and desolate the land we hold most dear--life, play conspicuous parts, may possibly hang that liberty, property, religion-and all. country's destiny.

The friends of constitutional liberty and justice cannot, therefore be too jealous of the assumption by the legislature of any portion of judicial power., Let that department, within its allotted sphere, prescribe the rule of conduct and of right; but never suffer it to take from any freeman his chartered right to be tried and judged by the constitutional tribunal of impartail and enlighted judgment.

Our Anglo-American union has organized a great moral revolution, and is now, with the world's gaze upon it, testing a mighty problem for all mankind. The Mississippi valley may soon hold a preponderating authority in the councils of that union. In this hopeful valley the educated and professional classes, and especially the enlightened in jurisprudence, will possess a controlling power; and among these, Transylvania's sons must exercise a pervading and perhaps decisive influence.

Who

And if it be the legislative will that a wife may be divorced from her husband for any It is on this ground that we feel especially prescribed cause, ought or not the decisive the peculiar importance and momentous requestion whether the cause exists be deter-sponsibility of this law Department. mined in the same manner as all other questions knows that it may not bless, save or destroy of fact involving public right? This is an im- the hopes, not of this generation only, but of portant enquiry. unborn millions? Even the Parliament of England, whose will strive to illustrate its beneficence? Knowledge, Will you, its pupils, all is law, never, in the plentitude of omnivorous fidelity, pure love of country, and honorable power, grants a divorce until the only fact ambition will be your best armor in the conflict upon which it will dissolve marriage has been for which you are preparing. With these alone established by a regular trial and sentence in you may hope to be useful in your day, and panoply would be a dead weight which might expect to achieve virtuous renown. Any other crush you to the level of the vulgar herd of useless drones or ephemeral bustlers.

an ordinary court of justice. And not only was this the invariable practice also of Virginia prior to our separation from her, but Kentucky never departed from it until the year 1805-when, for the first time, her legislature passed an act peremptorily divorcing a husband

from his wife.

Resolve to be useful, and the end is almost attained. Correggio, when a boy, resolved to be a distinguished artist-and that instant, his But our purpose here is neither decision nor fate was sealed, and posthumous fame was sediscussion-but only general suggestion for cured. And it is credibly reported of an emiinciting reflection and research. And, there-nent American, that, when taking final leave fore, our allotted time being about to expire, of college, with nothing but "poverty and we will now close the subject, by only repeat- parts" and a fixed resolution to become what ing, that God himself instituted marriage and declared, in the very act of his creation, that "it is not good for man to be alone."

he has already been, he said to the President of the institution, "You shall, one day, hear from DANIEL WEBSTER." And now DartPupils academic, medical, jurisprudential mouth, like the mother of Washington, is can-all-We welcome you to the classic halis of nonized by the association of her name with Transylvania.,, Partially dismantled for years, that of her illustrious son. Will all or any of she is now, at last, completely rigged and you, in the votive spirit of the New Hampshire manned; and, with all her sails hoisted and boy, resolve, as he once resolved, to illustrate her tri-colored banner floating in the light the name of this your ALMA MATER? Shall of an auspicious re-dawning, she launches on Transylvania ever hear from you? And what a broad sea, with flattering hopes of surviving shall she hear? The long line of her distinevery adverse gale and triumphantly surmount-guished sons has already hallowed her fame ing every opposing billow. Though patched and shed a lustre on this western world. and renovated from hull to mast, she is the MAGNA MATER VIRUM, Cornelia-like, she is same old ARGO that, in the infancy of the justly proud of her jewels. Will you add to West and Kentucky's heroic age, gallantly their number, or will you cast a shade on her bore aloft the "golden fleece" of science. Em-bright escutcheon? barked on this long-tried, good old ship, you, May you all contribute to swell the volume need no insurance. She will neither sink nor of her fame-may you ennoble your own fail. May your voyage be prosperous, and names, and earn a grateful remembrance that land you well equipped for the rich harvest shall never fade away, And, when you come that ripens before you in this valley of hope. A to take your last leave of these scholastic walls, better theater was never prepared for the use- may you, each and all, make a sacramental ful employment of honest talents, or the hon- resolve that Transylvania shall hear from you? orable development of a noble patriotism. and when she does, may the intelligence be The age, in which you live to act, is evidently such as to swell her venerable heart with a most portentous. The country on whose mother's joy.

bosom providence has been pleased to cast Thus, on a subject full of harmony and full your lots, is full of promise; and on the event-joy, we have commenced with "HARMONY," ful drama in which it may be your fortune to and close with "JOY.”

PRELECTION.

LEXINGTON, Feb. 24th, 1847.

