Nicholas Brown, Esq., of Providence. It is at this moment under happy auspices.

Dartmouth college was incorporated in 1762. It is situated in the town of Hanover, in the state of New-Hampshire. This college was founded by Dr. Eleazer Wheelock, a man of great benevolence and learning. A school had been established at Stockbridge, in Massachusetts, by the Rev. John Sergeant, about the year 1743. This seminary was commenced for the benefit of the Stockbridge tribe of Indians; but he had hardly begun this pious labour, when he was removed from it by death. Dr. Wheelock attempted to revive this school, and, for this purpose, solicited donations in Europe and America. He opened it at Lebanon, and called it Moore's academy. Before this time, Dr. Wheelock had contemplated founding a college somewhere on Connecticut river, and the Earl of Dartmouth had promised his assistance to the undertaking. Hanover was fixed upon as the most suitable place for its site. Moore's school was removed there also, but was not connected with the college. Besides the Earl of Dartmouth, there were several other benefactors, King George III., the Countess of Huntingdon, and others of eminence, in England; and John Adams, Dr. Franklin, John Phillips, and Samuel Phillips, with others, of this country, lent a helping hand to the establishment of this seminary. Dr. Wheelock was going on prosperously, when the revolutionary war broke out. The students necessarily became soldiers, and the building a garrison. The scholars read the classicks with arms in their hands, and, to use an expression of the second president, “MARS was made the protector of MERCURY." After the war was over, this institution flourished, and has sent forth her proportion of eminent men, in every age of her struggles, of which she has had her share. Out of her history has grown one of the most important decisions, in fixing the stability of property and the rights of charters, that is to be found on the records of our federal judiciary.

It is greatly to the honour of our country, that, on every occasion that has required talents of any sort, she has readily produced them, whether the subject presented was literary, scientific, or political. We have already spoken of our mathematicians, and of their labours in various ways; but in no instance was their merits more conspicuous, or their knowledge so thoroughly tested, as when the planet Venus made a transit over the disk of the sun in 1761. Great preparations were made in England and France, as well as in this country, to seek the best places on the globe for observations at the time. In this country, some of our first minds were deeply engaged in making the most minute and accurate notices of this event. Ewing, Rittenhouse, Smith, Williamson, West, and Winthrop, and

many others, published accounts of this phenomenon; and the philosophers of Europe have acknowledged, that those of America were the most accurate of all that were published. These men were not mere mathematicians, but were also distinguished for their knowledge of letters. The Rev. John Ewing, D. D., a native of Maryland, born in 1732, and graduated at New-York College, in 1755. He was settled as a minister in Philadelphia, and was chosen provost of the university of Pennsylvania in 1777, and lived to a good old age. John Blair Linn, D. D., his colleague, wrote the obituary of his venerable friend in a style of surpassing elegance. Of Rittenhouse, it is difficult to speak without seeming exaggeration. He was a self-taught man; born in Pennsylvania in 1752, he was a mathematician from his cradle. He perfected himself in the art of clock-making by his own ingenuity. Newton's principia was mastered by him without any assistance. From that he went to fluxions, and, for awhile, thought himself the original inventor. It is true, he was in a good degree a genuine inventor, but not an original one. It is often the fate of uneducated geniuses, to spend much time on subjects, the discovery of which was unknown to them, but with which former ages have been familiar. He invented an orrery, as he called his planetarium, which far exceeded, in accuracy and extent, all that had been known before. After his publication of his observations on the transit of Venus, he became extensively known in Europe as well as in this country, and loaded with academic honours-L. L. D., F. R. S., &c., were added to his name. He was president of the philosophical society of Philadelphia. Dr. Rush wrote his obituary notice, and others strove to make his fame bear some proportion to his merit. Barlow, in his Vision of Columbus, speaks of him among the great men that the hero saw in "coming time," who were to bless their country by the power of their understanding.

"Thus heard the hero-while his roving view
Traced other crowds that liberal arts pursue;
When thus the Seraph-Lo, a favourite band,
The torch of science flaming in their hand!
Through nature's range their ardent soul inspire,
Or wake to life the canvass and the lyre.
Fixt in sublimest thought, behold them rise,
Superiour worlds unfolding to their eyes;
Heav'n, in their view, unveils the eternal plan,
And gives new guidance to the paths of man.

See the sage Rittenhouse, with ardent eye,
Lift the long tube and pierce the starry sky;

Clear in his view the circling systems roll,
And broader splendours gild the central pole.

He marks what laws the eccentrick wanderers bind,
Copies creation in his forming mind,

And bids, beneath his hand, in semblance rise,
With mimick orbs, the labours of the skies;
There wondering crowds with raptured eye behold
The spangled heavens their mystick maze unfold;
While each glad sage his splendid hall shall grace,
With all the spheres that cleave the ethereal space."

