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cannon ball in its front wall, and Christ Church, with the chime of bells in its steeple, these are almost all that is left of the old town of Boston; and I wish I could believe that some even of these few were destined to stand much longer unchanged. I cannot help wishing, especially, that some plan might be seasonably devised by which that old Hancock house, the only remaining specimen of the domestic architecture of the olden time, might be saved for our children and our children's children to look at, and be set apart for some congenial public purpose by the city, or by the State, or by some worthy association like your own. But if this is not to be,- if the work of renovation is still to go on, until every thing is changed, until all the old buildings shall have fallen, and the places that knew them shall know them no more,

then, sir, I trust that we shall all be ready to do something, from time to time, to perpetuate the historical associations of our city in some other suitable and durable form.

Boston, Mr. President, is eminently an historical city. I think it no presumption to say that it is the historical city of our land. Other cities may outshine us in the dazzling prospects of the future, or in the splendid realities of the present. But what other city has so many glorious reminiscences of the past? Dating back to the year 1630, it has stood through two centuries and a quarter, pre-eminently conspicuous for the great men and the great deeds which have illustrated its history. It has been a city set on a hill,—yes, sir, on three hills, - and it has never been hid. From the Liberty Tree to the Green Dragon, from the Neck to Copp's Hill, there is scarcely a street without its story, or a lane, or an alley, in which you cannot trace the footsteps of the fathers. Here have been pious and brave-hearted colonists, illustrious statesmen, heroic defenders of liberty, philanthropic merchants, patriotic mechanics, whose words and deeds have resounded through the world. And now, if these men, with all their words and deeds, are not to be forgotten, it will not do to trust only to the cold pages of history, or to the feeble voice of tradition, to preserve their remembrance. Their names, their forms, must be kept fresh in the daily mind and full in the daily sight of our children, if we would have those children grow up to an appreciation of the institutions they founded, and to a readiness and a resolution to maintain them.

It is in this view that I have been delighted to see so many of the old names inscribed upon our streets, our squares, our schoolhouses, and our granite blocks. It is in this view that I have witnessed with so much satisfaction the recent re-opening of some of our old graveyards to the sun, and the efforts of our “Old Mortality" (Mr. Thomas Bridgman) to rescue their inscriptions from the effacing finger of time. And it is in this view, more particularly, that I rejoice at the success of that suggestion which I had the good fortune to make at your opening lecture last winter, and which has been so nobly seconded and carried out by the citizens of Boston, under the lead of your own Association. When that statue of Franklin shall have been completed by the accomplished artist to whom it has been entrusted (Mr. Richard Greenough), himself a Boston boy; when it shall have been once set up on its pedestal, agreeably to the exquisite design which has been adopted, it will present to our daily view the greatest of the native sons of our city; and it will tell, also, by what steps he rose to be the greatest, the son of a mechanic, himself a mechanic, by industry and energy and perseverance and temperance and frugality, lifting himself to the highest grade in the scale of human honor, and lifting his country to the highest pinnacle of national glory, and leaving the world in doubt, when he died, whether he had rendered the greatest services as a philosopher or a patriot.

But, Mr. President, the work of commemoration must not end here. We shall have a statue of Franklin. We have already a statue of one greater even than him, the incomparable Washington. A statue of the lamented Story, for Mount Auburn, from the chisel of his son, is understood to be on its way across the Atlantic. A statue of Daniel Webster, from the studio of Powers, is soon to follow it. And I have the best reason to believe that a statue of General Warren, by Dexter, has already been contracted for. This, sir, is pretty well for a beginning. But, after all, it is only a beginning. Great names are still behind. The best materials are still sleeping in our quarries. Our own American sculptors are second to none in the world, and they are destined to gain more glory by the portraiture of American freemen, than they have ever yet acquired even by

their charming conceptions of Roman Shepherds or of Greek Slaves. They have shown already that they know how to "give more than female beauty to a stone," they will win fresh laurels in giving Franklin's wisdom or "Webster's eloquence to marble lips."

