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DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 HHODE-ISLAND HISTOUICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 ON THE EVENING OF 
 
 f'jinrskti, /rlinmrtj i, ^iU^. 
 
 ^ BY 
 
 /' 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON GREENE, 
 
 CABINET KEEPER OF TIIE NORTHERN DISTRICT, HON. MEMB. OF THE N. Y. H. S. 
 
 PUBLISHED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY, 
 
 C- PROVIDENCE: 
 
 GLADDING AND PROUD. 
 1849. 
 
CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 PKiNTED BY BOLLES AND HOUGHTON. 
 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Historical Society: 
 
 It is not without some serious misgivings, that I venture to 
 appear before you this evening. I have been admonished that 
 those who have preceded me in the performance of this honorable 
 duty, had brought mature reflection to their task, and laid before 
 you the results of long and profound investigation. I have felt 
 that a few hours, snatched from the engrossing cares of profes- 
 sional hfe, would be insufficient for such preparation as the 
 occasion requires ; that there was a kind of rashness in approach- 
 ing a subject of such magnitude, when the utmost that I could 
 hope to do, would be to touch lightly upon two or three of the 
 innumerable questions, which it suggests. But I have also felt 
 that there are occasions on which personal feeling must yield to a 
 higher sense of duty, and that every one, who professes an inter- 
 est in those studies, which form the object of our association, 
 must hold himself in readiness to contribute his portion, when- 
 ever called for, even though it should prove but little else than 
 the widow's mite. I have accepted, therefore, the invitation of 
 your committee, not in the vam. hope of rivalling that production 
 so rich in its illustrations, and so profound ui its wisdom, with 
 which these anniversaries began ; nor that admirable analysis of 
 our Durfee's mind, which, by so singular a fatality, formed the 
 subject of the first discourse to which you were called upon to 
 listen, after his own eloquent lips had been closed forever. I 
 have thought that I should more easily avoid the disadvantages 
 
of a comparison by hazarding myself upon a more general field, 
 and that a shght sketch of the progress of historical science in 
 its connection with the progress of society, would not be alto- 
 gether unsuited to the audience and to the occasion. 
 
 Wherever men live in a state of union, the memory of the 
 past is preserved, and history, in some form or other, exists among 
 them. It may be but a simple tradition, or a rude collection of 
 inartificial songs ; it may be httle else than a moimd, or a shape- 
 less pile of stones ; or it may have advanced a step nearer to the 
 form which it is sooner or later destined to assume, and con- 
 tain a series of names and events roughly carved in wood or 
 stone. But whatever be its foi-m, the source from which it springs 
 is still the same ; that instinctive impulse of the human mind, 
 which, overleaping the narrow bounds of space and time, unites 
 us with the past by gratitude, and with the future by hope. 
 
 Hence this feeling, like all those whose source lies deep in 
 human nature, is necessarily modified and expanded by the pro- 
 gressive development of civihzation, and becomes, in its mani- 
 festations, the faithful expression of the various phases of social 
 life. In its earlier periods little more seems to be aimed at than 
 a simple narrative, not written, but recited, not in prose but in 
 verse, the natural language of an age of fresh feeling and vigor- 
 ous imagination. But if we look closer, we shall find there the 
 outUnes of a picture of the age, with all its passions and its ten- 
 dencies, all that it has accomplished in industry and in art, its 
 social progress, its pohtical organization, its intellectual develop- 
 ment, and all those precious gems of future greatness, which so 
 often lie hidden even from those, who have contributed most to 
 their formation. Hence the historic value of the Homeric poems ; 
 a value altogether independent of the question of the unity of 
 their origin and the reahty of the incidents on which they are 
 founded. Whether such a man as Homer ever lived or not, may 
 well be deemed uncertain. The ancients disputed about his 
 birth-place, the moderns deny his existence ; but both ancients 
 and moderns agree in accepting the poems which bear his name, 
 as accurate pictures of the heroic age of Greece. And what- 
 ever conclusion we adopt concerning the events which they pre- 
 
tend to record, thej are none the less a true expression of the 
 feeUng to which I have attributed the origin of all history, one 
 of simple gratitude for the past and pride in its glory, if those 
 events really occurred ; and if not, that necessity which all men 
 feel, of connecting themselves with the past, of finding some 
 solution there of the more difficult questions of the present, and 
 of that still recurring and still mysterious question of origin ; 
 something which, if not true to the fact, shall at least be true to 
 their conceptions, and give a definite form and positive direction 
 to their speculations. 
 
 And when history descends from tradition to monuments, from 
 poetry to prose, she still continues to preserve many of those 
 features, which distinguished her at her origin. There is the 
 same ingenuousness, the same freshness of feeling, the same 
 readmess to wonder and to admire. The descriptions are clear 
 and animated, and each is given with its own peculiar character- 
 istics about it, like studies from the life. The language too, is 
 full of vigor and of truth. The very words have an air of fresh- 
 ness about them. The images seem to spring up of themselves, 
 with a life and a fragrance, which show how rich the soil was, in 
 which they found birth ; and the whole moves on with an 
 unbroken, spontaneous flow, reflectmg, like the waters of an 
 unrufiled stream, every object by which they pass, and yet so 
 limpid and so pure, that you can almost count the pebbles over 
 which they roll. But with all this in common with poetry, there 
 is a near approach to the appropriate form of history, a clear 
 perception of some of the higher duties of the historian. Tra- 
 dition and hearsay are given for what they are worth ; well- 
 authenticated facts are related with precision and conviction, 
 like things which the writer had taken pains to examine, before he 
 ventured to accept them. There is an eagerness of curiosity, 
 which leads him to push his inquiries in every direction, and a 
 love of truth, which makes him anxious about their results. 
 There is an evident consciousness too, of the dignity of his office, 
 which however, he still shares with the poet, for history is still 
 the offspring of imagination and feeling, of admiration fol" the 
 past, rather than of a deep interest in the future. The age of 
 
