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organization of a "society for promoting useful knowledge," and the establishment of the first newspaper. A year later, in 1788, the ambition of social refinement wanted and got a dancingschool, and also the Transylvania Seminary was fairly ready to receive students: "Tuition five pounds a year, one half in cash, the other in property; boarding, nine pounds a year, in property, pork, corn, tobacco, etc." In ten years more the seminary, having absorbed the Kentucky Academy established by the Presbyterians, expanded into the "Transylvania University," with first an academical department, and the following year adding one of medicine and another of law. Thus Lexington, although still a small town, became what was then called "the literary and intellectual centre west of the Alleghanies," and a point of great attraction to people of means and of social wants and pretensions. It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that it was a quiet and sedate college town like those of New England. Many years later, in 1814, a young Massachusetts Yankee, Amos Kendall, who had drifted to Lexington in pursuit of profitable employment, and was then a private teacher in Henry Clay's family, wrote in his diary: "I have, I think, learned the way to be popular in Kentucky, but do not as yet put it in practice. Drink whisky and talk loud, with the fullest confidence, and you will hardly fail of being called a clever fellow." This was not the only "way to be popular," but was certainly one of the ways. When the Lexington of 1797, the year of Clay's arrival there, is spoken of as a "literary and intellectual centre," the meaning is that it was an outpost of civilization, still surrounded, and to a great extent permeated, by the spirit of border life. The hunter in his fringed buckskin suit, with long rifle and powder-horn, was still a familiar figure on the streets of the town. The boisterous hilarity of the bar-room, and the excitement of the card table, accorded with the prevailing taste better than a lecture on ancient history; and a racing-horse was to a large majority of Lexingtonians an object of far greater interest than a professor of Greek. But compared with other Western towns of the time, Lexington did possess an uncommon proportion of educated people; and there were circles wherein the social life displayed, together with the freedom of tone characteristic of a new country, a liberal dash of culture.

This was the place where Henry Clay cast anchor in 1797. The society he found there was congenial to him, and he was

congenial to it. A young man of uncommon brightness of intellect, of fascinating address, without effort making the little he knew pass for much more, of high spirits, warm sympathies, a cheery nature, and sociable tastes,- he easily became a favorite with the educated as a person of striking ability, and with the many as a good companion, who, notwithstanding a certain distinguished air, enjoyed himself as they did. It was again as a speaker that he first made his mark. Shortly after his arrival at Lexington, before he had begun to practice law, he joined a debating club, in several meetings of which he participated only as a silent listener. One evening, when, after a long discussion, the vote upon the question before the society was about to be taken, he whispered to a friend, loud enough to be overheard, that to him the debate did not seem to have exhausted the subject. Somebody remarked that Mr. Clay desired to speak, and he was called upon. Finding himself unexpectedly confronting the audience, he was struck with embarrassment; and as he had done frequently in imaginary appeals in court, he began, "Gentlemen of the jury!" A titter running through the audience increased his embarrassment, and the awkward words came out once more. But then he gathered himself up; his nerves became steady, and he poured out a flow of reasoning so lucid, and at the same time so impassioned, that his hearers were overcome with astonishment. Some of his friends who had been present said, in later years, that they had never heard him make a better speech. This was no doubt an exaggeration of the first impression; but at any rate that speech stamped him at once as a remarkable man in the community, and laid open before him the road to success.

He had not come to Lexington with extravagant expectations. As an old man looking back upon those days, he said: "I remember how comfortable I thought I should be if I could make one hundred pounds a year, Virginia money, and with what delight I received the first fifteen shillings fee." He approached with a certain awe the competition with what he called "a bar uncommonly distinguished by eminent members." But he did not find it difficult to make his way among them. His practice was, indeed, at first mostly in criminal cases; and many are the stories told of the marvelous effects produced by his eloquence upon the simple-minded Kentucky jurymen, and of the culprits saved by him from a well-merited fate.

