Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

He was gratefully sensible of the peculiar felicity of his domestic life. In his beloved home his sickness found all the alleviation, that a judicious and unwearied tenderness could minister; and his intervals of health a succession of every pleasing enjoyment and heartfelt satisfaction. The complacency of his looks, the sweetness of his tones, his mild and often playful manner of imparting instruction, evinced his extreme delight in the society of his family, who felt that they derived from him their chief happiness, and found in his conversation and example a constant excitement to noble and virtuous conduct. As a husband and father, he was all that is provident, kind, exemplary. He was riveted in the regards of those who were in his service. He felt all the ties of kindred. The delicacy, the ardour, and constancy, with which he cherished his friends, his readiness to the offices of good neighbourhood, and his propensity to contrive and execute plans of public improvement, formed traits in his character, each of remarkable strength. He cultivated friendship by an active and punctual correspondence, which made the number of his letters very great, and which are not less excellent than numerous.

Mr. Ames in person a little exceeded the middle height, was well proportioned, and remarkably erect. His features were regular, his aspect respectable and pleasing, his eye expressive of benignity and intelligence. In his manners he was easy, affable, cordial, inviting confidence, yet inspiring respect. He had that refined spirit of society, which observes the forms of real, but not studied politeness, and paid a most delicate regard to the propriety of conversation and behaviour.

Reflections on the Death of Adams and Jefferson.-— SERGEANT.

TIME in its course has produced a striking epoch in the history of our favoured country; and, as if to mark with peculiar emphasis this interesting stage of our national existence, it comes to us accompanied with incidents calcu

lated to make a powerful and lasting impression. The dawn of the fiftieth anniversary of independence beamed upon two venerable and illustrious citizens, to whom, under Providence, a nation acknowledged itself greatly indebted for the event which the day was set apart to commemorate. The one was the author, the other was "the ablest advocate," of that solemn assertion of right, that heroic defiance of unjust power, which, in the midst of difficulty and danger, proclaimed the determination to assume a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth, and declared to the world the causes which impelled to this decision. Both had stood by their country with unabated ardour and unwavering fortitude, through every vicissitude of her fortune, until the "glorious day” of her final triumph crowned their labours and their sacrifices with complete success. With equal solicitude, and with equal warmth of patriotic affection, they devoted their great faculties, which had been employed in vindicating the rights of their country, to construct for her, upon deep and strong foundations, the solid edifice of social order, and of civil and religious freedom. They had both held the highest public employment, and were distinguished by the highest honours the nation could confer. Arrived at an age when nature seems to demand repose, each had retired to the spot from which the public exigencies had first called him, his public labours ended, his work accomplished, his country prosperous and happy,there to indulge in the blessed retrospect of a well-spent life, and await that period which comes to all ;-but not to await it in idleness or indifference. The same spirit of active benevolence, which made the meridian of their lives resplendent with glory, continued to shed its lustre upon their evening path. Still intent upon doing good, still devoted to the great cause of human happiness and improvement, neither of these illustrious men relaxed in his exertions. They seemed only to concentrate their energy, as age and increasing infirmity contracted the circle of action, bestowing, without ostentation, their latest efforts upon the state and neighbourhood in which they resided. There, with patriarchal simplicity, they lived, the objects of a nation's grateful remembrance and affection; the living records of a nation's history; the charm of an age which

they delighted, adorned and instructed by their vivid sketches of times that are past; and, as it were, the imbodied spirit of the revolution itself, in all its purity and force, diffusing its wholesome influence through the generations that have succeeded, rebuking every sinister design, and invigorating every manly and virtuous resolution. The Jubilee came, the great national commemoration of a nation's birth,-the fiftieth year of deliverance from a foreign rule, wrought out by exertions, and sufferings, and sacrifices of the patriots of the revolution. It found these illustrious and venerable men, full of honours and full of years, animated with the proud recollection of the times in which they had borne so distinguished a part, and cheered by the beneficent and expanding influence of their patriotic labours. The eyes of a nation were turned towards them with affection and reverence. They heard the first song of triumph on that memorable day. As the voice of millions of freemen rose in gratitude and joy, they both sunk gently to rest, and their spirits departed in the midst of the swelling chorus of national enthusiasm.

