TAYLOR AT BUENA VISTA.

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for her but the sot's disgusting brutality-nothing for those abashed and trembling children, but the sot's disgusting example!

Can we wonder that, amid these agonizing moments, the tender cords of violated affection should snap asunder? that the scorned and deserted wife should confess, "there is no killing like that which kills the heart"?- that, though it would have been hard for her to kiss for the last time the cold lips of her dead husband, and lay his body for ever in the dust, it is harder to behold him so debasing life, that even his death would be greeted in mercy?

Had he died in the light of his goodness, bequeathing to his family the inheritance of an untarnished name, the example of virtues that should blossom for his sons and daughters from the tomb though she would have wept bitterly indeed, the tears of grief would not have been also the tears of shame. But to behold him, fallen away from the station he once adorned, degraded from eminence to ignominy at home, turning his dwelling to darkness, and its holy endearments to mockery — abroad, thrust from the companionship of the worthy, a self-branded outlaw - this is the woe that the wife feels is more dreadful than death, that she mourns over as worse than widowhood.

CHARLES SPRAGUE.

XXXIII. - TAYLOR AT BUENA VISTA.

PERHAPS in the history of the world the power of a single will was never more triumphantly exhibited than it was at Buena Vista. Taylor had been advised to fall back for safety on Monterey-stripped of some of his best troops, far advanced in the enemies' country, with an army numbering only about four thousand, and but one third of them regulars; with no reserved force to support him; with the intelligence brought in that Santa. Anna, at the head of twenty thousand men, was marching against him; then he took his position in a gorge of the Sierra Madre, and determined to meet the shock of battle. He would neither retreat nor resign; he would fight.

There flashed forth a great spirit! The battle came; the odds were fearful; but who could doubt the result when American troops stood in that modern Thermopyla, and in the presence of such a leader? It was in vain that Mexican artillery played upon their ranks, or Mexican infantry bore down with the bayonet, or Mexican lancers charged. The spirit of the great leader

pervaded the men who fought with him, and a single glance of his eye could reänimate a wavering column.

Like Napoleon at the Danube, he held his men under fire because he was exposed to it himself; and like him, wherever he rode along the lines mounted on a white charger, a conspicuous mark for balls, men would stand and be shot down, but they would not give way. Of Taylor on that day it may be said, as it has been said of Lannes at Montebello, "He was the rock of that battle-field, around which men stood with a tenacity which nothing could move. If he had fallen, in five minutes that battle would have been a rout." That battle closed Gen. Taylor's military career, and that battle alone gives him a title to immortality.

H. W. HILLIARD.

XXXIV. - LITERARY PURSUITS.

You will perhaps be told, fellow-students, that literary pursuits will disqualify you for the active business of life. Heed not the idle assertion. Reject it as a mere imagination, inconsistent with principle, unsupported by experience. Point out to those who make it, the illustrious characters who have reaped in every age the highest honors of studious and active exertion. Show them Demosthenes, forging by the light of the midnight lamp those thunderbolts of eloquence which

"Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece ·

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

-

Ask them if Cicero would have been hailed with rapture as the father of his country, if he had not been its pride and pattern in philosophy and letters. Inquire whether Cæsar, or Frederick, or Bonaparte, or Wellington, or Washington, fought the worse because they knew how to write their own commentaries. Remind them of Franklin, tearing at the same time the lightning from heaven, and the scepter from the hands of the oppressor.

Do they say to you that study will lead you to skepticism? Recall to their memory the venerable names of Bacon, Milton, Newton, and Locke. Would they persuade you that devotion to learning will withdraw your steps from the paths of pleasure? Tell them they are mistaken. Tell them that the only true pleasures are those which result from the diligent exercise of all the faculties of body, and mind, and heart, in pursuit of noble ends by noble means. Repeat to them the ancient apologue of the youthful Hercules, in the pride of strength and beauty, giving up his gen

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erous soul to the worship of virtue. Tell them your choice is also made. Tell them, with the illustrious Roman orator, you would rather be in the wrong with Plato, than in the right with Epicurus. Tell them that a mother in Sparta would have rather seen her son brought home from battle a corpse upon his shield, than dishonored by its loss. Tell them that your mother is America, your battle the warfare of life, your shield the breastplate of Religion.

