heart.

Sorrow labored for utterance, but found none. Every man looked round for the consolation of other men's tears. Gracious Heaven! what consolation! Each face was convulsed with sorrow for the past; every heart shivered with despair for the future. The man who, and who alone, united all hearts, was dead-dead, at the moment when his power to do good was the greatest, and when the aspect of the imminent public dangers seemed more than ever to render his aid indispensable and his loss irreparable-irreparable for two Washingtons come not in one age.

A grief so thoughtful, so profound, so mingled with tenderness and admiration, so interwoven with our national self-love, so often revived by being diffused, is not to be expressed. You have assigned me a task that is impossible.

Oh, if I could perform it, if I could illustrate his principles in my discourse as he displayed them in his life, if I could paint his virtues as he practised them, if I could convert the fervid enthusiasm of my heart into the talent to transmit his fame, as it ought to pass, to posterity, I should be the successful organ of your will, the minister of his virtues, and, may I dare to say, the humble partaker of his immortal glory! These are ambitious, deceiving hopes, and I reject them; for it is, perhaps, almost as difficult at once with judgment

and feeling to praise great actions as to perform them. A lavish and undistinguishing eulogium is not praise; and to discriminate such excellent qualities as were characteristic and peculiar to him would be to raise a name, as he raised it, above envy, above parallel-perhaps, for that very reason, above emulation.

Such a portraying of character, however, must be addressed to the understanding, and, therefore, even if it were well executed, would seem to be rather an analysis of moral principles than the recital of a hero's exploits.

With whatever fidelity I might execute this task, I know that some would prefer a picture drawn to the imagination. They would have our Washington represented of a giant's size and in the character of a hero of romance. They who love to wonder better than to reason would not be satisfied with the contemplation of a great example, unless in the exhibition it should be so distorted into prodigy as to be both incredible and useless. Others, I hope but few,-who think meanly of human nature, will deem it incredible that even Washington should think with as much dignity and elevation as he acted; and they will grovel in vain in the search for mean and selfish motives that could incite and sustain him to devote his life to his country.

Do not these suggestions sound in your ears