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As I have wandered over the spots once the scene of their labours, and mused among the prostrate columns of their senate houses and forums, I have seemed almost to hear a voice from the tombs of departed ages; from the sepulchres of the nations which died before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure us, to be faithful to our trust. They implore us by the long trials of struggling humanity; by the blessed memory of the departed; by the dear faith which has been plighted, by pure hands, to the holy cause of truth and man; by the awful secrets of the prison houses, where the sons of freedom have been immured; by the noble heads which have been brought to the block; by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent ruins of nations, they conjure us not to quench the light which is rising on the world. Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes; and Rome pleads with us in the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully.

The Circumstances Favourable to the Progress of Literature in America: An Oration delivered at Cambridge before the Society of Phi Beta Kappa, on the 26th of August, 1824.

THE USES OF ASTRONOMY.

There is much, in every way, in the city of Florence, to excite the curiosity, to kindle the imagination, and to gratify the taste. Sheltered on the north by the vine-clad hills of Fiesole, whose Cyclopean walls carry back the antiquary to ages before the Roman, before the Etruscan, power, the flowery city (Fiorenza) covers the sunny banks of the Arno with its stately palaces. Dark and frowning piles of medieval structure, a majestic dome the prototype of St. Peter's, basilicas which enshrine the ashes of some of the mightiest of the dead, the stone where Dante stood to gaze on the campanile, the house of Michael Angelo, still occupied by a descendant of his lineage and name,-his hammer, his chisel, his dividers, his manuscript poems, all as if he had left them but yesterday; airy bridges, which seem not so much to rest on the earth as to hover over the waters they span ;-the loveliest creations of ancient art, rescued from the grave of ages again to "enchant the world;" the breathing marbles of Michael Angelo, the glowing canvas of Raphael and Titian;— museums filled with medals and coins of every age from Cyrus the younger, and gems and amulets and vases from the sepulchres of Egyptian Pharaohs coeval with Joseph, and Etruscan Lucumons that swayed Italy before the Romans;-libraries stored with the choicest texts of ancient literature;

gardens of rose and orange and pomegranate and myrtle;-the very air you breathe languid with music and perfume,-such is Florence. But among all its fascinations addressed to the sense, the memory, and the heart, there was none to which I more frequently gave a meditative hour during a year's residence, than to the spot where Galileo Galilei sleeps beneath the marble floor of Santa Croce: no building on which I gazed with greater reverence, than I did upon the modest mansion at Arcetri, villa at once and prison, in which that venerable sage, by command of the Inquisition, passed the sad closing years of his life; the beloved daughter on whom he had depended to smooth his passage to the, grave laid there before him; the eyes with which he had discovered worlds before unknown, quenched in blindness:

"Ahimè! quegli occhi si non fatta oscuri,
Che vider più di tutti i tempi antichi,
E luce fur dei secoli futuri."

That was the house "where," says Milton (another of those of whom the world was not worthy), "I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old,- -a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking on astronomy, otherwise than as the Dominican and Franciscan licensers thought." Great heavens! what a tribunal, what a culprit, what a crime! Let us thank God, my friends, that we live in the nineteenth century. Of all the wonders of ancient and modern art,-statues and paintings, and jewels and manuscripts, the admiration and the delight of ages,-there was nothing which I beheld with more affec tionate awe, than that poor rough tube, a few feet in length, the work of his own hands, that very optic glass" through which the "Tuscan Artist" viewed the moon,

"At evening from the Fesolé

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe:" that poor little spy-glass (for it is scarcely more) through which the human eye first distinctly beheld the surface of the moon,first discovered the phases of Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, and the seeming handles of Saturn,-first penetrated the dusky depths of the heavens,-first pierced the clouds of visual error, which from the creation of the world involved the system of the uni

verse.

There are occasions in life in which a great mind lives years of rapt enjoyment in a moment. I can fancy the emotions of Galileo, when first raising the newly-constructed telescope to the heavens, he saw fulfilled the grand prophecy of Copernicus, and beheld the planet Venus crescent like the moon. . . .