6 
 
 thought and generalization has not yet come. Such was Herod- 
 otus, whom the ironical skepticism of the last century condemned 
 as a credulous story-teller, but to whom the juster criticism and 
 more extensive observation of our own, have confirmed the 
 glorious title of " Father of history." 
 
 The place of the historian is now decided. His pen becomes 
 like the poet's lyre, the awarder of praise and of blame ; of 
 ignominy and of renown. The assembled multitude listen to his 
 voice as once to the songs of their bards, and ratify his decision 
 by their applause. But there is a gravity in those decisions, an 
 earnestness in that view of the past, which distinguish them from 
 those of the poet, and they who consider them attentively, will 
 find there the elements of a still higher progress, hidden as yet 
 amid the foliage, but fast ripening to maturity. To observe and 
 record is the first step ; to scrutinize and compare is its necessary 
 consequence. 
 
 Now, then, the historian will come to his task with the earnest- 
 ness of a man, who knows how great a responsibility he is about 
 to assume. He will look carefully around him before he chooses 
 his subject, and study it in all its bearings before he takes up 
 his pen. He, too, will endeavor to solve for himself some of 
 those painful questions of the past, and go back to those ages, 
 in which the origin of social life lies hidden in mystery and 
 doubt. But he will study them from a new point of view, and 
 subject them to a new standard of criticism. The clouds, amid 
 which heaven and earth seemed to meet, will be dissolved. 
 Heroes and demi-gods will be brought down to the ordinary 
 measure of humanity, and the gods, withdrawing to their divine 
 abodes, leave room for the action of natural causes. The facts, 
 which enter more immediately into his subject, will be carefully 
 examined and scrupulously weighed. Characters will be studied, 
 both as manifestations of individual power and as expressions of 
 their age ; as acting upon others by their own innate force, and 
 as subject in turn to all the influences, that are in action around 
 them. Events will no longer stand apart, like insulated occur- 
 rences, independent of each other and unproductive, but follow 
 close upon each other's footsteps, and chng together by that 
 
beautiful law of causes and effects, which he will follow up through 
 its most intricate mazes, and bind around them with philosophi- 
 cal rigor. This law, too, will be his guide in the selection of his 
 incidents, showing him which are worthy of record, and which 
 may be passed over as neither characteristic nor prolific. Care- 
 fully tracing each question to its source, he will deduce from each 
 its lesson of moral and political wisdom, and generalize them into 
 laws. His style will be grave, severe and earnest, full of energy 
 and conviction, pregnant with thought, like that of a man wholly 
 absorbed in his subject, and flowing Avith a full, deep and impet- 
 uous current. Such was Thucydides, through whom history 
 first added to her title of " Recorder of the past," the nobler 
 appellation of" Teacher of political wisdom." 
 
 Henceforth history becomes an art, a solace for some minds, 
 and for others a field of action, or a compensation for inactivity. 
 Hence the love with which the first chng to the past, dwell 
 upon its records, linger around its monuments, exalt its virtues, 
 magnifying, by their veneration, those deeds, which shine with 
 so imposing a grandeur through the mists of time. And hence, 
 too, the deep feeling, the abundant thought, the depth, the pre- 
 cision, the far-reaching views and the intensity of the second. 
 
 But whatever be the historian's immediate motive, and how- 
 ever remote the age which he attempts to illustrate, his writings 
 will always contain the most accurate and faithful picture of his 
 own. Nor is this surprising ; for history, even when confined to 
 simple narrative, is made up of judgments ; judgments of men, 
 of actions, of events ; in all of which the strongest individuality 
 is more or less modified by the spirit of the age. All the his- 
 torian's inquiries are directed by the same spirit, and are 
 attempts to solve those questions in the social and political con- 
 dition of former times, which are the chief object of attention 
 in his own. His silence even, often goes further than the most 
 labored paragraph, as when Ave are told that only a single senator 
 perished in the second sack of Rome, and ask, — what the histori- 
 ans of that age never thought of asking, — but where were the 
 people ? The further, therefore, that civilization is advanced, 
 the more important becomes the office of the historian ; the 
 
wider the field of general knowledge, the more extensive the 
 range of philosophical inquiry, by so much the more is his sphere 
 enlarged and his responsibilities increased. The curiosity which 
 in one age, rests satisfied with a simple narrative of events, 
 demands, m another, an exposition of their causes and their 
 results ; and extending by degrees, from minute details to gen- 
 eral views, from statistical data to philosophic generalization, 
 arrives, at last, at the production of a living picture of society, 
 in all its varied forms, and a recognition of the great spirit of 
 humanity, which pervades and gives life to them all. 
 
