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With the transactions of the present hour you naturally associate the events of other years. You call to mind the history of your society, which has existed more than a century. With gratitude to Providence, you reflect upon its flourishing state under the care of a Coleman, venerable for his piety and learning; of a Cooper, eminently useful and beloved; of his son and successor, whose talents, literature, patriotism, and urbanity, rendered him not only the boast of the church, but an ornament to his country; and of the late eloquent and beneficent Thacher, whose charming accents still vibrate in our ears, and whose memory will never be erased from our hearts. p. 35.

This is high praise; but it is below the truth. The character of Dr. Coleman has often been described to us by an aged friend. He was a man as amiable for his candour and humility, as he was venerable for his piety and learning. Though he laboured incessantly to correct and polish his discourses, yet after all his pains he entertained a low opinion of them, and esteemed them far inferiour to those of many of his brethren. Fo young clergymen he was attentive and indulgent; and he took pleasure in displaying their abilities, and in bestowing on them the praise, to which they were entitled. His charming pulpit talents and the elegance of his manners rendered him the delight and the pride of his congregation. -His colleague was a character of a sublimer order. The sermons of Dr. Coleman were applauded by all who heard them; but no man ever thought of applauding the sermons of Mr. Cooper. For he had gained that height of perfection, which few preachers seem to have the inclination or the power of attaining,

the happiness of keeping himse entirely out of sight. He did not for a moment divert the attention of his hearer to the graces of his manner, or the ornaments of his style, but fixed it deeply on his subject. A preacher of terrour, terrour was introduced by him, not for the sake of pulpit effect. but because he felt that it was his duty to alarm the conscience of the sinner. Hence it was, that after the performances of Dr. Coleman, the hearers retired from church with erect countenances and voluble tongues, with a smile of satisfaction for the entertainment which they had enjoyed, and with warm encomiums on the talents of their admired pastor. But when Mr. Cooper had preached, they withdrew, hanging their heads, serious, and silent. His son, the classick, the refined, the all-accomplished Dr. Cooper, we have seen; and we do not expect to see his like again. We also knew his worthy successor; nor can we forbear to lament his death, whilst we recollect the unblemished integrity, which accompanied him in every situation of life.-These four preachers were all distinguished by their eloquence. It does not often happen, that a church is favoured, during so long a period of time, with pastors of such eminent abilities. We regret that the plan of Mr. E. did not permit him to enter more fully into their characters, as he will probably never again be indulged with an opportunity of bestowing his encomiums with equal justice. For in a succession of ministers, governours, or any other description of persons, of whom it is ex

pected that notice should be taken, four or five men of talents or virtue are commonly associated with one or two insignificant or worthless individuals. But if any are praised, all must be praised. For who would willingly give offence to surviving friends by censure, or even by silence? and what heart is so bold, as to dare to call from the tomb frailties, which ought to be buried in oblivion ?

ART. 59.

An Oration, pronounced at Northampton, July 4, 1805, the 29th anniversary of American independence, at the request of the committee of arrangement. By Isaac C. Bates. Northampton, Pomroy. pp. 32.

An Oration, delivered on the 4th of July, 1805, at the North meetinghouse in Salem, Mass. By Ichabod Nichols, ter. Salem, J. Cushing. pp. 24. An Oration, pronounced July 4, 1805, at the request of the federal republicans of Charlestown, at the anniversary of American independence. By Aaron Hill Putnam, Charlestown, Etheridge. pp. 18. An Oration, pronounced July 4, 1805, at the request of the Charlestown light infantry company, before the republican citizens of Charlestown. By Benjamin Gleason, A. M. Boston. An Oration, pronounced at Worcester on the anniversary of American independence, July 4, 1805. By Daniel Waldo Lincoln, A. B. Worcester. Egis press. THE dispute between Great Britain and her colonies, which

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was closed by the peace of 1783, may be justly considered as one of the most important events of the last century. A mob of French, English, Dutch, German, Italian, and American authors have attempted to trace its origin, to delineate its principles, and to detail the events of the war which succeeded; yet we flatter ourselves, that we shall not be singular in the opinion, that few subjects have been less understood, or more grossly misrepresented. The French writers have been singularly unfortunate and extravagant in their compositions on the American revolution.

