for mutual aid and support, which kept the word of promise to the ear and broke it to the hope, was hardly worth the having. Hence, he labored earnestly and perseveringly to inculcate a love of the Union, and to present the whole country as an object to be cherished, honored and valued, because he felt that on that side our affections needed to be quickened and strengthened.

As was to be expected, so powerful a man could not pass through life without encountering strong opposition. All his previous experiences, however, were inconsiderable in comparison with the storm of denunciation which he drew down upon himself by his course on what are commonly called the compromise measures, and, especially, his speech on that occasion. It was natural that men, whose fervid sympathies are wedded to a single idea, should have felt aggrieved by the stand he then took; and if decency and decorum had governed their expressions, neither he nor his friends could have had any right to complain. But, in many cases, the attacks were so foul and ferocious that they lost all claim to be treated as moral judgments, and sunk to the level of the lowest and coarsest effusions of malice and hatred. It is a good rule in politics, as elsewhere, to give men credit for the motives they profess to be actuated by, and to accept their own exposition of their own opinions as true. Let us apply these rules to his course at that time. He had opposed the admission of Texas, and predicted the train of evils which would have come with it. He had warned the North of the perilous questions with which that measure was fraught. But the prophetic voice was unheeded. Between zeal on one side, and apathy on the other, Texas came in. Then war with Mexico followed, ending in conquest, and leaving the whole of that unhappy country at our mercy. Mr. Webster opposed the dismemberment of Mexico, provided for in the treaty of peace, on the ground that no sooner should we have the immense territory which we propose to take, than the question whether slavery should exist there, would agitate the country. But again the warning voice of his wisdom was unheeded, and the storm, which he had predicted, gathered in the heavens. The questions against which he had forewarned his countrymen now clamored for settlement, and would not be put by. They required for their adjustment the most of reason and the least of passion, and they were met in a mood which combined the most of passion and the least of reason. The North and the South met in "angry parle," and the air was darkened with their strife. Mr. Webster's prophetic spirit was heavy within him. He felt that a crisis had arrived in the history of his country, and that the lot of a solemn duty and a stern self-sacrifice had fallen upon him. As he himself said, "he had made up his mind to embark alone on what he was aware would prove a stormy sea, because in that case, should disaster ensue, there would be but one life lost." In this mood of calm and high resolve he went forward to meet the portentious issue.

It is not to be expected that a speech, made under such circumstances, going over so wide a range of exciting topics, should, in every part, command the immediate and entire assent even of those who would admit its truth and seasonableness as a whole. It is also doubtless true, that there are single expressions in it which, when torn from their context, and set by the side of passages from former speeches, dealt with in like manner, will not be found absolutely identical. But the speech of such a man, at such a crisis, is not to be dissected and criticized like a rhetorical exercise. It should be judged as a whole, and read by the light of the occasion which gave it birth.

The judgments which Mr. Webster's course has called forth, were widely diverse. By those who hold extreme views, he was charged with expressing sentiments which he did not believe to be true. It was "a bid for the Presidency," and his conscience was the price he offered. It is a mere waste of words to argue with men of this class. Fanaticism darkens the mind and hardens the heart, and where there is neither common sense nor common charity, the first step in a process of reasoning cannot be taken. Others maintained that he was mistaken in point of fact, that he took counsel of his fears and not of his wisdom, and, that through him, the opportunity was lost of putting down the South in an open struggle for influence and power. But, in the first place, it is not probable that a man, who, upon subordinate questions, had shown so much political wisdom and forecast, should have been mistaken upon a point of such transcendent importance, to which his attention had been so long and so earnestly directed; and, in the second place, the testimony of nearly all men, whose evidence would be received with respect upon any similar subject, fully sustains Mr. Webster in the views he then took of the state of the country, and is equally strong as to the value of the services he rendered. In such an issue, the testimony of retired persons, 'iving among books and their own thoughts, is not entitled to any great value, because they can have no adequate notion of the duties, responsibilities, or difficulties of governing a great State, and what need there is of patience and denunciation in those who are called to this highest of humans functions. A statesman has the right to be tried by his peers.

