His subject was “Historic Progress and American Democracy.”  The discourse is, to use his own words, “a rapid sweep through the eons and the centuries,” illustrating the great truth of the development of the race from its origin to the time in which we are living.  It is a long distance from the planetary fact of the obliquity of the equator, which gave the earth its alternation of seasons, and rendered the history, if not the existence of man and of civilization a possibility, to the surrender of General Lee under the apple-tree at Appomattox Court-House.  No one but a scholar familiar with the course of history could have marshalled such a procession of events into a connected and intelligible sequence.  It is indeed a flight rather than a march; the reader is borne along as on the wings of a soaring poem, and sees the rising and decaying empires of history beneath him as a bird of passage marks the succession of cities and wilds and deserts as he keeps pace with the sun in his journey.

Its eloquence, its patriotism, its crowded illustrations, drawn from vast resources of knowledge, its epigrammatic axioms, its occasional pleasantries, are all characteristic of the writer.

Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, the venerable senior member of the society, proposed the vote of thanks to Mr. Motley with words of warm commendation.

Mr. William Cullen Bryant rose and said:—­

“I take great pleasure in seconding the resolution which has just been read.  The eminent historian of the Dutch Republic, who has made the story of its earlier days as interesting as that of Athens and Sparta, and who has infused into the narrative the generous glow of his own genius, has the highest of titles to be heard with respectful attention by the citizens of a community which, in its origin, was an offshoot of that renowned republic.  And cheerfully has that title been recognized, as the vast audience assembled here to-night, in spite of the storm, fully testifies; and well has our illustrious friend spoken of the growth of civilization and of the improvement in the condition of mankind, both in the Old World—­the institutions of which he has so lately observed—­and in the country which is proud to claim him as one of her children.”

Soon after the election of General Grant, Mr. Motley received the appointment of Minister to England.  That the position was one which was in many respects most agreeable to him cannot be doubted.  Yet it was not with unmingled feelings of satisfaction, not without misgivings which warned him but too truly of the dangers about to encompass him, that he accepted the place.  He writes to me on April 16, 1869:—­

“I feel anything but exultation at present,—­rather the opposite sensation.  I feel that I am placed higher than I deserve, and at the same time that I am taking greater responsibilities than ever were assumed by me before.  You will be indulgent to my mistakes and shortcomings,—­and who can expect to avoid them?  But the world will be cruel, and the times are threatening.  I shall do my best,—­but the best may be poor enough,—­and keep ‘a heart for any fate.’”

XXI.