Col. Cary is a gentleman of fine literary habits, and of truly estimable character. He is president of the Boston Athenæum, the library of which was founded on that of the Anthology Literary Club, in 1807. It will advance the moral glory of Boston, should our men of wealth continue to establish separate endowments for the literary, scientific, historical, medical, legal, and theological benefit of the public. May a Bromfield come forward for all the departments! We hope the period is not remote, when the facilities of access to this library will rise to the standard of the great libraries of Europe.

Mr. Cary is the author of several productions, beside the eloquent oration at the head of this article; among which we find, A Letter to a Lady in France, on National and State Repudiation, 1844; a Letter on Profits on Manufactures at Lowell, 1845; and an Address on the Fine Arts, delivered before the Mercantile Library Association, in 1845, in which he enlarges on the practicability of cultivating a taste for the fine arts in our tumultuous democracy, and relates of a person whose business, one would suppose, lay among the most unpoetical and least aesthetic pursuits that may be imagined. If any form of life is unfavorable to the cultivation of a taste for the fine arts, most people would unhesitatingly say it is the life of a grocer. And yet this individual, -Mr. Luman Reed, although dying in the prime of life, left a collection of paintings, engravings, shells, and other objects of beauty and interest, altogether so valuable, that it was proposed to make them the commencement of a public gallery in New York; and he left an establishment in business conducted on principles so secure, that it has been a school of industrious success to younger men, who owe their prosperity mainly to him. The transparent beauty of Col. Cary's performance, and the force of his sentiments, so nicely harmonize, that his pen should flow freely to the public mind.

orator.

JOEL GILES.

JULY 4, 1848. FOR THE CITY AUTHORITIES.

"CONSTITUTIONS are the political brain of the people," says our "Each of our thirty States has one, and our glorious Union has another, by which unceasing action is maintained upon all rightful subjects of government.

"Men are governed by three principles,— reason, love and force; and without these there is no government worthy of the name, human or divine. The constitution of the United States is the organ of the sovereign reason of the people. This is the field for giant minds and patriot hearts; and its hero-for it has a hero, unrivalled and alone in his chosen domain is the people's Webster. And do you ask for the heroes of the heart, with power to acquire wealth, learning and influence, and a will to use them all for the people's honor and the people's good? Go to your scientific schools, your institutes, and your libraries, and read the honored names of their founders. Go to the missionary rolls, and admire the number and the devotion of your Christian martyrs. Force, too, that dire necessity of fallen man, and of nations, has its heroes,-a small and charmed band, whose martial fame, like the forked lightning, dazzles the eyes of the people. May they ever be few in number, great in action, and worthy to tread in the footprints of Washington!

"Preserve, then, your constitutions, your corporations, your societies, your towns, your cities, your free schools, and your churches. They are organisms for the exercise, discipline and efficient action, of practical liberty. And, especially, preserve your militia. It is the legal organization of force, the right hand of all government, the ultimate protector of all the fruits of liberty, and a terror only to evil doers. The people are, by the constitution of the United States, armed; and, by every principle of liberty, they are supreme. Force always resides in the masses. Armed, but unorganized, it is a sleeping lion, ready to spring upon you at any moment of famine or of passion. Then, train it,- train it, -and it shall lie down with the lambs in the green pastures of peace and tranquillity. Even parties are useful organizations of practical liberty, which might otherwise fall into anarchy in the exercise of its elective functions. And, in a country so free as this, no administration can stand without the support of a dominant party, embracing, for the time being, a majority of the people. Be not frightened, then, at parties; but prove them all, by the test of practical liberty, and hold fast that which is good. We cannot, if we would, avoid the responsibility of affecting the welfare of millions of our fellow-men. The commands of Heaven are upon us!"

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Joel Giles was born at Townsend, May 6, 1804; was fitted for college by Rev. David Palmer; graduated at Harvard College in 1829, when he engaged in a disputation with Chandler Robbins, on the ques

tion, whether inequalities of genius in different countries be owing to moral causes. He was a student of Dane Law School; a tutor in Harvard College, from 1831 to 1834; and a student, also, of Benjamin Rand, in Boston. He is a counsellor of Suffolk bar; and was a representative from Cambridge and Boston, in 1840 and in 1847. He was a member of the State Senate in 1848. Mr. Giles is a man of penetrative mind, and knows how to fathom a disputed question of politics with as much ease as a profound point of law.

Mayor Quincy said of Mr. Giles' oration, at the public dinner in Faneuil Hall, "He has struck the harp of the universe with the hand of a master."

