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[For the Southern Field and Fireside.]
TWILIGHT HOUR.
BT B. D. LUCAS.
I love the pensive twilight hour,
When clustering memories 'round me steal;
Memories of youthful hope and love.
That follow me and charm me still.
Tls when the sunset's golden light
Hath faded from the western sky.
My soul holds converse sweet with Heaven,
And feels a spirit presence nigh.
Then seated ’neath the old oak tree,
’Round which in childhood I have played.
My mother breathes her evening prayer,
For one, who far from her hath strayed.
- O may that prayer as incense rise,
To the Good Father's throne above;
And I, at last, find there my rest—
Within the ark, the weary dove I
Mr. J. B. Cumming’s Address.
“ THE DUTIES OF THE YOUNG CITIZEN.”
[concluded.]
But, gentlemen, though I labor and think and
apeak, I feel I throw but empty words upon the
air, and utter no charm to summon from the re
cesses of my mind the image of dignity which
slumbers there. And when instead of the true
image I seek some visible prototype to place be
fore you, how little I find it among those whom
I see wrangling and wrestling, heated and soiled
in the political arena. Oh that this image would
rise from the depths of thought as Virgil’s Nep
tune from the caves of Ocean! An image it
would be not unlike the Cerulian god, command
in his look, authority in his presence, dignity on
his brow. If I might thus place before you some
embodiment of those qualities which spring from
contemplation rather than action, I might better
persuade you, that it is more useful to your
country to curb this eager impetuosity, and seek
those qualities, where alone they are to be found,
in study and retirement.
But if this relinquishing the thought of early
entering upon public life, instead of being a tem
porary withholding from such a career, marks a
final abandonment of it—what then ? Is such
a course in those, who, like you, have had unu
sual advantages of doing good as active citizens,
to deprive you of the epithet of useful? I think
not. I conceive that the country demands
something more of even her enlightened citizens
than the purely active virtues; something more
than to fight her battles and to make her laws.
I conceive that she is served by the obedience
of such a citizen to laws more than by his agen
cy in making them —not merely that negative
obedience to laws found only on the statute
book, nor to those more extended principles of
right and justice, embodied in the rules of the
common law; but obedience to all those laws
which are made for the highest of God’s earthly
creatures —the laws which honor imposes upon
his acts, the laws which truth makes for his
words, the laws which temperance enacts against
excess, the laws which the dignity of human
nature decrees for his pursuits. “He that ta
keth a city” does well for his country; but he
does better “that ruleth his spirit,” who
subjects it to these laws of honor, of truth, of
temperance and of dignity. Such a citizen goes
not, ’tis true, to make the laws, but to supercede
their necessity. He goes not to preach an un
certain truth, with suspected motive, to uncan
did hearers; but he quietly rears a memorial to
its excellence, which all must admire. His
every act may show that in all things there is
good as well as evil, and though men must ever
and in all things guard themselves from doing
wrong, still all may do right. His every act
may reflect a light upon the silver thread of
truth, which runs through every pursuit, beauti
fying it and connecting it with the Source of all
truth. Who will say that such a citizen, though
his footsteps never ascend the slopes which lead
to the Capitol, but pursue his retired, unobtru
sive career; though his voice never sounds in
the Senate house, but is lifted only among friends
and neighbors, in the enunciation of familiar
truths —who will say that he is not directly and
transcendently a useful citizen ?
