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REVIEVV

OF

“AN ORATION

IYF2T..IV'J43REI) BEFQRIC TH F5".

YOUNG  0122" ‘BOSTON,
ONTHE
F() UR’;.l‘II OF JULY,

M Dccc xxxxné A

REVIEWI

N
.

i AN Oration, delivered before the young men ol
Boston, followed by a dinner of no inconsiderable no-—
toriety, and published in Carter, Hendee 82; Babcoclcfs
best style, Will, no doubt, find a large number of read-
ers. When it is remembered, indeed, that Boston
claims to be, not only, “ the cradle of liberty,” but
also, the “literary errrporium,” one can hardly help
feeling a certain degree of curiosity, as well concern»
ing the manner and the style, as about the matter
and the substance of a perforrnance, Which, doubtless,
was specially intended to suit the taste, and tickle
the fancy, of those to Whom it was addressed.

A judicious orator pitches his pipes in such exact
harmony with the souls of his hearers, that, as a
musician can at once supply the bass of a tune,
though the air only be played, so an experienced

reader, from the tone of a speech, can, in general,
make out, pretty well, the preVaili11g taste and fa-

vorite principlesof the audience. ' In common cases,
and Where we are satisfied that nature has gifted the
orator with the ordinary quantity of sense and tact,
this method of judgiiig an audience, may be safely

4

enough relied upon. But all recollect the fable of
the ass, who undertook. to imitate the little dog, and
to fawn upon his master; and, in like manner, that
sort of asses, who deliver orations, Will, now and
then, in the hope of delighting, run into very ridicu-»
lous excesses.

Ifear that, in the instance of the oration before
the young men of Boston, there must have been some
such mistake; for God forbid, that the taste or un-
derstandings of the young men themselves, should
measured by any such standard. Any one, who
shalljudge the young men of Boston, by the printed
speech, put forth by their orator, will do them griev-
ous injustice. It is in their behalf, it is to vindicate
them, that I have taken pen in hand. The oration
itself is too silly and absurd, to merit any thing more
than silent contempt; to the folly of speaking such
a speech, were no one but himself concerned, the
orator might have added, with impunity, the folly of
printing it ;---vvho would take the trouble to gainsay
him? But, in the present case, the young men of
Boston are implicated. , Unless some public protest
be made against it, the community will, naturally

enough, regard them as the god-fathers of this off-- a

spring of imbecility; their reputation for common
sense is at a stake ; their character demands the sa-
crifice; and the ink of criticism must flow.

A It is, indeed, with the greatest reluctance, that I
undertake the task of , criticising a performance,
which bears, upon its face, such marks of utter folly ;
vvhicli is, in fact, so destitute of arrangement, con-
1'lGXlO11, argument, or meaning,---is such a soft and

. shapeless mass, that one hardly knows how or Where,

5

to take hold of it. The orator complains of the
English political writers,----tliat, “ they stop at a
fixed line, and all beyond is chaos and absurdity.”
I wish I could pay him even so limited a con1p1i~—
ment. 1 wish he stopped at a fixed line; and
that I was not obliged to drop the word “ beyond ;”
and, with respect to his performance, to say, that “ all
is chaos and absurdity.” If it had any salient points
of common sense, it would lf11'Z:tls’.f3 my ytaslt a good deal
easier ; as it is, I must do the best loan.

If, in the course of my rernarlrs, I should seem to

the orator, to indulge in any undue severity, I be-

seech him to remember, that in the realm of criti-
cism, all old——fashioned and antiquated notions of rank

I and distinction have long since been done away.

