2

the mercurial wand1 of commerce, and the amulet of protection and safety to the man of peace, on the pathless ocean, from the inexorable cruelty and merciless rapacity of war.

And finally, in the last stage of life, with fourscore winters upon his head, under the torture of an incurable disease, returning to his native land, closing his days as the chief magistrate of his adopted commonwealth, after contributing by his counsels to that Constitution under the authority of which we, as the representatives of the North American people, are assembled to receive, in the name of them and for them, these venerable relics of the wise, the valiant, and the good founders of our great confederated Republic, these sacred symbols of our golden age.

4

May they be deposited among the archives of our Government! And may every American, who shall hereafter behold them, ejaculate a mingled offering of praise to that supreme Ruler of the universe, by whose tender mercies our Union has been hitherto preserved, through all the vicissitudes and revolutions of this turbulent world; and of prayer for the continuance of these blessings, by the dispensations of Providence to our beloved country, from age to age, till time shall be no more!

J. Q. ADAMS.

=

1 mercurial wand wand of and close alliance of the United Mercury, the Roman divinity of States. commerce. He is represented as carrying a staff or wand (caduceus).

& adopted commonwealth; i.e., Pennsylvania, where Franklin went as a boy from his native Boston.

2 amulet... safety. This whole passage means that Franklin tendered to France the friendship of records and memorials.

4 archives (är'kīvz), a repository

72.- Patriotism.

Right and wrong, justice and crime, exist independently of our country. A public wrong is not a private right for any citizen. The citizen is a man bound to know and do the right, and the nation is but an aggregation of citizens. If a man should shout, "My country, by whatever means extended and bounded; my country, right or wrong!" he merely repeats the words of the thief who steals in the street, or of the trader who swears falsely at the customhouse, both of them chuckling, "My fortune, however acquired."

Thus, gentlemen, we see that a man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, — but it is principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

In poetic minds and in popular enthusiasm, this feeling becomes closely associated with the soil and symbols of the country. But the secret1 sanctification of the soil and the symbol is the idea which they represent; and this idea the patriot worships through the name and the symbol, as a lover kisses with rapture the glove of his mistress and wears a lock of her hair upon his heart.

2

So, with passionate heroism, of which tradition is never weary of tenderly telling, Arnold von Winkelried gathers into his bosom the sheaf of foreign spears, that his death may give life to his country. So Nathan Hale,3 disdaining

1 secret, real, inner.

8 Nathan Hale. See Lesson

2 Arnold von Winkelried. See 35, Third Reader, and Lesson 80, Lesson 92, Fourth Reader. Fourth Reader.

no service that his country demands, perishes untimely, with no other friend than God and the satisfied sense of duty. So George Washington, at once comprehending the scope of the destiny to which his country was devoted, with one hand puts aside the crown,' and with the other sets his slaves free. So, through all history from the beginning, a noble army of martyrs has fought fiercely and fallen bravely for that unseen mistress, their country. So, through all history to the end, as long as men believe in God, that army must still march and fight and fall, recruited only from the flower of mankind, cheered only by their own hope of humanity, strong only in their confidence in their cause.

G. W. CURTIS.

73.-The Veterans of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

This burst of eloquence is from Daniel Webster's celebrated oration, delivered on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill Monument (June 17, 1825), on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, in the presence of a vast multitude of people, among whom were Lafayette and the survivors of the battle.

Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you may behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour,

1 crown. In the year 1782, certain officers of the Continental army wrote to Washington, urging him to assume the place and title of king. Washington replied,

You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable."

2 the flower of mankind; i.e., the best and most heroic of men.

with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet: but all else how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown.1 The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death,—all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace.

2

The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defense. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the

1 See Lesson 77, Fourth Reader. | 2 metropolis; i.e., Boston.

name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you.

But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge!1 our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like

"another morn,

Risen on mid-noon;"

nd the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. But ah! Him!" the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the premature victim of his own selfdevoting heart! Him! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own. spirit! Him! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the

Prescott... Bridge. These were all distinguished officers in the battle of Bunker's Hill. This whole passage is an example of the figure of speech called vision. Point out a later passage in which the same figure of speech is used.

2 Him, etc. Notice the fine effect produced by the rhetorical or inverted order of words in this passage. By "Him" is meant Warren. (See Lesson 77, Fourth Reader.)

8 premature, untimely.