THE manuscript which has been put into your possession, by the relatives of DAVID BERDAN, was hastily prepared, in the midst of professional duties. The Adelphic Society requested me to furnish a copy for publication. I intended to comply with the request, but postponed doing so, until I should have leisure to make the memoir more worthy the public attention. I could not, in the mean time, refuse a copy to the relations of the deceased. I have long regretted that I suffered the proper time for publication to pass, because I knew that, imperfect as my sketch was, the extracts from BERDAN'S correspondence would render the memoir interesting to his friends. I return you the manuscript. You can better judge whether it has sufficient interest to entitle it to a place in your excellent periodical; but I shall feel that its publication relieves me in some degree from the painful recollection of injustice to the memory of an early and devoted friend.

READ BEFORE THE ADELPHIC SOCIETY OF UNION COLLEGE, JULY 21, 1828.

THE Adelphic Society has to-day erected a monument on the college grounds, to the memory of DAVID BERDAN, who died on his passage from London to Boston, on the twentieth day of July, 1827. I have been requested to pronounce an eulogium upon the friend whose memory has been thus honored. This duty is to be discharged under unfavorable circumstances. I have come, with a chastened spirit, to speak of the disappointments and sorrows of that world upon which those who have called me hither are eager to enter. Although both the subject of my memoir and myself were once accustomed to the scenes around me, I stand here now a stranger, to speak of one no less a stranger than myself. It will be difficult to render interesting the history of a young man, of whom most of my audience have never heard, who neither won nor sought the honors awarded here to scholastic attainments, and whose talents and worth were unknown, except by bosom friends. The occasion, however, has called around me several of those friends, and their presence encourages me. I cannot speak an eulogium. I will give a brief narrative of his life, not doubting that all who hear me will agree that simplicity best becomes my subject.

DAVID BERDAN joined the freshman class in Union College, and became a member of the Adelphic Society, in 1817. He was then

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in his fifteenth year. He had a down-cast air, unassuming deportment, and retiring manners. His temper was cheerful, his conversation animated and enthusiastic, and his disposition gentle and confiding. Although I was two years his senior, in age and in the collegiate course, I enjoyed a kind and courteous intercourse with him, during my residence here. Our friendship was formed in later years. I have found it necessary to say thus much concerning myself, because the materials for this memoir were chiefly supplied by my own recollections, and his letters remaining with me.

He soon gave evidence of intellectual powers, which had been highly improved by study, and habits of reflection. He wrote and spoke with ease and elegance. It is impossible to ascertain at what period he first indulged a desire for literary pursuits. But it was obvious, during his residence here, that all distinctions, other than those attainable in that department, were worthless in his sight. Collegiate honors never excited his emulation. The Adelphic Society theu afforded, as I trust it does now, a field for youthful ambition; but he never sought, and I doubt whether he ever held, any of its high places. Yet he was not indolent. On the contrary, he often excelled, but seemed always desirous to avoid praise. He used to be found in the Society's library, taking copious extracts, and he delighted in pursuing the discussions left incomplete in the volumes around him. He was especially happy in the study of the ancient classics, always reading them in the spirit of the original, and his translations were distinguished for their freedom and elegance. He may have failed to rehearse a lecture in Blair's Rhetoric, without pausing for breath, and may have lost many a link in the analysis of Kame's Ele. ments, regularly committed by the students; but neither the learned professor, nor the venerated president, ever detected in his essays a violation of the rules of composition prescribed in those works. He held the sceptre of criticism, but he exercised his authority with gentleness, forbearance, and delicacy. Although not a controversialist, he was occasionally felicitous in debate, iningling philosophical reflections with illustrations derived from classic history and poetry. But his chief superiority was in his essays. He never selected low or common subjects. His style was perspicuous and chaste ; and while his exercise, judging from its care and freedom, seemed to have been the amusement of a vacant hour, it abounded in original thoughts, and classical illustrations.

