best lessons for time and for eternity. It is not, however, to individual considerations, that we can or ought to confine ourselves. It is now two hundred years since a few exiles laid, in the solitudes almost of a desert, this noble institution. We are but too much accustomed to praise our ancestors. For my own part, I hope ever to be saved from the wretched affec tation of sympathy for their sufferings or of reverence for their actions. It is quite impossible to think of them, however, amid the many sources of evil which pressed upon their spirits, — still looking upward with firm confidence to the God, who led them on, and forward with calm anticipation to the welfare of their posterity, at no time giving way to distrust or melancholy, without feeling one's own soul rising in gratitude and adoration. They seemed to have felt religion to be, as in truth it is, the first source of blessing to man, and they seem also to have felt strongly another truth, that learning is one of the best supports of religion. In this spirit they acted; it is to this action that we owe almost all the blessings of our days; and to the spirit of the same action, all that we can hope of blessing for our posterity.

With such feelings let the graduates of this college come up to their solemn festival,—and let them at the same time look to it, and see if there be nothing wanting to their individual duty. Their duty at this time is something of a religious one, the veneration of learning raising itself most readily with that of devotion; the first suggestion of individual duty is therefore one of reconciliation and harmony. Let us not offer our gifts, while our brother has aught against us; let us

not dare any longer to wander among the still streams and quiet pastures of literature, with spirits alloyed by feelings of political excitement. Here, at least, let contention cease, and like brethren of the same household, returning after a long interval to their common home, let us forget every thing but our former affection.

There

we

As public men, let us also look to it, and reform whatever we can in ourselves and in others. are fearful sounds upon every passing breeze, must see that ignorance is informed, -that excited fanaticism of all kinds is put down, or all that we have now, all that we hope for in future, must fall. The experiment is here and now to be tried, and for aught we see, it is the last trial, how far man can govern himself; it well becomes us to arm ourselves for the conflict. If there be any thing in our literary institutions, which can be improved, so as to give new strength to our exertions, in the name of all that is good and true, let us now see to it. We owe much to our ancestors, we owe much to ourselves, but more than to either, we owe much to posterity. The forms of future men are around us, pressing forward to fill our places; on us, it depends, whether existence shall be to them a blessing, or a curse; whether they can look back, as we do, on our ancestors, unstained and irreproachable, or with the bitter feeling, that, but for us, they might have been great and happy. On us all this depends; the responsibility is indeed awful, but let it only excite us to renewed effort.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND EXPLANATION.

A multitude of communications are contained in the Courier, which, if here collected, would impart to these volumes something of that agreeable and attract ive variety in which they may, doubtless, be deficient. But to enlarge the selection would be impracticable, and to name all the writers who have had anonymous intercourse with the public through the columns of the Courier would be undesirable, perhaps indelicate, and next to impossible. Among those not already named, to whom the greatest obligations are due, were John Pickering and Henry A. S. Dearborn, and are Henry Lee, William Sturgis, Charles F. Adams, William Foster, John Pickens, A. C. Spooner, and, though last not least, Samuel Kettell, than whom no correspondent ever contributed more matter to produce broad laughter and good-humored merriment to readers. His pieces are numerous, and as various in their character and subjects as the talents and capabilities of the actors, whom old Polonius so felicitously described to Hamlet. 66 'Peeping Tom's" Letters from Hull have often "set the table in a roar," put obstinate gravity at defiance, and challenged resistance from the sturdiest longitudinal countenance. The humor, with which certain incidents and the actors in them are burlesqued and caricatured, is inimitable. He is master of a style that is peculiarly his own, in which whoever attempts competition may be sure to produce an abortion. This style may not be the most suitable for the discussion of weighty and important subjects, but it is admirably adapted for ludicrous description, and to raise a laugh at the expense of any thing and

every thing, which he deems to be legitimate subjects for lampoonery and ridicule.

The initials "J. H. B." which are of frequent occurrence, indicate the name of a son, who was an efficient assistant in the editorial department for almost twenty years. On some occasions he performed the whole duty of an editor, with credit to himself and the satisfaction of subscribers. While connected with the Courier, he made two voyages to Europe, and furnished Letters from England and France, which occupy a prominent place in the paper, and afford evidence that he was not a mere lounger in the French and English capitals. After the dethronement of Louis Philippe, in 1848, he wrote several chapters on "The last two Revolutions in France." A long series of articles under the titles "Diary at Home," " Diary Abroad," and "Letters from the West," written in 1846, 1847, and 1848, more than a hundred in number, present a proof of the industrious employment of a happy' talent for observation and description. He was on board the ill-fated ship Poland, when it was burnt at sea in May, 1840, and was the last passenger to leave its flaming deck. The account, which he wrote of that awful catastrophe, and which found its way into most of the newspapers, is a simple and pathetic relation of facts, which, as it required no decoration of fancy, is written with no attempt to display extraneous embellishment.

66

Pursuant to a deliberately-formed resolution, a few days after the nomination of General Taylor as the whig candidate for the Presidency, I disposed of my

interest in the Courier, and relinquished the character and services of an editor. No other explanation is necessary to introduce the following article, which closed my editorial career, June 24, 1848:

VALEDICTORY.

The connection of the subscriber with the Boston Courier, as editor and proprietor, terminated on the twenty-second instant.

To make this annunciation costs me a pang, the severity of which was not anticipated. It records the dissolution of relations that to me have been a source of unspeakable pleasure, and which I fain would hope will be remembered by others with kindly regard. My relations to the public, as the editor of this and another paper, have existed more than thirty years, and have occupied the most active and vigorous portion of my life. Circumstances which it were tedious to detail, and which few would care to know, render it expedi ent, and even a duty, that I should retire, and seek some other path in which to close the career of life. To answer all inquiries that may be made, let it be sufficient to say, that without sacrificing my own per sonal integrity to the views of others, or hazarding the interest of others to gratify my own notions of honor and independence, notions, which, after all, may be as unsound as I know they are unpopular, I could not retain my position. Justice to those with whom I have been most agreeably connected in business, and whose pecuniary interest in the proprietorship of this paper was equal to mine, dictated the course I have unhesitatingly adopted.