MONROE. 17 sions are formed. Judgment appears to have been his prominent intellectual feature ; and in the ex- amination of any object, he seldom suffered it to be darkened by prejudice, or warped by passion. The greater part of his life has been devoted to the business of government. He has served his country at home and abroad ; and has filled various official stations with general approbation. He was elevated to the chief magistracy at a period most propitious to his fame, and took the reins of Go- Ternment into his hands by the almost unanimous consent of the American people, who had, for some time, regarded him as the only surviving branch of the Revolutionary stock, to which they owed so large a debt of gratitude. The nation had just emerged from a short but glorious war ; the ebulli- tions of party feeling and political rancor had begun to subside, and federalism and democracy united in hailing him as their common friend, and the friend of his country. Mr. M. was less affluent than either of his predecessors. From the various employments he has held under the Government, he has been unable to realize more than a bare support for his family, and has retired into the shades of private life without being enriched by the favors of his country. Towards the close of his official career, he seems to have become timid, and dependant on those by whom he was surrounded. This might have been an excess of caution, but it indicated some want of energy and firmness, and 18 J. Q. ADAMS. exhibited the appearance of .vascillation and doubt, when promptness and decision were required. Mr. Monroe has never been blessed with male issue, and what is remarkable, out of the five Pre- eidents who have served since the organization of this Government, but one has had sons. I mention this merely as a curious circumstance. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Mr. John Q,. Adams is the son of the second President of the United States, and a man of great talent, information, and industry. Mr. Monroe, after his elevation to the Presidential Chair, is said to have discovered much sagacity in the selection of his cabinet council or executive officers. These are the Secretaries of State, War, Treasury, Navy, and Attorney General ; all of whom, with one ex- ception, possess the rare gifts of nature in no ordi- nary degree, and who have already rendered them- selves conspicuous in the walks of literature, the fields of eloquence, and on the theatre of politics. Mr. Adams has distinguished himself in the paths of literature and politics. The early part of his life seems to have been devoted to the acquisi- tion of general knowledge, which has been subse- quently augmented by travel, observation, and reflection. He was once attached to the party by whom his fether was chosen President,, but very J. Q. ADAMS. 19 soon after the republican administration came into power, he was ifiduced to change his opinions, and to abandon what might have been the prejudices of education, for principles which 1 have no doubt he conceived to be more consonant to his feelings, and perhaps more consistent with his ideas of liberty and independence. Whatever may be said as to the motive which produced the change, I have no hesitation in thinking that it originated entirely from principle, and that his feelings and senti- ments w^re more in unison with the party he joined, than the one he had abandoned. The con- duct he has since pursued has evinced the integrity of his motives, and the sincerity of his attachment to his party and his country ; and the confidence which that country has reposed in him, is an evi- dence that she also has been influenced by a simi- lar opinion. Mr. Adams is in person short, thick, and fat, resembling a little in his face the portrait of his father which you have seen, and neither very agree- able nor very repulsive; his head is somewhat bald, and his eye watery, but black and penetrating. He IS between fifty and sixty years of age, and seems to be vigorous and healthy. He is regular in his habits, and moral and temperate in his life. To great talent, he unites unceasing industry and perseverance, and an uncommon facility in the transaction of business. Though he has read much, and drank " deep of the Pierian spring," he seems not to solicit the character which literature bestows; and, 20 J. Q. ADAMS. what will seem extraordinary to you, chooses rather to be ranked among men of business than among men of science. Mr. Adams is extremely plain and republican, both in his manners and dress, and labors to avoid alike the foolery of *' fantastic fashion," on the one hand, and the vulgar costume of affected eccen- tricity on the other. He is charitable, though for- mal, and possessing great warmth and ardor of feeling under an exterior of apparent coldness. The general accuracy of his judgment, and the recti- tude of his moral principle, always lead him to do what is right ; and if he err, his errors proceed more from the want of correct information, than from any improper bias, or any fixed design to do what is wrong. He is evidently well skilled in the rhetorical art, on which he has lectured, and in which he displays considerable research and ability. I should infer that his speeches while he was a mem- ber of the Senate were more correct and polished, if they were not more eloquent, than those of his coadjutors in