Mr. EVERETT’S EULOGY
It is but a day or two since, that we had an opportunity of perusing the chaste and beautiful Eulogy delivered by Mr. Everett, at Charlestown, in commemoration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Emanating from a lively and highly cultivated imagination, and from a mind richly endowed with all the beauties of classic literature, the style of this gentleman’s oratory is remarkable for the profundity of its research, the felicity of its phraseology, the music of its periods, and that vigilant and unerring judgment under the direction of which the happiest means are rendered productive of the most efficient results. The eulogy now lying before us exhibits no exception to this general character. It is full of grace and harmony; of fresh and beautiful language impregned with glowing thought: and although, as we are informed it was, prepared in haste, displaying with, perhaps, a few trifling exceptions, the maturity of preparation.
The following beautiful reference to the Roman practice will particularly strike the classic reader.
It was the custom of the primitive Romans, to preserve in the halls of their houses the images of all the illustrious men whom their families had produced. These images are supposed to have consisted of a mask exactly representing the countenance of each deceased individual, accompanies with habiliments of like fashion with those worn in his time, and with the armor, badges and insignia of his offices and exploits; all so disposed around the sides of the hall as to present in the attitude of living men the long succession of the departed; and thus to set before the Roman citizen, whenever he entered or left his habitation, the venerable array of his ancestors revived in this imposing similitude. Whenever, by a death in the family, another distinguished member of it was gathered to his fathers, a strange and awful procession was formed. The ancestral masks, including that of the newly deceased, were fitted upon the servants of the family, selected in the size and appearance of those whom they were to represent, and drawn up in a solemn array to follow the funeral train of the living mourners, first to the market place, where the public eulogium was pronounced, and then to the tomb. As he thus moved along with all the dark fathers of his name, resuscitated in the lineaments of life, and quickening, as it were, from their arms, to enkindle his mutation, the virtuous Roman renewed his vows of pious respect to their memory and his resolution to imitate the fortitude, the frugality, and the patriotism of the great heads of his family.
The version of Polybius which is here given, varies from the translations which are in general use. In these, we believe, it is represented as if these images were merely fixed to wooden trunks. The true nature of the practice was, not long ago, disclosed by a fortunate emendation of the text of Polybius, by the last editor Schweighauser, who gave the new reading on the authority of manuscripts, and thus put us in possession of the true account of this singular but ill-understood Roman custom. Hampton, in his translation, gives the following account of the practice, which, it will be seen, lacks all the interesting detail of the amended version. Speaking of the manner of burying an illustrious person, after recounting the ceremonies at the forum, he continues—
“He is then buried with the usual rites; and, afterwards, an image, which both in features and complexion expresses an exact resemblance of his face, is set up in the most conspicuous part of the house, enclosed in a shrine of wood. Upon solemn festivals these images are uncovered, and adorned with the greatest care. And when any other person of the same family dies, they are carried also in the funeral procession, with a body added to the bust, that the representation may be just, even with regard to size. They are dressed likewise in the habits that belong to the ranks which they severally filled when they were alive. If they were consuls or prætors, in a gown bordered with purple; if censors, in a purple robe; and if they triumphed, or obtained any similar honor, in a vest embroidered with gold. Thus apparalled, they are drawn along in chariots preceded by the rods and axes, and other ensigns of their former dignity. And when they arrive at the forum, they are all seated upon chairs of ivory; and there exhibit the noblest object that can be offered to a youthful mind, warmed with the love of virtue and of glory. For who can behold without emotion the forums of so many illustrious men, thus living, as it were, and creating together in his presence? Or what spectacle can be conceived more great and striking? The person also that is appointed to harangue, when he has exhausted all the praises of the deceased, turns his discourse to the rest whose images are before him; and beginning with the most ancient of them, recounts the fortunes and exploits of every one in turn. By this method, which renews continually the remembrance of men celebrated for their virtue, the source of every great and noble action becomes immortal: and the glory of those by whose services their country have been benefited, is rendered familiar to the people, and delivered down to future times.
The following extract is replete with just thought and felicitous expression.
It is related as a singular felicity of the great philosopher Plato, that he died, at a good old age, at a banquet surrounded with flowers and perfumes, amidst festal songs, on his birth-day. Our Adams and Jefferson died on the birth-day of the nation; the day which their own deed had immortalized, which their own prophetic spirit had marked out, as the great festival of the nation, not amidst the festal songs of the banquet, but amidst the triumphal anthems of a whole grateful people. At the moment that Jefferson expired, his character was the theme of eulogy, in every city and almost every village of the land; and the lingering spirit of his great co-patriot fled, whilst his name was pronounced with grateful recollection, at the board of patriotic festivity, throughout a country, that hailed him as among the first and boldest of her champions, even in the days when friends were few and hearts were faint.
