To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor Man nor Boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Can in a moment travel thither, And see the Children sport upon the shore, V. Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing, a joyous song! As to the tabor's sound! We, in thought, will join your throng, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright, Be now forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; Which, having been, must ever be; In the faith that looks through death, 16* EXERCISE CX. EDWARD EVERETT, the distinguished American orator and statesman, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on the 11th of April, 1794. He had a high reputation, as a scholar and a writer, even before he had completed his college course. He commenced professional life, as a clergyman; and, in 1813, was settled, as a pastor, in the city of Boston. In 1814, being chosen Professor of Greek in Harvard College, he spent four years abroad, the better to qualify himself for the duties of his office. On his return, he assumed the editorship of the North American Review, and continued to conduct it till 1824. Then, also, began Mr. Everett's political career: he being, at that time, elected to Congress. He served in that relation for ten years. In 1834 he was elected Governor of Massachusetts. In 1840 he again visited Europe. In 1848, on his return to America, he was immediately chosen President of Harvard University. Upon the death of Daniel Webster, in 1852, he was called to take his place, as Secretary of State. In 1853 he took his seat in the Senate of the United States; having been elected thereto by the Legislature of Massachusetts. In 1856 he delivered his celebrated discourse on Washington, the object of which was to aid in gathering a fund to purchase Mount Vernon. This discourse he has repeated no less than a hundred and twenty-two times for the same object. Besides all this, Mr. Everett has delivered numerous addresses to various bodies, all excellent in design and admirabie in execution. THE PROSPECTS OF THE REPUBLIC. EDWARD EVERETT 1. This, then, is the theater on which the intellect of America is to appear, and such the motives to its exertion; such the mass to be influenced by its energies, such the crowd to witness its efforts, such the glory to crown its success. If I err in this happy vision of my country's fortunes, I thank God for an error so animating. If this be false, may I never know the truth. Never may you, my friends, be under any other feeling, than that a great, a growing, an immeasurably expanding country is calling upon you for your best services. 2. The name and character of our Alma Mater have always been carried by some of our brethren thousands of miles from her venerable walls; and thousands of miles still farther westward, the communities of kindred men are fast gathering, whose minds and hearts will act in sympathy with yours. 3. The most powerful motives call on us, as scholars, for those efforts, which our common country demands of all her children Most of us are of that class, who owe whatever of knowledge has shone into our minds, to the free and popular institutions of our native land There are few of us, who may not be permitted to boast, that we have been reared in an honest poverty or a frugal competence, and owe everything to those means of education which are equally open to all. 4. We are summoned to new energy and zeal by the high nature of the experiment we are appointed in Providence to make, and the grandeur of the theater on which it is to be performed. Wher the old world afforded no longer any hope, it pleased Heaven to open this last refuge of humanity. The attempt has begun, and is going on, far from foreign corruption, on the broadest scale, and under the most benignant prospects; and it certainly rests with us to solve the great problem in human society, to settle, and that forever, that momentous questionwhether mankind can be trusted with a purely popular system? 5. One might almost think, without extravagance, that the departed wise and good of all places and times are looking down from their happy seats to witness what shall now be done by us; that they who lavished their treasures and their blood of old, who labored and suffered, who spake and wrote, who fought and perished, in the one great cause of freedom and truth, are now hanging from their orbs on high, over the last solemn experiment of humanity. 6. As I have wandered over the spots, once the scene of their labors, 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 sepulchers of the nations, which died before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure us, to be faithful to our trust. 7. 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. EXERCISE CXI. THE WIDOW AND HER SON. WASHINGTON IRVING.* 1. I am fond of loitering about country churches, and this was so delightfully situated, that it frequently attracted me. It stood on a knoll, round which a small stream made a beautiful bend, and then wound its way through a long reach of soft meadow scenery. The church was surrounded by yew-trees, which seemed almost coeval with itself. Its tall Gothic spire shot up lightly from among them, with rooks and crows generally wheeling about it. 2. I was seated there one still sunny morning, watching two laborers who were digging a grave. They had chosen one of the most remote and neglected corners of the church-yard, where, by the number of nameless graves around, it would ap pear that the indigent and friendless were hurried into the earth. I was told that the new-made grave was for the only son of a poor widow. While I was meditating on the distinctions of worldly rank, which extend thus down into the very dust, the toll of the bell announced the approach of the funeral. 3. They were the obsequies of poverty, with which pride had nothing to do. A coffin of the plainest materials, without pall or other covering, was borne by some of the villagers. The sexton walked before, with an air of cold indifference. There were no mock mourners in the trappings of affected woe, but there was one real mourner, who feebly tottered after the corpse. It was the aged mother of the deceased-the poor old woman whom I had seen seated on the steps of the altar. She was supported by a humble friend, who was endeavoring to comfort her. A few of the neighboring poor had joined the train, and some children of the village were running, hand in hand, now shouting with unthinking mirth, and sometimes pausing to gaze with childish curiosity on the grief of the mourner. 4. As the funeral train approached the grave, the parson issued out of the church porch, arrayed in the surplice, with *See Exercise CLI. prayer-book in hand, and attended by the clerk. The service, however, was a mere act of charity. The deceased had been destitute, and the survivor was penniless. It was shuffled through, therefore, in form, but coldly and unfeelingly. The well-fed priest scarcely moved ten steps from the church door; his voice could scarcely be heard at the grave; and never did I hear the funeral service, that sublime and touching ceremony, turned into such a frigid mummery of words. 5. I approached the grave. The coffin was placed on the ground. On it were inscribed the name and age of the deceased -"GEORGE SOMERS, AGED 26 YEARS.' ." The poor mother had been assisted to kneel down at the head of it. Her withered hands were clasped as if in prayer; but I could perceive, by a feeble rocking of the body and a convulsive motion of the lips, that she was gazing on the last relics of her son with the yearnings of a mother's heart. 6. The service being ended, preparations were made to deposit the coffin in the earth. There was that bustling stir that breaks so harshly on the feelings of grief and affection: directions given in the cold tones of business; the striking of spades into sand and gravel, which, at the grave of those we love, is of al sounds the most withering. The bustle around seemed to awaken the mother from a wretched reverie. She raised her glazed eyes, and looked about with a faint wildness. As the mer approached with cords to lower the coffin into the grave, she wrung her hands and broke into an agony of grief. The poor woman who attended her, took her by the arm, endeavored to raise her from the earth, and to whisper something like consclation-"Nay, now-nay, now-don't take it so sorely to heart." She could only shake her head and wring her hands as one not to be comforted. 7. As they lowered the body into the earth, the creaking of the cords seemed to agonize her; but when, on some accidental obstruction, there was a jostling of the coffin, all the tenderness of the mother burst forth; as if any harm could come to him who was far beyond the reach of worldly suffering. I could see no more my heart swelled into my throat-my eyes filled with |