In consequence of the treaty of alliance between France and the American States

Frenchmen displayed an uncom

mon interest in our contest with England, and discovered no small degree of anxiety to be acquainted with its history. All who could write were eager to treat on a subject which excited so much interest, and each, in fear of being anticipated, published his production before it was possible to have acquired correct information from this country, or even to have collected that, which might otherwise have been procured in Europe. Many of their histories

are therefore no better than romances, and a man may acquire as much correct information from Homer's Iliad, as from their productions on the American revolution. Call General Washington Achilles, and Lord Cornwallis Hector, and, as has been correctly observed, you would have little doubt, that you were reading the history of the Trojan war. The American revolution, thus badly

rians, and worse misrepresented as to its principles by many of the July orators, resembles no more the revolution, which our heroes and statesmen magnanimously achieved, than the mangled phantom*, which Eneas met in his descent to Avernus, resembled the faultless figure of Deiphobus, when rioting on the charms of his fair Helen.

detailed as to its events by histo- unraked not thrown together and covered." The ashes of the dead are raked open, &c. would have conveyed the author's meaning in correct language. Truer, in the 14th page, is an expression, which the philosophy of language does not admit. In universal grammar true is one of those adjectives which exclude comparison. Notwithstanding the errours of this oration, we are not insensible to its many beauties, and cannot but regret, that the limits of this publication prevent our making many extracts. Alluding to the want of energy in the present administration in regard to our countrymen in Tripoli, "whitening and fading in the solitary cells of darkness and disease," our author exclaims :

....

The oration by Mr. Bates is unquestionably written by a man of respectable talents. He defends with much ingenuity, and with the zeal of an honest man, the federal constitution, and the measures of an administration, which, as has been acknowledged by one of its most insidious and inveterate enemies in an inaugu ral speech, has brought this country to the height of political experiment. The style of this performance, though often nervous and animated, is neither elegant nor correct; and we are inclined to believe, that the author, had he given himself more time, might have comprised in a much smaller compass what he has now extended to thirty pages. In the 6th page, "The ashes of the dead are unraked with deliberate coolness to glut the rage of envy," &c. We apprehend the author has mistaken the meaning of the word unraked. Johnson defines

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There was a time, my countrymen, when the voice of Greece rocked the throne of Priam, to redeem an individbattlements of Troy, and shook the

ual. But that was an age of magnanimity; heroes ruled, and cowards played with children.

Speaking of the pusillanimous conduct of the administration as it respects foreign nations, Mr. Bates observes,

With a fawning submission, we crawl to the footstool of nations, and demanded as a right. In France, we curse intreat as a favour what we might have and slander the enemies of the Great Republick; we applaud and caress the tyrant; we outstrip the obsequious multitudes that surround him, and receive a snuff box for our adoration. rod of England, we beg her pardon, When tutored for our conduct, by the and promise to reform.

In his peroration our orator enforces, with much warmth and

carnestness, serious truths, which Americans would do well to consider and lay to heart.

Though the course we ought to follow be clear as the sun, we have no reason to expect that prejudice will yield, or that truth will triumph.

There is a strange fatality attending man. Should an Angel from Heaven preach to a congregation on the great principles of morality and a judgment to come, each individual would believe himself excepted. Though we have the testimony of all history without a single exception or contradiction, and the evidence of our own experience, that anarchy alone is the door which can open tyranny to our view, yet we will not believe it. But the judgment will come; and if we refuse to listen to the warning voice that whispers from the ruins of our predecessors, the period is on the wing, rapid as the flight of time

and certain as the shaft of fate, when it will be forever too late; when our liberty will be gone and with it all that can cheer, can animate, or confole. Some future traveller may sit, like the son of Hilkiah on the ruins, and apostrophise the desolation that surrounds him. Here once was the seat of a great empire. Under the smiles of Heaven and of freedom, she was virtuous and happy. But parties arose, freedom fled, and now she is left desolate. "How doth the city mourn that was full of people. All her friends have dealt treacherously

with her." The sound of the lute is

no more heard in her cottage; innocence no more sports upon her mountains; but the streams murmur to the silence of the forest; and the blasts of the evening sigh through the wide and

melancholy waste.

