cate upon the students an enlightened and conscientious attention to them through life, must not be overlooked. Avoiding, in publick, all questions of a party nature, he aimed assiduously to cultivate in their breasts a deep respect for the fundamental principles, on which the happiness and welfare of society must stand. The following extract from one of his Addresses expresses some of his views upon this subject.

"In no country on earth, is the action of that "vast machine called civil society, maintained with"out enormous waste of moral principle. Integrity, "truth, benevolence, and justice are worn away by "the revolutions, which are kept up through its vari-. "ous parts. In what manner, do you imagine, this "waste is to be repaired? Whence is that stock of "virtue to be supplied, which is absolutely necessary "to a prosperous state either of civil government, or "social intercourse? It is from the precepts, the "discoveries, and sanctions of religion. It is from "christian instruction, early and inscessantly applied "to the public mind; by which conscience is render❝ed more alive, more active, and more imperious. This, even though the statesman be ignorant of it, is "the celestial dew, that nourishes the vine and

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fig-tree, by which he is shaded. He, who brings "home, to the bosoms of those around him, a live

"lier belief in religion, a more sensible conviction of "the unchangeable -difference between virtue and ❝vice, together with their appropriate consequences, " is a benefactor to the government, under which he "lives, to every corporation, to every profession, and "to every member of the state."

The Addresses, from which the foregoing specimen is taken, were granted for publication at the request of Graduates of Bowdoin College. Under the editorial care of a committee of their appointment, they are now presented to the publick. If a number of circumstances combine to give them a peculiar interest in the view of those, to whom they were originally delivered, it is believed, they will be perused with pleasure by every discerning and judicious reader. With respect to some of them, the idea may possibly have occurred, whether they were sufficiently popular for the occasion. Upon this point it may be sufficient to suggest, that the interest, they actually excited, was apparently deep and intelligent in every portion of the audience. Something, no doubt, was owing to the fact, that the impression, they were adapted to produce, was in such accordance with the genius and reputation, not to say, the physiognomy of the eminent man, by whom they were pronounced. The publick expectation was wrought up to them; a circumstance no

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less material perhaps with regard to graver exhibitions of talent, than those of a different description. The force, not of his intellect and feelings only, but of his character also, flowed naturally into them, and in some measure augmented their effect. In addition, it were difficult to conceive of a manner more earnest and rivetting, than that, in which they were delivered. It was an earnestness capable of transferring to the subject the praise due to the speaker; of leading the less prompt of apprehension to imagine they had felt the power of the sentiment, when they had rather been affected by the interest, it excited in those around them, and by the energy of interior conviction, with which it was uttered. No one perhaps was ever better acquainted with the art of enchaining an attention, he had seized, than President Appleton; and, if the allusion may be permitted, of kneading the application of his subject into a mind, he had once compressed within his grasp. In him the moral sense seemed to possess the property of genius; such a force was it able to throw into his expression of moral sentiment. It was a force, he had the secret of applying, with a pressure so steady, and an intensity so powerful, that none, whose sensibility was accessible, could be unmoved by it. Still, how far his elocution might be recommended for ease, or what many

would denominate nature, to those especially, in whom it could never be sustained by that vigour of thought, of feeling, and expression, he was accustomed to display, is open to doubt. That measured, solemn, and emphatick precision of utterance, by which it was characterized would ill accord with any intellectual or moral inferiority, with which it should be connected; or rather, it may be said, that no such inferiority could imitate this elocution in an higher degree, than would be barely sufficient to remind an audience of the original.

Each of the Addresses will be found, for the most part, to be confined to a distinct and separate train of thought; starting from some important principle of ethical or intellectual philosophy, and carried out with an invariable and manifest aim to the production of salutary and valuable impressions. The love of praise the influence of education in determining the apparent natural capacity and taste-the connexion between piety and good morals on the one hand, and literature and science on the other-the self existent and immutable nature of virtue-the importance of acquiring a habit of insulating and fixing the attention, at pleasure-are some of the principal topicks.

That they will be held in high estimation, cannot be doubted; whether the richness of their subjects

be considered; or the sound and temperate manner, in which they are treated; or the felicity, they display of deducing counsels, appropriate to youth, at the close of their collegial career, from themes of a more academick description, at once suited to the station of the speaker, and fitted happily to connect the instruction of the past with the practice of the future.

The style of these performances will probably be noticed for its perspicuity and strength, and the evidence it affords, how clearly the thoughts of the writer were wont to be defined to his own mind, before they were communicated to others.

Not less observable is the concern, he exhibits to fix a deep and vigorous sense of moral obligation in the breasts of those, whom he addressed. In this, an indication is afforded of the tone of senti ment, he was solicitous they should carry into life. With Cudworth, Clarke, Price, and other ethical writers of the same class, he considered the principles of rectitude, not as depending on the will of any being whatever, but as fixed and unchangeable in themselves; recognized, not constituted by Deity; and made the basis of the divine administration. To the elucidation and support of this system one of his Addresses is devoted, and in the others it is often introduced. That the nature of virtue is the same

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