heerfulness and patriotic pride. I see thousands of eyes
turned towards other eyes, all sparkling with gratification and delight.
This is the New World! This is America! This is Washington! and this the
Capitol of the United States! And where else, among the nations, can the
seat of government be surrounded, on any day of any year, by those who
have more reason to rejoice in the blessings which they possess?
Nowhere, fellow-citizens! assuredly, nowhere! Let us, then, meet this
rising sun with joy and thanksgiving!

This is that day of the year which announced to mankind the great fact
of American Independence. This fresh and brilliant morning blesses our
vision with another beholding of the birthday of our nation; and we see
that nation, of recent origin, now among the most considerable and
powerful, and spreading over the continent from sea to sea.

Among the first colonists from Europe to this part of America, there
were some, doubtless, who contemplated the distant consequences of their
undertaking, and who saw a great futurity. But, in general, their hopes
were limited to the enjoyment of a safe asylum from tyranny, religious
and civil, and to respectable subsistence, by industry and toil. A thick
veil hid our times from their view. But the progress of America, however
slow, could not but at length awaken genius, and attract the attention
of mankind.

In the early part of the second century of our history, Bishop Berkeley,
who, it will be remembered, had resided for some time in Newport, in
Rhode Island, wrote his well-known "Verses on the Prospect of Planting
ARTS and LEARNING in AMERICA." The last stanza of this little poem seems
to have been produced by a high poetical inspiration:--

"Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time's noblest offspring is the last."

This extraordinary prophecy may be considered only as the result of long
foresight and uncommon sagacity; of a foresight and sagacity stimulated,
nevertheless, by excited feeling and high enthusiasm. So clear a vision
of what America would become was not founded on square miles, or on
existing numbers, or on any common laws of statistics. It was an
intuitive glance into futurity; it was a grand conception, strong,
ardent, glowing, embracing all time since the creation of the world,
and all regions of which that world is composed, and judging of th