USA > New York > Old New York : or, Reminiscences of the past sixty years > Part 31
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Other reflections seem naturally to occur when
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contemplating the condition of literature among us. There are noticeable changes to be observed during the past fifty years and upwards in all the walks of professional life. The Bar has swollen in the number of its members to an enormous mul- titude ; its talents and eapaeity are doubtless ade- quate to the fulfilment of its high behests : its tact and its sagacity were perhaps never greater than at present, but we neither witness nor hear of those forensie displays of elocutionary power which were formerly so often the theme of publie remark. Perhaps in any age the brilliant mani- festations of oratory exhibited by Hamilton, Morris, Livingston, and Emmet, could be classed only as rare exeeptions of individual suceess in the mighty art, and justify no grounds of sorrow at the ab- senee of any general deficieney of that marvellous gift. I have witnessed abroad and at home the diseiplined speakers of highest eelebrity, whose genius was enriehed with the profoundest wisdom, and in whom long practice had aeeomplished its most desirable ends ; such gifted men as Brougham, Mackintosh, Grattan, fall far short in effective re- sults and in that divine impulse which leads to eonvietion, compared with the mighty and seem- ingly unstudied energy of Thomas Addis Emmet. I was near the seene when about noon of the 14th of November, 1827, in the City Hall Court Room, he was seized by effusion of the brain, in the midst
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of his vast forensic utterance, and suddenly fell by apoplexy. His robust habit and the nature of his attack justified my immediate recourse to the lancet ; he was taken home, and every measure adopted for his relief by his old and devoted friend, Dr. Macneven, by Dr. Hosack, and myself ; but unconscious from the beginning of his attack, he continued so some ten hours, when he expired. That distinguished jurist, John Duer, with equal classical purity and truth, has drawn Emmet's character in the inscription engraven on his monu- ment. While on the subject of this great pro- fession I would fain call to mind the character of those eminent judges who stamped that value on your judiciary which rendered the New York de- cisions the law of the land, Spencer, Platt, Thomp- son, Van Ness, and others ; I would recall Kent once again in association with all that ennobles moral excellence, dignifies erudition and profes- sional life, and secures in perpetuity the fame of the learned author of Commentaries on American Law ; but the occasion forbids ; and the disciples of that high calling will look for such expositions from a more appropriate source.
There is an essential change in the great char- acteristics of our pulpit instruction : the spirit of polemical controversy has almost wholly died out ; the Universalists and the Unitarians are rarely molested by counter preaching, and Strebeck, were
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he now with us, might anathematize in vain on the wrath to come. The elaborate controversies on church government and apostolic succession, if vivified even with new powers, would fail to secure the consideration that once enchained the attention of Mason, McLeod, Miller, Hobart, How, and Bowden. Ezra Stiles Ely might draw his parallels between Calvinism and Hopkinsianism, but he would remain unanswered by an antagonist im- pregnated with the popular spirit of modern the- ological desires, and the venerable Dr. Spring, now half a century with us, would not deign to mingle with the unprofitable contest. The vexed question whether a widower may marry his deceased wife's sister, absorbing as it once appeared in Levitical law, would now leave the pious Dr. Livingston without a reader. Whelpley, with his Triangle, in five parts, however acute his logic, would search in vain for another mathematician like Professor Adrain, with provoked risibles, to laugh at his in- ferential doctrines. In fine, the spirit of the minis- try is vastly changed, and that change is for the better. The deists and the theophilanthropists have taken their flight, or put on an altered vesture not cognizable for classification. Re- ligious controversy, often so acrimonious, is a stranger where once it was difficult to avoid en- countering it. Polemics, even with the discon- tented and the anxious, have lost that charm which
CHRISTIANITY A DEMOCRATIC ELEMENT. 361
excited the spirits of every order of advocates to secure victory at almost any price. The game of life is no longer the game of nine-pins, to knock down as many as you can. The ethical doctrines of Holy Writ, and the Sermon on the Mount, are more than ever the monitors and the guides of the Christian believer, and accommodated equally to the Ebenezer Chapel and the lofty cathedral ; and that preacher who is most likened unto him described by Cowper, is best equipped, according to the order of the day, for the spread of gospel love. Christianity is recognized as a democratic element, profitable for all conditions of men, as the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution are the palladium of our civil and religious rights. Our popular song writer, Morris, has conveycd in beautiful versc ideas not unlike the sentiments I have thus frankly expressed, in his classical verses on the Rock of the Pilgrims. What is applicable to the land of the Pilgrims, history tells us is equally applicable to New Amsterdam.