 Who were the auditors of Homer ? The young and the old, 
 women and children, for he addressed himself to the feelings of 
 every age, and touched every cord of the human heart. It is 
 but a trifling effort of imagination, to see liim, as the great artist 
 has drawn him, in the midst of that varied crowd, with his 
 lyre upon his knee and his head raised upward, while, like 
 Milton's, 
 
 " his sightless balls are rolled in vain, 
 To find light's piercing ray, and find no dawn ; " 
 
 and close around him crowd the warrior, with his sword half 
 drawn, and the mother clasping her infant to her bosom, and 
 boys, with their ardent eyes glowing with emulation and hope, 
 and the old man exulting to think that he too has shared in such 
 scenes, and yet half saddened by the reflection, that he can never 
 share in them again. 
 
 And the same picture would, with a very few alterations, apply 
 to Herodotus. But what a change from tliis scene of life and 
 movement and progress, where every word drops like a precious 
 seed, ready to spring up with tenfold increase, to the reader of 
 Gregory of Tours, the monk in his cloister. The warm sunlight 
 streams into his vaulted cell, but can scarcely give a glow to the 
 cold and naked walls. A bed, a table and a chair are its only 
 furniture, and the only sound that breaks in upon its silence, is 
 the murmur of the fountain in the court below, or the footsteps 
 of some brother, resounding in hollow echoes through the long 
 corridor, or, perhaps, the bell, sending out its solemn summons 
 
9 
 
 to prayer. His volume lies beside the crucifix, partly supported 
 by his breviary, and as he reads, he, from time to time, raises his 
 eyes, with a pious ejaculation, or crosses himself in holy horror. 
 And he reads, because he finds there the record of the glories 
 to which he aspires, the sufierings of martyrs, the miracles of 
 saints, the strongman bowing to the weak, the mailed warrior to 
 the mitre and the cowl, the trials and the triumphs of the 
 church. 
 
 In an age, therefore, like our own, it was natural to expect 
 that history would receive a new and more perfect development, 
 and be distinguished by the variety and the richness of its forms. 
 Never, since the final catastrophe of the Roman empire, had 
 Europe been shaken by so general and so deep a convulsion, as 
 that, which marked the close of the last century, and has extended 
 its influence so far into our own. Institutions had been sub- 
 verted, governments overthrown, old classes violently destroyed, 
 and new ones called into existence ; prejudices rooted up, which 
 had been consecrated by time, and principles, which seemed too 
 bold, even for speculation, assumed as the rule of action and the 
 basis of social organization ; wars too, such as the world had never 
 seen before, and battles which unpeopled provinces between the 
 rising and the setting of a sun ; and the violence of party, and the 
 furies of faction, and new forms of tyranny and wilder excesses 
 of freedom ; and miraculous success and unexampled reverses ; 
 and wonderful manifestations of genius, and humiliating proofs of 
 human frailty. More than once, there Avas a lull in the tempest, 
 when they, who had struggled to the shore, turned back to gaze 
 on the perilous waters, and repeat to themselves and to one 
 another, the story of their trials and their escape. And when 
 all, at length, was over, and the men of a new generation, min- 
 gled with the survivors of this stormy period, began to look 
 around them upon the new aspect of society, the first question 
 that arose upon every lip, was, how does this compare with the 
 past ? Is it worth all that has been sacrificed in order to obtain 
 it? 
 
 But the spirit which presided over this inquiry was no longer 
 that which had hitherto guided the historian's pen, poetic feeling, 
 2 
 
10 
 
 or learned curiositj', or political speculation ; but a necessity of 
 discovering the truth in all its purity, however painful, or how- 
 ever revolting. Everything was so full of doubt and contradic- 
 tion ; the same events and the same characters had been painted 
 in such different colors ; there was so much that was unnatural 
 and so much that was obscure, that earnest minds were oppressed 
 by a painful anxiety, a sense of restlessness, springing partly 
 from dread and partly from doubt, and which conviction alone 
 could remove. Thus all the monuments of the past were to be 
 studied anew and from a new point of view. How many questions 
 were to be asked of that mysterious past, which had never been 
 asked of it before ? How many truths of deep import were to be 
 drawn forth from neglected fragments ? By Avhat singular com- 
 binations, by what varieties of accidents, by what a beautiful chain 
 of causes and effects, were we to be led back to the origin in a dim 
 and remote antiquity of the phenomena of our own days, and what 
 a flood of light was to be shed around them by the discovery ? 
 
 And, first of all, the picture Avas to be complete, embracing 
 every class and grade, and extending to the minutest details of 
 social organization. Institutions were to be studied, both in 
 themselves and in their relations ; as individual manifestations, 
 and as the characteristics of a pecuhar phase of social develop- 
 ment ; in their immediate action and in the long series of results, 
 by which they have connected themselves with posterity. All 
 the great questions of the social sciences were to be discussed 
 anew, and in the presence of those monuments to which all par- 
 ties appealed so confidently. New problems of character were 
 to arise from this discussion, and man to appear in a variety of 
 novel and unexpected lights. A new science too, was to preside 
 over this inquiry, detecting amid these varieties and apparent 
 contradictions, the same great principle of unity, and by a pow- 
 erful generalization, reducing all the phenomena of social life to 
 their invariable laws. And, above all, that greatest result of 
 history, that purest and noblest spring of human actions, the sub- 
 lime spirit of humanity was to be made the test of all these 
 researches, and every age, and nation, and individual, as it passed 
 in calm review before the eye of the historian, to be called to 
 
11 
 
 a solemn account for its good and its evil, for all that it had 
 done and all that it had left undone, ui the cause of humanity. 
 