A. H. EVERETT.

XXXV. DEFENSE OF MR. MADISON.

You object to Mr. Madison, the want of energy. The want of energy! How has Mr. Madison shown it? Was it in standing abreast with the van of our Revolutionary patriots, and braving the horrors of a seven years' war for liberty, while you were shuddering at the sound of the storm, and clinging closer with terror to your mothers' breasts? Was it, on the declaration of our independence, in being among the first and most effective agents in casting aside the feeble threads which so poorly connected the states together, and, in lieu of them, substituting that energetic bond of union, the Federal Constitution? Was it in the manner in which he advocated the adoption of this substitute; in the courage and firmness with which he met, on this topic, fought hand to hand, and finally vanquished, that boasted prodigy of nature, Patrick Henry?

Is this the proof of his want of energy? Or will you find it in the manner in which he watched the first movements of the Federal Constitution? He was then in a minority. Turn to the debates of Congress, and read his arguments: you will see how the business of a virtuous and able minority is conducted. Do you discover in them any evidence of want of energy? Yos; if energy consist, as you seem to think it does, in saying rude things, in bravado and bluster, in pouring a muddy torrent of coarse invective, as destitute of argument as unwarranted by provocation, you will find great evidence of want of energy in his speeches.

But, if true energy be evinced, as we think it is, by the calm and dignified, yet steady, zealous, and persevering pursuit of an object, his whole conduct during that period is honorably marked with energy. And that energy rested on the most solid and durable basis-conscious rectitude; supported by the most profound and extensive information, by an habitual power of investigation, which unraveled, with intuitive certainty, the most

intricate subjects; and an eloquence, chaste, luminous, and cogent, which won respect, while it forced conviction.

But what an idea is yours of energy! You feel a constitutional irritability; you indulge it, and you call that indulgence energy! Sudden fits of spleen, transient starts of passion, wild paroxysms of fury, the more slow and secret workings of envy and resentment, cruel taunts and sarcasms, the dreams of disordered fancy, the crude abortions of short-sighted theory, the delirium and ravings of a hectic fever, this is your notion of energy! Heaven preserve our country from such energy as this! If this be the kind of energy which you deny to Mr. Madison, the people will concur in your denial. But, if you deny him that salutary energy which qualifies him to pursue his country's happiness and to defend her rights, we follow up the course of his public life, and demand the proof of your charge.

WM. WIRT.

XXXVI. - LAW THE POWER OF ALL.

Ir, fellow-citizens, whenever the pride of a state is offended, or her selfishness rebuked, she may assume an attitude of defiance, may pour her rash and angry menaces on her confederated sisters, may claim a sovereignty altogether independent of them, and acknowledge herself to be bound to the Union by no ties but such as she may dissolve at pleasure, we do indeed hold our political existence by a most precarious tenure, and the future destinies of our country are as dark and uncertain as the past have been happy and glorious.

Happy is that country, fellow-citizens, and only that, where the laws are not only just and equal, but supreme and irresistible; where selfish interests and disorderly passions are curbed by an arm to which they must submit. We look back with horror and affright to the dark and troubled ages when a cruel and gloomy superstition tyrannized over the people of Europe; dreaded alike by kings and people, by governments and individuals; before which the law had no force, justice no respect, and mercy no influence. The sublime precepts of morality, the kind and endearing charities, the true and rational reverence for a bountiful Creator, which are the elements and the life of our religion, were trampled upon, in the reckless career of ambition, pride, and the lust of power. Nor was it much better when the arm of the warrior and the sharpness of his sword determined every question of right, and held the weak in bondage to the strong; and the revengeful feuds of the great involved in one common ruin

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themselves and their humblest vassals. These disastrous days are gone, never to return. There is no power but the Law, which is the power of all; and those who administer it are the masters and the ministers of all.

JOSEPH HOPKINSON.

XXXVII. — FATE OF THE INDIANS.

In the fate of the Aborigines* of our country- the American Indiansthere is much, fellow-citizens, 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. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave.

The

But where are they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth? the sachems and tribes? the hunters and their families? 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

* Pronounced ab-o-rij'i-nēs.