Benjamin West, another eminent mathematician, was also a selftaught philosopher. He was for sometime a professor of mathematicks and natural philosophy in Providence college, and very much distinguished in his branches. Pike, the author of the Arithmetick, which most of us have dozed, plodded, or fretted over, informed me, that West was one of the most extraordinary men in the science of numbers he had ever met with. This talent for mathematical inquiries is almost as common in our country as the inventive capacity. There is scarcely a village which does not contain some gifted man in that way. I have known a malt-seller, and a school master in an obscure country town, teaching at six dollars per month, who were among the best instructors in mathematicks that I ever knew: and at the present time the island of Nantucket is distinguished for mathematicks. The Folgers have, for more than a century through successive generations, watched the phenomena of the heavens, and given the result of their observations to the publick.

Professor Winthrop, of Harvard College, probably made the highest exertions to notice the transit of Venus, of any American. In 1761, he sailed to St. Johns, in Newfoundland, for that purpose, and on the sixth day of June of that year, had a fine clear morning to make his observations. Winthrop was an accomplished scholar, in most branches of learning, and wrote Latin with great facility and in great purity. He published treatises on comets, earthquakes, &c. was deeply read in divinity, and was a very pious man. He said of revelation, perhaps, what no mathematician ever said before -"the light thrown upon the doctrine of a future state, (meaning by revelation,) amounts with me to demonstration." It has been too often supposed that philosophy and deep research were inimical to religion; but this has seldom been the case, certainly not in our country; for the wise and the learned, have seen and felt the necessity of a future state, to satisfy their longings after that knowledge which they believed existed, and yet was unfathomable by the intellect of man, in his present state of existence. The weak followers of some human creed, have too often taken a denial of its

truth and efficacy, for a disbelief in the great doctrines of revelation. The higher the views, the more penetrating the ken; and the greater the ability to examine, the more forcibly does man feel his nature, and the more ardent are his aspirations that it may be purified and elevated.

LECTURE VI.

God gave to man power to feel, to think, to will, and to act; and made him responsible for this prerogative; whoever, then, has the gift of tongues, let him use it; whoever holds the pen of a ready writer, let him dip it in the inkhorn; or whoever has a sword, let him gird it on, for the crisis demands our highest efforts, both physical and mental. The soul has its nerves as well as the body, and both must be put in tone for service.

Old Sermon.

THE next epoch, that called forth the talents of our countrymen, 1 was the attempt of the British ministry to tax the colonies without their consent. Not content with the monopoly of the trade of the colonies, they wished to draw a revenue from them, by imposing taxes in the form of duties on certain articles of common consumption. This was at first resisted by petitions, remonstrances, and arguments from every portion of the country. They did not regard as a grevious matter the duties imposed: it was the declaration which accompanied this taxation which was so offensive, of their right to tax the colonies, at all times, and in all cases whatsoever. The manner of enforcing these acts of Parliament was equally offensive. The custom-houses, which had been regulated with the usual lenity of collecting all colonial duties, were instructed to use all sorts of severity to bring the people at once to their allegiance and obedience. Informers and spies were scattered through the country, and behaved with all the insolence of petty tyrants; still their fears of the resentments of a people, never known for timidity, induced them to wish to have the appearance of acting legally, if unkindly. To do this, they applied to the courts for writs of assistance. The courts hesitated: this process had never been known before in the colonies. The writ was considered in the nature of a star-chamber proceeding, and against the great principles of Magnä

Charta. The custom-house petitioners obtained a rule on those interested to show cause why the petition should not be granted. Gridley was attorney-general, and of course, was bound by the duties of his office, to appear for the officers of his Majesty's customs. Otis was employed on the side of the merchants. This was in 1761. The cause of the petitioners was ably argued by Gridley: he brought all his learning into the cause, which was considerable, and the whole weight of his character, which was greater with the court. Otis made a most eloquent and learned answer, the fame of which is not lost by the lapse of years. The court were in doubt, and took time for advisement; and the subject has never been settled to this day, in that or in any other court. This was the speech which John Adams has told us, "breathed into the nation the breath of life." I am not engaging in a political discussion at this time, but this statement is made to show the causes of the development of talent in this country. Immediately after this, the papers waxed warm upon this subject, and others connected with it, and the press teemed with pamphlets, which discovered no small degree of political information. Otis was not content with employing his eloquence alone, but he took up his pen also in defence of our rights; and if his pen was not equal to his tongue, it was sufficiently pointed and powerful to arouse his countrymen, and to excite the vengeance of those he called her oppressors. Otis affixed his name boldly to whatever he wrote; before this time, most political writings had come to the world anonymously. Others followed the example which Otis had set them, and wrote over their own names, when it was thought they could do more good by this course, than by taking an assumed name. He was not only a patriot, but, what is more to my immediate purpose, he was a splendid scholar, and wrote several elementary works, and works of taste. His talents, his misfortunes, his death, are so familiar to us all, that I will not stop to recount them.

Samuel Adams was the contemporary of Otis, born only three years before him, but formed altogether on a different model. The energy of Adams was equal to that of Otis, but it was united to sanctity, as Otis's was to passion. Adams gained by a sage demeanour, while Otis lost by openness of manner and freedom of remark. They were both patriots, and brave to martyrdom; but while Otis rushed upon his enemies in a whirlwind, trusting to his powers and to his impetuosity for success, Adams approached with caution, and struck with guarded certainty.

Thomas Hutchinson, a native of the town of Boston, was at this period a secret opposer of these patriots; with declarations of love for his native country, he was holding a correspondence with the