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waft his vessel onwards, which, like that of the Ancient Mariner," is

almost as

"idle as a painted ship,

Upon a painted ocean;"

even here the smooth and glittering surface is not entirely at rest; for long gentle undulations, which cause the taper mast to describe lines and angles upon the sky, are sufficiently perceptible to tantalize the mariner with the thought that the breeze, which mocks his desires, is blowing freshly and gallantly elsewhere.

The ocean is the highway of commerce. God seems wisely and graciously to have ordained that man should not be independent, but under perpetual obligation to his fellow-man, and that distant countries should ever maintain a mutually beneficial dependence on each other. He might have made every land produce every necessary and comfort of life in ample supply for its own population; the result of the separation has been, generally, an easy means of exchanging home for foreign productions, which constitutes commerce.

It is lamentably true that the evil passions of men have often perverted the facilities of communication for purposes of destruction, yet the sober verdict of mankind has for the most part been, that the substantial blessings of friendly commerce are preferable to martial glory. And the transport of goods of considerable bulk and weight, or of such as are of a very perishable nature, would be so difficult by land as very materially to increase their cost; while land communication between countries, tens of thousands of miles apart, would be attended with difficulties so great as to be practicably insurmountable.

FAREWELL TO THE ARMY AT FONTAINEBLEAU, 1814.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

SOLDIERS! receive my adieu. During twenty years that we have lived together, I am satisfied with you. I have always found you in the paths of glory. All the powers of Europe have armed against me. Some of my generals have betrayed their trust and France. My country herself has wished another destiny: with you, and the other brave men who have remained true to me, I could have maintained a civil war: but France would have been unhappy.

Be faithful to your new king. Be submissive to your new generals; and do not abandon our dear country. Mourn not my fortunes. I shall be happy while I am sure of your happiness. I might have died; but if I have consented to live, it is still to serve your glory; I shall record now the great deeds which we have done together.

Bring me the eagle standard; let me press it to my heart. Farewell, my children; my hearty wishes go with you. Preserve me in your memories.

CHARLEMAGNE.

MONTESQUIEU.

CHARLEMAGNE made such an adjustment in the orders of the state, that they were fairly counterbalanced, and that he remained master. They were all united by the power of his genius. The empire was sustained by the greatness of its chief; the prince was great, but the man greater. He made admirable laws. He did more: he caused them to be carried out. One sees, in the laws of this prince, a spirit of foresight which understands everything, and a power which leads everything in its train; all pretexts for eluding duty are done away, all negligences punished, abuses reformed or prevented. He knew how to punish; he knew better how to pardon. Vast in his plans, simple in execution, no one has ever had more completely the art of doing the greater things with ease, the most difficult with promptness.

Unceasingly he travelled over his vast empire, aiding with his powerful hand its weaker parts. He played with dangers, and especially those which almost always try great conquerors,—I mean conspiracies He was extremely frugal and temperate; his disposition was mild, his manners simple; he loved to mix in the society of his court: if he had his besetting sins, a prince who always governs alone, and who passes his life in the severe toils of government, may, for these reasons, find some palliation for his faults.

Original Translation.

PROCLAMATION TO THE ARMY OF ITALY.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

SOLDIERS: You have, in fifteen days, gained six victories, taken twenty standards, fifty pieces of cannon, numerous strongholds, and conquered the richest part of Piedmont; you have made fifteen thousand prisoners; and killed or wounded more than ten thousand men.

But, I must not dissemble with you; you have as yet done nothing, since there remains still much to be done. Neither Turin nor Milan

are yours.

You were stripped of everything at the beginning of the campaign; you are to-day abundantly provided. The magazines taken from our enemies are numerous. The artillery has arrived. The country has a right to expect great things of you. Will you justify its expectation? The greatest obstacles doubtless have already been surmounted; but

you have yet battles to fight, towns to take, rivers to cross. Is there among you one whose courage begins to fail? is there one who would prefer to return upon the summits of the Alps and Apennines, to bear patiently the insults of a slavish soldiery? No! there is none such among the victors of Montenotte, Millesimo, Diego, and Mondovi. You are all fired with the wish to bear afar the glory of the French people; you all desire to humiliate those proud kings who dared to think of putting us in fetters; you all wish to dictate a glorious peace which shall indemnify France for the immense sacrifices she has made. You all wish, on going back to your village homes, to be able to say with pride: "I was of the conquering army of Italy,"

WASHINGTON.

CHARLES PHILLIPS.