"The pilgrims of old an example have given Of mild resignation, devotion and love, Which beams like a star in the blue vault of heaven, A beacon-light swung in their mansion above.
" In church and cathedral we kneel in our prayer, Their temple and chapel were valley and hill, But God is the same in the aisle and the air, And He is the Rock that we lean upon still."
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It were superfluous to ask attention to further reflections on the state of the Faculty of Physic, and the condition of the medical prescriber at the present day, after what has been already uttered in that section of the discourse which treats of the progress of the science of healing, and in an ad- dress recently pronounced at the Bellevue Hos- pital, concerning the multiplied sources for clinical knowledge offered by our innumerable charities, sustained by private and public munificence. The doctors, like the lawyers, have multiplied more than tenfold during the past fifty years ; higher re- quisites are looked for in those who exercise the art, and as a general truth they have been fully met, corresponding with the march of philosophical and medical knowledge, and in their professional pub- lications they have given us incontrovertible proofs of their instructive merits.
As associated with literature and authorship, none can be ignorant of the worldlike reputation secured by our prominent writers. National re- nown has followed the Commentaries of Kent, the International Law of Wheaton, the Historical Orations of Everett, the legal writings of Story, the Spanish Literature of Ticknor, the Exploring Expeditions of Wilkes and of Perry, the Re- searches of Robinson, the Biblical learning of Nor- ton, the Ornithology of Audubon, the histories of Bancroft, Prescott, and Motley, the Field-Book of
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Lossing, and the Biographies of Sparks. In states- manship the published intellectual legacies of Clay, Calhoun, Webster, and Legare, the living manifes- tations of Benton, Seward, Curtis, and Eliot, prove that the prestige of our country in this regard is unimpaired, while the new and improved editions of the writings of Washington, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, evinee a wholesome appre- eiation of the patriotism of the past. Irving may be pronouneed a universal elassie. The cosmopolitan Pliny Miles tells us that even in that seemingly benighted region, Ieeland, the pages of Irving are among the studies of the cultivated. Cooper's Forest and Sea Novels are known abroad in almost every living language. Where shall we not find the poetry of Bryant, Halleek, Willis, Whittier, Holmes, Sprague, Dana, and Pereival ? while the melodies of Longfellow have found translators in German versifieation, and Wilde in modern Greek. Ethnologieal studies have commanded the talents of Morton, Hawks, Squier, Davis, Turner, Bart- lett, Cotheal, Dwight, and Gallatin. Sehooleraft's Indian Researches, by their variety and magnitude have given him elaims to lasting gratitude. The elassieal annotations of Anthon and of Felton are held in admiration abroad and at home. The critical essays of Whipple, Channing, Hillard, and Tuekerman, the æsthetie travels of Calvert, the romanees of Hawthorne and of Melville, and the
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historical and romantic writings of Simms have met with a reception flattering to the most aspiring au- thor ; nor am I in this imperfect enumeration to forget the classical dramas of Boker ; and the Re- miniscences of that venerable worthy of typograph- ical celebrity, Buckingham, and those of that faithful and genial chronicler, Manlius Sargent. Surely I have said enough to answer the inter- rogatory of Sidney Smith ; he who is not sat- isfied may consult the Cyclopedia of the Duyc- kincks.
