―219―

Art. XX.

A Funeral Oration, occasioned by the
Death of Gen. George Washington;
and delivered on the 1st of Janua-
ry, 1800, in the Episcopal Church
at New-Rochelle, in the State of
New-York. By Samuel Bayard,
Esq. New-Brunswick. Blauvelt.
pp. 24. 8vo. 1800.

WE are highly pleased with the
chaste and temperate strain
of this discourse. In many cases
this theme has suggested the wild-
est flights of imagination that we
have ever witnessed. The orators
seem to have thought that no effort
could equal the greatness of their
theme. They have sparkled and
glittered till our sight has been daz-
zled, and pained; and we light,
with uncommon satisfaction, on a
piece of smooth and unostentatious
verdure like that before us. Our
sight is invigorated and refreshed,
and enabled to resume its gaze upon
the glaring meteors which the fa-
shionable rhetorick is constantly
darting athwart our horizon.

Mr. Bayard seems to have reduc-
ed to practice the opinion which he
delivers: “his own actions, and his
own sentiments, recited with the
symplicity which characterized his
style of writing and speaking, will
ever constitute the highest eulogium
of Washington.” Most other ora-
tors have stretched and panted after
a style, figurative, audacious, and
magnificent, and have painted the
subject of their praise in colours
flaring and gaudy to a grotesque
and ridiculous degree—in colours

―220―

from which, if Washington still
possess consciousness and sensibility,
he must turn away with disdain and
regret.

In the discussion of a theme like
this, where the merits of the dead
are so well known, and so many
have undertaken to blazon those
merits, it will be natural to expect
the same facts to be exhibited, and
the same inferences drawn. The
events in Washington's life will, of
course, be rehearsed and comment-
ed on, and his character be placed
in the same points of view. Much
novelty in the topics and reasonings
will scarcely be expected, and the
want of it will be readily forgiven
by impartial readers.

Mr. Bayard has commented on
the history of Washington with
more sobriety and good sense than
commonly occurs, though he has
not exhibited his subject in any
very new or striking lights. The
general, statesman, and private citi-
zen, pass in review before him; and,
at each step, he speaks the language
of a rational, though not of a du-
bious or dissembling eulogist, and
evinces a mind fully apprized of the
past and present state of his coun-
try—of the difficulties and tempta-
tions which beset Washington in
his progress through the world.

The oration, like most others,
opens with a somewhat needless
and exaggerated picture of the grief
which the death of Washington
produced. We should be unwor-
thy to be the countrymen of him
whom we commemorate, if his
death actually produced the grief
which is ascribed to us. Sour and
malignant is that heart who does
not foster the image of this great
and universal benefactor with gra-
titude, solemnity and reverence;
but to realize the scene so glaringly
depicted by his eulogists, would
by no means redound to our credit,
as rational, or social, or political
beings. Such representations are

undesigned satires on the dead and
on the living, and tend to degrade,
instead of exalting, his character and
ours.—Rhetorick, like common dis-
course, is best employed in telling
the truth, even when the truth is
disadvantageous to us; but much
more so when, as in the present case,
the truth is more honourable to the
subject, and the hearers of the eu-
logy, than fiction. We know the
merits of the dead too well—we
have too much reverence for our
God, our country, and ourselves,
actually to fell horror, agony, despair
—to utter those sighs, and pour
forth those tears which more than
one orator has bestowed upon us.
It is not an honourable, but a child-
ish sensibility, that should thus ma-
nifest itself; and, accordingly, not
one, perhaps, in one million, has
felt what the orators impute to the
whole community.

The following is a favourable
specimen of the mode in which
the conduct of Washington is ex-
ibited by Mr. Bayard. It respects
a very interesting period in our his-
tory. The concluding paragraph
is not only just but elegant.

“The pay of this army was
greatly in arrear. They had re-
ceived already much of what was
due to them in a depreciated paper
currency. In discharge of what
their country still owed, the same
currency and remote, unsettled lands
were to form the materials of their
compensation. They were about
to return to the pursuits of civil
life, with only the shadow of reward,
for years of danger and of toil; for
health impaired, and the prime of
life devoted to the public service.
They expected more of their coun-
try. Their country [countrymen]
regretted that their exhausted re-
sources then enabled them to do no
more. The army, urged by the
artful insinuations of an anonymous
writer, were on the point of rising,
while yet embodied, and of wrest-

―221―

ing from their country, by force,
that compensation which they had
in vain demanded of its justice.
Never did zeal for the welfare of
his country, and the honour of his
army, blaze forth with greater
splendour, even in the actions of a
Washington, than on this occasion.
By private influence; by public per-
suasion; by an appeal to the honour
of soldiers, and the patriotism of
citizens; by the regard they owed
to their personal character, and their
country's good; by every motive
that could influence a generous
mind, he conjured them to disband
in peace, and to expect from the
justice and gratitude of their coun-
try, what they were instigated to
extort by violence. His influence
was triumphant. He succeeded in
preserving the honour of his army
and his country from an unnatural
civil war.

“This great object accomplish-
ed, we see the American Hero re-
signing the chief command of the
army, and retiring, in private life,
amid the plaudits and benedictions
of his admiring country. He hop-
ed, he believed he had now taken
a final farewell of public life. His
glory seemed to be complete. It
appeared to be placed beyond the
reach of fortune's hand, and to have
had the seal of immortality impres-
sed upon it. But no; the will of
heaven had otherwise decreed. New
cares and new duties await him.
Again his character is to pass
through the furnace of general scru-
tiny, and his fame once more be
launched on the restless ocean of
popular opinion.”

We earnestly recommend the
judgment displayed in the follow-
ing portrait to the imitation of other
painters.

“Washington, whose fame adds
lustre to his age and country; in
whose character were combined
more exalted virtues, unalloyed by
the extremes to which such virtues

are most exposed, than in the cha-
racter of any man of whom we
have heard or read. Never did
any man better understand the hu-
man character, or employ more
suitable agents for the accomplish-
ment of his views and plans. In
a remarkable degree, he united ge-
nius with judgment, the enterprize
of youth with the caution of age.
He was brave, but not rash; fear-
less of death, but not prodigal of
life. He possessed zeal without in-
temperance, liberality without pro-
fusion, and economy without ava-
rice. His piety was rational and
sincere, tinctured neither with su-
perstition nor hyprocrisy. His dig-
nity never wore the garb of haugh-
tiness, nor his modesty that of af-
fectation. Moderate in prosperity,
he never lost his equanimity in mis-
fortune. Faithful to his friends, he
pitied and forgave his enemies.”