But self-sacriflcing also is this “ virtue of re
pose.” You, who, during your college course,
have been in constant contemplation of the re
corded deeds of public men; you, who have ad
mired the illustrious men of ancient and of mod
ern times; you, who are familiar with the glory
of those who have served their country in bril
liant careers; you, who in fancy have listened
to the eloquence inspired by the love of country,
which has swayed and directed tumultuous as
semblies ; you, who, every day of several years,
have been pointed to the virtuous deeds of men,
whose whole lives were given up to public ca
reers, until all purely personal aims, all material
good seem beneath your ambition—when you
have been taught the accomplishments which
shine in the sight of your fellow-citizens, but
which would be obscured in retirement; when
you have been trainen for public; when you
have had at periodical seasons in your view the
distinguished men of your country, as incentives
to your ambition to run a public course—certain
ly I need not tell you, that it is a groat sacrifice
to give up your cherished aspirations after such
a career. To do so, would be for you the sacri
fice of the voluntary exile. You have been
taught, and feel, that the paths of public life are
your domain. You feel that in them would lie
for you all tho amenities of life; for you they
would be “ways of pleasantness.” They are
the natural country of yaur soul. Out of them
is the uncongenial foreign land; and you turn
from them with the sorrow of an exile. Surely
here is no mean sacrifice: equal it is to his who
leaped iuto to the gulf. Yours is the opposite
of his; you sacrifice a feeling which he gratified.
He desired to sereve his country and did it.
You long to serve your country, and apparently
you must retreat from the enterprise. He yield
ed to an impulse which urged him on: you must
subdue a feeling do less impelling. His achiev
ment was easier than yours, as to improue a
brilliant occasion in the present is easier than to
await the chances of the uncertain future. His
was easier than yours, as to charge desperately
upon the foe, with heated blood and enthusiasm,
with martial music and with cheers, is easier
than to rest quietly upon your arms, silent and
prepared, awaiting the contingencies of bat
tle.
Useful, dignified, self-sacrificing, what a char
acter is this; what than this worthier the cul
tivation of the sincere patriot 1 But how little
has it thriven in these modem times among
those, who should cherish it. In this country
especially, where no position is so protected
that any may not float into it on the current of
popular favor; where all the high places of the
laud seem accessible to aspiring, aye, presump
tuous youth, many young men yield to the temp
tation to participate iu the excitement of public
life, many more are ready to follow their foot
Tmm mwrmmMM xxx&ij jm® spx&xsxxx.
steps, until, at last, they form a power apart, em
bodying the qualities of youth and excluding
those of age—“progress” for their motto, and
their motto verrified in their acts, if “progress”
were reckless advance or vigorous commo
tion.
But “Young America” is but one of a host of
kindred associations. It is in the same brother
hood with “Young Ireland,” “ Young France,”
“Young Italy,” and a similar fraternity where
ever the spirit of revolution is abroad. I have
more tolerance for these associations in foreign
lands than in America; but even there it is tol
erance and nothing more. I confess to no sym
pathy with those young citizens, who would
sweep away everything, root and branch, be
cause it flourished in the times of their fathers.
It is a tendency of our nature, when we are
about to begin any momentous enterprise, to
look back upen the long line of march which the
human race have held, to see if there be not
some memorial, commemorating the success of
those who have preceded us in similar undertak
ings. And we do well so to look back. Vitali
ty is denied to Error, but Truth is eternal—and
it is Truth alone which has withstood the abra
sion of passing ages. The errors which flour
ishod for a while were like pavillions, where the
marcqing generation rested for a night, a season
of darkness; but the morning came, the light
came, and the temporary habitation, deserted,
was torn and beaten and swept away by suc
ceeding tempests. But the monuments, the
firm, everlasting monuments, which stand along
the march, they are the altars of Truth, around
which not one passing generation, but genera
tion upon generation has worshipped. These
we see as we look back—there they stand, land
marks, like Truth itself, eternal.
But little is this the thought of those young
associations who would arrogate to themselves
the mission of ruling, or rather of revolutionizing,
their country. “Before us the Deluge,” is the
cry with them—a deluge which lias left nothing
of good, no guide posts, no landmarks, no mon
uments to Truth. Everything is to be created
anew, new metes and bounds are to be prescrib
ed —turn and overturn, tear down and build up
again, call everything rubbish and sweep it
away—this their theory, this their attempt.
But there is for this spirit in the countries of
Europe an excuse, which we have not. There
error has grown so vigorous, has flourished so
long, and has ramified so extensively, that Truth
has been overshadowed and become visible. If
there be any wheat with the tares, they grow so
close, one with the other, that both must be
tom up together.
But our political edifice is yet too new to nour
ish the noxious growths which cling about a
ruin. When the framers of this edifice removed
their hands from the work, they left it perfect and
complete. It rarely needs a casual repair: in
novation upon would be mutilation; to de
stroy it would be to tear down one of the no
blest works of man. To preserve it in all its
symmetry, to protect it wlierever exposed to vi
olence of storms, above all to guard it watch
fully from ruthless hands, to protect it as sacred
ly as priests do guard their temple—this is what
we Americans have to do. We would not blame
an heir, who had inherited an ancient house,
when its foundations trembled, when its roof
was shattered, when its rotting floors were nests
for vermin, when its mouldy walls exhaled dis
ease ; if he tore it down, though the architect’s
skill were visible on its airy battlements, and
the sculptor’s art on its carved ceilings. But
foul shame to him who would destroy the habi
tation of his father, strong and undecayed, to
furnish means for his own extravagance.
In this country, then, more than in any other,
is conservatism a useful element in the charac
ter of the citizen. With us, to “hold to the tra
ditions of the elders ”is the safest course; “ old
fogyism” is wisdom, and “Young America ” is
danger; deliberation is better than enthusiasm,
wisdom better than inspiration, veneration of
the past, than experiments of the future—the
public man who has gathered these qualities as
the fruitsof experience, better than the young,
not yet advanced to the harvest season.
It is not my intention, gentlemen, to weary
you with platitudes, to the effect that the quali
ties of age are those most appropriate in delibe
rative assemblies. I will not remind you that
those, who ruled in the great republic of ancient
times, had the name of “fathers” applied to
them, nor need I prove to you that this was a
descriptive appellation, by recalling the occasion
when the Gauls insulted these conscript fathers
by pulling their hoary beards. Nor would I sug
gest a new thought to you, by showing that the
poets, chosen oracle of truth, represent the ideal
judge as a man tried by the experience and
cooled by the breath of many passing yeafs—
some Rhadaraanthus, snatched away to sit in the
solemn tribunal of the shadows below, when, in
the ordinary course of human life, his judgments
on the earth were well nigh ended. You re
member, too, that the man whose words fell
sweetest in the council, were received with most
respect’and obeyed with greatest confidence,
was Nestor, who was familiar with the camps
and councils of three generations of mortal
men. But do not understand that lam making
a grey-beard the criterion of the public man, or
that my theory is to close the lips of the citizen,
until such an appendage will be agitated at their
opening. There may be times, when, like
Elihu, the son of Barachel, of the kindred of
Ram, you will listen long and anxiously for the
truth to fall from the lips of those older than
you, who have set themselves up as oracles of
wisdom; and when, instead of proceeding from
them, the truth glows within you, then give it
utterance, though it come not through the mys
tic shades of a flowing beard.
But the precept which I would wish to incul
cate, is to avoid that cacoethes, which seizes so
many young men who have had a college educa
tion, impelling them to rush into public life,
“ leaving all meaner things,” and deeming all
other pursuits beneath their ambition. The two
aspects, under which such a course presents
itself, are those of personal ambition and of pa
triotism. So closely do good and evil walk to
gether, that here, as in many cases, two agencies
go hand in hand and may be, N either, the motive
for the same career—the one most worthy and
generous, the other most productive of bad cit
izens and dangerous demagogues. If it is the
latter feeling which is impelling you, then there
is little to be said about it here. This is an in
quiry into the virtues of the citizen, and personal
ambition is not one of them. All that they have
to do with it, Is sternly to offer it up as a sacri
fice to patriotism.
But if you have not mistaken the cravings of
ambition for emotions of patriotism; if you are
animated by a sincere love for your country; if
you have somewhat of that antique spirit which
deemed that the citizen belonged to the State to
serve it, not the State to him, to be wrought to
his own personal advantage; then glide quietly
from your pursuits here to the duties and amen
ities of private life. But it is then, and not by
this first step, that you are to fix the status of
your citizenship. If you are listening only to
the calls of private interest; if you are going
into oblivion of your country ; if you'are sink-
ing into a selfishness which thrives as well un
der one government as another, which loves as
much one country as another, think not that the
record is closed, and the title of good citizen
will be put to your name as soon as you have
declared your intention of yielding the pursuit
of honors to worthier men.
But if you go, to bide your time—no, not
yours, but your country's time, and your coun
try’s requirement—to bide that time, not in in
dolence or carelessness, but in the contempla
tion of truth, and in the cultivation of the dig
nity of human nature; if you go, to become
exemplars of obedience to laws, to cherish a
love of order; to prepare, by all culture, no less
of moral virtues than of intellectual powers, for
occasions when the great citizen is needed; if
you go, to extend your influence quietly, unob
trusively, as the slender taper in the peasant’s
lodge sends out its light without a glare, but
steady, deep into the night, fer over the waste,
to the sure guidance- of many a doubting way
farer ; if you retire to that altitude of beautiful
repoke—repose as to the affairs of public life—
a repose such as I have attempted to describe
it, in all, except that it need not be “ eternal
then dignified, self-denyiflg citizens, every one
who wishes well to the republic in years to
come, will bid you a hearty God speed as you go
hence; and when they shall be despondent, see
ing the country suffering by the ignorance or
imperilled by the dishonesty ot those in high
places, they will contemplate your retirement,
and renew their hopes for the future; will con
tend vigorously in the battle, as do they who
know that, as they Jrield to fatigue and with
draw, a reserve, steady and disciplined, will
step into their places.
But though I do n«t wish to recall the epithet
“ self-sacrificing,” as applied to such a course,
(for the immolation of eager aspirations after
excitement and hon< rs is no easy sacrifice) still
it should not be wit i hopeless feeling that you
relinquish the inviti ig occasions of the present
for the sake of disti nt contingencies. While in
the retirement, into which your appreciation of
what is due to you: country, to yourselves, and
to your ideal of the good- citizen, has impelled
you—yet early in tl e history of that retirement,
while the fires of yc 11th still burn too fiercely
for you to be the co )1, serene, untempted judge
or legislator—it mat- happen that one of those
occasions will pres snt itself—-and ’“ when has
there passed a gene ation since the great flood”
when such has not been the case ? when, in the
most peaceful ages, uias there lived and died a
generation of men without witnessing the hor
rors of war ?—one <f those occasions, when the
country demands courage and enthusiasm,as well
as wisdom and deliberation. Then you may forsake
your attitude of repise: then it may be your privi
lege to offer up, no) the feeble remnant of your
life, not a mutilated and blemished sacrifice, but
an offering of the first year—aye, of many,
many years—a sacrifice of a complete life, before
it has become scarred or mutilated, or worn in a
meaner service—a sacrifice which only the young
citizen can make, *nd one most worthy of his
country’s acceptance.
Nor let it be thought of any of you, that if
there be no occasion for the exercise of these
qualities of youthfiil spirits; if there come no
wars nor pestileaees when young men may
claim the dangers as their own, and go forth to
meet them, that then these years of apparent
inactivity are so much time abstracted from the
service of your country. Let not your patriot
ism be grieved by such a thought. Thero is
nothing in the prospect to wound a spirit how
ever much devoted to the love and service of tho
country. There would be much, if a certain
idea were as true as it is prevalent. .If it were
true that there is on the one side the generous
service of pure public life, and on the other,
nothing intervening, the absorbing pursuit of
merely personal interests, then should no one
hesitate which to desire and which to despise.—
But this is not true. Between this morass of
selfishness and those heights of political distinc
tion, thero stretches out a broad and lovely
plain, where not alone is heard “the linnet song
of peace,” which never floats up to the heights,
but there also flourish, like beautiful flowers,
which grow not in the marsh, the lovely though
less ostentatious virtues of manhood and citi
zenship-obedience, honor, love of truth, tem
perance, dignity—those products which nourish
and strengthen a nation. If you retire to this
middle ground to cultivate these—call it a life
of inaction if you please, but it is the inaction,
not of the selfish sloth, but of those of whom
Milton says :
“They al»o serve who only stand and wait."
But, as I have undertaken to speak of the
younger citizen ; as I have assumed that there
is a line of demarcation between the younger
and the older members of a State; when, it
may be asked, will this line be passed.? when
will the young citizen, so denominated in this
inquiry, cease to be such, and pass on to the ad
vanced ranks of citizenship ? Certainly this is
not meant to be asked of him who has turned
his back definitely upon public life, and has as
sumed as his part, the private duties of the cit
izen. He advances from one stage of citizen
ship to another, as youth advances to manhood,
as manhood to age. He need take no tliought
when he shall become the old citizen: the all
moving years will bear him on to that estate. —
But the question would be asked of those whom
I have represented not only as useful, but as
self-sacrificing citizens, inasmuch as they have
controlled their generous impulses, and sought,
away from the wished-for career, a higher char
acter of citizenship. Os them, it might be anx
iously asked, when will they pass into a different
state, from a life of contemplation to one of ac
tion ? I meant, gentlemen, to speak only of the
young citizen, of his character, his virtues, and
his duties. But this question carries me
further, into the inquiry, what manner
of man one should be—after how much prepa
ration, at what epoch of his existence, a man
should assume the honorable burden of public
duties. Even now I shrink from the task of
giving an abstract picture of the man. I prefer
to refer back, as I have already done in this in
quiry—as we will ever do, so long as the re
cords of the past are preserved to us—to that
mother of good citizens of every age, of every
character, and for every sphere ; and as Curtius
is the exemplar of one class of the virtues of
the citizen, so let Camillus and Cineinnatus il
lustrate another. Camillus, who came to his
country’s aid when her urgent danger made him
necessary; Cineinnatus, whom the entreaties
of his countrymen led from the half-sown field.
But “ Rome, mother of dead empires,” though
we rejoice that thou “ being dead, yet speakest,”
and teacliest lessons of virtue to our citizens;
though we thank thee for these men; though
we thank thee that thou hast reared models for
all generations ; yet Cineinnatus and Camillus
might have been exposed, like the founders of
their nation, to the swellings of Tiber ; and, un
like them, unfavored by beasts and the elements,
might have perished in their wailing infancy ;
and we, favored people of a distant age, would
not be without an exemplar of the virtues
which they illustrated 1 Camillus, Cineinnatus,
Washington I How often these walls have
echoed to those familiar names ; how every
schoolboy’s pen has been busy with the well
known theme ; how many orators, good and
bad, have dwelt upon their deeds! Yet no
man wearies of the theme. Many do yet take
these names upon their lips even as I do now;
many will yet do it, in ages to come, when they
wish to teach a lesson of that sort of duty which
the good citizen owes to his country.
The time when a man should assume the du
ties coupled with the honors of public citizen
ship—so say the examples of these illustrious
men, and dignity and pride and self-respect echo
the teaching—is when his country seeks him in.
his retirement, when his virtues shall surely
point him out. Then will he ascend to the high
places, not along a patli marked by broken pro
mises ; nor will he be shackled with the tram
mels which scheming coadjutors have put upon
him; nor bending under the burden with which
tricks and chicanery have loaded his self re
spect ; nor with obtuseness to true principles
produced by repeated changes, made without
conviction, but for self-advantage. No brand of
dishonesty will be upon him : no breath of sus
picion will float around him. No records of
times, when, through ignorance or ambition, he
endangered the republic, will be quoted against
him. In the crowds who receive him there
will be no enemies to meet him with sneers and
reproaches, treasured up against the hour of his
triumph from those days, when he forgot his
pride and his dignity in the determined pursuit
of honors. There will be none to dig into the
past for memorials of those times when he lis
tened to youthful ambition and forgot his coun
try. But he will come, fearless and serene.—
Fearless of the past, for he has left no enemies -
of any sort behind him. Fearless of the future,
for his honest heart knows but one strait road
before him. Serene m the present, for he rises
not above a storm by his own most desperate
struggles, but easily uplifted by the respect of
his countrymen, and by his own sustained.
Life is yet young with us, gentlemen, and
when so much of it seems to stretch out be
fore us, it appears a trifling matter to lose one
little hour from all of those which youth and
hope are promising. But yet, believe me, it is
almost'with a feeling of pain that I reflect upon
this one, which I have abstracted from your
store, and have here consumed to so little ad
vantage. Perhaps it is not altogether an un
selfish feeling I experience, and perhaps I care
less for your loss of a little space of time, ex
panded though the hours and minutes be to you,
by the great interests which, 8t this time, are
crowded into them, than I grieve for the littie
success of my own labor, which has run through
days and weeks. I feel regret that after my
thoughts have been busy with my subject; after
I have dwelt upon it with the earnestness of con
viction of its truth; after I have written, and
here, this day, have spoken—l regret how far
short I have fallen in expressing to you all I have
desired, all it was in my thought to say. And
now like those artists, who find pencil and brush,
light and shade, form and. color, inadequate to
convey their inner thought to the outer world,
and must eke out their artistic presentation by
a verbal synopsis of their imaginings, I add a
few words more to my yet incomplete and im
perfectly expressed performance. I answer one
who seems to ask : “ Wherefore all these words ?
Tell us more clearly what is their meaning and
bearing : what is the thought they would ex
press ?”
The thought is, that, no more of citizenship
than of life is it true, that all its duties are to be
performed in public. As the true, the useful vir
tues of life appear not exclusively in scenes of
trial and emotion, so there are many in citizen
ship to be practiced elsewhere titan in the midst
of turmoil and excitement. It is not true that
high and exalted citizenship is that alone of pub
lic careers, any more than that noble and useful
periods in men’s lives may not pass unruffled by
ambition, undisturbed by contention. Such a
view of the man or of the citizen, would be as
false as to suppose that our Chattahoochee is
subserving the purposes, for which God created
it, only when it is roaring down some cataract,
turning a noisy mill-wheel in its course; and to
forget what meadows it clothes with verdure, as
it silently meanders through the sweet vale of
Naucoochee ; what rich savannas it waters, as
it rolls along, hidden from the Bight of men by
umbrageous forests, as it nears the Floridas.—
The thought is farther, that as the course of re
tiring to private life would leave you many vir
tues to cultivate and to practice, so they are in
their character by no means insignificant. That
such a course appeals strongly to your patriot
ism, to your sense of dignity, to your heroism,
to an exalted ideal of citizenship. That if you
are ambitious of making an offering to your
country, you are invited, at the first step, to sa
crifice cherished aspirations. That if you en
tertain an appreciation higher than a vulgar one,
of the true character of the citizen, reason urges
you to such a course. That if these things be
so, if patriotism, if dignity, if truth persuade to
such a step; then you are not to hesitate, not to
be deterred by the thought that the future is
uncertain, that the country may forget you in
your retirement, may ignore your merits, and
bestow honors, which are your due, upon the
unworthy. That you are to be satisfied with do
ing the good things which your hands find to
do in.your retirement, feeling that they, too, are
worthy of the good citizen. That you are not
to be thrust forward before you are wanted, nor
kept in the field after the occasion is passed, by
the calls of personal ambition; but that you are
to wait till your honors come to you, knowing
that then they will be transcendent.