Within the period now under consideration what a new range in versatility, in talent, and in increasing power, has American journalism as- sumed. We are assured that those papers, the Times, the Herald, and Tribune, have a daily issue varying from forty to seventy thousand, and a weekly impression of double that number. How has the case about the time of the adoption of our State Constitution. Old Hugh Gaine, with his almost solitary Gazette, was satisfied with the sale of some three or four hundred papers, he himself being compositor, pressman, folder and distributer of his literary ware. Hoe's leviathan press of the present day throws off some twenty or thirty thou- sand copies per hour. If to these circumstances we add the multiplying capacity of the press, by the process of stereotyping, a device which I have years ago shown to have originated in New York,
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by Colden and Franklin,* we may still more fully comprehend the intellectual progeny the great art brings forth. Have we need to wonder that a sin- gle American edition may outnumber twenty or thirty of the London publisher ?
For much of this salutary change in the Repub- lic of Letters, let all praise be given to knowledge more available ; the appetite grows by what it feeds on ; to the higher culture of the people, and to the patronage of our enlightened publishers. I allude to such patrons as the Appletons, the Harpers, Scribner, Wiley and Putnam. I am limited to New York in these specifications. But the leading Boston firms are identified with our national historians, poets, and essayists. What Childs and Peterson have done for the gen- erous enterprise of the lamented Kane, both in the mechanical execution of those endearing vol- umes, the Arctic Expedition, and in the returns secured by liberal appropriation in artistic display, is enough of itself for the renown of Philadelphia. Nor can I omit to notice in this connection, that the most complete and authentic Dictionary of Authors in our vernacular tongue, (Biographical, Bibliographical, and Critical,) is in progress of publication under the auspices of this enterprising house, for which noble monument of literary toil
* See Hosack and Francis' American Medical and Philosophical Register, vol. 1, 1811.
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and industry we are indebted to the accomplished S Austin. Allibone, of Philadelphia ; that the Clerical Biographies of the erudite Dr. Sprague, now in press, promise a rich body of original eccle- siastical history from an early date to the present time ; while in our own city, we are favored by Appleton & Co., with a New Cyclopedia of Gen- eral Knowledge, especially rich in native science and biography, brought down to the latest day, prepared by the erudite and gifted editors, George Ripley and Charles A. Dana, assisted by enlight- ened collaborators of literary and scientific renown.
I believe I have secured the concurrence of my audience in the opinion that I have already said enough of the cventful Past in its complex rela- tions with the New York Historical Society. If I mistake not, the narrative which I have given of the passing events and living movements of our times elucidates the incalculable value of your Institution, and points out how indispensable is the duty to cherish that conservative element which your charter demands. The fragmentary information brought together in this discourse may not be wholly without its use : it may serve at least to furnish some hints to subsequent writers who may venture to fill up, with higher aspirations, the mighty void which exists in the annals of this vast Metropolis. With the philosophical historian evcry new fact will be duly appreciated, the tran-
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sitory nature of many occurrences better under- stood in their relation to simultaneous events, and the men of consequence in their day more faith- fully estimated. Skill indeed will be demanded in selection and judgment in arrangement, but an enlarged vision will comprehend the truth, that what seems temporary may sometimes become per- manent, that what is local often becomes national.
The task assigned me by your courtesy for this day's celebration has been executed amidst many cares, and not without apprehensions as to the result. The moments seized for preparation have not always been the most auspicious ; but my na- tive feelings and my love of the olden times, have prompted the spirit and the tendency of this address. " Whatever," says the great moralist, Dr. Johnson, "makes the past, the distant, and the future predominate over the present, exalts us in the scale of thinking beings." None can feel more deeply than myself the imperfect execution of the service I have attempted, and none of its deficien- cies causes greater uneasiness than the circum- stance that I have omitted notice of many of the eminent dead whose names ought to be placed on a record of gratitude, for their labors in behalf of this Society in its earlier existence. While I am conscious that the men of to-day are not inferior to those whose ranks they now supply, I have also been compelled to overlook a long catalogue of
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living worthies, who still co-operate in the great design of rearing this Historical Institution to na- tional consideration. Fortunately your printed Collections and Proceedings, a long series, have perpetuated the contributions of many of these distinguished members, and posterity will seek in- struction and delight in the discourses which you have preserved of your Clinton and Verplanck, your Morris and Hosack, your Mitchill and Blunt, your Wheaton and Lawrence, your Kent and But- ler, your Bradford and Bancroft. The records of your secretary will point out your indebtedness to those long tried members who have adhered to your interests in seasons of greatest depression ; Chancellor Matthews, the founder, I may add, of our City University ; George B. Rapelye, a friend with a Knickerbocker's heart, who has often invig- orated my statements by his minute knowledge ; Samuel Ward, a generous benefactor to your rich possessions ; and Albert Gallatin, many years your presiding officer, who needs no voucher of mine to place him in the front rank of intellectual mor- tals.