 The general direction which had thus been given to historical 
 studies, was deeply modified by the various complexions of indi- 
 vidual minds. Some sought in history the confirmation of a 
 theory, and consequently viewed every fact through this danger- 
 ous medium. Some gomg back to the original sources, painted 
 events as they found them recorded by those who had shared in 
 them, interweaving -with their narrative those general laws which 
 may be deduced from particular mcidents, and the most impor- 
 tant facts in the progress of institutions and of society. For 
 others, history was not a record merely, but a reproduction of the 
 past, with all the details of public and social life, and all those 
 nice gradations of light and shade which give color and animation 
 to the scene. 
 
 But how is this to be attained ? By a simple narrative, says 
 one, continuous, unbroken, a faithful reflection of the sources 
 from whence it is drawn, and wearing throughout, the coloring of 
 the age which it records. But your own age too, says another, 
 must find its expression there, or you renounce all the advantages 
 of progressive civilization, and fail in one of the highest duties of 
 your office. The chronicler may record, but the historian must 
 judge, A simple record of effects is but a barren tribute, unless 
 you unite with it an exposition of their causes, and classing each 
 under its appropriate head, ascend through them by the aid of 
 general principles, to those remoter laws, which alone contain the 
 secret of the mystery of our being, and a revelation of the des- 
 tiny of mankind. 
 
 With the first, therefore, of these two classes, it is the individ- 
 ual that forms the proper subject of history. In most histories, 
 the actor is lost in the action, and you are hurried from scene to 
 scene and from change to change, without the means of forming 
 any definite idea of the hving instruments by wliich they are pro- 
 duced. They hover over the page, they flit before you like 
 shadowy forms, possessed indeed of a name, but with no local 
 habitation, nothing by which you can bring them down to the 
 standard of daily life, and look at them face to face as fellow 
 
12 
 
 men. But in the writers of this school, the individual fills up 
 the whole stage, and events interest you only inasmuch as they 
 concern him. Whatever is done, he is constantly there, the cause 
 and the object of all. And he comes before you not as an indis- 
 tinct, indefinite generalization, but as a living being, with all his 
 human errors and all his personal peculiarities about hun. You 
 look upon his brow, thoughtful and grave, or radiant and open ; 
 his eyes calm, perhaps, in repose, but kindhng with action ; the 
 smile that plays around his hps, or the stern decision that con- 
 tracts them ; you hsten to his voice ; you see him move, his gait, 
 his air, his gesture, and following him into the minutest details 
 of private life, the cut and color of his dress, his savings at the 
 social board, and his bearing in the domestic circle. Thus the 
 age is reproduced by means of the individual, who becomes its 
 characteristic expression, a spirit called up from among the dead, 
 and appearing in all the reality of its human existence, to tell us 
 what and how the men of his times were. And when you close 
 the volume you feel as if you had known them all, had hved, had 
 acted with them, had shared in their fears, had partaken of their 
 hopes, had felt, thought, and judged as they judged and felt, and 
 thought. 
 
 It is the history of the species, and not that of the individual, 
 that you must look for in the writers of the second class. No 
 single form, however majestic, is allowed to fill up the canvass. 
 Particular individuals may still keep their proper places. Great 
 events may still be represented by single names, but that which 
 overshadows and comprises all, is that general conception of 
 humanity of which individuals and even ages are but the transient 
 and ever- varying types. For, however various the aspects under 
 which the individual may appear, the leading characteristics of 
 the race are ever the same, and each, as a whole, is no less 
 clearly distinguished from all others, than one indi^ddual from 
 another. It is as a whole, therefore, that it should be studied, if 
 we would form a correct idea of its importance in the great scale 
 of humanity. Taken as such, its unity is perfect. A general 
 harmony pervades it, and blends in one accordant whole, all the 
 various and apparently disconnected parts which enter into its com- 
 
13 
 
 position. It assumes the dramatic aspect of a single life, and 
 ages with all their changes, and society in all its complex relations, 
 maj be drawn with the justness of proportion and truth of color- 
 ing, which seemed to belong only to the individual. Thus the 
 laws of the moral universe are brought to light, the present is 
 connected more intimately and more directly with the past, and 
 we are reconciled, by the lesson of history, to a thousand things, 
 which, when considered as insulated facts, filled our minds with 
 doubt and dismay. 
 
 And if it were not digressing too far, I would pause for a 
 moment to remark the singular accord which prevails between the 
 historical schools of our age, and the schools of art ; so true is it 
 that history is ever in harmony with the spirit of the age, contri- 
 buting by her lessons to the fulness of its development, and pre- 
 serving all its characteristic features in her forms. For on what 
 is the natural school of Bartohni founded, but the individual? 
 And how clearly does that broader generalization which, in history, 
 has grouped men by races, appear in those wonderful works of 
 Thorwaldsen ! 
 