Yes, noble Galileo, thou art right, E pur si muove. "It does move." Bigots may make thee recant it; but it moves nevertheless. Yes, the earth moves, and the planets move, and the mighty waters move, and the great sweeping tides of air move, and the empires of men move, and the world of thought moves, ever onward and upward to higher thoughts and bolder theories. The Inquisition may seal thy lips, but they can no more stop the progress of the great truth propounded by Copernicus and demonstrated by thee, than they can stop the revolving earth!

Much, however, as we are indebted to our observatories for elevating our conceptions of the heavenly bodies, they present, even to the unaided sight, scenes of glory which words are too feeble to describe. I had occasion, a few weeks since, to take the early train from Providence to Boston; and for this purpose rose at two o'clock in the morning. Every thing around was wrapt in darkness and hushed in silence, broken only by what seemed at that hour the unearthly clank and rush of the train. It was a mild, serene, midsummer's night,-the sky was without a cloud, the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades just above the horizon, shed their sweet influence in the east; Lyra sparkled near the zenith; Andromeda veiled her newly-discovered glories from the naked eye in the south; the steady pointers, far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign.

Such was the glorious spectacle as I entered the train. As we proceeded, the timid approach of twilight became more perceptible; the intense blue of the sky began to soften; the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest; the sister-beams of the Pleiades soon melted together; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous transfiguration went on. Hands of angels, hidden from mortal eyes, shifted the scenery of the heavens; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly gray; the great watchstars shut up their holy eyes; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pouring down from above in one great ocean of radiance; till at length, as we reached the Blue Hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into

rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlasting gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his state.

I do not wonder at the superstition of the ancient Magians, who in the morning of the world went up to the hill-tops of Central Asia, and, ignorant of the true God, adored the most glorious work of his hands. But I am filled with amazement, when I am told, that, in this enlightened age and in the heart of the Christian world, there are persons who can witness this daily manifestation of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say in their hearts, "There is no God." A Discourse delivered at Albany, on Occa

sion of the Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory, in that city, on the 28th of August, 1856.

WASHINGTON ABROAD AND AT HOME.

I feel, sir, more and more, as I advance in life, and watch with mingled confidence, solicitude, and hope, the development of the momentous drama of our national existence, seeking to penetrate that future which His Excellency has so eloquently foreshadowed, that it is well worth our while that it is at once one of our highest social duties and important privileges to celebrate with ever-increasing solemnity, with annually augmented pomp and circumstance of festal commemoration, the anniversary of the nation's birth, were it only as affording a fitting occasion to bring the character and services of Washington, with ever fresh recognition, to the public attention, as the great central figure of that unparalleled group, that "noble army" of chieftains, sages, and patriots, by whom the Revolution was accomplished.

This is the occasion, and here is the spot, and this is the day, and we citizens of Boston are the men, if any in the land, to throw wide open the portals of the temple of memory and fame, and there gaze with the eyes of a reverent and grateful imagination on his benignant countenance and majestic form. This is the occasion and the day; for who needs to be told how much the cause of independence owes to the services and character of Washington; to the purity of that stainless purpose, to the firmness of that resolute soul? This is the spot, this immortal hall, from which as from an altar went forth the burning coals that kindled into a consuming fire at Lexington and Concord, at Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights. We citizens of Boston are the men; for the first great success of Washington in the Revolu tionary War was to restore to our fathers

their ancient and beloved town. This is the time, the accepted time, when the voice of the Father of his Country cries aloud to us from the sods of Mount Vernon, and calls upon us, east and west, north and south, as the brethren of one great household, to be faithful to the dear-bought inheritance which he did so much to secure for us.

But the fame of Washington is not confined to our own country. Bourdaloue, in his eulogy on the military saint of France, ́exclaims, "The other saints have been given by the church to France, but France in return has given St. Louis to the church." Born into the family of nations in these latter days, receiving from foreign countries and inheriting from ancient times the bright and instructive example of all their honoured sons, it is the glory of America, in the very dawn of her national existence, to have given back to the world many names of which the lustre will never fade; and especially one name of which the whole family of Christendom is willing to acknowledge the unenvied pre-eminence; a name of which neither Greece nor Rome, nor republican Italy, Switzerland, nor Holland, nor constitutional England can boast the rival. "A character of virtues so happily tempered by one another" (I use the language of Charles James Fox)," and so wholly unalloyed by any vices, is hardly to be found on the pages of history."

