and public edifice, pour out to swell the perfectly placid and regulated current that bears upon its bosom-Not a chieftain reeking from reckless victory, sparkling with the trophies of ruffian war, drenched with tears of blood, incensed by vulgar adulation-No: But a simple individual, without authority, power, patronage, or recent exploit, venerable with age, mellowed by misfortunes-who has nothing but his blessing to

give in return, whose merits are remote recollections, whose magic is disinterestedness,-proved by a long life of temperate consistency, to be worthy of this homage in the commemoration of Independence. The man of whom no instance is known of selfishness or dangerous abusewhose sword itself was the gift of the founder of the temple of concord-with such a man, as the representative of their persecuted but triumphant cause, a sedate and thinking people give vent to their enthusiasm. They raise him before the world as its image, and bear him through illuminated cities and widely cultivated regions, all redolent with festivity and every device of hospitality and entertainment,, where, when their independence was declared, there was little else than wilderness and war.

It is the poetry of history-this popular congratulation. Its most rational, and doubtless acceptable, the predominating essence, is its pure, spontaneous popularity. If a fault may be found, it is when the American original is tinged by a mistaken mixture of European imitation, otherwise, the universal hallelujah of peace and prosperity, whose music is full of the finest moral.