sons wish that as many dead carcasses were floating in the harbor, as there are chests of tea. A much less number of lives, however, would remove the causes of all our calamities. The malicious pleasure with which Hutchinson the Governor, the consignees of the tea, and the officers of the customs, have stood and looked upon the distresses of the people and their struggles to get the tea back to London, and at last the destruction of it, is amazing. 'Tis hard to believe persons so hardened and abandoned." p. 324.

But greater events are in train. The General Court had been prorogued to Salem by Governor Gage, as a place where its members were less likely to be under popular influence. Here, on the 17th of June, 1774, and whilst the Secretary stood on the outside of the locked doors, with a proclamation dissolving the assembly, a vote was passed by that body, appointing a committee of its members, five in number, to meet committees of the other colonies at Philadelphia, on the first day of September following. This resolution was adopted by twelve dissenting voices out of one hundred and twenty-nine present. The five persons designated were Bowdoin, Cushing, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and Robert Treat Paine, by the last four of whom the appointment was accepted. The following is thè entry in the diary of this important event:

"There is a new and a grand scene open before me; a Congress. This will be an assembly of the wisest men upon the continent, who are Americans in principle, that is, against the taxation of Americans by authority of Parliament. I feel myself unequal to this business. A more extensive knowledge of the realm, the colonies, and of commerce, as well as of law and policy, is necessary, than I am master of. What can be done? Will it be expedient to propose an annual congress of committees? to petition? Will it do to petition at all? - to the King? to the Lords? to the Commons? What will such consultations avail? Deliberations alone will not do. We must petition or recommend to the Assemblies to petition, or

"The ideas of the people are as various as their faces. One thinks, no more petitions, former having been neglected and despised; some are for resolves, spirited resolves, and some are for bolder counsels. I will keep an exact diary of my journey, as well as journal of the proceedings of Congress.

"25. Saturday. Since the Court adjourned without day this. afternoon, I have taken a long walk through the Neck, as they

call it, a fine tract of land in a general field. Corn, rye, grass, interspersed in great perfection this fine season. I wander alone and ponder. I muse, I mope, I ruminate. I am often in reveries and brown studies. The objects before me are too grand and multifarious for my comprehension. We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, in education, in travel, in fortune, in every thing. I feel unutterable anxiety. God grant us wisdom and fortitude! Should the opposition be suppressed, should this country submit, what infamy and ruin! God forbid. Death in any form is less terrible!" p. 339.

enter.

On the 10th of August, the delegates of Massachusetts set out for Philadelphia. The diary is full in reference to the journey; the passage of the party through the principal towns, where they were received with enthusiasm; the arrival at Philadelphia; the organization and proceedings of the Congress. It is accompanied, as we have intimated above, with brief notes of some of the earlier debates. It would be difficult to overstate the interest of these sketches of the political history of the country, in the most important part of its heroic age; but this is a theme on which our limits now forbid us to We have accomplished the main object of this article if we have conveyed to our readers some not inadequate idea of the character of the volume before us, as a specimen of the great work which it introduces to the public. It is scarcely necessary to say, however, that we have been able to extract but a very small portion of its interesting contents. It will be found to contain, on almost every page, facts of great interest for the history of the important period which it covers. We are acquainted with no work which brings the reader so near to the scene and the events of the important interval, which elapsed between the year 1761 and the opening of the Revolution. Nor is less light thrown on the manners of the day, the state of society among the educated classes, and the general condition of this part of the country.

It would be unjust to close our article without bearing witness to the ability with which the volume is edited. Much ✦ labor and time have evidently been bestowed in preparing it for the press. The text, to all appearance, is presented in its original integrity. The Editor assures us in the preface, that nothing has been omitted because it bore hard either upon the writer of the diary, or those mentioned by him. A

sufficient explanation, generally a brief one, is given of every important transaction alluded to. Suitable biographical notices are given of the public characters introduced, and a commendable impartiality observed in remarking upon their conduct. The editor is imbued with the principles of the Revolution, without being inflamed by the heats of temporary controversies. There is no adulation lavished upon the eminent individual, to whose memory the work is consecrated. He is left to speak for himself, in his own record of the crowded scenes of his life. Regarding the present volume

fair specimen of the work, we are confident that it will prove a contribution to the materials of American history, not second in importance and interest to any of the great publications with which it is most obviously to be compared.

ART. VII. Orations and Speeches on various Occasions. By EDWARD EVERETT. Boston Little & Brown. 1850. 2 vols. 8vo.