It is delightful to witness the generous recognition of Washington's merits, even in countries where, from political reasons, some backwardness in that respect might have been anticipated. Notwithstanding his leading agency in wresting a colonial empire from Great Britain, England was not slow to appreciate the grandeur and beauty of his character. Mr. Rufus King, our minister at that time to the court of St. James, writing to General Hamilton in 1797, says: "No one who has not been in England can have a just idea of the admiration expressed among all parties for General Washington. It is a common observation, that he is not only the most illustrious, but the most meritorious character which has yet appeared." Nor was France behind England in her admiration of Washington. Notwithstanding the uneasy relations of the two countries at the time of his decease, when the news of his death reached Paris, the youthful and fortunate soldier who had already reached the summit of power by paths which Washington could never have trod, commanded the highest honours to be paid to his memory. "Washington," he immediately exclaimed, in the orders of the day, "is dead! This great man fought against tyranny; he consolidated the liberty of his country. His

memory will be ever dear to the French people, as to all freemen in both hemispheres, and especially to the soldiers of France, who like him and the American soldiers are fighting for liberty and equality. In consequence, the First Consul orders that for ten days black crape shall be suspended from all the standards and banners of the republic." By order of Napoleon a solemn funeral service was performed in the "Invalides," in the presence of all that was most eminent in Paris. "A sorrowful cry," said Fontanes, the orator chosen for the occasion, "has reached us from America, which he liberated. It belongs to France to yield the first response to the lamentation which will be echoed by every great soul. These august arches have been well chosen for the apotheosis of a hero."

How often in those wild scenes of her revolution, when the best blood of France was shed by the remorseless and ephemeral tyrants who chased each other, dagger in hand, across that dismal stage of crime and woe, during the reign of terror, how often did the thoughts of Lafayette and his companions in arms, who had fought the battles of constitutional liberty in America, call up the image of the pure, the just, the humane, the unambitious Washington! How different would have been the fate of France, if her victorious chieftain, when he had reached the giddy heights of power, had imitated the great example which he caused to be eulogized! He might have saved his country from being crushed by the leagued hosts of Europe; he might have prevented the names of Moscow and Waterloo from being written in letters of blood on the pages of history; he might have escaped himself the sad significance of those memorable words of Fontanes, on the occasion to which I have alluded, when, in the presence of Napoleon, he spoke of Washington as a man who, "by a destiny seldom shared by those who change the fate of empires, died in peace as a private citizen, in his native land, where he had held the first rank, and which he had himself made free!"

How different would have been the fate of Spain, of Naples, of Greece, of Germany, of Mexico and the South American Republics, had their recent revolutions been conducted by men like Washington and his patriotic associates, whose prudence, patriotism, probity, and disinterestedness conducted our Revolution to an auspicious and honourable result!

But it is, of course, at home that we must look for an adequate appreciation of our Washington's services and worth. He is the friend of the liberties of other countries; he is the father of his own. I own,

Mr. Mayor, that it has been to me a source of inexpressible satisfaction, to find, amidst all the bitter dissensions of the day, that this one grand sentiment, veneration for the name of Washington, is buried-no, planted -down in the very depths of the American heart. It has been my privilege, within the last two years, to hold it up to the reverent contemplation of my countrymen, from the banks of the Penobscot to the banks of the Savannah, from New York to St. Louis, from Chesapeake Bay to Lake Michigan; and the same sentiments, expressed in the same words, have everywhere touched a sympathetic chord in the American heart.

