his vesper hymn? "All men are born free and equal." Did the
venerable father of the gang believe it? Or did he too purchase
his immortality by a lie?

From the five heavy volumes of the "Eloquence of the United
States," I made a few extracts, which I give more for the sake of
their political interest, than for any purpose of literary
criticism.

Mr. Hancock (one of those venerated men who signed the act of
independence), in speaking of England, thus expresses himself:
"But if I was possessed of the gift of prophecy, I dare not
(except by Divine command) unfold the leaves on which the destiny
of that once powerful kingdom is inscribed." It is impossible
not to regret that Mr. Hancock should thus have let "I dare not,
wait upon I would." It would have been exceedingly edifying to
have known beforehand all the terrible things the republic was
about to do for us.

This prophetic orator spoke the modest, yet awful words, above
quoted, nearly sixty years ago; in these latter days men are
become bolder, for in a modern 4th of July oration, Mr. Rush,
without waiting, I think, for Divine command, gives the following
amiable portrait of the British character.

"In looking at Britain, we see a harshness of individual character
in the general view of it, which is perceived and acknowledged by
all Europe; a spirit of unbecoming censure as regards all customs
and institutions not their own; a ferocity in some of their
characteristics of national manners, pervading their very
pastimes, which no other modern people are endued with the
blunted sensibility to bear; an universal self-assumed
superiority, not innocently manifesting itself in speculative
sentiments among themselves, but unamiably indulged when with
foreigners, of whatever description, in their own country, or
when they themselves are the temporary sojourners in a foreign
country; a code of criminal law that forgets to feel for human
frailty, that sports with human misfortune, that has shed more
blood in deliberate judicial severity for two centuries past,
constantly increasing, too, in its sanguinary hue, than has ever
been sanctioned by the jurisprudence of any ancient or modern
nation, civilized and refined like herself; the merciless
whippings in her army, peculiar to herself alone, the conspicuous
commission and freest acknowledgment of vice in the upper
classes; the overweening distinctions shown to opulence and
birth, so destructive of a sound moral sent