The thousand and one occurrences which have weighed on my mind while in this attempt to sketch a picture of the times in New York during the past sixty years, have made the difficulty of choice perplexing to recollection and embarrassing to the judgment. It might have been more ac-
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ceptable to many had this Discourse been concen- trated on some special topics of general interest, or that the importance of history as a philosophical study had been set forth, the better to urge the high claims which this institution proffers to the countenance and support of this enlightened com- munity. I stand amenable to such criticism, yet I fain would trust that the leaves of memory which I have opened may not be altogether without their use. An indifferent observer of the events of so long a period in a city of such progress, could not fail to have arrived at a knowledge of many things characteristic of the age and profitable as practi- cal wisdom ; to one who has ever cherished a deep sympathy in whatever adds to the renown of the city of his birth, or increases the benefits of its population, the accumulation of facts would nat- urally become almost formidable ; and while with becoming deference his aim on such an occasion as the present would lead him in his selection to group together, without tedious minuteness, the more prominent incidents which have marked its career, it might be tolerated if he here and there, with fond reluctance, dwelt upon what most in- volved his feelings, even should the subject-matter prove deficient in popular importance. In the wide and fertile field which I have entered, it re- quired an anthologist of rare gifts to select with wisdom products the healthiest, the richest, and
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most grateful for general acceptance, and most conducive to the general design.
The inquiry may be fairly put, has the New York Historical Society stood an isolated institu- tion during its long career, and are its merits of an exclusive character ? It may be promptly an- swered, No. It was preceded in its formation by the Massachusetts Historical Society, a bright ex- ample for imitation, some ten or twelve years ; and it has been followed by the organization of many other historical societies formed in different and widely-distant States of the Union. They have grown up around her, not by the desire of imitation, but by the force of utility ; and I will be bold enough to affirm, that consultation of their nu- merous volumes is indispensable to an author who aims at writing a faithful local or general history of the country. I speak thus earnestly because I think these works are too much overlooked or neglected. The conjoint labors of these several associations, with commendable diligence, are se- curing for future research, authentic materials touching events in history, in the arts, in science, in jurisprudence, and in literature ; and if I mis- take not, the intelligence of the people is awak- ened to their import ; individual pride and State ambition have been invoked in furtherance of the measure, and results productive of national good must crown the efforts. Truth, it is often said, is
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reserved for posterity-truth promulgated may be doubly fortified by these historical societies. In the march of similar pursuits, we may notice the American Antiquarian Society, founded by the late Isaiah Thomas, and the New England His- torical and Genealogical Society, a recent organi- zation, whose labors, however already, amount to many volumes, aided by the herculean devotion of Samuel G. Drake, and the still more recent His- torical Magazine published by Richardson, now of New York. This last-named periodical gives promise of excellence of the highest order, and demands the patronage of every genuine lover of American annals.
I would call attention to our New York Ethno- logical Society, now founded several years. Its vol- umes evince that the Association has adepts among its members able to throw light on the most intricate subjects of human inquiry. Its pres- ent president is the learned Dr. Robinson, so dis- tinguished in philology and biblical literature.