To that central attraction I have been delighted to find that the thoughts, the affections, the memories of the people, in whatever part of the country, from the ocean to the prairies of the West, from the land of granite and ice to the land of the palmetto and the magnolia, instinctively turn. They have their sectional loves and hatreds, but before the dear name of Washington they are all absorbed and forgotten. In whatever region of the country, the heart of patriotism warms to him; as in the starry heavens, with the circling of the seasons, the pointers go round the sphere, but their direction is ever toward the pole. They may point from the east, they may point from the west, but they will point to the northern star. It is not the brightest luminary in the heavens, as men account brightness, but it is always in its place. The meteor, kindled into momentary blaze from the rank vapors of the lower sky, is brighter. The comet is brighter that streams across the firmament,

"And from his horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war." But the meteor explodes; the comet rushes back to the depths of the heavens; while the load-star shines steady at the pole, alike in summer and in winter, in seed-time and in harvest, at the equinox and the solstice. It shone for Columbus at the discovery of America; it shone for the pioneers of settlement, the pilgrims of faith and hope, at Jamestown and Plymouth; it will shine for the mariner who shall enter your harbor to-night; it will shine for the navies which shall bear the sleeping thunders of your power, while the flag of the Union shall brave the battle and the breeze. So, too, the character, the counsels, the example of our Washington, of which you bid me speak: they guided our fathers through the storms of the Revolution; they will guide us through the doubts and difficulties that beset us; they will guide our children and our children's children in the paths of prosperity and

peace, while America shall hold her place
in the family of nations.

Speech at the Public Dinner in Faneuil
Hall, on Monday, the 5th of July, 1858,
his Honor F. W. Lincoln, Jr., in the
Chair.

THOMAS CARLYLE,

"The Censor of the age," born at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, 1795, entered the University of Edinburgh in 1809, and studied there for seven or eight years, distinguishing himself by proficiency in mathematics, of which he became a teacher after relinquishing his intention of studying for the Scottish ministry. For first and subsequent editions of his works, and criticisms thereon, see Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography, Glasgow, i. 904 (by John Nichol, of Balliol College, Oxford), Thomas's Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography and Mythology, Phila., i., 1870, 521, and Allibone's Critical Dictionary of English Literature, Phila., i. 342. Editions of Carlyle's Works, Chapman & Hall, London: Library Edition, Complete, 34 vols. demy Svo: vol. i., Sartor Resartus (1834); ii., iii., iv.. The French Revolution: A History (1837, 3 vols. cr. 8vo); v., Life of Frederick Schiller and Examination of his Works (1825), with Supplement of 1872; vi., vii., viii., ix., x., xi., Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (3d edit., 1847, and 4th edit., 1857, each in 4 vols. p. 8vo); xii., On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841, 12mo, 4th edit., 1852, 12mo); xiii., Past and Present (1843, p. 8vo); xiv., xv., xvi., xvii., xviii., Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches (3d edit., 1857, 3 vols. p. 8vo); xix., LatterDay Pamphlets (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 1850, post 8vo); xx., Life of John Sterling (1851, p. 8vo); xxi., xxii., xxiii., xxiv., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xxviii., xxix., xxx., History of Frederick the Second (1858-64, 4 vols. 8vo); xxxi., xxxii., xxxiii., Translations from the German; xxxiv., General Index. To which add Carlyle's new work, Early Kings of Norway, also an Essay on the Portraits of John Knox, cr. 8vo.

Cheap and Uniform Edition, 23 vols. cr. 8vo: vols. i., ii., The French Revolution : A History; iii., iv., v., Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations, etc.; vi., Lives of Schiller and John Sterling; vii., viii., ix., x., Critical and Miscellaneous Essays; xi., Sartor Resartus and Lectures on Heroes xii., Latter-Day Pamphlets; xiii., Chartism, and Past and Present; xiv., Translations from the German of Musaeus, Tieck, and Richter; XV., xvi., Wilhelm Meister, by Göthe,-a Translation; xvii.,