Our jubilee, like that of old, is turned into sorrow. Among the crumbling ruins of Rome, there is a shattered arch, reared by the emperor Vespasian, when his son Titus returned from the destruction of Jerusalem. On its broken pannels and falling frieze are still to be seen, represented as borne aloft in the triumphal procession of Titus, the well known spoils of the second temple, the sacred vessels of the holy place, the candlestick with seven branches, and, in front of all, the silver trumpets of the jubilee, in the hands of captive priests, proclaiming not now the liberty, but the humiliation and the sorrows of Judah. From this mournful spectacle, the pious and heart-stricken Hebrew, even to the present day, turns aside in sorrow; he will not enter Rome, through the gate of the arch of Titus, but winds his way through the byepaths of the Palatine, and over the broken columns of the palace of the Cæsars, that he may not behold the sad image of the trumpets of the Jubilee, borne aloft in the captive train.
The jubilee of America is turned into mourning. Its joy is mingled with sadness; its silver trumpet must breathe a mingled strain. Henceforward and forever, while America exists among the nations of the earth, the first emotion on the fourth of July shall be of joy and triumph, in the great event which immortalizes the day, the second shall be one of chastised and tender recollection of the venerable men, who departed on the morning of the jubilee. This mingled emotion of triumph and sadness has sealed the moral beauty and sublimity of our great anniversary. In the simple commemoration of a victorious political achievement, there seems not enough to occupy all our purest and best feelings. The fourth of July was before a day of unshaded triumph, exultation, and national pride; but the angel of death has mingled in the all-glorious pageant, to teach us we are men. Had our venerated fathers left us any other day, the day of the united departure of two such men would henceforward have been remembered but as a day of mourning. But now while their decease has gently chastened the exultations of the triumphant festival; the glad banner of our independence will wave cheerfully over the spot where their dust reposes. The whole nation feels as with one heart, that since it must sooner or later have been bereaved of its revered fathers, it could not have wished that any other had been the day of their decease. Our anniversary festival was before triumphant, it is now triumphant and sacred. It before called out the young and ardent, to join in the public rejoicings; it now also speaks, in a touching voice, to the retired, to the greyheaded, to the mild and peaceful spirits, to the whole family of sober freemen. With some appeal of joy, of admiration, of tenderness, it henceforth addresses every American heart. It is henceforward, what the dying Adams pronounced it, a great and a good day. It is full of greatness and full of goodness. It is absolute and complete. The death of the men, who declared our independence,—their death on the day of the jubilee, was all that was wanting to the fourth of July. To die on that day, and to die together, was all that was wanting to Jefferson and Adams.
Think not, fellow-citizens, that, in the mere formal discharge of my duty this day, I would overrate the melancholy interest of the great occasion. Heaven knows, I do anything but intentionally overrate it. I labor only for words, to do justice to your feelings and to mine. I can say nothing which does not sound as cold, as tame, and as inadequate to myself as to you. The theme is too great and too surprising, the men are too great and good to be spoken of, in this cursory manner. There is too much in the contemplation of their united characters, their services, the day and coincidence of their death, to be properly described, to be fully felt at once. I dare not come here and dismiss, in a few summary paragraphs, the characters of men, who have filled such a space in the history of their age. It would be a disrespectful familiarity with men of their lofty spirits, their rich endowment, their deep counsels, and wise measures, their long and honorable lives, to endeavor thus to weigh and estimate them. I leave that arduous task to the genius of kindred elevation, by whom to-morrow it will be discharged. I feel the mounful contrast in the fortunes of the first and best of men, that after a life in the highest walks of usefulness; after conferring benefits, not merely on a neighborhood, a city, or even a state, but on a continent, a prosterity of kindred men; after having stood in the first estimation for talents, services, and influence, among millions of fellow-citizens, a day should come, which closes all up; pronounces a brief blessings on the memory of the departed! gives an hour in the actions of a crowded life; describe in a sentence what it took years to bring to pass, and what is destined for years and ages to continue and operate on posterity; forces into a few words the riches of busy days of action and weary nights of meditation; passes forgetfully over many traits of character, many counsels, and measures which it cost perhaps years of discipline and and effort to mature; utters a funeral prayer; chaunts a mournful anthem; and then dismisses all into the dark chambers of death and forgetfulness.
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 not 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, whilst 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 resplendent 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 life,
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 out 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, 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.
We have only room in addition to these extracts to add the striking peroration of the orator, the quotation of which will supersede the necessity of remark.
