Nor e'er was to the bowers of bliss convey'd A fairer spirit, or more welcome shade." We may not mourn over the departure of such men. We should rather hail it as a kind dispensation of Providence, to affect our hearts with new and livelier gratitude. They were not cut off in the blossom of their days, while yet the vigor of manhood flushed their cheeks, and the harvest of glory was ungathered. They fell not as martyrs fall, seeing only in dim perspective the salvation of their country. They lived to enjoy the blessings earned by their labors, and to realize all which their fondest hopes had desired. The infirmities of life stole slowly and silently upon them, leaving still behind a cheerful serenity of mind. In peace, in the bosom of domestic affection, in the hallowed reverence of their countrymen, in the full possession of their faculties, they wore out the last remains of life, without a fear to cloud, with scarcely a sorrow to disturb its close. The joyful day of our jubilee came over them with its refreshing influence. To them, indeed, it was "a great and good day." The morning sun shone with softened lustre on their closing eyes. Its evening beams played lightly on their brows, calm in all the dignity of death. Their spirits escaped from these frail tenements without a struggle or a groan. Their death was gentle as an infant's sleep. It was a long, lingering twilight, melting into the softest shade.

of antiquity; their old age was cheered by its delightful reminiscences. To them belongs the fine panegyric of Cicero, "Erant in eis plurimæ litteræ, nec eæ vulgares, sed interiores quædam, et recondita; divina memoria, summa verborum et gravitas et elegantia; atque hæc omnia vita decorabat dignitas et integritas."

I will ask your indulgence only for a moment longer. Since our last anniversary, death has I may not look on the right, or the left, withbeen annually busy in thinning our numbers. out missing some of those who stood by my side in my academic course, in the happy days spent within yonder venerable walls.

The one,

"These are counsellors, that feelingly persuade us what we are," and what we must be. Shaw and Salisbury are no more. whose modest worth and ingenuous virtue adorned a spotless life; the other, whose social kindness and love of letters made him welcome in every circle. But, what shall I say of Haven, with whom died a thousand hopes, not of his friends and family alone, but of his country. Nature had given him a strong and brilliant genius; and it was chastened and invigorated by grave, as well as elegant studies. Whatever belonged to human manners and pursuits, to human interests and feelings, to government, or science, or literature, he endeavored to master with a scholar's diligence and taste. Few men have

read so much or so well. Few have united such Fortunate men, so to have lived, and so to manly sense with such attractive modesty. His have died. Fortunate, to have gone hand in thoughts and his style, his writings and his achand in the deeds of the Revolution. Fortu- tions, were governed by a judgment, in which nate, in the generous rivalry of middle life. energy was combined with candor, and benevoFortunate, in deserving and receiving the high-lence with deep, unobtrusive, and fervid piety. est honors of their country. Fortunate in old His character may be summed up in a single age to have rekindled their ancient friendship line, for there with a holier flame. Fortunate, to have passed through the dark valley of the shadow of death together. Fortunate, to be indissolubly united in the memory and affections of their countrymen. Fortunate, above all, in an immortality of virtuous fame, on which history may with severe simplicity write the dying encomium of Pericles, "No citizen, through their means, ever put on mourning."

"was given

To Haven every virtue under Heaven." He had just arrived at the point of his professional career, in which skill and learning begin to reap their proper reward. He was in possession of the principal blessings of life—of fortune, of domestic love, of universal respect. There are those who had fondly hoped, when I may not dwell on this theme. It has come they should have passed away, he might be over my thoughts, and I could not wholly sup- found here to pay a humble tribute to their press the utterance of them. It was my prin- memory. To Providence it has seemed fit to cipal intention to hold them up to my country-order otherwise, that it might teach us what men, not as statesmen and patriots, but as shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.' scholars, as lovers of literature, as eminent ex- We may not mourn over such a loss, as those amples of the excellence of the union of ancient who are without hope. That life is not too learning with modern philosophy. Their youth short which has accomplished its highest deswas disciplined in classical studies; their active tiny; that spirit may not linger here, which is life was instructed by the prescriptive wisdom | purified for immortality.

66

THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

But where are they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth; the sachems and the tribes; the hunters and their families? They have perished. They are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No-nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores-a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated-a poison which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey be yond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utter

There is, indeed, in the fate of these unfortunate beings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much, which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities; much in their characters, which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow, but sure extinction. Every where, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone for ever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. Two centuries ago, the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley, from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests; and the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The warriors stood forth in their | glory. The young listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down; but they wept not. They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the west-ance; which has no aim or method. It is ern skies. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the human race. They shrank from no dangers, and they feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.

courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them-no, never. Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know and feel that there is for them still one remove farther, not distant nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of their race.*

From the Discourse pronounced at the request of the Essex Historical Society, in commemoration of the first settlement of Salem, Mass.

WILLIAM WIRT.