""‘ We, the critics,” have long since attained to that
perfection of liberty, whicli he so idolizes; we ac»-
knowledge no “privileged classes;” we bow to no
superior; in his own elegant and forceable language,
“we are our own governors; we are the Lord’s
anointed; we are the powers thatbe, and we bear
not the sword in eerie.” A demagogue may, or may
not, be successful; a speech may, or may not, be
clapped; ‘but printed nonsense will inevitably be ex--
posed to merited ridicule. V

I I will begin with a few remarks on the general
tone of the oration. Its whole spirit is so bitter,
sour and orabbed, it overflows with such malignant

contempt of every body and every; thing ;~—----tl1e ora-— .

tor delights so much in abusing all the past and all
the present; dwells with such evident pleasure on
“ national absurdities, political nuisances, and public
abominations; ” and speaks with such gusto of it‘ the

6 , ...

fatal virus of political corruption,” that, Whatever
other blunders he may have made, he certainly shows
a good deal of skill, in concluding his oration with
the W’01‘dS, “ unutterable ruin ;”---which two Words
may indeed be looked upon, as a recapitulation of the
Whole speech, as a sort of index, echo, and chorus,
to the Whole six and thirty pages.

According to this learned Theban, “ our own sys-
tem, unparalleled as it is, is as yet an imperfect
system ;”-—-—liberty even here, in America, “ lies idle,”
and her cause “ is by no means sure ;”---—-our indepen-
dence “ languishes with a sickly and scarcely per-
ceptable existence ;”—---~even here, the people “ are
deceived,” and “ circumvented ;”--—--even here, they
are “capricious,” punishing their innocent friends,
and forgetting the long tried affection of their faith-
ful serva11ts*;”—--—~We even “have our full share of
national absurdities, political nuisances, and public
abominations” ;----We even, “ are yet in cornparative
infancy,” and the spirit of liberty is so cold, and
“public sentirnent is so timid,”---«men in general are
so much ashamed of liberty start riaked,-----—-“ that
We hardly need expect to be stripped of our swad-
dling clothes, until We have strength to tear them
from our limbs,” (or as, perhaps, might properly
enough have been added,-m—till some political Wet
nurse, in the shape of a fourth-of-July orator,
stuffs our months with pap, and in the mean time,
does the good office for us.) ,

So much for ourselves; but as for the rest of the
World,----fools,~——-slaves,—-~idiots,—-wtlie language has

* Qu. The excellent Mayor of Boston 2

7

not names bad enough, or terms strong enough to
stigmatize the depth of their folly and Wretchedness.
But let the orator speak. for himself.

“ If we yet hesitate, let us look at Europe, and behold how
she has drifted down the tide of eighteen centuries ; ever
changing, alternately receding or advancing, as she falls into
the varying currents ; now threatened with instant destruction,
and escaping perhaps by sheer awkwardness ; now on the very
eve of refuge and prosperity, but plunging into the only strait
encompassed with real danger; now pausing in the jaws of
ruin, to meditate upon some idle fancy ; now abandoning the
path of her salvation, to gratif'y a vain revenge. It is revolting,
it /is eic7rarn3ng' to Zmholtl her. Her lofty frame, her noble mind,
her admirable aocomplishrnents, serve but to deepen her degra-
daftion, and we mourn more bitterly the hopelessness of her
re orm.

 ‘it it She has missed all her glorious opportunities; she
has suffered unnumbered changes, utter and entire revolu-
tions ; has been overrun by almost all the nations of the earth ;
has wiped from her surface the vestiges of successive empires,
and yet now presents an aspect, hideous with the leprosies of her
Tiber-ricm age,  and rocks u-nclcr the nary symptoms, (qu. what
symptoms P) which. jrwocolretl the mockery of the Goths.”

pp. 14, 15.

