Henry Davis's Inauguration Speech: Transcript

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from her instructions, that wisdom and integrity in rulers, and virtue and industry in the ruled, with a quiet submission to government, are the sine qua non of national prosperity.

To the moral philosopher, who investigates the laws and motives of human action, and the character and influence of the passions ; who studies to learn, what our conduct is, and to teach us, what it ought to be, the knowledge derived from history, is no less important. As the object of the faithful historian, is a record of the actions of men, with the consequences of those actions, he can, no where else, learn, so thoroughly, the springs of human conduct, and the character and condition of mankind.

Human nature is here stripped of disguise ; divested of the arts of fraud, of malice, and of ambition, which often screen, from the most scrutinizing observer, the motives and principles of the living character.

Dark and gloomy, is the picture, of our guilty race, here presented him. His eye ranges over the long tracts of time, and sees, little else, but a constant succession, of depradations, persecutions, and sufferings. Nations and individuals, as if in love with misery, striving for mutual injury. Avarice, grinding the poor to the dust. Revenge, exulting in cruelty and blood. Ambition and pride, kindling nations into war, and filling the world, with groans and with death. Mothers, sitting in sackcloth, refusing

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to be comforted, because their sons are not. Children, suddenly robbed of their fathers, crying for bread. The heavens, darkened with the smoke of conflagrations ; and the earth drunken with the blood of men. Millions, and tens of millions, of rational and accountable beings, formed for the enjoyments of endless life, dragged, at the mandate of the tyrant, to the field of death, and hurried, beyond the mercy of God, with an insensibility, which would disgrace the slaughter of the sty.

Throughout this vast, but gloomy picture, he beholds, here and there only, interspersed a gleam of light. Few, ver few, comparatively, are the objects that strike his eye with pleasure.

Awful and affecting is this exhibition of the natural corruption of the heart ; of the unrestrained tempers and lusts of men ; of the consequences of rejecting the laws of God, as the rule of our actions ; and of following the blind impulse of passion and of sense.

The knowledge of languages, the importance of which, I am happy to remark, is beginning to be duly appreciated in our own country, is eminently useful, in the literary and professional departments ; and the study of them a source of much entertainment.

From the striking affinities which obtain in the structure of ancient and modern tongues, the antiquarian derives a strong argument, for the descent of all nations from a common origin.

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This subject, like most of the concerns of men, is liable to constant fluctuation ; and is susceptible of great refinement. No one, perhaps, is capable of, or has received, greater improvement.

As society advances itself in science and civilization, and the cares and employments of men are increased, new terms are necessarily introduced, from other languages ; or new ideas attached to those already in use. To learn with precision, the true and legitimate force of an expression and its various shades of meaning, is often, to the scholar who has no knowledge of its origin, wholly impracticable.

To an Englishman, whose language is so multifarious in its ctymology, this subject is peculiarly interesting. It is only by tracing the history of a word, through its different changes ; by analyzing it into its component parts ; and by examining it with care, in the various channels, through which it has been transmitted, till he arrives to its origin, that he is able, in a multitude of instances, to determine its radical signification, and its full powers.

Here, curiosity finds substantial gratification ; as in travelling, after having passed a majestic and deep flowing river, our satisfaction is not complete, till we have become acquainted with its branches, and can follow it to its source.

He who pursues this subject, as a philosopher, will find, in other respects, ample recompense, for all his labour. The genius and character of a nation are, in nothing, more clearly and minutely unfolded. In the structure and state of their language,

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he discovers the nature of their laws and government; their employments; their religion; their civil and military character; the climate and productions of their country; their advancement in the arts and sciences; and often, with much greater certainty, than he could learn from them volumes written, without a knowledge of this subject. He here traces their progress, at different periods, in the improvements of civilized life; and their comparative progress with other nations.

In the early stages of society, we find, every where, a striking analogy; les copiousness of expression, than in stages of greater improvement; but more vehemence; their terms confined, principally, to objects of sense, which lie immediately within their view; but accompanied, in a high degree, with strength and pathos; which we should naturally expect from men, whose wants and conceptions are few, and who are controlled more by their passions, than by their understandings.

In the language of the Greeks, a wonderfully acute and scientific people, the discriminating and philosophic powers of their genius are strongly exhibited. No language, originally, was more barren; and no other one has been brought, to so high a degree of refinement. The scholar here discovers a sweetness, a melody, a grandeur, an exuberance, a flexibility, which are found, in no other tongue, ancient or modern.

Among the Latins, a nation more devoted to conquest than to science, though highly respectable for

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their improvements in the arts of peace, we find a language, in some respects of a different character; and exactly corresponding with their genius and employments.

As they were a nation, constitutionally, more grave and phlegmatic than the Greeks, their langauge possesses more gravity and strength; but is much inferior, in gracefulness, in harmony, and in richness of expression.

As the Greek and Roman languages, usually denominated the learned languages, are the great repositories of ancient literature, they hae claim to high importance, independent of the considerations already mentioned; and imperiously demand the attention of the scholar, who is ambitious of classic fame.

Of the merits of the Greek and Roman authors, we can form but an imperfect opinion from translations. The unequalled advantages which they possessed from the flexibility of their languages, enabled them to give their writings a beauty, a strength, a harmony of arrangement, which we have no powers to express. If we would derive substantial benefit from these invaluable productions we just read them in the original.

To the writers of art in these languages, and to those illustrious models of poetry and eloquence with which they abound, our own is greatly indebted for its improvement and perfection. These are the sources, whence so many modern writers have derived the excellencies, with which they have enriched their works, and given immortality to their names.