 But the march of history, whether represented by the individ- 
 ual, or by the species, is governed by fixed laws, and attended by 
 phenomena, which recur with astonishing regularity in periods 
 separated, and apparently disconnected by long intervals. What 
 then is the nature of these laws ? How far are we bound by 
 them ? What room do they leave for the voluntary exercise 
 of our faculties? Is man a free though a dependent being, 
 guided by his own judgment, the controller, if not the creator of 
 his o^vn destiny ? Or is he the blind instrument of a superior 
 power, borne along by an irresistible impulse, through events 
 which he cannot control, and toward results which he cannot com- 
 prehend ? Whenever we look upon history from too close a 
 point of view, we see none but individuals ; men and events, 
 alike insulated and alike independent ; men guided by their own 
 passions, and events produced by the action of these passions. 
 A fearful responsibility seems to weigh upon every member of 
 the human family, attending upon all his movements, following 
 him through all the periods of his existence, and inscribing upon 
 
14 
 
 his tomb a benediction or a curse, each equally the fruit of his 
 own actions. The revolutions of empires are produced by his 
 ambition ; war and conquest are but the consequences of his over- 
 bearing pride, or of his insatiable avidity ; each new discovery in 
 science, and every new progress in art seem to spring from indi- 
 vidual efforts, and to find their appropriate expression in a proper 
 name ; and all the purest hopes and brightest promises of civiliza- 
 tion seem dependent upon the caprices of individual will. 
 
 But if we look from a higher point of view, and embrace a 
 more extended range of observation, so as to comprise in one 
 continuous whole, the history of every age and of every nation, 
 we shall discover amidst this apparent insulation, certain general 
 principles, and invariable laws, which increase in intensity the 
 nearer we trace them to their source, till the whole field of his- 
 tory becomes comprised in their dominion, and the individual, 
 vr-ith all his ennobling attributes and terrifying responsibihties, 
 disappears from the scene. Time becomes like that mysterious 
 stream, Avliich our own great artist has so beautifully painted, 
 rismg up from the dim recesses of a gloomy cavern, and winding 
 its way successively between flowery banks, and through long 
 reaches of verdant woodland, till rushing headlong downwards 
 through rocks and shoals, it loses itself in the shoreless ocean of 
 eternity ; while man, like the fragile bark of the hours, and its 
 human occupant, is borne blindly onward by the irresistible cur- 
 rent, smihng, hoping, trembling by turns, and alike deceived, and 
 ahke powerless in his hopes and in his fears. 
 
 How shall we reconcile these apparent contradictions, and 
 mete out to man and to the laws by which he is governed, their 
 appropriate measure of responsibility in the great events of 
 history? How shall we escape that benumbing individuaUty, 
 which pursues us like a spectre, from the cradle to the grave? 
 Or where shall we find a refuge from the laws of an inexorable 
 destiny? With every inward glance, we see that we stand alone. 
 Every step in life reveals our dependence on a superior power. 
 In independent action, we feel the su])limity of our moral nature, 
 and are roused to greater efforts, and more elevated conceptions. 
 In the control of external laws, we find a relief from our insula- 
 
15 
 
 tion, and are soothed by the belief in the harmonious concurrence 
 of the past and the present, of man and of nature. 
 
 But it is not to the individual alone that this question presents 
 itself. Nations, like individuals, have their responsibilities and 
 theu' destiny, their youth and their manhood ; there is old age for 
 all, and for many decay and death. And like individuals, they 
 perform by far the greater portion of their allotted task uncon- 
 sciously. The interest of the day is too often a veil between 
 them and the morrow, through which their feeble sight seldom 
 attempts to pierce, and it is only when some earthquake comes to 
 rend it, that they think of what Hes beyond. They mark out 
 their course and follow it, and Avhen the child treads in his 
 father's footsteps, they call it wisdom. An experienced pilot may 
 sometimes take the helm, avoid a shoal on one side and a rock on 
 the other, and endeavor to read in the clouds that he sees 
 gathering in the far off horizon, the signs of the tempest or the 
 calm ; but still the resistless current sweeps him on, by rock and 
 by shoal, through calm and through tempest, his horizon -widening 
 before him as he is hurried onward, and new scenes and new 
 objects presenting themselves in rapid succession, till he is borne 
 at length to some distant shore, of whose existence he had never 
 dreamed. 
 
 The most remarkable illustration of this is to be fomid in 
 ancient history. Never was there a people more confident of its 
 destmy than the Roman, and never one which set itself more 
 earnestly to its task, or followed it up with such untiring per- 
 severance. What it beheved that destiny to be, one of their own 
 poets has told us, in some of the noblest verses of his own noble 
 tongue. 
 
 " Excudent alii spiraatia mollius sera, 
 Credo equidem ; vivos ducent de marmore vulius ; 
 Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus 
 Describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent. 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento ; 
 Hae libi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem, 
 Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos." 
 