It was the judicious advice of an old preacher to

r a young preacher, “ never to raise the devil for the

sake of laying him‘ again.” This excellent precept
seems never to have reached the ears of the young
rnen’s orator; for he goes ranging like a madman,
through all ages and nations, conjuring up the direst
phantoms. in the shape of Romans, Goths, popes,
priests, feudal chieftains, astrologers, alchymists,
venetian merchants, moors, mahometans, huns, nor»-.
mans, cathedrals, fiefs, castles, benefices, kings, no-
bles, Lord Byron, the author of Paul Cliff'ord,*

principalities, dukedoms, counties, rotten boroughs,

_ * Did the young me-n’s orator ever read" Paul Clifford ii’ Regent street
is not mentioned in it, and so far .from being a defence of the nobility, it
is a satire upon them, and a very bitter one too. ' l t‘ it

8

and Heaven knows what besides, and is at great
pains and expense to transport them all the way
across the Atlantic, for no other earthly reason,
so far as appears, except to show his skill at exorcis-
ing and abuse. The European nobility, for instance,
are belabored through three pages in terms like the

following,--------

i “ Nothing has ever blackened the human heart, and seared
the concience more irretrievably than the manners of Euro-
pean high-life. Their errors, (qu. whose errors ?) follies and
violences have signalized other ages ; this, they, (qu. who P)
have blighted with the mildew of cold, contemptuous selfish-~
ness. Their wealth and privileges must be supported, if the
laws are warped. Their luxury must be pampered if the
country mourns; they succeed if by subtlety; they triumph
if by treachery; adroit in policy, cunning in ambition, they
maintain their own preeminence, and sooner than relinquish
the extortions of their birth-right, (P), they would sprinkle their
palace floors with the blood of the provinces, and wash them
with the tears of their own poor.”

In truth, if we are to give credit to the screechowl
notes of this evil omened orator, the whole world is
in a most pitiable condition. Here in America, to
be sure, there are a chosen few, who have got the
true idea of liberty, which if duly carried into action,
with a total disregard and contempt of every princi-—
ple of political wisdom, hitherto acknowledged to be
well founded, will at length place us, “ on the
height to which we aspire,” and “ raise our whole
population to an undrempt elevation of dignity and
happiness.” But, as to the rest of the world, there is
no hope for it. All the nations of Europe, are now,
and ever have been, and ever will be, in a political
state, wretched beyond all description. The maddest
fanatic never so limited the number of the elect, as

our orator does, the number of the free; the most

9

furious polemic never assumed a tone more lordly
and dogmatical, than that, in which the young men’s
orator indulges, from the beginning, to the end, of his
oration.

After this long tirade against all people, nations,
tongues, and kindred, the ingenious gentleman very
coolly assures us, that it is to the predominance of
.Englis/L notions, that We may trace “much ofythe
asperity which vitiates our political differences, and
which is alike the enemy to candor and truth.” I
do not think We shall need the foreign importa-
tion much longer; for I am very certain, We have
in this young men’s oration, a specimen of “as-
perity” of undoubted domestic manufacture, which
may safely be warranted, equal to any imported.

Such is a fair account of the orator’s tone and
manner, and a comprehensive summary of his doc-—
trines and principles ;--so far, that is, as he seems to
have any. For in truth the reader is not a little
puzzled in diverse places of the oration, to guess
What the orator would be at. The greater part of
his speech is made up of high sounding Words, strung
together, pretty much, at hap hazzard. One would
imagine that he had turned over the leaves of a
young ladies common-~place hook, culled out a great
parcel of choice phrases, such as “ stately halls,”
“ armorials and trophies,” “ Sportive dances,” “pen-~
derous foundations,” “ stupendous columns,” “ anti-
quated scaffoldings,” “ golden coronets,” F‘ grotesque
and fitful drapery,” “ sparkling towers,” “emhroider-
ed biannersfi’ “groves and gardens,”et cetera, et
cetera, and had sprinkled them up and down his dis»-
course, without troubling himself much aboutthe wh y

2 p

10

or the wherefore. He seems also to have a particu-
lar fondness for mixed metaphors.
the following sentence :

“ We should be slow to attribute the imperfections, which de-
form our system, to the system itself‘. There is no fault in the
design 5 no defect in the construction 3 the site is well chosen ;
the materials at hand, and all that is requisite to insure to our
country c contriamal career of prosperity, an unfading vigor, an
ever renovating youth, is a deterrnination to erctdicote the ob-
structions in the road, to tear down the antiquated scaflloldings,
to abandon the miserable tools and cumberous machinery, with
which it has been surrounded, and with the strong arm of the
people to go to work.” p. '7.