xviii., xix,, xx., xxi., xxii., xxiii., History of Frederick the Second. Add: Early Kings of Norway, etc., 1 vol. People's Edition, 37 vols., sm. cr. 8vo: vol. i., Sartor Resartus; ii., iii., iv., French Revolution; v., Life of John Sterling; vi., vii., viii., ix., x., Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches; xi., On Heroes and Hero Worship; xii., Past and Present; xiii., xiv., xv., xvi., xvii., xviii., xix., Critical and Miscellaneous Essays; xx., Latter-Day Pamphlets; xxi., Life of Schiller; xxii., xxiii., xxiv., xxv., xxvi., xxvii., xxviii., xxix., xxx., xxxi., History of Frederick the Second; xxxii., xxxiii., xxxiv., Wilhelm Meister; xxxv., xxxvi., Translations from Musaeus, Tieck, and Richter; xxxvii., General Index. Add: Early Kings of Norway, etc., 1 vol., and Passages Selected from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle, by Thomas Ballantyne, Lond., 1855, p. 8vo; Carlyle: His Life, His Books, His Theories, by A. H. Guernsey, New York, 1879. See also Selection from the Correspondence of the late Macvey Napier, Esq., Lond. 1879, 8vo.

"Carlyle as a historian is notably exact. What he himself calls a transcendent capacity of taking trouble, and a genius for accuracy, preserves him from being carried away from the strict confines of fact. He has a keen eye for nature, and the reliance we come to have on their fidelity adds a new charm to his pictures. His descriptions of places and events, even the most trivial, have a freshness which one hardly finds anywhere else out of Homer. Much of the power of this writing is connected with the peculiar fascination of the author's later style. Questionable as a model for others, his own manner suits him, for it is emphatically part of his matter. His abruptness corresponds with the abruptness of his thought, which proceeds often by a series of electric shocks,

as if to borrow a simile from a criticism on St.

Paul-it were breaking its bounds and breaking the sentence. It has a rugged energy which suggests a want of fluency in the writer, and gives the impression of his being compelled to write. He is at all hazards determined to convey his meaning willing to borrow expressions from all lines of life and all languages, and even to invent new sounds and coin new words, for the expression of a new thought. He cares as little for rounded phrases as for logical arguments, and rather convinces and persuades by calling up a succession of feelings than a train of reasoning."-JOHN NICHOL, of Balliol College, Oxford: Imperial Dict. of Univ. Biog., i. 906.

WORK.

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Work, never so Mammonish, mean, is in communication with Nature; the real desire to get work done

will itself lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appointments and regulations, which are truth.

The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. "Know thyself!" long enough has that poor "self" of thine tormented thee: thou wilt never get to know it, I believe! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual; know what thou canst work at, and work at it like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan.

It has been written "an endless significance lies in work" as man perfects himself by writing, foul jungles are cleared away, fair seed-fields rise instead, and stately cities; and withal the man himself first ceases to be a jungle and foul unwholesome desert thereby. Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of Labour, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony, the instant he sets himself to work! Doubt, Desire, Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day-worker, with free valour against his task, all these as of every man; but as he bends himself are stilled, all these shrink murmuring afar off into their caves. The man is now a man. The blessed glow of Labour in him, is it not a purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt bright blessed fame? up, and of sour smoke itself there is made

Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating us. A formless Chaos, once set it revolving, grows round and ever rounder; ranges itself by mere force of gravity, into strata, spherical courses; is no longer a Chaos, but a round compacted did she cease to revolve? In the poor old World. What would become of the Earth, Earth, so long as she revolves, all inequalities, irregularities, disperse themselves; all irregularities are incessantly becoming regular. Hast thou looked on the Potter's wheel, one of the venerablest objects; old as the prophet Ezekiel, and far older? Rude lumps of clay; how they spin themselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beautiful circular dishes. And fancy the most assiduous Potter, but without his wheel, reduced to make dishes, or other amorphous botches, by mere kneading and baking! Even such a Potter were Destiny, with a human soul that would rest and lie at ease, that would not work and spin! Of an idle unrevolving man, the kindest Destiny, like the most assiduous Potter without wheel, can bake and knead nothing other than a botch; let her spend on him what expensive colouring, what gilding and enamelling she will, he is but a botch. Not a dish; no, a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambling,

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