DANIEL WEBSTER.

Little indeed anywhere can be added now to that wealth of eulogy that has been heaped upon his tomb. Before he died, even, renowned in two hemispheres, in ours he seemed to be known with a universal nearness of knowledge. He walked so long and so conspicuously before the general eye; his actions, his opinions, on all things which had been large enough to agitate the public mind for the last thirty years and more, had had an importance and consequences so remarkable-anxiously waited for, passionately canvassed, not adopted always into the particular measure, or deciding the particular vote of government or the country, yet sinking deep into the reason of the people-a stream of influence whose fruits it is yet too soon for political philosophy to appreciate completely.

An impression of his extraordinary intellectual endowments, and of their peculiar superiority in that most imposing and intelligible of all forms of manifestationthe moving of others' minds by speech-had grown so universal and fixed, and it had kindled curiosity to hear him and read him so wide and so largely indulged; his individuality altogether was so absolute and pronounced; the force of will no less than the power of genius; the exact type and fashion of his mind, not less than its general magnitude were so distinctly shown through his musical and transparent style; the exterior of the man -the grand mystery of brow and eye, the deep tones, the solemnity, the sovereignty, as of those who would build States, where every power and every grace did seem to set its seal-had been made by personal observation, by description, by the exaggeration, even of those who had felt the spell, by Art-the daguerreotype and picture and statue, so familiar to the American eye, graven on the memory like the Washington of Stuart; the narrative of the mere incidents of his life had been so often told-by some so authentically and with such skill-and had been so literally committed to heart, that when he died there seemed to be little left but to say when and how his change came; with what dignity, with

what possession of himself, with what loving thought for others, with what gratitude to God, uttered with unfaltering voice, that it was appointed him there to die: -to say how thus, leaning on the rod and staff of the promise, he took his way into the great darkness undismayed, till death should be swallowed up of life; and then to relate how they laid him in that simple grave, and turning and pausing, and joining their voices to the voices of the sea, bade him hail and farewell.

And yet, I hardly know what there is in public biography, what there is in literature, to be compared, in its kind, with the variety and beauty and adequacy of the series of discourses through which the love and grief, the deliberate and reasoning admiration of America for this great man have been uttered. Little, indeed,

there would be for me to say, if I were capable of the light ambition of proposing to omit all which others have said on this theme before; little to add, if I sought to say anything wholly new.-Eulogy at Dartmouth College.

THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

It would be interesting to pause for a moment and survey the old English Puritan character, of which the Pilgrims were a variety. Turn to the class of which they were part, and consider it well for a minute in all its aspects. I see in it an extraordinary mental and moral phenomenon. Many more graceful and more winning forms of human nature there have been, and are, and shall be. Many men, many races there are, have been, and shall be, of more genial dispositions, more tasteful accomplishments; a quicker eye for the beautiful of art and nature; less disagreeably absorbed, less gloomily careful and troubled about the interests of the spiritual being or of the commonwealth; wearing a more decorated armor in battle; contributing more wit, more song, and heartier potations to the garland feast of life. But where, in the long series of ages that furnish the matter of histories, was there ever one-where one-better fitted by the possession of the highest traits of man to do the noblest work of man? better fitted to consummate and establish the Reformation, save the English

Constitution, at its last gasp, from the fate of all other European Constitutions, and prepare on the granite and iced mountain-summits of the New World a still safer rest for a still better liberty?

The planting of a colony in a new world, which may grow and which does grow-to a great nation, where there was none before, is intrinsically, and in the judgment of the world, of the largest order of human achievement. Of the chief of men are the conditores imperiorum. To found a State upon a waste earth, wherein great numbers of human beings may live together, and in successive generations, socially and in peace, knit to one another by the innumerous ties, light as air, and stronger than links of iron, which compose the national existence; wherein they may help each other, and be helped in bearing the various lot of life; wherein they may enjoy and improve, and impart and heighten enjoyment and improvement; and wherein they may together perform the great social labors; may reclaim and decorate the earth, may disinter the treasures that grow beneath its surface, may invent the arts of usefulness and beauty; may perfect the loftier arts of virtue and empire, open the richer mines of the universal youthful heart and intellect, and spread out a dwelling for the Muse on the glittering summits of Freedom :to found such a State is first of heroical labors and heroical glories. To build a pyramid or a harbor, to write an epic poem, to construct a System of the Universe, to take a city, are great or may be - but far less than this. He, then, who sets a colony on foot, designs a great work. He designs all the good, and all the glory; of which in the series of ages it may be the means; and he shall be judged more by the lofty ultimate aim and result, than by the actual instant motive.

I have said that I deemed it a great thing for a nation, in all periods of its fortunes, to be able to look back to a race of founders, and a principle of institution, in which it might seem to see the realized idea of true heroism. That felicity, that pride, that help is ours. Our Past-both its great eras, that of Settlement and that of Independence-should announce, should compe!,

should spontaneously evolve as from a germ, a wise, moral and glorious future. These heroic men and women should not look down on a dwindled posterity. It should seem to be almost of course-too easy to be glorious that they who keep the graves, bear the names, and boast the blood, of men in whom the loftiest sense of Duty blended itself with the fiercest spirit of Liberty, should add to their freedom Justice :-justice to all men, to all nations; Justice, that venerable virtue, without which Freedom, Valor, and Power are but vulgar things.

And yet is the Past nothing—even our Past-but as you, quickened by its examples, instructed by its experience, warned by its voices, assisted by its accumulated instrumentality, shall reproduce it in the life of to-day. Its once busy existence, various sensations, fiery trials, dear-bought triumphs; its dynasty of heroes, all its pulses of joy and anguish, and hope and fear, and love and praise, are with the years beyond the flood. "The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures." Yet, gazing on these, long and intently and often, we may pass into the likeness of the departed; may emulate their labors, and partake of their immortality.—Address before New England Association, 1843.

CHORLEY, HENRY FOTHERGILL, an English musical writer, born in 1808; died in 1872. He came of an old Lancashire family impoverished by their devotion to the Stuarts. Chorley wished to devote himself to music, but was placed in a commercial house in Liverpool, a situation so irksome to him, that he resolved to release himself from it. In 1834, without resources except his knowledge of music, he went to London, where, after a while, he became connected with the Athenæum, in the department of musical criticism. His principal works are Conti the Discarded, and other Tales; Sketches of a Seaport Town; Memorials of Mrs. Hemans; Lion, a Tale of the Coteries; Music and Manners in France and Germany; Pomfret; Authors of England, and Thirty Years' Musical Recollections. He also wrote the librettos of several operas, among them St. Cecilia and Faust.

It is well remarked by Dr. Garnet that Chorley's leading position as a critic necessarily gained him warm friendships and bitter enmities. "The latter need not be recorded; the former constitute a list of which any man might be proud. It is a high testimony to his worth that they include not merely followers of literature and art, whom he might have placed under obligation, such as Dickens, Miss Mitford, Lady Blessington, Mr.