legislation. Yet, after all, there is something more required to complete an orator, than the mere knowledge and practice of those principles which rhetoricians have established as the ground work of this art. If there be an absence of that peculiar kind of talent, or want of that peculiar enthusiasm, which propels the mind to embrace with ardor and delight the profession of an orator, the most intimate and accurate know- » J. Q. ADAMS. *^l ledge, or tiie most perfect dexterity in the use of the " rhetorician's tools," will be inadequate to produce excellence. And, however skilfully a man may round his periods and balance his sentences, select his phrases or direct their harmony ; without that ethereal and incomprehensible power which gives animation to matter, sweeps through nature like the lightning of Heaven, and creates, and em- bodies, and unfolds — he will still be cold, and tame, and spiritless ; correct indeed, but frigid, regular, but insensible. In the higher walks of eloquence, where the passions are excited and acted on, and the whole, mind wrought up to a species of phrenzy by weak- ening the dominion of reason, Mr. Adams did not excel ; but in close argumentation, in logical ana- lysis, in amplification and regular disposition, he is said to have been inferior to none. Mr. Adams's prominent inclination, however, appears to be political. To be eminent as a states- man is his predominant ambition ; and I doubt not he will attain this character from the nature of his mind and the tenor of his studies. Much indeed is required to form a statesman. He must have a mind that will enable him, in some degree, to re- move the veil of futurity; to compare the present with the past ; to yield to the government of reason, and be uninfluenced by the attractions of passion. '' He must comprehend," says Mirabeau,* " all the defects of our social existence, discern the degree of * Gallery of Portraits, by Mirabeau. 3 '^^2 J. Q. ADAMS. improvement of which we are susceptible, calculate the advantages that result from the possession of liberty, estimate the danger of confusion and tu- mult, study the art of preparing men for felicity, and conduct them towards perfection, by the plainest and most obvious paths. His survey must extend beyond ordinary limits; he must examine climates, deliberate on circumstances, and yield to events without suffering them to master him." To extensive research and general knowledge, Mr. A. adds great powers of observation. His residence as Minister at the courts of St. James and St. Petersburg, has enlarged his stock of facts, and rendered his information more correct and practical. He is not one of those statesmen who theorise when experience can afford its aid, and avoid the application of abstract principles, when plainer and more obvious ones are calculated to subserve the object in view. He is sedate, circum- spect, and cautious; reserved, but not distant; grave, but not repulsive. He receives, but seldom communicates, and discerns with great quickness, motives however latent, and intentions however concealed by the contortions of cunning, or the drapery of hypocrisy. This penetration seems to be intuitive and natural, and not the result of a mere acquaintance with men, or a long and inti- mate association with the different classes of society. It is the operation of native judgment, and not the exercise of acquired cunning. This excellence is common to the people of the East ; but whether it J. Q. ADAMS. 2!i originates from education, or from any peculiar organization of the physical powers, 1 am not suf- ficiently master of the theory of Ilelvetius and God- win to determine. Mr. Adams, it strikes me, has more capacity than genius ; he can comprehend better than he can invent ; and execute almost as rapidly as he can design. Though as a public minister, he had no great opportunity to display his powers, yet, from the little he exhibited, a judgment may be formed of his ability in that character. He has all the pene- tration, shrewdness, and perseverance, necessary to constitute an able diplomatist, united with the capacity to perceive, and the eloquence to enforce, what will conduce to the welfare and interests of his country.* Mr. Adams is a good writer. He evinces much skill and proficiency in the art of composition, with which he is evidently well acquainted ; and as a controvertist no one can surpass him in keenness, dexterity, and power. In short, there is no public character in tlie United States, that has more in- tellectual power, the moral inclination to be more useful, or that will labor with greater assiduity to discharge the important duties he owes to himself and to the nation. While he occupied the Presidential chair, he discovered the depth, coolness, penetration, and ability of the statesman ; bending his whole mind to those great measures which must form the basis * See his correspondence with Don Onis, the Spanish Minister. 