 And this destiny was accompUshed in almost its fullest extent, 
 far more fully than that of any other nation, which fills up so 
 
16 
 
 broad a space In human annals. But when the end came, and 
 hke all men's fabrics, this great empire fell, it was seen that 
 this extent of dominion was after all, but a secondary object, 
 a mere condition in the fulfilment of the still higher part, 
 which tliis people had been chosen to perform. Ancient civil- 
 ization had reached its highest point, and could go no farther. 
 Art and hterature, beauty of form and beauty of expression had 
 been carried so far by the Greeks, that little else had been left 
 for the Romans than to follow these guides closely, even for the 
 expression of their o^vn sterner sentiments. At the side of these 
 beautiful forms, had arisen that Avonderful fabric of the Roman 
 law, the silent growth of centuries, which the accumulated expe- 
 rience of subsequent ages has approved, and philosophy confirmed 
 as the language of written reason. These seeds had been scat- 
 tered far and -wide, and taken root wherever they fell. Virgil 
 was as familiar on the banks of the Seine as in the streets of his 
 favorite Parthenope. The Imperial rescript was received with as 
 much veneration in London and Antioch as m the Roman forum. 
 The barriers, wliich had separated, and so many of which still con- 
 tinue to separate the nations, were broken down, and although 
 those original distinctions of race, which no time can wholly efface, 
 were still preserved, yet all felt that they were bound together 
 by common ties as members of one great Empire. And so surely 
 had these seeds taken root, that when the bond was forcibly torn 
 asunder, and the "ploughshare fiercely driven" over the spot 
 where they had bloomed, till no trace of its former lovehness 
 remained, with the first lull of repose, they silently worked their 
 way upward from their hiding places in the depths of the earth, 
 and sending out their roots into the fresh soil which had been 
 heaped upon them, came forth again to the hght of day, with all 
 the freshness and the vigor of a new creation. 
 
 And at the same time, that complemental principle of civili- 
 zation, to wliich all its other developments' are but tributary, with- 
 out which, the most favored nations soon reach their utmost hmits, 
 and with wliich, the feeblest, though they may suffer much and 
 languish long, can never wholly perish, Christianity was revealed 
 to mankind, when the utter insufficiency of philosophy to meet 
 
17 
 
 the wants of their moral nature had been demonstrated so clearly, 
 and their union into one great body had prepared the way for 
 diffusing it with such rapidity over so vast an extent. What 
 obstacles would it not have encountered a century before ? How 
 much more naturally would it spread from Judea, a Roman pro- 
 vince, into sister provinces, than from an independent kingdom 
 into a hostile territory ? How much more directly did it address 
 itself to the wants of a people bent under the tyranny of a 
 Roman Emperor, than to the haughty citizens of an ambitious 
 and warlike republic ? 
 
 And thus the double destiny of Rome was accomphshed, the 
 preservation of the precious results of ancient civihzation, and 
 the more rapid diffusion of Christianity. Yet how would Caesar, 
 with all the intensity of his intellectual nature, have smiled, had 
 some newly deciphered page of the sibyl's mysterious volume, 
 told him for whose kingdom he was conquering the Gauls ! Or 
 how little would even the vast mind of Tully have comprehended 
 to what results, those beautiful speculations, in which he sought 
 rehef from the cares of the Senate house, and the tumult of the 
 Forum, were inevitably leading. 
 
 And the reason of this is very evident. They had lived too 
 near the beginning to form any just conception of the end. Rich 
 as the developments of ancient civilization were, they were still 
 confined to a narrow field. Beyond the Hmits of Greece, all 
 nations, for the Greeks were barbarians, and the haughty Roman 
 acknowledged no civilization but his own and that of Greece. 
 Thus, in his view, the only legitimate existence was that of 
 Rome, and as the other nations were successively absorbed in 
 the Roman Empire, they lost the power of expressing whatever 
 they might have retained of their original individuality, and 
 instead of acting upon the Roman mmd by some new manifest- 
 ation of intellectual energy, adopted the models of their masters, 
 as they had adopted their laws, and strove to thuik and write like 
 Romans. Rome gained much by the accession, and it was hj 
 this successive introduction of new elements, that her existence 
 was prolonged far beyond its natural limits. But civilization was 
 confined by it to one form, and the life of the old world continued 
 3 
 
18 
 
 to the last as it had begun, the life of the state. It Avas for this 
 that the Roman lived, and for this, at any moment, it was his 
 glory and his pride to die. Cicero weeping in exile, though 
 Greece and Asia were open to him, and the love of good men 
 Avent with him wherever he turned his steps, is perhaps the most 
 perfect type of ancient civihzation. His Avhole life had been 
 devoted to the state ; his eyes had been fixed upon that alone, till 
 his great mind had been narrowed down to this horizon, and his 
 limited vision could no longer discern either the individual Avithin 
 it, or humanity beyond. 
 
 Ten miles to the south-east of Rome there stands, like a bound- 
 ary wall, on the edge of the Campagna, a mountain, Avhose long, 
 SAveeping slopes Avere throAvn up by earthquakes and volcanoes, in 
 that remote period, in which the absence even of tradition, is sup- 
 plied by the diAnnations of science. Its wooded cone, and parts 
 of its soft outline may be seen from every hill of Rome, and 
 you naturally turn to it as a landmark, in tracing out the ruins of 
 the Campagna. When the traveller has completed his study of 
 details, he often comes here to classify his observations, and clear 
 up his doubts, by a general survey of the Avhole scene. The first 
 half hour of his ascent leads him through vineyards and olive 
 orchards, with here and there patches of rich meadow land smil- 
 ing between, and as his eye lingers upon the beauties that sur- 
 round the path, he hardly thinks of turning to the other objects, 
 which each step is bringing within the compass of his constantly 
 expanding horizon. But soon begin the toil and labor of his Avay. 
 The pathAvay grows rugged and steep, in parts aAvful Avith preci- 
 pices and impending cliffs, and in others ofiering you tantalizing 
 glimpses of some lovely spot, Avhich you cannot recognize, because 
 it stands alone, or opening through the trees, in some vista wdiich 
 stretches far aAvay, to an horizon that never seemed so remote 
 before. At length, a turn in the path, and a fcAv minutes of rapid 
 ascent bring you out upon a green platform, Avhere the Avhole 
 landscape, AA'ith its cities, and rivers, and plain, bursts upon your 
 view, mountains on one side and the sea on the other, Rome her- 
 self but a point in the scene, and the l)lue sky overarching and 
 spanning all. With a single glance, hoAv many doubts dissolve ! 
 
