emigration, the one occupying Greece, Italy, and Spain; the other spreading over Germany, France, Britain, and the more northern portions of Europe. Along the line of separation, between these rival streams, the settlers often met, and, wrestling for a time, either parted or were at last mingled in one common mass.

The founders of Greece and Rome brought with them the germs of civilization. Their descendants settled down in cities, cultivated letters, and kept written records. From these enough has been transmitted to give us a general idea of their early history. But it was not so with the more northern settlers of Europe. The Celts were a roving race, half warrior and half husbandman. They all brought with them some of the Tartar characteristics. They built few towns, but like our Daniel Boone, of Kentucky, seemed always to fly from the approach of civilization into the yet untrodden forest. Among such a people, there were no historians. Nations came and vanished, leaving not a trace behind. Numerous as the very leaves of the forest, and almost as transient, like these they sank to their unwritten graves. Beneath this shroud the first settlers of Europe sleep; nor can human magic evoke them from their dread re

pose. And yet, with little pretence to sorcery, I propose to introduce to you a nation of Celts living and breathing men, speaking at this very hour the language of those remote and shadowy tribes which flourished four thousand years ago.

There is nothing more remarkable in the history of the human family, than the pertinacity with which certain races of men preserve their identity from age to age, seeming to set at defiance all those circumstances which sweep others into oblivion, or subject them to the trampling hoof of innovation and change. We find a familiar instance of this in the Jews. Their history presents the most remarkable series of vicissitudes that has ever attended the fate of a nation; yet to this day they maintain the same physical traits, the same moral characteristics, as in the remotest period to which the records of the past can carry us. Though they are now swept out of their native land, and scattered like autumn leaves over the world, yet, whether in one hemisphere or another, we find them always possessing the same strong lineaments, and bearing the impress of the same solemn remembrances. And this is said of a people living apart in a thousand fragments, and, while mingling in daily intercourse with others,

still maintaining themselves as a distinct and peculiar people. Like the Gulf-stream- a river in the midst of the ocean -bending from the tropics to the frozen zone, and after sweeping the borders of two continents, circling back to the point where it began, so the Jews, in the midst of other nations, hold on their way a current that time cannot check, that vicissitudes cannot change.

We may draw another illustration of our position from the Gypsies. These are evidently the fragments of a great nation, wrecked so far up the stream of time that we cannot distinctly trace its story. But wherever you find them, whether in Spain, Hungary, Bohemia, Britain, or even in Persia, they are essentially the same vagrant "hard-faring race," always appearing to bear in their minds the same dark and mystical superstitions. And these, too, in the midst of other nations, still hold themselves apart. Like oil in immediate contact with water, refusing all admixture and still preserving its identity, the Gypsies continue from age to age to defy alike the common elements of destruction and mutation.

If we turn to Europe, where shall we find the example of a nation thus perpetuating itself in

spite of all resistance; thus marching down in solid column from the remote and misty precincts of antiquity to our own day, and bringing with them the thoughts, feelings, and customs of their shadowy forefathers? If we look to Greece, we may perhaps find the semblance of the fickle Athenian; but where shall we discover the representative of the stern, self-sacrificing Spartan? If we go to Italy, shall we find in the soft devotee of dalliance and song the lineal descendant of those haughty worshippers of the god of war, that once shook the earth with their martial deeds, and at last embraced the civilized world in their gigantic grasp? Where is the race of Britons that boldly confronted, and almost baffled, the Roman victor of a hundred fields? Where are those ancient Gauls, that resisted for nine campaigns the greatest warrior of antiquity, with the Roman legions at his back? Where, in all the north, in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, are to be found the representatives of those wild and warlike rovers of the main, that claimed the title of sea-kings, and achieved deeds worthy of their name? Over all these nations the enchanter's wand has passed, and a change has come o'er the spirit of their dream. Their languages have passed away, or

are only found as ingredients mingling in the compound of other tongues. Most of the original tribes have been winnowed out like chaff, and others inherit their dominions.

Yet there is one nation in Europe that retains, nearly in its purity, the language of its original inhabitants; that consists of the lineal descendants of the first settlers of its soil, and retains to this very hour traces of the thoughts, feelings, manners, and customs, that are known to have existed in the country three thousand years ago. And where is this nation to be found? Look

upon the map, and you will see that the portion of Europe which lies nearest to our own country, consists of a small island, scarcely equal in extent to the state of Maine, yet possessing a population of eight millions of inhabitants. This is Ireland; and here history discloses to us a remarkable instance of that self-perpetuation to which I have alluded. The neighboring island of Britain, which has held Ireland in bondage for many centuries, has not only lost its original language, but almost every trace of its original inhabitants has long been swept away. Ireland, on the contrary, has sturdily maintained its ancient Celtic tongue; and, though it has been, at different times, overrun by other nations, the