the lake under moonlight soothes and intellect in the delight of nathe soul into sweetest repose. In ture. Through this bright methe terror of the mighty evolutions. dium the vision of fancy has an of nature, man is also prepared infinite series of delightful views, for ruin. His genius bounds at sometimes breaking into the bright the approach of the whirlwind; it opening of rapture, and sometimes rushes with the swiftness of its lengthening and expanding into fury, and tracks it through its the luxuriant extent of enjoyment. rustling path to the boundaries of Every pleasurable impulse of the heavens. It is transcendent sense urges incipient action into amid the horrours of the tempest, the execution of delight ; and and, as the lightning breaks from every great passion riots in indulthe thunder cloud, it leaps with gence, more rapturous by progressublimity, and moves on its blaz- sion, and more vacant by excess ; ing line into the profundity of not forbidden by reason, nor tainted darkness.

by disgust. He, who thus gives Man thus appears to hold an in- himself up to nature, is in the timate connexion, and grand alli- brightness and purity of his existance with nature. But the enjoy- ence. His mind philosophizes ment of this blessing seems nega- with itself in the loneliness of tive by habitual experience, though meditation, and his passions rethe, consciousness of it is neces- ceive ordinance from the solemn sarily deduced from the supremacy convention of philosophy and reof his power, and the sublimity of ligion. his position over all surrounding Human nature, thus ennobled existence. Still, however, must with powers so sublime, and softhe remain contented with the cer- ened with sensibilities so delicate, tainty of its possession, though it each qualified with capacities of be in some measure unaccountable - enjoyment, extensive as the subto himself. He must learn to satis- jects are exhaustless, must indeed fy his mind with the resemblances be inveterate against its own hapof facts, on subjects too subtle piness by renouncing the experifor their operation, and he must ence of it.

We too niggardly ennot sicken at the disappointment of croach on the rights of intellect in defining, what is infinite. The the vain enterprize of meliorating brightness of beauty should en- that, which is already essentially fighten the mistiness of its exist- below the standard of human dig. ence, and that sublimity which is nity. Few are even aware of the not instantaneous and universal, freedom and range of nature, for may be produced by elevation of half mankind come into the world thought and combination of mag- with manacles and fetters. With nitudes. His mind may, for a mo- the smile of slaves, they are pleas. ment, stand and gaze on the very ed and exult with the freedom of borders of its own perfection ; but breath, and the liberty of life. before it can even catch a glimpse They sicken and rot within the imof what rolls beyond, it perceives palement of a city, without once light and vision blended, and lost brightening their eye with a gleam in the deep void of boundless of pure light, or refreshing their space.

lungs with the balmy inhalations There is, moreover, the sweet- of pure expanse. There is a fee. est union of the pleasures of sense bleness about them, which is not

the relaxation of strength, and a dark cloud, as it sails over the languor, which is not the repose of plain, deepening the luxuriance of enjoyment. At death their eye the vallies, and reflecting bright shuts blankly on the walls of and glaring light on the edges of their prison, while the vision of cliffs and precipices ; or in the him, who has communed with na- stillness of a summer's evening, ture, slowly fades with the melan- aside the old oak that sighs in the choly dimness of things, and van- night breeze, to catch the bright ishes with their departure.

forms of departed friends in the How truly inglorious is exist- white clouds, which wave over the ence, thus drawn out by the con- moon. tinual motives of business, and The constant action of thought fretted away by the vain anxieties in retirement, adds another charm of city life. How vacant the mind, to it. The mind here is not left without the intelligence of nature, merely to its own operation, reasonand how spiritless the brain, with- ing on subjects of its own suggesout the thrills of her emotions. tion, without the standard of perHe, who is thus kennelled in the ceptible truth for the conclusion of city, prefers the bustle of noisy such abstractions. But it has the nothingness to the soothing seren- constant presentation of the subity of country life ; an atmosphere lime experiment of universal cause darkened with the dust of drudge- and effect, free from the anxieties ry and labour to the blue expanse, of chance, and unincumbered with over the fresh landscape ; the jar- the ponderous mass of human folgon of brokers, and the brawlings lies, prejudices, and absurdities. and heavings of “ fat and greasy Its acquisition is the wisdom of citizens” to the sound of the spring nature, and its truth is that certainbird at evening, or the broken ty of conclusion, which is deduced song of the peasant on his door- from determinate causes, invariastone. To all the exquisite nice- bly efficient of consequential efties and delicacies of cultured pro

fects. duct, even his senses are blunt. There is yet another charm in He had rather sit, of a dog-day, this retreat from the town, and the with four and twenty trenchermen, throng, which is beyond even the “ big and burly,” at the head of a fascination of poetry. We here table, whose loaded extent presents feel, that description is only the perspective of a market place, imitative of nature, and we turn than to retire to the cool cell in from the transcription, however the grove, to regale himself amid charming and exact, to the rapthe freshness of fruit, and the ra- tures of the origina). We are no ciness of vegetables.

