JOHN EVERETT. JULY 4, 1824. FOR THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY. JOHN EVERETT was a son of the Hon. Oliver Everett, and was born at Dorchester, February 22, 1801. He received his preliminary education under the tuition of Masters Lyon, Farrar and Clapp, in Boston, where he distinguished himself as the finest declaimer in the school. He graduated at Harvard College in 1818, when he pronounced an oration on the character of Byron; and at a college exhibition, in the year previous, he gave an oration on the Poetry of the Oriental Nations. He delivered another oration, on the Prospects of the Young Men of America, before the senior class, July 14, 1818. Immediately after his graduation, he accompanied President Holley to Lexington, in Kentucky, where he became a tutor in Transylvania University, and delivered an unwritten oration, in the presence of Andrew Jackson, that was eminently successful. After his return to Massachusetts, Mr. Everett entered the Law School, at Cambridge; soon after which, he visited Europe, and was attached, for a short period, to the American legation at Brussels and the Hague,- his elder brother, Alexander, being chargé d'affaires. On his return to Boston, he read law under the guidance of the Hon. Daniel Webster, and became an attorney at the Court of Common Pleas, in 1825. He served as one of the aids of Governor Eustis. He was a bud of promise early blighted. He died at Boston, Feb. 12, 1826. Mr. Everett was intensely interested in the politics of the day; and was an active member of the Boston Debating Society, a literary and political institution of elevated character. Having remarkable extemporaneous rhetorical power, and great facility in argument, he shortly became an important leader among these spirited young Bostonians. He had superior poetical genius, as is clearly evinced in an ode to St. Paul's Church; and by another ode, written for the Washington Society (of which he was a member), and sung at Concert Hall, July 4, 1825. The first lines of this patriotic effusion are as follows: "Hail to the day, when, indignant, a nation To the spirit of armies for justice appealed; With pride claimed the right of her glorious station, Hail to thy memory, era of liberty! Dear is thy sun to the hearts of the free !" CHARLES SPRAGUE. JULY 4, 1825. FOR THE CITY AUTHORITIES. "IF, in remembering the oppressed, you think the oppressors ought not to be forgotten," says Sprague, "I might urge that the splendid result of the great struggle should fully reconcile us to the madness of those who rendered that struggle necessary. We may forgive the presumption which 'declared' its right 'to bind the American colonies,' for it was wofully expiated by the humiliation which ' acknowledged' those same 'American colonies' to be 'sovereign and independent States.' The immediate workers, too, of that political iniquity, have passed away. The mildew of shame will forever feed upon their memories; a brand has been set upon their deeds, that even Time's all-gnawing tooth can never destroy. But they have passed away; and of all the millions they misruled, the millions they would have misruled, how few remain! Another race is there to lament the folly, another here to magnify the wisdom, that cut the knot of empire. Shall these inherit and entail everlasting enmity? Like the Cartha ginian Hamilcar, shall we come up hither with our children, and on this holy altar swear the pagan oath of undying hate? Even our goaded fathers disdained this. Let us fulfil their words, and prove to the people of England, that 'in peace' we know how to treat them 'as friends.' They have been twice told that 'in war' we know how to meet them as enemies;' and they will hardly ask another lesson, for, it may be that, when the third trumpet shall sound, a voice will echo along their sea-girt cliffs - The glory has departed!' "Some few of their degenerate ones, tainting the bowers where they sit, decry the growing greatness of a land they will not love; and others, after eating from our basket, and drinking from our cup, go home to pour forth the senseless libel against a people at whose firesides they were warmed. But a few pens dipped in gall will not retard our progress; let not a few tongues, festering in falsehood, disturb our repose. We have those among us who are able both to pare the talons of the kite and pull out the fangs of the viper; who can lay bare, for the disgust of all good men, the gangrene of the insolent reviewer, and inflict such a cruel mark on the back of the mortified runaway, as will take long from him the blessed privilege of being forgotten. "These rude detractors speak not, we trust, the feelings of their nation. Time, the great corrector, is, there fast enlightening both ruler and ruled. They are treading in our steps, even ours; and are gradually, though slowly, pulling up their ancient religious and polit ical landmarks. Yielding to the liberal spirit of the age,—a spirit born and fostered here, they are not only loosening their own longriveted shackles, but