DEAR SIR: At a meeting of the Senior Class of the Transylvania Law School, the undersigned were appointed a Committee representative of the wishes of the whole Class, who, through us, solicit for publication a copy of the able and eloquent Valedictory Address delivered to our Class last evening. Hoping to receive a favorable response, we have the honor to be

Your friends and obedient servants,
DAVID KERR,

JOHN KERR,

J. WATSON BARR,

WM. ATWOOD,

WALTER C. WHITAKER,

Committee.

LEXINGTON, February 26th, 1847.

GENTLEMEN: The Valedictory, of which you so courteously request a copy for publication, is the substance of one prepared by me for a similar occasion ten years ago. It is-as it is-yours.

And may you, and those you represent, each and all, carefully follow its counsels, exemplify its principles, and attain the destinies to which they point, and, if properly regarded, will surely conduct you.

Truly your friend,

GEORGE ROBERTSON.

Messrs. Kerr, &c., &c.'

ADDRESS.

Gentlemen of the Senior Class of the

may be usefully and honorably distinguished. Your recent opportunities and your prefessional pretensions, impose on you peculiar obligation to your ALMA MATER, to yourselves, your friends and your country. Much will be expected, much required of you-and be assured that all you have and can acquire and do, will

Law Department of Transylvania: Our didatic course is now finished. We as perceptors, and you as pupils, are here together for the last time; and the memories of the past, and the prospects of the future, now all at once clustering around our hearts, impress this closing scene with an unusual pathos and so-be necessary for the proper fulfillment of your lemnity.

Your voyage of discovery, though toilsome, has, we trust, been correspondingly profitable. And now, in sight of TERRA FIRMA, it is natural that each of you should feel some of the emotions of Virgil's voyager, when-cheered with the first glimpse of recognized land, long sought and desired as his home-he cried out ITALIUM! ITALIUM! But, unlike his joy, yours is mixed with sorrow-and, unlike his hope, yours is clouded with the unknown shadows of uncertain destinies.

1

various duties, or the realization of high and honorable anticipations.

We may presume that most, perhaps all of you, are destined first for the Bar. The sphere of the popular and enlightened Lawyer is very comprehensive and elevated. It embraces the personal, social, and civil rights of his fellow men, and all the various and important interests and relations that depend on human laws. To act usefully and honorably in such a sphere, requires careful discipline, great knowledge and rare endowments, moral and intellectual. After long and interesting associations, pecu- Ministering at the alter of Justice, lawyers liarly endearing we shall all soon part should have clean hands, wise heads, and where or when to meet, or whether ever again pure hearts, lest they profane the temple of on earth, no one knows; and where you are jurisprudence, and sacrifice the lives, the libto land, and what is to be your doom, the un-erty, the property, and the reputation of those written page of time to come alone can tell. who repose on their counsel and trust in their Having now finished your soholastic course, protection. The welfare of society depends, you will soon take leave of this institution, of to a great extent, on the character and conduct your preceptors, and of each other, and enter of legal men. And, notwithstanding the prevas men, each for himself and in his own strength, alence of a vulgar prejudice against them as a on the sober and important business of active class, they have an acknowledged and comlife, in which your own conduct may fix your manding influence, and therefore must necdestinies for good or for ill, for weal or for woe, essarily do much good or much harm. In an for time and for eternity. intoductory discourse we made some general Although our professioual relations are now suggestions once, respecting the eminent dignidissolved, we feel it our duty before we sepa- ty of jurisprudence and the high rank and inrate, to tender to you the offering of our fare- fluence of the gentlemen of the bar; and those well blessing and parting counsel; and this last suggestions have been since coroborated on an duty, resulting from our recent relations, is not interesting occasion, illustrated with much learthe least difficult to us or important to you.ning by an eminent citizen attached to a rival In attempting to discharge it we feel its pecu- profession, who, in estimating the relative inliar delicacy and responsibility; and therefore, fluence of the various classes of society, concewith becoming sensibility and solicitude, we ded the second place to the lawyers-the first invoke your candid consideration of the vale-being, of course, allotted by him to the fair. dictory suggestions which we will proceed to offer with all the sincerity and plainness of a parting friend.

