Mr. Everett’s Eulogy.—Although pressed for room, we cannot deny our readers the pleasure of perusing a single extract from the Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, pronounced before the citizens of Charlestown, on the 1st inst. Of this eulogy a cotemporary remarked that its was delivered “with great effect and graceful eloquence,” and we feel confident the reader will, on perusal of the production, concur at once in the justness of the remark. It seems hardly necessary to add, however just, that the eulogy was prepared at short notice.—Boston Patriot.
“But no, fellow-citizens, we dismiss them not to the chambers of forgetfulness and death. What we admired, and prized, and venerated in them, can never die, nor dying, be forgotten. I had almost said that they are now beginning to live; to live that life of unimpaired influence, of unclouded fame, of unmingled happiness, for which their talents and services were destined. They were of the select few, the least portion of whose life dwells in their physical existence; whose hearts have watched, while their senses have slept; whose souls have grown up into a higher being; whose pleasure is to be useful; whose wealth is an unblemished reputation; who respire the breath of honorable fame; who have deliberately and consciously put what is called life to hazard, that they may live in the hearts of those who come after. Such men do not, cannot die. To be cold and motionless and breathless; to feel not and speak not; this is not the end of existence to the men who have breathed their spirits into the institutions of their country, who have stamped their characters on the pillars of the age, who have poured their heart’s blood into the channels of the public prosperity. Tell me, ye, who tread the sods of yon sacred height, is Warren dead? Can you not see him, not pale and prostrate, the blood of his gallant heart pouring out of his ghastly wound, but moving resplendant over the field of his honor, with the rose of Heaven upon his cheek and the fire of liberty in his eye? Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to the shades of Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up in that cold and narrow house? That which made these men, and men like these, cannot die. The hand that traced the charter of independence is indeed motionless, the eloquent lips that sustained it, are hushed; but the lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, matured, maintained it, and which alone to such men, ‘make it life to live,’ these cannot expire;—
- These shall resist the empire of decay,
- When time is o’er, and worlds have passed away;
- Cold in the dust, the perished heart may lie,
- But that, which warmed it once, can never die.
This is their life and this their eulogy. In these our feeble services of commemoration, we set forth not their worth but our own gratitude. The eulogy of those, who declared our independence, is written in the whole history of independent America. I do not mean that they alone wrought our liberties; nor should we bring a grateful offering to their tombs, in sacrificing at them the merits of their contemporaries. But no one surely, who considers the history of the times, the state of opinions, the power of England, the weakness of the colonies, and the obstacles that actually stood in the way of success, can doubt, that if John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had thrown their talents and influence into the scale of submission, the effect would have been felt to the cost of America for ages. No, it is not too much to say, that ages on ages may pass, and the growing millions of America may overflow the uttermost regions of this continent, but never can there be an American citizen, who will not bear in his condition, in his pursuits, and in his welfare, some trace of what was counselled, and said, and done by these great men. This is their undying praise; a praise which knows no limits but those of America, and which is uttered not merely in these our eulogies but in the thousand inarticulate voices of art and nature. It sounds from the woodman’s axe in the distant forests of the west; for what was it that unbarred the portals of the mountains? The busy water wheel echos back the strain; for what was it that released the industry of the country from the fetters of colonial restriction? Their praise is borne on the swelling canvass of America to distant oceans, where the rumor of acts of trade never came; for what was it that sent our canvass there? and it glistens at home, in the eyes of the happy population of a prosperous and grateful country. Yes, the people, the people rise up and call them blessed. They invoke eternal blessings on the men, who could be good as well as great, whose ambition was their country’s welfare, who did not ask to be rewarded by oppressing themselves the country they redeemed from oppression.