EULOGY,

PRONOUNCED AT NEWBURYPORT, MASSACHUSETTS,

July 15, 1826.

BY CALEB CUSHING.

FELLOW CITIZENS,-The choral strains of triumph, which cheered the fiftieth anniversary of our country's birthday, scarce yet have died away upon the listening ear. Hardly is the roar of cannon stilled in silence.-the merry bells have but just ceased to ring out their peals of joy, and the shouts of exulting freemen to rise from hill and vale, from city and hamlet, welcoming the glorious morn of our Independence. The trumpet of the jubilee still pours its spirit-stirring echoes throughout the land, proclaiming the thrilling sound of liberty to its inhabitants. But hushed prematurely is the voice of festivity. Sorrow and lamentation overflow the hearts, lately swelled with gratulation and gladness. The venerable patriots, whose years have proved one long line of honors, and whose lives are the history of the nation, are no more! They, the hoary sages, who half a century before that day, boldly urged upon their country the daring act which hallowed it forever;-he, who wrote in letters of fire the immortal Declaration of our Independence, and he, upon whose 'burning tongue' the accents of truth, freedom, and victory then hung;-they, whose prophetic eye pierced the darkness of futurity, and foresaw the coming glories destined to cluster about that memorable occasion ;--they, who, tracing the splendid career of fame, fortune, and power in their country's service, lived to become patriarchs of the empire which then sprang into being;-they,

Boast of the aged, lesson of the young,

whose deeds were so recently remembered, and their names voiced by millions of their grateful fellow-citizens, have now restored their honors to the world, and their 'blessed part' hath ascended to heaven to repose in the bosom of their God!

How solemn, how awful, how marked in the annals of universal history, is this dispensation of all seeing Providence! The messenger of death descended among us at a season when the spring-tide of joy was at flood; and snatched from earth the living idols of the hour; but who, no longer creatures of time, have become the dwellers in eternity.

Yes, full of years and of honors, an illustrious pair of the august founders of the Republic have gone to their last long home. The spontaneous voice of their country singled out three from the galaxy of mighty minds, that illumined the troubled course of the revolution, to be the bright leading stars of our political firmament. Already five revolving lustres have elapsed, since Washington, the father of his people, the first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,' sank to his rest, and left an admiring world to canonize his memory, and vainly to emulate his example. Second only to him in station, second only in the patriotic energies of souls created for the achievement of a nation's independence, and stamped as it were in every lineament with the divine impress of liberty, the other two lived to enjoy, erę they died, that fame, which less fortunate men obtain only at the hands of posterity. But the dark portals of the tomb have closed at length over the earthly remains of Adams and Jefferson.

For the meanest member of the human family, whose name is blotted from the book of life, tears of sorrow are shed by the humble mourner in his hour of affliction; and when the chords of kindred are severed by death, for the highest there is the same heart-felt pang. By the departure of them, whose glorious lives we are this day assembled to commemorate, the dearest ties of affection are sundered. But when the fore

most men of the world are deposited in the dust, and the features of immortality itself are obliterated by the fingers of decay, where shall individual griefs find place, how shall the note of private lamentation be heard? A wailing people celebrate their obsequies. A country is clad in the funeral garb of woe. Over the insensible marble, which inurns their ashes, a nation bows prostrate in the lowly attitude of mourning, a nation is scattering blessings on their names,-incense more grateful than the choicest myrrhs of Araby.

But while the pious tribute of sorrow is rendered to the memory of the great and good, no longer to be numbered among the living, let not the deep sense of our bereavement be unmingled with consolatory reflections. They have but paid the great debt of nature.

As the baseless fabric of a vision,

The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces,
'The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all, which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like the unsubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind! We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

And though the language of inspiration fall from his lips, though the wisdom of ages be compressed beneath his brow, though the holiest aspirations of an elevated soul inform his bosom, yet shall man, the son of earth, the creature of the clay, shall man arrogate to himself an immunity from the sentence of instability and change engraven upon all terrestrial things? Oh, no. But thanks be to God that he granted each of the revered patriots to outlive the ordinary measure of humanity, and to die a death signal and extraordinary as his life.

They were not cut off in the morning or noon tide of their days, ere the opening promise of glory had reached its developement. The burst of agonizing grief fills every heart, when a spirit, cast in nature's happiest mould, is extinguished ere its prime, and lightens up like a bright exhalation,' only to

disappear too soon, and leave the world again to darkness. But they lived to give their country the entire fruition of their masterly faculties, in the time of her utmost need. They lived to acquire a deathless renown, a name noble as the institutions, lasting as the iron-bound mountains of America. They lived to know that the voice of detraction, which had so often assailed them, was now soothed into silence by public gratitude; and that their countrymen, while they remembered their errors only as the errors incident to our imperfect nature, were just to their high and splendid qualities. They both lived to witness the accomplishment of their most sanguine anticipations, in the wealth, extent, and prosperity of their country, its unrivalled dignity among the nations, and the universal dissemination of the grand principles of civil and religious freedom, which it was their sole aim to establish. And one of them lived to see the mantle of his genius and fortunes descend upon his son; and the heir of his name raised to be the first successor in the supreme magistracy of the republic, to the patriots of the revolution. And they died, at last, when the 'wine of life' was drawn away, and its lees only remained. The ripe fruit has dropped to the ground, as the faded branches, that bore it, were yellowing beneath the dews of autumn. The harvest, bending by the weight of its complete maturity, has fallen before the sickle. The noble steed, who started betimes in the race of honor, has proudly run his career, and reached his appointed goal in triumph. The bright orb, which in its dawning shone luridly out from a stormy sky, having broken through the clouds which obscured his rising beams, and ascended to his full meridian lustre, has placidly descended along the tranquil horizon, and sunk amid a sea of glory. The apostles of liberty have fulfilled their mission, and leaving the scene of their generous toils below, are gone above to receive their reward.

And memorable, as suited the destinies of such men, were the moment and the manner of their exit to eternity. Of each it might truly have been written,

et.

Nothing in his life

Became him like the leaving it. He died.
As one that had been studied in his death.

The jubilee of our Independence came upon the aged patriarchs, and found the light of life barely flickering in its sockThe myriads of their countrymen, whose freedom they aided to establish, were solemnizing the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion, with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other,'—in that manner, wherein, fifty years before, one of them foretold its anniversary would be celebrated thenceforth and forever. It was the day in which our fathers arose in the majesty of their strength to shake off the degradation of provincial servitude, and unfurling the standard of liberty, as they waved its star-spangled ensigns on high, pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,' to live free or die. It was the day on which the slumbering energies of Columbia were awakened, and she entered upon that career of glory, in which, bearing on her maiden front the garland of freedom instead of the coronet of kings, she still is marching superbly onward, the envy of the oppressed and enslaved people of Europe, and the exemplar of the emancipated nations of the New World. It was the day when three millions lifted up their voices to sound the banner-cry of independence, and pealed that shout, like a trumpet-call, through the skies, which as that of the Israelites beside the beleaguered city of old, shook the throne of the tyrant to its very foundations. And when the sun of that happy day was past his meridian, and declining into the west, the acclamations of rejoicing aroused them for a moment from the lethargy of approaching dissolu. tion, to hail once more the great, the glorious occasion,' and their enfranchised souls instantly winged their flight to the realms of bliss, like a warrior dying in the lap of victory.

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For one such man to die on such a day would have been an event never to be forgotten. But they, who side by side united their destinies with the liberty of the land, and side by side