Of this dangerous, deistical, and Utopian school, a great personage from Virginia is a favored pupil. His Gallic masters stroke his head, and pronounce him forward and promising. Those who sit in the same. form cheerfully and reverently allow him to be the head of his class. In allusion to the well marshalled words of a great orator, him they worship; him they emulate; his "notes" they con over all the time they can spare from the "Aurora" of the morning, or French politics at night. The man has talents, but they are of a dangerous and delusive kind. He has read much, and can write plausibly. He is a man of letters, and should be a retired one. His closet, and not the cabinet, is his place. In the first, he might harmlessly examine the teeth of a nondescript monster, the secretions of an African, or the Almanac of Banneker. At home he might catch a standard of weight from the droppings of his eaves, and, seated in his epicurean chair, laugh at Moses and the prophets, and wink against the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. At the seat of government, his abstract, inapplicable, metaphysico-politics are either nugatory or noxious. Besides, his principles relish so strongly of Paris, and are seasoned with such a profusion of French garlic, that he offends the whole nation. Better for Americans, that on their extended plains "thistles should grow, instead of wheat, and cockle, instead of barley," than that a "philosopher" should influence the councils of the country, and that his admiration of the works of Voltaire and Helvetius should induce him to wish a closer connection with Frenchmen. When a metaphysical and Gallic government obtains in America, may the pen drop from the hand, and "the arm fall from the shoulder-blade" of

Tecumseh.

BORN near the present town of Springfield, O., about 1768. FELL at the Battle of the Thames, 1813.

SPEECH TO GENERAL PROCTOR, SHORTLY BEFORE THE BATTLE.

[Found among Proctor's papers, and printed in the National Intelligencer. 1813.]

F

ATHER, listen to your children! you have them now all before you. The war before this our British father gave the hatchet to his red children, when old chiefs were alive. They are now dead. In that war our father was thrown on his back by the Americans, and our father took them by the hand without our knowledge; and we are afraid that our father will do so again at this time.

Summer before last, when I came forward with my red brethren, and was ready to take up the hatchet in favor of our British father, we were told not to be in a hurry, that he had not yet determined to fight the Americans.

Listen! When war was declared, our father stood up and gave us the tomahawk, and told us that he was ready to strike the Americans; that he wanted our assistance, and that he would certainly get us our lands back, which the Americans had taken from us.

Listen! You told us, at that time, to bring forward our families to this place, and we did so:—and you promised to take care of them, and that they should want for nothing, while the men would go and fight the enemy. That we need not trouble ourselves about the enemy's garrisons; that we knew nothing about them, and that our father would attend to that part of the business. You also told your red children that you would take good care of your garrison here, which made our hearts glad.

Listen! When we were last at the Rapids, it is true we gave you little assistance. It is hard to fight people who live like ground-hogs.

Father, listen! Our fleet has gone out; we know they have fought: we have heard the great guns: but know nothing of what has happened to our father with one arm. Our ships have gone one way, and we are much astonished to see our father tying up everything and preparing to run away the other, without letting his red children know what his intentions are. You always told us to remain here and take care of our lands. It made our hearts glad to hear that was your wish. Our great father, the King, is the head, and you represent him. You always told us that you would never draw your foot off British ground; but now, father, we see you are drawing back, and we are sorry to see our father

doing so without seeing the enemy. We must compare our father's conduct to a fat animal that carries its tail upon its back, but when affrighted, it drops it between its legs and runs off.

Listen, Father! The Americans have not yet defeated us by land; neither are we sure that they have done so by water-we therefore wish to remain here and fight our enemy, should they make their appearance. If they defeat us, we will then retreat with our father.

At the battle of the Rapids, last war, the Americans certainly defeated us; and when we retreated to our father's fort in that place, the gates were shut against us. We were afraid that it would now be the case, but instead of that, we now see our British father preparing to march out of his garrison.

Father! You have got the arms and ammunition which our great father sent for his red children. If you have an idea of going away, give them to us, and you may go and welcome, for us. Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to defend our lands, and if it is his will, we wish to leave our bones upon them.

David Everett.

BORN in Princeton, Mass., 1769. DIED at Marietta, O., 1813.

LINES SPOKEN BY A BOY OF SEVEN YEARS.

[Caleb Bingham's "Columbian Orator." 1810.]

OU'D scarce expect one of my age

YOU'D

To speak in public on the stage;

And if I chance to fall below

Demosthenes or Cicero,

Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.