It is curious to observe how, hatred, whether personal or political, when it enters into the mind, disturbs its functions, as a piece of iron, in the binnacle of a ship, misleads the compass. Many, who have found it so hard to forgive Mr. Webster for his independence in opposing them, would admit the importance of having a class of public men, who will lead the people and not be led by them, and that a great man is never so great,

as when withstanding their dangerous wishes, and calmly braving their anger. Their eyes will sparkle when they speak of the neutral countenance of Washington, undismayed by jacobin clamor, and of the sublime self-devotion of Jay. It is strange that they cannot, or will not, for a moment, look at Mr. Webster's position from a point of view opposite to their own, admit that he may have been in the right, and see him clad in the beauty of self-sacrifice. It is to be feared that this form of virtue is growing more and more rare, as it is more and more needed, The story of Curtius leaping into a gulf in the Roman Forum, in order to save his country, is but the legendary form in which a perpetual truth is clothed. In the path of time there are always chasms of error which only a great self-immolating victim can close. The glory has departed from the land in which that self-devoting stock has died out.

Mr. Webster was an ambitious man. He desired the highest office in the gift of the people. But on this subject, as on all others, there was no concealment in his nature. And ambition is not a weakness, unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy. With him it was a noble passion, because it rested upon noble powers. He was a man cast in a heroic mould. His thoughts, his wishes, his passions, his aspirations, were all on a grander scale than those of other men. Unexercised capacity is always a source of rusting discontent. The height to which men may rise is in proportion to the upward force of their genius, and they will never be calm till they have attained their predestined elevation. Lord Bacon says, "as in nature things move violently to their place, and calmy in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm." Mr. Webster had a giant's brain and a giant's heart, and he wanted a giant's work. He found repose in those strong conflicts and great duties, which crush the weak and madden the sensitive. He thought that, if he were elevated to the highest place, he should so administer the government as to make the country honored abroad, and great and happy at home. He thought, too, that he could do something to make us more truly one people. This, above everything else, was his ambition. And we, who know him better than others, felt that it was a prophetic ambition, and we honored and trusted him accordingly.

As a writer, and as a public speaker, upon the great interests of his country, Mr. Webster stands before us, and will stand before those who come after us, as the leading spirit of his time. Sometimes, indeed, his discussions may have been too grave to be entirely effective, at the moment of their delivery, but all of them are quarries of political wisdom; for while others have solved only the particular problem before them, he has given the rule that reaches all of the same class. As a general remark, his speeches are a striking combination of immediate effectiveness and enduring worth. He never, indeed, goes out of his way for philosophical observations, nor lingers long in the tempting regions of speculation, but his mind, while he advances straight to his main object, drops from its abundant stores those words of wisdom which will keep through all time a vital and germinating power. His logic is vigorous and compact, but there is no difficulty in following his argument, because his reasoning is as clear as it is strong. The leading impression he leaves upon the mind, is that of irresistible weight. We are conscious of a propelling power, before which everything gives way or goes down. The hand of a giant is upon us, and we feel that it is in vain to struggle. The eloquence of Burke, with whom he is always most fitly compared, is like a broad river, winding through a cultivated landscape; that of Mr. Webster, is like a clear mountain stream, compressed between walls of rock. But his claims as a writer do not rest exclusively upon his political speeches. His occasional discourses, and his diplomatic writings, would alone make a great reputation. His occasional discourses rise above the rest of their class, as the Bunker Hill Monument soars above the objects around it. His Plymouth oration, especially, is a production which all, who have followed in the same path, must ever look upon with admiration, and despair. It was the beginning of a new era in that department of literature. It was the first and greatest of its class; and has naturally fixed a standard of excellence which has been felt in the efforts of all who have come after him. Its merits of style and treatment are of the highest order, and it is marked throughout by that dignity of sentiment and that elevating and stirring tone of moral feeling which lift the mind into regions higher than can be reached by eloquence alone.

