A TEACHER: A STUDENT OF LAW, AND TUTOR. 59 



in the dreadful picture of the African slave-trade. How 

 great must have been the anguish of mind, and how com- 

 plete the despair of those unfortunate beings, to produce 

 such a degree of desperate resolution and astonishing hero- 

 ism ! If this feeble attempt, in a country where so much is 

 said about freedom and the rights of man, to turn the pub- 

 lic attention to the real sufferings and inexpiable guilt 

 arising from the slave-trade, should stimulate some Amer- 

 ican Wilberforce to advocate the cause of this degraded 

 race with equal zeal, ability, perseverance, and success as 

 have been exhibited by that great and good man, the writer 

 would feel that pleasure from the consciousness of having 

 contributed to the advancement of a good cause, which 

 must ever form one of the highest pleasures of a real phi- 

 lanthropist." 



The subject of Mr. Silliman's poem on taking his 

 second degree, in 1799, was Columbia, the sound- 

 ing name by which the patriotic poets of that time 

 generally apostrophized their country. The Indian 

 aborigines, the appearance of the country when the 

 Europeans arrived, the Revolution and its principal 

 actors, the subsequent prosperity of the country, are 

 reviewed, and then the author passes, like a true 

 Federalist, to a dark picture of French intrigue, and 

 its threatening consequences. This production still 

 remains, with interlinear corrections of President 

 Dvvighr, in his own handwriting; and the following 

 extract, in which these are inserted, may not be un- 

 acceptable to the curious reader : 



the Btime successive 



"From oa-j'iC'.'n- climes, see gathering numbers come, 



howlin;: 



To seek, 'mid ciuturi wilds, a peaceful home. 



The arms, 



With thorn- the arts they bring of polished life, 

 To till the ground, or kindle mental strife. 

 Now, first, the axe resounded through the wood, 