The declining period of their lives presents their own characters, in the most delightful aspect, and furnishes the happiest illustration of the perfection of our political system. We behold a new spectacle of moral sublimity; the peaceful old age of the retired chiefs of the republic; an evening of learned, useful, and honored leisure following upon a youth of hazard, a manhood of service, a whole life of alternate trial and success. We behold them indeed active and untiring, even to the last. At the advanced age of eighty-five years, our venerable fellow-citizen and neighbor, is still competent to take a part in the councils for revising the state constitution, to whose original formation forty years ago he so essentially contributed; and Mr. Jefferson, at the same protracted term of life was able to project and carry on to their completion, the extensive establishments of the University of Virginia.
But it is the great and closing scene, which appears, by higher allotment, to crown their long and exalted career, with a consummation almost miraculous. Having done so much and so beneficially for their country; at that last moment, when man can no more do any thing for his country or for himself, it pleased a kind Providence to take their existence into his hands, and to do that for both of them, which, to the end of time, will cause them to be deemed, not more happy in the renown of their lives than in the opportunity of their death.(*)
I could give neither force nor interest to the account of these sublime and touching scenes, by any thing beyond the simple recital of the facts, already familiar to the public. The veil of eternity was first lifted up, from before the eyes of Mr. Jefferson. For several weeks his strength had been gradually failing, though his mind’s vigor remained unimpaired. As he drew nearer to the last, and no expectation remained that his term could be much protracted, he expressed no other wish, than that he might live to breathe the air of the fiftieth anniversary of independence. This he was graciously permitted to do. But it was evident, on the morning of the 4th, that Providence intended that this day, consecrated by his deeds, should now be solemnized by his death. On some momentary revival of his wasting strength, the friends around would have soothed him with the hope of continuing; but he answered their kind encouragements only by saying, he did not fear to die. Once, as he drew nearer to his close, he lifted up his head and murmured with a smile ‘it is the fourth of July;’ while his repeated exclamation, on the last great day was, Nunc dimittis, Domine, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’ He departed in peace, a little before one o’clock of this memorable day; unconscious that his co-patriot, who fifty years before had shared its efforts and perils, was now the partner of its glory.
Mr. Adams’ mind had also wandered back, over the long line of great things, with which his life was filled, and found rest on the thought of Independence. When the discharges of artillery proclaimed the triumphant anniversary, he pronounced it ‘a great and a good day.’ The thrilling word of Independence, which, fifty years before, in the ardour of his manly strength, he had sounded out to the nations, at the head of his country’s councils, was now among the last that dwelt on his quivering lips; and when, toward the hour of noon, he felt his noble heart growing cold within him, the last emotion which warmed it was, ‘that Jefferson still survives.’ But he survives not; he is gone: Ye are gone together!
Take them, Great God, together to thy rest!
Friends, fellow-citizens, free, prosperous, happy Americans! The men who did so much to make you so, are no more. The men who gave nothing to pleasure in youth, nothing to repose in age, but all to that country, whose beloved name filled their hearts as it does ours, with joy, can now do no more for us; nor we for them. But their memory remains, we will cherish it; their bright example remains, we will strive to imitate it; the print of their wise counsels and noble acts remain, we will gratefully enjoy it.
They have gone to the companions of their cares, of their dangers, and their toils. It is well with them. The treasures of America are now in Heaven. How long the list of our good, and wise, and brave, assembled there; how few remain with us. There is our Washington; and those who followed him in their country’s confidence, are now met together with him, and all that illustrious company.
The faithful marble may preserve their image; the engraved brass may proclaim their worth; but the humblest sod of Independent America, with nothing but the dew-drops of the morning to gild it, is a prouder mausoleum than kings or conquerors can boast. The country is their monument. Its independence is their epitaph. But not to their country is their praise limited. The whole earth is the monument of illustrious men. Wherever an agonizing people shall perish, in a generous convulsion, for want of a valiant arm and a fearless heart, they will cry, in the last accents of despair, Oh for a Washington, an Adams, a Jefferson. Wherever a regenerated nation, starting up in its might, shall burst the links of steel that enchain it, the praise of our venerated Fathers shall be the prelude of their triumphal song.
The contemporary and successive generations of men will disappear. In the long laps of ages, the Tribes of America, like those of Greece and Rome, may pass away. The fabric of American Freedom, like all things human, however firm and fair, may crumble into dust. But the cause in which these our Fathers shone is immortal. They did that, to which no age, no people of reasoning men, can be indifferent. Their eulogy will be uttered in other languages when those we speak, like us who speak them, shall be all forgotten. And when the great account of humanity should be closed at the throne of God, in the bright list of his children who best adorned and served it shall be found the name of our Adams and our Jefferson.
Tacit., J. Agricol. Vit. Cap. XLV.
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