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land; and, unlike that land, it would be indivisible. It would be as the opening of a great fountain for the healing of the nations. Reminded of our fathers, we should remember that we are brethren. The exclusiveness of State pride, the narrow selfishness of a mere local policy, and the small jealousies of vulgar minds would be merged in an expanded, comprehensive, constitutional sentiment of old, family, fraternal regard. It would reassemble, as it were, the people of America in one vast congregation. It would rehearse in their hearing all things which God had done for them in the old time; it would proclaim the law once more; and then it would bid them join in that grandest and most affecting solemnity,— a national anthem of thanksgiving for the deliverance, of honor for the dead, of proud prediction for the future.

The tribes of Israel and Judah came up three times a year to the holy and beautiful city, and united in prayer and praise and sacrifice, in listening to that thrilling poetry, in swelling that matchless song, which celebrated the triumphs of their fathers by the Red Sea, at the fords of Jordan, and on the high places of the field of Barak's victory. But we have no feast of the Passover or of the Tabernacles or of the Commemoration. The States of Greece erected temples of the gods by a common contribution, and worshipped in them. They consulted the same oracle, they celebrated the same national festival, mingled their deliberations in the same Amphictyonic and subordinate assemblies, and sat together upon the same benches to hear their glorious history read aloud in the prose of Herodotus, the poetry of Homer and of Pindar. We have built no national temples but the Capitol: we consult no common oracle but the Constitution. We can meet together to celebrate no national festival. But the thousand tongues of the press clearer far than the silver trumpet of the jubilee, louder than the voice of the herald at the games may speak and do speak to the whole people without calling them from their homes or interrupting them in their employments. Happy if they should speak and the people should hear those things which pertain at least to their temporal and national salvation.

Rufus Choate's Works are published in two volumes, with a memoir by S. G. Brown included in the first volume, in which, also, are collected the lectures and addresses upon historical and literary themes, the political

speeches appearing in the second volume. The selection from Choate's writings published in Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature (vol. vi.) is intelligently made, the biographical sketch which accompanies it being by Albert Stickney. There is an interesting chapter upon Choate in E. P. Whipple's "Recollections." Since Choate wrote the eloquent address reprinted almost entire in the present leaflet, the sense of the opportunities and importance of historical fiction has deepened and widened to a remarkable degree. There is hardly any field of history which the novelist and romancer have not entered during the last half of the century, often with great illuminating power. Our own American history has by no means fared the worst. Historical fiction has its large department in all the large libraries, and by many of these admirable finding-lists and catalogues have been issued." It is sufficient here to refer to the Chronological Index to Historical Fiction, published by the Boston Public Library. History itself has been treated by many master hands in a more glowing, graphic, and picturesque way, fulfilling the demands made by Macaulay in his old essay on History, written in the early part of the century. Green's History of the English People is the most conspicuous illustration of this eloquent and dramatic treatment of history; but in America we also have brilliant illustrations. No student of the history of a people may neglect the study of that people's literature. Greece cannot be understood without a knowledge of Eschylus, Sophocles, and Aristophanes. To know England, we must know Shakespeare and Milton. The actual use of historical subjects by the poets is most important. Many men see English history, and Roman history as well, chiefly through the eyes of Shakespeare; and they might see it through worse eyes. The prominence of American history in American poetry during the nineteenth century is noteworthy. One of the subjects set for the Old South Essays for 1900 is " Longfellow's Use of American Subjects and his Services for American History." When we have named "Hiawatha," the "Courtship of Miles Standish," " Evangeline," and the "New England Tragedies," we have indicated a large portion of the sum total of Longfellow's poetry; and scores of briefer poems touching American history and life remain to be named. The meeting devoted to the memory of Longfellow just after his death in 1882, by the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which he was a member, was noteworthy for the tributes to his distinct and great services for our history; see the Society's Proceedings, vol. xix. The poetry of America forms an element as important in the poetry of Whittier and Lowell, and almost as important in the works of our other American poets; while it is to our poets, from Emerson down, that we go for the noblest expressions of our patriotism and the highest calls to a noble national life.

PUBLISHED BY

THE DIRECTORS OF THE OLD SOUTH WORK, Old South Meeting-house, Boston, Mass.

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SPEECH IN FANEUIL HALL, THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 29, 1852.