24 J. Q. ADAMS. of the glory and welfare of his country, and devot- ing its energies to the promotion of that enlight- ened and liberal policy which will alone give pros- perity and happiness to the American people. Sur- rounded as he was by men of genius, intelligence, and experience, and stimulated by a high sense of duty, and animated by the warm impulse of patri- otism, his administration of the Government will be regarded by posterity as one that will rank, in wisdom, efficiency, and glory, with any that the pen of the Historian of America may yet have to record. Mr. Adams has now likewise passed off the stage of public life, and withdrawn into the shades of re- tirementjWhere, with the consciousness of rectitude, and the lofty conviction that he has done his duty to his country and to society, he will enjoy more unmin- gled and durable happiness than when surrounded by the trappings of power, and wielding all the pa- tronage of Government. He has now become the subject of history ; and posterity will, upon a dis- passionate review of his character and actions, render him that justice which some of his contem- poraries seem inclined to withhold. Merit is not always the criterion of popular approbation in re- publics, more than in monarchies; and the example of Mr, Adams will show, that Aristides was not the only one that has been banished for being just. In the fury of party conflicts, the mind is apt to be warped by prejudice, or blinded by passion ; and the most gifted and worthy is often, in the struggle CRAWFORD. 25 for ascendancy, cast aside to make way for the idol of the moment. It is not till after lime has assuaged the bitterness of feeling, or softened down the rancor of party animosity, that the mind can release itself from the infatuation which has warp- ed, or the blindness which has darkened it. Then, and only then, will the errors of judgment be per- ceived and acknowledged, and the award rendered to worth, virtue, and talent, which they have me- rited. Of Mr. Adams it may be truly said, in the language of the French poet : Etre vrai, juste, bon, c'est son systeme unique, Humble dans le bonheur, grand dans I'adversite, Dans la seule vertu trouvant Ja volupte. Destouches. WILLIAM H. CRAWFORD.* Mr. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, is the same gentleman to whom you were introduced at Paris, and though he possesses great dignity, wants the graceful elegance of manners of which I have previously spoken. What he was thought of in France I cannot inform you ; but it is impossible he could have succeeded amidst the polite and splendid frippery of the Parisian circles — the court- ly nonsense and graceful and elegant nonchalance of a French politician, must have been strikingly and ludicrously contrasted by the republican sim- plicity and awkward movements of the Americaiii * From Letters from Washington. 3* ^6 CRAWFORD. Minister. Mr. Crawford has risen from obscurity to the situation he now holds, by the force of native genius. It appears he was employed in his early life in an occupation which is now unfortunately too much degraded, but which ought to be more highly esteemed. I mean that of " teaching the young idea how to shoot." His next career was at the bar, at which he rapidly acquired both emolu- ment and reputation. The excellence of his under- standing, and the superiority of his intellect, soon brought him into public life, where he displayed to advantage those powers with which nature had so eminently gifted him. He became Ambassador to France, and while in that capacity, was appointed Secretary of War, and lastly chosen Minister of Finance. In all these various situations, he has never failed to discover the same powers and ener- gies of mind, and the same acuteness and depth of penetration : he has literally the mens sana in cor- porc sano, and the vigorous and athletic appearance of his body serves as an unerring index to the force and energy of his intellect. It is invidious to make comparisons; but it is by comparisons we are often enabled to arrive at truth. I will therefore endea- vor to draw a parallel between two of the gentlemen of whom I have been speaking. Mr. Monroe and Mr. Crawford are alike distinguished by integrity of understanding ; but the latter has more quickness, and perhaps equal range of mind. In the speci- mens of parliamentary eloquence, which are, for the most part, preserved here only in the ephemeral CRAWFORD. 27 and fugitive columns of newspapers, and whicli I have takep tlie trouble to examine for my own amusement, Mr. Crawford evinces some vigor of imagination, and occasionally some brilliancy of thought.* Mr. Monroe's compositions display only the soundness of his judgment, and the excellence of his sense, without any of the frippery and fas- tooning of rhetoric, or the meretricious and gaudy drapery of imagination. Mr. Monroe had more practical knowledge, but was less prompt in his decisions. Mr. Crawford had greater powers of invention, but was less skilful in combination. Mr. Monroe had more experience, but Mr. Crawford, from a better memory and a superior quickness of comprehension, had treasured up as many results, and acquired as many facts. Mr. Monroe's know- ledge of mankind was more correct and more practical, but he wanted Mr. Crawford's energy to render it extensively useful. In political shrewd- ness and moral integrity, they were supposed to be nearly equal. With this brief parallel, I shall dis- miss these gentlemen, and proceed, at your desire, to sketch the portraits of the Secretary of War and the Attorney General. * Since the above was written, Messrs. Gales «Jb Seaton have published three volumes of Congressional Debate?. ''^ CALHOUN. JOHN C. CALHOUN. Mr. Calhoun* is a young man of about thirty-five years of age : his form is above the middle size, but meagre, bony, and