far is well. God evidently did not intend that things should always remain stationary; and men are only co-operating with God for the accomplishment of his purposes, when they labour earnestly in the cause of human improvement. But neither, on the other hand, was it any part of the divine intention that men in their haste to witness results, should turn scornfully or carelessly away from the appropriate means of bringing them about; and should thus actually mock the divine wisdom in the honour which they render to their own. Now, unfortunately, the spirit of activity which is so extensively abroad, is too often erratic, sometimes even fierce and bitter; and sober men are constrained to feel that many who claim to be the most earnest and efficient reformers, are actually the most legitimate subjects for reformation. And more than this-it cannot be doubted that one extreme often begets the other; that some men who are disinclined to effort, justify themselves in doing nothing by ringing perpetual changes on the extravagances of the day, while others who are well enough disposed, still keep aloof from various good enterprizes from a reluctance to be found in bad company. Mr. Everett has shown himself superior to all these mistakes. He is a thorough going, whole souled reformer, in the best sense of that word; and yet he is never above being controlled by principles of reason or maxims of prudence. He is ready with a helping hand, whenever his services are demanded for any object that looks towards the melioration of society; but he is never the abettor, but always the opposer, of any thing like fanatical excitement. He brings to every good work which he espouses a calm, dignified, yet earnest spirit, which is fitted at once to disarm or soften hostility, to check the workings of intemperate zeal, and to secure ultimately the happiest result.

It may seem almost superfluous to speak of these productions as models of graceful and eloquent composition. They are marked by a simplicity that seems like the breathings of childhood; by a perspicuity that might challenge the most stupid reader to mistake their meaning; by a dignified elegance that bespeaks the most cultivated taste; and to crown all, by a vigour and often an originality of thought, that forms the staple of all fine writing. Here again we may say that they are well fitted to act as an antidote to some of the prevailing evil tendencies of our literature;-particularly to that silly affectation that has become so common, of saying trite or unmeaning things with an air of oracular assurance, or of conjuring up a dense mist to hide the nakedness of the land. Some really gifted minds on both sides of the water have exerted a powerful influence in corrupting the public taste by interlarding their productions with all manner of quaint phrases, so that we have seemed to realize the resurrection of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Not a VOL. IX. 7

few of our young men, we are sorry to see, have fallen into this literary snare; and instead of being satisfied to convey their thoughts in a simple, natural and graceful manner, they have followed these wandering stars into the regions of perpetual mist. Even the pulpit itself, unless we greatly mistake, has not altogether escaped this evil; for we have now and then listened to a sermon so splendidly unintelligible, that though there was a world of admiration lavished upon it, no one wished to be interrogated as to what he had been hearing. We would recommend to all preachers and writers who are ambitious of this ignoble distinction, to throw away their favorite authors, and take up these volumes of Mr. Everett as a regular study, with a view to bring themselves back to truth and nature. This is a kind of writing that will always endure, because it is conformed to the principles of a correct taste; whereas the other will live through its little hour, and then be remembered only as the monument of a miserable affectation.

It must be acknowledged that Mr. Everett's taste in writing has undergone some change during the lapse of twenty five years. He himself recognizes this fact in his preface; and passes a severer judgment on his earlier productions, we think, than would be sustained by any impartial critic. That his literary efforts have been growing more simple as well as more classical, we do not doubt; nevertheless we must be permitted to say, his own judgment to the contrary notwithstanding, that we have seen nothing from his pen that rivals in glowing and effective eloquence some passages in his Phi Beta Kappa Oration, delivered at Cambridge on occasion of the memorable visit of Lafayette in eighteen hundred and twenty-four.

There is moreover an admirable fitness displayed throughout these productions-the orator always catches the spirit of the occasion; and while he seems to know every thing that pertains to it, he brings out only that which is most important and most impressive. We never feel that he is treading upon dubious ground; that he is uttering a sentiment which delicacy would have required him to suppress; or that he has passed over something that would have rendered his performance more complete as well as more symmetrical: on the contrary, the impression is irresistible that he has done full justice to his subject, as well in what he has omitted to say as in what he has said; and though we may feel that the subject admitted of amplification, we can hardly imagine how it could have been treated more skilfully or more effectively within the same limits.

