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ARTICLE IV.

CENTENNIAL ADDRESSES.

An Address, delivered at the Centennial Celebration in Wilton, N. H., Sept. 25, 1839. By EPHRAIM PEABODY. With an Appendix. Boston. B. H. Greene. 1839. An Address, delivered at the Centennial Celebration in Peterboro', N. H., Oct. 24, 1839. By JOHN HOPKINS MORRISON. Boston. 1839.

The Cape Cod Centennial Celebration, at Barnstable, Sept. 3, 1839, of the Incorporation of that Town, Sept. 3, 1639. Barnstable. S. B. Phinney. 1840.

ALL these "collections" are elaborately drawn up, and crowded with valuable matter. So, at least, it appears to us. Others may entertain different views of what is valuable, and of what is suitable to occasions like these mentioned above. They may require, if not more declamation, more dissertation, than these pamphlets contain. Something of this is well in its way. Something is perhaps indispensable, as a sort of cement to that more practical and substantial material which may be considered the brick and stone portions of the structure. repeat, however, that what we look for chiefly,--what we need most,-what posterity, in an especial manner, will more and more look for and need in the lapse of the rolling years and ages,-is not the declamation, or the dissertation, but the details of the case. As the great orator expressed himself on another subject, we say as to this, give us facts, facts, facts.

We

In local histories, especially, such is the case. These are expressly intended, and essentially adapted, or should be, to be referred to, and to be inferred from, as treasures of local knowledge. It is the business of the philosopher the statesman, the scholar, of the general historian, of the people at large still more, of any body rather than the local historian himself, to philosophize, or theorize,-any farther than is indispensable to

his great duty of developing the truth. The more he undertakes to do what does not belong to him, the more he must be expected to fail in what he does. Local detail is voluminous. It requires laborious condensation, accurate classification, intelligent selection, and it will still be comparatively unwieldy at the best. This is labor enough, for one man. It is at least enough for him; the labor of doing justice to facts; a science by no means so ordinary, or so easy, as by some writers it would seem to be esteemed. The service rendered by the intelligent and faithful compiler of works like these, though neither very voluminous, nor at all assuming in any respect, is by no means a slight one. It is one, on the contrary, that humble and dull as it may seem to some, and laborious as it certainly is, can scarcely for these very reasons be appreciated too highly; for these are labors which few men are either qualified or contented, for these same reasons, to perform. Their value, also, is in proportion to this labor, and is worthy of it. They grow, like the leaves of the Sybil, more and more valuable, and more and more interesting, as with the lapse of time the difficulty of preserving the materials they contain increases. The pertinency or destination of the matter in question may not be seen at once; but some time or other, by somebody or other, it will be. The least particle of genuine truth, therefore, is not to be despised; and it is the province of the local historian to see that it is not neglected. It should be all golden dust to him. It is all to be sifted from the sands of oblivion at all events, let the ultimate use to be made of it be as it may. The slightest characters, the very points, the half-obliterated inscriptions, may help us to read whole volumes. The dilapidated fragments may be found, ere the task of excavation is complete, to be sections of some great fact, capable, after an abeyance of ages, of being fitted together again by the juxtaposition of its "disjecta membra;" and so given back, like the restored statue, or the deciphered manuscript, to the world. The local annalist, who is faithful to his work, if he has especially the enthusiasm in his profession, which alone can render that faithfulness either an endurable or a successful labor,—will be always watchful of the relations which the smallest things he meets with may hold with each other, or with greater things, or both. Nothing in fact is small to him. He has "unlearned contempt."

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We noticed, a year or two since, in a fine collection of autographs belonging to a southern friend (Mr. Tefft, of Savannah), a highly interesting original letter of the brave Kosciusko;-a specimen worthy of repute among the craft, and in this instance certainly estimated as its character and its rarity deserved. The proprietor, when he began searching for such an autograph, was in possession of no data at all for obtaining one. Undiscouraged, however, by the prospect, he plied his correspondence vigorously, and set in motion all the other machinery in such cases approved of. For months it was a fruitless toil: but finally a distant friend found him a simple signature of the gallant Pole; and the precious relic was deposited with some thousand others in one of his huge quartoes. Years passed away. The search was never abandoned meanwhile. Finally came another specimen from another correspondent, in another section of the country. It was a letter of Kosciusko's, wanting nothing but the name. The two specimens were compared. The scraps of paper fitted precisely together, and proved to have been once parts of the saine whole; and in such connection, after so long a separation, and adventures of travel which we shall not stay to imagine, they are now carefully preserved. Just so is the perseverance of the diligent history-seeker constantly rewarding itself. It finds its facts, like the autograph, in pieces. It works on, and waits on;-never discouraged by the smallest returns, and never satisfied till it has gathered and fitted them all together.