slender : his face wants beauty, but his eye possesses all the brilliancy and fire of genius. He is a native of the South, and has, I understand, been educated for the bar. It is not my intention to enter into any abstract speculations on the influence of climate upon the human intellect. On this subject much ingenuity and learning have been wasted, and the visionary theories of Buffon, Raynal, &.c. have been laid aside, as the lumber of the schools, or the idle sportings of fancy ; but it has always appeared to me that some climates are more propitious to genius, and the rapid develop- ment of the intellectual powers, than others. The soft and voluptuous climate of Ionia, for example, is better adapted to nourish and expand the genius of man, than the inclement blasts and " thick Boe- tian air" of Northern latitudes? Be this, however, as it may; whether Mr. Calhoun be indebted to climate, to nature, or to circumstances, for the powers he possesses, he is unquestionably an ex- traordnary young man. He started up, on the the- atre of legislation, a political Roscius, and astonish- ed the veterans around him by the power of his mind, and the singularity and resistlessness of his eloquence. He has the ingenuity without the so- * Written in 1817-'18. CALHOUN. -9 phistry of Oodwin, to whose mind I think his bears some analogy.* On all subjects, whether abstract or ordinary, whether political or moral, he thinks with a rapidity that no difficulties can resist, and with an originality that never fails to delight. He has the brilliancy t without the ornament of Burke, the fire without the literature of Pitt. With an invention which never abandons him, and whose fertility astonishes, he seems to loathe the parade of rhetoric, and the glitter and decorations of art. His style of eloquence is peculiar and extraordina- ry ; without any apparent pageantry of imagination, or any of the flower-woven beauties of language, he seizes on the mind, which, like the unfortunate bird under the influence of fascination, becomes passive and obedient to the power it neither can nor wishes to resist. In the " tempest and whirl- wind" of his eloquence, his argumentation is so rapid, his thoughts are so novel, and his conclu- sions so unexpected, yet apparently correct, that you can neither anticipate nor think ; the attention is riveted, and the mind occupied alone with the sub- ject which he is handling, and it is not until the fascination of his manner has subsided that you feel inclined to reason, or become capable of detecting his errors. Even then, his witchery lingers on the imagination, and casts a veil over the judgment which it cannot immediately remove, and which, * Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Godwin are alike conspicuous for what I call ingenuity, as contradistinguished from imagina- tion. t Brilliancy is here appUed to genius. 3^ CALHOUN. in opposition to the strongest efforts, tends to ob- scure its perceptions, and to weaken its energies. I have heard gentlemen who were associated with him declare, that when he spoke, they were, for some time after he had closed, unjtble to remove the spell by which they were bound ; and that even by condensing almost to obscurity, they could not answer the whole of his numerous arguments and ingenious deductions, without occupying too much of the time of the House. And yet, he has never been known to attempt but one rhetorical flourish, and in that he unfortunately failed. His oratorical style has none of the embellishments of art, or the witcheries of fancy ; but is, almost to dryness, plain, unadorned, and concise. He has nothing in him poetical ; his creations are not those of imagination, in which I think he is somewhat deficient. You never see him employed in weaving garlands, or strewing flowers on your path ; he never strives to " lap in Elysium," or to delight in the rainbow co- lors and eractic blaze of fancy. His light is the light of reason, clear, unrefracted and luminous. Between oratory and poetry, there is, I conceive, an essential difference. Conviction is the object of the orator, and pleasure that of the poet. The powers of mind necessary to produce those differ- ent results are not the same : reason governs the one, and imagination the other. The former is confined to argument and truth, the latter to image- ry and sentiment. The orator analyzes and rea- CALHOUN. 31 ; sons, compares and deduces ; the poet combines and imitates : ^' His eye in a fine phrenzy rollina;, Doth glance from Heaven to earth, from earth to Heaven," and embodies forth the forms of things unknown. The orator must exist in the living worhl ; the poet may live in a world of his own creation. Memory and judgment are the powers employed by the for- mer; imagination and invention, those exercised by the latter. In moving the heart and exciting the passions, they differ only in the means employed to produce this effect ; and in this alone they approx- imate. The examples are numerous to establish the correctness of these positions. Cicero was a great orator, but a bad poet ; Pope was a great poet, but a bad orator. In short, oratory and po- etry have never been united in one individual. But, to return. With all the excellencies I have men- tioned, Mr. Calhoun has some great faults ; " z7 ?i' apparticnty^ says the duke de la Rochefocault, " qu'aux grands komtnes d'avoir desgrands defauts.