indolent, those sensations which soften, and allure, and vulgarize, were unknown to him; no domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness reached him; but, aloof from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system to counsel and decide.

"A character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the Treasury trembled at the name of Pitt through all her classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, that she had found defects in this statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victories—but the history of his country, and the calamities of the enemy, answered and refuted her.

"Nor were his political abilities his only talents; his eloquence was an era in the Senate, peculiar and spontaeous, familiarly expressing gigantic sentiments and in-. stinctive wisdom-not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid conflagration of Tully; it resembled, sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding through the painful subtilty of argumentation; nor was he, like Townshend, for ever on the rack of exertion, but rather lightened upon the subject, and reached the point by the flashings of his mind, which, like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be followed.

"Yet he was not always correct or polished; on the contrary, he was sometimes ungrammatical, negligent and unenforcing, for he concealed his art, and was superior to the knack of oratory. Upon many occasions

he abated the vigor of his eloquence; but even then, like the spinning of a cannon ball, he was still alive with fatal, unapproachable activity.

"Upon the whole, there was in this man something that could create, subvert, or reform an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free minds with unbounded authority; something that could establish or overthrow empire, and strike a blow in the world that should resound through its history."

The bard of Eden said that a poet "ought himself to be a true poem;" that is a model of the best and most honorable qualities. We do not hesitate to claim such for the distinguished subject of this sketch. It is not a primary ambition with him to exemplify the words of old Puttenham: "Ye shall know that we may dissemble in earnest as well as in sport, under covert and dark terms, and in learned and apparent speeches, in short sentences, and by long ambage and circumstance of words, and finally, as well when we lie, as when we tell truth." He is not one of those

"Men of that large profession that can speak
To every cause, and things mere contraries,
Till they are hoarse again, yet all be law!

That with most quick agility can turn

And re-return; can make knots and undo them,
Give forked counsel, take provoking gold

On either hand, and put it up."

Mr. Calhoun is a philosophical statesman, whom it is

impossible for those who prize true eloquence, not to admire-whom it is impossible for those who justly ap preciate a generous nature and untarnished worth, not only to respect but love. Perhaps he was never surpassed for the union of metaphysical acumen and oratorical energy. He is firm and yet flexible, having little of that granite style, that scholastic stiffness, which, under the abused name of classical correctness, often exhibit all the chilling repulsiveness that belongs to fictitious solidity and affected pomp,-pedantic antiquarians who have garnered nothing from departed ages but obsolete formulas, and attitudes of stone. Reason is supreme in Mr. Calhoun, but it is not alone; it is associated with imagination, and all the gentler attributes. "There is passion enough, but like the steam in a wellregulated engine, it displays itself not in wreaths and puffs of vapor, but in the rapid and methodical action of the machinery it impels. The mind of the student is heated, not by sparks applied to his prejudices, his tastes, to his sense of the ridiculous, or his sense of the sublime, but by the fire which has been raised by the vehement electric rapidity with which the reasoning process has been conducted." In him, argumentation is limited to no single and hackneyed form, but becomes like the princess of the Arabian tale, sword, eagle, or flame, according to the war it wages, sometimes piercing, sometimes soaring, sometimes illumining, in every useful form, retaining no fixed image of itself, except that of almost supernatural power. No arch is so beautiful as the ancient Roman arch, and, like that of Doric architecture, its beauty arises from its perfect substan

tiability, and the ideas it suggests of strength and usefulness. And such is a fit type of the eloquence of John C. Calhoun.

His features are very striking, invested as they are with thought, expression, sympathy, and passion--the undisguised consciousness of intellectual power. His vocabulary is adequate to express all the refinements of analytical distinctions: his countenance is equally adequate to convey all the minute subtleties of feeling, when the vocal organs are too much oppressed by emotion to speak. He has real greatness, dignity, and force, can inspire a trifle with importance, and wield every forensic implement with effect. Impotency itself becomes strength in the hands of genius, while the greatest abilities are dwarfed into impotency by the touch of mediocrity. The shepherd's staff of Paris would have been a deadly weapon in the grasp of Achilles; but the ash of Peleus could only have fallen unused from the dainty fingers of the perfumed and effeminate archer. Only that majesty is truly imposing which is tempered by emanations of intelligence, adorned with honor and softened into love. Such is the character of Mr. Calhoun, prominent among the

"Men whose great thoughts possess us like a passion
Through every limb and the whole heart; whose words
Haunt us as eagles haunt the mountain air;

Thoughts which command all coming times and minds,
As from a tower a warden."

CHAPTER V.

GEORGE MCDUFFIE,

THE IMPETUOUS.

In the subjoined remarks on the eloquence of Mr. McDuffie, we shall endeavor to depict him, not as he is now, in his infirm and emaciated condition, but as he was in the days of his physical firmness and mental glory. Then, his strong memory, expressive physiognomy, powerful voice, and excited action, gave to him extraordinary weight as a speaker. He broke into the political arena with the fury of a competitor too late for the combat; and, as if to redeem lost time, or to annihilate as soon as possible the antagonist who had summoned him to the fight, he amazed all by the eloquent violence, the unexampled impetuosity, and fierce earnestness with which he smote down his foes. In his best days there was in him an impetuous and concentrated grandeur, a scornful energy, which was rendered exceedingly effective by spontaneous fervor and a comprehensive mind.

"His voice blew like the desolating gust

Which strips the trees, and strews the earth with death.