transparency to his diction? Who, that reads the concentrated sense and melodious versification of Dryden and Pope, does not perceive in them the disciples of the old school, whose genius was inflamed by the heroic verse, the terse satire, and the playful wit of antiquity? Who, that meditates over the strains of Milton, does not feel that he drank deep at

"Siloa's brook, that flow'd Fast by the oracle of God"

that the fires of his magnificent mind were lighted by coals from ancient altars?

It is no exaggeration to declare that he who proposes to abolish classical studies proposes to render, in a great measure, inert and unedifying the mass of English literature for three centuries; to rob us of the glory of the past, and much of the instruction of future ages; to blind us to excellences which few may hope to equal, and none to surpass; to annihilate associations which are interwoven with our best sentiments, and give to distant times and countries a presence and reality as if they were in fact his own.

JOSEPH STORY.

123. THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

ONE of the most striking characteristics of our age, and that indeed which has worked deepest in all the changes of its fortunes and pursuits, is the general diffusion of knowledge. This is emphatically the age of reading. In other times, this was the privilege of the few; in ours, it is the possession of the

many.

The principal cause of this change is to be found in the freedom of the press. It has been aided, also, by the system of free schools wherever it has been established; by that liberal commerce which connects, by golden chains, the interests of mankind; and, above all, by those necessities which have compelled even absolute monarchs to appeal to the patriotism and common sentiments of their subjects. Little more than a century has elapsed since the press, in England, was under the control of a licenser; and within our own days only has it ceased to be a contempt, punishable by imprisonment, to print the debates of parliament. We all know how it still is on the continent of Europe. It either speaks in timid undertones, or echoes back the prescribed formularies of the government. The

moment publicity is given to the affairs of state, they excite everywhere an irresistible interest. If discussion be permitted, it will soon be necessary to enlist talents to defend, as well as talents to devise measures. The daily press first instructed men in their wants, and soon found that the eagerness of curiosity outstripped the power of gratifying it. No man can now doubt the fact that, wherever the press is free, it will emancipate the people; wherever knowledge circulates unrestrained, it is no longer safe to oppress; wherever public opinion is enlightened, it nourishes an independent, masculine, and healthful spirit. If Faustus were now living, he might exclaim, with all the enthusiasm of Archimedes, and with a far nearer approach to the truth, Give me where I may place a free press, and I will shake the world. JOSEPH STORY.

124. THE FATE OF THE INDIANS.

THERE is, indeed, in the fate of the unfortunate Indians much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities; much in their characters which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow, but sure, extinction. Everywhere, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like that of the withered leaves of autumn, and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they

return no more.

Two centuries ago, the smoke of their wigwams and the fires of their councils rose in every valley, from Hudson's Bay to the farthest Florida-from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance rang through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and the deadly tomahawk whistled through the forests, and the hunter's trace and the dark encampment startled the wild beasts in their lairs.

The

But where are they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth-the sachems and the tribes-the hunters and their families? They have perished. They have perished. They are consumed. wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No; nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral

canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores; a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated; a poison, which betrayed them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region which they may now call their own. Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fearless still."

The ashes are cold on their native hearths. The smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is upon their heels, for terror or dispatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be repassed by them-no, never! Yet there lies not between us and them an impassable gulf. They know and feel, that there is for them still one remove further, not distant, nor unseen. It is to the general burial-ground of the race.

JOSEPH STORY,

125. THE EXAMPLE OF OUR FOREFATHERS.

THE instructive lesson of history, teaching by example, can nowhere be studied with more profit, or with a better promise, than in the revolutionary period of America; and especially by us, who sit under the tree our fathers have planted, enjoy its shade, and are nourished by its fruits. But little is our merit or gain, that we applaud their deeds, unless we emulate their virtues. Love of country was in them an absorbing principle, an undivided feeling; not of a fragment, a section, but of the whole country. Union was the arch on which they raised the strong tower of a nation's independence. Let the arm be palsied that would loosen one stone in the basis of this fair structure, or mar its beauty; the tongue mute, that would dishonor their

names, by calculating the value of that which they deemed without price.

They have left us an example already inscribed in the world's memory; an example portentous to the aims of tyranny in every land; an example that will console in all ages the drooping aspirations of oppressed humanity. They have left us a written charter as a legacy, and as a guide to our course. But every day convinces us that a written charter may become powerless. Ignorance may misinterpret it; ambition may assail and faction destroy its vital parts; and aspiring knavery may at last sing its requiem on the tomb of departed liberty. It is the spirit which lives in this are our safety and our hope-the spirit of our fathers; and while this dwells deeply in our remembrance, and its flame is cherished, ever burning, ever pure, on the altar of our hearts; while it incites us to think as they have thought, and do as they have done, the honor and the praise will be ours, to have preserved unimpaired the rich inheritance which they so nobly achieved.

JARED SPARKS.

126.

THE STUDY OF ORATORY IN GREECE AND ROME.

In the ancient republics of Greece and Rome, oratory was a necessary branch of a finished education. A much smaller proportion of the citizens were educated than among us; but of these a much larger number became orators. No man could hope for distinction or influence, and yet slight this art. The commanders of their armies were orators as well as soldiers, and ruled as well by their rhetorical as by their military skill. There was no trusting with them, as with us, to a natural facility, or the acquisition of an accidental fluency by actual practice. But they served an apprenticeship to the art. They passed through a regular course of instruction in schools. They submitted to long and laborious discipline. They exercised themselves frequently, both before equals and in the presence of teachers, who criticised, reproved, rebuked, excited emulation, and left nothing undone which art and perseverance could accomplish. The greatest orators of antiquity, so far from being favored by natural tendencies-except, indeed, in their high intellectual endowments-had to struggle against natural obstacles; and, instead of growing up spontaneously to their unrivalled

eminence, they forced themselves forward by the most discouraging, artificial process.

Demosthenes combated an impediment in speech, an ungainliness of gesture, which at first drove him from the forum in disgrace. Cicero failed at first, through weakness of lungs and an excessive vehemence of manner, which wearied the hearers and defeated his own purpose. These defects were conquered by study and discipline. He exiled himself from home, and, during his absence, in various lands, passed not a day without a rhetorical exercise, seeking the masters who were most severe in criticism, as the surest means of leading him to the perfection at which he aimed. WILLIAM WIRT

127. THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE.

We have now, fellow-citizens, reached an important point in this interesting controversy between Great Britain and her colonies. The future tendency of the present state of things could no longer be mistaken. "Thick coming events already cast their shadows before," and pointed to a result then as inevitable as it was near, and as much desired by some as it was destined to be glorious to all.

From this point, let us, for a moment, look back upon this singular and momentous contest. In this review, we shall find it singularly characterized by a spirit of gradual and persevering encroachment on the one part, and of forbearance, but steady resistance, on the other. Small at first and slight the departure from the acknowledged principles of right, but increasing in wrong at each successive step of its progress, making the legitimate resistance to its first wrong a new pretext for the aggravation and increased severity of its succeeding one, until its assumption of power had passed all limit, and its exercise all restraint, the course of Great Britain, in this contest, exhibited a folly as remarkable as her tyranny was odious. No supplication could soften her anger, or propitiate her favor; no argument, however clear and strong, could reach her reason, or arouse her sense of justice; and no appeal to humanity could either touch her sensibility or excite her kindly regard. But moved by the worst spirit of cupidity and ambition, stung by the mortifications of wounded pride and conscious wrong, and deaf alike to the voice of reason, the dictates of justice, and