Literary cadet and Rhode-Island statesman. [volume] (Providence, R.I.) 1827-1829, 1827-07-21

livered ut Newport on the Jih instant. by Hon.
ASHER ROBBINS, has been issued from the
press Of Messrs. MILLER and HAMMOND. II is
unne ccessary for us to speak at length of this
elegant production. But We can recommend
it with cheorfulness to the public, as pro-
duction which fully sustains the high reputation
Of its author, and as being well worth an at
| tentive perusal. The orator thus speaks Of the
Greeks:
90! the cruel desiines Of Inflated Greece;
| crushed beneath the foot of foreign domina-
ton now for more than twenty centuries; frs,
of the Macedonian, then OF the Roman, and
lastly and worst, of the Turk, the barbarian,
the mercess Turk. Her children trodden un-
der foot by the slave Of slaves. Her children
! 20! hcart-rending thoughD contendng for her
independence of The Turk; and conterdng too
with hereditary virtue; a virtue not inferior to
that by which it was defended by their glori-
Gus ancestors, against the Persian; and no
friendly hand is found to help them in the du-
bIous strife! Yes, the immortal fires of Grecian
genius, and of Grccian virtue; though smoth-
cred for so many ages, are unex'ingushed and
still burn in Greece. Where, o civilized man,
where is thy gratitude Where thy remem-
civilization thou owcst TO her; she was the
original Of il all. There the arts first sprang
into existence; and thence dilliIsed themselves
over the earth. She their inven ress; and
what she invented she perfected She gave
YOU the patterns of every excellence; and so
perfect, that to this day they remain matchlcss
and unrivalled. The glory of the arts in every
other country is borrowed glory, borrowed
from her; in her alone it is original and unde-
rived; in her it shines with unequalled spIen-
dor; like the sun it shines, and every other is
lost in its blaze. There too the sciences first
dawned Greece opened their paths TO man
kind; and if mankind in after ages have pro-
ccedcd further in them, it is because those
paths run to an interminable length; because
what is gained by one is gained TO all; and be-
cause no advance in them can be lost not like
the arts, which are definite in their boundaries;
nor the productions OF the arts, which are lim-
tied by the limitation Of the faculties, vhch
produce them. She loo gave TO the world ex-
amples Of every thing noble, Of every thing
ennobling i'll the human character; examples
that eXalt to every mind the dignity of the hu-
man species; examples that cannot be contem-
plated, without feeling of conscious pride, in
our common nature, from such sublime flights
of human virtue. And shall the descendants
of such people, the heirs of such gories, and
Of such obligations upon mankind, find from
mankind no return of favor in this their hour
Of need VIII they still look with cold indif-
ference on their agonizng struggles, to redeem
their country from the hands of barbarians?-
See them perish in that struggle, or again sub
init to their bitter bondage' See ;be foot of
the barbarian, and now irritated and vengeful
Turk, again put, and with aggravated indigni-
ties, upon the neck of PROSTATE Greece? Has
cold and calculating policy, looking only TO
self, and TO the present moment, eXtnguished
every generous sentiment in the human breast?
or forbid every act in obedience 10 its impulse.
Is every national movement in their favor to
be sigmatized as a crusade; and worthy only
Of the Quixotes of the age Shall even the
impulses of private sympathy be frowncd upon,
or ridcuied; and endeavors made 10 lock out
from their relief the resources which those I'M
pulses might give them' If mankind are TO re-
main dead to every sentiment Of sympathy with
suffering humanity: TO every sentiment of grat-
itude to the children of the bcnefactors of their
species; every sentiment Of every ennobling
virtue; if interest and interest only is to infu-
ence and to govern let it be, in Gods name,
let it be an enlarged, and an enlightened in
terest. And will emancipated Greece, not
promote that interest will it be nothing to
civilized nations, to have such an associate as
a partner in the cause and career Of human
improvement Soon would modern Greece, if
emancipated, vindicate her descent from the
ancient. For her genius " is not dead, but
sleepeth;'' soon would it rouse itself from the
long sumber of ages, and array that country
in all its former glory; would call up from their
graves their buried arts; would summon home
their MUSES. to their native seats, again to IN
fuse their divine Inspirations; would reopen
their Porticos and their Lyceums, and again
read there the lessons of an immortal wisdom;
again 90 would be heard, the strains of that
impassione eoquence, (which shook the Ar
senal of Athens and fulmincd over Greece
there too, science would again plume her wing
for stronger and bolder flights than ever
This may be deemed the picture of visionary
hope, which emancipated 'ireece would never
realize. She might not to the letter; but who
can doubt but she would make some approach
es TO 1t AT any rate, who can doubt but in
dependent Greece, left to all the energies of
regulated freedom, acting upon all her own
sources-would be an important acquisition in
every point Of view to the civilized world But
II every other people were to remain insenslble
to the claims Of suffering Greece upon their
affections; il IS strange that we should, we the
American people. To us their aio ctions few,
from the first moment of their unfurling the
banner Of independence; to us they looked as
their great example. 1t inspired their bold de-
sign it animated to their deathless acts of
selfdevotion in their country's cause; it has
kept alive their hopes, in all the gloomy hours
Of adverse fortune, and under the most appal-
ling disasters. Yes; not even the memory of
their own glorious ancestors has had so sus-
tanning. so animating an influence No. not
even Of those, who stood self-devoted at the
pass of ThermopolI; nor Of those who fought
in the fields Of Marathon and Platca: nor of
those who fought the final and trumpha bat
tie in the Straits of Salamis; though dcificd to
them by the cloquence of her own Dcmostbe- (