Four New Addresses (review) [pp. 280-289]

gold. The jewels and the ingots will find their golden bowl is broken at the fountain, we may
way to the great centres of civilization, where well turn from the halls of academic learning
cultivated mind gives birth to the arts, and free- and the marts of commercial industry to receive
dom renders property secure. The region itself
to which these fabulous treasures are attrac e diting a new admonition of the fragility of our being.
the countless hosts of thrift, cupidity and adven After depicting in sombre colors and with deep
ture will derive, I fear, the smallest part of the feeling the last moments of existence under difbenefit. Could they be peopled entirely with ferent circumstances, the eloquent lecturer says,
the emigrants like the best of those who have
taken their departure from among us, and wcho
carry with them an outfit of New England prin- "There is another scene which I would fain
ciples and habits, it would be well; but much I linger on, but which I feel it is not my province
fear the gold region will, for a long time, be a to describe. I speak still of Death-not on the
scene of anarchy and confusion, of violence and field-not at the stake; I speak of that death
bloodshed, of bewildering gains and maddening which steals upon the frame worn down with
losses, of any thing but social happiness and well sickness and decay; no spirit-stirring scenes are
regulated civil liberty. around it to cheer it on; no crowd of spectators
",If we will not be taught by any thing else, to applaud its heroism; debility and pain are its
let us learn of history. It was not Mexico and internal and surrounding circumstances; but still
Peru, nor (what it imports us more to bear in you can see, in the dimmed eye, the flashes of
mind) Portugal, nor Spain, which reaped the sil- an eternal light; you may hear, in the faint voice,
ver and golden harvest of the sixteenth and sev- the accents of an eternal love! You may view
enteenth centuries. It was the industrious, en- the glorious hope of immortality rising up upon
lightened, cultivated States of the north and angels' wings; and the last word, the last look,
west of Europe. It was little Holland,-scarcely the last breath, tell not of doubt-not of fear, but
one fifth as large as New England,-hardly able of unshaken courage, of deathless trust. It is
to keep her head above the waters of the super- the death bed of the christian; the tearing asunincumbent ocean, but with five Universities dot- der of the soul, washed in the blood of its Sating her limited surface; it was England, with viour, from the body of sin and suffering that
her foundation Schools, her indomitable public encompasses it. Oh, well might the inspired
opinion, her representative system, her twin Uni- penman break forth in view of such a scene and
versities;-it was to these free and enlightened such an end, with the dauntless exclamation,
countries that the gold and silver flowed; not Oh death,where is thysting! Oh grave, where
merely adding to the material wealth of the com- is thy victory!
munity, but quickening the energy of the industri- "And now, my hearers, am I wrong in assertous classes, breaking down the remains of feudal- ing, that there is Poetry in Death? Surely you
ism, furnishing thesinews ofwarto the champions will not say so, in view of the pictures that I
of protestant liberty, and thus cheering them on to have presented to you, albeit they are sketched
the great struggle, to whose successful issue it is by a feeble hand Why, what is Poetry? Ask
owing, in its remote effects, under Providence, the mere superficial reader and observer, and he
that you, Sir, sit in safety beneath the canopy will tell you that it is thoughts in rhyme; ask
that overhangs this hall. the learned, the acute, keen watcher of human
"What the love of liberty, the care of educa- affairs and of nature, and he will tell you that it
tion, and a large and enlightened regard for in- consists in the beautiful, wherever that may be
tellectual and moral interests, did for the parent found; whatever touches the heart, whatever
state, they will do for us. They will.give us purifies the mind, whatever ennobles the inteltemporal prosperity; and with it what is infin- lect. The sweet look of a blooming maiden, is
itely better; not only a name and a praise with Poetry; the chivalrous deed, is Poetry; the open
contemporary nations who form with us the hand; the self-sacrificing action; the consistent
great procession of humanity, but a name and a life; all these are Poetry; li;.nes written by the
praise among enlightened men and enlightened sweet pencils of nature or of grace; and if I am
states to the end of time." right here, is not a holy, a beautiful, a thrilling
death, Poetry? Ah yes, it is the most sublime;
no human pen can write such noble epic-no
Our quotations have been so numerous and so human tongue can read such glorious verse.
extended that only a short space is left us for We are too apt to couple it with pain and sufhonorable mention of the lecture of Judge Charl- fering; we are too much induced to think of it
ton. This gentleman is favorably known for an as associated with the grave and with corruption.
educated taste in letters and a very pleasing gift We must take our eyes off this dark picture and
of versification. Regarding him as an ornament look forward and upward; we must never forget
that life, with all its afflictions, all its darkness, is
to the South, we are gratified to recognise in his nevertheless a great blessing; but we must, at
recent publication, a pure and chaste style of the same time, not cease to remember, that its
prose composition. The subject is one which greatest blessing consists in its being a preparavery fitly brings us to a conclusion, —after what tion for another and an immortal state, in comwe have read of busy traffic and toilsome study,- parison with which, it is but darkness; and he
THE POETRY OF DEATH. The solemnchange'who has duly improved the advantages of exis1THE POF. TRY OF DEATH. 1The solemn change tence, and feels that he has endeavored with huis what scholar and artisan must alike undergo, mility and love to perform its duties to his Maker
and when the silver chord is loosed and the and his neighbor, may break forth, as it sees its
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Four New Addresses.
[MAY,