of ages, have been quietly conveyed to their last home, with scarcely a solitary mourner to grace their obsequies. The contest, indeed, between old and new opinions has been, and continues to be, maintained with great obstinacy and ability on all sides, and has forced even the sluggish into the necessity of thinking for themselves. Scholars have been driven to arm themselves for attack, as well as for defence; and in a literary warfare, nearly universal, have been obliged to make their appeals to the living judgment of the public for protection, as well as for encouragement.

The effects of this animated and free discussion have, in general, been very salutary. There is not a single department of life which has not been invigorated by its influence, nor a single profession which had not partaken of its success.

march of philanthropy, under the banners of that meek sect, which does good by stealth, and blushes to find it fame. There are not in the code of the Union, and probably not in that of any single State, more than ten crimes, to which the sober judgment of legislation now affixes the punishment of death. England, indeed, counts in her bloody catalogue more than one hundred and sixty capital offences; but the dawn of a brighter day is opening upon her. After years of doubtful struggle, the meliorations suggested by the lamented Sir Samuel Romilly, have forced their way through Parliament to the throne; and an enlightened ministry is redeeming her from this reproach upon her national character.

In medicine, throughout all its branches, more extraordinary changes have taken place. Here, indeed, inductive philosophy looks for In jurisprudence, which reluctantly admits some of its fairest trophies. In anatomy, in any new adjunct, and counts in its train a physiology, in pharmacy, in therapeutics, inthousand champions ready to rise in defence of structed skill, patient observation, and accurate its formularies and technical rules, the victory deduction have been substituted for vague conhas been brilliant and decisive. The civil and jecture, and bold pretension. Instead of mysthe common law have yielded to the pressure tical compounds, and nostrums, and panaceas, of the times, and have adopted much which science has introduced its powerful simples, philosophy and experience have recommended, and thus given energy and certainty to prac although it stood upon no text of the Pandects, tice. We dream no longer over the favorite and claimed no support from the feudal polity. theories of the arts succeeding each other in Commercial law, at least so far as England and endless progression. We are content to adopt America are concerned, is the creation of the a truer course; to read nature in her operaeighteenth century. It started into life with tions; to compel her to give up her secrets to the genius of Lord Mansfield, and gathering in the expostulations of her ministers, and to anits course whatever was valuable in the earlier swer the persevering interrogatories of her institutes of foreign countries, has reflected worshippers. Chemistry, by its brilliant disback upon them its own superior lights, so as coveries and careful analysis, has unfolded laws to become the guide and oracle of the commer- which surprise us by their simplicity, as well cial world. If my own feelings do not mislead as by the extent of their operations. By its me, the profession itself has acquired a liberal-magic touch the very elements of things seem ity of opinion, a comprehensiveness of argumentation, a sympathy with the other pursuits of life, and a lofty eloquence, which, if ever before, belonged to it in the best days of the best orators of antiquity. It was the bitter scoff of other times, approaching to the sententiousness of a proverb, that to be a good lawyer was to be an indifferent statesman. The profession has outlived the truth of the sarcasm. At the present moment, England may count lawyers among her most gifted statesman; and in America, I need but appeal to those who hear me, for the fact, our most eminent statesmen have been, nay, still are, the brightest ornaments of our bar.

The same improving spirit has infused itself into the body of legislation and political economy. I may not adventure upon this extensive topic. But I would for a moment advert to the more benignant character manifested in the criminal law. Harsh and vindictive punishments have been discountenanced or abolished. The sanguinary codes, over which humanity wept, and philosophy shuddered, have felt the potent energy of reform, and substituted for agonizing terror the gentle spirit of mercy. America has taken the lead in this glorious

decomposed, and to stand in disembodied essences before us.

In theology a new era has commenced. From the days of Grotius almost to our own, a sluggish indifference to critical learning fastened upon most of those, who administered the high solemnities of religion. Here and there, indeed, a noble spirit was seen, like Old Mortality, wiping away the ancient dust and retracing the fading lines, and in his zeal for truth undergoing almost a moral martyrdom. But the mass of professed theologians slumbered over the received text in easy security, or poured the distillations of one commentary into another, giving little improvement to the flavor and none to the substance. They were at length roused by a spirit of another sort, which, by ridicule, or argument, or denunciation of abuses, was attempting to sap the very foundations of Christianity. It made its approaches in silence, until it had attained strength enough for an open assault; and at last, in a moment of political revolution, it erected the standard of infidelity in the very centre of Christendom. Fortunately, the critical studies of the scholars of the old world enabled them to meet the difficulties of the occasion. The immense collations of manu

wit; and now paying homage to genius by ex- | in the worst of times have consoled the patriot pounding its labors in language of transcendent for all his sufferings. If they cannot boast of felicity. One might approach nearer home, the various attainments of our days, they may and, if it were not dangerous to rouse the atten- point out to us the lessons of wisdom, the noble tion of critics, might tell of a certain North discoveries and the imperishable labors of their American, which has done as much to give a mighty dead. It is not necessarily error to solid cast to our literature, and a national feel- follow the footsteps of ancient philosophy, to ing to our authors, as any single event since the reverence the precepts of ancient criticism, to peace of 1783. meditate over the pages of ancient exploits, or to listen to the admonitions of ancient oratory.