Death has thus placed his seal upon the lives of these two eminent men with impressive solemnity. A gracious Providence, whose favours have been so often manifested in mercy to our country, has been pleased to allow them an unusual length of time, and an uncommon continuance of their extraordinary faculties. They have been, as it were, united in death; and they have both, in a most signal manner, been associated in the great event which they so largely contributed to produce. Henceforward the names of Jefferson and Adams can never be separated from the Declaration of Independence. Whilst that venerated instrument shall continue to exist, as long as its sacred spirit shall dwell with the people of this nation, or the free institutions that have grown out of it be preserved and respected, so long will our children, and our children's children, to the latest generation, bless the names of these our illustrious benefactors, and cherish their memory with reverential respect. The Jubilee, at each return, will bring back, with renovated force, the lives and the deaths of these distinguished men; and History, with the simple pencil of

Truth, sketching the wonderful coincidence, will, for once at least, set at defiance all the powers of poetry and ro

mance.

Indolence.-DENNIE.

"How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of sleep?"

NOT until you have had another nap, you reply; not till there has been a little more folding of the hands! Various philosophers and naturalists have attempted to define man. I never was satisfied with their labours: absurd to pronounce him a two-legged, unfeathered animal, when it is obvious he is a sleepy one. In this world there is business enough for every individual: a sparkling sky over his head to admire, a soil under his feet to till, and innumerable objects, useful and pleasant, to choose. But such in general is the provoking indolence of our species, that the lives of many, if impartially journalized, might be truly said to have consisted of a series of slumbers. Some men are infested with day dreams, as well as by visions of the night: they travel a certain insipid round, like the blind horse of the mill, and, as Bolingbroke observes, perhaps beget others to do the like after them. They may sometimes open their eyes a little, but they are soon dimmed by some lazy fog; they may sometimes stretch a limb, but its efforts are soon palsied by procrastination. Yawning, amid tobacco fumes, they seem to have no hopes, except that their bed will soon be made, and no fears, except that their slumbers will be broken by business clamouring at the door.

How tender and affectionate is the reproachful question of Solomon, in the text, "When wilt thou arise out of sleep?" The Jewish prince, whom we know to be an active one, from the temple which he erected and the books which he composed, saw, when he cast his eyes around the city, half his subjects asleep. Though in many a wise proverb he had warned them of the baneful effects of in

dolence, they were deaf to his charming voice, and blind to his noble example. The men servants and the maid servants, whom he had hired, nodded over their domestic duties in the royal kitchen, and when, in the vineyards he had planted, he looked for grapes, lo, they brought forth wild grapes, for the vintager was drowsy.

At the present time, few Solomons exist to preach against pillows, and never was there more occasion for a sermon. Our country being at peace, not a drum is heard to rouse the slothful. But, though we are exempted from the tumults and vicissitudes of war, we should remember that there are many posts of duty, if not of danger, and at these we should vigilantly stand. If we will stretch the hand of exertion, means to acquire competent wealth, and honest fame, abound, and when such ends are in view, how shameful to close our eyes! He who surveys the paths of active life, will find them so numerous and long, that he will feel the necessity of early rising, and late taking rest, to accomplish so much travel. He who pants for the shade of speculation, will find that literature cannot flourish in the bowers of inHolence and monkish gloom. Much midnight oil must be consumed, and innumerable pages examined, by him whose object is to be really wise. Few hours has that man to sleep, and not one to loiter, who has many coffers of wealth to fill, or many cells in his memory to store.

Among the various men, whom I see in the course of my pilgrimage through this world, I cannot frequently find those who are broad awake. Sloth, a powerful magician, mutters a witching spell, and deluded mortals tamely suffer this drowsy being to bind a fillet over their eyes. All their activity is employed in turning themselves like the door on a rusty hinge, and all the noise they make in the world is a snore. When I see one, designed by nature for noble purposes, indolently declining the privilege, and, heedless, like Esau, bartering the birthright, for what is of less worth than his red pottage of lentils,-for liberty to sit still and lie quietly, I think I see, not a man, but an oyster. The drone in society, like that fish on our shores, might as well be sunken in the mud, and enclosed in a shell, as stretched on a couch, or seated in a chimney-corner.

« AnteriorContinuar »