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AND

SPEECHES

ON

VARIOUS OCCASIONS.

BY

EDWARD EVERETT.

VOL. I.

SECOND EDITION.

BOSTON:

CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN.

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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850,

BY CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

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PREFACE

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THE FIRST EDITION.

THE following collection was made at the suggestion of the respectable association by whom it is published.* It was at first intended that it should consist of the materials of which this volume is composed, together with a selection of speeches in Congress, and articles in the North American Review, by the same author. It was found, on examination, that the addresses now submitted to the public would, of themselves, form a volume of ordinary size, and sufficient variety of matter. The collection has, accordingly, been confined to them, reserving for a future occasion, if deemed expedient, the preparation of another volume, to comprehend the speeches, essays, and other miscellaneous compositions not contained in this.

The orations and speeches contained in this volume, with the exception of the address delivered before the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, were printed at the time of their delivery; but advantage has been taken

VOL. I.

* American Stationers' Company.

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of the opportunity afforded by this republication, to revise and correct them, principally in matters of style.

It will be found that some of the addresses, being on the same or similar occasions or subjects, exhibit a considerable similarity in the train of remark, and even in the illustrations. This is particularly the case with the orations delivered at Concord and Lexington, on the nineteenth of April, 1825, and 1835. Such a similarity was scarcely to be avoided. The general plan of the two addresses is different, but they necessarily required some description of the same memorable incidents; and any attempt to avoid the repetition must have been at the sacrifice of topics consecrated to the occasion.

The author, being desirous, in submitting this collection to the public, to make a contribution to the literature of the country which, however humble, might at least possess the negative merit of being inoffensive, the speeches delivered by him on political occasions have been excluded, and nothing of a party character has been knowingly admitted.

He is fully aware that, as the addresses which make up the volume were in their origin occasional, the collection of them cannot be expected to form a work of permanent interest and importance. It would be all he could hope, that they should be thought, at the time of their separate appearance, not to fall below the line of the indulgence usually extended to performances of this character. He has been induced, more by the encouragement of partial friends, than his own judgment of their value, to submit them again to the public in their present form.

CHARLESTOWN, Mass., July, 1836.

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