Mr. Everett, quite unnecessarily, as we think, apologizes for the occasional repetition of facts and the recurrence of the same thoughts, in different parts of these volumes. Several of the orations are so nearly upon the same subject, that it would have

been impossible to avoid all repetition in consistency with doing justice to the occasion; but it is, after all, so inconsiderable as not in the least to diminish the general interest; and even where it occurs, the reader is constrained to feel that it results from the fitness of the case, and not from any circumscribed view of the subject. Besides, Mr. Everett has the faculty of repeating a thing in substance, so that it is scarcely recognized as repetition; of introducing it in such new combinations and throwing around it so much rhetorical beauty, that the reader forgets that the same thought or the same fact had been before him in another form.

The only remark that we will add as illustrative of our impressions in reading these works, is that they form indirectly an important contribution to the history of the country. Not a small part of them have respect to events which are incorporated not only with our national well being, but with our national existence. The Plymouth oration, for instance, is a choice piece of history covering the period to which it relates: it presents to us in a series of events of which the world has seen no parallel, the germ of all our greatness. The various orations delivered on the Fourth of July, and those on other special occasions looking back to the revolution, are full not only of the general but of the local history of that day; and we doubt whether the bloody scenes of Lexington and Concord and Charlestown, are delineated any where else with more historic fidelity or more graphic power. Then there is much that is historical in the list of occasions which called forth these various efforts. A large part of them are new to the present age, and may be regarded as indexes to the general progress of society. Most of these addresses could never have been written until within the last quarter of a century, because either the events which called them forth had not then occurred, or else they had not been recognized as matter for public celebration. It is striking to notice how almost every important change in society that has taken place during Mr. Everett's public life, is here chronicled, and most of them in the form of an occasion for a public effort. In this way, he has, beyond any other man, linked himself in with the history of his time, while yet, he has never set himself, in form, to do the work of an historian. He has, however, performed a much more important part than that of a mere chronicler of events; he has held up the events in their high practical bearings, and has exhibited not more of the enlightened philosopher than of the earnest patriot, in the use that he has made of them. We recommend these works, therefore, not merely as a faithful record of many of the changes of society and the causes of these changes, but as being thoroughly imbued with the patriotic spirit, and well fitted to aid in the extinction of those national feuds and jealousies which seem multiplying among us in such portentous profusion.

We intimated our intention, at the commencement of this article, to illustrate our opinion of these orations and speeches by some appropriate extracts. But in looking through the volumes, we find ourselves embarrassed, to a degree which we did not anticipate, in making the selection. The truth is, they are of such uniform excellence, that we should be in little danger of doing the author injustice, if we were to open at random and copy from any page on which our eye might chance to rest. Some writers give us occasionally a gem,-apparently the effect of an uncommon gathering up of the faculties,-while, in the main, they are only tolerably interesting; and we are sustained in our passage through many indifferent and barren pages, by the reflection that by and by there will come a green spot, where we can repose with delight. It is otherwise with Mr. Everett: we read his productions with a sustained and uninterrupted interest; and his fine thoughts, instead of being rendered prominent by being few and far between, succeed each other with so much rapidity, that one rather feels that he is constantly breathing a pure atmosphere, and gazing on a beautiful sky, than only coming occasionally in contact with some invigorating or elevating influence. We shall confine ourselves to three brief extracts, being the close of three different addresses that were pronounced at periods about equidistant from each other.

The first is from the address delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College; and it is the first in point of time, as well as the first in the order of publication in these volumes. The occasion, always one of great interest, as bringing together a larger amount of the intelligence and literary refinement of the country than almost any other, was at this time invested with peculiar attractions, from being honoured with the presence of General Lafayette. We cannot imagine that this grateful circumstance could have been more beautifully and impressively noticed than in the last of the following paragraphs which conclude the discourse. The effect upon the audience is still remembered by many, as forming one of the most splendid illustrations of the power of eloquence.

