Or shall we compare him with Frederick the Second of Prussia, to whom complacent public opinion has also accorded the epithet of "Great." He was no doubt a military and a civil genius of the first order; by the energy of his character he built up a kingdom scarcely known by that title when he came to the throne, into a first-rate power; the fearless soldier, the profound strategist, the heroic chief; nor less a master of political combination, a zealous promoter of the material prosperity of his subjects, who doubled the population of his little kingdom, and increased all the resources in more than the same proportion, notwithstanding the wars in which he was continually involved; but at the same time a pedant, ostentatious, of superficial literary attainments, a wretched poetaster, a dupe of the insipid adulation of godless foreign wits, who flattered him to his face and ridiculed him behind his back; a German sovereign who yet preferred to write and speak poor broken French, in which Voltaire said there was not a sentence which you would not know to be the language of a foreigner; a prince raised by Providence in the bitter school of adversity to an absolute throne, entertaining the most exalted ideas of the kingly prerogative, drawing everything, even the administration of justice, into an arbitrary centralization, who had yet trained his undevout heart to believe that blind chance or blind destiny occupies the throne of the universe; that the heavens and the earth could do without a God, though the paltry electorate of Brandenburgh could not do without a king; and that while it was impossible for him to hold the scattered provinces of his little realm together without a daily outgoing of civil, military and judicial power, moved by one intellect and one will, could yet believe that the systems and systems which compose the universe, beyond the power of human speech to enumerate, or human thought to conceive, are thrown out into one vast anarchy, wheeling and hurtling through the regions of space without a lawgiver and a head; who, so thinking and so believing while he lived, when he came to die, in order to mark more emphatically his contempt for the species to which he belonged, instead of allowing his "poor old carcass,” as he himself called it, to be laid by the side of his kindred, ordered that it should be buried with his favorite dogs at Potsdam!

Or shall we compare Washington with the third greatness of his age, the illustrious captain of the last generation in

France; that portentous blazing star which began to flame in the eastern sky as our benignant luminary was sinking in the west, amidst the golden clouds of a nation's blessings? I have no wish to trample on the memory of Napoleon the First, whom I regard by no means as the most ambitious of conquerors, the most arbitrary of despots, or the worst of men. The virtues and the feelings, like the talents, the opportunities, and the fortunes of this extraordinary man, are on too colossal a scale to be measured by ordinary standards of morality. The prevalent opinions in this country of his character and career have come to us through a British medium, discolored by a national prejudice and the deadly struggle of a generation; or by natural reaction have been founded on the panegyrics of grateful adherents and admiring subjects, who deem every Frenchman a partner in the glory of their chief. Posterity and impartial history will subdue the lights and relieve the shadows of the picture. They will accord to him a high, perhaps the highest, rank among the great masters of war, placing his name upon an equality with the three great captains of antiquity, if not above them; will point to his code as a noble monument of legislative wisdom; will dwell upon the creative vigor with which he brought order out of the chaos of the Revolution, retrieving the dilapidated finances and restoring the prostrate industry of France; will enumerate the harbors, the canals, the bridges, the public buildings, the Alpine roads, the libraries, the museums, and all the thousand works of industrious peace and productive art; will not withhold their admiration for the giant grasp of his genius and the imperial grandeur of his fortunes, nor deny a tribute of human sympathy to his calamitous decline and fall;—but the same impartial history will record more than one ineffaceable stain upon his character, and never, to the end of time, never on the page of historian, poet or philosopher; never till a taste for true moral greatness is eaten out of the hearts of men by a mean admiration of success and power; never in the exhortations of the prudent magistrate counseling his fellow-citizens for their good; never in the dark ages of national fortune, when anxious patriots explore the annals of the past for examples of public virtue; never in the admonition of the parent forming the minds of his children by lessons of fireside wisdom; never, O never, will the name of Napoleon, nor of any of the other of the famous ccn

querors of ancient and modern days, be placed upon a level with Washington's.

And while we on the 22d of February celebrate with solemn and joyous rites the great anniversary of our Washington, our fellow-citizens on the Hudson, on the Potomac, from the Southern plains to the Western lakes, are engaged in the same offices of gratitude and love. Nor we, nor they alone, beyond the Ohio, beyond the Mississippi, along the stupendous trail of immigration from East to West, which, bursting into States as it moves westward, is already threading the Western prairies, swarming through the portals of the Rocky Mountains and winding down their slopes, the name and the memory of Washington on that gracious night will travel with the silver queen of heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her brightness through the golden gate of California, and passes serenely on to hold midnight court with her Australian stars. There and there only, in barbarous archipelagos, as yet untrodden by civilized man, the name of Washington is unknown; and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened millions, new honors shall be paid with ours to his memory. Edward Everett.

