doubted. But of the two hundred and ninety-three votes he got but thirty-three, and that only once. Fifty-three times did the Convention ballot; but the South, for whom he had made such sacrifices, never gave him a single vote, and General Scott proved the "available" man.' On Mr. Webster's return to Boston from Washington, July 9, the citizens gave him a grand public reception. It was kind in them thus to administer a balm to his wounded spirit, and to ease his fall. He then returned to his farm at Marshfield, where he died Sunday, October 24, 1852. The news of his death excited profound sorrow throughout the country, and demonstrations of mourning appeared in all quarters, evincing how complete a hold he had upon the affections of his countrymen, who were willing, for a time at least, to forget his errors and lapses, in the recollection of his transcendent abilities exerted so many years for good.2

Of the character of Mr. Webster as a jurist, a statesman, an orator, there can be but one opinion with all candid minds:-that he was head and shoulders above all his contemporaries,-" Facile primus inter pares." As a jurist, if exceeded by some in depth of professional reading, he was still master of all the learning required for the discussion of every question, however abstruse; while for a memory that grasped every detail, for a skill that nothing could elude, for a compactness and clearness of statement that made his statements arguments, for rare condensation and surpassing logic, he must always rank as the first of his age.

As a statesman, few have equalled him. He could study and judge subjects in all their relations and details, with a large and liberal comprehensiveness, with a wide range of political knowledge, and sound views of constitutional interpretation; and had he always followed the instincts of his own heart, and the promptings of his own enlightened conscience, and not looked at what he thought would be most conducive to his interests in his Presidential aspirings, he would have left a fame surpassed by that of no man, living or dead.

As an orator, Mr. Webster had none of the graces of the finished rhetorician;

No one now doubts that, had Mr. Webster, with his giant mind and powerful eloquence, exerted all his abilities to defeat, as he did to carry through, the "Compromise Bill," he would have succeeded; would have reversed the whole current of public affairs; would have carried with him the sound judgment and enthusiastic feeling of the whole North; and thus would have been borne onward, on the mighty wave of popular enthusiasm, into the Presidential chair. What an opportunity for good forever lost! Let his fate be a warning to all aspirants for political distinction, and impress upon them the truth that it is infinitely better to be right, than to possess the highest office in the gift of the people. "High worth is elevated place: 'tis more;

It makes the post stand candidate for thee;

Makes more than monarchs,-makes an honest man."

2 I have looked on many mighty men,-King George, the "first gentleman in England;" Sir Astley Cooper, the Apollo of his generation; Peel, O'Connell, Palmerston, Lyndhurst,-all nature's noblemen; I have seen Cuvier, Guizot, Arago, Lamartine, marked in their persons by the genius which has carried their names over the world; I have seen Clay, and Calhoun, and Pinckney, and King, and Dwight, and Daggett, who stand as high examples of personal endowment in our annals; and yet not one of these approached Mr. Webster in the commanding power of their personal presence. There was a grandeur in his form, an intelligence in his deep, dark eye, a loftiness in his expansive brow, a significance in his arched lip, altogether beynd those of any other human being I ever saw.”— Goodrich's Recollections.

but he had what is infinitely better,—a vigor, precision, and perspicuity of style, and a rich imagination, united to a manliness of person and grandeur of mien, that riveted the attention of his audience, and produced an overwhelming effect on a deliberative assembly. Witness his discourse at Plymouth, his address at Bunker Hill, his remarkable speech at Salem on the trial of Knapp for murder, his eulogy on Adams and Jefferson, and his reply to Hayne.

Mr. Webster's works, with a life by Edward Everett, have been published in six volumes, octavo,-volumes full of thought, pregnant with instruction, abounding in knowledge, beautified, adorned, and commended by a style that unites, in a remarkable degree, the four highest qualities,-perspicuity, beauty, precision, and strength.

OUR COUNTRY IN 1920.

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be past. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity; they exist only in the all-creating power of God who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas.

We would leave, for the consideration of those who shall then occupy our places, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause of good government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which may enlarge the understandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the long distance of one hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shall know, at least, that we possessed affections which, running backward, and warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for our happiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordial salutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise in your long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to taste the blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall have passed, our own human duration. We bid you

welcome to this pleasant land of the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and the verdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings of good government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasures of science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to the transcendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, and parents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings of rational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light of everlasting truth!

Oration at Plymouth, 1820.

ADDRESS TO THE SURVIVING SOLDIERS OF THE REVOLUTION.

VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon; you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death, -all these you have witnessed; but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population, come out to welcome and greet you with an universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's own means of distinction and defence. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and He has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and, in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!

ENGLAND.

She has dotted the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circle the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.

THE MORNING.

The air is tranquil, and its temperature mild. It is morning, and a morning sweet, and fresh, and delightful. Everybody knows the morning in its metaphorical sense, applied to so many objects, and on so many occasions. The health, strength, and beauty of early years lead us to call that period the "morning of life." But the morning itself few people, inhabitants of cities, know any thing about. Among all our good people, not one in a thousand sees the sun rise once a year. They know nothing of the morning. With them, morning is not a new issuing of light, a new bursting forth of the sun, a new waking up of all that has life, from a sort of temporary death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens and the earth; it is only part of the domestic day, belonging to breakfast, to reading the newspapers, answering notes, sending the children to school, and giving orders for dinner. The first streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper coloring into orange and red, till at length the "glorious sun is seen, regent of day,”—this they never enjoy, for they never see it.

I know the morning,—I am acquainted with it, and I love it. I love it, fresh and sweet as it is, a daily new creation, breaking forth and calling all that have life, and breath, and being, to new adoration, new enjoyments, and new gratitude.

THE LOVE OF HOME.

It is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affect nobody in America but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them; and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin; but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised among the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there

was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.

Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if ever I fail in affectionate veneration for him who reared it, and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted forever from the memory of mankind!

THE NATURE OF TRUE ELOQUENCE.

True eloquence does not consist in speech. It cannot be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire after it, they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking or a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward, to his object, this, this is eloquence; or, rather, it is something greater and higher than all eloquence: it is action, noble, sublime, Godlike action.

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