York were the property of farmers, who sold their produce at market, and who had probably cultivated the soil themselves.

Let a passenger arrive from whence he may, he must always be struck with the beautiful environs of New-York, and the reflection of a very few moments upon what he has seen in other countries, will convince him, when he comes to know America, that one of the greatest of all blessings is to be born in a free country.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

NOT many months ago, the citizens of Baltimore came forward in a spirit of noble and generous enthusiasm, with a proposal to erect in their city a monument to the memory of general Washington. In the prosecution of this very laudable design, it became expedient to apply to the legislature of New-York for permission to dispose, in that state, of a part of the tickets of a lottery which had been previously granted by the legislature of Maryland to raise the necessary funds. The ensuing memorial, which the managers of the lottery, on this occasion, presented to the legislature, we are induced to preserve as a specimen of singularly splendid, powerful, and eloquent composition. We recommend it, very strenuously, to the attention of our readers. No oite, we trust, will be deterred from the perusal of the article by its technical character, or the seeming aridness of its topics. The genius of the writer, it will, at once, be perceived, has the power to mould materials, however intractable, into forms the most captivating, and to give grace and attraction to subjects otherwise rude and repulsive. It is disgraceful to the legislature of New-York, that this glowing appeal to their patriotism, and this strong exhortation to the discharge of their duty, was made without success. We learn, however, with satisfaction, that the rejection of their application has only served to quicken the zeal of the good people of Baltimore, who by individual enterprize will be able to achieve their proposed tribute of respect to a name, which emphatically "keeps that of his country respectable in every other of the globe."

"Clarum et venerabile nomen

Gentibus, et multum nostræ, quod proderat urbi.”

To the honourable the House of Delegates and Senate of the State of New-York now in session. The memorial of the undersigned, of the city of Baltimore, respectfully represents,

THAT at the late session of the assembly of Maryland, a law was passed authorising a lottery to raise one hundred thousand dol

lars for the erection of a monument to the memory of general George Washington, and that your memorialists were appointed managers of the said lottery: that in order to enable your memo"rialists lawfully to dispose of the tickets of the said lottery in the state of New-York, it is necessary that a law should be enacted by your honourable body empowering them so to do. Your memorialists are desirous that the citizens of the state of New-York may be enabled, by the purchase of tickets, to accelerate the completion of an end so laudable in itself, and so desirable for every real American, as that which your memorialists have now in view. In soliciting the interposition of your honourable body to this effect, your memorialists deem it expedient, and humbly beg leave to state the leading motives which have urged them to engage in this undertaking, and which, as they are hereinafter detailed, may serve to evince the propriety, and to insure the success of the present application.

Your memorialists have seen, with lively concern, the apparent relaxation of those feelings with regard to general Washington which were so universally entertained and so signally displayed at the period of his decease-they almost blush to remark how inadequate to the pomp of his funeral honours-how few and feeble are the efforts which have since been made to commemorate his virtues by other testimony than the mere language of panegyric. They are seriously alarmed by the reflection, that the people of these United States may have slackened in their sentiments of gratitude and admiration towards one, who did more to exalt the reputation and to promote the happiness of his country, than any one of the immortal patriots whom history holds up to the veneration of mankind. They are alarmed, because under a constitution such as we enjoy-inattention to the fame, and insensibility to the merits of those who magnanimously projected, and laboriously achieved our liberties, may be justly viewed as indications of the decay of that public virtue which is the only solid and natural foundation of a free government. Your memorialists deem every other support weak and artificial, and should they observe the same inattention and insensibility extend to the memory of the august personage, whose life was, if the expression may be allowed, but a personification of the virtues and principles of republicanism, they would not hesitate to qualify them

