EULOGY OF MR. HUNTER.

MR. HUNTER then addressed the Senate:

Mr. PRESIDENT-We have heard, with deep sensibility, what has just fallen from the Senators who have preceded me. We have heard, sir, the voice of Kentucky--and, upon this occasion, she had a right to speak-in mingled accents of pride and sorrow; for it has rarely fallen to the lot of any State to lament the loss of such a son. But, Virginia, too, is entitled to her place in this procession; for she can not be supposed to be unmindful of the tie which bound her to the dead. When the earth opens to receive the mortal part which she gave to man, it is then that affection is eager to bury in its bosom every recollection but those of love and kindness. And, sir, when the last sensible tie is about to be severed, it is then that we look with anxious interest to the deeds of the life, and to the emanations of the heart and the mind, for those more enduring monuments which are the creations of an immortal nature.

This land,

In this instance, we can be at no loss for these. sir, is full of the monuments of his genius. His memory is as imperishable as American History itself, for he was one of those who made it. Sir, he belonged to that marked class who are the men of their century; for it was his rare good fortune not only to have been endowed with the capacity to do great things, but to have enjoyed the opportunities of achieving them. I know, sir, it has been said and deplored, that he wanted some of the advantages of an early education; but it, perhaps, has not been remembered that, in many respects, he enjoyed such opportunities for mental training as can rarely fall to the lot of man.

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had not a chance to learn as much from books, but he had such opportunities of learning from men as few have ever enjoyed. Sir, it is to be remembered that he was reared at a time when there was a state of society in the Commonwealth which gave him birth, such as has never been seen there before nor since. It was his early privilege to see how justice was administered by a Pendleton and a Wythe, with the last of whom he was in the daily habit of familiar intercourse. He had constant opportunities to observe how forensic questions were managed by a Marshall and a Wickham. He was old enough, too, to have heard and to have appreciated the eloquence of a Patrick Henry, and of George Keith Taylor. In short, sir, he lived in a society in which the examples of a Jefferson, and a Madison, and a Monroe, were living influences, and on which the setting sun of a Washington cast the mild effulgence of its departing rays.

He was trained, too, as has been well said by the Senator from Michigan [Mr. CASS], at a period when the recent Revolutionary struggle had given a more elevated tone to patriotism, and imparted a higher cast to public feeling and to public character. Such lessons were worth, perhaps, more to him than the whole encyclopedia of scholastic learning. Not only were the circumstances of his early training favorable to the development of his genius, but the theater upon which he was thrown was eminently propitious for its exercise. The circumstances of the early settlement of Kentucky, the generous, daring, and reckless character of the people-all fitted it to be the theater for the display of those commanding qualities of heart and mind which he so eminently possessed. There can be little doubt but that those people, and their chosen leader, exercised a mutual influence upon each other; and no one can be surprised that, with his brave spirit and commanding eloquence, and fascinating address, he should have led not only there but elsewhere.

I did not know him, Mr. PRESIDENT, as you did, in the freshness of his prime, or in the full maturity of his manhood. I did not hear him, sir, as you have heard him, when his voice roused the spirit of his countrymen for war-when he cheered the drooping, when he rallied the doubting, through all the

vicissitudes of a long and doubtful contest. I have never seen him, sir, when, from the hight of the Chair, he ruled the House of Representatives by the energy of his will, or when upon the level of the floor he exercised a control almost as absolute, by the mastery of his intellect. When I first knew him, his sun had a little passed its zenith. The effacing hand of time had just begun to touch the lineaments of his manhood. But yet, sir, I saw enough of him to be able to realize what he might have been in the prime of his strength, and in the full vigor of his maturity. I saw him, sir, as you did, when he led the "opposition" during the administration of Mr. Van Buren. I had daily opportunities of witnessing the exhibition of his powers during the extra session under Mr. Tyler's administration. And I saw, as we all saw, in a recent contest, the exhibition of power on his part, which was most marvelous in one of his years.

Mr. PRESIDENT, he may not have had as much of analytic skill as some others, in dissecting a subject. It may be, perhaps, that he did not seek to look quite so far ahead as some who have been most distinguished for political forecast. But it may be truly said of Mr. CLAY, that he was no exaggerator. He looked at events through neither end of the telescope, but surveyed them with the natural and the naked eye. He had the capacity of seeing things as the people saw them, and of feeling things as the people felt them. He had, sir, beyond any other man whom I have ever seen, the true mesmeric touch of the orator-the rare art of transferring his impulses to others. Thoughts, feelings, emotions, came from the ready mold of his genius, radiant and glowing, and communicated their own warmth to every heart which received them. His, too, was the power of wielding the higher and intenser forms of passion with a majesty and an ease which none but the great masters of the human heart can ever employ. It was his rare good fortune to have been one of those who form, as it were, a sensible link, a living tradition, which connects one age with another, and through which one generation speaks its thoughts and feelings, and appeals to another. And, unfortunate is it for a country, when it ceases to possess such men, for it is to them that we

chiefly owe the capacity to maintain the unity of the great Epos of human history, and preserve the consistency of political action.

Sir, it may be said the grave is still new-made which covers the mortal remains of one of those great men who have been taken from our midst, and the earth is soon to open to receive another. I know not whether it can be said to be a matter of lamentation, so far as the dead are concerned, that the thread of this life has been clipped when once it has been fully spun. They escape the infirmities of age, and they leave an imperishable name behind them. The loss, sir, is not theirs, but ours; and a loss the more to be lamented, that we see none to fill the places thus made vacant on the stage of public affairs. But it may be well for us, who have much more cause to mourn and to lament such deaths, to pause amid the business of life for the purpose of contemplating the spectacle before us, and of drawing the moral from the passing event. It is when death seizes for its victims those who are, by "a head and shoulders, taller than all the rest," that we feel most deeply the uncertainty of human affairs, and that "the glories of our mortal state are shadows, not substantial things." It is, sir, in such instances as the present that we can best study, by the light of example, the true objects of life, and the wisest ends of human pursuit.

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EULOGY OF MR. HALE.

MB. HALE then addressed the Senate:

Mr. PRESIDENT-I hope I shall not be considered obtrusive, if on this occasion for a brief moment, I mingle my humble voice with those that, with an ability that I shall neither attempt nor hope to equal, have sought to do justice to the worth and memory of the deceased, and at the same time appropriately to minister to the sympathies and sorrows of a stricken people. Sir, it is the teaching of inspiration that "no man liveth and no man dieth unto himself."

There is a lesson taught no less in the death than in the life of every man-eminently so in the case of one who has filled a large space and occupied a distinguished position in the thoughts and regard of his fellow-men. Particularly instructive at this time is the event which we now deplore, although the circumstances attending his decease are such as are calculated to assuage rather than aggravate the grief which it must necessarily cause. His time had fully come. The three score and ten marking the ordinary period of human life had for some years been passed, and, full of years and of honors, he has gone to his rest. And now, when the nation is marshaling itself for the contest which is to decide "who shall be greatest," as if to chasten our ambition, to restrain and subdue the violence of passion, to moderate our desires and elevate our hopes, we have the spectacle of one who, by the force of his intellect and the energy of his own purpose, had achieved a reputation which the highest official honors of the Republic might have illustrated, but could not have enhanced, laid low in death-as if at the