are raising the voice of encouragement, and extending the hand of assistance, to the 'rebels' of other climes. "In spite of all that has passed, we owe England much; and even on this occasion, standing in the midst of my generous-minded countrymen, I may fearlessly, willingly, acknowledge the debt. We owe England much; -nothing for her martyrdoms; nothing for her proseriptions; nothing for the innocent blood with which she has stained the white robes of religion and liberty; these claims our fathers cancelled, and her monarch rendered them and theirs a full acquittance forever. But for the living treasures of her mind, garnered up and spread abroad for centuries by her great and gifted, who that has drank at the sparkling streams of her poetry, who that has drawn from the deep fountains of her wisdom, who that speaks and reads and thinks her language, will be slow to own his obligation? One of your purest ascended patriots,-Quincy,- he who compassed sea and land for Liberty, whose early voice for her echoed round yonder consecrated hall, whose dying accents for her went up in solitude and suffering from the ocean,-when he sat down to bless, with the last token of a father's remembrance, the son who wears his mantle with his name, bequeathed him the recorded lessons of England's best and wisest, and sealed the legacy of love with a prayer, whose full accomplishment we live to witness,' that the spirit of Liberty might rest upon him.'" Charles Sprague was born in Boston, Oct. 26, 1791. His birthplace was in a two-story wooden house, directly opposite Pine-street, then No. 38 Orange-street. In 1842 this house was destroyed, at an extensive fire. His father, Samuel Sprague, was born at Hingham, Dec. 22, 1753; was a mason, and married Joanna Thayer, of Braintree, a lady of great decision of character, who was highly effective in developing the genius of her son. Hinghama was the home of his ancestors during five generations. His father was one of that famous party who destroyed the British tea in Boston harbor, December, 1773, and was a tall and athletic person. When in the hold of one of the tea-ships, where he was actively engaged, one of the party made signs to him, from below, to cover his face with some disguise; on which, Mr. Sprague hastened to a small house near the head of Griffin's, now Liverpool Wharf, with a wooden chimney, from which he shortly collected a substance that served the purpose hinted at by his unknown friend, when he directly returned to the work of destruction. At this time he was an apprentice of one Mr. Etheridge, who interested himself, also, in this bold and patriotic adventure. We find, in Thomas' Spy, of January, 1774, the following graphic sketch of this event, which, next to the massacre of 1770, tended to hasten the Revolution: Young Sprague, when about ten years of age; entered the Franklin School, where he unfortunately lost the vision of his left eye, by s sudden contact with a door-latch. This event probably accounts, in a measure, for the very limited number of his poetical productions, in after life. The school-house was located in Nassau-street; and the spot is occupied by a modern edifice, called the Brimmer School, in honor of the mayor of that name; and the name of the street is changed to Common-street. His teachers, in the grammar department, were Dr. Asa Bullard and Lemuel Shaw, both of whom were benevolent, sensible, and learned men. The teacher last named, who had recently graduated at Harvard College, and entered this school to acquire funds for his college expenses, was the son of a poor clergyman of Barnstable. He has risen to eminence by energetic perseverance, and is the Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The writing-master of this school was the noted Rufus Webb. At the early age of thirteen years, young Sprague became an apprentice to Messrs. Thayer & Hunt, importers of dry goods. Boys of the Brimmer School! catch the inspiration of the spot where the genius of Sprague budded forth, and, like him, be ambitious to excel in learning and in manly virtue. Two centuries elapsed before Boston knew a poet like Sprague. Hereafter, may your nursery bloom annually with flowers as unfading. In the year 1816 Mr. Sprague entered into partnership with his employers, which continued until 1820, when he was appointed a teller in the State Bank; and, on the establishment of the Globe Bank, in 1825, he was elected the cashier, which station he has occupied until this period. His wisdom and sagacity in the conduct of this institution, aided by the directors, has tended to make it one of the safest investments in State-street. Waterston thus emphasizes of our poet : "May not our land be termed enchanted ground, Sweet, and more sweet, its melting strains shall rise, The social qualities of Charles Sprague have been the delight of eminent intellectual men, one of whom was Nathaniel Bowditch, who, being a member of the corporation of Harvard College, and admiring his rare genius, and close devotion to literary habits, without infringing |