DINNER TO LAFAYETTE "Ah, no! those days of auld lang syne When with our sires to Brandywine Dr. William DARLINGTON, Lafayette at Brandywine. HE long-expected day had at last arrived. THE The hope expressed by Judge Darlington, a year before, that the illustrious guest of the nation would be inclined to revisit the ground where he first fleshed his maiden sword was about to be realized. Lafayette was at hand. Of that fact there could be no doubt. Thirteen guns had saluted him at Darlington's Woods, and ten thousand voices had welcomed him on High Street. Hail to the Hero of Two Worlds! Hail to the Son of Washington. It was a stripling of twenty who had fought at Brandywine; it is an old man of almost seventy who reviews the troops on Matlack's field east of the Friends' meeting-house on July 26, 1825. Fifty years! Eventful years in the life of Lafayette! Hopeful years! Sorrowful years some of them, but eventful years all of them. The record of his life is almost completed, a few lines more and then-La Grange. In the revolt against absolute power, despotic ministers, insolent nobles and greedy favorites; in the greatest drama of the centuries; who played a more glorious part? To this worshiper at the shrine of liberty, to this hater of despotism and privilege, it was given to do much and suffer much for the cause of freedom. Friend of republicanism and defier of Robespierre, West Chester welcomes you. Every one of the forty who sat down to the table in the Grand Jury room of the courthouse felt these sentiments and solicitously awaited their expression. At length, Colonel Joseph McClellan-a captain in the Continental Army under Lafayette-rose and addressed his former commander as follows: "General, it is our happiness to be appointed by our fellow-citizens to greet you upon your visit to the scenes of your youthful gallantry on the banks of the Brandywine, and to bid you a sincere and cordial welcome to the bosom of our country. Language, indeed, can but feebly portray the joyous and grateful emotions with which we behold amongst us, after a lapse of eight and forty years, the illustrious friend of human rights, who relinquished the endearments of his domestic circle in a distant land to aid the fathers of our country in their struggle for independence, and who on this ground sealed with his blood his devotion to the cause of American liberty. "In you, sir, we recognize with the profoundest respect and veneration the early, disinterested, and steadfast champion of our Washington, our Wayne, and their gallant compatriots-in-arms; the youthful volunteer, who shared the toils of our fathers to secure the blessings of republican freedom to our land, and who, by the favor of Heaven, has been preserved to witness the happiness and receive the benedictions of their grateful offspring. "We exult in the contemplation of a character whose pure, intrepid, and uniform devotion to the rights of man has been equally conspicuous in the battlefields of the western, and in the councils, the courts, and the dungeons of the eastern, hemisphere. "We rejoice that a signal opportunity has been afforded to our countrymen to repel the slander of despots and their hirelings that republics are ungrateful, and although the plain and unpretending citizens of this ancient county |