gladdened their earlier meetings is not there. He is detained by sickness, or removed to a distant region, or gone perhaps, "to that country from whose bourne no traveler returns." But the sadness of such an event is not without profit. If one tie of the family band is broken, how soon must it be severed entirely-is the natural reflection. If a child is gone, the parents must expect ere long to follow. Their own gray hairs and growing infirmities admonish them, that they can hope to witness the return of this anniversary but a few times more. Nor will the younger

members of the circle fail to feel similar emotions. They have returned to the scenes of their childhood sports, and it seems but yesterday that they left them in all the hope and buoyancy of youth. But now they are men in the full bustle of life, and have already learned much of the emptiness of the world. The best part of their existence has passed away, and what shall the remainder be-a dream? Here then, if any where, may we learn that salutary lesson, "so to number our days as to apply our hearts unto wisdom."

We cannot dwell longer on the pleasures and advantages of these scenes. But we will say of New England, with Percival,

"We love thy rude and rocky shore."

Yes, we do love thee, even for that sterility, which, rendering a life of industry necessary, has done so much to secure and perpetuate virtue and true freedom. We love thee even for those rude winds which rocked the Pilgrim's cradle, and made them the sturdy things they were, and for those dangers which taught them to feel that God was their trust, and acknowledge each blessing as a token of his favor.

A genuine old-fashioned thanksgiving is the product of religion and social virtue; it cannot exist without them, nor will they fail while it is duly observed. And as he will never love his country, who loves not his family, nor he be a good citizen who is not a good friend, it is not unworthy the regard of the statesman and the patriot. For what will more effectually cherish the love of country than an institution which makes us feel that

-"home is the resort

Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,
Supporting and supported polished friends,
And dear relations mingle into bliss."

Ever may such principles pervade our beloved land. And often as stern winter shall return to wrap the bleak hills of New England in its mantle of snow, so often may Thanksgiving return, plenty with full horn preside in every cottage, and the sweet incense of grateful devotion go up from every heart.

*T*

Ir must be a source of just and lively pride to every American, that he can count back an uninterrupted series of eminent men, who have won an acknowledged claim to greatness, without leaving along the track by which they ascended, evidences of a reckless ambition to sully their fairest honors, if they do not indicate an utter dereliction of all principle. We are sure, too, that time has not placed before them any stage lights to magnify their natural proportions, and lend a delusive coloring to the outline. They appear to us invested in no heroic garb: they were men whom our fathers knew, with whom they talked and acted. Identified, also, as they have been, with one of the two great parties which have divided the country, they have been in no danger of receiving any hasty and unmerited praise; and death, while it has disarmed party of that virulence with which it sometimes pursues the living, has rendered all generous yet discriminating, in regard to the character of the illustrious dead. Towards that generation by whom were laid and cemented the foundation-work of our independence and confederated government, there now exists but one almost undivided sentiment of gratitude and admiration. And the more we learn of the rich worth, the varied and profound powers, the fortitude and unseduced patriotism of those who adorned the primary colonial assemblies, who established the first Congresses in the respect of all good men, and who clustered in such brilliancy about the administration of Washington, the more we learn to appreciate and to love them. Whether we dwell upon the many and aggravated evils which opposed the erection of a government novel in its form and operations, the clashing interests and fortified prejudices of a population heterogeneous in its composition, the complicated mechanism of the system to be established; or whether we consider our novel and interesting relations abroad, we are struck

with the fact, that there should have sprung up from various sections of the country, men who, unstudied in the labored science of government and diplomacy, should have proved themselves able to meet the wants of the one, and to cope with the most veteran tacticians in the other. But not alone to those who framed our government are our acknowledgments due. They were the patriarchs who gave us the battle; but their arms were upheld and the work sustained to its ultimate completion, by the faith and the diligence and the labors of others.

In a country like ours, geverned by an experiment whose every result must be watched and treasured, whose latent energies, coiled up in fearful power, required to be unfolded with the same care that we would draw off an electric discharge from a full cloud, there was needed an order of men susceptible of the highest enthusiasm, yet not heated by any spirit of tempting theory or wayward hypothesis. We stood like a gaunt Atlas, whose ramified veins and arteries debility had exposed, and there was needed, not the galvanic experiments of unfledged and visionary politicians, but a nourishing treatment which would develop their full and round proportions. In a word, we wanted men of prudence to heal the local state dissensions which ensued upon the adoption of the new constitution; of unsuspected probity and fearless courage, to forego the temptations of place, and to advocate measures of permanent and lasting advantage; and finally, of commanding influence and abilities, to furnish an irrefutable answer to those who were disposed to sneer at the dearth of eminent men among us, and who represented democracies as an unsuitable theater for any thing above the petty intrigues of a provincial assembly, or the narrow schemes of a trading settlement.

