"And so, there are times when the stately rendition of the masterpieces, even with the greatest tragedians in the role, weary us, and we give glad welcome to Bob Acres with 'his courage oozing out at his finger ends,' or to dear old Rip and 'Here's to yourself and to your family. Jus' one more; this one won't count!'

"The superb acting of Irving in Louis the Eleventh; the grandeur of Forrest with 'Othello's occupation gone'; of McCullough in Macbeth, 'supped full with horrors'; even of Booth with the ever-recurring 'To be, or not to be,' the eternal question, all pass with the occasion. But who can forget the gladsome hours of mingled pathos and mirth with glorious Joe Jefferson, the star! His life was hourly the illustration of the sublime truth:

'There is nothing so kingly as kindness.'
"Upon his tablet might truly be written:
'He never made a brow look dark,

Nor caused a tear but when he died.'

"It is ever an ungracious task to speak in terms of disparagement of a lady. There is one, however, of whom, even in this gracious presence, I am constrained to speak without restraint. To the splendid assemblage before me she was unknown; possibly, however, some veteran upon this platform may have enjoyed her personal acquaintance. I refer to the late Mrs. Macbeth. I would not be misunderstood. My criticism of the conduct of this lady has no reference to her share in the 'taking off' of the venerable Duncan. Even barring her gentle interposition, he would long ere this have 'paid his breath to time and mortal custom.' My cause of complaint is more serious and far-reaching. It will be remembered that her highplaced husband upon a time was the victim of insomnia.

In his wakeful hours, as he tossed upon his couch, he even made the confession, now of record, that

'Glamis hath murdered sleep.'

"He apparently drew no comfort from the reflection that his late benefactor, the murdered king,

'After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.'

"Burdened with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls, the sometime Thane of Cawdor indulged in an apostrophe to ‘the dull god' which has enduring place in all language: 'Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course, Chief nourisher in Life's feast,-'

"At this crucial moment, came the untimely interruption of Mrs. Macbeth, demanding of her husband, 'What do you mean?'

"The spell was broken, and for all time the sublime apostrophe to sleep unfinished. What he might next have said, whose lips can tell? Words possibly to be spoken by every tongue, to be crystallized into every language. Her ill-fated interruption can never be forgiven. The practical lesson to be drawn, one for all the ages, is the peril involved in a wife's untimely interruption of the wise observations and sage reflections of her husband.

"This coming together to-night may justify the remark that satire upon the proverbial caution of candidates in expressing an opinion upon any subject was perhaps never better illustrated than in the incident now to be related. Upon a time many years ago, when approaching the Capitol from Pennsylvania Avenue in company with my friend Proctor Knott, a tall, solemn-appearing individual addressed the latter as follows: 'Mr. Knott, I would like to have your opinion as to which is the best play, "Hamlet" or "Macbeth." With a characteristic expression of countenance, Knott, with deprecatory gesture, slowly replied:

""My friend, don't ask me that question; I am a politician, a candidate for Congress, and my district is about equally

divided; Hamlet has his friends down there, and Macbeth has his, and I will take no part between them.'

"This observation recalls an incident of recent occurrence in a neighboring city. A friend of mine, a minister of the Gospel - you will bear in mind that my friends are not all actors-and this recalls the dilemma of a candidate who, upon inquiry as to the comparative merits of heaven and its antipode, cautiously declined to express an opinion, on the ground that he had friends in both places — this minister, upon being installed in a new pastorate, was almost immediately requested to preach at the funeral of a prominent member of his congregation. Unacquainted as he was with the life of the deceased, he made inquiry as to his last utterances.

"He recalled the last words of Webster, 'I am content'; of John Quincy Adams, 'This is the last of earth'; and even the cheerless exclamation of Mirabeau, 'Let my ears be filled with martial music, crown me with flowers, and thus shall I enter on my eternal sleep.' Charged with these reflections, and hoping to find the nucleus of a funeral sermon, the minister made inquiry of the son of the deceased parishioner, 'What were the last words of your father?' The unexpected reply was, 'Pap he did n't have no last words; mother she just stayed by him till he died.'

"And now, my friends, as the curtain falls, my last words to you:

'Say not Good-night,

But in some brighter clime
Bid me Good-morning!'"

XXIX

THE LOST ART OF ORATORY

DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECHES

HIS PATRIOTIC SERVICE IN
FORMULATING THE ASHBURTON TREATY PRENTISS'S DE-
FENCE OF THE RIGHT OF MISSISSIPPI TO REPRESENTATION
THE EFFECT OF HIS ELOQUENCE ON A MURDERER
PLEA FOR MERCY TO A CLIENT
ENTLY HOPELESS CASE
CAREER OF NAPOLEON

--

HIS

WEBSTER WINS AN APPARINGERSOLL'S REVIEW OF THE HON. ISAAC N. PHILLIPS'S EULOGY UPON ABRAHAM LINCOLN SENATOR INGALLS'S TRIBUTE TO A SINGLE ELOQUENT SENTENCE FROM SPEECH OF NOMINATION FOR WILLIAM

A

COLLEAGUE

EDWARD EVERETT

J. BRYAN MR. BRYAN'S ELOQUENCE CLOSING SENTENCES OF HIS PRINCE OF PEACE."

Ο

NE of the most cultured and entertaining gentlemen I have ever known was the late Gardner Hubbard.

His

last years were spent quietly in Washington, but earlier in life he was an active member of the Massachusetts bar.

In my conversations with him he related many interesting incidents of Daniel Webster, with whom he was well acquainted. In the early professional life of Hubbard, Mr. Webster was still at the bar; his speech for the prosecution in the memorable Knapp murder trial has been read with profound interest by three generations of lawyers. As a powerful and eloquent discussion of circumstantial evidence, in all its phases, it scarcely has a parallel; quotations from it have found their way into all languages. How startling his description of the stealthy tread of the assassin upon his victim! We seem to stand in the very presence of murder itself:

"Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, and the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door

of the chamber. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a struggle, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe.”

The speech throughout shows Webster to have been the perfect master of the human heart, - of its manifold and mysterious workings. What picture could be more vivid than this?

"Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which pierces through all disguises and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that murder will out. True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant."

The closing sentences of this speech — which resulted in the conviction and execution of the prisoner - will endure in our literature unsurpassed as an inspiration to duty:

"There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say, 'The darkness shall cover us,' in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated,