may be from the legitimate domain of taste or scholarship. In addressing a Mercantile Library Association, he places Commerce in so noble and captivating a light that the "weary honours of successful ambition," won by studious toil, grow dim in comparison to the wide relations, social influence, and princely munificence of the great merchant. He advocates the privileges, and describes the progress of Science, and the imagination expands in delightful visions of the ameliorating destinies of the world, and the infinite possibilities that crowd the path of undiscovered truth. He sets before an Association of Mechanics the relation of their pursuit to the welfare of man, and the importance of knowledge to the artisan, and their vocation rises at once to the highest dignity and promise. He enforces the natural charms and permanent utility of agriculture, and the farmer's lot seems the most desirable of human occupations. The variety of occasions to which he has thus ably ministered is the best proof of his fertile resources and adaptive power. He has successfully plead for Greece and Africa, for the prisoner and the intemperate, for art and literarature, for popular and college education, for railroads and the militia, for the completion of the monument on Bunker Hill, and the restoration of York Minster, for manufactures, trade, the distribution of the Bible, and the cause of Ireland; and

"From the eddies of oblivion's stream,

Propitious snatched each memorable theme."

Equally impressive and graceful, while the intellectual crowd, at a New England academic festival, hang upon his familiar accents, and when responding to the welcome of a foreign city; and, crowned with the graces of true oratory, his eloquence is as unfaltering and appropriate, when uttered to a royal society as to a delegation of Sacs and Foxes, and as readily attunes itself to the fading memory of the illiterate old soldier, as to the quick sympathies of the youthful scholar.

In estimating the merits of an orator we must thus take into view the occasion as well as the man. The address of a chief to his army on the eve of battle, of an advocate to a jury in a case involving life, or of a candidate at the hustings, have for their object immediate practical results—and spirit, ingenuity, or personal tact, may prove more efficient than the highest literary art. The harangues of the French Revolution caught from the impending horrors of the time, an impetuosity and dramatic energy that swayed men whose passions were too inflamed to be reached either by reason or taste. But when the orator's task is purely commemorative; when no insignia of action seconds his appeal, and no antagonism of debate excites his logical combativeness, to the treasured resources of his own mind, and the absolute principles of eloquence he must look for inspiration. The sanction of vast personal influence gave power to the sententious appeals of Napoleon ; and the actual ferment of a liberal outbreak among

the people, inspired the mind of Lamartine when his words soothed the multitude. It is quite a different experiment to create the very sentiment you must address, to place in a dramatic light the occasion you are called upon to celebrate, and from the calm tide of ordinary life to cause the spirit of the past to emerge in beauty. To canonize the departed hero and sage by enshrining their names in authentic and classic eulogy; to commemorate great historical events by causing them to reappear to the fancy, with the vast array of consequences that link them to the passing hour; to revive the sentiment of some time-worn anniversary in all its pristine fervour; and plead effectually in behalf of a cause which has only intrinsic and impalpable claims upon attention, is an office to which only the highly-cultivated and gifted orator is equal. He cannot trust to the mere artifices of rhetoric. His audience wait in calm expectancy; they are to be informed, reasoned with, convinced, and, at length, warmed and melted by his words. No sympathetic auditor fails, at such moments, especially when the occasion is important, and the orator of high repute, to feel a thrill of suspense in his behalf; in the case of Everett this instantly gives place to a delightful confidence. He is so thoroughly self-possessed, so completely armed, that we listen or read, as we roam beside a noble stream, or through an autumnal wood, sure of a succession of pleasing objects, and an ever beautiful and limitless perspective.

The Reformer.

GODWIN.

THERE comes a time to every thinker and enthusiast, when he instinctively questions the circumstances that surround him, the relations in which he finds himself, and the social obligations that seem an inevitable and inherited necessity. This happens

when some natural want, or honest opinion, or conscious right is thwarted by these arbitrary regulations; or when a great and obvious social wrong presses heavily upon a fellow-creature, and the injustice awakens his sympathy. The reflections incident to such experience, usually convince the liberal mind that there is vast injury bequeathed by custom; that prejudice, fear, and indolence, only hinder society from discarding a yoke, that dwarfs the intellect, and narrows the heart of its members; and that an infinite need of reform exists. In some breasts the conviction thus engendered is temporary; others are reconciled to it by the idea of necessity; the many soon learn how to evade or compromise the particular evil that interferes with their development;

and only in the few is there bred a permanent spirit of resistance, a solemn determination to keep individuality intact, or a generous passion to ameliorate the condition or enfranchise the life of society. The majority of reformers, too, dedicate themselves to a special cause and promote it by the machinery and the arts of faction; so that the number is very select, who attempt to strike at the root of social evil by reference to first principles, who boldly, yet with discrimination, institute an inquiry into the claims of a law, the authenticity of a custom, or the sanction of a practice that interferes with the primal interests of humanity. The most extravagant discussions of this kind were excited by the French Revolution, which by reducing social life to its chaotic elements, seemed to furnish new avenues of truth and opportunities for reform. The atrocities, however, of that terrible experiment caused a reaction so powerful as to strengthen the position of the conservative. As the ferment subsided, reason soon equalized the inferences of both extremes of opinion; and thus, in the end, promoted the advancement of truth; and the result has been a more wise examination of the principles of social life, the laws of well-being, and the resources of nature in her relation to humanity. This has become the noblest and most auspicious office of the literary reformer.

Byron laughed at the idea of any one being seriously injured by a book, and Napoleon professed to regard literary talent as an abstraction. Doubtless,