EULOG Y.

AMERICANS,

THE Saviour of your country has obtained his last victory. Having reached the summit of human perfection, he has quitted the region of human glory. Conqueror of time, he has triumphed over mortality; Legate of Heaven, he has returned with the tidings of his mission; Father of his people, he has ascended to advocate their cause in the bosom of his God. Solemn, "as it were a pause in nature," was his transit to eternity; thronged by the shades of heroes, his approach to the confines of bliss; pæaned by the song of angels, his journey beyond the stars!

વ

-The voice of a grateful and afflicted people has pronounced the eulogium of their departed hero; "first in war, first in peace first in the hearts of his countrymen." That this exalted tribute is justly due to his memory, the scar-honoured veteran, who has fought under the banners of his glory, the enraptured statesman, who has bowed to the dominion of his eloquence, the hardy cultivator, whose soil has been defended

by the prodigies of his valour, the protected citizen, whose peaceful rights have been secured by the vigilance of his wisdom yea, every fibre, that can vibrate in the heart of an American, will attest with agonized sensibility. ↑

Born to direct the destiny of empires, his character was as majestick, as the events, to which it was attached, were illastrious. In the delineation of its features, the vivid pencil of Genius cannot brighten a trait, nor the blighting breath of Calumny obscure. His principles were the result of organick philosophy, his success of moral justice. His integrity assumed the port of command, his intelligence, the aspect of inspiration. Glory, to many impregnable, he obtained without ambition; popularity, to all inconstant, he enjoyed without jealousy. The one was his from admiration, the other from gratitude. The former embellished, but could not reward ; the latter followed, but never could lead him. The robust vigour of his virtue, like the undazzled eye of the Eagle, was inaccessible to human weakness; and the unaspiring temperament of his passions, like the regenerating ashes of the Phoenix, gave new life to the greatness, it could not extinguish. In the imperial dignity of his person was exhibited the august stature of his mind:

"See what a grace was seated on his brow,
An eye like Mars, the front of Jove himself,
A combination, and a form indeed,
Where every God did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man 53

Oppressed by the disconsolate sensibilities, which this melancholy occasion has excited, yet inspired by a veneration, which no sense of calamity can suspend, how shall the feeble eulogist of the moment retrace the path of the hero through the rugged acclivities of his fame; how shadow the outlines of a life, whose influence on society has baffled the imitation of the wise; how define the great proportions of a character, which, like the electrick principle, can only be described by its effects? What wing of human description shall soar to the unclouded height of his talents, what chemistry of human judgment shall separate the elements of his virtues? The magnificence of his deeds has outvied the heraldry of fancy; and the purity of his motives has bewildered the deductions of reason.

From his first appearance on the theatre of publick life, ere the modest simplicity of enterprize had invited the decorations of artificial honour, ere the "hair-breadth escapes" of the Monongahela had elicited the native energies of heroism, to the maturest era of his excellence, when victory had nothing left to bestow, and Fame herself had dispaired of rendering to his merits their equivalent reward, we behold the same undeviating course of magnanimous action, rising, like the sun, in gradual and majestick progression. In no situation, to which the emergencies of his country have called him, however insulated with peril, or fortified by prosperity, do we at any time detect his invincible equanimity modified by incident. In no climax of fortune do we behold him dejected by obstacle, or elevated by success; desperate in danger, or

sanguine in triumph. Deliberate to concert, he was vigorous to execute; intrepid to conquer, he was humane to forgive. In council, he united the calculations of the veteran to the ruling impulse of the patriot: in battle, he never shed the blood of an enemy, but for victory, nor gained a victory, but for his country.

As the director of that important and dubious contest, which issued in the establishment of our liberty and independence, he displayed an impressive grandeur of exertion, which marshalled into hostility the fluctuating vigour of his countrymen, and is still remembered with awe in the astonishment of nations. To the rapacious cabinet of the mother country, which had recently learnt, in the disastrous campaign of Braddock, that her glory was mortal, he had given his name a formidable estimation by his military prowess on that memorable occasion. In the enjoyment of an ample paternal domain, he was reposing under the groves of fame and philosophy, when the chafed lion of New-England "leaped on the daring huntsman, that had galled him," and boldly bade defiance to his power. The dawn of our revolution was overshadowed with clouds, that would have damped the ardour of any people, whose bosoms were noti nspired by the incontrollable enthusiasm of liberty. But what hope of success could this highborn principle, though stimulated by injury, afford to the unwarlike peasantry of a country, without arms, without discipline, without funds, without a leader, in contending with an empire, whose policy and valour had for centuries kept the nations of Europe in its toils? Yet, at this inauspicious