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not find it in their hearts to believe that they were disinterested.

Unparalleled as they were, they were, nevertheless, no otherwise requited, than by the applause of all good men, and by his own enjoyment of the spectacle of the national prosperity and honour, which was the effect of them. After facing calumny, and triumphantly surmounting an unrelenting persecution, he retired from office, with clean, though empty hands, as rich as reputation and an unblemished integrity could make him.

Some have plausibly. though erroneously, inferred from the great extent of his abilities, that his ambition was inordinate. This is a mistake. Such men, as have a painful consciousness, that their stations happen to be far more exalted than their talents, are generally the most ambitious. Hamilton, on the contrary, though he had many competitors, had no rivals; he did not thirst for power, nor would he, as it is well known descend to office. Of course, he suffered no pain from envy, when bad men rose, though he felt anxiety for the public. He was perfectly content and at ease, in private life. Of what was he ambitious? Not of wealth-no man held it cheaper. Was it popularity? That weed of the dunghill, he knew, when rankest, was nearest to withering. There is no doubt, that he desired glory, which to most men is too inaccessable to be an object of desire; but, feeling his own force, and that he was tall enough to reach the top of Pindus or of Helicon, he longed to deck his brow with the wreath of immortality. A vulgar ambition could as little comprehend, as satisfy, his views: he thirsted only for that fame, which virtue would not blush to confer, nor time to convey to the end of his course.

The only ordinary distinction, to which, we confess, he did aspire, was military; and for that, in the event of a foreign war, he would have been solicitious. He undoubtedly discovered the predomi

nance of a soldier's feelings; and all that is honour, in the character of a soldier, was at home in his heart. His early education was in the camp; there the first fervours of his genius were poured forth, and his earliest and most cordial friendships formed; there he became enamoured of glory, and was admitted to her embrace.

Those who knew him best, and especially in the army, will believe, that if occasions had called him forth, he was qualified, beyond any man of the age, to display the talents of a great general.

It may be very long, before your country will want such military talents; it will probably be much longer, before it will again possess them.

Alas! the great man who was, at all times, so much the ornament of our country, and so exclusively fitted, in its extremity, to be its champion, is withdrawn to a purer and more tranquil region. We are left to endless labours and unavailing regrets.

Such honours Ilion to her hero paid,

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade.

The most substantial glory of a country, is in its virtuous great men: its prosperity will depend on its docility to learn from their example. That nation is fated to ignominy and servitude, for which such men have lived in vain. Power may be seized by a nation, that is yet barbarous; and wealth may be enjoyed by one, that it finds, or renders sordid; the one is the gift and the sport of accident, and the other is the sport of power. Both are mutable, and have passed away without leaving behind them any other memorials than ruins that offend taste, and traditions that baffle conjecture. But the glory of Greece is imperishable, or will last as long as learning itself, which is its monument: it strikes an everlasting root, and bears perennial blossoms on its grave. The name of HAMILTON would have honoured Greece, in the

age of Aristides. May Heaven, the guardian of our liberty, grant, that our country may be fruitful of HAMILTONS, and faithful to their glory.

Section XV.

EULOGY ON FISHER AMES.

Mr. Ames was distinguished among the eminent men of our country. All admitted, for they felt, his extraordinary powers; few pretended to doubt, if any seemed to deny, the purity of his heart. His exemplary life commanded respect; the charms of his conversation and manners won affection. He was equally admired and beloved.

Called

His public career was short but brilliant. into the service of his country in seasons of her most critical emergency, and partaking in the management of her councils during a most interesting period of her history, he obtained a place in the first rank of her statesmen, legislators, orators, and patriots. By a powerful and original genius, an impressive and uniform virtue, he succeeded, as fully perhaps as any political character, in a republic agitated by divisions, ever did, in surmounting the two pernicious vices, disignated by the inimitable biographer of Agricola, insensibility to merit on the one hand, and envy on the other.

The reader of his works will, no doubt, concur with those who knew him and who heard him in public and private, in saying, that he had a mind of high order, in some particulars of the highest, and that he has a just claim to be classed with the men of genius, that quality which it is so much more easy to discern than to define; "that quality, without which judgment is cold and knowledge inert; that energy which collects, combines. amplifies, and animates." We observe in Mr. AMES a liberal portion of all the fae

ulties and qualities that enter into this character, understanding, memory, imagination, invention, sensibility, ardour.

As a speaker and as a writer he had the power to enlighten and persuade, to move, to please, to charm, to astonish. He united those decorations that belong to fine talents, to that penetration and judgment that designate an acute and solid mind. Many of his opinions have the authority of predictions fulfilled and fulfilling. He had the ability of investigation, and, where it was necessary, did investigate with patient attention, going through a series of observation and deduction, and tracing the links which connect one truth with another. When the result of his research. es was exhibited in discourse, the steps of a logical process were in some measure concealed by the colouring of rhetoric. Minute calculations and dry details were employments, however, the least adapted to his peculiar construction of mind. It was easy and delightful for him to illustrate by a picture, but painful and laborious to prove by a diagram. It was the prerogative of his mind to discern by a glance, so rapid as to seem intuition, those truths which common capacities struggle hard to apprehend; and it was the part of his eloquence to display, expand and enforce them.

His imagination was a distinguishing feature of his mind. Prolific, grand, sportive, original, it gave him the command of nature and art, and enabled him to vary the disposition and the dress of his ideas without end. Now it assembled most pleasing images, adorned with all that is soft and beautiful; and now rose in the storm, wielding the elements and flashine with the most awful splendours.

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Very few men have produced more original co es binations. He presented resemblances and contr:ter which none saw before, but all admitted to be just be striking. In delicate and powerful wit he was pre

eminent.

He did not systematically study the exterior graces

his

of speaking, but his attitude was erect and easy, gestures manly and forcible, his intonations varied and expressive, his articulation distinct, and his whole manner animated and natural. His written compositions, it will be perceived, have that glow and vivacity which belonged to his speeches.

All the other efforts of his mind, however, were probably exceeded by his powers in conversation. He appeared among his friends with an illuminated face, and with peculiar amenity and captivating kindness, displayed all the playful felicity of his wit, the force of his intellect, and the fertility of his imagination.

On the kind or degree of excellence which criticism may concede or deny to Mr. AMES's productions, we do not undertake with accurate discrimination to determine. He was undoubtedly rather actuated by the genius of oratory, than disciplined by the precepts of rhetoric; was more intent on exciting attention and interest and producing effect, than securing the praise of skill in the artifice of composition. Hence critics might be dissatisfied, yet hearers charmed. The abundance of materials, the energy and quickness of conception, the inexhaustible fertility of mind, which he possessed, as they did not require, so they forbade a rigid adherence to artificial guides in the disposition and employment of his intellectual stores. To a certain extent, such a speaker and writer may claim to be his own authority.

Image crowded upon image in his mind, he is not chargeable with affectation in the use of the figurative language; his tropes are evidently prompted by imaination, and not forced into his service. Their novy and variety create constant surprise and delight. t they are, perhaps, too lavishly employed. The

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of his hearers is sometimes overplied with stim, and the importance of the thought liable to be Concealed in the multitude and beauty of the metaphors. His condensation of expression may be. thought to produce occasional abruptness. He aimed

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