longer content with the ideal symOn the contrary, how pleasantly pathy of visionary existence, but and how naturally flows the life of we extend all the pleasures of fichim, who breathes it in the cool tion into the emotions of sensible shades of silent retirement, his truth. In the presence of nature, soul expanding with the pure sen- even the minuteness and exactitiments, which rural imagery in- tude of Cowper is indiscriminate spires ; who loves to stretch and unsatisfactory ; the mellow himself, at noon day, in the deep luxuriance of Thomson barren shade of the mountain brow, and and wasteful. In the bright exfollow the huge shadow of the panse, which surrounds her, even

the sublime and transcendent ge- whose soul is pure and holy with nius of Milton flutters with dark the love of nature, take his posiand heavy wings, near the earth, tion in the midst of creation, and but faintly tinged with the celes- commence the mighty work of the tial light, and rests on objects eternal perfection of thought. blasted or deformed. Let him then,

On Thursday, the 12th of this month, the Hon. JOHN Q. ADAMS, was inaugurated as the first Boylston Professor of Rhetorick and Oratory' at Harvard University. We have res quested a copy of his inaugural Oration delivered on that occasion, with a belief, that its perusak would afford high gratification to our readers. For his prompt compliance with our request, we beg leave to tender him our most grateful acknowledgements.

AN INAUGURAL ORATION.

BY HON. J. Q. ADAMS.

IT is the fortune of some opin- has hurled them prostrate in the ions, as well as of some individual dust. Nor have these great and characters, to have been, during a sudden revolutions always resulted long succession of ages, subjects from causes seemingly capable of of continual controversy among producing such effects.

At one mankind. In forming an estimate period, the barbarian conqueror of the moral or intellectual merits destroys, at another he adopts, the of many a person, whose name is arts of the vanquished people. The recorded in the volumes of histo- Grecian Muses were led captive ry, their virtues and vices are so and in chains to Rome. Once nearly balanced, that their station there, they not only burst asunder in the ranks of fame has never been their own fetters, but soon mount. precisely assigned, and their repu- ing the triumphal car, rode with tation, even after death, vibrates upon supreme ascendancy over their the hinges of events, with which victors. More than once have the they have little or no perceptible Tartars, after carrying conquest connexion. Such too has been the and desolation over the empire of destiny of the arts and sciences in China, been subdued in turn by general, and of the art of rhetorick the arts of the nation, they had enin particular. Their advancement slaved; as if by a wise and equi

; and decline have been alternate in table retribution of nature the the annals of the world. At one authors of violencc were doomperiod they have been cherished, ed to be overpowered by their admired, and cultivated ; at ano- own prosperity, and to find in ther neglected, despised, and op- every victory the seeds of depressed. Like the favourites of feat. princes, they have had their turns On the other hand, the arts and of unbounded influence and of ex- sciences, at the hour of their highcessive degradation. Now the en- est exaltation, have been often rethusiasm of their votaries has rais- proached and insulted by those, on ed them to the pinnacle of great- whom they had bestowed their ness; now a turn of the wheel choicest favours, and most cruelly assaulted by the weapons, which joys the exclusive and inestimable themselves had conferred. At the privilege of progressive improvezenith of modern civilization, the ment, and is enabled to avail itself palm of unanswered eloquence was of the advantages of individual disawarded to the writer, who main-covery. As the necessary adjunct tained, that the sciences had al- and vehicle of reason, the faculty ways promoted rather the misery, of speech was also bestowed as an than the happiness of mankind; exclusive privilege upon man : and in the age and nation, which not the mere utterance of articuheard the voice of Demosthenes, late sounds; not the mere cries of Socrates has been represented as passion, which he has in common triumphantly demonstrating, that with the lower orders of animated rhetorick cannot be dignified with nature : but as the conveyance of the name of an art ; that it is but thought ; as the means of rational a pernicious practice...the mere intercourse with his fellow-creacounterfeit of justice. This opin- ture, and of humble communion ion has had its followers from the with his God. It is by the means days of Socrates to our own, and it of reason, clothed with speech, that still remains an inquiry among the most precious blessings of somen, as in the age of Plato and cial life are communicated from in that of Cicero, whether elo- man to man, and that supplication, quence is an art, worthy of the cul- thanksgiving, and praise are adtivation of a wise and virtuous man. dressed to the author of the uni. To assist us in bringing the mind verse. How justly then, with the to a satisfactory result of this in- great dramatick poet may we exquiry, it is proper to consider the claim, art, as well in its nature, as in its effects ; to derive our inferences, « Sure, he that made us with such large not merely from the uses, which

