And that star shall lose the splendor of its blaze, when the cloudcurtain is removed, and a million orbs flash their mingled radiance across its glittering beams. So Daniel Webster, standing as he did, in an age almost unparalleled in the annals of the world, for the brilliancy and the splendor of its talent and its worth; in the profoundness of its philosophers, the purity of its statesmen, the magnificence of its orators-an age which has opened to posterity, as its priceless legacy, the deepest and richest fountains of intellectual light which has ever burst upon the world ;—in a word, an age which has enshrined more of true worth for merited immortality than any other in the records of the past, illumined as it was by the resplendent genius of a galaxy which Clay, and Calhoun, and Adams, and Hamilton, and Hayne, and Wirt, and Ames, and Everett, and Story, enlightened with their counsels, brightened with their wisdom, and electrified with their eloquence. In such an age, the Augustan age of America, Daniel Webster was the Cicero. In such a constellation, the versatility of his talents, the splendor of his genius, the grandeur of his philosophy, and the prophet-like ken of his statesmanship, all congregated in one mighty mind, clothed him with a light, which, while it throws a halo around the genius of his age, shall light up, by the glitter of its reflected beams the darkest page in the unpenned history of the world. His was a great and celebrated name: "Clarum et venerabile nomen gentibus, Et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi.” Daniel Webster was great in all the elements of his character. Great in original mental strength-great in varied and vast acquirements—great in quick and keen perception-great in subtle, logical discrimination-great in force of thought-great in power of intense and rigid analysis—great in rare and beautiful combination of talent-great in ability to make an effort and command his power-great in range and acuteness of vision, he could see like a prophet. Hence, his decision of character-his bold, manly and independent thought-his whole sovereignty of mind. No man, probably, ever lived, who could calculate with such mathematical certainty the separate effect of human actions, or the intricate, combined and complicated influence of every movement, social, political, or personal. He could define and determine the very destiny of influence. With him cause and effect were coeval. He was the very Oracle of Philosophy, high, noble, Godlike Philosophy, not that technical and disputaceous philosophy, which is so filled up with polemic subtleties as to isolate its influence and neutralize its effect on human destiny,—but a practical, utilitarian philosophy, one which weaves its influence into the very warp and woof of human actions, and pervades the whole fabric of life. This is the key to the problem of his greatness, an explanation to the miracle of his power. We are proud of his greatness, because it is American—wholly American! The very impulses of his heart were American. The spirit of American Institutions had infused itself into his life-had become a part of his being. He was proud of his country,—proud of her commerce,—proud of her manufactures,-proud of her agriculture,-proud of her institutions of art and science, and proud of her wealth, her resources and her labor. And all in turn were proud of him. His patriotism was not bounded by the narrow limits of sectional interest, not hemmed in by State lines, nor regulated and biassed by local policies. It was as broad as his country. He knew a North and a South, an East and a West; but he knew them only as one,-"One and Inseparable!" Though differing in name, and separated by territorial barriers, yet warmed to life by the same breath, nourished by the same hand, protected by the same care, reared by the same power, united by a common bond, possessing a common hope, a common aim, a common interest and a common destiny. To preserve that bond, to secure that hope, to protect that interest, and to guard that destiny, was the high mission of his life. Daniel Webster did not belong to New Hampshire, nor to Massachusetts, nor to South Caro lina; but to ALL. His sympathies were as true and as broad as his patriotism, and both kept pace with the ever advancing Termin us of his country's Empire. Politics, like philosophy, has ever had its schools. Like philosophy too, it has had its Platos, its Zenos, and its Aristotles. Daniel Webster was the Plato of that great American school, who have ever advocated "The Indivisible Unity of this Confederacy," and Protection to American Industry, in all her mighty avenues,— Commercial, Manufacturing, Agricultural and Mechanical. He would throw the broad, strong shield of Law around the GENIUS OF LABOR, Consecrated by the GENIUS OF LIBERTY. In this he saw the only response to that sublime interrogation-" What has conferred upon poverty itself a power and a dignity which wealth, and pomp, and royalty, cannot secure?" The GENIUS OF LABOR, consecrated by the GENIUS OF LIBERTY, is the clarion voice echoed from the hamlets in a million dales, and the cities on a thousand plains! The