And if any one should ask, why I have par
ticularly selected such a subject upon which to
address you, I would answer, that I know in a
time not so distant that I need argue a change,
a spirit reigned at our aima mater whose teach
ings were, that public life was the sphere into
which all her children were to enter. I know,
too, that this spirit prevails in other colleges, and
that young men who have had a liberal educa
tion are apt to think that public life is alone the
region in which their accomplishments would
have their proper lustre; that elsewhere they
would not pay her dues to their country, not
she theirs to them; and that hence the bar and
all other rehdy avenues to public life are beset
and crowded. Therefore it is, gentlemen, that
I have chosen to improve the occasion you have
granted me, to suggest some reasons why private
citizenship invited you to its duties by appealing
to some most generous qualities, which, I know,
are impelling you elsewhere.
Gentlemen of the Demosthenian Society:
Let me trespass a little longer on your atten
tion, to express a purely personal feeling. It is
to you that I am indebted, not only for your kind
attendance this day, but for this honor, which
you have bestowed upon me; and I would be
most happy to find some expression, some figure
of speech, which might convey to you a just idea
of my appreciation. When, some months ago,
your Secretary informed me of the action of the
Society, I was sojourning in a distant part of our
country. For you, the air was soft and balmy,
while in that bleak corner of New England, it
was yet filled with the snows of Winter. For
you, the breeze was laden with the fragrance of
flowers and the songs of rejoicing birds; while
around me those harbingers of Spring yet slum
bered in the bosom of Earth, or were silent in
the depths of the forest Can you imagine, gen
tlemen, how grateful would have been a breeze
from the Southward ? Can you imagine how
under its genial influence, Earth would have
aroused her sleeping beauties; how the choris
ters of the forest would have greeted its com
ing; how all Nature would have yielded to
the soft seduction? Believe me, gentlemen,
not less grateful was your invitation, coming
up from this region of sunny memories, and
reaching me in that land, to me less genial
perhaps because less known. I had looked
forward with pleasant anticipations to being
present on this occasion, silent and unobserv
ed j to come among you with honor was a temp
tation which 1 would have vainly resisted.—
I have come. I have performed the task,
however imperfectly, which you have assigned
me; in a few moments, we shall march back
to our Society halls: a few moments more, we
shall issue thence, and the wide world will re
ceive us. Os old, as mariners returned, tempest
tossed, sore and weary, from a perilous voyage,
they left their bark upon the beach, ascended to
some temple of Neptune, which looked out up
on the sea, hung up their votive offerings there,
and, turning their backs forever on the ocean,
ended their days in rest and quietness. The
temple to which we are about to ascend, to hang
up our offerings—these banners, these badges,
these insignia—likewise stands upon the beach.
But we approach it now, not at the end, but the
beginning of the voyage, which lies before us.—
The temple rose to the view of the voyager of
old as he returned; it will recede from us as we
depart. The hour approaches when we shall
forsake its portals; but if you will believe me,
gentlemen, if you will receive an opinion, found
ed upon the experience of but half a decade, you
will never recede so far from the scene of our
reunion, call it temple or what you will, that your
thoughts will not often and easily return to it—
and that, too, whether I have raised a voice of
successful persuasion this day, and you seek the
peaceful islands, retreats of philosophy and con
templation, or yielding to a stronger influence,
you go to struggle, I hope successfully, in storm
and commotion. But whatever else may be in
your careers, I hope that at least many of you
will, in due time, stand in this place—if it were
for no better reason, I would wish it, that you
might then, if not now, appreciate the sincere
gratitude with which I thank you for this honor.
— is i
Death or Leigh Hunt. —The steamer Anglo-
Saxon brings us intelligence of the death of
James Henry Leigh Hunt, who died at London
on the 20th of August He was bom in Mid
dlesex, in October, 1784, and was partly Amer
ican in descent, Stephen Shewell, of Philadel
phia, being his maternal grandfather. His mo
ther's aunt was the wife of Benjamin 'West, the
celebrated American painter; his father was a
West Indian, and the son passed his early youth
in the West Indies, and atone time, we believe,
resided in Philadelphia.