Next to the clergy, the legal profession - which numbers four hundred in Boston-exercises a stronger public moral control than any other of the professions; and their personal friendship towards each other is proverbial, as it was in the time of Shakspeare, who says of lawyers, that they

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"Do as adversaries in law strive mightily,

But eat and drink as friends."

The patriotic civilians of Suffolk bar, in their political influence, often control the State. It is said that Mr. Giles prepared the spirited resolves of the Whig State Convention, adopted at Worcester, Oct. 3, 1849, and they exhibit the principles of Washington: "The Union, the glorious Union,— the object of our fervent love! Its preservation transcends in importance any and all other political questions; and, as we have received it from the fathers, so will we perpetuate it to the children, entire as the sun." Inscribe this sentiment on our banners, and cherish it in our hearts, and the Union is never dissevered.

WILLIAM WHITWELL GREENOUGH.

JULY 4, 1849. FOR THE CITY AUTHORITIES.

"THE supporters of arbitrary power in Europe have recently urged a new plea," says Mr. Greenough. "It is said that the wars of 1848 and 1849 are merely wars of language and of race. This position excludes all higher questions of principle, and is intended to prevent

sympathy and interference on the part of free countries. This is the plea of Russia. This would conceal the fact, that the settlement of each national question now at issue is an affair of much consequence to the whole civilized world. The causes of the great conflict now in progress lie far beneath language or race. It is not a struggle to decide which of two parties in each state shall be uppermost. Such may have been its appearance at the beginning; but the real motive powers are now visible. The free people of England and of France may well watch, with interest and anxiety, for the results of each battle-field. The struggle is between the people and arbitrary power. A few years will decide whether the western barriers of despotism shall be the Rhine or the North Sea; or whether the arm of freedom shall drive back the myrmidons of tyranny to the frozen regions of the north.

"In all this war of principles, we, too, on this side of the Atlantic, have a direct interest. If the experiment of free institutions had been unsuccessful here, it would have deferred, for a long period, the strivings after liberty which have already found practical results in other quarters of the world. The example and the influence of the United States have quietly produced great effects, of which the causes were not clearly perceptible. For the failure of other revolutions, declaredly based upon our own model, we are in no degree responsible. The painter of a glorious picture, whose merits are admitted by the world, is never held accountable for the bad drawings or wretched colorings of any imitator, however ambitious. No one claims that our institutions are perfect. It is sufficient, for all useful purposes, that, under their protecting powers, every blessing can be enjoyed that is needful for the happiness of man in this lower world. As every successful essay is a direct incitement to human nature to go and do likewise, the position of this country is especially traceable in the revolutions of Europe. Every new constitution borrows, to a greater or less extent, from our own, according to the tastes of legislators. The great ideas which, in a good sense, constitute this the conquering republic, transfuse themselves into every popular movement. That no government may exist without the consent of the governed, has proved a fearful principle, when brought into collision with another principle, consecrated by the tacit consent of a thousand years, the divine right of kings, the doctrine of absolute sovereignty. Who can doubt which of the two will ultimately come forth superior from the conflict? The strife is no

longer equal. It is a struggle between a human fallacy and a superhuman truth." This production is very suitably entitled The Conquering Republic.

William Whitwell Greenough, son of William Greenough, a merchant of Boston, was born in Boston, June 25, 1818; entered the Latin School in 1828, and graduated at Harvard College in 1837. He married Catharine Scollay, a daughter of Charles P. Curtis, and engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was a member of the city Council from 1847 to 1850, during which period he was a member of the water committee, and its chairman in the 'last year. He was treasurer of the American Oriental Society, and a member of the New England Historical and Genealogical Society. Mr. Greenough has ever cherished a love of literary and scientific pursuits. In the intervals of leisure, he has prepared valuable contributions to various periodicals, among which was one on the Anglo-Saxons, in the New York Review; another on the Moeso. Gothic, in the Biblical Repository; and, more especially, several articles in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, an institution to which he is peculiarly devoted. Mr. Greenough has resources of mind abundantly competent to the preparation of a literary production, of great benefit to the public, on the Races of Man, and we hope he will be closely devoted to the work until it is completed.

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LEVI WOODBURY.

JULY 25, 1849. EULOGY ON PRESIDENT POLK.

"INDISCRIMINATE eulogy is without value or point," says Judge Woodbury; "and hence, at the risk of being thought by some not suf ficiently enthusiastic, it has been and will be my endeavor 'naught to extenuate,' and to hold the mirror up faithfully to the truth and nature of the leading features in his admirable character and remarkable administration. I do not consider it a part of his fame that he planned many of these great events. He did not enter on his high station with a magazine in his mind, full of magnificent and imposing measures to be attempted.

"Though a young man, comparatively, and from the enterprising west, his character was rather wary than rash; rather to follow than to