WILLIAM WIRT, one of the most celebrated advocates and accomplished writers of the nineteenth century, was of a humble but respectable parentage. His father was a Swiss by birth, his mother a German. Some time prior to the Revolution they settled at Bladensburg, in Maryland, where they accumulated a small property by keeping the village tavern. At that place their distinguished son, who was their sixth and youngest child, was born, on the eighth day of November, 1772. During his infancy his father died, and on the death of his mother, which occurred just as he was entering upon his ninth year, he passed into the family of his uncle, Jacob Wirt, under whose guardianship he spent his minority. At seven he was sent from home to a school in Georgetown, now of the District of Columbia, from whence, after spending nearly a year unsatisfactorily, he was removed to a classical school in Charles County, Maryland.

At this school he remained until the year 1782. Being naturally a lively boy and accustomed to say "smart things, and sing songs of humor very well," he became a great favorite among his schoolmates, as well as in the widow's family in which he resided, and was as happy as a child could be away from his home and the natural objects of his affections. In reverting to this period of his life, he says: "From the time I rose, until I went to bed, the live-long day, it was all enjoyment, save only with two drawbacks—the going to school, and the getting tasks on holidays-which last, by-the-bye, is a practical cruelty that ought to be abolished. With the exception of these same tasks and a slight repugnance to the daily.school, Mrs. Love's was an elysium to me." From this school he was transferred to that of the Reverend James Hunt, a Presbyterian minister in Montgomery county, and there, during four years' tuition, he received his principal instruction in the classics and mathematics. The library of his preceptor afforded a fund of general reading, which he eagerly grasped and profited by. He read with avidity the old dramas, Josephus, Pope, Addison, Horne's Elements of Criticism, and Guy, the Earl of Warwick, "which last he obtained from a carpenter in the employ of Mr. Hunt," and further satiated his passion for reading by a fragment of Peregrine Pickle, which he probably obtained from the same source. About this time he turned his attention to composition, and although in most of his poetical productions, thought was sacrificed to rhythm, a circumstance which soon put an end to his muse, in his prose efforts he met with encouragement, and became a confirmed reader and author. Among numerous essays which he prepared, one fell into the hands of his teacher, and was read with unqualified praise. The history of it, as given by his friend and biographer, will be read with interest: "It was engendered by a school incident, and was a piece of revenge more legitimate than schoolboy invention is apt to inflict when sharpened by wrongs real or imaginary. There was an usher at the school, and this usher, who was more learned and methodical than even-tempered, was one morning delayed in the customary routine by the absence of his principal scholar, who was young Wirt himself. In his impatience, he went often to the door, and espying some boys clinging like a knot of bees to a cherry tree not far off, he concluded that the expected absentee was of the number, and nursed his wrath accordingly. The truth was, that the servant of a neighbor with whom Wirt was boarded at that time, had gone that morning to mill, and the indispensable breakfast had been delayed by his late return.

This apology, however, was urged in vain on the usher, who charged in corroboration the plunder of the cherry tree; and though this was as stoutly as truly rejoined to be the act of an English school hard by, the recitation of Master Wirt proceeded under very threatening prog nostics of storm. The lesson was in Cicero, and at every hesitation of the reciter, the eloquent volume, brandished by the yet chafing tutor, descended within an inch of his head, without quailing his facetiousness however, for he said archly, 'take care, or you'll kill me!' We have heard better-timed jests since from the dextrous orator, for the next slip brought a blow in good earnest, which being as forcible as if Logic herself with her 'closed fist' had dealt it, felled our hero to the ground. 'I'll pay you for this, if I live,' said the fallen champion as he rose from the field. Pay me, will you?' said the usher, quite furious; 'you will never live to do that.' 'Yes, I will!' said the boy.

"Our youth was an author, be it remembered, and that is not a race to take an injury, much less an affront, calmly. The quill, too, was a fair weapon against an usher, and by way of vent to his indignation at this and other continued outrages, but with no view to what so seriously fell out from it in furtherance of his revenge, he indited some time afterward an ethical essay on anger. In this, after due exhibition of its unhappy effects, which, it may be, would have enlightened Seneca, though he has himself professed to treat the same subject, he reviewed those relations and functions of life most exposed to the assaults of this fury. A parent with an undutiful son, said our moralist, must often be very angry;—a master with his servant, an inn-keeper with his guests; but it is an usher that must the oftenest be vexed by this bad passion, and, right or wrong, find himself in a terrible rage; and so he went on in a manner very edifying, and very descriptive of the case, character and manner of the expounder of Cicero. Well pleased with his work, our author found a most admiring reader in an elder boy, who, charmed with the mischief as much as the wit of the occasion, pronounced it a most excellent performance, and very fit for a Saturday morning's declamation. In vain did our wit object strenuously to the dangers of this mode of publication. The essay was 'got by heart,' and declaimed in the presence of the school and of the usher himself, who, enraged at the satire, demanded the writer, otherwise threatening the declaimer with the rod. His magnanimity was not proof against this, and he betrayed the incognito of our author, who happened the same evening to be in his garret when master usher, the obnoxious satire in hand, came into the apartment below to lay his complaint before his principal. Mr. Hunt's house was one of those one-story rustic mansions yet to be seen in Maryland, where the floor of the attic, without the intervention of ceiling, forms the roof of the apartment below, so that the culprit could easily be the hearer, and even the partial spectator, of the inquisition held on his case. 'Let us see this offensive libel,' said the preceptor, and awful were the first silent moments of its perusal, which were broken, first by a suppressed titter, and finally, to the mighty relief of the listener, by a loud burst of laughter. Pooh! pooh! Mr. - this is but the sally of a lively boy, and best say no more about it; besides that, in foro conscientia, we can hardly find him guilty of the 'publication.' This was a victory; and when Mr. Hunt left the room, the conqueror, tempted to sing his To Triumphe in some song allusive to the country of the discomfited party, who was a foreigner, was put to flight by the latter's rushing furiously into the attic, and snatching from under his pillow some hickories, the fasces of his office, and inflicting some smart strokes on the flying satirist, who did not stay, like Voltaire, to write a receipt for them. The usher left the school in dudgeon not long afterward, like the worthy in the doggerel rhymes,

