ning of steam communication in Europe. Regular lines of steam packets, if I am not misinformed, run from Portsmouth, in England, to Lisbon, Cadiz, Marseilles, Leghorn, Naples, Sicily, the ports of the Adriatic, the Ionian Isles, classic Greece, the Archipelago, Troy, Constantinople. From England or France there is constant steam navigation to the coast of Africa, to Syria, and to Egypt; and arrived at Egypt, you find, in the Isthmus of Suez, the half-way station of the steam packets from Great Britain to Bombay. Yes, sir, assuming as certain what I believe is beyond doubt, that Mr Cunard's steamers will begin to run to Boston next spring, it is an extraordinary fact that the completion of this Western Railroad from Springfield to Albany will open a continuous line of artificial communication, almost wholly by steam, from the western shores of Lake Michigan to the eastern coasts of British India; a distance of one hundred and sixty degrees of longitude, including very nearly half the circuit of the globe, and the whole of its civilized portion.

With these views of this work, which I have no time to trace into their effects upon the prosperity of the state, my course is clear. I impugn not the motives of others, who, though they do not impeach the utility of the enterprise, object to the only mode in which it was possible to effect itthe grant of the credit of the state in aid of the efforts of individuals. But with my views of its importance, of its unutterable importance, of its sure connection with the lasting prosperity of our beloved commonwealth, in whose economical history it will form an era,- better for me, as a public

I may with propriety allude to the railway from St Petersburg to Moscow, commenced, and nearly finished, under the superintendence of the late Major Whistler, the engineer of the Western Railroad of Massachusetts. This lamented officer was invited to construct the first railroad in the empire, on the recommendation of commissioners sent from Russia to examine the railroads of England and the United States. The emperor of Russia, on a visit to London, spoke of him to me in terms of the highest praise, and expressed the hope that he should be able to persuade him to remain in Russia, where he was doing much good by training a class of skilful engineers. Since the premature decease of Major Whistler, his place in Russia has been supplied by Major Brown, the engineer of the New York and Erie Railroad.

man, that the mountains should fall on me, - better that the hills of Berkshire should "ope their ponderous and marble jaws" and swallow me into the core of their everlasting adamant, than that I should lift a finger or breathe a whisper adverse to this enterprise, or do other or less than help it forward with the utmost of my humble energies.

And here, sir, perhaps I should stop; but the sight of my excellent friend, your respected fellow-citizen, on your left, (Rev. Mr Peabody,) reminds me of an incident, which, being sometimes a little superstitious, I have been half tempted to regard as significant. Indulge me for a moment in the weakness. There is a little bird, whose abode is on the deep. When a vessel is scudding before the gale, and a wave, which has run mountains high, is just curling over, and boiling at its summit into a deluge of foam, the sailor casts his eye upwards to the seething cap of the billow which seems hanging over him, and there he beholds the stormy petrel rocking on its crest. I have seen this little creature, which is said to derive its name from the fainthearted disciple that could not walk on the waters, walking, or rather running up the more than perpendicular sides of some mighty wave, till he was almost hidden within the curve of its rolling top. On my last visit to Springfield, my esteemed friend just named, who has labored with so much diligence and success on the ornithology of the state, informed me that one of these little sea-birds had left his march upon the mountain wave, his home upon the deep, and had been found near the Chicopee River, within the limits of the town of Springfield, seventy miles, at least, in an air line, from tide water, and hundreds of miles from his accustomed range on the seas. What could be the object of the mysterious little visitant? Who can tell? On his native element, the sailors regard him with an unfriendly eye; on shore, by the rule of contraries, he may come as the harbinger of good. Perhaps, sir, he had heard of your railroad, and had come to try the speed of his pinion with your locomotives. Whatever be his object, I am disposed to regard his visit as a good As the bird of land, in the infancy of our race, came

omen.

back to the ark, with an olive-leaf in her mouth, as a sign. that the waters were abated from off the earth, let us welcome the little sea-bird, who has come up to the hills, as the herald to tell us that the portals of the deep are thrown open, that chariots of iron and fire are rolling over its waters, and that henceforth, if never before,

"Seas shall join the regions they divide."

Let me say, sir, in sitting down,

THE EAST AND THE WEST OF THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW: - United by modern art in bonds of iron, which are traversed almost with electric speed, may liberal policy and kind feeling catch, like the electric spark, along the line.

THE SCOTS' CHARITABLE SOCIETY.*

I RISE, Mr President, to tender you my sincere thanks for the flattering notice with which you and the company have been pleased to honor me. Although I am unconnected by any national association with this occasion, I have cordially entered into its spirit. Though I am a republican by principle and feeling, I am not so much of a stoic as not to have had my sympathies touched, while your national anthem was sung with such spirit and feeling. It is a beautiful spectacle to witness this voluntary tribute of respect paid, at the distance of three thousand miles, to the youthful sovereign of Great Britain, by a company like this, who, though the children or descendants of Scotland, with few exceptions, (as was observed by her majesty's consul on my right,) owe her at present no political allegiance. It would be a pleasing incident if it stood alone. But it is not your solitary act. You do but add your voices to a strain which is almost literally echoing round the globe. On this day, dedicated to your patron saint, the tribute of respect which you have just paid to the maiden majesty of your fatherland, is repeated by the sons of Scotland, wheresoever their lot is cast, at home or abroad, from the utmost Orkneys to the Cape of Good Hope, and from Canada to Hindostan; with no difference but that of time, as the evening star, rising successively on each region of the world-encircling empire of England, appoints the hour of the social gathering, and summons the sons of Caledonia to their patriotic vespers.

Remarks made at the public table, on the 30th of November, 1839, on occasion of the celebration of the one hundred and eighty-third anniversary of the Scots' Charitable Society of Boston.

I thank you, Mr President, for allowing me to partake your hospitality on this occasion. I was not aware, till I received your kind invitation, that there existed among us an institution like this, coëval almost with the settlement of the country. It would be doing injustice to a society of this description, though it may bear a foreign name, to regard it as an institution of foreigners. Some of you, gentlemen, trace your descent, I presume, from ancestors who came to this country with the second, perhaps with the first generation of its settlers. Among the names of the original founders of the institution, as preserved in one of the ancient record books, kindly put into my hands by my friend Mr Gordon, I recognize some which still subsist among us, and which stand as high in the respect of the community as they did one hundred and eighty years ago.

It is a principle deeply wrought into the destinies of America, that, settled originally in times of trial and convulsion in Europe, it should, at all subsequent periods, afford a refuge to those who might be driven abroad by the storms of fortune, or who, from a desire of bettering their condition in life, should go forth from the crowded populations of the elder world, and follow the guidance of an honest spirit of adventure to the new-found continent. Accordingly we find that, in the higher paths of state, swept as they are by the tempests of revolution, regicide judges in ancient times, and in our own times fugitive kings, have found a safe retreat on our shores. In the quiet and happier walks of private life, there has at all times been an active resort from Europe to America; and I doubt not that, at this moment, in more than one foreign country, many a loving and aching heart, waiting to receive the summons to follow those who have gone before, is able to respond to the plaintive strain of your immortal Burns:

"I turn to the west, when I gae to my rest,

That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;

For far in the west is he I loe best,

The youth that is dear to my bairn and to me.”