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He who has studied them so far only, as to understand the technical terms of his profession, or merely because they are fashionable study; and not as a medium of access to the inexhaustible treasures of literature which they contain; not as a mean of enlarging his understanding and improving his taste; has, indeed, found it an irksome employment; and no wonder that he should declare, that the object obtained, is not an adequate compensation for the labour of obaining it. He will tell you, and with much truth, that his time would have been more profitably spent, in other pursuits; and will unite in opinion with many who have not studied them all, that they ought to be banished for ever from our schools and colleges.

I grant that these men are as able judges of this subject, as it is possible for men to be any subject, of which they are ignorant. But are they competent judges? If you wished to know the merits of a painting, would you ask the brasier? If you wished to know the value of a diamond, would you ask the statuary?

The scholar, who has made himself familiarly acquainted with the Greek and Roman writers in their own language; who has conversed with those great masters of science and taste, face to face; who has been charmed with their fictions and allegories; who has expanded his conceptions, and enriched his style, by the grandeur of their images, and the sublimity of their diction: this is the man, on whose opinion, you may rely with confidence.

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Ask Swift and Bentley, those giants in literature; ask Dacier, Pope, Johnson, Goldsmith, Addison, and Cowper; they will tell you, that from the rich mines of classic lore, they have derived substantial treasures; that these are means of rendering vastly more productive the msost prolific, and of fertilizing the most barren genius.

But to those who are intrusted with the Oracles of God, a knowledge of the languages, in which the Old and New Testaments were originally recorded, is of immense importance. The idioms of one language can never be copied in another, by the most able translator. In the ancient, as well as modern tongues, words and phrases often occur possessing a force, a beauty, a shade of sentiment, a turn of thought, which cannot be expressed, without much labour and circumlocution; ;and not unfrequently, a meaning, that no other language has terms to express. The divine ought never to feel satisfied, until he can go back to the original, and examine, and form his opinions for himself. This would often furnish him with one of the most unsuccessful weapons of defence, against the assailants of his religion; and, without which, he must necessarily, sometimes, meet his antagonist in the dark.

If the object of education is to enlarge and strengthen the understanding; to improve the memory; to furnish the mind with correct opinions of men and of manners; to create a habit of attention and discrimination; and to render us masters of our

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own language, the subject before us, is, unquestionably, of serious importance. This importance is much increased, from the consideration, that the study of languages may be commenced, with great advantage, in childhood; a period, when the mind has not, usually, sufficient vigour for the arts and sciences, which even in their preliminary principles, are often abstruse and difficult; and that a foundation may then be laid, for a philosophical pursuit of them, in maturer years.

Natural Philosophy, the investigation of the laws and phenomena of the material Universe, and the decomposition of bodies into their elementary principles, is a subject grand, interesting, and delightful.

Nature here opens a field rich in resources, and furnishes to the inquirer sublime entertaiment. A field, which the mind of man may explore for ever, without satiety. With the discoveries and improvements, in this science, the various mechanic arts, which contribute so essentially to our convenience and happiness, have an intimate connexion.

Wonderful, indeed, have been her researches! She has reduced fire, air, and water, under her dominion; and rendered them eminently subservient to the reduction of manual labour, and to the substantial comforts and embellishments of life.

By analyzing substances, and by exploring the powers of their elementary parts, she has introduced great improvements in the healing art; and diminished, in no small degree, the virulence, of human maladies.

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She has disarmed the lightning of its terrors. She has given man possession of the ocean. She has enabled him to explore distant seas and continents; to learn the character and condition of every nation; and to aggregate the improvements and productions of every country.

But among all the branches of this Science, there is no other one so sublime as Astronomy. There is none, besides, which tends, so strongly, to imppress the mind, with exalted conceptions, of the wisdom, power, and the government of God; to humble the pride of man; and to inspire him, with just views, of his comparative insignificancy. From her discoveries, we learn the causes of te diversity of climates; of the succession of day and night; of the regular vicissitudes of the seasons, diffusing order, beauty, and variety, throughout the vegetable world.

Her researches are not confined to the earth. She soars into the heaves. She numbers the stars, and calls them by their names.

She contemplates the Sun, the august symbol of his Creator, always giving, but never exhausted, shedding on worlds, otherwise enveloped, in eternal night, light, life, and gladness.

She surveys the planets, those stupendous works of Omnipotece, rolling around their centre, from age to age, in harmonious and majestic order. She investigates the great law of attraction, by which their order is maintained; and tells us their distances, their magnitudes, and their velocities.

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Stretching her vision still farther, into the boundless void, where no foot ever trod, and none, but the eye of God, ever glanced, she contemplates an infinity of worlds; peopled with beings destined to immortality, celebrating the praises of their Great Creator.

Fired with the rapture of her sublime conceptions, she raises her eyes, to the Author of existence, and, in the language of holy transport, exclaims, marvelous are thy works! in wisdom thou made them all.

In the whole circle of sciences, no one, perhaps, has contributed more to the civilization of mankind, and to the promotion of human happiness, then mathematics. This science, in many respects, has an intimate connexion, with natural philosophy; and they are greatly dependant on each other, for the perfection, to which they have attained. There is no one more happily calculated to excite a spirit of enterprise; to awaken the dormant faculties of the mind; and to call forth to action its latent energies. By an early habitatuation to these studies, the understanding acquires a clearness of conception, a boldness of thought, an intesity of investigation, which admirably qualify it for laborious pursuits. By proceeding step by step, in a train of argument clear and satisfactory, from simple axioms and self evident principles, till it arrives at general propositions and remote analogies, the mind is habituated to method in thinking and reasoning, and furnished with a happy direction, in all its researches.

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