"Here, then, a mighty work is to be performed, or never, by mortals. The man, who looks with tenderness on the sufferings of good men in other times; the descendant of the Pilgrims, who cherishes the memory of his fathers; the patriot, who feels an honest glow at the majesty of the system of which he is a member; the scholar, who beholds, with rapture, the long-sealed book of truth opened for all to read without prejudice;—these are they, by whom these auspices are to be accomplished. Yes, brethren, it is by the intellect of the country that the mighty mass is to be inspired; that its parts are to communicate and sympathize with each other; its natural progress to be adorned with becoming refinements; its principles asserted and its feelings interpreted to its own children, to other regions, and to after ages.

"Meantime, the years are rapidly passing away, and gathering importance in their course. With the present year (1824) will be completed the half

century from that most important era in human history-the commencement of our revolutionary war. The jubilee of our national existence is at hand. The space of time that has elapsed since that momentous date has laid down in the dust, which the blood of many of them had already hallowed, most of the great men to whom, under Providence, we owe our national existence and privileges. A few still survive among us, to reap the rich fruits of their labors and sufferings; and ONE has yielded himself to the united voice of a people, and returned in his age to receive the gratitude of the nation to whom he devoted his youth. It is recorded on the pages of American history, that when this friend of our country applied to our commissioners at Paris, in 1776, for a passage in the first ship they should dispatch to America, they were obliged to answer him, (so low and abject was then our dear native land,) that they possessed not the means, nor the credit, sufficient for providing a single vessel, in all the ports of France. Then,' exclaimed the youthful hero, 'I will provide my own.' And it is a literal fact that, when all America was too poor to offer him so much as a passage to her shores, he left, in his tender youth, the bosom of home, of domestic happiness, of wealth, of rank, to plunge in the dust and blood of our inauspicious struggle!

Welcome, friend of our fathers, to our shores! Happy are our eyes, that behold those venerable features! Enjoy a triumph such as never conqueror nor monarch enjoyed—the assurance that, throughout America, there is not a bosom which does not beat with joy and gratitude at the sound of your name! You have already met and saluted, or will soon meet, the few that remain of the ardent patriots, prudent counsellors, and brave warriors, with whom you were associated in achieving our liberty. But you have looked round in vain for the faces of many, who would have lived years of pleasure, on a day like this, with their old companion in arms and brother in peril. Lincoln, and Greene, and Knox, and Hamilton, are gone; the heroes of Saratoga and Yorktown have fallen before the enemy that conquers all. Above all, the first of heroes and of men, the friend of your youth, the more than friend of his country, rests in the bosom of the soil he redeemed. On the banks of his Potomac he lies in glory and in peace. You will re-visit the hospitable shades of Mount Vernon, but him, whom you venerated as we did, you will not meet at its door. His voice of consolation, which reached you in the dungeons of Olmütz, cannot now break its silence to bid you welcome to his own roof. But the grateful children of America will bid you welcome in his name. Welcome! thrice welcome to our shores! And whithersoever your course shall take you, throughout the limits of the continent, the ear that hears you shall bless you, the eye that sees you shall give witness to you, and every tongue exclaim with heart felt joy, Welcome, welcome, La Fayette!"

Our second extract shall be from a speech delivered by Mr. Everett in 1838, at a festival celebrated at Exeter, in honour of the venerable Dr. Abbot, who, on that day resigned the place of Principal of Phillip's Exeter Academy, which he had filled for fifty years. Mr. Everett had been, for a while, a pupil of Dr. Abbot, in fitting for college; and it seemed alike filial and beautiful that he should go up with all his honours, to bear testimony to the high qualities of his revered teacher, and welcome him, after such a life of useful service, to the dignity of retirement. The following passage shows how entirely he caught the spirit of the occasion:

"Lastly, Sir, as we assemble under the influence of an association which invites us all, however otherwise disconnected, in one kind feeling; as we meet together for the first and the last time in life, many of us to take a last