Young Hunt commenced his literary career at
a very early age, being only eighteen, when, in
connection with his brother John, he issued the
first number of the Examiner, which soon ac
quired great popularity. It was in this news
paper that he applied to the Prince Regent the
witty epithet of the “Adonis of fifty,” for which
offence the two brothers paid a fine of some
$4,000, and were imprisoned for two years.
His experiences in Horsemonger jail are related
with much humor and pathos in his autobiogra
phy, published in 1850, and on the occasion of
his imprisonment he certainly allowed a great
deal of pluck, as the Government offered to re
mit the penalties if he would promise to make
no similar attacks in future. He founded and
edited at various times the “Reflector,” the
“Tattler,” and the “London Journal,” and also
contributed to the Edinburg and Westminster
Reviews. The “Story of Rimini," his Autobiog
raphy, “Men, Women and Books,” “Stories
from the Italian Poets,” and his shorter poems,
including his famous Abou Ben Adhem, are the
best known of his works in this country; but
he was a very voluminous writer, and his con
tributions to the press during the past fifty
years would fill a good-sized library.
Hunt was a contemporary of the great mod
ern litterateurs of Great Britain, and formed one
of the surviving links which connect us with
the literary world of Scott, Byron, Wordsworth,
Shelley, Rogers, Coleridge, Keats and Southey;
for, although in genius he equalled none of
these, yet he belonged to their epoch, and was
to a certain extent associated with them. With
De Quincey, now almost the sole survivor, he
formed one of that illustrious galaxy of bright
names which made the early part of this cen
tury so illustrious in literature. He was at one
time an intimate friend of Byron, Shelley, and
Hazlitt, with whom, as coadjutors, he establish
ed the “Liberal” in 1822, a short-lived periodi
cal, of which only a few numbers were publish
ed. During the same year he visited Italy With
Lord Byron, and occupied the same house with
him; but the friendship soon cooled from incom
patibility of temper, and Hunt took revenge of
his noble friend in a malicious book called “By
ron and hisTDontemporaries,” but which is now
almdSt entirely out of print.
Leigh Hunt, although he cannot be classed in
the very highest rank of modem literature,
leaves behir* a name which will always be
dear to the hearts of lovers of “books which are
books.” This expression of Charles Lamb re
minds us of a kind of inexpressible resemblance
between the prose writings of the two men; both
possessed a lively fancy, an easy, almost collo
quial style, and a wonderful power of word
paintiug. Their Essays are among the most
genial and graceful contributions to modem lit
erature ; although Hunt's coldness of tempera
ment and occasional exhibitions of selfishness
are in strong contrast with Lamb’s tenderness
of heart and infinite sympathies with humanity.
The boat poems of Hunt, like Rimini, are grace
ful and highly finished, remindihg one of Keats
in their general style and rythmical flow, but he
lacked the genuineness of feeling and the poetic
inspiration which made his younger contempo
rary so dear to the popular heart.
Mr. Hunt has been described as a delightful
companion, retaining to old age all the vigor and
vivacity of youth; no one could listen to his
conversation without delight. His religious be
lief was somewhat peculiar, and he might safely
be classed among the leaders of the “ Broad
Church.” For many years he has enjoyed a
pension from the Government, and his son is
now the editor of one ot the leading literary pe
riodicals in London.— K Y. Journal of Commerce.
—■»»♦ - ■m
“ Alabama ” signifies, in the Indian language,
“ Here we rest.” A story is told of a tribe of
Indians who fled from a relentless foe in the
tracaless forest in the South-West. Weary and
travel-worn they reached a noble river which
flowed through a beautiful country. The chief
of the band struck his tent-pole in the ground,
and exclaimed: “ Alabama! Alabama I”
(.“Here we shall rest! ")
147