ton and Fayette, feel grateful for the unexampled manifestations of respect for his memory to which you have so eloquently alluded as having, everywhere, graced the more than triumphal procession of his dead body homeward from the National Capitol, where, in the public service, he fell with his armor on and untarnished. We feel, Mr. Chairman, especially grateful to yourself and your colleagues here present for the honor of your kind accompanyment of your precious deposite to its last home. Equally divided in your party names, equally the personal friends of the deceased, equally sympathising with a whole nation in the Providential bereavement, and all distinguished for your public services and the confidence of constituents,-you were peculiarly suited to the sacred trust of escorting his remains to the spot chosen by himself for their repose. Having performed that solemn serservice in a manner creditable to yourselves and honorable to his memory, Kentucky thanks you for your patriotic magnanimity. And allow me, as her organ, on this valedictory occasion, to express for her, as well as for myself and committee, the hope that your last days may be far distant, and that, come when they may, as they certainly must come, sooner or later, to all of you, the death of each of you may deserve to be honored by the grateful outpourings of national respect which signalise the death of our universally lamented CLAY. Unlike Burke, he "never gave up to party what was meant for mankind." His intrepid nationality, his lofty patriotism, and his comprehensive philanthropy, illustrated by his country's annals for half a century, magnified him among Statesmen, and endeared him to all classes, and ages, and sexes of his countrymen. And, therefore, his name, like WASHINGTON'S, will belong to no party, or section, or time. In this sacred and august presence of the illustrious dead, were an eulogistic speech befitting the occasion, it could not be made by me. I could not thus speak over the dead body of HENRY CLAY. Kentucky expects not me nor any other of her sons to speak his eulogy now, if ever. She would leave that grateful task to other States and to other times. His name needs not our panegyric. The carver of his own fortune--the founder of his own name-with his own hands he has built his own monument, and with his own tongue and his own pen he has stereotyped his autobiography. With hopeful trust his maternal Commonwealth consigns his fame to the justice of history and to the judgment of ages to come. His ashes he bequeathed to her, and they will rest in her bosom until the judgment day; his fame will descend-as the common heritage of his country-to every citizen of that Union of which he was thrice the triumphant champion, and whose genius and value are so beautifully illustrated by his model life. But, though we feel assured that his renown will survive the ruins of the Capitol he sc long and so admirably graced, yet Kentucky will rear to his memory a magnificent mausoleuma votive monument-to mark the spot where his relics shall sleep, and to testify to succeeding generations that our Republic, however unjust it may too often be to living merit, will ever cherish a grateful remembrance of the dead Patriot, who dedicated his life to his country and with rare ability, heroic firmness, and self-sacrificing constancy, devoted his talents and his time to the cause of Patriotism, of Liberty, and of Fruth. The remains were then placed in a hearse, and followed by the various committees, and a large concourse of citizens, were taken to Ashland-the home of the deceased patriot for Your kind allusion, Mr. Chairman, to rem- fifty years, and now the spot whither many a niscences of our personal association, is cordi- pilgrimage will be made by the admirers of ally reciprocated—the longer we have known, true genius, public virtue and unselfish pathe more we have respected each other. Be triotism. The body was there placed in state, assured that the duty you have devolved on and a vigil kept over it during the night by a our Committee shall be faithfully performed. committee of young gentlemen selected for the The body you commit to us shall be properly interred in a spot of its mother earth, which, as "the grave of CLAY," will be more and more consecrated by time to the affections of mankind. How different, however, would have been the feelings of us all, if, instead of the pulseless, speechless, breathless Clay, now in cold and solemn silence before us, you had brought with you to his family and neighbors the living man, in all the majesty of his transcendant moral power, as we once knew and often saw and heard him? But, with becoming resignation, we bow to a dispensation which was doubtless as wise and benificent as it was melancholy and inevitable. purpose. The morning of Saturday rose clear and brilliant as the fame of him upon whose eye its light fell all unheeded; and the stately pines, planted by his own great