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ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF MARY

LAND, AT ITS FIRST ANNUAL EXHIBITION, JUNE 12, 1833.

L

ADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HORTICULTURAL So

CIETY:

I hold it an undeserved favor that you have selected me to make the address on the occasion of the present, celebration. Though not wanting in a just estimate of the worth of the objects of this society, nor of the efficiency of the means in your power to accomplish them,-nay, not less imbued, I trust, than any of you, with a lively hope to see the institution which you have lately organized fulfil its destined purpose, and shed its manifold beneficent influences upon our community, yet I cannot but feel that there are many gentlemen among you, whose active zeal in this enterprise, whose peculiar study of the pursuits to which it is allied, whose intelligence, taste and scholarship might have directed your regards to them, much more appropriately than to myself, when you were about to appoint an individual to recommend in public discourse the excellent aims for which you have associated. In allotting this duty to me, therefore, I must be permitted to esteem it a personal token of your consideration, for which I am bound to make you a grateful acknowledgment; and I desire to add to this expression of my thanks, the avowal that the task you have set before me is one which I take an especial pleasure in performing. I approach it with a cheerful resolution, because, in the first place, I feel assured that the same friendly concern which impelled you to

put this duty upon me, will indulgently overlook the necessary imperfections of my performance; and, in the second place, because the subject itself is full of agreeable appliances and pleasant topics. I address you in the midst of a wilderness of sweets, where the eye has been delighted with the most exquisite of nature's forms and colors, developed in her choicest flowers, and where the air is redolent with the odor of a thousand perfumes: the treasures of the neighboring gardens have been spread around you in a splendid array of rare and luxuriant productions: this hall has been transmuted into a charmed grotto, where one might fancy some unearthly enchanter had wrought his spell to delight the senses with all the riches of shape, hue and fragrance :

"Ten thousand colors wafted through the air,
In magic glances, play upon the eye,
Combining in their endless fairy forms

A wild creation."

Around you, participating in this banquet of delights, are gathered your friends and neighbors, all joyous as yourselves, giving and receiving the quick impulse of pleasure engendered by the scene, and, by the sympathy of mutual satisfactions, quickening, enlarging and renewing the cheerfulness of this festival. Here, as if in rivalry with the delicate perfections of this congregation of plant and flower, are grouped about us the not less brilliant assemblage of our fair townswomen, of whom it is no flattery to say that their far-renowned beauty is the least of their attractions. Their presence here is an auspicious omen for the success of your undertaking. Where they delight to come, we may assure ourselves that the graceful genius of their sex will infuse into the labors and observances of the place the predominating flavor of their own sensitive and refined taste. This hall of flowers should be peculiarly their temple; and we would fain hope that at each return of this celebration we may find the pursuits and labors of the society applauded, promoted and sustained by the

increasing zeal with which the ladies of Baltimore devote themselves to its prosperity. Then, too, the season of the year at which we meet lends no small share of allurement to the festivity of this ceremony. Spring has just fallen into the arms of summer: the freshest green is on the fields, the deepest shade is in the grove: the balmy air breathes of rural enjoyment: fruits and flowers are found united in the gardens ; and all that spring can furnish of the beautiful is mingled with much that summer can supply of the delicious. The physical frame of man is yet unexhausted by prolonged heats; the timely and frequent shower yet refreshes the face of earth, and no parching drouth at this season deforms the landscape; Vertumnus has successively discarded his various disguises, and has won the prudish Pomona, and Flora is close in the train of the wedded pair. This may, therefore, be emphatically called the season of delight and beauty.

From all these causes, I may truly say my theme is full of agreeable topics, and that to descant on them, as is my province, is more of a recreation than a task. Would that I were able adequately to express the emotions which the contemplation of these subjects raises in my mind!—that I were able to excite in your breasts the keen sense of enjoyment with which my own is moved in the discharge of the duty to which your kindness has called me!

