Various

“ When this beautiful land was covered with leagues of independent states, inspired with the genius of liberty and political independence,—the stimulating influence of the government was felt every where—it animated and aroused all—it communicated the spirit of activity and enterprise, the love of home and the ardent love of country to all the citizens alike—from the proud lord of Venice, whose stately palace was lashed by the wave of the Adriatic, to the poor peasant whose thatched and humble cottage lay in some secluded solitary hollow of the Alps or the Appenines. ”

“ It was Italy that first restored intellectual light to Europe, after the long and gloomy night of ignorance and barbarism, which the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun had shed over the western half of the Roman world. It was Italy which recalled youth to the study of laws and philosophy—created the taste for poetry and the fine arts—revived the science and literature of antiquity, and gave prosperity to commerce, manufactures and agriculture. ”

“ The talent and ambition of the country would have to make the same weary pilgrimage here as in the monarchies—to travel up to court—to fawn upon and flatter the men whom fortune had thrown into the high places of the government. The stimulus which such a government could afford, must necessarily be of the most partial and capricious character. A system of state governments preserves the sovereignty unimpaired in every portion of the country; it carries the beneficial stimulus, which government itself is capable of applying to literature and character, to every division of the people. ”

“ He begins indeed "to mingle with the universe;" and, like the mystic Egeria, a spirit of beauty pure and undefiled arises from the silent memorials of creative design, to commune with him in his morning walks and evening meditations. He compares the soul, which guides and animates the physical universe, with the vain and contentious spirit of his fellow man; he compares the order and beauty of the physical universe, which submits all its motions to the divine will, with the moral government of man,—at once the sport and the victim of his own caprices ”

“ It surely could not be the patronage of that base, profligate, licentious libertine, who during the period of his unfortunate regency, loosened the very foundation of human virtue, polluted the morals of his country, and weakened or destroyed those dearest of ties which bind together in harmony, in happiness and in love, the whole social fabric. It could not surely be the patronage of a monarch who had been reared and educated in such a school as this. No! it was the new spirit which animated the age—the spirit of liberty—the spirit of free inquiry—the spirit of utility. ”

“ It is on the tale of the traveller from far distant lands that we hang with most delight and wonder. Had Columbus discovered America within two days voyage of Europe, the tale of his genius had been yet untold. So too the mind looks to events long past with an awe and wonder akin to those feelings which fill it in its eager gaze into futurity. It is this power of association which attaches the antiquarian so devotedly to his peculiar study, and so soon converts it into a pursuit of feeling rather than of reason. ”

“ What terms expressive enough should we find, to convey our sense of gratitude to the genius who would offer us a gift that would enable us to defy the persecutions of this world and laugh at its misfortunes! a gift, which, for our enjoyments, would render us independent of every other being in existence, save ourselves and him who created us—a gift which would endow us with a taste and the means of gratifying a taste which age cannot dull, and gratification cannot satiate. And yet to a great degree, the mind which is imbued with the love of knowledge enjoys these blessings. ”

“ But it is in history, oratory, the philosophy of government, law and psychology, that the pre-eminence of ancient literature is most important to be noticed. We are perfectly aware that the history of remote antiquity has for every mind a charm which does not belong to the genius or the taste of the historian. Ideas of events remote in point of time, whether past or future, always fill the mind with a certain degree of awe and uncertainty. A feeling of mystery always attends our ideas of what is remote in point of time or place. ”

“ The Executive, in such a system, would be all—the People, nothing! We should then be reduced to the condition of the silent crushing despotisms of Asia—with every principle of improvement gone, and the whole elasticity of mind destroyed. Soon would we, then, hug the chains which bound us; and bend the knee in degrading servility before him who had rivetted them on us. Soon would we be ready to use the idolatrous language of the Roman bard,
"Erit ille mihi semper Deus: illius aram
Sœpe tener nostris ab ovilibus imbuet agnus."
A great empire speedily assimilates every thing to its own genius. ”

“ The despotism which has been thrown off, has been speedily succeeded by another which was scarcely less odious and intolerable. Their temple of freedom was not reared on the rock of religious principle, but on the sand. The tempest of ungoverned passions, which righteousness only has the power to allay, beat vehemently upon it, and it fell; and great has been the fall of it. Better that a population deficient in virtue, (the virtue which a pure religion only can impart,) be also deficient in knowledge. There is no regenerating or transforming influence in literature and science. ”

“ While companies spring up in a day for the excavation of a canal or the construction of a rail road, for the working of a coal mine or the search after gold. Behold what a little band has associated here, to redeem our state from the disgrace of a Bœotian neglect of literature—and to pluck up drowning honor by the locks, without other reward than the participation with our great corrivals in all the dignities of science. But let us not despair because we are but a handful. Our little society is but the germ of better things. ”

“ And thus would a review of the history of the world bear me out in the assertion, that in almost every age and country since the annals of history have become authentic, the opposition literature, in moral, political and religious philosophy has been purer, deeper, more vivifying and useful, than that sickly literature which has grown up under the shadow of the throne, though encouraged and stimulated by the smiles of power, and sustained and fostered by the lavish expenditure of exhaustless treasures. ”

“ President,—In the report of the Executive Committee, which has just been read, we are officially informed of what we knew but too well before, the loss which our Society has sustained in the death of our late venerable and illustrious President. Yes, Sir, the man whom Virginia—whom his country—whom all his fellows-citizens in all parts of the United States, admired, and loved, and delighted to honor—the man whom we, Sir, who knew him, fondly and affectionately called "THE CHIEF," (as he was indeed in almost every sense of the word,) our MARSHALL is no more. ”

