"For God's sake, forward it by night and by day," wrote Cornelius Harnett, by the express which sped for Brunswick. Patriots of South Carolina caught up its tones at the border, and dispatched it to Charleston, and through pines and palmettoes and moss-clad live-oaks, still farther to the South, till it resounded among the New England settlements beyond the Savannah.

The Blue Ridge took up the voice, and made it heard from one end to the other of the valley of Virginia. The Alleghanies, as they listened, opened their barriers that the "loud call" might pass through to the hardy riflemen on the Holston, the Watauga, and the French Broad. Ever renewing its strength, powerful enough even to create a commonwealth, it breathed its inspiring word to the first settlers of Kentucky; so that hunters who made their halt in the matchless valley of the Elkhorn, commemorated the nineteenth day of April by naming their encampment "Lexington."

With one impulse the colonies sprung to arms; with one spirit they pledged themselves to each other "to be ready for the extreme event.” With one heart the continent cried, "LIBERTY OR DEATH!"

- GEORGE BANCROFT.

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8. WARREN'S ADDRESS.

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal!
See it in yon bristling steel!
Ask it, ye who will!

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! - they're afire!
And, before you, — see

Who have done it! From the vale
On they come and will ye quail?
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!
Die we may and die we must:
But, oh! where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,

As where heaven its dew shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell?

-JOHN PIERPONT.

9. GEORGE WASHINGTON.

General Washington was exactly six feet in height; he appeared taller, as his shoulders rose a little higher than the true proportion. His eyes were of a gray and his hair of a brown color. His limbs were well formed, and indicated strength. His complexion was light, and his countenance serene and thoughtful. His manners were graceful, manly, and dignified. His general appearance never failed to engage the respect and esteem of all who approached him.

Possessing strong natural passions and having the nicest feelings of honor, he was in early life prone keenly to resent practices which carried the intention of abuse and insult; but the reflections of maturer age gave him the most perfect government of himself. He possessed the faculty, above all other men, to hide the weaknesses inseparable from human nature, and he bore with meekness and equanimity his distinguished honors.

Reserved but not haughty in his disposition, he was accessible to all in concerns of business, but he opened himself only to his confidential friends; and no art or address could draw from him an opinion which he thought prudent to conceal. He was not so much distinguished for brilliancy of genius as for solidity of judgment and consummate

prudence of conduct. He was not so eminent for any one quality of greatness and worth as for the union of those great, amiable, and good qualities which are very rarely combined in the same character.

His maxims were formed upon the result of mature reflection or extensive experience; they were the invariable rules of his practice; and on all important instances he seemed to have an intuitive view of what the occasion rendered fit and proper. He pursued his purpose with a resolution whichone solitary moment excepted-never failed him.

Alive to social pleasures, he delighted to enter into familiar conversation with his acquaintance, and was sometimes sportive in his letters to his friends; but he never lost sight of the dignity of his character, nor deviated from the decorous and appropriate behavior becoming his station in society.

He commanded from all the most respectful attention, and no man in his company ever fell into light or lewd conversation. His style of liv ing corresponded with his wealth; but his extensive establishment was managed with the strictest economy, and he ever reserved ample funds liberally to promote schemes of private benevolence and works of public utility. Punctual himself to every engagement, he exacted from others a strict fulfillment of contracts; but to the necessitous he

was diffusive in his charities, and he greatly assisted the poorer classes of people in his vicinity by furnishing them with means successfully to prosecute plans of industry.

- AARON BANCROFT.

10. THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

The task upon which he entered here was infinitely greater than that which he undertook when, fourteen years before, he drew his sword under the elm at Cambridge as commander-in-chief of the Continental army. To lead a people in revolution wisely and successfully, without ambition and without a crime, demands, indeed, lofty genius and unbending virtue.

But to build their State, amid the angry conflict of passion, prejudice, and unreasonable apprehension, the incredulity of many and the grave doubt of all; to organize for them and peacefully to inaugurate a complete and satisfactory government, is the greatest service that man can render to mankind. This, also, is the glory of Washington. The power of his personal character, the penetrating foresight and the wisdom of his judgment in composing the myriad elements that threatened to overwhelm the mighty undertaking, are all unparalleled.