grammar school, at New Ipswich, prepared a little poem to be recited at an exhibition got up in the academic style, composed expressly for Ephraim H. Farrar, to be spoken by him on the occasion, when only seven years of age. We quote this curiosity, as it appears in Bingham's Columbian Orator. It is a rare sample of juvenile wit, and will be famous so long as a youthful orator appears on the floor of a school or an academy:

"You'd scarce expect one of my age

To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below

Demosthenes or Cicero,

Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by:

Large streams from little fountains flow;
Tall oaks from little acorns grow;
And though I now am small and young,
Of judgment weak, and feeble tongue,
Yet all great learned men, like me,
Once learned to read their A, B, C.
But why may not Columbia's soil
Rear men as great as Britain's Isle,

Exceed what Greece and Rome have done,

Or any land beneath the sun?

May n't Massachusetts boast as great

As any other sister State?

Or where's the town, go far and near,
That does not find a rival here ?
Or where's the boy, but three feet high,
Whose made improvement more than I?
These thoughts inspire my youthful mind
To be the greatest of mankind :-

Great, not like Cæsar, stained with blood,
But only great as I am good."

It having been a question of contest, for more than half a century, as to whom this little poem may be ascribed, and for whom it was written,― the prevailing opinion being that it was prepared for Edward Everett, we find in a speech of this gentleman, delivered at Cambridge, after the public school examination in the High School, July 23, 1850, his own declaration to the contrary. After being called on by the mayor to address the company, Mr. Everett, in the exordium, remarked: "May it please your honor, I cheerfully comply with your request that I would say a few words on the present occasion, although I am aware that this respectable company is not assembled to hear me.

I may, in fact, with propriety, use the words of a favorite little poem, which many persons have done me the honor to ascribe to me, but which was, in reality, written by a distant relative and namesake of mine,— and, if I mistake not, before I was born. It begins

'You'd scarce expect one of my age

To speak in public on the stage.'

This place and the day belong to the young; and, after what we have heard from them, I need not say that they need no assistance from their seniors to give interest to the occasion." And, in the conclusion of an extended speech on popular education, Mr. Everett cautions the scholars against studying too hard in vacation, and advises them, after the fatigues of three months at school, not to engage in work for eight or ten hours a day at home. "I hope your fathers and mothers will not permit it," says Everett. "If you insist upon a half an hour or so in the morning, and as much more in the afternoon and evening, by way of amusement, I do not know that I should greatly object; but take care to have a right good time, and come back at the end of the holidays with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, ready to engage with eagerness in the duties of the new term."

In our outline of the Hon. Edward Everett appears a choice little poem, written for him, and spoken by him at a school exhibition in his native town of Dorchester. The boy who spoke the simple speech written by David Everett, whose name was Ephraim Hartwell Farrar, was writing-master, in 1813, in the elementary school of Lawson Lyon, located on the north side of Dr. Channing's church, in Boston, where sons of our most distinguished families were educated; among whom were boys who have risen to eminence in public life, such as Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, and Rev. William Furness, of Philadelphia; Alexander Young, D.D., Rev. Samuel J. May, Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. Wm. P. Lunt, William H. Gardiner, John Everett, William Parsons, son of the late chief-justice, and the Gilberts, brokers, in Statestreet. Master Farrar was remarkable for a mild and even temper. A gentler soul never breathed, and his benignant light stroke of the rattan was a striking contrast to the eight severe blows of the buttonwood ferule vigorously applied by Master Lyon, the terror of the school. As posterity will ever desire to know the history of the boy for whom the inimitable speech was written, we will relate that he was the youngest son of Rev. Stephen Farrar, the first minister of New

Ipswich, who graduated at Harvard College, 1755. He was born Dec. 8, 1783, and married Phebe Parker in 1825, widow of Jonas C. Champney, by whom he had one daughter. His wife died in 1848; and Master Farrar died in New Ipswich, Jan. 8, 1851. After being many years a teacher in Boston, he became a partner in trade with a Mr. Carleton; and, on returning to his native town, he became the town-clerk, which station he occupied until his decease. He was educated at the New Ipswich Academy; and it was at one of the annual exhibitions of that institution when he was called on to recite this beautiful poem. It is interesting to remark, that at the centennial celebration in that town, September, 1850, when he was an old man, he was called out again to personate the youth for whom that effusion was written; and, immediately rising, merely repeated the first two lines:

"You'd scarce expect one of my age

To speak in public on the stage,"

which excited the risibles of the audience.