19 
 
 How naturally does each object fall into its proper place ! How 
 many things shrink into mere specks ! How many others are 
 brought forward in clear and distinct outlines, till the Avhole land- 
 scape imprints itself a li\'ing image upon the memory, with all its 
 pecuhar features firmly traced, and all its characteristics clearly 
 defined. 
 
 And thus is it -with history ; for as well might you attempt to 
 judge a landscape from the depth of a valley, as a nation without 
 the aid of some other history besides its own. The eye may see 
 well enough what is before it, but it can see it only in its absolute 
 proportions, and judge it only by itself. We cannot pretend to 
 know any thing with certainty wliich we do not know in all its relar 
 tions, and, as in studying individual character, we are bound to 
 study carefully the circumstances under which it was developed, 
 so in studying the character of a nation, we are bound to take into 
 our account all the influences, both from within and from without,, 
 which helped to make it what it was. And tliis it is which renders 
 what are falsely termed practical A-iews, so dangerous in history, 
 and prevents the man who has confined his studies to a single por- 
 tion, no matter how important in itself, from understanding its spirit, 
 even when he has mastered its details. There must be a connecting 
 link to unite the development of one nation with that of another, 
 and leading us from present effects to their remote causes, enable 
 us also to look forward with a surer eye into the inevitable future. 
 
 And this guide the doctrine of humanity supplies. Nations 
 with this, take their place in time, like the objects in a landscape, 
 when seen from a proper point of view, and races work out their 
 tasks, hke the individuals of a single history. There is ample 
 space too, for individual development, for all the softer and more 
 human \drtues. There is abundant room for those domestic vir- 
 tues, which, though they flourish most in the shade, may yet give 
 somewhat of their fragrance to the rougher gales, as well as to 
 the gentler breezes of life ; room too, and ample reward for those 
 sterner virtues, which seek the broad dayhght, for the self-denial 
 of science, and the self-devotion of patriotism. For that is a 
 sadly distorted view of humanity, which, making us all citi- 
 zens of the world, leaves us no home of our own. There are 
 
20 
 
 instincts in man, which speak clearer than the subtlest reasoning, 
 and tell him that those feelings, which are the source of so many 
 of his noblest actions, must have been implanted in his bosom by 
 the same hand which gave him the power to develop them, and 
 must have been implanted there for good. Woe to us, when we 
 distrust these teachings of nature ; the spirit of the Deity, speak- 
 ing to us with the voice of man, and repeating from age to age 
 the same holy lesson, whether uttered in the joyous accents of 
 hope, from the cradle of growing empire, or in the firm tones of 
 confidence, from its full blown glory, or issuing an awful warning 
 from its ruins ! 
 
 I have ventured to compare the true point of view for the 
 student of history, to that of the student of Roman topography, 
 the summit of the Alban mount. Will you allow me to return 
 for a moment to my comparison, and recall again the magnificent 
 spectacle wliich lies spread before him. It is indeed a glorious 
 scene, and one on which the eye lingers with a melancholy pleas- 
 ure, till past and present become blended, and the mind is almost 
 lost in its thick coming fancies. But amid all this varietj'- of 
 mountain, and river, and plain, this loveHness of reality, and those 
 solemn memorials of the past, there is nothing which stirs the heart 
 of the American with a purer and stronger pulsation, than that 
 watery line, which, gleaming in warm sunlight, on the verge of 
 the horizon, shows him where the streams, which flow downward 
 from the old world, may take their course, and following the star 
 of Empire on its western track, bear their tribute to the distant 
 shores of the new. For we, too, have our share in this destiny of 
 nations. The same law of progressive development, which con- 
 nects the society of modern, with that of ancient Europe, connects 
 us with both. The same beauties, which charmed the imagination 
 and purified the taste of those elder generations, are acting with 
 unimpaired vigor upon ours. The same fundamental principles 
 of justice, which made their way through so many channels, into 
 all the codes of Europe, are daily gaining new importance in our 
 own ; and many of those great truths, which have been adopted 
 as the basis of our institutions, were worked out in sorrow and 
 in blood by our European fathers. Instead, therefore, of claiming 
 
21 
 
 as our own, this talent, whicli has been confided to us, let us 
 rather seek to compare it as it now is, with what it was, that by 
 seeing how much we have already added to it, we may learn how 
 much more we still can hope to add. This is the true science of 
 history ; the only eflfectual manner of recognizing the great 
 brotherhood of nations, and performing our part for posterity, as 
 our ancestors performed theirs for us. This is the feehng which 
 makes men earnest ; bears them up through despondency and 
 doubt ; gives vigor to their actions by the nobleness of their aim ; 
 makes them ready to pardon and slow to condemn ; teaches them 
 firmness in trial and moderation in success ; which leads them to 
 hope from conviction, while they act from hope ; and inspires 
 them with that expansive and invigorating sympathy, which, 
 without forgetting the duties of its birthright, recognizes in all 
 things some end that is good, and in all men the image of their 
 Maker. 
 
