Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

the Revolution, to vindicate international law, to develop the resources of the country, and transmit the blessings of good government to all who should thereafter walk on American soil.

2. 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 perceptiongreat 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.

3. 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 sciand proud of her wealth, her resources and her labor. And all in turn were proud of him.

ence,

-

4. His patriotism was not bounded by the narrow limits of sectional interest, not hemmed in by state lines, nor regulated and biased 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! "

5. 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!

6. But it is as senator, in that grand forum of the nation's 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 luster, 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."

7. Eloquence was his panoply - his very stepping-stone to fame. She twined upon his brow a wreath which antiquity might covet,-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.

8. As a forsenic 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.

9. 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 too sublime for language, a logic too lofty for speech.

10. His fame shall outlive marble; for when time shall efface every letter from the crumbling stone,— yea, when the marble itself shall dissolve to dust, his memory shall be more deepły encased in the hearts of unborn millions, and from his tomb shall arise a sacred incense which shall garnish the concave of his native sky with the brightest galaxy of posthumous fame, and on its broad arch of studded magnificence shall be braided, in "characters of living light," Daniel Webster! the great Defender of the Constitution!

11. Trite and insipid would it be in me to trace further that mighty genius through his wonderful career. There are his acts, noble, lofty, god-like! They are their own historians!

There are his thoughts, high, heroic, and sublime! They stand alone, unequaled, unalloyed, imperishable. They are the world's legacy. His fame has taken the pinions of ubiquity; it is already enchased deep in the hearts of grateful millions, 66 AND THERE IT WILL REMAIN FOREVER."

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

1. The great American triumvirate is at length ended. Clay, and Calhoun, and Webster! How unlike Crassus,a and Pompey,b and Cæsar! They lived for glory, and power, and empire; and each in turn met the fatal blow of the assassin. The first fell by the mad revenge of a foreign foe. The ambition of the latter was too strong for their friendship. From the gory locks of Pompey, Cæsar turned away and wept, Cæsar, who, in his giant strides for empire, fell beneath the dagger of "the self-appointed executioner of his country's vengeance."

2. How marked the contrast! how wide the difference! Our triumvirs lived for their country,-labored for its institutions,— dedicated the ardor of youth, the power of manhood, and the wisdom of age, to its sublime and sacred service. And when Death, the tardy assassin, approached, with faltering step, the sanctuary of their lives, he found it tenanted by no ambitious and blood-stained conquerors; its arches hung with no escutcheons of heraldic blazonry; its galleries strung with no moldering laurels, or worn and rust-clad mail; its porches flash

A Crassus, (Licinius,) a Roman consul, died 53, B. C. He passed for the greatest orator of his time. b Pompey, (Cneus Pompeius,) styled the Great, born 107, B. C. He was a distinguished Roman general, and a competitor of Cæsar. • Cæsar, see

p. 85.

ing with no falchion lances of chivalric knights. But he found that temple swept and garnished; the aged priests at its altar, clothed in the pure white robes of virtue; its laureled arches twined with amaranth; its galleries hung thick with the trophies of wisdom and eloquence; and its ivied porches glittering with the gems of immortality. The Cæsar of our triumvirate fell by a higher decree than the sword of Brutus, andleft a nation of Antonies to mourn his fall.

LESSON CVI.

PRESS ON.-PARK BENJAMIN.

1. Press on! surmount the rocky steeps,
Climb boldly o'er the torrent's arch:
He fails alone who feebly creeps;

He wins who dares the hero's march.
Be thou a hero! let thy might

Tramp on eternal snows its way,
And, through the ebon walls of night,
Hew down a passage unto day.

2. Press on! if once and twice thy feet
Slip back and stumble, harder try;
From him who never dreads to meet
Danger and death, they're sure to fly
To coward ranks the bullet speeds,
While on their breasts, who never quail,
Gleams, guardian of chivalric deeds,
Bright courage, like a coat of mail.

3. Press on! if Fortune play thee false
To-day, to-morrow she'll be true;

« PředchozíPokračovat »