hand, looked less like mourners, than green remembrancers of his immortal glory. At an early hour the city was astir. Before sun-rise thousands of vehicles had arrived, and continuous and unbroken streams of carriages, equestrians and pedestrians, poured through every avenue to the city up to the hour fixed for the funeral. The streets-the windows-the house-tops-every place where the human foot could stand and the human eye could see, seemed to be taken hold of. To the accompanying committees from New And yet, it was all gloom and sadness. The York, Dayton and Cincinnati, we tender our mournful music--the muffled drum-the veiled profound acknowledgments for their voluntary colors of the soldiery-all conspired to render sacrifice of time and comfort to honor the ob-more solemn the imposing rites. sequies of our illustrious countryman. At 9 o'clock, the Committee of the Senate; the various Committees from other States; the The funeral services were then performed Committee of Arrangements; the Committee of by the Rev. Edw F. Berkley, Rector of Christ Escort sent to receive the body; a Committee (Episcopal) Church in this city, of which Mr. from the Masonic Fraternity and the Pall- CLAY was a member. The solemnity of this Bearers, repaired to Ashland to receive the ceremony, so imposing on even the most orbody. On a platform covered with black, in dinary occasions, was infinitely heightened front of the main entrance to the mansion at by the occasion of its present solemnization. Ashland, the body was placed. Over it were The funeral discourse of Mr. Berkley was elstrewn flowers of the choicest description. oquent and feeling in the highest degree. He Upon the centre of the burial case was placed spoke of the character of the great deceasedthe wreath, fashioned by the hand of one of his talents-his public virtue-his justicethe most gifted and distinguished of our and his matchless career. That portion of his countrywomen-Mrs. Ann S. Stephens-from address in which he alluded to the sacrifice of a rare flower-the "Immortelle." The wreath life by Mr. CLAY, in his efforts to procure the presented by the Clay Festival Association of passage of the measures of Adjustment, New York ornamented the top of the case; and thrilled every heart; and the effect of the enin rich profusion around it were placed bou- tire discourse upon his audience fully attested quets from Washington and Baltimore, and a the powers of the speaker. laurel wreath from Philadelphia. PRELECTION. Address on behalf of the Deinologian Society, of Centre College, delivered at Danville on the 4th of July, 1834. Dear Sir: CENTRE COLLEGE, July 4, 1854. Permit us, in our own name, and that of the Society which we represent, to expresss the high satisfaction that we have enjoyed this, day, in listening to your excellent address, and earnestly to request that you will comply with the solicitation of the Society, contained in the following resolution, viz: Resolved, That the thanks of this Society be presented to the Hon. George Robertson for his able and interesting address, delivered this day, and that he be solicited to grant us a copy for publication. Very respectfully, your friends, ROBERT M'KEOWN,) Committee of the Deinologian So WILLIAM W. HILL, ciety of C. C. DANVILLE, July 4, 1834. Gentlemen: Although, as you must know, the address, a copy of which you have requested for publication, was prepared in very great haste, and, as I assure you, without any expectation that it would ever have any other publicity than its delivery this day gave it; yet I cannot refuse a cheerful compliance with your request. With all its imperfections it is now yours-do as you please with it. Respectfully, your friend, GEORGE ROBERTSON. ADDRESS. for independence, and having led them to a still nobler achievement-the establishment of wisely constructed institutions for preserving liberty and equality-has already cast its cheering rays over distant lands, and unless extinguished or eclipsed in this new world, will shine brighter and brighter, until, with the effulgence of perfect and universal day, it will enlighten and bless all mankind, of every color and every clime. ANOTHER year is gone-and with it have of philanthropy, would nevertheless be deemgone forever many of our countrymen, neigh-ed but the illusion of a golden age unless its bors and friends. A memorable and eventful principles, so just and so beautiful in the abyear has it been-a portentous era in the affairs stract, can be satisfactorily exemplified in the of men, and a season of peculiar trial to us actual condition of society and the practical and to our civil institutions. But in the allot- operations of government. The value and apments of an all-wise Providence, our beloved plication of those principles to any people country is yet permitted to stand forth united must depend altogether on the moral character and free, and we too have been preserved to and conduct of the majority. Their truth and