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Art. XXIII.

An Oration, pronounced July 4th,
1799, at the request of the Inhabit-
ants of the Town of Boston, in
Commemoration of the Anniversary
of American Independence. By
John Lowell, Junior. Boston.
Manning and Loring. pp. 27.
8vo.

BY an institution of the town of
Boston, the orator of the 4th
July is required to consider “the
feelings, manners, and principles,”
which led to the declaration and
establishment of our national Inde-
pendence.—That the transaction or
event, which a person is selected to
elucidate and embellish by his elo-
quence, should be the main sub-
ject of his performance, seems an
obvious and essential requisite in
its composition. Each successive
orator, necessarily finds the ground,
in some degree, pre-occupied, and
the prescribed path, more and more
beaten by those who have preced-
ed. He is compelled to take a wider
range in search of novelty, by which
to interest the feelings, and enchain
the attention of his audience; or,
adhering to the more appropriate,
but already exhausted topics of ar-
gument and illustration, be con-
tented to merit or incur the impu-
tation of indolence or dulness, by
trite argumentation and stale re-
mark, by repeated congratulation,
and the reiterations of self-applause.

But the difficulty of invention,
and the labour of investigation, as
well as the hazard of repetition and
indifference, have been, of late, di-

minished, and the orator is in dan-
ger of being dazzled by the splen-
dour and magnificence, or overpow-
ered by the sublimity and horror
of the scene before him.

The French revolution and its
causes, relations and consequences,
its real and probable influence on
the happiness of mankind, and par-
ticularly on our own people and go-
vernment, have furnished very am-
ple and various materials for argu-
ment, conjecture and declamation,
on which all the powers of elo-
quence and imagination may be
exercised, all the figures and graces
of rhetoric employed, without fear
of weariness, or danger of satiety.

The original connection between
America and France, in the strug-
gle of the former for independence,
their subsequent intercourse and
occasional dissentions, are topics
for popular instruction and enter-
tainment, which appear related to
the principal subject of a discourse
on the anniversary of our national
sovereignty, and naturally lead to
more distant and extended views
of the French revolution.

To vindicate our revolution from
the misrepresentations and calum-
nies of those who have endeavour-
ed, by its example, to justify that
of France, the author of the per-
formance now under consideration,
has, with much warmth of colouring
and fervor of imagination, exhibit-
ed a comparison between the spirit
and character of both. The two
pictures present a perfect contrast.
In that of America, we behold a
people distinguished for “unsullied
virtue, uncorrupted simplicity, and
a pure and undefiled religion,” im-
pelled by an “ardent love of liber-
ty, an unconquerable spirit of in-
dependence, a hatred of foreign do-
minion, and detestation of domestic
oppression,” calmly and dispassion-
ately resolve “to resist the earliest
incroachments of arbitrary power;”
and, pursuing with moderation and

―374―

firmness, that one legitimate ob-
ject, preserving inviolate moral and
religious institutions, the principles
of justice, the order of civil society,
and the rights of persons; and when
their lofty purpose was accomplish-
ed, return to the enjoyment of in-
nocence and repose.

In the picture of France, every
thing is the reverse of the former;
and the diffuse and elaborate de-
scription of Mr. L. may be com-
prised in the sublime and forcible
language of the poet, in depicting
that doleful region,

“Where” virtue “dies,” vice “lives and
   
nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious
    things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feigned, or fear
    conceived,
Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.”

Mr. L. regards the spirit of fac-
tion as a base but inseparable in-
gredient in every free constitution.
It is a noxious plant which thrives
and propagates most in the genial
and luxuriant soil of a popular go-
vernment. Ambition and cupidi-
ty, which find so many objects of
pursuit in republics and democra-
cies, generate and maintain the tur-
bulent and discontented race of
factious beings, who, while that
liberty which cherishes their exist-
ence endures, will propagate and
live. But their attacks would be
impotent, and their efforts fruit-
less, were they not “supported by
foreign gold, and encouraged by
external assistance.” The “Gal-
lic faction,” in our own country,
by a community of opinions, and
a sympathy of views, have leagued
with the irreligious, immoral, and
disorganizing sectaries of French
philosophy, to destroy the founda-
tions of civil society, subvert our
virtuous and venerable institutions,
and overwhelm all religion, law,
and liberty.

That sentiment of gratitude, so

natural and so powerful, after the
termination of our revolution, to-
wards our then ally, has been art-
fully wrought upon, to lead the peo-
ple to regard with equal sensibility
and approbation, the conduct of
the successive ruling parties in
France. The absurdity of this claim
of gratitude, and its abuse, are, in-
deed, palpable; but the charm is
now dissolved, and we are no longer
to apprehend being the dupes of
such dangerous hallucinations.

After expatiating on the measures
of our “domestic faction,” and the
dangers which threaten our inter-
nal repose, the orator proceeds to
point out the more imminent and
striking hazards, to which we are
momently exposed from the open
attacks, and secret machinations of
the rulers of France, boundless in
their ambition, and insatiable in
their avarice, “whose support is
plunder, whose nutriment is car-
nage, and whose pastime is human
wretchedness.” He depicts the con-
duct of that republic, towards sur-
rounding nations, and demands if
from so ferocious a monster “we
have reason to expect forbearance,
to hope for its friendship, to trust
to its moderation, or to confide in
its justice.” Those who still cher-
ish the love of peace, and preserve
their faith in the professions of
France, he reproaches for their su-
pineness and credulity, reminds
them of the opinion of our chief
magistrate, that there can be no
peace without degradation and sub-
mission, and no security in negoci-
ation and convention. He recals to
their view the “magnanimous and
unconquerable spirit of their fore-
fathers;” exhorts them to discard
the delusive and dangerous idea of
peace, and to be prepared to repel
attack, or to treat at the point of the
bayonet, and to proclaim our rights
from the mouths of our cannon.

The conclusion, though not re-
markable for its elegance or felicity,

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accords with the taste and feeling of
the day.

We have thus given the leading
features of this oration; on which
we have bestowed more attention
than many of our readers may think
due to its magnitude or importance.
But productions of this nature,
form so considerable a portion of
the literary harvest of our country,
that we may be excused for con-
ferring on them a degree of atten-
tion insuitable to their intrinsic
worth, and which, amidst a frequen-
cy of more valuable and lasting
works, would be wholly dispropor-
tionate and misplaced.

When beings of a larger growth
and more durable existence do not
present themselves, the curious and
deliberate inquirer may be allow-
ed to regard, with more protracted
observation, the qualities of the fleet-
ing insects of a day.