His diplomatic writings claim unqualified praise. Such discussions require a cautious as well as firm hand; for a single rash expression, falling upon an explosive state of mind, may shatter to pieces the most hopeful negotiations. Mr. Webster combines great force of statement with perfect decorum of manner. It is the iron hand, but the silken glove. He neither claims nor yields a single inch beyond the right. His attitude is neither aggressive or distrustful. He is strong in himself, and strong in his position. His style is noble, dignified, and transparent. It is the "large utterance" of a great people. I know of no modern compositions which, in form and substance, embody so much of what we understand by the epithet, Roman. Such, indeed, we may imagine the state papers of the Roman Senate to have been, in the best days of the Republic.

His arguments, speeches, occasional discourses, and diplomatic writings, have all a marked family likeness. They are all characterized by strength and simplicity. He

never goes out of his way to make a point or drag in an illustration. His ornaments, sparingly introduced, are of that pure gold, which defies the sharpest test of criticism. He had more of imagination, properly so called, than fancy, and his images are more grand than picturesque. He writes like a man who is thinking of his subject, and not of his style, and thus wastes no time upon the mere garb of his thoughts. His mind was so full, that epithet and illustration grew with his words, like flowers on the stalk. It is a striking fact, that a man who has had so great an influence over the mind of America, should have been so free from our national defects; our love of exaggeration, and our excessive use of figurative language. His style is Doric, not Corinthian. His sentences are like shafts hewn from the granite of his own hills-simple, massive, and strong. We may apply to him what Quinctilian says of Cicero, that a relish for his writings is itself a mark of good taste. He is always plain; sometimes even homely and unfinished. But a great writer may be, and indeed must be, homely and unfinished at times. Dealing with great subjects, he must vary his manner. Some things he will put in the foreground, and some in the background; some in light, and some in shadow. He will not hesitate, therefore, to say plain things in a plain way. When the glow and impulse of his genius are upon him, he will not stop to adjust every fold in his mantle. His writings will leave upon the mind an effect, like that of the natural landscape upon the eye, where nothing is trim and formal, but where all the sweeps and swells, though rarely conforming to an ideal line of beauty, blend together in a general impression of grace, fertility, and power. His knowledge of law, politics, and government was profound, various, and exact; but a man of learning, in the sense in which this word is commonly used, he could not be called. His life had been too busy to leave much time for prolonged scientific or literary research; nor had he that passionate love of books which made him content to pass all his leisure hours in his library. He had read much, but not many books. He was a better Latin scholar than the average of our educated men, and he read the Roman authors, to the last, with discriminating relish. A mind like his was naturally drawn to the grand and stately march of Roman genius. With the best English writers he was entirely familiar, and he took great pleasure in reading them, and discussing their merits.

To science, as recorded in books, he had given little time, but he had the faculties and organization which would easily have made him a man of science. He had the senses of an Indian hunter. Of the knowledge that is gathered by observation -as of the names and properties of plants, the song and plumage of birds, and the forms and growth of trees- he had much more than most men of his class. His eye was as accurate as his mind was discriminating. Never was his conversation more interesting than when speaking of natural objects and natural phenomena. His words had the freshness of morning, and seemed to bring with them the breezes of the hills and the fragrance of spring.

Mr. Webster, both as a writer and a speaker, was unequal, and from the nature of his mind and temperament, it could not be otherwise. He was not of an excitable organization, and felt no nervous anxiety lest he should fall below the standard of expectation raised by previous efforts. Hence, he was swayed by the mood, mental or physical, in which each occasion found him. He required a great subject, or a great antagonist, to call forth all his slumbering power. At times, he looked and spoke almost like a superhuman creature; at others, he seemed but the faint reflex of himself. His words fell slowly and heavily from his lips, as if each cost him a distinct effort. The influence, therefore, which he had over popular assembles, was partly owing to his great weight of character.