hail the light of this hallowed day, and in value have been, so far, happily illustrated in health and in peace, once more upon earth, to this land of promise; and the successful promake the accustomed offering of our thanks-gress of the great American experiment is giving. ascribable to the pervading intelligence and This is no common day; it brings with it the predominant habits and virtues which have remembrances, and obligations, and prospects hitherto signalised the great body of the peopeculiarly interesting and impressive. The ple of these states. Our Declaration of In4th of July, 1776, opened a bright and glorious dependence was but the reflected image of the scene in the great drama of human affairs. principles and sentiments of those by whom it The declaration of North American Independ- was proclaimed, and by whom it was triumphence was the offspring of the purest patriotism antly maintained. The moral light, which then and of the most enlightened reason; and al-dawned in the hearts of our countrymen, guid ready it has been the parent of events which jed them successfully through the perils and must, in all time to come, have a great in-sacrifices of a protracted and bloody struggle fluence on the destiny of man. The time will never come when the balmy noon, whose 58th anniversary we now commemorate, will not be remembered as one of the purest and brightest that ever beamed upon the moral world. Then it was that Franklín and Adams and Jefferson and their compatriot representatives of the will and intelligence of the people of these states, then colonies, proclaimed to the world these fundamental truths-that all men are by nature entitled to be free, and to enjoy equal Let us then rejoice that our lots have been rights to life and liberty, to the acquisition cast in this land of liberty, and this age of and security of property, and to the pursuit af-light. And let us all endeavor to feel and to ter happiness, now and forever; that the free act as a moral people should feel and act on this and deliberate will of the people is the only our great day of national jubilee-a day ever legitimate source of all human authority; that to be remembered with pious gratitude, and all just government is administered for the worthy to be consecrated, through all time, to greatest good of the whole body politic; that the enjoyments and the duties of a reflecting man is not accountable to man for his con-patriotism and a comprehensive benevolence. science or his opinions, and should not be dis- Generation after generation will pass away turbed by any human means, in the free exer- and be forgotten, but when, in the lapse of eise of either the one or the other, and of course ages yet to come, the monumental columns and that no freeman should forfeit any civil right Pyramids of nations shall have mouldered to or privilege in consequence of his actual enjoy-dust, and the names of tyrants and of demament of perfect freedom of judgment, or of gogues shall have sunk into oblivion or conconscience. This was the first formal and tenipt, the immortal principles of our Declaauthoritative announcement ever made by any ration of Independence and the virtues of the people of the true elementary principles of free government or of social organization. It was the united voice of sound philosophy and pure religion, asserting, for the first time, the natural rights of an intelligent, moral and ehristian people. But the simple creed thus announced, God-like and ennoblíng, as all must feel it to be when considered as a speculation patriots who, to maintain them, pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, will still shed a mild and melow light which will never fade away as long as liberty has an altar, or God has a temple upon earth. But whether in after times, here or elsewhere, those principles and those virtues shall prevail among men, or shall be remembered only as the historie glories of a meteor age, may depend much, very factions. She too had her demagogues, and much, on the conduct of those of this gener-the Majesty of the Roman People," was their ation, who, under Providence, have been made watchword. And though she had her Fabrithe recipients for themselves and the depositors cius, her Regulus, her Cato, her Cicero-she for all mankind of one of the best boons ever had also her Clodius, and her Sylla, and her vouchsafed by God to man. This then is an occasion peculiarly proper for a dedication of our hearts to our country, and of our minds to sober contemplations on our duties to ourselves, to those who have gone before, and those who shall come after us, and to that Being who stood by our fathers in the great day of their fiery trial, and by whom we will be held accountable for the manner in which we shall discharge the sacred trust committed to our keeping. Cæsars, honored in their day as the friends of the people; and whether Marius or Sylla, Cæsar or Pompey prevailed, the victory was in the name