Ir is the custom of your board, and a noble one it is, to deck the cup of the gay with the garland of the great; and surely, even in the eyes of its deity, his grape is not the less lovely when glowing beneath the foliage of the palm-tree and the myrtle.-Allow me to add one flower to the chaplet, which, though it sprang in America, is no exotic. Virtue planted it, and it is naturalized everywhere. I see you anticipate me-I see you concur with me, that it matters very little what immediate spot may be the birth-place of such a man as WASHINGton. No people can claim, no country can appropriate him; the boon of Providence to the human race, his fame is eternity, and his residence creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared; how bright in the brow of the firmament was the planet which it revealed to us! In the production of Washington, it does really appear as if nature was endeavoring to improve upon herself, and that all the virtues of the ancient world were but so many studies preparatory to the patriot of the new. Individual instances no doubt there were; splendid exemplifications of some single qualification. Cæsar was merciful, Scipio was continent, Hannibal was patient; but it was reserved for Washington to blend them all in one, and like the lovely chef d'œuvre of the Grecian artist, to exhibit in one glow of associated beauty, the pride of every model, and the perfection of every master. As a general, he marshalled the peasant into a veteran, and supplied by discipline the absence of experience; as a statesman, he enlarged the policy of the cabinet into the most comprehensive system of general advantage; and such was the wisdom of his views, and the philosophy of his counsels,

that to the soldier and the statesman he almost added the character of the sage! a conqueror, he was untainted with the crime of blood; a revolutionist, he was free from any stain of treason; for aggression commenced the contest, and his country called him to the command.— Liberty unsheathed his sword, necessity stained, victory returned it. If he had paused here, history might have doubted what station to assign him, whether at the head of her citizens or her soldiers, her heroes or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created?

"How shall we rank thee upon glory's page,

Thou more than soldier, and just less than sage;
All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee,

Far less than all thou hast foreborne to be!"

Such, sir, is the testimony of one not to be accused of partiality in. his estimate of America. Happy, proud America! the lightnings of heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!

From "Speech at Dinas Island."

THE INAUGURATION OF THE MONUMENT TO HENRY CLAY. JOHN TYLER.

I FRANKLY confess that I did not anticipate the call you have made upon me. I came prepared, if opportunity was given, to say a few words of the distinguished man whose memory you have, as far as marble could do it, immortalized; but, in speaking of him, I shall, of necessity, speak of the Union. I came up to witness the proceedings of to-day. It is a great spectacle, that of inaugurating the statue of one who has passed away from earth; it is the eternizing his name as far as marble can accomplish it; it is the rescuing from the tomb those features which were immovable in their day and generation. To do this on those grounds, and under the shadow of your Capitol, which is hallowed by great events and great names-and this, too, in advance of similar tributes to the heroes and statesmen of other days, who drew their sustenance from Virginia's maternal breast, and made their names illustrious-is no ordinary event; and yet it is right. It is right to reclaim the resemblance, while it may be done, of one of Virginia's sons, who in early life left the old homestead for a new one in the West, under the nursing care of her eldest daughter. It may be

said, after the manner of the inscription on the tomb of the Mantuan Swain, Virginia gave him birth; Kentucky gave him a grave; the United States furnished him a theatre for his labors. I trust the day is not distant when those public grounds will exhibit to our admiring people the risen features of a grand host of departed patriots, each after its own way, to be a silent but forcible monitor of that immortality of form which succeeds a life of high and honorable action.

From "Speech at Richmond on the inauguration of Clay Monument.”

THE GREAT MERITS OF HENRY CLAY.

JOHN TYLER.

THE details of Mr. Clay's life have been eloquently given by the accomplished orator of the day. It is not because I admired him as a man, as a leader in debate, as an orator of immense powers, that I am here to-day. No, it is because in my heart I believe that he has a title to a monument for an act of broad and unselfish patriotism in the course of his career which, standing by itself, I have not hesitated at all times, and in all places when it was suitable to say, entitled him not only to a monument of brass or marble, but to one in the hearts of his countrymen. The brow of the Roman citizen who had saved the life of another in battle, was encircled by an oaken wreath. What badge of distinction is proud enough for him who saves his country from civil war? Ask the parent who enfolds his little children and the companion of all his hopes and trials and triumphs in life, in his arms, at the horrible spectre of civil broil which threatens with grim aspect to enter his heretofore peaceful dwelling-ask the lone and widowed mother as she flies to the rock and desert with her infant strained to her breast and concealed from view by the tresses of her streaming hair-ask brave and stalwart men as they take their position in opposing ranks to shed each other's blood-ask one, ask all, what monument he deserves who drives away this horrible spectre of civil war, and restores his country to peace and confidence. Nay, more-ask the lovers of freedom all over the world what is the measure of gratitude for the man who saves that glorious banner, without a star shorn of its dazzling lustre-the herald, if so preserved, of ultimate freedom to mankind, from being torn and destroyed in the bloody arena of strife and battle. It was because, in my innermost heart, I believe Henry Clay did this, that I am here to-day.

From "Speech at Richmond on the inauguration of Clay Monument.”

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