"The hero who did 'sist upon't

He wouldn't be deputy to Mr. Hunt.'

Many years after the usher and his scholar met again. Age and poverty had overtaken the poor man, and his former pupil had the opportunity of showing him some kindnesses which were probably not lessened by the recollection of this unpremeditated revenge."*

Soon after Mr. Wirt reached his fifteenth year, the school, of which he had been so long a

Biography of William Wirt, by Peter Hoffman Cruse; page 22.

member, was disbanded, and he returned to his home in Bladensburg. At this time he seems to have been in a position of great doubt and uncertainty as to his future course. The small inheritance he received from his father's estate was not sufficient either to support him at college or during the prosecution of a professional education, and the immediate circle of his native town afforded little that was calculated to strengthen or improve his mind. A circumstance, however, soon occurred which relieved him of all doubt, and ultimately led to his preferment. Ninian Edwards, one of his classmates at Mr. Hunt school, on his return home, took with him some of Mr. Wirt's literary productions, which attracted the attention of his father, Mr. Benjamin Edwards, and caused him to interest himself in the young author's behalf. Learning that he was desirous of obtaining an education, and that the limited state of his finances rendered this desire unattainable, he proposed that young Wirt should become a tutor in his family, and at the same time continue his studies with the aid of his private library. This proposition met with a ready acceptance, and he remained with his benefactor about twenty months, enjoying an intercourse at once familiar and advantageous. Mr. Edwards, senior, was a man of strong mind and reflective disposition, fond of the young, and rendered particularly agreeable to them by the charm of his conversation. In his young protégé he always found a ready and eager listener, and upon him he bestowed the kindest advice, instruction and encouragement; predicting for him a high and honorable distinction.

In 1789, owing to the critical state of his health, Mr. Wirt, by the advice of his physician, visited Augusta, Georgia, where he remained until the spring of the following year. Soon after his return he commenced the study of law with Mr. William P. Hunt, the son of his former preceptor, and, after spending nearly a year under his guidance, he removed to the office of Mr. Thomas Swann, from whence he was admitted to practice, in the autumn of 1792. He commenced his professional career at Culpepper court-house in Virginia. His library at this time consisted of a copy of Blackstone, two volumes of Don Quixote, and a volume of Tristram Shandy. After experiencing for some time the usual embarrassments incident to early practice-want of clients and a general acquaintance with people-he "encountered a young friend much in the same circumstances, but who had a single case, which he proposed to share with Mr. Wirt as the means of making a joint debut; and with this small stock in trade, they went to attend the first county court. Their case was one of joint assault and battery, with joint judgment against three, of whom two had been released subsequently to the judgment, and the third, who had been taken in execution, and imprisoned, claimed the benefit of that release as enuring to himself. Under these circumstances, the matter of discharge, having happened since the judgment, the old remedy was by the writ of audita querela. But, Mr. Wirt and his associate had learned from their Blackstone, that the indulgence of courts in modern times, in granting summary relief in such cases by motion had, in a great measure, superseded the use of the old writ; and accordingly presented their case in the form of a motion. The motion was opened by Mr. Wirt's friend, with all the alarm of a first essay. The bench was then in Virginia county courts composed of the ordinary justices of the peace; and the elder members of the bar, by a usage the more necessary from the constitution of the tribunal, frequently interposed as amici curiæ, or informers of the conscience of the court. It appears that upon the case being opened, some of these customary advisers denied that a release to one after judgment released the other, and they denied also the propriety of the form of proceeding. The ire of our beginner was kindled by this reception of his friend, and by this voluntary interference with their motion; and, when he came to reply, he forgot the natural alarms of the occasion, and maintained his point with recollection and firmness. This awaked the generosity of an elder member of the bar, a person of consideration in the neighborhood and a good lawyer. He stepped in as an auxiliary, remarking that he also was amicus curia, and perhaps as much entitled to act as others; in which capacity he would state his conviction of the propriety of the motion, and that the court was not at liberty to disregard it; adding, that its having come from a new quarter gave it but a stronger claim on the candor and urbanity of a Virginian bar. The two friends

Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt, by John P. Kennedy. Vol. 1., p. 57.