 Legislators of Rhode Island : 
 
 I have thus ventured, in a manner, which, I fear, may seem to 
 you too desultory and disconnected, to touch upon some of the 
 phases of historical science in its connection with the progress of 
 society, and to glance at some of the great questions which it 
 suggests. I would gladly have gone further, and have spoken of 
 them in their connection with our own beloved country. But the 
 lateness of the hour admonishes me that I have already reached 
 my limits, and that the few moments that remain, must be devoted 
 to the more immediate interests of the Society, in whose name I 
 have the honor to address you. I shall not attempt to give you, 
 even in outline, the history of our society. That task will be 
 accomplished at some future anniversary, by an abler hand. 
 Neither shall I speak to you of the objects of our association ; 
 for they were set forth with so much taste and elegance in the 
 beautiful address with which our hall was inaugurated, that it 
 would be presumption in me to do more than allude to them. 
 But one thing I may venture to do, and that is, to remind you 
 how vain all our efforts must be, without the active sympathy of 
 our fellow-citizens. You, gentlemen, are making the history 
 
22 
 
 which Ave are endeavoring to record, and which, Avhile we are try- 
 ing to catch a clear view of it, hurries by us, and mingles with 
 the past. 
 
 Dum loqiiimur fugerit invida 
 
 w^tas. 
 
 Pause then, for a moment, in this hurried flight of time, and 
 see how surely all that you are doing for the present, has its cause 
 and its explanation in the past. Remember how many a doubt 
 has perplexed you, which a few lines, that some hand might once 
 so easily have snatched from the fire, would have cleared away 
 in an instant. Remember how many an hour you have passed in 
 vain efforts to gather up the broken links of some neglected chain, 
 a little fragment of which had been suffered to he unheeded, 
 until it was lost forever. Remember by what urdnscribed grave- 
 stones you have stood, and vainly asked the sunken earth, whose 
 ashes had mouldered in its bosom. And then, look around you, 
 and see how the present too is fading, and its records perishing 
 from under our eyes. See how every day some new witness drops 
 into the grave, bearing A\ith him precious knowledge that can 
 never be recovered again. See how much there is that from its 
 nature must perish, how much that must always remain obscure, 
 and then say, if you can hesitate to sympathize with us, in our 
 humble efforts to preserve for our posterity, all that can stUl be 
 preserved of those hallowed records, which unite us by so holy a 
 bond to our forefathers. For of those forefathers, you hke our- 
 selves are justly proud. We are all proud of what they suffered 
 and of what they performed. We are proud that there are 
 names among them which can well compare with whatever history 
 records of great and of good. We are proud of the principles 
 with which they consecrated the soil of our native state, and the 
 firmness with Avhich they hved by them. We glory that when 
 bigotry and fanaticism were desolating the rest of the world with 
 the wildest excesses, the torch of " soul hberty " first shot its 
 pure rays into the gloom from the shores of Rhode Island. And 
 sure of the past, with that liberty for our guide, and leaning 
 firmly on our anchor of Hope, we can look forward with unwaver- 
 ing trust, to the cares and the duties and the glories of the 
 future. 
 
NOTES 
 
 Page 1. 
 The first anniversary discourse delivered before the society was that of 
 Judge Durfee, delivered on the evening of the 13th January, 1847, on the 
 philosophy of R. I. history. On the 18th of January, of the next year, 
 his own life and character formed the subject of an elaborate discourse by 
 Rowland G. Hazard, Esq. 
 
 Page 8. 
 One of the most beautiful of Thorwaldsen's bas-reliefs represents Homer 
 very nearly as he is described in the text. 
 
 Page 9. 
 " E come quei che con lena affannata, 
 Uscito fuor del pelago alia riva, 
 Si volge air acqua perigliosa e guata." 
 
 Dante — V Inferno — c. 1 . 
 And like to him, that with deep panting breast. 
 From the broad ocean to the shore escaped, 
 Towards the perilous waters turns and gazps — . 
 Page 14. 
 Cole's ' Voyage of life.' Not that I would represent Cole as a fatalist. 
 Never was a man further from it, or who united in a higher degree, christian 
 humility, with confidence in the dignity of human nature. 
 
 Page 14. 
 This inexorable destiny corresponds to the noble picture of Fortuna. — 
 
 " che i ben del mondo ha si tra branche' " 
 
 in the VH. canto of the Inferno — 
 
 " general ministra e duce 
 
 Che permutasse a tempo 11 ben vani, 
 
 Di gente in gente, ed' uno in altro sangue, 
 
 Oltre ladifension de' senni umani. 
 
 Vostro saver non ha contrasto a lei." V. V. 08-94 
 
 And Boethius — 
 
 " Non ilia miseros audit, baud curat fletus, 
 Ultroque geniitus, dura quos facit, ridet." 
 Page 21. 
 Address delivered before the Rhode Island Hist. Soc, at the opening of 
 their Cabinet, on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 1844, by William Gamiriell, Pio- 
 fessor of Rhetoric in Brown University. 
 
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