look back to those of the early ages of the world. The value of the application of such events to the practical action of the present and the future cannot be too highly appreciated ; and the importance of historical researches is placed in prominent relief by the consideration, that our experience is thus enlarged, from the narrow space of three score years and ten, to the series of ages, which have witnessed the birth and growth, the decay and death of the generations, that have preceded us.

History, indeed, when justly estimated, is not a mere record of facts. These, certainly, are essential to its truth, which is the first and greatest virtue of an historian. But he must have a higher and nobler aim, if he seek to interest or instruct mankind. He must trace the motives and causes of actions to their results. He must delineate the characters of those master-spirits, whose deeds he portrays, and hang them upon the outer wall, as spectacles for admiration or reprobation. He must boldly censure, where censure is due, and applaud where virtue is exhibited. But the duty assigned to me is an humbler one than that of delineating the qualifications, and describing the functions of an historian. This must be left to those more able to perform it, while I proceed to trace, in a very general manner, the purposes of this society.

As our object is general, our local position is favorable. Here assemble the representatives of the nation; here are brought, by business, or amusement, or curiosity, citizens from every portion of the Republic; and the national archives, containing the most authentic materials for the illustration of our history, are here deposited. It may well be hoped, that the dictates of a liberal patriotism, the spirit of enlightened research, the just claims of literature will send to our assistance many, who have the means and the inclination to rescue from destruction and oblivion, important documents and facts. Unaided, but little can be done. Our efforts can bear no just

proportion to the magnitude of a plan which, in the ardor of a first hope, has received our sanction.

Our position, likewise, furnishes opportunities for corresponding with those foreign countries, which planted their colonies upon this continent; which sent out their people, some for an extension of territory, some for the acquisition of gold, and some for the maintenance of the rights of conscience, to found mighty empires in this new world, whose progress now arrests the attention of mankind. Researches into the bureaus of those Governments may elucidate much that is dark, and confirm much that is doubtful, in the earlier periods of our history. And no American can peruse the memoir of Sebastian Cabot, which we owe to the learning and industry of one of our countrymen, without being sensible of the important advantages, which may result from a patient examination of the documents, which are preserved in various public offices in London, and which are opened with liberal kindness to the inquiring stranger. In that interesting account of the discoverer of North America, many popular errors are corrected, and the first judicious narrative is given of the voyages of this intrepid mariner.

And another countryman, known to both hemispheres for the purity of his style and his graphic delineations, has sought, in the collections of Madrid, the most authentic materials for his beautiful biography of the great discoverer— of him, who raised the veil which had so long separated the two worlds, and opened the way for those wonderful events, which, mighty as they are and have been, are yet but in the infancy of their operation; which are yet but the small cloud, discerned on the edge of the horizon by the servant of the prophet, but which are, by-and-by, to cover the face of

nature.

In the pursuit of our investigations, we have another advantage from our situation. An extensive library has already been collected, at the national expense, which contains

many rare and valuable works, illustrating our general and local history. This collection is annually augmented, but not in proportion to the great means of the nation, nor with the rapidity demanded by the literary character we have acquired, and desired by every votary of liberal inquiry. There should be one place in our country, where every work may be found, which has any relation, however remote, to the discovery, settlement, and history of America; and that place is here. Here, at the seat of empire of this great Republic, the eldest of the family of cis-Atlantic states, and the zealous follower, and, we may hope, at no distant day, the generous rival of her fatherland in the career of intellectual advancement. And why should not such additions be made to this collection, in all the departments of human learning, as will render it worthy of the age and country, and elevate it to an equality with those greast repositories of knowledge, which are among the proudest ornaments of modern Europe? This is the true luxury of Republican Governments, which the most zealous disciple of Lycurgus need not seek to restrain by sumptuary laws. We may leave to the splendid monarchies of the other hemisphere the decorations with which they surround their institutions, rejoicing that our own political edifice is free from any meretricious ornament. But the promotion of literature belongs to all ages, and nations, and governments. "Nor am I less persuaded," said the patriot first called to administer the present constitution, and whose memory is already sanctified by his virtues and services, "nor am I less persuaded," he said in his first address to Congress, after he had entered upon the execution of his duties, "that you will agree with me in opinion, that there is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness. In one, in which the measures of government receive their impressions so immediately from the sense of

the community as in ours, it is proportionably essential." Wonderful man! Time is the great leveller of human pretensions. The judgment, which he pronounces upon men and their actions, is as just as it is irreversible. How few of the countless throng, who, in the brief day of their pride, looked down upon their fellow-men, or were looked up to by them, now live in the memory of mankind! And as we recede from the periods, in which they lived and flourished, their fame becomes dimmer and dimmer, till it is extinguished in darkness. The world has grown wiser in its estimate of human worth, and the fame of common heroes has become cheaper and cheaper. But we have one name, that can never die. One star, which no night of moral darkness can extinguish. It will shine on, brighter and brighter, till it is lost in the effulgence of that day, foretold in prophecy, and invoked in poetry,

"When heaven its sparkling portals shall display,

And break upon us in the flood of day;

No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,

Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;

But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze

O'erflow thy courts; the light himself shall shine
Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine."

Happen what may to our country, this treasure can never be reft from her. Her cities may become like Tadmor, her fields like the Campagna, her ports like Tyre, and her hills like Gilboa, but, in all the wreck of her hopes, she may still proudly boast that she has given one man to the world, who devoted his best days to the service of his countrymen, without any other reward than their love and his own self-approbation; who gladly laid down his arms, when peace was obtained; who gladly relinquished supreme authority, when the influence of his character was no longer wanted to consolidate the infant institutions of the

Republic; and who died, ripe in years and in glory, mourned as few have been mourned before him, and revered as few will be revered after him. Here, in this hall, whose foundations were laid by his own hand; here, under this dome, which looks out upon the place of his sepulture; here, in this city, named from his name, and selected for its high object by his choice, let us hope that his precepts will be heard, and his example heeded through all suceeding ages. And when these walls shall be time worn and time honored, and the American youth shall come up, as they will come up, to this temple of liberty, to meditate upon the past, and to contemplate the future, may they here find lessons and examples of wisdom and patriotism to study and to emulate. And when the votary of freedom shall make his pilgrimage to the tomb of Mount Vernon, and lay his hand upon the lowly cemetery, let him recall the virtues and bless the memory of WASHINGTON.

When the diffusion of knowledge is recommended to the consideration of the Government by this authority, I may well be spared all effort to illustrate its importance. But its effects I may briefly advert to, in one splendid example of literary distinction, which exhibits the triumph of intellect during the long period of twenty centuries. The little territory of Attica, containing about thirty miles square, and half a million of inhabitants, furnishes a pregnant lesson for the world. There literature flourished, freedom prevailed, the arts and sciences were cultivated, and genius was honored and rewarded. She sent out her armies and navies, wherever her interest or honor required. She repelled the Persian hordes from her land; she gallantly maintained her independence for a long series of years, and she became the school of antiquity, imparting to all other countries the treasures of her knowledge. How proud a moment she now is, even in her desolation! From the Ganges to the

Saint Lawrence, where is the man of intelligence who does