discourse, have been made of it, but from Looking before and after, gave us not the purposes, to which it ought to That capability and God-like reason be applied, and the end, which it is To rust in us, unus’d.” destined to answer.

The peculiar and highest charac- A faculty thus elevated, given teristick, which distinguishes man

us for so sublime a purpose, and from the rest of the animal crea

destined to an end so excellent, tion, is reason. It is by this attri

was not intended by the supreme bute, that our species is constitut. Creator to be buried in the grave ed the great link between the phy- of neglect. As the source of all sical and intellectual world. By human improvements it was itself our passions and appetites we are susceptible of improvement by inplaced on a level with the herds of dustry and application, by observ. of the forest ; by our reason we ation and experience. Hence, participate in the divine nature it wherever man has been found in self : formed of clay, and com- a social state, and wherever he pounded of dust, we are, in the has been sensible of his dependscale of creation, little higher than ance upon a supreme disposer of the clod of the valley ; endowed events, the value and the power of with reason,we are little lower than publick speaking, if not universally the angels. It is by the gift of acknowledged, has at least been reason, that the human specics en- universally felt.

Vol. III. No. 6. 2N

For the truth of these remarks gifts, with which the inspired let me appeal to the testimony of leader was endowed, and commithistory, sacred and profane. We ted it as a special charge to his shall find it equally clear and con

associate. Nor will it escape your clusive from the earliest of her re- observation, that when the first cords, which have escaped the rav-, great object of their joint mission ages of time. When the people was accomplished, and the sacred of God were groaning under the system of laws and polity for the insupportable oppressions of E. emancipated nation was delivered gyptian bondage, and the Lord of by the voice of heaven from the hosts condescended by miraculous holy mountain, the same eloquent interposition, to raise them up a speaker was separated from among deliverer, the want of eloquence the children of Israel, to minister was pleaded, by the chosen object in the priest's office ; to bear the of his ministry, as an argument of iniquity of their holy things ; to his incompetency for the high com- offer up to God, their creator and mission, with which he was to be preserver, the publick tribute of charged. To supply this deficien- their social adoration. cy, , which, even in the communi- In the fables of Greece and cation of more than human pow- Egypt the importance of eloquence ers, Eternal Wisdom had not seen is attested by the belief, that the fit to remove, another favoured art of publick speaking was of servant of the Most High was uni- celestial origin, ascribed to the inted in the exalted trust of deliver- vention of a God, who, from the ance, and specially appointed, for possession of this faculty, was supthe purpose of declaring the divine posed to be the messenger and will, to the oppressor and the op- interpreter of Olympus. It is atpressed : to the monarch of E- tested by the solicitude, with which gypt and the children of Israel. the art was cultivated at a peri“ Is not Aaron the Levite thy bro- od of the remotest antiquity. ther? I know that he can speak With the first giimpse of historwell. And he shall be thy spokes. ical truth, which bursts from the man unto the people : and he shall oriental regions of mythological be, even he shall be to thee in- romance, in that feeble and dustead of a mouth, and thou shalt bious twilight, which scarcely disbe to him instead of God." It cerns the distinction between the was not sufficient for the beneficent fictions of pagan superstition and purposes of divine Providence that the narrative of real events, a the shepherd of his flock should school of rhetorick and oratory, be invested with the power of per- established in the Peloponnesus, forming signs and wonders to au- dawns upon our view. After the thenticate his mission, and com- lapse of a thousand years from mand obedience to his words.... that time, Pausanias, a Grecian The appropriate instrument to geographer and historian, explicit appal the heart of the tyrant upon ly asserts, that he had read a his throne, and to control the treatise upon the art, composed by wayward dispositions of the people, the founder of this school, a cowas an eloquent speaker ; and the temporary and relative of Theseus importance of the duty is apparent in the age preceding that of the in the distinction, whích separated Trojan war. The poems of Hoit from all the other transcendent mer abound with still more deci.