was perceived in its full extent and expansion by minds of a higher order. Those men who were at the head of the colonial councils, who had been engaged for years in the previous stages of the quarrel with England, and who had been accustomed to look forward to the future, were well apprized of the magnitude of the events likely to hang on the business of that day.

They saw in it, not only a battle, but the beginning of a civil war, of unmeasured extent, and uncertain issue. All America, and all England, were likely to be deeply concerned in the consequences. The individuals, themselves, who knew full well what agency they had had, in bringing affairs to this crisis, had need of all their courage ;-not that disregard of personal safety, in which the vulgar suppose true courage to consist, but that high and fixed moral sentiment, that steady and decided purpose, which enables men to pursue a distant end, with a full view of the difficulties and dangers before them, and with a conviction, that, before they arrive at the proposed end, should they ever reach it, they must pass through evil report as well as good report, and be liable to obloquy, as well as to defeat.

Spirits, that fear nothing else, fear disgrace; and this danger is necessarily encountered by those who engage in civil war. Unsuccessful resistance is not only ruin to its authors, but is esteemed, and necessarily so, by the laws of all countries, treasonable. This is the case, at least till resistance becomes so general and formidable, as to assume the form of regular war. But, who can tell, when resistance commences, whether it will attain even to that degree of success? Some of those persons who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, described themselves as signing it, "as with halters about their necks." If there were grounds for this remark in 1776, when the cause had become so much more general, how much greater was the hazard, when the battle of Bunker Hill was fought?

These considerations constituted, to enlarged and liberal minds, the moral sublimity of the occasion; while, to the outward senses the movement of armies, the roar of artillery, the brilliancy of the reflection of a summer's sun, from the burnished armour of the British columns, and the flames of a burning town, made up a scene of extraordinary grandeur.

LESSON XXXVII.

Mr. Webster's Address to the Survivers of the Battle of Bunker Hill, delivered on the 50th anniversary of that event.

VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us, from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now, where you stood, fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers, and your neighbours, 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. 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 terrour there may be in war and death;-all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more.

All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terrour, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you today with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with an 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 defence.

All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotick toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the 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! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst 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 ;'

and 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 self-devoting 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 star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood, like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage! how shall I struggle with the emotions, that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found, that beats to the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be to claim kindred with thy spirit!

But the scene, amidst which we stand, does not permit us ⚫ to confine our thoughts or our sympathies to those fearless spirits, who hazarded or lost their lives on this consecrated spot. We have the happiness to rejoice here in the presence of a most worthy representation of the survivers of the whole Revolutionary Army.

VETERANS! you are the remnant of many a well fought field. You bring with you marks of honour from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. VETERANS OF HALF A CENTURY! when in your youthful days, you put every thing at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this! At a period, to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive; at a moment of national pros

perity, such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met, here, to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of an universal gratitude.

But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces; when you shall once more have pressed the hands, which have been so often extended to give succour in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory; then look abroad into this lovely land, which your young valour defended, and mark the happiness, with which it is filled; yea, look abroad into the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude, which beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind.

LESSON XXXVIII.

To Seneca Lake. PERCIVAL.

ON thy fair bosom, silver lake!
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail,
And round his breast the ripples break,
As down he bears before the gale.

On thy fair bosom waveless stream!
The dipping paddle echoes far,
And flashes in the moonlight gleam,
And bright reflects the polar star.

The waves along thy pebbly shore,
As blows the north wind, heave their foam,
And curl around the dashing oar,
As late the boatman hies him home.

How sweet, at set of sun, to view
Thy golden mirrour spreading wide,

And see the mist of mantling blue
Float round the distant mountain's side.

At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below,
And swift she cuts at highest noon,
Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow.

On thy fair bosom silver lake!
O! I could ever sweep the oar,
When early birds at morning wake,
And evening tells us toil is o'er.

LESSON XXXIX.

View of the interiour of a New England Farm House.-MRS. SIGOURNEY.

Ir was a long, low unpainted house, with narrow casements, situated about half a mile from the main road. Near it was a substantial barn, surrounded by a large yard, where a number of animals assembled, exhibited an appearance of comfort, which denoted at once, a kind and careful master. Cuffee alighting, removed the bars, which formed or rather obstructed, the rustic entrance to the demesne; and then addressed a few soothing words to his horse, who advanced his head, and bent down his quivering ear, as if the sounds of the human voice were either comprehended, or beloved.

As Madam L- entered, she heard, in the clattering of knives and forks, the reason, why she was not as usual, welcomed at the door. Unwilling to interrupt the refection of the family, she took a seat unobserved. She found herself in the best room, in the mansion, but to this the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages would assign, neither the name of "parlour, hall, or drawing-room," avoiding the example of their city acquaintance, as the ancient reformers did the abominations of the Church of Rome.

Adhering to their habits of precision as tenaciously as to their ideas of simplicity, they gave to this most honourable room, an appellation derived from its bearing upon the cardinal points. The one under present consideration, being visited by the latest beams of the setting sun, and the first breath