What activity of imagination, What vigour of fancy !
This one short paragraph is Worth a Whole book of
Ovid’s l\/Ietamorphoses. “ Our system,” is ‘first, an
unfinished building, then a race” horse, then a youth
of unfading vigour, next, a go-cart, with its road ob-
structed, and then an unfinished building again.

I am inclined to to think, that tyranical old aristo-
crat Lindley Murray, would shake his head at the
sentence which follows : 

“ Wlien we reflect, that the essential, the peculiar principle
of this happy country, the principle that all power resides in
the people, emanates front the people, and is responsible to the
people 5 that this principle when at the Very acme of its tri-
umph, at the full tide of its glory, after its long, its prosperous,
its unparalleled career, should be confronted, doubted and dew-
nied even here, where we have occular proof and continual
demonstration of its benefit and efficacy, it needs no augury
to pronounce an hour even of this day, inauspicious for mere
exultation.” p. 6. i

The desire to make What is Vulgarly called, or
dash, has introduced astrange confusion of ideas into
the following paragraph. It really contains some
very surprising information : A

Take for instance

ll

“ If We seek exarnples for our country and for ourselves, let
us resort to the new created West. There the fountains are
uncorrupted. There civilisation meets nature unimpaired.
There we can behold how the young armed American
grapples with the Wilderness, and thence we can return, and
imagine how our fathers lived. Europe presents much to our
view, but America still more. There, (that is to say, in Amer-
ica) liberty, like the buried giant struggles beneath the trem-
bling mountains; there, frorn aroused nations, swells a new niur-
rnur like the “ sad genius of the coming storm.” There Seythia
frowns again upon the devoted South, and the shade ofKosci-
uslto walks with the noon-«day pestilence amid their (qu. whose)
affriglited hosts.” pp. 83.

Here follows a choice speciinen of the true sub-
lime. The Whole “Art of sinking,” contains no-
tl"1iru; equal to it.

“Do we suppose that we can shed our liberty upon other

countries Without exertion ; and let it fall upon them like the
(low which stirs not the lent’? N o. .Libo1'ty must be long held

‘suspentlecl over them in the atmosphere by our unseen a.nd

unwearied power. The more intense the heat which oppresses
thorn, the more must it (on. vvhieh, liberty or the heat ?) satu-
rate and surcharge the air; till at last, when the ground is
parched dry, when vegetation  crisped up, cmtl the grasping
people are wrtcly to plrz.z.r2._.o;e intro (.l8S£t"l.5Cl’Il0?t_fl)9‘ reljief——-(i. e. are
ready to jump out of the trying; pan into the fire,) then will it,
(qu. what 3’) eall t'ortl“1 its hosts, llf'O1"l‘1 every quarter of the l1ori-
zon; then will the sky be overcast, the landscape darkened,
and Liberty, at one peal, with one flash, will pour down her
million streams 5 then will she lilt up the voice which echoed
in days of’ yore, frorn the peaks of Otter to the Grand Monad-—.
nook ;, then will

«mu-——————“ '- J ura answer through her misty cloud,
Back. to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud.’ ”

 

There now !--—--if that is not fi1ie,———~—it can’t be for
Want of thunder and liglitnincr. T

Our orator, like others of his stamp, delights rnosvt-
ly in generalities, and so long as he avoids descend»-
ing to particulars, he frotlis and fumes away, with all
the spirit of abottle of ginger‘ beer ;---—--I do notlike
to shock his republicanism, by a more uaristooratic