as the marks of a degenerate people-as the certain symptoms of a sickly state as the unerring prognostics of ruin to the commonwealth. Indifference to the memory of the individual, in this instance, is scarcely compatible with an undiminished reverence for the institutions which he so materially contributed to establish, and the love of the republic is almost necessarily and undistinguishably blended with an attachment for the founder. Your memorialists are sensible that the transition is easy from enthusiasm to indifference, and even from indifference to contempt-unless the memory and the imagination habitually roused by monuments which, while they prolong, among ourselves, the first impulse on the subject of Washington, may, with our posterity, serve as an evidence of our feelings and a recommendation of his example. Your memorialists are therefore anxious not only to offer, by the present undertaking, the tribute due to public and private virtues so rarely found, so harmoniously combined, and so extensively useful, but to establish a precedent, the general imitation of which cannot fail, in rekindling in his favour the glow of enthusiasm among the peopleto infuse into them a new portion of patriotic and republican zeal. The contemplation of his character, to which the attention is incessantly recalled by public works such as that we now propose to erect, ennobles and purifies the mind, and it may be truly said, that no cordial veneration for that character can exist without a manly spirit of independence. Until we can yield more illustrious proofs of our devotion to his name and his principles, no attempts, however inconsiderable, which tend to render them familiar to the country, should be despised. There is no effort of generosity, however small, springing from the desire of doing justice to the memory of Washington, which should not be industriously encouraged, and which may not serve both to elevate the feelings and to prompt to sacrifices of greater dignity. As often as our youth gaze on his image, and are led to meditate on the solemn glories, and the splendid popularity of his name, they will insensibly imbibe his spirit: the ardour of their patriotism will be the more readily inflamed into active emulation. Private life is said to be the nursery of the commonwealth, and the heart of the citizen to be a perennial spring of energy to the state. The legislators of this country cannot more successfully mould the one and the other so as to insure the du

ration of a free government, than in attracting, by every external excitement, the studies and the affections of our citizens to the most perfect model, and the most animating example of political and domestic virtue which the world has ever exhibited.

Your honourable body need not be reminded of the great importance which the nations of the world have uniformly attached to the commemoration, either by public monuments or festivals, of the virtues of those who deserved well of their country. This object formed a part of the fundamental policy of the commonwealths of antiquity; it was their aim, not merely to discharge a debt of gratitude, but to foster the spirit of emulation, and to kindle the fire of generous enthusiasm, by constantly presenting models of excellence to the youthful mind. They exalted the benefactors of the state into heroes, whom the multitude, dazzled by the effulgence which every form of panegyric conspired to throw over their name, gradually invested with the honours of the godhead. The noblest works of the chisel, the most majestic monuments of architecture, the most solemn games, the pageantry of festivals, were regularly devoted to the memory of those who raised the renown or upheld the liberties of their country. After the battle of Thermopyla every Spartan child committed to memory the names of the three hundred companions of Leonidas. After that of Platea, a whole people were solemnly set apart by the rest of Greece, to proclaim without intermission, the praises of those who shed their blood in the common cause. Among the Greeks, who so well understood the genius and the interests of freedom, it was held sacrilegious to destroy a statue or a trophy, even when the vouchers of imposture or crime, in order that merit might, in no one instance, lose its reward, or fail to produce its effect. They knew the force of early and habitual impressions, and sedulously laboured to cultivate the natural feeling of admiration for shining examples of public worth. They enlisted studiously on its side, the prejudices of education and habit, and thus planted and propagated the seeds of public wisdom and virtue: it was their maxim that glory was inestimable; and that he who gave the smallest particle to his country merited eternal gratitude and veneration. It was their belief that a nation could not degenerate into slavery, which, at every step in the path of dishonour, sustained a bitter reproach from its own public rewards; which was often roused to the

recollection of the champions of freedom, and fired by the recital of their principles and exploits. The republic of Rome pursued the same policy under the same conviction, that the spirit of liberty could not, in any other way, be more efficaciously preserved, and that without that spirit, the forms of freedom could not long endure. The sacred cause of religion itself is promoted, and the spirit of piety quickened and perpetuated by the periodical celebration of the divine merits of the Saviour, and the public monuments raised to his glory. The posthumous honours paid to merit by the nations of Europe are scarcely less liberal than those of the ancients. It may be added that the languor with which we celebrate the anniversary of our independence; and the slender tribute which we have, as yet, paid to the memory of Washington, are already, in Europe, urged against us as grounds of reproach. They are also assumed as proofs of the decay of that republican zeal which it is now the object of your memorialists to draw forth; an object in which your honourable body is earnestly solicited to cooperate. If ever there was an instance in which a nation was summoned by the strongest motives both of pride and policy to multiply proofs of gratitude and love to an individual, it is this, which your memorialists now press upon the attention of your honourable body. An illustrious orator* of another country, has said of Washington, that he, more than any other human being, gave to the world the example of a perfect man. An American may add, that he alone, besides conferring on his country the unequalled honour of such an example, secured to it a practical system of government and laws, founded in the perfection of human reason: a constitution in which, (to repeat the eulogy of another great orator)† there is more to admire and less to deplore; a more sacred regard to property, a more inviolable security to the rights of individuals, than in that of any other country under heaven. There is no one, among the many advantages which we possess over the rest of the world, which we would more ambitiously select than that of having so bright an example wherewith to assert the dignity of the American name-to train our youth to virtue, and to enforce the lessons of freedom.