practice, sir, you will find, will prevail more and more. It has not only healthfulness to recommend it, but it is in consonance with the deepest sentiments of our nature, which bind us by the strongest associations to the homes of our childhood and to the graves of our fathers. There is a charm even in a single visit to one's native spot. I do assure you, sir, that I have not been able, even for this single day, to breathe the air of these fields where my fathers lived and acted their humble part for two hundred years, without experiencing emotions that words fail to describe. "I feel the gales, that from ye blow, A momentary bliss bestow, As, waving fresh your gladsome wing, I look to this growing custom of returning to the native village, after the meridian of life is passed, as a circumstance tending greatly to the improvement of our agriculture. The effects are already seen in the multiplication of fine farms, neat and even elegant dwellings, capacious barns, substantial and permanent enclosures, fields under the highest cultivation, and avenues of trees, planted for ornament and shade. This last point is worth the particular attention of our fellow-citizens in the country. Till lately, perhaps, this generation, following the bad example of the last, has not done quite so much in this way as might have been wished. It is a kind of instinct in the settlement of a new country, to destroy trees; and it takes a good while to restore to the community a disposition to spare, protect, and propagate them. Some public-spirited individuals, however, in our country towns, began to think of this matter, in the middle of the last century. There are in the interior of New England a great many noble trees, planted eighty or one hundred years ago; and most certainly nothing grows out of the earth, and man can put nothing upon it, so beautiful. I hope, my friends, we shall let our children and grandchildren enjoy the great comfort to be derived from this source. Sir Walter Scott represents one of his characters as saying that his father used to tell him to be always putting down a tree. "It will be growing, Jock, when you are sleeping." It will be growing, sir, when we are sleeping to wake no more. The acorn which you cover with a couple of inches of earth, the seedling elm which you rescue in your garden from the spade, will outlive half a dozen of our generations. Cicero speaks of it as a kind of natural foresight of the continued existence of man, that men "planted trees which were to benefit a coming generation."* Yes, sir, and if every man, before he goes hence, would but take care to leave one good oak or elm behind him, he would not have lived in vain. His children and grandchildren would bless his memory. I am afraid I have spoken too long, sir, in this rambling way; but if you will allow me one other word, I will say that there is a species of culture more important than any within the range of material husbandry, I mean the culture of the mind. But I need not say much on this topic. You have yourself, sir, in your instructive discourse, placed its importance before the company in a clear light. Still more, sir, am I led to spare my remarks on this subject, when I reflect that I am speaking in the presence of one (Mr H. Mann) whom I may without impropriety call the very apostle of this uninspired gospel. He has told you over and over again that education is the great interest of every class in the community. I will only say, sir, that if the yeomen of New England wish their principles to prevail, or their influence to be perpetuated over the country, the only way in which they can for any length of time effect this object, is to educate their children to understand those principles, and firmly and effectually to maintain them. Allow me, sir, in taking my seat, to thank you and this company for your very kind attention, and to express my best wishes for the prosperity of the Norfolk Agricultural Society. *Tusc. Quæst. Lib. I. c. 14. THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL AT CONCORD.* WHEN I rose this morning, Mr Chairman, the state of my health and of the weather was such, that I feared it would not be in my power to avail myself of your kind invitation. But since my arrival at Concord I have so much enjoyed the patriotic excitement of the day and the place; it has gratified me so much to visit again these hallowed scenes; I have listened with so much pleasure to the eloquent discourse of the orator of the day, and to the interesting and impassioned addresses which have been made at the table, that I am quite ready, as our venerable friend near me, Mr Amos Baker, said in reference to the day we celebrate, to say that "all things considered, I feel much better here than if I had staid at home." It is truly gratifying to one, sir, who has taken the interest that I have in former celebrations of this anniversary, an interest to which you have had the goodness to allude in such kind terms, to come back and revive the recollections of earlier days. The familiar but freshly told tale of the nineteenth of April, 1775, as narrated by the orator, falls like music on my ear. I gaze with respectful admiration on these venerable men, the survivors, the few and sole survivors, of the eventful day, in which they bore so honorable a part. One of them, (Mr Jonathan Harrington,) who has this moment been assisted from the platform, "filled the fife" on that morning * In reply to a toast given in honor of England, as the parent country, at the celebration at Concord on the 19th of April, 1850, Judge E. R. Hoar in the chair. of peril and glory at Lexington. The governor has just narrated to you the incident whose heroic simplicity is unsurpassed in the annals of liberty. While I was helping that infirm old man, a few minutes since, to draw on his outer garment, as I saw him trembling with years, the arm which held the fife on the nineteenth of April, 1775, now so feeble and nerveless, I was ready to exclaim, since we have been alluding to him by the Christian name, "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me." I suppose, Mr Chairman, that I am indebted for the honor of being called upon to respond to the last toast, to the circumstance that a few years ago I was the minister of the United States in England. My residence there gave me full opportunity of becoming acquainted with the feelings existing in that country towards this. I have much pleasure in saying that they are in harmony with those expressed in the toast towards England. The events of this day have there passed into the calm region of history. From the highest personages in the kingdom and the government, through all the circles of society in which I had the means of observation, I witnessed nothing but indications of good will towards the people of the United States. I therefore rejoice, sir, that you have guarded against any interpretation of the proceedings of this day, inconsistent with a similar feeling on our part towards the parent country. I was pleased to see the English flag at half mast over the spot where the two British soldiers fell at the north bridge on the nineteenth of April. I was gratified to hear the liberal sentiment of the orator, that the account of hostilities was long since closed, and that between the two kindred countries the future struggle should be for preeminence in the arts of peace. I hold, indeed, sir, that duty to those who met the perils of the nineteenth of April, 1775, and put all to risk for the liberties of themselves and their children, requires that the great events of that day should be kept in fresh remembrance. I feel it to be impossible, that we who inhabit these classical fields of our country's freedom, who have seen and known some of the leading actors of the great drama, should ever be insensible to its interest. But I am sure that you and this intelligent company agree with me in thinking, that we shall greatly mistake the proper object of these commemorations, if we made them the occasion of cherishing any unkind or bitter feeling towards the country, between which and ourselves there are bonds of kindness and grounds of friendship such as never existed between any two other nations. Why, sir, even at that moment of extreme exasperation which preceded the breaking out of the war, there were men in England, and those of the highest note for talent, station, and character, who entertained the most friendly feelings towards the colonies and their cause. The most eloquent voices in parliament were heard on our side. When the stamp act, in 1765, was received with a burst of opposition from one end of this continent to the other, Lord Chatham declared that he rejoiced that America had resisted. It was less than a month before the commencement of hostilities that Burke pronounced that truly divine oration on "Conciliation with America," which, in my poor judgment, excels every thing, in the form of eloquence, that has come down to us from Greece or Rome. Less than a month it was before the nineteenth of April, 1775, that he said "My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron." These kindly words, and more like them, were uttered on the twenty-second of March. On the nineteenth of April the curtain rose on that mighty drama in the world's history, of which the quiet villages of Lexington and Concord were the appointed theatre. When that day's tidings reached England, they went to many a generous heart. I often heard in that country a gentleman of great literary eminence (I wish it were proper to repeat his name) say, that when the news of the nineteenth of April arrived in England, his father, with a sorrowful countenance, announced it to the family assembled at prayers. He then ordered a suit of full mourning. Some one asked him if he |