an emotion more personal and more fond-grief and exulta tion contending for mastery, as in the bosom of the desolated parent, whose tears could not hinder him from exclaiming, 'I would not exchange my dead son for any living one of Christendom.'

"With prospects bright, upon the world he came—
Pure love of virtue, strong desire of fame;

Men watched the way his lofty mind would tako,
And all foretold the progress he would make.'

"And yet, if on some day as that season was drawing to its close, it had been foretold to him, that before his life— prolonged to little more than threescore years and ten— should end, he should see that country, in which he was coming to act his part, expanded across a continent; the thirteen states of 1801 multiplied to thirty-one; the territory of the Northwest and the great valley below sown full of those stars of empire; the Mississippi forded, and the Sabine, and Rio Grande, and the Nueces; the ponderous gates of the Rocky Mountains opened to shut no more; the great tranquil sea become our sea; her area seven times larger, her people five times more in number; that through all experiences of trial, the madness of party, the injustice of foreign powers, the vast enlargement of her borders, the antagonisms of interior interest and feeling-the spirit of nationality would grow stronger still and more plastic; that the tide of American feeling would run ever fuller; that her agriculture would grow more scientific; her arts more various and instructed,

and better rewarded; her commerce winged to a wider and still wider flight; that the part she would play in human affairs would grow nobler ever, and more recognised; that in this vast growth of national greatness time would be found for the higher necessities of the soul; that her popular and her higher education would go on advancing; that her charities and all her enterprises of philanthropy would go on enlarging; that her age of lettered glory would find its auspicious dawn: and then it had been also foretold him that even so, with her grace and strength, should his fame grow and be established and cherished, there where she should garner up her heart; that by long gradations of service and labor he should rise to be, before he should taste of death, of the peerless among her great ones; that he should win the double honor, and wear the double wreath of professional and public supremacy; that he should become her wisest to counsel and her most eloquent to persuade; that he should come to be called the Defender of the Constitution and the preserver of honorable peace; that the 'austere glory of suffering' to save the Union should be his; that his death, at the summit of greatness, on the verge of a ripe and venerable age, should be distinguished, less by the flags at half-mast on ocean and lake, less by the minute-gun, less by the public procession, and the appointed eulogy, than by the sudden paleness overspreading all faces, by gushing tears, by sorrow, thoughtful, boding, silent, the sense of desolateness, as if renown and grace were dead; as if the hunter's path, and the sailor's in the great solitude of wilderness or sea, henceforward were more lonely

and less safe than before; had this prediction been whispered. how calmly had that perfect sobriety of mind put it all aside as a pernicious or idle dream! Yet, in the fulfilment of that prediction is told the remaining story of his life.

"But it is time that the eulogy was spoken.

*

My heart goes back into the coffin there with him, and I would pause. I went, it is a day or two since, alone, to see again the home which he so dearly loved, the chamber where he died, the grave in which they laid him, all habited as when

'His look drew audience still as night,

Or summer's noontide air,'

till the heavens be no more. Throughout that spacious and calm scene all things to the eye showed at first unchanged. The books in the library, the portraits, the table at which he wrote, the scientific culture of the land, the course of agricultural occupation, the coming in of harvests, fruit of the seed his own hand had scattered, the animals and implements of husbandry, the trees planted by him in lines, in copses, in orchards, by thousands, the seat under the noble elm on which he used to sit to feel the southwest wind at evening, or hear the breathings of the sea, or the not less audible music of the starry heavens, all seemed at first unchanged. The sun of a bright day, from which, however, something of the fervors of mid-summer were wanting, fell temperately on them all, filled the air on all sides with the utterances of life, and gleamed on the long line of ocean. Some of those whom on earth he

loved best, still were there. The great mind still seemed to preside; the great presence to be with you. You might expect to hear again the rich and playful tones of the voice ⚫ of the old hospitality. Yet a moment more, and all the scene took on the aspect of one great monument, inscribed with his name, and sacred to his memory. And such it shall be in all the future of America! The sensation of desolateness, and loneliness, and darkness with which you see it now will pass away; the sharp grief of love and friendship will become soothed; men will repair thither, as they are wont to commemorate the great days of history; the same glance shall take in, and the same emotions shall greet and bless the Harbor of the Pilgrims and the Tomb of Webster."

HORACE MANN.

THE name and fame of the distinguished subject of this sketch are world-wide. He is known, honored, and appre ciated as the promoter of education and the defender of the oppressed. The mantle dropped by the lamented Adams sits gracefully upon his shoulders. He is eminent as a writer, a speaker, a scholar, and a statesman. His essays and his speeches command the attention and win the admiration of all who read or hear them. He never fails to get the eyes and ears, if not the hearts, of his hearers, whether they be little children in a common school, or larger ones in Congress. He is a prophet who hath honor in his own and other countries. The first time the writer saw him, was at the opening of a primary school in Boston. Several prominent men had spoken to the children present, in unintelligible language; in fact, they spoke to the youths as they were accustomed to speak to adults. By-and-by, a tall, thin, graceful man, with a high forehead and silvery hair, arose in one corner of the room, and in a familiar manner asked the children to let him see their red lips and bright eyes. In a moment a sea of sunny faces was turned toward him. He told them to persevere in the acquisition of knowledge, and asked them if they ever saw a honey-bee go out from its hive on a May morning in pursuit of its sweets. They said they had seen the bee on his tour among the flowers. "Now," continued the speaker,