Great names, I repeat, are still behind, the Adamses, and Otis, and that Quincy of 1774, of whom we have just heard so touching a tale, and I hope that no ten years, certainly that no generation, will pass away, without adding at least one more to the living marbles or the breathing bronzes which shall commend the great examples of the past to the imitation and admiration of the future. Let this be done, and Boston may indeed be changed by the magic of mechanic art in its outward face and form; her old three hills may be levelled to the sea, and not one stone left upon another of her ancient edifices; but the old spirit will survive, the spirit of love to man, and love to God, and love to country, which animated our fathers, the spirit of law and liberty and union, this will survive; and patriot merchants and patriot mechanics will rise up again in every age to defend and adorn a city which has known how to honor and perpetuate the memory of its builders and benefactors.

And now, sir, in concluding these remarks, which I fear have already detained you too long, I am reminded that there have been other changes in our city, within the past year, than those of her mere material structures; that there have been other breaches besides those which mechanic art, or any art, can repair. Your own roll, both active and honorary, bears witness to the recent departure from among us of more than one of those whom you have delighted to honor.

The memory of your excellent and lamented President (Mr. Chickering) has already received its appropriate and feeling tribute. I can add nothing to that. But I will venture to recall to your remembrance another venerated name. You have alluded, in the sentiment which called me up, to an humble service which I rendered some years ago, as the organ of the Repre

sentatives of the Union, at the laying of the corner-stone of the National Monument to Washington. I cannot but remember that the latest efforts in this quarter of the country to raise funds for the completion of that monument, were made by one whose long and honorable life has been brought to a close within the past twelve months.

I cannot forget the earnest and affectionate interest with which that noble-hearted old American gentleman devoted the last days, and I had almost said the last hours, of his life, to arranging the details and the machinery for an appeal to the people of Massachusetts, in behalf of that still-unfinished structure. He had seen Washington in his boyhood, and had felt the inspiration of his majestic presence; he had known him in his manhood, and had spent a day with him by particular invitation at Mount Vernon, a day never to be forgotten in any man's life; his whole heart seemed to be imbued with the warmest admiration and affection for his character and services; and it seemed as if he could not go down to his grave in peace until he had done something to aid in perpetuating the memory of his virtues and his valor. I need not say that I allude to the late Hon. Thomas Handasyd Perkins. He, too, was a Boston boy, and one of the noblest specimens of humanity to which our city has ever given birth; — leading the way for half a century in every generous enterprise, and setting one of the earliest examples of those munificent charities which have given our city a name and a praise throughout the earth. He was one of your own honorary members, Mr. President, and I have felt that I could do nothing more appropriate to this occasion, the first public festive occasion in Faneuil Hall which has occurred since his death, — and nothing more agreeable to the feelings of this Association, or to my own, than to propose to you, as I now do,

The memory of THOMAS HANDASYD PERKINS.

THE

HISTORIC GLORIES OF THE EMPIRE

STATE.

A SPEECH AT THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 20, 1854.

I NEED not assure you, Mr. President, that I am deeply sensible to this kind notice and this cordial reception. It is with real pleasure that I have found myself able - somewhat unexpect edly at the last moment-to be present on this occasion, to participate in these anniversary festivities as one of your invited guests, and to listen to the comprehensive and powerful discourse of one in whose fame Massachusetts can claim at least an equal share with New York, and who has just presented so brilliant a title to be recognized afresh as the historian of the whole country.

I feel myself greatly honored, too, in being commissioned as one of the delegates of the Historical Society of Massachusetts, to bear her birthday greetings and congratulations to her sister Society of New York. Your elder sister by a few years, as she is, and by right of seniority the very head of the whole family of American historical associations, she rejoices in every evidence of your superior advantages and ampler resources, and I should do great injustice to those who have sent me, as well as to those by whom I am accompanied, if I did not assure you of the sincere and earnest interest which we all take in the signal manifestation of your prosperity and progress which this occasion has afforded. If I may be pardoned for borrowing an expressive orientalism, and for playing upon it for an instant after I have borrowed it, I would venture to wish that your Association might not only flourish like the chosen palm-tree of the plain, but that