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of the organs of public sentiment in Europe towards our country and its institutions, we cannot condemn, nay, we rather applaud, the attitude of manly resistance which it called forth. We owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Everett, for the beauty and eloquence with which he has, on so many occasions, unfolded the two great facts in our history, the first settlement of the country and the Revolutionary struggle. No man has studied more deeply, or comprehends more clearly, the history and causes of those movements, and the lives and characters of the illustrious men who guided them. In this view, we commend these discourses to the young men of our country, as important helps to the proper understanding of the Pilgrim fathers and the leaders of the Revolu tion; men in whom the elements of character were similar, though the proportions in which they were combined were not identical, and the record of whose simple and heroic virtues is one of the noblest inheritances that the past has ever bequeathed to the present. These men, these periods, these subjects, Mr. Everett has discussed with minute knowledge, with genuine feeling, with philosophical insight, and in a strain of fervent, but sincere and not exaggerated, eulogium. It is the duty of the scholars of a country to create and cherish a just and high tone of national feeling; and this Mr. Everett has done in his patriotic discourses; for they teach and inspire those sentiments which are the salient fountains of national happiness and prosperity. Indeed, we have always looked upon Mr. Everett as approaching more nearly than any other person we know to the ideal of an American scholar. His knowledge of the past has not made him indifferent to the present and the future. His love of books has not chilled his interest in the actual realities of life. His mind has not moved in remote regions which lie in that soft, ideal light, so dear to the intellectual voluptuary. He has not shrunk from the homely earth and the open day. Bunker Hill has been to him a more magic word than Marathon. His learning has borne a practical stamp. The stream of living life has flowed through his mind, and made it productive of such harvests as the times have need of. make the history of his country attractive, to inspire a deeper veneration for its great men, to develop its

To

1850.]

Value of Occasional Efforts.

415

industrial resources, to draw from the past lessons for the guidance of the future, to awaken a thoughtful and generous patriotism, to call the attention of scholars to native virtues and home-born worth, to teach our young men that lives better than Plutarch's are lying at their feet, these are the ends to which his powers and his attainments have been devoted; and as the ends were noble, so has his success been triumphant.*

The question has often been asked by the admirers of Mr. Everett, perhaps in moments of self-distrust he has asked it of himself, whether the time given to these occasional efforts might not have been better bestowed upon some continuous and elaborate work. Without doubt, had his object been merely literary fame, he might have secured a large measure of it, if, during the last thirty years, he had dedicated himself exclusively to literary pursuits; for no one can doubt that, with his powers, the highest success in history, biography, or literary research was open to him. But that is not exactly the question. It is, whether, a different sphere of action having been deliberately selected, the exact hours which have been spent in preparing these discourses could have been employed more wisely for himself, and more happily for others, in the composition of a single work; and upon this point we confess that we feel great doubts. For be it remembered that these discourses, numerous as they are, are the incidental products of a busy life, the growth of hours in which some men are idle and others are asleep, and which, even in Mr. Everett's case, might have been unoccupied but for the pressing spur of an inevitable occasion. The

In this connection, we cannot refrain from commending, in the warmest terms, Mr. Everett's latest production, an oration delivered at Charlestown on the 17th of June of this year, which we regret to see is not contained in the present collection. It is a performance of great merit, full of admirable historical teaching, throwing fresh interest over familiar themes, and written in a style of ripe and manly beauty. Nothing proves more strikingly the vigor and fertility of Mr. Everett's mind, than that, after having written so much upon the subjects appropriate to such an occasion, he should be able to treat them once more with all the spirit and vivacity of a young man's first impressions, and with all the wisdom of long observation and varied experience. This discourse is really a work of high art. The unity of the subject is most happily preserved, the successive portions follow each other in the natural order, the law of symmetry and proportion is everywhere observed, and over the whole is thrown a serene atmosphere of calm wisdom and moral dignity.

alternative, too, supposes that all these finished orations should not only never have been written, but never have been spoken, that no audience should ever have hung upon his lips, and that his remarkable powers of deliberative eloquence should have been unexercised. Who would blot from the past those glowing hours, those thrilling tones, those rapt and listening countenances? In summing up the account, let it also be borne in mind that the standard of excellence which Mr. Everett has held up in these discourses has had its effect upon all who have followed him in the same path. His influence is felt by every man who now comes before an audience with a prepared performance.