It was not long however that he remained confined to criminal cases. Soon he distinguished himself by the management of civil suits also, especially suits growing out of the peculiar land laws of Virginia and Kentucky. In this way he rapidly acquired a lucrative practice and a prominent place at the bar of his State. That with all his brilliant abilities he never worked his way into the front rank of the great lawyers of the country was due to his characteristic failing. He studied only for the occasion, as far as his immediate need went. His studies were never wide and profound. His time was too much occupied by other things, not only by his political activity, which gradually grew more and more exacting, but also by pleasure. He was fond of company, and in that period of his life not always careful in selecting his comrades; a passion for cards grew upon him, so much so indeed that he never completely succeeded in overcoming it: and these tastes robbed him of the hours and of the temper of mind without which the calm gathering of thought required for the mastery of a science is not possible. Moreover, it is not improbable that his remarkable gift of speaking, which enabled him to make little tell for much and to outshine men of vastly greater learning, deceived him as to the necessity for laborious study. The value of this faculty he appreciated well. He knew that oratory is an art, and in this art he trained himself with judgment and perseverance. For many years, as a young man, he made it a rule to read if possible every day in some historical or scientific book, and then to repeat what he had read in free, off-hand speech, "sometimes in a cornfield, at others in the forest, and not unfrequently in a distant barn with the horse and ox for auditors." Thus he cultivated that facility and affluence of phrase, that resonance of language, as well as that freedom of gesture, which, aided by a voice of rare power and musical beauty, gave his oratory, even to the days of declining old age, so peculiar a charm.

Only a year and a half after his arrival at Lexington, in April 1799, he had achieved a position sufficiently respected and secure to ask for and to obtain the hand of Lucretia Hart, the daughter of a man of high character and prominent standing in the State. She was not a brilliant, but a very estimable woman, and a most devoted wife to him. She became the mother of eleven children. His prosperity increased rapidly; so that soon he was able to purchase Ashland, an estate of some six hundred

acres near Lexington, which afterward became famous as Henry Clay's home.

Together with the accumulation of worldly goods he laid up a valuable stock of popularity. Indeed, few men ever possessed in greater abundance and completeness those qualities which attract popular regard and affection. A tall stature; not a handsome face, but a pleasing, winning expression; a voice of which some of his. contemporaries say that it was the finest musical instrument they ever heard; an eloquence always melodious, and in turn majestic, fierce, playful, insinuating, irresistibly appealing to all the feelings of human nature, aided by a gesticulation at the same time natural, vivid, large, and powerful; a certain magnificent grandeur of bearing in public action, and an easy familiarity, a neverfailing natural courtesy in private, which even in his intercourse. with the lowliest had nothing of haughty condescension in it; a noble generous heart, making him always ready to volunteer his professional services to poor widows and orphans who needed. aid, to slaves whom he thought entitled to their freedom, to free negroes who were in danger of being illegally returned to bondage, and to persons who were persecuted by the powerful and lawless, in serving whom he sometimes endangered his own safety; a cheery sympathetic nature withal, of exuberant vitality, gay, spirited, always ready to enjoy, and always glad to see others enjoy themselves,- his very faults being those of what was considered good-fellowship in his Kentuckian surroundings; a superior person, appearing indeed immensely superior at times, but making his neighbors feel that he was one of them,- such a man was born to be popular. It has frequently been said that later in life he cultivated his popularity by clever acting, and that his universal courtesy became somewhat artificial. If so, then he acted his own character as it originally was. It is an important fact that his popularity at home, among his neighbors, indeed in the whole State, constantly grew stronger as he grew older; and that the people of Kentucky clung to him with unbounded affection.

CLAY THE STATESMAN

From the 'Life of Henry Clay.' Copyright 1887, by Carl Schurz. Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

UT however incomplete, that record showed how large a place

B Henry Clay had filled in the public affairs of the republic

during almost half a century of its existence. His most potent faculty has left the most imperfect monuments behind it. He was without question the greatest parliamentary orator, and one of the greatest popular speakers, America has ever had. Webster excelled him in breadth of knowledge, in keenness of reasoning, in weight of argument, and in purity of diction. But Clay possessed in a far higher degree the true oratorical temperament, that force of nervous exaltation which makes the orator feel himself, and appear to others, a superior being, and almost irresistibly transfuses his thoughts, his passions, and his will into the mind and heart of the listener. Webster would instruct and convince and elevate, but Clay would overcome his audience. There could scarcely be a more striking proof of his power than the immediate effect we know his speeches to have produced upon those who heard them, compared with the impression of heavy tameness we receive when merely reading the printed reports.

In the elements, too, which make a man a leader, Clay was greatly the superior of Webster, as well as of all other contemporaries excepting Andrew Jackson. He had not only in rare development the faculty of winning the affectionate devotion of men, but his personality imposed itself without an effort so forcibly upon others that they involuntarily looked to him for direction, waited for his decisive word before making up their minds, and not seldom yielded their better judgment to his will-power.

While this made him a very strong leader, he was not a safe guide. The rare brightness of his intellect, and his fertile fancy, served indeed to make himself and others forget his lack of accurate knowledge and studious thought; but these brilliant qualities could not compensate for his deficiency in that prudence and forecast which are required for the successful direction of political forces. His impulses were vehement, and his mind not well fitted for the patient analysis of complicated problems and of difficult political situations. His imagination frequently ran away

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