This is the first public exhibition of the society. It is an experiment upon the taste and feeling of this community; and from the general and favorable interest which the endeavor has won, I think it can scarcely be deemed an experiment of doubtful success. If the event be prosperous, it will furnish a gratifying evidence that the citizens of our State have arrived at a wholesome elevation of moral and intellectual refinement.

Every stage of society, in the progress of man from rude and unpolished life up to the extreme of civilization, is distinguished by its appropriate character. In the first or earlier eras, we may see him struggling, with unassisted strength, for the mere rough materials of subsistence: a little more advanced,

we shall find him diligent and inventive to enlarge the number of his comforts: still further on his career, his history will present him in search of superfluities;-the elegancies of life will then engage his pursuit, and he will be assiduous to accumulate what may adorn and illustrate his condition: passing forward beyond this stage, his high-fed desires and stimulated passions scorn the wholesome aliment that previously made him happy, and he will covet far-sought enjoyments; his taste rendered vicious by satiety, difficult to please, adulterated and sickly, will only be content with the gratifications which are to be procured at the greatest cost, and with the largest and most perilous expenditure of labor. Such, in brief, is the march of humanity :—and thus do the wants of that restless, changeful creature man provoke him to pursuits and attainments which severally give a sign or character to the manifold varieties of human society, from the day of the unthralled savage, to that of the frivolous and effete voluptuary.

I need not say, that the middle degrees on this scale are the most healthful and the most happy :—they unite the hardihood and endeavor of primitive society with the refinement of the elder changes—alike removed from the vices of both.

It is worth observation that in the infancy of social existence man works alone. He works at odds and disavantage with his adversary want; his young invention has not yet supplied him with implements: a bare right arm, braced by toil and brawny by use, is the weapon with which he goes forth to do battle with hunger. The skin of the conquered Nemean lion is the only garment of this Hercules; and with no other assistance than that of his club he destroys the wild boar of Erymanthus, and drags up the triple headed Cerberus to the light of the sun. His is the victory achieved by brute force, and with many an agonizing strain of the muscles; and when he prostrates his giant enemy and sets his foot upon his breast, he dashes the drops from his brow, as one who has gained the day in a mortal encounter. It is not long, however, before he finds that his fellow-man may be made an efficient instrument

in this war with necessity that a combination will avail more than separate and unconcerted struggles ;—and with this aim he subdues his brother and enlists him as a co-laborer. Then he discovers further, that working with associated mind, as well as with united strength, increases his power an hundred fold. This important secret of association is no sooner carried into use than the whole surface of human existence changes: improvement rapidly follows on the steps of improvement; useful things abound; comforts, luxuries, elegancies spring up like magical creations: life moves upon multiplied springs and wheels: the work of hands grows to be insignificant, when set beside the work of minds that have seized upon the great enginery of nature. Wind, and water, and fire, and vapor are brought into tremendous alliance ;—and man, the dwarf, becomes an irresistible giant, and smiles at the marvellous speed and overwhelming impetus with which his omnipotent machinery produces whatsoever his genius directs.

The same sense and insight, that has taught us the value of this power of combination of individuals for the procurement of things indispensable, also instructs us in the usefulness of association for the procurement of things that belong to the luxury of life; and it is accordingly a characteristic of this age, remarkable beyond all former precedent, to build up societies for the encouragement and improvement of the elegant arts. It is a good sign to see a community arrived at that point of moral culture and education at which the people think of establishing these institutions. It speaks of the taste, the refinement, and the virtue of the nation. It tells of the abandonment of the rudeness of unfurnished and unlettered society, and of the substitution of intellectual pleasures for gross and sensual indulgences. It shows us that sober and intelligent industry is attaining its great and glorious aim; that it is arriving at its healthful maturity, and is producing the fruits correspondent to the nature of the seed; that it is making a sound, happy, enlightened nation, such as all wise founders of states have pictured to themselves when they have

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