“ A slight impression made upon a nerve often breaks the chain of thought, and the mind tosses in tumult. Let a peculiar vibration quiver upon the nerve of hearing, and a tide of wild emotion rushes over the soul. The man who can think with a gnat in his eye, or reason while the nerve of a tooth is twinging, or when his stomach is nauseated, or when his lungs are oppressed and laboring; he who can give wing to his imagination when shivering with cold, or fainting with heat, or worn down with toil, can claim exemption from the common lot of humanity. ”

“ It is mournful to behold how the rights of man, and of nations, may be destroyed by the mere magnitude of empire. Humanity now weeps when wronged and injured Poland shows symptoms of a revolt,—we know that the blood of the patriotic Pole will be shed in vain, and that the Russian and the Cossack soldier will soon come to place the galling yoke again upon his neck; and yet if Poland were united to a nation no larger than herself—Poland would have rights, and what is better still, Poland would have the power to defend them. ”

“ But in matters of morals and politics how many must turn their attention to them, and how few become eminent! Suppose that the exalted talents which have been turned into a political career in this country, had been employed with the same assiduity in physics or mathematics—to what perfection might they not have attained in those sciences? If the genius and study which have been expended upon one great subject in political economy, the Banks for example, could have been directed with equal ardor to mathematics and physics, with what complete success would they have been crowned? ”

“ Virtue, justice and all the nobler principles of human nature, would wither away under the pestilential breath of political faction, and an unnerved constitution be left to the sport of demagogue and parasite. Crash after crash would be heard in quick succession, as the strong pillars of the republic give way, and Despotism would shout in hellish triumph amidst the crumbling ruins—Anarchy would wave her bloody sceptre over the devoted land, and the blood-hounds of civil war, would lap the crimson gore of our most worthy citizens. ”

“ One of the most fatal evils with which the republican system of government is liable to be assailed, is the diffusion of a spirit of agrarianism among the indigent classes of society. This spirit is now abroad in the world—it is fearfully developing itself in the insurrectionary heavings and tumults of continental Europe, which, however ineffectual now, do nevertheless mark the great internal conflagration—"the march of that mighty burning, which however intangible by human vigilance, is yet hollowing the ground under every community of the civilized world." ”

“ Let my children then be taught what these few events are; let them be spared the life's labor of turning over the mountain of dross which time has heaped up, in search of the scattered gems which are to lighten their path through the world; conduct them at once into the only treasury of true knowledge—that treasury which Philosophy has gleaned from the experience of thousands of generations. ”

“ Surely there could exist no opinion more unfortunate for the progress of science, than that which supposes, that a view of science as it now exists, is all that is necessary for its thorough investigation; indeed, we believe the assertion may be safely hazarded, that no one can ever qualify himself for the race of discovery who looks alone to what men now think without a reference to what they have formerly believed and written upon the subjects of his inquiry. Strange as it may seem, the man who would ascertain truth, must not confine himself to the simple inquiry of what it is. ”

“ The conception of a costume is the only occupation worthy of his fancy, and the composition of a dish the only subject which he would have the world to think capable of tasking his powers of attention and reflection; and yet all the learning of all the schools is shamed by the display of this literary faineant who acquired his knowledge without study, whilst inspiration only can account for the wisdom with which he is instinct. ”

“ A fierce opposition at length sprung up to a system of study so narrow and exclusive,—the growing wants of education demanded a university in London, which project was opposed by many of the friends of the old institutions. The elements of a party thus formed, were soon combined, and as the controversy waxed warmer, they attacked not only the venerable temples of learning, but the very study of the ancient languages itself, at first, perhaps, because the most celebrated abodes of this species of literature were to be found in the universities to which they had become inimical. ”

“ Now there is no system of government which has ever been devised by man, better calculated to remove the withering and blighting influence of great names in literature, and at the same time to insure the full possession of all the great benefits which their labors can confer, than the federal system of republics—a system which, at the same time that it binds the states together in peace and harmony, leaves each one in the possession of a government of its own, with its sovereignty and liberty unimpaired. ”

“ In different periods of life, the mind waxes and wanes with the body; in youth, cheerful, full of daring, quick to see, and keen to feel; in old age, desponding, timid, perception dim, and emotion languid. When the blood circulates with unusual energy, the coward rises into a hero; when it creeps feebly, the hero sinks into a coward. The effects produced by the different states of the mind upon the body, are equally sudden and powerful. ”

“ Ours is surely the system, which, if administered in the pure spirit of that patriotism and freedom which erected it, holds out to the philanthropists and the friends of liberty throughout the world, the fairest promise of a successful solution of the great problem of free government. Ours is indeed the great experiment of the eighteenth century—to it the eyes of all, friends and foes, are now directed, and upon its result depends perhaps the cause of liberty throughout the civilized world. ”

“ As those who ate of the fabled lotus were said to forget their country and kindred in their enjoyments, when they had tasted of its flowers, so those who have once fed upon the immortal fruit of the tree of knowledge, cease to regard those temporal cares and pleasures which bind man to this earth, and lead through a maze of uncertainty to disappointment at last. They look into nature—and each link which they discover in the great chain of truth, seems, in the enthusiasm of the vision, another step on that ladder by which man mounts from earth to heaven. ”