dignity with which a strength of mind had invested her. This imparted to her great elevation of feeling. During some periods of our revolutionary war, when the fears of the people were wrought up to a distressing anxiety, many mistaken reports were in circulation, which agonized the hearts of those whose friends occupied posts of danger. It would sometimes be said to her, "Madam, intelligence has been received that our army is defeated, and your son a prisoner.” "My son," she would reply, "has been in the habit of acting in difficult situations."

At length the blessings of peace and independence were vouchsafed to our nation, and Washington, who for eight years had been divided from the repose of home, hastened with filial reverence to ask his mother's blessing. The hero, “first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," came to lay his laurels at her feet who had first sown their seeds in his soul.

This venerable woman continued, until past her ninetieth year, to be respected and beloved by all around her. At length the wasting agony of a cancer terminated her existence, at the residence of her daughter, in Fredericsburg, Virginia. Washington was with her in the last stages of life, to mitigate the severity of her sufferings by the most tender offices of affection. With pious grief he closed her eyes, and laid her in the grave which she had selected for herself. It was in a beautiful and secluded dell, on the family estate, partly overshadowed by trees, where she frequently retired for meditation, and where the setting sun beams with the softest radiance. Travellers who visit the tomb at Mount Vernon will find it interesting to extend their visit to this spot, where the mother of our hero, whom he was thought, in person and manners, greatly to resemble, rests without a stone.

We have now seen the man, who was the leader of victorious armies, the conqueror of a mighty kingdom, and the admiration of the world, in the delightful attitude of an obedient and affectionate son. We have traced many of his virtues

back to that sweet submission to maternal guidance which distinguished his early years. She whom he honored with such filial reverence, said that "he had learned to command others by first learning to obey."

Let those, therefore, who in the morning of life are ambitious of future eminence, cultivate the virtue of filial obedience, and remember that they cannot be either fortunate or happy while they neglect the injunction, "My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother."

LXXXVI. NEW ENGLAND.

PERCIVAL.

[James Gates Percival was born in Connecticut in September, 1795, and died in 1856, He was a brilliant and imaginative poet, and also distinguished as a man of science.]

HAIL to the land whereon we tread,

Our fondest boast!

The sepulchre of mighty dead,
The truest hearts that ever bled,

Who sleep on glory's brightest bed,
A fearless host;

No slave is here; our unchained feet
Walk freely as the waves that beat
Our coast.

Our fathers crossed the ocean's wave
To seek this shore:

They left behind the coward slave
To welter in his living grave;
With hearts unbent, and spirits brave,
They sternly bore

Such toils as meaner souls had quelled,
But souls like these such toils impelled

To soar.

Hail to the morn when first they stood
On Bunker's height,

And, fearless, stemmed the invading flood,
And wrote our dearest rights in blood,
And mowed in ranks the hireling brood,
In desperate fight!

O, 'twas a proud, exulting day,

For even our fallen fortunes lay
In light.

There is no other land like thee,
No dearer shore;

Thou art the shelter of the free,
The home, the port of liberty,
Thou hast been and shalt ever be,
Till time is o'er.

Ere I forget to think upon

My land, shall mother curse the son
She bore.

Thou art the firm, unshaken rock,

On which we rest;

And, rising from thy hardy stock,

Thy sons the tyrant's frown shall mock,
And slavery's galling chains unlock,
And free the oppressed;

All who the wreath of freedom twine
Beneath the shadow of their vine,
Are blessed.

We love thy rude and rocky shore,
And here we stand-

Let foreign navies hasten o'er

And on our heads their fury pour,
And peal their cannon's loudest roar,
And storm our land;

They still shall find our lives are given
To die for home; and leant on Heaven

Our hand.

LXXXVII. -MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON AND
FRANKLIN.

[The following deeply interesting proceedings took place in the House of Representatives at Washington, on the 7th day of February, 1843. Mr. George W. Summers, of Virginia, rose and addressed the house as follows.]

MR. SPEAKER: I rise for the purpose of discharging an office not connected with the ordinary business of a legislative assembly. Yet, in asking permission to interrupt, for a moment, the regular order of parliamentary proceedings, I cannot doubt that the proposition which I have to submit will prove as gratifying as it may be unusual.

Mr. Samuel T. Washington, a citizen of Kanawha county, in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and one of my constituents, has honored me with the commission of presenting, in his name and on his behalf, to the Congress of the United States, and through that body to the people of the United States, two most interesting and valuable relics, connected with the past history of our country, and with men whose achievements, both in the field and in the cabinet, best illustrate and adorn our annals.

One is the sword worn by George Washington, first as a colonel in the colonial service of Virginia, in Forbes's campaign against the French and Indians, and afterwards, during the whole period of the war of independence as commander-inchief of the American army.

It is a plain couteau,* or hanger, with a green hilt and silver guard. On the upper ward of the scabbard is engraven “J. Bailey, Fish Kill." It is accompanied by a buckskin belt, which is secured by a silver buckle and clasp, whereon are

*Pronounced coo-to'.

engraven the letters "G. W." and the figures "1757." These are all of the plainest workmanship, but substantial, and in keeping with the man and with the times to which they belonged.

The history of this sword is perfectly authentic, and leaves no shadow of doubt as to its identity. The last will and testament of General Washington, bearing date on the 9th day of February, 1799, contains, among a great variety of bequests, the following clause :

"To each of my nephews, William Augustine Washington, George Lewis, George Steptoe Washington, Bushrod Washington, and Samuel Washington, I give one of the swords, or couteaux, of which I may die possessed; and they are to choose in the order they are named. These swords are accompanied with an injunction not to unsheathe them for the purpose of shedding blood, except it be for self-defence, or in defence of their country and its rights; and, in the latter case, to keep them unsheathed, and prefer falling with them in their hands to the relinquishment thereof."

In the distribution of the swords hereby devised among the five nephews therein enumerated, the one now presented fell to the share of Samuel Washington, the devisee last named in the clause of the will which I have just read.

This gentleman, who died a few years since in the county of Kanawha, and who was the father of Samuel T. Washington, the donor, I knew well. I have often seen this sword in his possession, and received from himself the following account of the manner in which it became his property in the division made among the devisees:

He said that he knew it to have been the side arm of General Washington during the revolutionary war; not that used on occasions of parade and review, but the constant service sword of the great chief; that he had himself seen General Washington wear this identical sword, he presumed for the last time, when, in 1794, he reviewed the Virginia and Maryland forces, then concentrated at Cumberland under the com