Still more recently a Geographical Society has sprung up among us. Though of but short dura- tion, its transactions have commanded approbation both abroad and at home. Among its leading members is Henry Grinnell, the well known pro- moter of the Arctic expeditions under the direc- tion of Doctor Kane. The Rev. Dr. Hawks is the present head of this association.
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As connected with the great design of pro- moting useful knowledge, the institution of the Lyceum of Natural History in this city may be included in the number. This association has now been in operation forty years. It was founded by Mitchill in union with Dr. Torrey, the late Dr. Townsend, and a few others. The Lyceum is most strictly devoted to natural history ; it created an early impulse to studies illustrative of our nat- ural products in the several kingdoms of nature. Many of the rarest treasures of our marine waters have become known by the investigations of the Lyceum : among its scientific supporters are Tor- rey, De Kay, Cooper, Le Conte, and Jay. Like the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Boston Natural History Society, and the So- ciety of Charleston, S. C., with its President Hol- brook, its opinions are authoritative.
The impulse given to intellectual labor in these, our own times, is still further shown in the com- pletion of that great undertaking, the Natural History of the State of New York. This vast project was, I believe, commenced during the ad- ministration of Governor Seward ; and if we value science by the research which it displays, this ex- tensive work presents claims of unquestionable excellence to our recognition. Its able authors, with a scrutinizing observation that has never tired, have unfolded the richness of our native
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productions to the delight of the naturalist and the cultivators of our domestic resources. The work is a lasting memorial of the public spirit of the State, and an index to the legislative wisdom of its rulers. The felicitous introduction to the entire series of volumes from the pen of Governor Seward, will always be perused with emotions of patriotic pride. Associated with another measure not less public spirited, is the Documentary His- tory of the State of New York, under the direc- tion of executive authority, and prepared for the press by the editorial supervision of Dr. O'Cal- laghan. Its importance cannot be over-estimated ; and the judgment displayed in the disposition of its multifarious materials, increases the desire that no impediment may arrest the completion of a mis- cellany of knowledge hitherto inaccessible. Less could not be said of the labors of Dr. O'Callaghan, when we remember the precious materials he has at command, and that these documents include the Brodhead Papers.
Is it speaking too earnestly, when it is said that the Republic at large appcars determined to secure her history from doubt and uncertainty ? Associations for the preservation of historical mate- rials secm springing up in every State. We might enumerate among the most prominent of these State institutions, that of Pennsylvania, of Rhode Island, of Maine, of Connecticut, of New Jersey, of
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South Carolina, Georgia, and very recently the Historical Society of Iowa. We are assured further that religious denominations are engaged in like duties, to secure authentic records of the trials and progress of their respective creeds. In our own city the Baptists have formed an his- torical society, at the head of which is the vener- able David T. Valentine, the editor of the Cor- poration Manual, which yearly enlarges our topo- graphical and civil history ; and an association of the Protestant Episcopal faith has recently pub- lished two volumes of Historical Records in illus- tration of the early condition of the Church. All this looks well ; and I am confident that our asso- ciation contemplates with pleasurable emotions these rival efforts in so good a cause.
The New York Historical Society has work enough for her strongest energies to accomplish. The State under whose auspices she flourishes, is indeed an empire ; the transactions which claim her consideration possess an inherent greatness, and are momentous in their nature ; her colonial career is pregnant with instructive events ; the advances she has made, and the condition she has secured in her State policy, afford lessons which the wisest may study with profit. Long neglect has only in- creased the duty of investigation, and added value to every new revelation offered. The Hudson and Niagara are but types of her physical formation.
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Her geology has dissolved the theories of the closet, and given new principles to geognostic science. Her men of action have been signally neglected. Feeble records only are to be found of her most eminent statesmen. Where shall we look, through- out our country's annals, for a more heroic spirit, one of more personal courage, of greater devotion to his country, one greater in greatest trial, one of more decision of character, one of sterner integ- rity, than Gov. George Clinton, to whom this State and the Union are under such mighty obli- gations ; and yet we fruitlessly search for a worthy memorial of him. Fellow associates, I repeat it, there is work enough to do.
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