Prominent among those who have won a title to our gratitude, by uniting an expansive benevolence to a single-hearted patriotism, stands De Witt Clinton, Born of a father, who gained a high rank in the continental armies, and who sustained in his native State no inconsiderable share of civil and judicial honor, he early imbibed all that hatred of tyranny which burned in the heart of his military parent. Scarcely had he left the university which he graduated at the early age of seventeen, with the first distinction as a scholar, that he was invited by his uncle, George Clinton, then Governor of New York, afterwards Vice President of the United States, to become his private secretary. This post, inconsiderable in itself, introduced him to many of the leaders of both parties-a contact which fixed his choice of a political life, and afforded him an opportunity to study the characters of many who, at a later period, became no less zealous in plucking away the pillars of his own administration, than they were now vigilant to uphold the power of his venerable relative. We find him in 1797, a member of the Assembly of New York,

from which body he was transferred, the succeeding year, to the Senate. Here he was distinguished for the same calm eloquence, the same unwavering support of the interests of humanity, science and benevolence, which marked his career upon the wider theater of the United States Senate, where he appeared at that well known period which witnessed the ascendency of Mr. Jefferson and his characteristic democracy. The colleague of Gouverneur Morris, he is remembered rather for a thorough knowledge of the subject of our foreign relations and domestic policy, than for any brilliant exhibition of forensic power. But if he did not excel, he did not fall below mediocrity; and his sober and temperate reasoning, clothed in a lucid style, and uttered with the unaffected sincerity of conviction, gave a weight to his demonstrations which more than counterbalanced the efforts of those who dealt in splendid invective, and dazzled by an ornate delivery.

To those who estimate talent by the glitter and pomp of official station, and gauge their interest in the progress of public characters by the sphere which they filled, it may be a matter of surprise and disappointment, that Mr. Clinton should have confined his exertions chiefly to his own State. If any serious reply were needed to sentiments like these, we might point to the diminutive states of Athens and Lacedemon-to the free sovereignties of Italy and Switzerland, as furnishing statesmen and legislators with whose names, the Czars of all the Russians and the jeweled and titled ambassadors of His Most Christian Majesty of Prussia, could not purchase with their or their master's dominions, that theirs should be linked. Nay, we might ask, who was Demosthenes, that we should care to know of his exertions and eloquence and success, in behalf of that little sterile promontory of Attica, whose absence the mariner would hardly miss from the Egean. No: our admiration is not for Demosthenes the Athenian-we forget distance and locality-the champion of freedom swells and dilates before us-the battle-axe which he wields is wielded in her defense; and as at last he falls beneath the multiplied blows of domestic venality and tyrannical aggression, we hang the cypress about the broken shaft of Liberty, and bid the pilgrim to Greece-go worship there. With feelings kindred to these, we follow Mr. Clinton back to his native State, the future scene of his mature and grand exertions. We see him as Mayor of New York and Judge of the Municipal Courts, tempering the severity of law by the decorum and clemency of the magistrateextending the privileges of enlightened justice to all classes and to every religious faith, despite the prevailing tone of illiberality and exclusiveness. The bosom friend of Emmet, he could not see the web of the law drawn around those who had been hunted from their homes by a pampered pack of court minions. Accord

ingly we find him in the State senate advocating and at length gaining a generous toleration of Catholics-a measure of justice that New York was the last to adopt, overawed as her councils had been by those whose wealth and political importance, instead of elevating them above the prejudices of the vulgar, seemed the more to bind them to the bigotry of establishments. Nor should his efficient and successful agency in promoting negro emancipation in his own State be forgotten; the happy results with which it has been attended, bespeak as well his political foresight and wisdom, as the humanity and benevolence of his nature.

But it is from the canal policy, of which he is acknowledged the father, that De Witt Clinton is most favorably known, and upon which is based his proud title of public benefactor. It would be misplaced here to detail the opposition-the mingled storm of political hate, of personal ridicule and contempt which followed the first stages of this enterprise; or the mean, disingenuous artifices which attempted to stop it half-executed, and to divert from those who had fostered it into being, those full streams of praise which a vision, now unsealed, saw were rolling towards them. There is not in our history-rife as it is with examples of men who have gained an honored fame by hewing down difficulties which hedged in their efforts-there is not to be found such an array of opposition on the one hand, and such unwavering courage and sustained faith on the other, as were presented in the prosecution of this favorite work. Mr. Clinton, by a singular unanimity, had succeeded to the office of Governor. Each party had persuaded itself that in forgetting his political faults, they had acted from disinterested motives; and it was not until he had distributed his executive patronage, that he found he had obtained the suffrages of both only to gain the distrust, and denunciations and opposition of each. They had only put the toga of peace over the armor of party strife; and, unsated with office, they determined to glut their vengeance by the destruction of their now common foe. Arguments were not wanting to arm those natural prejudices which ever exist against works which, from their magnitude, seemed designed for the benefit of posterity. It was indeed no slight enterprise for a population of nine hundred thousand souls, and of limited resources, to undertake; many of whom, also, conceived it their interest to check an improvement, promoted at the the common expense, yet calculated to increase the resources of a particular section. But Mr. Clinton recoiled not from this formidable battery of talent, ridicule and partial interest. He saw at once the practicability and advantages of the proposed work; he saw New York rising under its influence, to deserve the proud title which has since been conferred upon her-he saw the Union enriched and strengthened, its various parts knit into compactness and harmony.