Such a juxtaposition, if deserved, should be as inspiring as it must be grateful and honorable. But to merit and maintain it, requires a Having been under our tutilage, and hearing purity of purpose, a propriety of conduct, with you our credentials our precepts and our and a degree of intelligence which have not hopes, we feel a solicitude, almost paternal, for always characterized professional men of eveyour future welfare and usefulness. We have ry denomination; and this is an age of renovafaithfully endeavored by proper tuition, to en- tion and light; all branches of knowledge, and lighten your minds with the elements of juris-all orders of society, are in a rapid progress of prudence and to prepare you for becoming, in proper time, useful citizens, sound jurists and enlightened statesmen. In all these relations you

improvement. To maintain its high rank and ensure a benificent influence, the western Bar must be quickened by the regenerating spirit of

the times, and must elevate the professional follow the safer guides-reason and the harstandard and advance in that knowledge and mony of the law in all its parts. in those virtues which will become more and Whenever consistent with other and more inore befitting their American character. To important engagements, make it a rule to debe useful or suceessful on the forensic arena, vote some portion of every sceular day to the you must, gentlemen, be panoplied with the reading of law; and whenever you can, conarmor of legal learning, literary taste, gener- verse on legal subjects-this will tend to give al science, habitual prudence, moral principle, clear and practical conceptions of legal princiand practical wisdom. A thorough knowledge ples, an habitual directness and facility of scientific and practical law, should be the in communicating what you know, and a leading object of your professional ambition taste for legal investigations which could not and pursuit. otherwise be acquired.

Public expectation, the dignity of your proBut the habit of intensely thinking and carefession, the interests of justice, and your own fully writing on the more abstruse doctrines of duty and fame, will demand the attainment of the law will be still more useful. Unless we what you will profess to have an accurate meditate on what we read, and see, and hear, knowledge of the laws of your country in all until we rightly understand it, we can never their departments and relations. The want of make it our own, or use it properly or effectusuch knowledge cannot be supplied by fidelity, ally. Reading and observation only supply however undeviating; integrity, however scru- materials for meditation; and intellectual rupulous; miscellaneous learning, however ex-mination is to the mind what mastication and tensive; or talents, however solid or brilliant,

deglutition are to the body. But it is intense thinking alone that can digest and assimilate, Do not repose in confidence, or presume too into a congenial and vitalizing essence, the alimuch on the elementary knowledge you have ment of the mind. Intensity of thought is as acquired whilst here. Though you have learned indispensable to the nutriment of the mind, as much, you are only initiated into the first prin- the gastric solvent and vascular labaratory are ciples, and prepared for the successful study of to animal digestion and life, No man was ever legal science, the most of which is to you, yet truly great or useful who did not think much & TERRA INCOGNITA, far beyond the range of and well; and many have been practically wise your circumscribed horizon. You may learn without reading books. Patrick Henry's chief all your lives, and the more you learn the book was the volume of nature-but he thought more you will find to be learned. To attain with a peculiar interest and intensity-and thus, the utmost that can be accomplished, it is im-the carver of his own fortune, he became one portant to make a judicious selection of books, of nature's tallest noblemen. But he did not to read them properly, and to make a system-know much law. To have acquired that sciatic appropriation of all your time. It is not ence it was indispensable that he should have the number, but the kind of books, and the read as well as thought much. Proper reading manner of reading them, that will be most furnishes food; right thinking digests it; and useful. The most scientific and approved edi- careful writing and speaking rectify it, and cirtions of elementary books should be studied,culate the vital product. Bacon has saidcarefully compared with the cases to which "Much reading makes the full man, much thinkthey refer, and tested, when doubtful or anom- ing makes the correct man, and much writing alous, by principle and analogy-and such text makes the perfect man."

books as Blackstone, Cruise, and Kent should Let your miscellaneous reading harmonize be periodically reviewed as well as occasionally with your professional duties. Be careful read. The more important of the adjudged never to indulge it to such an extent, or in cases should be read carefully and compared such a manner as to seduce from a proper aland collated; and a commonplace manuscript, legiance to the law, or generate ascetic habits arranged by titles, alphabetically, would be or epicurean appetites, incompatible with the both eminently useful by imprinting new doc-robust health and masculine vigor of the legal trines on the mind, and always of great value mind. But general knowledge is as useful to for occasional application. An adjudged the lawyer as to any other inan. Whatever point, unreasonable or inconsistent with anal-will furnish the mind with light, or impart to ogy or principle, should not be regarded as it vigor, health or discipline, must be peculiarly conclusive evidence of the law, unless it shall useful to one whose professional avocations rehave been long acquiesced in, or more than quire, in an eminent degree, analysis, illustraonce affirmed-and unless, on a survey of all tion, and persuasiveness. All branches of material considerations, you feel that it is bet-virtuous knowledge mutually aid each other. ter to adhere to it, than, by overturning it, to The sciences are united by a common sympathy, produce uncertainty and surprise. STARE called by Cicero coMMUNE VINCULUM. DECISES should be thus and only thus under- "All are but parts of one stupendous whole, stood and applied. Stability and uniformity Whose body nature is, and God the whole." require that authority, even when conflicting All eminent jurists have been enlightened with principle, should sometimes decide what by general learning. The example of Cicero, the law is. But, in all questionable cases, of Bacon, of Hale, should never be forgotten.