12

comparison, or I might possibly have said a bottle of
charnpaign. « But unluckily for himself, in a certain
part of his discourse, Whether by Way of illustration
or ornament hardly appears, but for some reason or
other, or what perhaps is just as likely, for no reason
at all, he "deems it necessary to enter into a brief
sketch of the history of the World for the last
eighteen centuries. These historical reminiscences
are pretty much in the style of a book well ltnown
in all young ladies’ schools, called “Whe1pley’s
Cornpend,” but from beginning to end, they abound

in errors, the most absurd, such as any young lady r

of thirteen, ought to be heartily ashamed of. This
historical sketch has the following preface:

“ To what eminence would she (Europe) not have attained,
had her youth looked forward to futurity, unblinded by a super-
stitious veneration for established institutions : had they (qu.
who P) disregarded the Watchwords “ church and king,” re-
jected the collars of nobility, spurned their (qu. whose P) gold»-
en coronets, and jewelled stars, and aimed boldly at the good
of the people, and the amelioration of the world P”

After a little more preliminary flourish, the orator
goes on to trace the history of Europe, li1'(‘)111ilLl'lt3r
christian era ;---éfor at that period he seems to think
the history of Europe begins, never liaving heard, I
suppose-of the Roman republic, or the Grecian corn-
monwealths. But seriously, I should like to be in-
formed, if it can be possible that this young men’s
orator, has yet to learn, that the cliange from
republican freedom to imperial servitude took place
at Rome, not out of a “ superstitious Veneration
for established institutions,” but by the arts of.lu-
lius Caesar, who began by being a deniagogue, and

so overturning the old institutions, and ended. by

13

being a tyrant, and building up an empire on the
ruins of the republic? Can this young men’s orator
possibly be so ignorant as not to know, that the R0-
mans for a long time after the establishment of the
empire, held to the perfect equality of all Roman
citizens, “rejected the collars of nobility,” “ spurn-
ed golden coronets and jewelled stars,” and held the
name of king in abhorrence, bitter as that even, of
the young men’s orator? And does he not know,
that the idea of a privileged order of nobles, the in»-
equalities of rank and “trappings of nobility,” were
introduced into the empire, not out,‘ of any “ venera-

tion for antiquity,” but by the innovating, rcg"ormz'rLg, =

radical, measures of Diocletian and Constantine, in
utter contempt and total disregard, of all ancient laws
and prejudices? ls this young men’s orator, so
ridiculously ignorant as not to ltnow, that the “ VVE1tCl1--
Words,” as he calls them, of “church and king,”
were first heard within the last two hundred years,
and were never heard at all, at least as a party sig-
nal, out of the limits of Great Britain and Ireland?
Does he not know, that this English tory signal,
would be as UI1ll'1t€lllgl.l)lG to an old Rornan, could
we call one from the grave, to a chieftain of the mid-
dle ages, or to a lhlussian or Polish nobleman of our
own times, as unintelligible even, as this young

men’s oration itself ?

But let us have a specimen of the lristorical sltetcli.
Thus it begins :

“For three centuries after the birth of our saviour, }l‘.o1rre,
the mistress cl’ Itlnrope, €3Xl1il)lt@(l-at once, the most ignomini-
outs depravity, the most brilliant literary excellence, (qu. how
many writers of the third century, does the ingenious orator
know, even by name ?)--——and the lfighest political grandeur.

1-’l+

Natiowz after nation was successively reduced to her sway, and
eosplirve kings followed the tiwhmzp/taut chcwiois qf her generals,
through ccrowcls of adoring people, and pom-‘eel out the riches of
their‘ clistcmt clominions into her insatiable treas'zery.” p. 15.