Large streams from little fountains flow;

Tall oaks from little acorns grow;
And though I now am small and young,
Of judgment weak and feeble tongue,
Yet all great learned men, like me,
Once learned to read their A, B, C.

But why may not Columbia's soil

Rear men as great as Britain's isle?—

Exceed what Greece and Rome have done?

Or any land beneath the sun?

Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great

As any other sister State?

Or where's the town, go far and near,
That does not find a rival here?

Or where's the boy, but three feet high,
Who's made improvements more than I?
These thoughts inspire my youthful mind
To be the greatest of mankind:
Great, not like Cæsar, stained with blood,
But only great as I am good.

De Witt Clinton.

BORN in Little Britain, New Windsor, Orange Co., N. Y., 1769. DIED in Albany, N. Y., 1828.

ELOQUENCE OF THE SIX NATIONS.

[From an Address delivered before the N. Y. Hist. Soc. 1811.-The Life and Writings of De Witt Clinton. By W. W. Campbell. 1849.]

THE

HE Confederates were as celebrated for their eloquence, as for their military skill and political wisdom. Popular, or free governments have, in all ages, been the congenial soil of oratory. And it is, indeed, all important in institutions merely advisory; where persuasion must supply the place of coercion; where there is no magistrate to execute, no military to compel; and where the only sanction of law is the controlling power of public opinion. Eloquence being, therefore, considered so essential, must always be a great standard of personal merit, a certain road to popular favor, and an universal passport to public honors. These combined inducements operated with powerful force on the mind of the Indian; and there is little doubt but that oratory was studied with as much care and application among the Confederates as it was in the stormy democracies of the eastern hemisphere. I do not pretend to assert that there were, as at Athens and Rome, established schools and professional teachers for the purpose; but I say that it was an attainment to which they devoted themselves, and to which they bent the whole force of their faculties. Their models of eloquence were to be found, not in books, but in the living orators of their local and national assemblies; their children, at an early period of life, attended their council fires, in order to observe the passing scenes, and to receive the lessons of wisdom. Their rich and vivid imagery was drawn from the sublime scenery of nature, and their ideas were derived from the laborious operations of their own minds, and from the experience and wisdom of their ancient sages.

The most remarkable difference existed between the Confederates and the other Indian nations with respect to eloquence. You may search in vain in the records and writings of the past, or in events of the present times, for a single model of eloquence among the Algonquins, the Abenaquis, the Delawares, the Shawanese, or any other nation of Indians, except the Iroquois. The few scintillations of intellectual light-the faint glimmerings of genius, which are sometimes to be found in their speeches, are evidently derivative, and borrowed from the Confederates. Considering the interpreters who have undertaken to give the meaning of Indian speeches, it is not a little surprising that some of them should approach so near to perfection. The major part of the interpreters were illiterate persons, sent among them to conciliate their favor, by making useful or ornamental implements; or they were prisoners who learned the Indian language during their captivity. The Reverend Mr. Kirkland, a missionary among the Oneidas, and sometimes a public interpreter, was indeed a man of liberal education; but those who have seen him officiate at public treaties must recollect how incompetent he was to infuse the fire of Indian oratory into his expressions; how he labored for words, and how feeble and inelegant his language. Oral is more difficult than written interpretation or translation. In the latter case, there is no pressure of time, and we have ample opportunity to weigh the most suitable words, to select the most elegant expressions, and to fathom the sense of the author; but in the former case, we are called upon to act immediately; no time for deliberation is allowed; and the first ideas that occur must be pressed into the service of the interpreter. At an ancient treaty, a female captive officiated in that capacity; and at a treaty held in 1722, at Albany, the speeches of the Indians were first rendered into Dutch, and then translated into English. I except from these remarks the speech of the Onondaga chief, Garangula, to M. Delabarre, delivered on the occasion which I have before mentioned. This was interpreted by Monsieur Le Maine, a French Jesuit, and recorded on the spot by Baron La Hontan-men of enlightened and cultivated minds, from whom it has been borrowed by Colden, Smith, Herriot, Trumbull, and Williams. I believe it to be impossible to find, in all the effusions of ancient or modern oratory, a speech more appropriate and more convincing. Under the veil of respectful profession it conveys the most biting irony; and while it abounds with rich and splendid imagery, it contains the most solid reasoning. I place it in the same rank with the celebrated speech. of Logan; and I cannot but express astonishment at the conduct of two respectable writers, who have represented this interesting interview, and this sublime display of intellectual power, as "a scold between the French generals and an old Indian."

Within a few years, an extraordinary orator has risen among the