Another interesting accompaniment of the literature of the age is its superior moral purity over former productions. The obscene jests, the low ribaldry, and the coarse allusions, which shed a disastrous light on so many pages of misguided genius in former times, find no sympathy in ours. He who would now command respect, must write with pure sentiments and elevated feelings; he who would now please, must be chaste as well as witty, and moral as well as brilliant. Fiction itself is restrained to the decencies of life; and whether in the drama, or the novel, or the song, with a few melancholy exceptions, it seeks no longer to kindle fires, which would consume the youthful enthusiast, or to instil precepts, which would blast the loveliness of the innocent.

We may even gather instruction from periods of another sort, in which there was a darkness, which might be felt as well as seen. Where is to be found a nobler institution than the trial by jury, that impregnable bulwark of civil liberty? Yet it belongs to ages of Gothic darkness or Saxon barbarism. Where is there a more enduring monument of political wisdom than the separation of the judicial from the legislative powers? Yet it was the slow production of ages, which are obscured by the mists of time. Where shall we point out an invention, whose effects have been more wide, or more splendid than those of the mariner's compass? Yet five centuries have rolled over the grave of its celebrated discoverer. Where shall we find the true logic of physical science so admirably stated as in the Novum Organum of him, who more than two centuries ago saw, as in vision, and foretold, as in prophecy, the sublime discoveries of these latter days?

But let it not be imagined, that in the present state of things there is nothing for regret and nothing for admonition. The picture of the age, when truly drawn, is not wholly composed of lights. There are shades which disturb the beauty of the coloring, and points of reflection where there is no longer harmony in the pro-ed over, since it presents some of the dangers portions.

This is a topic which may not wholly be pass

times to the pride of their readers. Their object is not so much to produce what is true, as what is striking; what is profound, as what is interesting; what will endure the test of future criticism as what will buoy itself up on the current of a shallow popularity. In the rage for originality, the old standards of taste are deserted, or treated with cold indifference; and thus false and glittering thoughts, and hurried and flippant fantasies, are substituted for exact and philosophical reasoning.

to which we are exposed, and calls upon us to The unavoidable tendency of free speculation watch the progress of opinion, and guard against is to lead to occasional extravagances. When the seductive influence of novelties. The busy once the reverence for authority is shaken, there character of the age is perpetually pressing foris apt to grow up in its stead a cold scepticism ward all sorts of objections to establish truths respecting established opinions. Their very in politics, and morals, and literature. In orantiquity under such circumstances betrays us der to escape from the imputation of triteness, into suspicion of their truth. The overthrow some authors tax their ingenuity to surprise us of error itself urges on a feverish excitement for with bold paradoxes, or run down with wit and discussion, and a restless desire for novelty, ridicule the doctrines of common sense, apwhich blind, if they do not confound, the judg-pealing sometimes to the ignorance and somement. Thus, the human mind not unfrequently passes from one extreme to another; from one of implicit faith, to one of absolute incredulity. There is not a remark deducible from the history of mankind more important than that advanced by Mr. Burke, that "to innovate is not to reform." That is, if I may venture to follow out the sense of this great man, that innovation is not necessarily improvement; that novelty is not necessarily excellence; that what was deemed wisdom in former times, is not necessarily folly in ours; that the course of the human mind has not been to present a multitude of truths in one great step of its glory, but to gather them up insensibly in its progress, and to place them at distances, sometimes at vast distances, as guides or warnings to succeeding ages. If Greece and Rome did not solve all the problems of civil government, or enunciate the admirable theorem of representative legislation, it should never be forgotten, that from them we have learned those principles of liberty which

There is, too, a growing propensity to disparage the importance of classical learning. Many causes, especially in England and America, have conduced to this result. The signal success which has followed the enterprises in physical science, in mechanics, in chemistry, in civil engineering, and the ample rewards both of fortune and fame attendant upon that succcess, have had a very powerful influence upon the best talents of both countries. There is, too, in the public mind a strong disposition to turn