EULOGY ON LAFAYETTE.

There have been those who have denied to Lafayette the name of a great man. What is greatness? Does goodness belong to greatness, and make an essential part of it? If it does, who, I would ask, of all the prominent names in history, has run through such a career with so little reproach, justly or unjustly bestowed? Are military courage and conduct the measure of greatness? Lafayette was intrusted by Washington with all kinds of service, the laborious and complicated, which required skill and patience; the perilous, that demanded nerve; and we see him performing all with entire success and brilliant reputation. Is the readiness to meet vast responsibilities a proof of greatness? The memoirs of Mr. Jefferson show us that there was a moment, in 1789, when Lafayette took upon himself, as the head of the military force, the entire responsibility of laying down the basis of the Revolution. Is the cool and brave administration of gigantic

power a mark of greatness? In all the whirlwind of the Revolution, and when, as commander-in-chief of the National Guard, an organized force of three millions of men, who, for any popular purpose, needed but a word, a look, to put them in motion, we behold him ever calm, collected, disinterested; as free from affectation as selfishness, clothed not less with humility than with power. Is the voluntary return, in advancing years, to the direction of affairs, at a moment like that, when, in 1815, the ponderous machinery of the French Empire was flying asunder,-stunning, rending, crushing thousands on every side,—a mark of greatness? Lastly, is it any proof of greatness to be able, at the age of seventythree, to take the lead in a successful and bloodless revolution; to change the dynasty; to organize, exercise, and abdicate a military command of three and a half millions of men; to take up, to perform, and lay down the most momentous, delicate, and perilous duties, without passion, without hurry, without selfishness? Is it great to disregard the bribes of title, office, money; to live, to labor, and suffer for great public ends alone; to adhere to principle under all circumstances; to stand before Europe and America conspicuous, for sixty years, in the most responsible stations, the acknowledged admiration of all good men?

But it is more than time, fellow-citizens, that I commit the memory of this great and good man to your unprompted contemplation. On his arrival among you, ten years ago, when your civil fathers, your military, your children, your whole population, poured itself out, in one throng, to salute him; when your cannons proclaimed his advent with joyous salvos, and your acclamations were answered, from steeple to steeple, by festal bells,—with what delight did you not listen to his cordial and affectionate words "I beg of you all, beloved citizens of Boston, to accept the respectful and warm thanks of a heart which has for nearly half a century been devoted to your illustrious city!"

That noble heart,—to which, if any object on earth was dear, that object was the country of his early choice, of his adoption, and his more than regal triumph,-that noble heart will beat no more for your welfare. Cold and still, it is already mingling with the dust. While he lived, you thronged with delight to his presence; you gazed with admiration on his placid features and venerable form, not wholly unshaken by the rude storms of his career; and now that he has

departed, you have assembled in this cradle of the liberties for which, with your fathers, he risked his life, to pay the last honors to his memory. You have thrown open these consecrated portals to admit the lengthened train, which has come to discharge the last public offices of respect to his name. You have hung these venerable arches, for the second time since their erection, with the sable badges of sorrow. You have thus associated the memory of Lafayette in those diştinguished honors which but a few years since you paid to your Adams and Jefferson:

There is not, throughout the world, a friend of liberty who has not dropped his head when he has heard that Lafayette is no more. Poland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Ireland, the South American republics-every country where man is struggling to recover his birthright,-have lost a benefactor, a patron in Lafayette. And what was it, fellow-citizens, which gave to our Lafayette his spotless fame? The love of liberty. What has consecrated his memory in the hearts of good men? The love of liberty. What nerved his youthful arm with strength, and inspired him, in the morning of his days, with sagacity and counsel? The living love of liberty. To what did he sacrifice power, and rank, and country, and freedom itself? To the horror of licentiousness, -to the sanctity of plighted faith,--to the love of liberty protected by law. Thus the great principle of your Revolutionary fathers, and of your Pilgrim sires, was the rule of his life— the love of liberty protected by law.

You have now assembled within these celebrated walls to perform the last duties of respect and love, on the birthday of your benefactor. The spirit of the departed is in high communion with the spirit of the place the temple worthy of the new name which we now behold inscribed on its walls. Listen, Americans, to the lesson which seems borne to us on the very air we breathe, while we perform these dutiful rites! Ye winds, that wafted the Pilgrims to the land of promise, fan, in their children's hearts, the love of freedom! Blood, which our fathers shed, cry from the ground! Echoing arches of this renowned hall, whisper back the voices of other days! Glorious Washington, break the long silence of that votive canvas! Speak, speak, marble lips; teach us THE LOVE

OF LIBERTY PROTECTED BY LAW.

Edward Everett.