^^ He wants, I think, consistency and perseverance of mind, and seems incapable of long continued and patient investigation. What he does not see at the first examination, he seldom takes pains to search for ; but still the lightning glance of his mind, and the rapidity with which he arralyzes, never fails to furnish him with all that may be ne- cessary for his immediate purposes. In his legis- lative career, which, though short, was uncommon- ly brilliant, his love of novelty, and his apparent ^2 CALHOUN. solicitude to astonish were so great, that he has oc- casionally been known to attempt to realize the dreams of political visionaries, and to propose schemes which he seemed to offer merely for the purpose of displaying the affluence and fertility of his mind. Youth, and the necessary want of ex- perience, may be plead as an apology for these eccentricities of conduct, and apparent aberrations. The wisdom of age, and a more correct and ex- tensive acquaintance with men and things, will doubtless allay the ardor of his mind, and lessen the fervor of his temperament. Like our eccentric countryman, Darwin, he is capable of broaching new theories, but wants the persevering investigation, tension of thought, and patience of judgment, necessary to bring them to maturity, or to render them beneficial. Men like these arc often both very serviceable and injurious to society. In such a body as the Congress of the United States, where the concentrated wisdom of the nation is assembled, such a man's sphere of usefulness cannot be correctly ascertained or de- fined. Amidst the variety of schemes his ingenu- ity suggests, and his restless emulation urges him to propose, many will no doubt be found to be practicable ; and though he cannot himself pause to mature them, the mass of mind by which he is surrounded, and on which he blazes, will reduce them to shape, and give to his ingenious novelties *' a local habitation and a name." In short, Mr. Calhoun is one of those beings whom you can only CALHOUN. 3'J trace like the comet, by the light which he casts upon his path, or the blaze whicli he leaves in his train. He now fills the office of Vice President of the United States, to which he has been elevated by the voice of his countrymen, and which he has held for nearly six years. This should gratify the ambition of so young a man ; but ambition, when once fired, is not easily controlled or repressed; and the mind bounds forward in its desires, till the goal is attained which has been so long held in contemplation. The course pursued by Mr. Cal- houn is not one, however, which is likely to crown his hopes with success, or to raise him to that rank to which his ambition has so long aspired. What- ever may be his genius, or the versatility and extent of his talents, he has, as yet, done nothing in the walks of public life, which would entitle him to the high station at which he aims. His principles, so far as they have been developed , are not such as would harmonize with those of the great majority of his countrymen, and his political views do not seem calculated to promote the true interests of his country. If these be the result of deliberate reflection, and are to form the basis of his future conduct, he may yet have cause to lament his errors, and be constrained to admit that restless ambition does not constitute a statesman, and that success- ful intrigue does not indicate a man qualified to wield the destinies of a nation. The ruler of a free people, should be one in whom a cool and dis- criminating judgment is united to great patriotism 4 34 CLAY. and virtue ; one whose mind is too elevated and expanded to dabble in the mire of party intrigue, or lose itself in the mazes of political contrivance; one who can proudly say — I primi oggetti Sian de vostri pensieri L'onor, la Patria, e quel dovere a cui Vi chiameran gli Dei. — Metes. Brilliancy may dazzle and delight, but it may also be worthless and deceptive. The meteor is sometimes mistaken for a star, and it often hap- pens — Che tra in fiori, e le fronde Pur Ig serpe si asconde, e s'aggira. HENRY CLAY.* I shall now introduce you to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Clay, who is a delegate from Kentucky, and who not long ago flourished, you will recollect, as one of the Ame- rican commissioners at Ghent. He is a tall, thin, and not very musculous man ; his gate is stately, but swinging, and his countenance strikingly indi- cative of genius. As an orator, Mr. Clay stands deservedly high in the estimation of his country- men. His eloquence is impetuous and vehement ; it rolls like a torrent, but like a torrent which is * Written principally in 1817. CLAY. 35 sometimes irregular and occasionally obstructed ; though there is a want of rapidity awd fluency in his elocution, yet he has a great deal of fire and vigor iM his expression. When he speaks, he is full of animation and earnestness, his face bright- ens, his eye beams with additional lustre, and his whole figure indicates that he is entirely occupied with the subject on which his eloquence is employ- ed. Mr. Clay does not seem to have studied rhe- toric as an art, or to have paid much attention to those artificial divisions and rhetorical graces and ornaments, on which the orators of antiquity so strongly insist. Indeed, oratory, as an art, is but seldom studied in this country. Public