He early manifested a reluctance to engage in active pursuits, and be concerned with the ordinary interests of society. But this reluctance did not assimilate to the disgust which genius sometimes feels and more often affects, for humble and useful occupations ; nor did it proceed from that morbid misanthropy, manifested by weak minds embittered by disappointment. On the contrary, he despised nothing but what was vicious ; he knew no envy, and affectation never dwelt in a breast as humble as his. His aversion to the business of life arose from his devotion to books, and to nature. His mind was contemplative, and his friends were always subdued, by his conversation, from merriment to chastened sentiment and feeling. His correspondence is rich in illustrations of this characteristic. The

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following is an extract from a letter written at New-York, when he was in his nineteenth year :

• Do not,' says he, 'your feelings undergo a daily change from the operation of the many circumstances to which you are constantly exposed ? What every body else calls triling, is of some consequence to me, both because there is nothing that I regard with indifference, and consequently nothing but what produces some effect upon me. I should have to write to you every day, to make you acquainted with my feelings. Do not judge, then, if I write despondingly, that I uniformly experience this depression. Judge rather, that it is only a temporary gloom, which will soon be dissipated, and which will perhaps be succeeded by extraordinary exhilaration. I very often find alleviation for the soreness of my troubles, in a walk along the shore. I have there represented my present griefs as of such little consequence in the estimate of human suffering, and in the certainty of their eventual termination, that I enjoyed without bitterness the freshness of the breeze, and looked without anguish on the magnificent river that sent its swelling surges to my feet. I have never indulged any repining, when I have beheld the setting of the sun. All my thoughts are then directed to the Being who created such a luminary, as a proof of his goodness, no less than of his power, and I feel elevated above the petty concerns of earthly occupation. Perhaps the trouble of mind which induced me to take a solitary ramble along the beach, caused me to regard the works of nature with more enthusiasm, because, disgusted with those I had left behind, I felt anxious to lift myself above present calamity, and to cheat myself with visionary anticipations. There is one peculiarity in the effect of these sensations upon me. It arises from their permanency. Such feelings as I experience, are doubtless universal, but they are seldom of long continuance. They scarcely ever endure after a change of scene, or after the first active impression is effaced. I have, on my return from such walks, still experienced that religious tranquillity of spirit which such contemplations will inspire, and have, until again allowed to visit those scenes, preserved, in almost their primitive force, the impressions which were then produced. Does not all this,' he adds, show that I am unfit for contention with the troubles of society ?' In another letter, he says : 'I a

am not of opinion that God is ever arbitrarily controlling our smallest actions, and manifesting his power in every casualty, yet I enjoy an indefinable species of emotion in regarding the grand and sublime productions of the Deity. I look upon the creations of his will. I am affected by their magnitude and beauty ; but I am lost when I attempt to know or comprehend their author. And when I have gazed steadfastly upon the monuments of his power, I have wondered that I should aitach so much importance to the diminutive affairs in which I have been engaged. When alone in the forest, or on the mountain, I am constantly indulging this tone of feeling; and in the swelling of the heart which it creates, I lose sight of all care or anxiety. Both the good and the evil which encumbered me when I came hither, appear removed from my heart, and every low, grovelling desire is subdued. Whenever some porI had a preju

tion of the strength of these creations is dissipated, and I look back upon my past life or upon my present situation, I view it under the most favorable colors. " I smooth over the rough and mortifying occurrences, and linger upon the few happy hours I have spent in the society of friends, with a tranquil and satisfied pleasure.'

I have spoken of Berdan's unaffected simplicity and humility. How truly, let another extract show:

* You speak eloquently,' says he, ‘of military burial, and your train of thought is elevated. It is different from my own. dice in favor of a military life, but my habits and feelings have been so opposite, that they have effected a revolution of opinion. Through all the pomp and circumstance of ceremony, I see the march of corruption, the emptiness of renown. When, as a simple citizen, I stand and view the burial of a soldier, I involuntarily smile at the pageantry with which he is committed to the earth. I turn to the quiet procession, the unadorned pall, to the light yet thrilling sound of the earth at is thrown upon the coffin, with a finer feeling. I leave the grave of the soldier with sensations that do not accord with the ordinary tone of my mind, because I feel that I cannot suppose my burial may be like his; but I quit the spot where an obscure and unknown individual has been consigned to his native dust, with a hallowed feeling, that is exalted by the internal conviction of its correspondence with what is to be my own fate.'