He had strong out-of-door tastes, and they contributed to the health of his body and mind. He was a keen sportsman, and a lover of the mountains and the sea. His heart warmed to a fine tree as to the face of a friend. He had that fondness for agriculture and rural pursuits so common among statesmen. Herein the grand scale of the whole man gave direction and character to his tastes. He did not care for minute finish and com

pleteness on a limited scale. He had no love for trim gardens and formal pleasure grounds. His wishes clasped the whole landscape. He liked to see broad fields of clover, with the morning dew upon them, yellow waves of grain, heaving and rolling in the sun, and great cattle lying down in the shade of great trees. He liked to hear the whetting of the mower's scythe, the loud beat of the thresher's flail, and the heavy groan of loaded wagons. The smell of the new-mown hay, and of the freshly turned furrows in spring, was cordial to his spirit. He took especial pleasure in all forms of animal life, and his heart was glad when his cattle lifted up their large-eyed, contemplative faces, and recognized their lord by a look.

His mental powers were commended by a remarkable personal appearance. He was probably the grandest looking man of his time. Wherever he went, men turned to gaze at him; and he could not enter a room without having every eye fastened upon him. His face was very striking, both in form and color. His brow was to common brows, what the great dome of St. Peters is to the smaller cupolas at its side. The eyebrow, the eye, and the dark and deep socket in which it glowed, were full of power; but the great expression of his face lay in the mouth. This was the most speaking and flexible of features, moulded by every mood of feeling, from iron severity

to the most captivating sweetness. His countenance changed from sternness to softness with magical rapidity. His smile was beaming, warming, fascinating; lighting up his whole face like a sudden sunrise. His voice was rich, deep, and strong; filling the largest space without effort, capable of most startling and impressive tones, and, when under excitement, rising and swelling into a volume of sound, like the roar of a tempest. His action was simple and dignified; and in his animated moods, highly expressive. Those of us who recall his presence as he stood up here to speak, in the pride and strength of his manhood, have formed from his words, looks, tones, and action, an ideal standard of physical and intellectual power, which we never expect to see approached, but by which we unconsciously try, not only the greatness we meet, but that of which we read. He was a man more known and admired than understood. His great qualities were conspicuous from afar; but that part of his nature, which he shared with other men, was apprehended by comparatively few. His manners did not always do him justice. For many years of his life, great burdens rested upon him, and, at times, his cares and thoughts settled down darkly upon his spirit, and he was then a man of an awful presence. He required to be loved before he could be known. Ile, indeed, grappled his friends to him with hooks of steel, but he did not always conciliate those who were not his friends. He had a lofty spirit, which could not stoop or dissemble. He could neither affect what he did not feel, nor desire to conceal what he did. His wishes clung with tenacious hold to everything they grasped, and from those who stood, or seemed to stand, in his way, his countenance was averted. Some, who were not unwilling to become his friends, were changed by his manner into foes. He was social in his nature, but not facile. He was seen to the best advantage among a few old and tried friends, especially in his own home. Then his spirits rose, his countenance expanded, and he looked and moved like a school-boy on a holiday. Conscious that no unfriendly ear was listening to him, his conversation became easy, playful, and natural. His memory was richly stored with characteristic anecdotes, and with amusing reminiscences of his own early life, and of the men who were conspicuous when he was young, all of which he narrated with an admirable mixture of dignity and grace. Those who saw him in these hours of social ease, with his armor off, and the current of his thoughts turning, gently and gracefully, to chance topics and familiar themes, could hardly believe that he was the same man who was so reserved and austere in public.

But it may be asked, had this great man no faults? Surely he had. No man liveth, and sinneth not. There were veins of human imperfection running through his large heart and large brain. But neither men, nor the works of men, should be judged by their defects. Like all eminent persons he fell upon evil tongues; but those who best knew his private life, most honored, venerated, and loved him.

