Jenks's Portland Gazette

Miscellany.

From the Gazette of the United States.

"Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes, in comparison of it, as nothing?"

'Tis an occurrence not less interesting, than extraordinary, that the departure of a single man should command the unaffected and indiscriminate lamentation of five millions of people. It is an event, the like of which the world has never witnessed, that the death of an individual should so touch a whole nation, that "the joy of the heart should cease, and the dance be turned into mourning."

The mighty monarch, whose throne is surrounded by armies as numerous as the locusts of summer, and restless as the blasts of pestilence, goes down to the tomb, amid the execrations of oppressed subjects; or sleeps in the grave as unheeded as when slumbering on his bed of down. The prince, whose beneficence has whitened the plains of his country, "walks the way of nature; and his subjects "mourn in black," but "not in blood," because they fear "an Amurath succeeds." The pomp and power of royalty may cause "mourners to go about the streets," and sorrow may so "royally appear," that thousands will "put the fashion on," and yet none "wear it in the heart."

Most eminently hath the "crown fallen from our head." Most emphatically, are "the tears of Cushan in affliction." "The father to his children will make known" the mournful story. The veteran, who wrought by wise side "in the heat and burden of the day" of our deliverance, will know, that "for this the heart is faint," that for these things the eyes are dim." The extensive nation which has received liberty from the valor, and happiness from the counsel, of him who has fallen, will feel that this is "the rod of anger and the staff of indignation."

"His deeds exceed all speech." His fame is "written with a pen of iron with the point of a diamond." His counsel is "graven upon the table of our heart." His deeds, his fame, and his counsel will endure, till "the great globe itself: yea, all which inherit it shall dissolve."

The Lay Preacher of Pennsylvania.

At a time when every friend to our country is paying respect to the memory of WASHINGTON, it will doubtless be acceptable to my readers to have recorded the following notice of his character, in a speech delivered to the British House of Commons, in 1794, by the Hon. C. J. Fox.

"ILLUSTRIOUS man! deriving honor less from the splendor of his situation than from the dignity of his mind: before whom all borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance. I cannot indeed (added Mr. Fox) help admiring the wisdom and the fortune of this great man; not that by the phrase fortune, I mean to derogate from his merit; but notwithstanding his extraordinary talents and exalted integrity, it must be considered as singularly fortunate, that he should have experienced a lot, which so seldom falls to the portion of humanity; and have passed through such a variety of scenes, without stain and without reproach. It must indeed create astonishment, that placed in circumstances so critical, and filling for a series of time a station so conspicuous, his character should never once have been called in question; that he should in no one instance have been accused either of improper insolence, or of mean submission in his transactions with foreign nations. It has been reserved for him to run the race of glory, without experiencing the smallest interruption to the brilliancy of his career. The breath of censure has not dared to impeach the purity of his conduct; nor the eye of envy to raise its malignant glance to the elevation of his virtues. Such has been the transcendent merit and the unparalleled fate of this illustrious man."