of liberty, the Republic was honored with a triumph, and a clamor of approbation echoed from the Forum to the Capitol. Even Augustus Cæsar, absolute as he was, preserved the forms of a Republic, whilst, by the perversion of his vast patronage to his own ag grandisement, he made an obsequious and prostituted Senate the Registers of his will, Standing as we do, on an isthmus connecting and, in the name of liberty, fastened a heavy the dead and the unborn-the fathers of our yoke forever on an applauding populace. liberty who have gone before us, and the sons The fast anchored Isle-the natal land of who are to come after us in joy or in sorrow our fathers and the mother of our common law it is our duty this day, like the ancient Greekshas done much for mankind. But she too has during their Isthmian and other national com- had her scenes of civil strife and of bloodmemorations-to observe an universal amnesty her Wakefield, her Smithfield and her Bosand, glancing at the past, the present and the worthfield; she has had her Tudors, and her future, to banish all passion and prejudice, Stuarts, her Jeffreys, her Bonner and her personal, partizan or national, and, as one Cromwell, as well as her Sidney, her Cranfamily, unite in the noble resolution, that we will henceforth, as long as we live, do all that we can to cherish the virtues, and to preserve, improve and hand down the moral and civil institutions, without which liberty is but licentiousness, and free government but an empty and delusive name. mer, and her Hampden; and, after ages of reformation in Church and State, her aristocracy still governs, her Hierarchy still prevails, and the harp of Erin hangs tuneless and sad on the leafless bow of her blasted oak. The French Revolution had its Dantons and ts Robespierres-and after the bloody idol of licentious liberty had, like the car of Jugernaut, crushed its thousands and overturned the Temples of the true God, a Pretorian band of Grenadiers delivered over the "Republic” to the safekeeping of a Bonaparte. petrated in thy abused name!" But when, from the waste around him, he casts his eye on this green spot, he feels that there is yet hope for man upon earth In the history of the old world the philosophic observer can find but few incidents gratifying to the philanthrophic mind, and no satisfactory evidence of the capacity of the mass of mankind for the maintainance of a just and stable democracy. Greece, the cradle After contemplating such scenes, well might of letters, and the nursery of the arts-the land the philanthropist doubt the capacity of man of Homer, of Solon, of Herodotus-the theatre for self-government, and exclaim in the lan of Thermopyla, of Leuctra, and of Marathon guage of Madam Roland under the guillotine -classic Greece, in the heyday of her glory, "Oh liberty! what crimes have not been perbeguiles the scholar with her minstrelsy, her eloquence and her arms, and fires his genius with illustrious examples of devoted patriotism; but a calm survey of her history exposes lamentable scenes of disorder and injustice, the The discouraging failure of the experiments natural effect of the ignorance of the multitude. which had been made of popular government Under the spell of a momentary inspiration, among the most enlightened nations of ancient the superficial inquirer may be deceived with and modern Europe must be attributed, not to the semblance of popular freedom, but the il- any invincable incapacity for such a govern lusion will vanish when he beholds the army ment, but to the predominance of ignorance and of demagogues and their triumphs: when he its consequential vices. Universal liberty and sees Pisistrates putting down Solon-a deluded universal light are inseperable. All mankind mob subjecting Aristides to ostracism because have capacities for the one as well as for the he was called the just "-and the same po- other, and were created for the enjoyment of tent, but inconstant engine, taking the life of both; and as sure as there is a wise and immuSocrates because he ventured to intimate the table Providence, man will ultimately be eleimmortality of the soul, and the existence of one, vated to the full and undisturbed fruition on and only one God-when he beholds the inse- earth of those great ends of his moral being. curity of virtue, and the instability of justice, Will that God, who preserved Christianity and the final degeneracy and desolation of the through the gloom and desolation of the midonce far famed Greece, he will feel that the dle ages, suffer liberty, its offspring, to perpopulace, like its own fabled Polyphemus, was ish? Both, we trust, have taken deep root in a blind giant, incapable of self-direction, and American soil. They were planted by our as apt to destroy as to preserve. forefathers, under circumstances peculiarly propitious. Rome, once mistress of the world, was, in her best days, the great arena of contending The mariner's compass, the printing press, |