Ladies and Gentlemen,- Do me the justice to believe that I rise not with any pretension to eloquence within the Cradle of American Liberty. If I were standing upon the ruins of Prytaneum, and had to speak whence Demosthenes spoke, my tongue would refuse to obey, my words would die away upon my lips, and I would listen to the winds fraught with the dreadful realization of his unheeded prophecies. Spirit of American eloquence, frown not at my boldness that I dare abuse Shakespeare's language in Faneuil Hall! It is a strange fate, and not my choice. My tongue is fraught with a down-trodden nation's wrongs. The justice of my cause is my eloquence; but misfortune may approach the altar whence the flame arose which roused your fathers from degradation to independence. I claim my people's share in the benefit of the laws of nature and of nature's God. I will nothing add to the historical reputation of these walls; but I dare hope not to sully them by appealing to those maxims of truth the promulgation of which made often tremble these walls from the thundering cheers of freemen, roused by the clarion sound of inspired oratory.

"Cradle of American Liberty! it is a great name; but there is something in it which saddens my heart. You should not say "American liberty." You should say "Liberty in America." Liberty should not be either American or European,it should be just "liberty." God is God. He is neither Amer

ica's God nor Europe's God. He is God. He is God. So shall liberty be. "American liberty" has much the sound as if you would say "American privilege." And there is the rub. Look to history, and, when your heart saddens at the fact that liberty never yet was lasting in any corner of the world and in any age, you will find the key of it in the gloomy truth that all who yet were free regarded liberty as their privilege instead of regarding it as a principle. The nature of every privilege is exclusiveness; that of a principle is communicative. Liberty is a principle; its community is its security; exclusiveness is its doom.

What is aristocracy? It is exclusive liberty; it is privilege; and aristocracy is doomed, because it is contrary to the destiny and welfare of man. Aristocracy should vanish, not in the nations, but also from amongst the nations. So long as that is not done, liberty will nowhere be lasting on earth. It is equally fatal to individuals as to nations to believe themselves beyond the reach of vicissitudes. To this proud reliance, and the isolation resulting therefrom, more victims have fallen than to oppression by immediate adversities. You have prodigiously grown by your freedom of seventy-five years; but what is seventy-five years to take for a charter of immortality? No, no, my humble tongue tells the records of eternal truth. A privilege never can be lasting. Liberty restricted to one nation never can be sure. You may say, "We are the prophets of God," but you shall not say, "God is only our God." The Jews have said so, and the pride of Jerusalem lies in the dust. Our Saviour taught all humanity to say, "Our Father in heaven"; and his Jerusalem is lasting to the end of days. "There is a community in mankind's destiny." That was the greeting which I read on the arch of welcome on the Capitol Hill of Massachusetts. I pray to God the republic of America would weigh the eternal truth of those words, and act accordingly. Liberty in America would then be sure to the end of time. But if you say "American liberty," and take that grammar for your policy, I dare say the time will yet come when humanity will have to mourn over a new proof of the ancient truth, that without community national freedom is never sure. You should change "American liberty" into "Liberty," then liberty would be forever sure in America, and that which found a cradle in Faneuil Hall never would find a coffin through all coming days. I like not the word "cradle "

connected with the word "liberty." It has a scent of mortality. But these are vain words, I know. Though in the life of nations the spirits of future be marching in present events, visible to every reflecting mind, still those who foretell them are charged with arrogantly claiming the title of prophets, and prophecies are never believed. However, the cradle of American liberty is not only famous from the reputation of having been always the lists of the most powerful eloquence; it is still more conspicuous for having seen that eloquence attended by practical success. To understand the mystery of this rare circumstance, a man must see the people of New England and especially the people of Massachusetts.

In what I have seen of New England there are two things the evidence of which strikes the observer at every step,prosperity and intelligence. I have seen thousands assembled, following the noble impulses of generous hearts; almost the entire population of every city, of every town, of every village where I passed, gathered around me, throwing the flowers of consolation in my thorny way. I can say I have seen the people here, and I have looked at it with a keen eye, sharpened in the school of a toilsome life. Well, I have seen not a single man bearing mark of that poverty upon himself which in old Europe strikes the eye sadly at every step. I have seen no ragged poor. I have seen not a single house bearing the appearance of desolated poverty. The cheerfulness of a comfortable condition, the result of industry, spreads over the land. One sees at a glance that the people work assiduously, not with the depressing thought just to get from day to day, by hard toil, through the cares of a miserable life, but they work with the cheerful consciousness of substantial happiness. And the second thing which I could not fail to remark is the stamp of intelligence impressed upon the very eyes and outward appearance of the people at large. I and my companions have seen that people in the factories, in the workshops, in their houses, and in the streets, and could not fail a thousand times to think,-"How intelligent that people looks." It is to such a people that the orators of Faneuil Hall had to speak, and therein is the mystery of their success. They were not wiser than the public spirit of their audience, but they were the eloquent interpreters of the people's enlightened instinct.

No man can force the harp of his own individuality into the people's heart; but every man may play upon the cords of his

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