they belong to the nation; they form a portion of her
wealth, worthy to be stored in her intellectual treasury,
and to be preserved and transmitted for the guidance and
benefit of posterity.
  In this point of view the speeches of Henry Clay are
very remarkable. On nearly every subject connected
with government and its branches-political economy and
public policy, they exhibit just and enlarged views.
  The people of ancient Greece and Rome carefully
treasured up, and taught their children, the just and no-
ble sentiments of humanity and justice promulgated by
their dramatic poets, Euripides and Terence. It was a
wise and an easy mode of educating the young mind.
Such a sentiment as that of Terence

       HoMo SUM; HUMANI NIHIL A ME ALIENUM PUTO

dwells upon the memory; and makes more impression on
the heart, as a lesson of humanity and philantropy, than
a long-winded homily from the lips of the gravest
teacher.
  In the same manner, the maxims of the statesman, pi-
thily and happily expressed, and gracefully illustrated,
do more in the political education of a people, than a
thousand lectures on political economy. Some of those
which will be found in the following collection might be
printed in letters of gold, that " all who run may read,"



W.e



PREFACE.