of argument, a force of illustration, and a felicity of diction, which have rendered this effort of his mind one of the proudest monuments of American genius, and one of the noblest expositions which the operations of our Government have called forth. I speak of its general effect, without concurring in all the views he presented, though the points of difference neither impair my estimate of the speaker nor of the power he displayed in this elaborate debate. The judgment of his contemporaries upon the character of his eloquence will be confirmed by the future historian. He grasped the questions involved in the subject before him with a rare union of force and discrimination, and he presented them in an order of arrangement, marked at once with great perspicuity and with logical acuteness, so that, when he arrived at his conclusion, he seemed to reach it by a process of established propositions, interwoven with the hand of a master; and topics, barren of attraction, from their nature, were rendered interesting by illustra tions and allusions, drawn from a vast storehouse of knowledge, and applied with a chastened taste, formed upon the best models of ancient and of modern learning; and to these eminent qualifications was added an uninterrupted flow of rich and often racy old-fashioned English, worthy of the earlier masters of the language, whom he studied and admired. As a statesman and politician his power was felt and acknowledged through the Republic, and all bore willing testimony to his enlarged views and to his ardent patriotism. And he acquired a European reputation by the state papers he prepared upon various questions of our foreign policy; and one of these his refutation and exposure of an absurd and arrogant pretension of Austriais distinguished by lofty and generous sentiments, becoming the age in which he lived and the great people in whose name he spoke, and is stamped with a vigor and research not less honorable in the exhibition than conclusive in the application; and it will ever take rank in the history of diplomatic intercourse among the richest contributions to the commentaries upon the public law of the world. And in internal as in external troubles he was true, and tried, and faithful; and in the latest, may it be the last, as it was the most perilous, crisis of our country, rejecting all sectional considerations, and exposing himself to sectional denunciation, he stood up boldly, proudly, indeed, and with consummate ability, for the constitutional rights of another portion of the Union, fiercely assailed by a spirit of aggression, as incompatible with our mutual obligations as with the duration of the Confederation itself. In that dark and doubtful hour, his voice was heard above the storm, recalling his countrymen to a sense of their dangers and their duties, and tempering the lessons of reproof with the experience of age and the dictates of patriotism. He who heard his memorable appeal to the public reason and conscience, made in this crowded chamber, with all eyes fixed upon the speaker, and almost all hearts swayed by his words of wisdom and of power, will sedulously guard its recollections as one of those precious incidents which, while they constitute the poetry of history, exert a permanent and decisive influence upon the destiny of nations. And our deceased colleague added the kindlier affections of the heart to the lofty endowments of the mind; and I recall, with almost painful sensibility, the associations of our boyhood, when we were school-fellows together, with all the troubles and the pleasures which belong to that relation of life, in its narrow world of preparation. He rendered himself dear by his disposition and deportment, and exhibited some of those peculiar characteristic features, which, later in life, made him the ornament of the social circle, and, when study and knowledge of the world had ripened his faculties, endowed him with powers of conversation I have not found surpassed in my intercourse with society, at home or abroad. His conduct and bearing at that early period have left an enduring impression upon my memory of mental traits which his subsequent course in life developed and confirmed. And the commanding position and ascendency of the man were foreshadowed by the standing and influence of the boy among the comrades who surrounded him. Fifty-five years ago we parted-he to prepare for his splendid career in the good old land of our ancestors, and I to encounter the rough toils and trials of life in the great forest of the West. But, ere long, the report of his words and his deeds penetrated those recesses, where human industry was painfully, but successfully, contending with the obstacles of Nature, and I found that my early companion was assuming a position which confirmed my previous anticipations, and which could only be attained by the rare faculties with which he was gifted. Since then he has gone on irradiating his path with the splendor of his exertions, till the whole hemisphere was bright