In general, too, the case is apt to be too strongly stated in favor of elaborate and voluminous works, and occasional and fugitive performances are treated with an unworthy disparagement. It would be a doubtful benefit, if every man of letters felt himself bound to shut himself up in his study, and, after twenty years' incubation, come out with a brood of six or eight octavos.

Honor to the men who write learned and massive books, the great three-deckers of literature, but no dishonor to those who write eloquent orations, original and suggestive essays, and wise and witty pamphlets. In choosing his department of literary effort, a man must be guided by his powers, his temperament, his position, and his opportunities. There is no one rule for all. In looking back upon the past, all will admit Addison to be a commensurate name with Hume, and Burke with Gibbon. In our own times, we may fairly oppose Jeffrey to Tytler, Mackintosh to Turner, and Sydney Smith to Alison. In our own country, Channing and Emerson are names not likely to be soon forgotten, and were the Sketch-Book and the Life of Columbus thrown into the fire, we think that nine readers out of ten would first lay a rescuing hand upon the Sketch-Book.

In the concluding paragraph of the preface to the present edition, Mr. Everett informs us that he has in preparation a systematic treatise on the modern law of nations. We shall wait with impatience for such a work from his hands. With his attainments and experience, his various learning, and his practical acquaintance with public life, he cannot fail to produce a treatise

1850.] The North American Review on Hungary.

417

of great and permanent value. But in the mean time, we receive with grateful acknowledgment what he has already done for the literature and history of his country. These discourses, though written for occasional purposes, have an element of vitality, and will not join that great hecatomb of pamphlets, the smoke of which is for ever ascending. They will be read with delight long after the generation that heard them shall have passed away, and when the old men that "lag superfluous on the stage" shall check the enthusiasm of the young by saying, "What would you have said, if, like us, you had heard him?"

G. S. H.

ART. VI.

-

- THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW ON

HUNGARY.*

IT is a little more than a year since tidings of the surrender of Görgey, and the consequent prostration of the Hungarian cause, reached the United States. This news of the destruction of the hopes of a brave and generous nation was received with different degrees of sympathy, according to the different views which had been entertained of the contest that preceded it. While some saw in the resistance of Hungary a new assertion of the rights of humanity, a new struggle between the powers of darkness and light, others regarded it merely as one more assault on the established order of things by the revolutionizing spirit of the age. There were not, indeed, wanting those who, having given a somewhat more careful attention to the facts, asserted that the cause of Hungary was not only that of justice, but of law; that, in bringing their plea before the tribunal of the world, the Hungarians were not forced to fall back upon the natural rights of man, but could appeal to constitutional rights, solemnly and repeatedly recognized and confirmed. But, for the most part, feeling rather than knowledge dictated the judgments which were passed upon the war, and the sentiments with which its close

1. North American Review, January, 1850. "The War of Races." 2. North American Review, April, 1850. "The Politics of Europe."

was regarded. The generous and high-spirited, following the impulse of their nature, took part with the brave and unfortunate, while the selfish and cautious, guided also by their instinct, ranged themselves on the side of power and success. But few persons, perhaps, had searched narrowly into the causes, immediate and remote, of the recent war, or were acquainted in detail with the objects of either party. But there were none, whether professing conservative or liberal principles, who entertained a doubt, that, of the parties to this war, Austria represented the stationary system and Hungary the cause of progress.

The class of ultra conservatives in this country is small. There were few, therefore, of those who spare a thought from their own personal concerns to bestow it on the interests of the rest of the world, who did not sympathize more or less with this brave nation in its struggle. There were few, of those who observed this struggle in its details, who did not feel a lively admiration for a people who united the heroism and self-devotion of a past age to the persistent energy and practical good sense of the nineteenth century; who, in the midst of the terrors of an invasion, introduced into their country new branches of manufacture, establishing founderies and forges, and, under the inspiration of patriotism, acquiring skill in mechanic arts, from whose exercise the jealousy of their foreign rulers had hitherto excluded them.

But the war was ended; the excitement of the eager watching for its events had subsided; the enthusiasm which every new report of victory had called forth, expired for want of food. The Hungarians were now destined to share the common fate of the unsuccessful. The friendship of their well-wishers was to be tried by the severest of all tests, that of adverse fortune. Those who had shouted in their honor, merely because they heard others shout, were now silent. With the many, admiration was rapidly fading into compassion. It was in this calm that voices which had before been lost amid the general acclamation began to make themselves heard. Reflections on the wisdom and ability of the leaders of the Hungarian movement, slanderous tales levelled at their private character, and, finally, doubts as to the nature of the movement itself and the degree in

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