speakers here trust almost entirely to the efficacy of their own native powers for success, in the different fields of eloquence, and seek not after the extrinsic embellishments and facilities of art. It is but rarely that they unite the Attic and Rhodian manner, \and still more rarely that they devote their atten- tion to the acquisition of those accomplishments which were, in the refined ages of Greece and Rome, considered as so essential to the completion of an orator Mr. Clay, however, is one the most eloquent speakers of this country, and never fails to produce pleasure as well as conviction. His mind is so organized, that he overcomes the diffi- culties of the most abstruse and complicated sub- jects, apparently without the toil of investigation or the labor of research. It is rich, and active, and rapid, grasping at one glance connexions the most m CLAY. tlistant, and consequences the most remote, and breaking down with infinite facility the trammels of error, and the cobwebs of sophistry. When he rises to speak, he always commands attention, and almost always satisfies the mind on which his elo- quence is intended to operate. The fine intona- tions of his voice, his commanding person and appropriate action, give a powerful effect to all he says. In these physical graces, he has few equals among his contemporaries. Mr. Clay's mind is too affluent and vigorous to indulge in mere declama- tion, or to seek after sparkling conceits or tinsel ornaments ; and hence, we find in his parliament- ary and forensic efforts no labored attempts at effect — nothing like clap-traps — no passages suited for school-boy recitations — no splendid, but idle pic- tures of imagination, intended merely to please without satisfying the mind. They present a solid and unshaken column of argument — a constant series of logical deductions — a resistless and con- centrated mass of thought, based on the immutable principles of truth, and irradiated by the blaze of genius. They exhibit the unbroken energies of an intellect in its vigorous maturity, throwing aside the darkness of error, casting its brilliant cor- ruscations on the path along which it rushes, and penetrating, with the power of intuition, the secret and hidden motives of human action. The warmth and fervor of his feelings, and the natural impetu- osity of his character, do not often lead him to the adoption of opinions which are inconsistent with CLAY. ^' the dictates of true policy and wisdom. In all he does he is propelled by a love of country ; and though solicitous of distinction, he wishes to attain the pinnacle of greatness without infringing the liberties, or marring the prosperity of that land of which it seems to be his glory to be a native. The prominent traits of Mr. Clay's mind are, quickness, penetration and acuteness ; a fertile in- vention, discriminating judgment, and good memo- ry. His attention does not seem to have been much devoted to literary or scientific pursuits, unconnect- ed with his profession ; but, fertile in resources, and abounding in expedients, he is seldom at a loss, and if he is not at all times able to amplify and embellish, he never fails to do justice to the subject which has called forth his eloquence. In short, Mr. Clay has been gifted by nature with great intellectual superiority, which will always give him a decided influence in whatever sphere it may be his destiny to revolve. Mr. Clay's manners are plain and easy ; he has nothing in him of that reserve which checks con- fidence, and which some politicians assume ; his views of mankind are enlarged and liberal, and his conduct as a politician and a statesman has beea marked with the same enlarged and liberal policy. His views are the views of a statesman, profound, expansive, and luminous. He has applied his mind with intensity to the great sources of national prosperity and happiness ; and though, in bringing item into action, and applying them to the condi- 4 * 38 CLAY. tion of his country, he has been opposed by preju- dice and resisted by ignorance, the convictions of his judgment and the ardor of his patriotism have led him to persevere, till the accomplishment of his labors is no longer visionary or distant. The debt of gratitude which his country owes him, pos- terity will be able to appreciate. The result of his wisdom will then be unfolded, and the countless blessings which will flow from it will be felt and enjoyed by millions yet unborn. Though educated for the bar, and obliged to practise law as a pro- fession, nature seems to have intended him for a statesman. With great genius, he is yet a man of business ; par negotiis neque supra erat. Though occupied with subjects almost co-extensive in im- portance with the universe, he still descends to the little details of official duty, and the ordinary busi- ness of the world. He is prompt in his decisions, and active and fearless in the execution of his de- signs ; stooping to no meanness, and retarded by no dread of consequences, in the performance of what he feels to be his duty, or what he conceives will conduce to the interests of his country ; ardent in his attachments, and although open, yet generous in his enmities. He possesses a nobleness of sen- timent, a loftiness of soul, and a grandeur of inten- tion, which mingle in whatever he says or whatever he does, and which give him, in all his connexions with society, an