There are vast treasures of historical material in this country, requiring such a spirit of research to bring it out; richly sufficient to pay such labor; and perishing, or at least likely or liable to perish daily, for the want of both. Vast treasures, we say. The amount and the worth of them are beyond calculation. They are here, and there, and every where. They are undervalued, unnoticed, unknown. They are records, recollections, traditions. The dust of oblivion is gathering over some. Others are being constantly destroyed. The generations, whose memories are the sole depositories, or the only competent interpreters of many more, are fast passing away. The possibility of writing the history of some passages of the past, of the deepest interest, but thus far either wholly unknown, or

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so misrepresented as to make it a pity that they were not so, has, in this way, perhaps, already been extinguished. In other cases materials are abundant, and ask nothing but prompt attention, to be rescued for the use of a future period, if not of ours. Such is still the case, to a great extent, in regard, for example, to the navy of the Revolution, even now that Mr. Cooper has given it some attention. What history is there of that subject, which, for completeness, deserves the name? What notion of it will posterity be able to conceive from such as there is? What notion are we able to conceive of a state of things, and of a series of events, decidedly among the most remarkable, the most spirited, the worthiest of record, which in the same department the world has seen? Where are the biographies of those gallant sons of the sea who carried triumphantly, through the "battle and the breeze," and amidst fleets of the proudest naval power in Christendom, the first flag of the Union? What has become of the Whipples, the Manlys, the Mugfords, the Tuckers ;-men, some of them, who, after supplying the poor army of Washington with the first cannon they ever used,-with almost the whole ammunition they had for years, when they needed it most, with their shoes, stockings, coats, their provisions even, snatched as it were from the very teeth of the enemy,-died beggars, after all, in our chief cities; or were slain in the midst of their achievements, and in the prime of their lives; or, it may be, lingered on,-like the hero who captured eighteen British store-ships off the Capes of the Delaware, at one swoop, till, within a year or two, storm-beaten as one of his own continental sloops, but with the signal of an invincible spirit flying to thelast, he has gone down, bearing a history in his own memory richer than any Indian cargo he ever captured, to his grave. Where, we ask again, are the biographies of these men? How many are there among us who are familiar with so much as their names? These, unfortunately for their own fame, were not writing, but fighting men. They were men who acted out their patriotism, and their heroism, and had no time nor thought for recording it. Some of them, probably, could not write their names. And yet they could remember every thing they had done, precisely as it was done; and every thing they had seen and heard besides. A whole history of the navy,-of

such a navy as, for equipments, management, character, and adventure, never was known before, nor ever will be again, a history without which that of the army, or of the country itself, during the period of its activity, can be but half understood,-might have been gathered from the reminiscences of this brave and hardy band. Where it can be had now, we should like to know. If any where, by any means, to any extent, the opportunity, such as it may be, must be fast passing away.

The same remarks are applicable, though perhaps not with equal force, to the whole Revolution. The spirit of this great struggle is, or was, in the details which what are called our histories have not deemed it dignified, or would not take the pains, or find the means, to notice as they deserved. The outline only is preserved. The filling up, the flesh and blood, of the history,—all that constitutes a picture, which shall be not the measure merely, but the living likeness of the times,-has perished, or is in the way of perishing, with the generation (many of them still as hale as ever in their green age), who are the only original holders, interpreters, and actors of the facts. These men, and only these, can give us the context also of the facts, the explanation,-in the condition of the country, and the character of the people; in their own condition, and character, and experience; in the private, daily, domestic annals and anecdotes, which, small though they seem in detail, are, woven together and wisely studied, the motion, hue, pulse, the whole investiture of life, without which the public history to which it belongs and sustains, is but a ghastly skeleton of dates and names. This, however, is a subject not to be pursued here; we mean only to say, that, respecting a great part of the past of this country, as well as of all others, of this, where there is no excuse for it, as well as of those, where there is, the history which is saved, as compared with that which is not, is little more than hieroglyphical. It just shows, obscurely, and it will show more and more obscurely to those who follow us, that something is indicated, which is not, and never will be understood. It indicates where history should have been, where, perhaps, it might still be found, in the depths of the Herculaneum which lies all around and beneath us. A Herculaneum, indeed! Would it were so destined to be disinterred! Would we could be assured of

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