GENIUS OF LABOR, consecrated by the GENIUS OF LIBERTY, is the joyous response of twenty millions of happy and exulting hearts. The GENIUS OF LABOR, consecrated by the GENIUS OF THAT LIBERTY, which has written, "COLUMBIA, HAPPY AND FREE!" as with the finger of Ubiquity, on the pure canvass of ten thousand flags of Commerce-warbles it in the hum of her million spindles, repeats it in the rattle of her myriad looms, chants it in the sound of the ax and the hammer, in her legion workshops and her reddening forges, sounds it in the low bass of the mill wheel, and prolongs it in the united and joyous chorus of her unnumbered avenues of industry. The Genius of Labor has made the son of toil a peasant,— consecrated by the Genius of Liberty, it has made him a Prince! And beneath the resplendent dome of this immense and magnificent Temple of Freedom, whose brilliance reflects the accumulated light of ages, he would see them inseparably bound together! LIBERTY and LABOR! "Live! incomparable pair!" Let thy hands be linked in indissoluble union. Let nothing separate thee! Let these Sister Genii ever walk together, like Mercy and Truth; let them meet each other, like Righteousness and Peace, let them kiss each other. Like Ruth to Naomi-let each say to the other, "Where thou goest I will go, and where thou diest I will die!" In fine, he would present to the world the sublime realization of a Republic, surpassing in grandeur and purity the most brilliant ideals of Pythagoras, or the noblest day dreams of Plato. As a diplomatist, the world has never seen his equal. He wielded the pen of the nation with a power, a dignity and a grandeur, wholly unparalleled in the annals of diplomacy. When clouds and darkness gloomed the heavens,-when the storm had gathered, ready to burst in fury,—when the whole Republic every moment feared the mighty convulsive shock which should mar and shatter the fabric of their hopes,-then, standing on the summit of the trembling Acropolis, the Angel of Deliverance, he threw his burning chain over the cloud and drew the lightning in safety from the heavens ! But it is as Senator in that grand Forum of the Nations congregated wisdom, power and eloquence, we see him towering in all the majesty and supremacy of his greatness-the mighty bulwark of the Nation's hope the august arbiter of the Nation's Destiny. How grand! how sublime! how imperial! how god-like! It was here that he occupied the uncontested throne of human greatness; exhibited himself to the world in all his grand and magnificent proportions-wore a crown studded with gems that an Emperor might covet-won an immortality of envied honor, and covered himself with a glory, brighter and purer and higher than a conqueror has ever been permitted to achieve. Here he proved himself the conservator of Constitutional Liberty, and bequeathed to history an appellation, every letter of which shall glow with grateful undiminished lustre, when the hand that penned it shall be forgotten and the deeds it records shall be buried among the dim legends of tradition. It was in this high arena that he “became enamored of glory, and was admitted to her embrace." Eloquence was his panoply-his very stepping stone to fame. She twined upon his brow a wreath which antiquity might covet LUTI inspired his soul with a Divinity which shaped his lofty destiny, and threw a light upon his track of glory which no fortune could obscure. She bore him up to the Pisgah of Renown, where he sat solitary and alone, the monarch of a realm, whose conqueror wears no bloody laurels-whose fair domain no carnage can despoil, and in whose bright crown no pillaged pearls are set. As a Forensic orator, I know of no age, past or present, which can boast his superior. He united the boldness and energy of the Grecian, and the grandeur and strength of the Roman, to an original, sublime simplicity, which neither Grecian nor Roman possessed. He did not deal in idle declamation and lofty expression; his ideas were not embalmed in rhetorical embellishments, nor buried up in the superfluous tinselry of metaphor and trope. He clothed them for the occasion, and if the crisis demanded, they stood forth naked, in all their native majesty, armed with a power which would not bend to the passion, but only stooped to conquer the reason. Sublime, indeed, it was to see that giant mind when roused in all its grandeur, sweep over the fields of reason and imagination, bearing down all opposition, as with the steady and resistless power of the ocean billows,-to see the eye, the brow, the gesture, the whole man speaking with an utterance toe sublime for language—a logic too lofty for speech. He spoke like a Divinity— "Each conception was a heavenly guest, A ray of immortality,--and stood Starlike, around, until they gathered to a God!" The highest honors America can confer upon her noblest son, can prove but her bankruptcy. She can never rear a colossal monument worthy of his towering genius. He needs no marble column or sculptured urn to perpetuate his memory, or tell his worth to rising generations. Exegit "monumentum aere perennius His fame shall outlive marble, for when time shall efface every |