:

THE experience of the world has shown pretty conclusively, that eloquence and political liberty go hand in hand, flourish under similar favoring influences, and, dying together, are buried in the same grave. To discourse upon the marvellous effects produced by the great orators of Greece and Rome were to talk upon a hackneyed theme, with scarce a possibility of saying any thing at once new and true. But the eloquence of the ancients, it cannot be denied, acquires in republican America a fresh interest, from the numerous coincidences of circumstance, occasion, topics of popular appeal, and links of electric sympathy between the patriot speaker and the tumultuous assemblages of free and sovereign citizens, gathered to consider questions of moment to the public weal, or to celebrate, with the pomp of solemn processions, religious rites, and commemorative orations, the illustrious achievements of the mighty dead, to call up the famous days which have been turning points in the history of national greatness. In truth, we are living over again the

classic times of Athenian and Roman eloquence, on a broader stage, in larger proportions, with elements of excitement, hopes of progress, and principles of duration, which never cheered and strengthened the souls of Demosthenes and Cicero. Our "mass meetings" are the counterpart of the multitudinous gathering in the Pnyx and the Forum; and the great political questions we discuss in them are of the same vital importance to our national prosperity, though not, perhaps, to our national existence, as were the topics debated by Phocion and Demosthenes.

From the battle fields of the American Revolution, we repeat the same lessons of heroic resistance to the enemies of our country, and of the duty and glory of dying in defence of our hearths and homes and native city, that the Greeks drew from the soil which the Persian invader had drenched with his barbarian blood. Bunker Hill, and Lexington, and Concord are our Marathon, Platæa, and Thermopyla; but God forbid that the parallel should be carried farther! God forbid that our great statesmen and famous orators should be called upon to commemorate the virtues of those who have fallen in civil strife, the victims of a quarrel springing from jealousies among rival but kindred States, living under different institutions, but bound together by every tie of interest, every memory of the illustrious past, every hope of a more illustrious future. God forbid that we, too, should plunge into a Peloponnesian War, of uncertain duration, but leading to certain ruin, even should the eloquence of a Pericles urge us into the fatal struggle. Rather let the counsels of a wise moderation lead these sister States back to the common ground of magnanimous forbearance, which, while it saves. the honor of each, shall rescue the endangered fortunes and happiness of both.

These two superb volumes, containing Mr. Everett's Orations and Speeches, could not have come out in a better time, or more seasonably for the state of the public mind. The discourses cover a period of six-and-twenty years, beginning with 1824, and extending to the present time. Though this long series of years have been passed in profound peace, with the single and brief exception of the Mexican War, yet it has been crowded with events deeply affecting the present condition and future prospects of our country.

even now,

As we look back upon the long train of these thickcrowding events, we seem to have lived a life of ages; and the form and pressure of the times show us, that we have as yet been spectators of the overture only of the great action on the stage of national affairs, which is about to open before us with more than dramatic intensity of interest. Through the whole period to which we refer, the influence of Mr. Everett's genius and eloquence has been steadily and powerfully felt. His life and labors belong to the history of the times; and though his name and his praise have been in all men's mouths throughout the land, we doubt whether the extent and variety and brilliancy of his achievements have been fully appreciated until the publication of the present volumes. The early training of Mr. Everett, by which he placed himself foremost among the scholars of America; his rich opportunities, employed with admirable industry and success, at home and abroad, after the period of college and professional studies had passed; the amplitude of classical learning, and the memorable eloquence by which he adorned for five or six years the Professor's chair in the University; the vigorous national spirit which he breathed into the leading American Review, while he was its editor, had gradually fixed the regards of the public upon his career, and singled him out as one destined to take a leading part in the councils of the nation. From the Professor's chair he passed, by a strong popular vote, to the House of Representatives in Con gress; and he represented an enlightened constituency in such a manner as almost to put an end to party divisions for a time, by the satisfaction and pride all felt in his fidelity to the public trust, his industry in the exact performance of every duty belonging to the station, his profound knowledge of every subject, in details and principles, that came up for the consideration of Congress, and the never-failing readiness and skill with which he poured out the light of his knowledge upon whatever subject he was called upon to discuss in the debates of the House. We well remember hearing a distinguished leader of the opposite party to that to which Mr. Everett belonged, during the administration of Mr. Adams, a gentleman afterwards raised to a seat on the supreme bench of the United States, say, that when he wanted information upon any matter of public business, no