How thrilling is the recurrence of such words, when death has proved them prophetic! Much less ostentatious was his burial, than even that of an obscure and unknown individual in a christian land! There was no 'quiet procession,' no 'unadorned pall,' no thrilling sound of earth to earth, and dust to dust,' when his remains were committed to the deep. No humility could wish a more obscure resting place than bis ocean grave.

Need it be added that he was generous ? His charity knew no prudence, his liberality no bounds. I have known him refrain from the feast, to supply the wants of the beggar that met him at the door. I have known him to suffer the privation of the cloak with which be covered the poor. It was of course that his generosity was often abused. Yet that abuse never shook his credulity concerning the worth or wants of those who applied to him for relief. His keenest sorrow was that which he experienced, when he found poverty he could not relieve, or aflliction he could not console. He was distinguished for a chivalrous sense of his obligations to his friends, and those who claimed his protection. Inoffensive and retiring, he never provoked an insult, but he was instantly roused into a generous indignation by wrong committed against his friend, or injuries to the defenceless. He held that true friendsbip was impossible, where either party indulged a sense of superiority, of dependence, or of obligation. He seldom appealed to his friend for sympathy, and never taxed him for applause; and yet his bosom was full of the cious joys and sorrows of his friends. He shared all their anticipations, consoled and sympathized with them in their disappointments, and exerted his utmost power to relieve their misfortunes.

On leaving college, he became a law student in the office of John

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ANTHON, Esq., in New York. It was there our more intimate acquaintance commenced. He read the elementary treatises of the law with diligence and attention, and the duties devolved upon him as a clerk were discharged with patience and fidelity. But the refinements and subtleties of the law were not congenial to his mind. His surviving parent having devoted him to the law, he struggled continually between his convictions of filial duty, and his repugnance to a profession for which, as he said, he was not born, and could not be qualified. His father's death, which happened in 1820, although it deeply affected him, left him at liberty to follow the inclinations of his genius, without fear that the consequences of the error would fall on any bul himself. He not unwisely determined to secure an acquaintance with the practical duties of an attorney, as a contingent resource, and at the same time to qualify himself for literary pursuits. A letter, written in August, 1822, so happily expresses his preference for those pursuits, that I cannot avoid giving an extract from it in this place. How would you like,' he says, 'to lead a literary life, that is to say, be in possession of a competency, and instead of attaching yourself to the study of any particular science, range through the whole garden of knowledge ? There would be something manly and independent in this mode of occupation. It would allow you perfect liberty to pursue the dictates of your own taste, and would free you from the prospective fear of being cheated in your professional progress, by the envy of contemporaries, the unaptness of your own powers, or the frowns of fortune. This life might be often characterized by indolence, but not always by inutility. It is a manner of passing existence which always captivated my fancy, from its irregularity, and from the refined pleasure it seemed capable of affording. It imposes the fewest restraints upon our inclinations, and those few can be shaken off at pleasure. There is no prospect that appears more dreary to me, than that of spending the spring and sum, mer of my life in the acquisition of points of practice, and technical forms. I would rather earn a subsistence by mere mechanical occupation, in order that when my allotted task should be performed, I might be at liberty to cultivate my taste without restraint. Give me independence of action, and I will not repine at the humble garb it may compel me to wear.'

In October, 1822, he first manifested that desire to visit Europe, which his peculiar studies were sure to create. This desire, and the preparation he made for its accomplishment, were communicated in a letter, from which the following are extracts: 'I am impatient," he writes, 'personally to communicate to you a project which I have conceived but a few days since, and which bids fair to occasion some alteration in my feelings. It is the intention I have formed of visiting foreign parts. Do not believe I am jesting._I tell you seriously, that I hope, ere long, to walk through part of France, Switzerland, Italy, England, perhaps Scotland, and withal to touch at Gibraltar. The plan is all matured. There will be three of us. in the plainest dress, partake of the plainest food. I now think that I shall realize the dream of my earlier years, and indulge myself with a view of those places of which I have read so much, and upon which I have dwelt so deeply. Shall I indeed see Rome, the mistress of

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