The oration by Mr. Nichols we understand was hasty. Some of his positions seem therefore to have been carelessly examined. His reasonings are of consequence not always conclusive, and though on the whole the performance may be pronounced tolerably judicious and spirited, it will proba

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The oration by Mr. Gleason, to borrow the beauties of its author, "is a standing monument of impoverished ostentation and pre-eminent insignificance." Residing in the neighbourhood of a geographer, our orator appears to have taken the geographical disease the natural way, for it breaks out in the forehead of this performance with the names of more countries than are contained in the American Gazetteer. We enumerated twenty on the face of a single page, but the complaint growing confluent as we advanced, a further lustration was postponed for future leisure. In fact, the performance is altogether so singular in its structure, that one is puzzled how to take hold of it. "It is not o'the earth, and yet is on't." Our society wished it to slip through their fingers for a bad job, but it is so exquisite a recipe for the vapours, that it would be siding with the faculty not to give you a taste of its quality.”

See! your brave countrymen throw ing up entrenchments, on Bunker's Hill! The enemy advancing, with the progress of the Sun,-all is lost!-No! livid Death rushes down their ranks dreadful and tremendous.-They retreat! our Countrymen victorious !-No! all is confusion, shrieks and shouts :-→→ They rally-They return Again again bravely repulsed :-They retreat:Victory!-No-wrought up to a de

gree of desperation-great in numbers-pomp and power, they furiously put forward !-O! God-temper, with mercy, the preponderating scale of war -Spare-Spare our brethren. WARREN falls-Relief ammunition fail! Convulsed, our countrymen make the last struggle-Charlestown in flames! Howe yet trembles in dubious contest. 1 see the interest felt universal, all round the hemisphere of vision-The enemy have reared the standard of victory; but in exaltation, triumph the Americans !-Those take possession of the Hill-but our WARREN, our Countrymen of immortal glory!—

"See!" (Mr. Gleason appears to sce more than any man) "a gathering storm appears at Leechmore's point,-eight hundred troops have landed!!" This interesting climax is not, we are sorry to say it, perfectly original.

“See red hot stones from burning

Eina's top,

Roll down the hill amain, hop, hop,

hop, hop!"

Mr. Lincoln's. Though juvenile performances may claim indulgence, by withholding the rod we may injure the child. The severity of criticism is a vulgar complaint, for more capacities are ruined by the palliatives of praise, than by the asperities of censure. At least, in the present instance, whatever may be thought of the influence of either, no mischief can be apprehended from the ap plication of the latter. The ob

ject of our strictures, if character is developed in composition, is too much elevated with his own consequence to be hurt by the reflections of another. Mr. Lincoln, mistaking acrimony for wit, and confounding finery with orpament, appears desperately bu

sied after sublimity and point, But, as we are all liable to mis construe inclination into capacity, the gentleman will acquit us of the charge of ill-nature, though we should consider him as peculiarly unfortunate in his declamatory endeavours. There are some trees more remarkable for their foliage than for their fruit, and we may be supposed,during the reading of this oration, to have been dozing in the shade, without a single excitement from the fall of an apple. Mr. L. after the rough unseamment of old wounds, by recounting revolutionary cruelties, and after raking together a pro, miscuous handful of last year's political sarcasms, very modestly supposes the business of celebration accomplished. Nothing further follows but a wearisome continuance of former declamation. The same wave, attended with the same froth and the same roar, is continually unbosoming itself. ination might answer to decorate Though such stuff of the imagthe pages of the Egis, Mr. L. should recollect, that something man and a scholar. more is expected from a gentle

NOTICE

Of the American editions of the Classicks, from the press of William Poyntell & Co. Philadelphia.

THESE publications we announced in a recent number of the Anthology, and have since formed our opinion of their merit from an inspection of the editions of Virgil and Sallust.

The editors have chosen for their model the editions in usum

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