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can reflect with unbroken force the beautiful spirit of the text? Shall he, whose vocation it is "to allure to brighter worlds and lead the way," be himself the blind leader of the blind? Shall he follow the commentaries of fallible man, instead of gathering the true sense from the gospels themselves? Shall he venture uphave never aimed at the first principles of inon the exposition of divine truths, whose studies terpretation? Shall he proclaim the doctrines of salvation who knows not and cares not whether he preaches an idle gloss or the genuine text of revelation? If a theologian may not pass his life in collating the various readings, he may, and ought to aspire to that criticism, which illustrates religion by all the resources of human

every thing to a practical account, to deal less with learning and more with experiment; to seek the solid comforts of opulence, rather than the indulgence of mere intellectual luxury. On the other hand, from the increase of materials, as well as of critical skill, high scholarship is a prize of no easy attainment; and when attained it slowly receives public favor and still more slowly reaches the certainty of wealth. Indeed it is often combined with a contemplative shyness, and sense of personal independence, which yield little to policy, and with difficulty brook opposition. The honors of the world rarely cluster around it, and it cherishes with most enthusiasm those feelings which the active pursuits of life necessarily impair, if they do not wholly extinguish. The devotion to it, there-learning; which studies the manners and instifore, where it exists, often becomes our exclusive passion; and thus the gratification of it becomes the end, instead of the means of life. Instances of extraordinary success by mere scholarship are more rare than in other professions. It is not then to be wondered at, that the prudence of some minds and the ambition of others, should shrink from labors which demand days and nights of study, and hold out rewards which are distant, or pleasures which are for the most part purely intellectual.

Causes like these, in an age which scrutinizes and questions the pretensions of every department of literature, have contributed to bring into discussion the use and the value of classical learning. I do not stand up on this occasion to vindicate its claims, or extol its merits. That would be a fit theme for one of our most distinguished scholars, in a large discourse. But I may not withhold my willing testimony to its excellence, nor forget the fond regret with which I left its enticing studies for the discipline of more severe instructors.

tutions of the age and country in which Christianity was first promulgated; which kindles an enthusiasm for its precepts by familiarity with the persuasive language of Him who poured out his blessings on the Mount, and of him at whose impressive appeal Felix trembled.

treasures of antiquity, which have survived the I I pass over all consideration of the written wreck of empires and dynasties, of monumental princes and temples of the gods. I pass over trophies and triumphal arches, of palaces of all consideration of those admired compositions in which wisdom speaks as with a voice from Heaven; of those sublime efforts of poetical genius, which still freshen, as they pass from age to age, in undying vigor: of those finished histories, which still enlighten and instruct governments in their duty and their destiny; of those matchless orations which roused nations to arms, and chained senates to the chariot wheels of all-conquering eloquence. These all Ay, as one remembers the face of a dead friend may now be read in our vernacular tongue. by gathering up the broken fragments of his image-as one listens to the tale of a dream twice told-as one catches the roar of the ocean in the ripple of a rivulet-as one sees the blaze of noon in the first glimmer of twilight.

The importance of classical learning to professional education is so obvious that the surprise is, that it could ever have become matter of disputation. I speak not of its power in refining the taste, in disciplining the judgment, in invigorating the understanding, or in warming the heart with elevated sentiments; but of its power of direct, positive, necessary instruction. would for a moment dwell, because it has a There is one objection, however, on which I Until the eighteenth century, the mass of science commanding influence over many minds, and is in its principal branches was deposited in the clothed with a specious importance. It is of dead languages, and much of it still reposes ten said that there have been eminent men there. To be ignorant of these languages is to and eminent writers, to whom the ancient lanshut out the lights of former times, or to exam-guages were unknown; men who have risen by ine them only through the glimmerings of in- the force of their talents, and writers who have adequate translations. What should we say of written with a purity and ease which hold them the jurist who never aspired to learn the max-up as models for imitation. On the other hand ims of law and equity which adorn the Roman codes? What of the physician who could deliberately surrender all the knowledge heaped up for so many centuries in the latinity of continental Europe? What of the minister of religion who should choose not to study the Scriptures in the original tongue, and should be content to trust his faith and his hopes, for time and for eternity, to the dimness of translations, which may reflect the literal import, but rarely

it is as often said that scholars do not always compose either with elegance or chasteness; that their diction is sometimes loose and harsh, and sometimes ponderous and affected. Be it so. I am not disposed to call in question the accu racy of either statement. But I would nevertheless say that the presence of classical learning was not the cause of the faults of the one class, nor the absence of it the cause of the excellence of the other. And I would put this

fact as an answer to all such reasonings, that there is not a single language of modern Europe in which literature has made any considerable that the fires of his magnificent mind were lightadvances, which is not directly of Roman origined by coals from ancient altars? or has not incorporated into its very structure many, very many of the idioms and peculiarities of the ancient tongues. The English language affords a strong illustration of the truth of this remark. It abounds with words and meanings drawn from classical sources. Innumerable phrases retain the symmetry of their ancient dress. Innumerable expressions have received their vivid tints from the beautiful dyes of Roman and Grecian roots. If scholars therefore do not write our language with ease, or purity, or elegance, the cause must lie somewhat deeper than a conjectural ignorance of its true diction.

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