influence and standing that it is difiicult to resist. His motto always has been — La patria e un Nume A f\n sacrificar tutto e permesso. Metes. CLAY. 39 He is precisely the man I should select to exhibit to the European world as a fine specimen of the American character ; bold, enterprising, independ- ent and persevering, with a genius that shrinks at no impediments, and a mind that quails at the as- pect of no danger. Emerging from obscurity and indigence, and rising by rapid gradations to the rank of an orator, legislator, minister and states- man, he is the same in all, and in all displays that versatility and power which are the characteristics of genius. St. Pierre has said that genius is the art of observation ; but it requires genius to observe. Mr. Clay has been a close and accurate observer of men and things, and has suffered nothing to es- cape him which could add to the inexhaustible re- sources of his mind. His knowledge of men has not been derived from books, but from a long in- tercourse with the living world, in which he has mingled as much from necessity as choice. The various scenes through which he has passed, has enabled him to see and study the diversified char- acter of his species, and to comprehend the influ- ences under which they act, and the motives and principles by which they are governed. His de- votion to the cause of liberty has been manifested in every act of his life. The spread of universal freedom seems to be the first and strongest impulse of his heart, and whether she flaps her wings over the Cordilleras of America, or reposes on the clas- sic plains or delicious valleys of Greece, she has always met in him a friend that no casualty could 40 CLAY. alter, and no personal interest could change. He wielded an almost magic power over a legislative body, and exercises nearly the same fascination over those who come within the range of its influ- ence. But this is the ascendancy of genius — the sway of mind, which, like the rarified air, will rise above the denser atmosphere that surrounds it. — There are in Mr. Clay's manners so total an ab- sence of all hauteur, so much apparent candor, and such an evidence of open-heartedness, that no one can refuse him his confidence when he becomes ac- quainted with him. There is nothing of aristocra- cy lurking in his heart, and as little of that con- temptible pride which will not stoop to notice the lowly and humble, though meritorious and worthy, because they are not decorated with the trappings of power, or surrounded by the glitter of wealth. — No man has, however, been more the object of ca- lumny and vituperation than this distinguished statesman. But this seems to be the lot of all who, in this country, have reached political eminence ; and to this painful ordeal must every one be sub- jected who desires to wing his flight to the temple of political fame. WIRT. 41 WILLIAM WIRT.* I will now bring before you another prominent personage, who figures in this government, and of whom you have requested me to give you some ac- count. Mr. Wirt, the attorney general of the Unit- ed States, has distinguished himself by his literary and forensic labors. In his person, he is more at- tractive and elegant, and in his manners more graceful and easy, than some of the gentlemen I have mentioned. Mr. Wirt is a native of Mary- land, and, like Socrates, owes his being to parents who existed in the humbler walks of like. With- out a regular or academic education, without pa- tronage, and without influential and powerful con- nexions, he has made his way through the difficul- ties by which he was surrounded, to the high sphere in which he now revolves. His example furnishes another evidence of the excellence of this govern- ment, which opens so easy a path to genius, indus- try, and exertion. Mr. Wirt, in his youth, was dis- tinguished by a brilliant and romantic fancy, and a facility in the acquisition of knowledge. At the death of his father, he was left under the guardian- ship of a gentleman in the State of Maryland, who is said to have been well versed in the Greek and Latin languages, in which he was so good as to instruct his ward. In a few years the guardian paid the debt of nature, and left his young charge * Written in 1817. 42 WIRT. to buffet the storms of life as he could. The death of Dr. Hunt not only deprived Wirt, but the neigh- borhood, of a good teacher, and an excellent friend, and the loss was deemed irreparable, unless sup- plied by Wirt himself, who had made no inconsi- derable proficiency in the dead languages and other branches of knowledge, and who, as he was now without fortune, and destitute of other means of support, consented to officiate as a preceptor. In this situation he continued only until he had made himself acquainted with the principles of the legal science, under the direction of Judge Edwards, with whom he had formed an acquaintance, and in whose house he boarded for the benefit of his in- struction. Being now prepared for the practice of the law, but entirely destitute of funds, a neighbor and a friend furnished him with a horse, and mo- ney enough to enable him to proceed to Fauquier, in Virginia, his point of destination, where he took up his residence, and commenced the practice of his profession. He had not been long at the bar before he entered into the connubial state, and became the husband of a respectable