The last four names in the present series represent an impressive

group, more recently departed, from whom we may hereafter turn to contemplate the Living Orators in America.

Cincinnati, July 4th, 1848.

E. L. M.

CHAPTER I.

THE BATTLE-FIELDS OF EARLY AMERICAN ELOQUENCE.

GREAT is the power of local association. To none is its influence indifferent, but it is the most thrilling to minds of the most delicate tone. Reverence for the scenes of exalted deeds is a noble instinct planted in our hearts for noble ends. It is inarticulate adoration addressed, not more to the understanding than to the heart. To be in a high degree void of this, is an evidence of personal ignominy and a presage of deserved oblivion.

Doctor Johnson, in a well-known passage, happily refers to those feelings, which local associations awaken in the refined bosom. On arriving at Icolmkill, in his "Tour to the Western Islands," he wrote:

'We are now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored; and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of the senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present; ad

vances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

The associations which are the most affecting are moral. The venerable monuments of the past, and localities connected with which great events transpired, are invested with irresistible attractions to a susceptible heart and cultivated mind. They snatch the soul away in rapture, as if it had already traversed the tomb, and on the bosom of immensity imbue it with the inexhaustible glories which Jehovah has diffused through the universe:

"The mind hath no horizon,

It looks beyond the eye, and seeks for mind
In all it sees, in all it sees o'erruling."

It was with reference to this power of local association that the ancient poet, when describing the battle of Salamis, together with the temples of their gods, and the persons of those most dear to them, mentioned also the tombs of their fathers as the objects best fitted to rouse the courage and inflame the patriotism of the Athenians in times of peril. Cicero beautifully alludes to the pleasure, which every accomplished mind experiences when exercised on the spots sanctified by illustrious characters. Germanicus visited Athens with venera

tion; and during his stay, divested himself of every insignia of power. Atticus paused with awe among its tombs and monuments: Julian shed tears, on quitting its bowers and groves: Leo Allatries wept over the ruins of a house which was said once to have belonged to Homer. And why are the ruins of that illustrious city so thrilling to a cultivated and reflecting mind? Because it was the focus of intelligence; the arena of the noblest strife of the noblest heroes.

Still do we trace there the bold terrace of the Pnyx; the scene of the stormy assemblies of the free people of Athens, and the battle-ground of her mightiest orators. Hither resorted the intellectual sovereigns of the world; the patriots who

"Shook the arsenal, and fulmined over Greece,

To Macedon and ARTAXERXES' throne."

It was thence that Demosthenes spoke, and excited or calmed the sea of popular commotion, more powerful than the Ægean, whose billows, dashing near, mingled their roar with the thunders of his eloquence.

There is a hallowed fellowship existing between all master minds. The most meritorious are always the first to recognize the claims of merit in others, the acutest to feel their excellence, and the most eloquent to proclaim their worth. When Cicero visited Athens, he wrote the following query:

"Shall I ascribe it to a law of our nature, or to a delusive habit of mind, that when we look upon the scenes which illustrious men of old frequented, our feelings are more deeply excited than even by hearing the record of