We cannot be parted from these pleasant reminiscences without introducing Master Farrar's own criticisms on the subject. In writing from New Ipswich, under date of July 27, 1849, he relates that Mr. Everett kept the grammar school in the centre of this town, and got up an exhibition in the academic style, and at this time wrote the lines expressly for and to be spoken by the writer of this communication, then a little boy seven years of age. "The Lines' were handed to me in manuscript. After they had been given to me, I had always considered them as in a sense belonging to me, to my native state, my native town. When, therefore, I saw, in the printed copy, the substitution of two words for two in the original, namely, 'Massachusetts' and sister,' for 'New Hampshire' and 'Federal,' I thought there was either a gross mistake in the printer, or an infringement upon my rights; this changing the place broke up all my former associations, and entirely destroyed the intrinsic merits of the piece. Whether this was done by the author or not, I am not able to say. I am rather inclined to think the latter was; for he afterwards became a politician of the Jefferson school, edited a paper called 'The Patriot,' and the word 'Federal' became extremely obnoxious to many of that party. This, however, I never quarrelled much about. But that my native State should receive such an insult, I felt very indignant. It seemed to my youthful heart to say, there was one man who might possibly

have some doubts whether New Hampshire could boast as great as any other federal State, -so, to end all dispute everywhere, he would put in Massachusetts; but, after a residence of several years in the very heart of that State, thus becoming more expatriated from the one, and naturalized to the other, and seeing, also, that every little boy read the piece just as if it were his own, I gave over the contest, and became reconciled to the change, with this proviso, that, from that time, every boy who should speak the piece should have the liberty to substitute his own State."

WILLIAM CHARLES WHITE.

JULY 4, 1809. FOR THE BUNKER HILL ASSOCIATION.

On this occasion, Mr. White pronounced a brief oration, after which, another was given, by David Everett. We glean two eloquent passages from his oration at Worcester, which indicate marks of a powerful imagination: "The liberty of the press forms the broad basis of that pyramid of freedom which rises in awful grandeur to the heavens, the majestic monument of our glory. Tear away this, and that superstructure, now the envy and the glory of the world, must fall, a heap of ruins, to the earth. Be it remembered, my countrymen, that against this right the tyrant has ever directed his eye, with jealous vigilance. The slavery of the mind forms the blackest preface to his voluminous despotism. So long as this remains, so long may he securely riot in the miseries of his subjects. He may steep them in poverty to the very lips, and bend and chain down their captive and servile spirits to the lowest deep of debasement. Yet how often have we been told of the kingly benefactions to which literature is indebted! How often has it been vociferated in our ears that the soil of a republic is unfriendly to the growth of the fine arts! This is a theme upon which many of our scholars have dwelt with proud satisfaction. They are welcome to the peevish pleasure of such paltry prejudices. Have these men forgotten that every Athenian was a critic in eloquence? and that a Roman populace has often been alternately soothed and

inflamed by the fire and pathos of Cicero? Let it not be said that the two republics were inauspicious to the fine arts. Were not the Muses passionately wooed by the favorite votaries? Did not the canvas glow with mimic life? and the marble emulate the noble exterior of humanity?"

Here we have an eulogium of Washington, in a highly poetic strain: "How do your finest heart-strings tremble and vibrate at the mention of Washington! He smiled at the tempest; he defied the storm conjured up by the black incantations of ministerial witchcraft, and hurled upon our devoted country by the dreadful machinery of parliamentary furies! No proud abbey boasts the exclusive honor of his precious relics. His solitary grave is hallowed from the profane tread of curious and crowding spectators. In this consecrated spot the poppy shall never fix its downy root, nor the wormwood thrive, nor the thistle shoot its bearded and unsalutary stalk. No; this holy soil is congenial only to those eternal laurels that there spring up, and bloom, and flourish, in thick and emulating clusters! There genius has often knelt in humble and fervent devotion, and rendered up his varied and rival offerings. But, how imperfect, how unworthy, how vain, are his best and brightest gifts! The historian has sat down to his record, -but how cold are his facts, how inanimate his reflections! The sculptor has plied his chisel,- but what art can mould the reluctant marble into the representative of that form and those features where every god did seem to set his seal? The painter has spread his canvas, but, how faint the resemblance! what an awkward mimicry of the original! So would it still have been, though a Raphael had sketched the design, a Titian had shed his colors, a Guido had lavished his graces, a Salvator had accumulated his sublimities! The poet has poured his verse,- but how far below the subject would have been even their powers, though a Pindar had thrown his bold and heedless hand amidst the strings, or the pathetic Muse had trembled out the tenderest note that ever faltered from her melancholy lyre!"

William Charles White was born in Boston in 1777, and the son of William White, a merchant of Boston, who apprenticed him to Joseph Coolidge, an importing Boston merchant, in whose employ he continued for a few years. A taste for polite literature soon rendered the journal and the ledger irksome to his mind. In 1796, William had written "Orlando," a tragedy, afterwards printed, with a likeness of the author. In the winter of this year, his father visited New York