Need I dwell on the improved appliances in the great art, which enrich the present day, or on the influences now at work on the intellectual man? Justly has it been stated, that the press of a single office in this city issues more matter than the industry of the world, with all its scribes and illuminators, in an entire year, previous the time of Faust. Let us, then, reverence the press, as our Franklin did. Let us cherish its freedom, as the triumph of our fathers, if we love the name of patriot. Let us teach our children to acknowledge it the palladium of our altars and our firesides. Let us recognize it as the Great Instructor, knocking at every door, and rendering every hovel, as well as every palace, a school-house.
Nor is it solely on the score of quantity, that we are to contemplate the measures now in force for the disciplining of intellect, and the rearing the moral edifice of the nation. I have already remarked on the superior ability of the press of our days in comparison with that of the period through which some of us have lived. The same energy which has swelled its dimensions, has increased the excellence of its material. Libraries so abound, knowledge is so diffused, that individuals qualified by scholastic powers, can be called in requisition for the duties of every department a successful journal demands. There is moreover a happier recognition of intellectual merit; reward is higher and more certain; and there exists throughout the community a noble estimation of productive intellect. Instead of a scattered recruit here and there in the ranks of literature, we have armies at command, of well-disciplined men; and the belief is not altogether idle that, in due season, of these armies there will be legions. Lovesick tales and Della Cruscan poetry, have yielded to stately essays on the business of life, in philosophy and in criticism, while the native muse has often stronger claims to our homage than the verses Dr. Johnson has embalmed, and that have made the fame of ancient bards. We no longer gaze at the author as a drone in the hive of industry.
Our youth are taught that a true man may be found among the luxurious and refined as well in the humble avocations of life. Ambitious of a national literature, we honor those who have laid its foundations, in the persons of an Irving, a Prescott, and a Bancroft, a Longfellow, and a Hawthorne. We gratefully remember our historical obligations to Sparks. We feel the dignity of the scholar when we summon to our aid the classical Everett. Mourning with no feigned sorrow the demise of that true son of our soil, the lamented Cooper, we rejoice that a Bryant and a Halleck, a Verplanck and a Paulding, are still left with us. Warm in our feelings, and made happier by the relations of intercourse, we extend the cordial hand to Tuckerman, our classical essayist and poet; to Willis, for his felicitous comments on passing events; to Griswold, for his admirable works in criticism and biography; to Dr. Mayo, for his Kaloolah; to Stoddard, for his exquisite poems; to the generous Bethune, the orator and bard; to Morris, for his Melodies; to Kimball, for his St. Leger Papers; to Clark, for his Knickerbocker; to Melville, for Typee; to Ik. Marvell, for his Reveries; to Ripley, for his fine reviews; to Bigelow, for his book on Jamaica; to Bayard Taylor, for his Views A-Foot; to Greeley, for his Crystal Palace labors; and to Duyckinck, the son of our old friend, the bookseller, for his Literary World. In the name of the Republic, we give our heartiest thanks to our intimate friend, the learned Dr. Cogswell, as we look at the spacious walls of the Astor Library.
The very great length to which I have unconsciously extended these reminiscences, forbids me from dwelling, as my heart and your wishes dictate, upon the most glorious name in American Printing, the immortal Franklin's. His character and deeds, however, are familiar to you all; and the language of eulogy is needless in regard to one whose fame increases with time, and whose transcendent merits, the constant development of that element he brought under human dominion render daily more evident and memorable. It is related, gentlemen, that when the statues of the Roman Emperors were carried in a triumphal procession, one was omitted, and the name of that one was shouted with more zeal than all the others inspired.[pg 266] So I know it to be with us to-night. The memory of Franklin is too ripe in our hearts to require words; it is a spell that sheds eternal glory on the typographical art; it is the best encouragement of youthful energy; it is revealed in every telegraphic despatch; it hallows the name of our country to the civilized world.
Noctes Amicæ.
Of tipsy drollery, a correspondent of the Evening Post (Mr. Bryant himself, we have no doubt), writes: "It is esteemed a mark of a vulgar mind, to divert one's self at the expense of a drunken man; yet we allow ourselves to be amused with representations of drunkenness on the stage and in comic narratives. Nobody is ashamed to laugh at Cassio in the play of Othello, when he has put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains. The personation which the elder Wallack used to give us some years ago, of Dick Dashall, very drunk, but very gentlemanly, was one of the most irresistibly comic things ever known. I have a mind to give you a translation of a German ballad on a tipsy man, which has been set to music, and is often sung in Germany; it is rather droll in the original, and perhaps it has not lost all of its humor in being overset, as they call it, into English. Here it is:"
OUT OF THE TAVERN, ETC.
Out of the tavern I've just stepped to-night