He was a man of strong religious feeling. For theological speculations he had little taste, but he had reflected deeply on the relations between God and the human soul, and his heart was penetrated with a devotional spirit. He had been, from his youth upwards, a diligent student of the Scriptures, and few men, whether clergymen or laymen, were more familiar with their teachings and their language. He had a great reverence for the very words of the Bible, and never used them in any light or trivial connection. He never avoided the subjects of life, death, and immortality, and when he spoke of them, it was with unusual depth of feeling and impressiveness of manner. Within the last few months of his life, his thoughts and speech were often turned upon such themes. He felt that he was an old man, and that it become him to set his house in order. On the eighteenth day of January last, he had completed the threescore and ten years, which are man's allotted portion, and yet his eye was not dim, nor his natural force much abated. But he grew weaker with the approach of summer, and his looks and voice, when he last addressed us from this place, a few months ago, forced upon us the mournful reflection that this great light must soon sink below the horizon. But yet, when the news came that the hand of death was upon him, it startled us like a sudden blow, for he was become so important to us, that we could not look steadily at the thought of losing him. You remember what a sorrow it was that settled down upon our city. The common business of life dragged heavily with us in those days. There was but one expression on the faces of men, and but one question on their lips. We listened to the tidings which came up, hour after hour, from his distant chamber, as men upon the shore in a night of storm, listen to the minute guns of a sinking ship, freighted with the treasures of their hearts. The grief of the people was eager for the minutest details of his closing hours, and he died with his country around his bed. Of the beauty and grandeur of that death I need not speak to you, for it is fixed in your memories and deep in your hearts. It fell upon the whole land like a voice from Heaven. He died calmly, simply, and bravely. He was neither weary of life, nor afraid of death. He died like a husband, a father, a friend, a Christian, and a man; with thoughtful tenderness for all around him, and a trembling faith in the mercy of God. He was not tried by long and hopeless suffering; nor were his friends saddened by seeing the spirit darkened before it was released. His mind like a setting sun, seemed largest at the closing hour. Such a death narrows the dark valley to a span. Such is a midsummer's day at the poles, where sunset melts into sunrise, and the last ray of evening is caught up and appears once more as the first beam of the new morning.

I should not feel that my duty had been wholly discharged, did I not speak of the touching simplicity and solemnity of his funeral. In his will, made a few days before his death, he says, "I wish to be buried without the least show or ostentation, but in a manner respectful to my neighbors, whose kindness has contributed so much to the happiness of me and mine, and for whose prosperity I offer sincere prayers to God." His wishes were faithfully observed, and, in the arrangements for his funeral, there was no recognition of wordly distinction or official rank. He was buried simply as the head of a household, after the manner of New England. But the immense crowds which were there, drawn from all parts of the land by their own veneration and love, formed an element of impressiveness far above all civic pageantry or military honors. Who, that was there present, will ever forget the scene on which fell the rich light of that soft autumnal day. There was the landscape, so stamped with his image and identified with his presence. There were the trees he had planted, the fields over which he had delighted to walk, and the ocean whose waves were music to his ear. There was the house, with its hospitable door; but the stately form of its master did not stand there, with outstretched hand, and smile of welcome. That smile had vanished forever from the earth, and the hand and form was silent, cold, and motionless. The dignity of life had given place to the dignity of death. No narrow chamber held that illustrious dust; no coffin concealed that majestic frame. In the open air, clad as when alive, he lay extended in seeming sleep; with no touch of disfeature upon his brow; as noble an image of reposing strength as ever was seen upon earth. Around him was the landscape that he had loved, and above him was nothing but the dome of the covering heavens. The sunshine fell upon the dead man's face, and the breeze blew over it. A lover of nature, he seemed to be gathered into her maternal arms, and to lie like a child upon a mother's lap. We felt, as we looked upon him, that death had never stricken down, at one blow, a greater sum of life. And whose heart did not swell, when, from the honored and distinguished men there gathered together from far and near, six plain Marshfield farmers were called forth to carry the head of their neighbor to the grave! Slowly and sadly the vast multitude followed, in mourning silence, and he was laid down to rest among dear and kindred dust. There, among the scenes that he loved in life, he sleeps well. He has left his name and memory to dwell forever upon those hills and valleys, to breathe a more spiritual tone into the winds that blow over his grave, to touch with finer light the line of the breaking wave, to throw a more solemn beauty upon the hues of autumn and the shadows of twilight.

But though his mortal form is there, his spirit is here. His words are written in living light along these walls. May that spirit rest upon us and our children! May those words live in our hearts, and the hearts of those who come after us! May we honor his memory, and show our gratitude for his life, by taking heed to his counsels, and walking in the way on which the light of his wisdom shines!