Cicero was one of the most profound philoso- Be careful never to pause in your pursuit after phers and polished scholars of erudite Rome; useful information. The mind cannot remain Bacon's great mind was enlarged and liberal-stationary--if it make no advance, it must retized by universal science; and Hale, among the rograde; nor can morals stand still-and as most learned of his day, and a christian too, nothing can contribute so much to your dignity, was, according to Runnington, of the opinion influence and happiness, as the activity and that "no man could be master of any profession, improvement of your own moral faculties, without having some skill in all the sciences."therefore, if you wish to be happy or usefulThis infallible truth has not been universally if you hope to be gratefully remembered felt. But we have some reason for hoping that among men, and to be ranked with the good a more propitious era has come, or is coming, and great of your species, be ever mindful that when all, who feel true professional pride or God has identified your peace and your honor, have a just sense of professional dignity and your duty and your usefulness, with intellectual obligation, will know that general science can- activity and moral purity and light. Never not be neglected without great danger of abor- neglect the map of nature always unrolled betion and degradation. Civil history, mathe fore you-nor the sacred volume of revealed matics, philology, geography, moral, political, truth, in which, when properly studied, true and physical philosophy, and medical jurispru- and practical wisdom, elsewhere unattainable, dence, may be deemed essential; and polite will certainly be found; and remember that literature and some acquaintance with the whenever true "Science builds a monument to fine arts will be highly ornamental and useful. herself, she erects an altar to God." Without some acquaintance with these various But do not read more than you can underbranches of knowledge, the lawyer must enter stand, nor oppress the mind or impair the health the arena unarmed, or armed only with the and vigor of the body by excessive or indiscreet rough and unwrought club of dry, hard, tech-study. The studious mind requires occasional nical law. Medical jurisprudence has been too relaxation and relief. Let these be judiciously generally neglected. Every lawyer should ac- afforded by physical exercise and interludes of quire some general and correct knowledge of innocent and improving amusements. But anatomy, human and comparative; of physiolo- never suffer the mind to become rusty from ingy; of chemistry; of materia medica; and pa-dolence, to be seduced by the allurements of thology. An accurate and practical acquaint-vice, corrupted by sensuality, or unhinged by ance with the purity and power of your ver- vacuity. Dr. Johnson's expedient for preventnacular tongue should be deemed a SINE QUA ing Hypocondria was-never to be alone when NON. And such an attainment implies no small idle, nor idle when alone; and it is worth being degree of literary taste and study, as well as remembered and tried. Physical exercise, litmuch attention and habit. In fine, it is impor-erary companionship, and moral conversation tant that a lawyer should learn all that it is will be sure antidotes to gloom and cynicism; useful for man to know. And the more he and music, Luther's intellectual Catholiconlearns, the more he will be able and inclined next to the Bible in his judgment, as an adverto learn, and the more humble and less dog-sary of the devil-should not be derided or unmatic and pedantic will he be, and seem to be. dervalued. It exhilerates and tranquilizes the There is no danger that you can know too mind, elevates and purifies the heart, and thus much. Whilst the moral and physical universe contributes much of what scarcely any other is around you, your minds can never be inac-amusement can, as innocently, contribute to active, full, or satisfied. The higher you as-improvement and happiness. Nor are gymnascend the topless mountain of knowledge, the tic and other athletic exercises, for health or clearer will be your horizon; but, should you amusement, either useless or incompatible climb to where no mortal footstep has ever with personal dignity or intellectual eminence. been, you will then be but the more sensible to They not only tend to impart vigor and health the evidence of your own inferiority and igno-to the body, elasticity and tone to the mind, and rance, when, from your peerless eminence, for simplicity to the moral character, but, when the first time, the interminable wilderness of properly regulated, they render us more amiaunexplored knowledge, indistinctly opened to ble and useful. Behold Professor Playfair, your enlarged vision, will appear as a world, when a septegenaire, with the spring and muscontrasted with the little spot which, in a life-cle of manhood, leaping with the young athtime of toil, you had belted and enclosed as letes of Edingburg-Alexander Hamilton, your intellectual domain, and which, so insig-playing marbles with his little children-Patnificant in your more comprehensive eye, seems rick Henry tumbling with his household Gods, to the microscopic vision of those below you and playing the fiddle for them to dance-and to be the NE PLUS ULTRA of human attainment. a Chief Justice Marshall, throwing aside the A judicious distribution of your employments, TOGA PRETEXTA, and as a youth, CON AMORE, and a systematic allotment of your time will pitching quoits with the young men of Richafford you leisure for every reasonable purpose mond. These and many others of the distinand enable you to acquire a mass and a kind of guished great men were exemplars of the simknowledge which can be attained by no other ple dignity, amiable condescension, and practical utility of true wisdom. Knowledge, to

means.