with his glory, and never brighter than when he went down in the west, without a cloud to obscure his lustre, calm, clear, and glorious. Fortunate in life, he was not less fortunate in death, for he died with his fame undiminished, his faculties unbroken, and his usefulness unimpaired; surrounded by weeping friends, and regarded with anxious solicitude by a grateful country, to whom the messenger that mocks at time and space told, from hour to hour, the progress of his disorder, and the approach of his fate. And beyond all this, he died in the faith of a Christian, humble, but hopeful, adding another to the roll of eminent men who have searched the gospel of Jesus, and have found it the word and the will of God, given to direct us while here, and to sustain us in that hour of trial, when the things of this world are passing away, and the dark valley of the shadow of death is open before us. HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN! we may yet exclaim, when reft of our greatest and wisest; but they fall to rise again from death to life, when such quickening faith in the mercy of God and in the sacrifice of the Redeemer comes to shed upon them its happy influence, on this side of the grave and beyond it. IV. MR. SEWARD. WHEN, in passing through Savoy, I reached the eminence where the traveller is promised his first distinct view of Mont Blanc, I asked, "Where is the mountain?" "There," said the guide, pointing to the rainy sky which stretched out before me. It is even so when we approach and attempt to scan accurately a great character. Clouds gather upon it, and seem to take it up out of our sight. DANIEL WEBSTER was a man of warm and earnest affections in all the domestic and social relations. Purely incidental and natural allusions in his conversations, letters, and speeches, have made us familiar with the very pathways about his early mountain home; with his mother, graceful, intellectual, fond, and pious; with his father, assiduous, patriotic, and religious, changing his pursuits, as duty in Revolutionary times commanded, from the farm to the camp, and from the camp to the provincial legislature and the constituent assembly. It seems as if we could recognise the very form and features of the most constant and generous of brothers. Nor are we strangers at Marshfield. We are guests hospitably admitted, and then left to wander at our ease under the evergreens on the lawn, over the grassy fields, through the dark, native forest, and along the resounding sea-shore. We know, almost as well as we know our own, the children reared there, and fondly loved, and therefore, perhaps, early lost; the servants bought from bondage, and held by the stronger chains of gratitude; the careful steward, always active, yet never hurried; the reverent neighbor, always welcome, yet never obtrusive; and the ancient fisherman, whose little fleet is ever ready for the sports of the sea; and we meet on every side the watchful and devoted friends whom no frequency of disappointment can discourage, and whom even the death of their great patron cannot all at once disengage from efforts which know no balancing of probabilities nor reckoning of cost to secure his elevation to the first honors of the Republic. Who that was even confessedly provincial was ever so identified with any thing local as DANIEL WEBSTER was with the spindles of Lowell, and the quarries of Quincy; with Faneuil Hall, Bunker Hill, Forefathers' Day, Plymouth Rock, and whatever else belonged to Massachusetts? And yet, who that was most truly national has ever so sublimely celebrated, or so touchingly commended to our reverent affection, our broad and ever-broadening continental home; its endless rivers, majestic mountains, and capacious lakes; its inimitable and indescribable constitution; its cherished and growing capital; its aptly conceived and expressive flag, and its triumphs by land and sea; and its immortal founders, heroes, and martyrs! How manifest it was, too, that, unlike those who are impatient of slow but sure progress, he loved his country, not for something greater or higher than he desired or hoped she might be, but just for what she was, and as she was already, regardless of future change! No, sir; believe me, they err widely who say that DANIEL WEBSTER was cold and passionless. It is true that he had little enthusiasm; but he was, nevertheless, earnest and sincere, as well as calm; and, therefore, he was both discriminating and comprehensive in his affections. We recognise his likeness in the portrait drawn by a Roman pencil: "who with nice discernment knows Of senators, of generals sent to war." DANIEL WEBSTER was cheerful, and on becoming occasions joyous, and even mirthful; but he was habitually engaged in profound studies on great affairs. He was, moreover, constitutionally fearful of the dangers of popular passion and prejudice; and so, in public walk, conversation, and debate, he was grave and serious, even to solemnity; yet he never desponded in the darkest hours of |