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Nor would we, on the return of this eventful day, forget the men who, when the conflict of council was over, stood forward in that of arms. Yet let me not, by faintly endeavouring to sketch, do deep injustice to the story of their exploits. The efforts of a life would scarce suffice to paint out this picture, in all its astonishing incidents, in all its mingled colours of sublimity and woe, of agony and triumph. But the age of commemoration is at hand. The voice of our fathers' blood begins to cry to us from beneath the soil which it moistened. Time is bringing forward, in their proper relief, the men and the deeds of that high-souled day.

The generation of contemporary worthies is gone; the crowd of the unsignalized great and good disappears; and the leaders in war, as well as council, are seen, in fancy's eye, to take their stations on the Mount of Remembrance. They come from the embattled cliffs of Abraham; they start from the heaving sods of Bunker's Hill; they gather from the blazing lines of Saratoga and Yorktown, from the blooddyed waters of the Brandywine, from the dreary snows of Valley Forge, and all the hard-fought fields of the war! With all their wounds and all their honours, they rise and plead with us for their brethren who survive; and command us, if indeed we cherish the memory of those who bled in our cause, to show our gratitude, not by sounding words, but by stretching out the strong arm of the country's prosperity, to help the veteran survivors gently down to their graves!

VI. TACT VERSUS TALENT.

(London Atlas.)

TALENT is something, but not everything. Talent is serious, sober, grave, and respectable. Tact is all that and more, too; it is not a sixth sense, but it is the life of all the five; it is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging taste, the keen smell, and the lively touch; it is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles. It is useful in all places and at all times; it is useful in solitude, for it shows a man his way into the

world; it is useful in society, for it shows his way through the world.

Talent is power; tact is skill. Talent is weight; tact is momentum. Talent knows what to do; tact knows how to do it. Talent makes a man respectable; tact will make him respected. Talent is wealth; tact is ready money. For all the practical purposes of life, tact carries it against talent ten to one. Talent will produce you a tragedy that will scarcely live long enough to be condemned, while tact keeps the house in a roar, night after night, with its successful farces. There is no want of dramatic talent, there is no want of dramatic tact, but they are seldom together; hence we have successful pieces which are not respectable, and respectable pieces which are not successful.

Take them to the bar, and let them shake their learned curls at each other in legal rivalry. Talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. Talent receives many a compliment from the bench, but tact receives fees from attorneys and clients. Talent speaks learnedly and logically; tact triumphantly. Talent makes the world wonder that it gets on no faster; tact excites astonishment that it gets on so fast; and the secret is that it has no weight to carry; it makes no false step, it hits the right nail on the head, it loses no time, it takes all hints, and, by keeping its eye on the weathercock, is ready to take advantage of every wind that blows.

Take them into the church. Talent has always something worth hearing; tact is sure of abundance of hearers. Talent may obtain a living, tact will make one; talent gets a good name, tact a great one. Talent convinces; tact converts. Talent is an honour to the profession; tact gains honour from the profession.

Take them to the court. Talent feels its weight; tact finds its way. Talent commands; tact is obeyed. Talent is honoured with approbation; and tact is blessed by preferment.

Place them in the senate. Talent has the ear of the house; but tact wins its heart, and has its votes. Talent is fit for employment; but tact is fitted for it. It seems to know everything without learning anything. It has served

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an invisible and extemporary apprenticeship. It needs no drilling; it never ranks in the awkward squad; it has no left hand, no deaf ear, no blind side. It puts on no looks of wondrous wisdom; it has no air of profundity, but plays with the detail of place as dexterously as a well-taught hand flourishes over the keys of the pianoforte.

It has all the air of common-place, and all the force and power of genius. Talent calculates slowly, reasons logically, makes out a case as clear as daylight, and utters its oracles with all the weight of justice and reason; tact refutes without contradiction, puzzles the profound without profundity, and without art outwits the wise. Set them together on a race for popularity, and tact will distance talent by half the course. Talent brings to market that which is wanted; tact produces that which is wished for. Talent instructs; tact enlightens. Talent leads where no one follows; tact follows where the humour leads.

Talent is pleased that it ought to have succeeded; tact is delighted that it has succeeded. Talent toils for a posterity which will never repay it; tact throws away no pains, but catches the passions of the passing hour. Talent builds for eternity; tact for a short lease, and gets good interest. In short, talent is certainly a very fine thing to talk about, a very good thing to be proud of, a very glorious eminence to look down from; but tact is useful, portable, applicablealways alert, marketable; it is the talent of talents, the availableness of resources, the application of power, the eye of discrimination, and the right hand of intellect.

SECTION IV.-ORATORY.

I. PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM, ON THE AMERICAN WAR. (WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM.)

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was born in Cornwall in 1708. For a short time he held a commission in the dragoons, but soon abandoned the profession of arms for that of politics. In the House of Commons he occupied a foremost place. In consideration of his eminent services he was, in 1766, elevated to the House of Lords. On concluding the following speech, he sank down exhausted, in a convulsive fit, and expired a few weeks afterwards, 1778. In reading the Parliamentary debates of the middle of the 18th century, it must be remembered that newspaper reporting was not then what it is now, and that the speeches of honourable gentlemen owe more to Dr. Samuel Johnson than to their reputed authors.

On the American Revolution, see introduction to No. V. of Sect. III.

I CANNOT, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment. It is not a time for adulation; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can Parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them,-measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? "But yesterday, and Britain might have stood against the world: now, none so poor as to do her reverence." The people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against us, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained by our inveterate enemy; and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is

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PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM, ON THE AMERICAN WAR. in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the British troops than I do. I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of British America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing, and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent,-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country I never would lay down my arms;—never!— never!-never!

But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage?-to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods?-to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; "for it is perfectly allowable," says Lord Suffolk, "to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands." I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed, to hear them avowed in this house or in this country. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation; I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon, as members of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity! "That God and nature have put into our hands!" What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain, I know not;