Now Niebuhr is iiothing to this. The discoveries
he has made or pretends to have made, in Roman
history, are like dust in the balance compared with
this splendid discovery of the young 1nen’s orator.
It always had been supposed hitherto, that all the
brilliant Roman conquests were achieved before the
coinrnencenient of the christian era. There is 21 tel-
low, one Edtvard Gibbon, no doubt totally beneath
the notice of the young rnen’s orator, Who Ll11d€l"t*«1l'{BS
to say upon the authority of a parcel of old, aiitiqtiated
Latin and Greek liistorians, that beside the province
of Britain, and T1‘ajar1’s transient conquests in Dacia,
the eniperors added nothing to the cnterit of the em—
pire. But no doubt this is all a lnifi-1’EI:1l§€3 ; and l sup-
pose the yonrig rnen’s orator has some learned work.
in the press, in which he intends to confnte all pre—-
vious writers on this interesting subject, and to intro-
duce a radical reforrn into history. l

lf I am 1*i,<-glit in co11jectt11'i11,g that he has already
begun to print, he had better add to his treatise a
short appeiidix onrmodern chronology, for the sen-~
tence below, contains some splendid discoveries in
that brancli of lea1‘x1in,0'.

“ At length afte1~ a barren interval, the age of Bacon, Des-
cartes andi Galileo connnenced‘; and human reason after hav-
ing been innnersed in syllogisms four hundred years, began to
walk abroad. (qu. whereabouts were the orator’s Wits Walking
while he was writing this sentence?) Charles therFif'th now
concentrated in himself the inertial glory of Europe. Henry
the Eighth, in the qualms ofhie tender conscience, established
a church in England af'terl1is own heart, and with himself at
its head, in lieu of the pope; Elizabeth soon followed,” 810.

ii i pp. 920 221.

15

Shades of Usher, Newton and Petavius, hide your
diminished heads in silence ! Here is a cliroiiologist,
who outdoes you all! The world had hitherto sup-
posed, that Henry th.e Eighth, was quietly laid in
his grave, before either Bacon, Galileo, or Descar-
tes, had seen the light, and that“, of the three, Bacon
only had yet‘ appeared upon the stage, and he, but as
an infant three years old, when Charles the Fifth
expired in the retirement of the cloister. ' But here
comes an orator, and, with one strol«:e of his pen, re-
forms all that,-—----and let no worshipper of antiquity
dare to raise his Voice in oppositioiifto the decree ;

p for in the orator’s own words--—--—-

“ The young American is not to be deterred from
wholesome innovation by the cry of Radicalism and Reform.
N o lu1'l{i1ig treason insinuates itself into his heart. Guilt
seizes not upon his imagination. He may promote any suc-
cession, unravel any usagc, attack any principle of the consti-
tution, [and, I suppose, tumble all history and chronology into
a heap] and, provided he can ameliorate, he finds a generous
people ready to follow.”

But I am tired of poiiitiiig out errors and exposing
absurdities. There is no pleasure in b1‘eakin,g a
lance agtiiiist a post of wood, or in thrusting blows
at a man of straw. I will therefore leave the orator’s
“political abominations,” learned in the school of
Fanny Wright, or studied at the feet of I know not
what hoary demagogue, to be “frowned down” by
the good sense of the community. The young men
of Boston have too much rnotherwit, to be cajoled
by stuff so Very wretched. If Fanny VVright herself
had put forth an oration, what she would have said,
would doubtless ‘share "liexliibited a combination of
artful sophistry and sprightly wit, such as would

16

have demanded a well—considered answer. But this
unfledged disciple of hers, this new-—hatched duckling
of radical reform, must paddle long in the mud and
water before he will attain size enough to attract

t.he aim of the marksman. On the present occasion, A

I have considered him not at all as a politician, but
only as a public speaker. Since, however, I have
touched upon politics I cannot refrain trorn a parting
word of advice: Let the young men’s orator re--
form his grammar, reform his rhetorick, reforrn his
knowledge of N history, reform liis style, reform his
taste, reform his imagination, reform his understand-—-
i11g,t and it will then be full time for him to undertake
to reform the state.

we ii» '15 " ‘.tl';t§;«,
I