waves rolling on to the farthest shore, before they were called to their reward. And then left the world, hand in hand, exulting, as they rose, in the success of their labors. From this glance at the consummation of their lives, it falls within the purpose that has drawn us together, to look back at the incidents by which these great men were prepared and led on to their destiny. The field is wide and tempting; and, in this rich field, there is a double harvest to be gathered. But the occasion is limited in point of time. With all the brevity, therefore, compatible with the subject, let us proceed to recall the more prominent incidents, leaving to their biographers those which we must reluctantly omit. And let me hope that the recapitulation, however devoid of interest in itself, will be endured, if not enjoyed, for the sake of those to whom it relates. The review will unavoidably carry us back to scenes of no pleasant nature, which once occurred between our country and a foreign nation with which we now maintain the happiest relations of peace and amity; towards which, at this day, we cherish no other feelings than those of the sincerest respect and good will; and with whose national glory, indeed, as the land of our forefathers, we feel ourselves, in a great measure, identified. If, therefore, there should be any one within the sound of my voice, to whom the language of this retrospect might otherwise seem harsh,* I trust it will be borne in mind that we are Americans, assembled on a purely American occasion, and that we are speaking of things as they were, not as they are: for, in the language of one of our departed fathers," though enemies in war, in peace we are friends." The hand of Heaven was kindly manifested even in the place of birth assigned to our departed fathers. Their lots were cast in two distant States, forming links in the same extended chain of colonies. The one, to borrow the language of Isaiah, was called * The British Minister was present. "from the North" and "the rising of the sun;" the other, from the South, where he shows his glory in the meridian. The colonies, though held together by their allegiance to a common crown, had separate local governments, separate local interests, and a strikingly contrasted cast of character. The intercourse between them had been rare; the sympathies consequently weak; and these sympathies still further weakened by certain rivalries, prejudices, and jealousies, the result of their mutual ignorance of each other, which were extremely unpropitious to that concerted action on which the success of the great work of Independence rested. To effect this work, it was necessary that men should arise in the different quarters of the continent, with a reach of mind sufficiently extended to look over and beyond this field of prejudice, and mark the great point in which the interest of the whole united; and, with this reach of mind, that they should combine a moral power of sufficient force to make even the discordant materials around them harmoniously subservient to the great end to be accomplished. It pleased Heaven to give us such men, and so to plant them on the theatre of action, as to ensure the concert that the occasion demanded. And in that constellation of the great and the good, rose the two stars of first magnitude to which our attention is now to be confined. Adams and Jefferson were born, the first in Massachusetts, on the 19th of October, 1735; the last in Virginia, on the 2d of April, 1743. On the earliest opening of their characters, it was manifest that they were marked for distinction. They both displayed that thirst for knowledge, that restless spirit of inquiry, that fervid sensibility, and that bold, fearless independence of thought, which are among the surest prognostics of exalted talent; and, fortunately for them, as well as for their country and mankind, the Universities in their respective neighborhoods opened to their use, all the fountains of ancient and modern learning. With what appetite they drank at these fountains, we need no testimony of witnesses to inform us. The living streams which afterwards flowed from their own lips and pens, are the best witnesses that can be called, of their youthful studies. They were, indeed, of that gifted order of minds, to which early instruction is of little other use than to inform them of their own powers, and to indicate the objects of human knowledge. Education was not with them, as with minor characters, an attempt to plant new talents and new qualities in a strange and reluctant soil. It was the developement, merely, of those which already existed. Thus, the pure and disinterested patriotism of Aristides, the firmness of Cato, and the devotion of Curtius, only awakened the principles that were sleeping in their young hearts, and touched the responding chords with which Heaven had attuned them. The statesman-like vigor of Pericles, and the spirit-stirring energy of Demosthenes, only roused their own lion powers, and informed them of their strength. Aristotle, and Bacon, and Sidney, and Locke, could do little more than to disclose to them their native capacity for the profound investigation and ascertainment of truth; and Newton taught their power to range among the stars. In short, every model to which they looked, and every great master to whom they appealed, only moved into life the scarcely dormant energies with which Heaven had endued them; and they came forth from the discipline, not decorated for pomp, but armed for battle. From this first coincidence in the character of their minds and studies, let us proceed to another. They both turned their attention to the same profession, the profession of the law; and they both took up the study of this profession on the same enlarged scale which was so conspicuous in all their other intellectual operations. They had been taught by Hooker to look with reverence upon the science of the law: for, he had told them that "her seat was the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world." Pursued in the spirit, on the extended plan, and with the noble aim, with which they pursued it, may it not be said, without the hazard of illiberal construction, that there was no profession in this country to which Heaven could have directed their choice, so well fitted to prepare them for the eventful struggle which was coming on. Mr. Adams, we are told, commenced his legal studies, and passed through the initiatory course, under William Putnam of Worcester: but, the crown of preparation was placed on his head by Jeremiah Gridley.* Gridley was a man of first rate learning and vigor, and as good a judge of character as he was of law. He had been the legal preceptor, also, some years before, of the celebrated James Otis; and, proud of his two pupils, he was wont to say of them at the bar, with playful affection, that "he had raised two young eagles who were one day or other to peck out his eyes." The two young eagles were never known to treat their professional father with irreverence; but how well they fulfilled his prediction of their future eminence, has been already well told by the elegant biographer of one, and remains to furnish a rich theme for that of the other. It was in the commencement of his legal studies, and when he was yet but a boy, that Mr. Adams wrote that letter from Worcester which has been recently given to the world. Considering the age of the writer, and the point of time at which it was written, that letter may be pronounced, without hyperbole, a mental phenomenon, and far better entitled to the character of a prophecy, than the celebrated passage from the Medea of Seneca, which Bacon has quoted as a prophecy of the discovery of America. Before I call your attention more particularly to this letter, it is proper to remark, that Mr. Adams lived at a time and among men, well fitted to evoke his youthful powers. Massachusetts had been, from its earliest * Mr. Samuel L. Knapp's Address on the Death of Adams and Jefferson. settlement, a theatre of almost constant political contention. The spirit of liberty, which had prompted the pilgrims to bid adieu to the land and tombs of their fathers, and to brave the horrors of an exile to the wilds of America, accompanied them to the forests which they came to subdue; and questions of political right and power, between the parent country and the colony, were continually arising, to call that spirit into action, and to keep it bright and strong. These were a peculiar People, a stern and hardy race, the children of the storm; inured from the cradle to the most frightful hardships which they came to regard as their daily pastime, their minds, as well as their bodies, gathered new strength from the fearful elements that were warring around them, and whatever they dared to meditate as right, that they dared and never failed to accomplish. The robust character of the fathers descended upon their children, and with it, also, came the same invigorating contests. Violations of their charters, unconstitutional restraints upon their trade, and perpetual collisions with the royal Governors sent over to bend or to break them, had converted that province into an arena, in which the strength of mind had been tried against mind, for a century, before the tug of the Revolution came. And these were no puerile sports. They were the stern struggle of intellectual force, for power on the one hand, and liberty on the other. And from that discipline there came forth such men as such a struggle only seems capable of generating; rough, and strong, and bold, and daring; meeting their adversaries, foot to foot, on the field of argument, and beating them off that field by the superior vigor of their blows. Præcipitemque Daren, ardens agit æquore toto: From this school issued those men so well formed for the sturdy business of life, and who shine so brightly |