PREFACE то THE SECOND VOLUME. THIS volume consists, for the most part, of addresses delivered since those contained in the first volume. The first four only are of an earlier date, and the fifth (a short speech on the Western Railroad) was originally included in the first volume. The first, second, and fourth are now for the first time published. At the time of their delivery respectively, they were hastily prepared, and it was not in my power, when the first volume appeared, to revise them with sufficient care for publication. I omitted the address before the American Institute of New York, on American manufactures, in the collection of 1836, on the ground that it might he thought to fall within the rule which I had adopted, and to which I still adhere, of excluding party politics. On further consideration, I have been led to think that the manner in which this subject is treated in this address, and in the oration at Lowell on the fourth of July, 1830, is not likely to be objected to on that ground, and that they are not out of keeping with the general character of the work. I have admitted into this volume a selection from a much larger number of short speeches made at the table at public festivals, on various occasions. I have not, of course, done this in the belief that they can have much value, even with the partial reader, as literary compositions. I have thought, however, that they might have an interest of a different kind, some of them as containing allusions to historical events, and some from their connection with important public occasions and occurrences. Even the few sentences addressed to the Indian chiefs who visited Boston in 1837, and the short reply to the President of the Geographical Society in London, on the reception of the medal awarded to Dr Robinson for his standard work on Palestine, may be thought to derive sufficient interest from the occasions which called them forth, to justify their insertion. The short speeches made in England were nearly all in reply to toasts, in which complimentary reference was had to the diplomatic body generally, or to the American minister, when he alone happened to be present. The usages of society (the same in this respect on both sides of the water) impose a certain character upon speeches made under such circumstances. A few obvious topics of remark are almost of necessity apt to be repeated. To attempt to avoid such repetition would be an unprofitable, probably an unavailing, exercise of ingenuity; but I hope it will be thought that I have not, in the speeches now alluded to, dwelt entirely in the commonplaces of such occasions. I have been the rather induced to admit them into the volume, and thus to give them a more permanent form than they might seem in themselves to deserve, in the belief that this interchange of public courtesies between a foreign minister and the people among whom he resides is a valuable step in the advancing civilization of the present century. In former times, the public intercourse of a foreign minister was exclusively with the government or court to which he was accredited. At the present day, in England and in this country, he is a welcome guest on all public occasions not in their nature exclusively national. The change appears to me favorable to a good understanding between countries in more important respects. History furnishes instances in which the foreign relations of governments have been affected by the feelings and dispositions of the individuals charged with conducting them. I own it affords me pleasure to give what permanence I am able to these memorials however slight in themselves of acts of courtesy and manifestations of friendly feeling on the part of public bodies and individuals of highest consideration and worth, and of grateful appreciation on mine. CAMBRIDGE, June, 1850. EDWARD EVERETT. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. I. THE BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF FRANKLIN, A Lecture delivered in Boston, before the Society for the III. An Address delivered before the American Institute of the |