young lady of the county in which he resided. I have been informed that soon after this, he was prevailed upon to accompany a friend to the rustic church of the divine he so eloquently and poetically describes in his " Spy." He entered and took his seat ; he neither noticed the congre- gation nor the sightless Demosthenes that address- ed him, and was fast sinking into the arms of the WIRT. 43 drowsy deity, when instinctively, and with an im- pulse he could neitiier control nor repress, he start- ed from the bench on which he sat, as it" struck by electricity, and gave his whole attention to the dis- course of the preacher, whose bursts of eloquence had thus roused him from his stupor and ri vetted his every faculty as if by enchantment. What moral etFect the eloquence of Doctor Waddell had upon Mr. Wirt, I am not able to say, but it is cer- tain, that soon after this event he removed to Richmond, where he underwent a change in his religious opinions, and was chosen by the then governor of the State, Mr. Monroe, one of his privy counsellors. From that epoch he rose ra- pidly in his profession, and in the estimation of the public. His " Spy" gave him a reputation which his eloquence at the bar tended to establish, and the fortune and respectability of the lady to whom he is now united, enlarged the circle of his friends, and extended his sphere of action. While engaged in the practice of the law at Richmond, he employed his leisure in the composition of a work entitled " The Old Bachelor," which was published in numbers, after the manner of the Spectator, and which displays the taste and talent of the author. He has more recently endeavored to add to the just fame he has acquired, by preparing for the press a life of Patrick Henry, whose eloquence cannot be admired too much, and whose character he has, on all occasions, been fond of portraying. As an evidence of 44 WIRT. the respect in which he was held by his adopted State, the vacant situation of senator of the United States was offered him by the legislature of Virgi- nia, but he refused to accept it. Since that, he has been elevated by the President to the post of Attor- ney General of the U. States,* which I presume is more congenial to his feelings, as it doubtless is more consistent with those professional pursuits and studies, to which he has been for many years assidu- ously devoted. I must now beg leave to close this rapid biographical outline. As an apology for its defects, I have nothing to offer. The facts it con- tains have been furnished me by those who have been long and intimately acquainted with Mr. Wirt, and I flatter myself, that notwithstanding its bre- vity and imperfections, it will be read with some little interest. Of the literary productions of Mr. Wirt, the ge- neral character is brilliancy of coloring, redundan- cy of rhetorical embellishment, and a fondness for poetical imagery. The characteristic feature of his mind is fancy, the too free indulgence of which leads him into occasional hyperboles, not always consistent with the sober dictates of sound sense, or the canons of correct taste. The remarks which Johnson applies to Collins, may be, I think, not inaptly applied to the subject of these observations. " He loves fairies, genii, giants, and monsters ; he * This situation he held till the recent change in the Ad- ministration induced him to throw up his commission and remove to Baltimore, where he employs himself more profit- ably in private practice. WIRT. 4ii delights to rove through the meanders of ciicliant- ment, to gaze on the magnificence of gohlen pa- laces, and to repose by the water-falls of Eiysian gardens."* Mr. Wirt does not seem to search for imagery, or to labor after the splendid but fugitive coloring of fancy. From the native fertility of his imagination, this is rendered unnecessary, and new creations spring up in his mind, which are as strik- ing as they are unexpected and beautiful. There is a want of classical simplicity, however, in his ear- lier compositions, which can only be imputed to his occasional love of splendor, and fondness for poetical embellishment. The subjects in which he most excels, and in which he displays the best specimens of his style of writing, are those of elocution and oratory, which may be found interspersed through- out all his literary works. His style of speaking bears a strong affinity to his style of writing, and blazes not unfrequently with the «ffulgence of Cur- ranian eloquence ; but the splendor of Curran is chiefly calculated for the modern rostrum ; and at the bar, in the pulpit, or the senate, may sparkle on the fancy, without deeply affecting the heart, and play around the imagination without rousing the feelings or convincing the judgment. But whatever were the errors into which Mr. Wirt may have fallen, at the commencement of his oratorical career, from false imitation or a bril- liant fancy, his good sense has since enabled him to shun them, and to adopt a more chaste, correct, * Dr. Johnson's Life of Collins. 46 WIRT. and polished style of speaking and writing.- As you have never had an opportunity of seeing any of his speeches, I will send you a few extracts from one of his specimens of oratory, in the case of Aaron Burr, who was tried, some years ago, for treason. The orator, after describing the character of Burr, proceeds to give the following picture of Blannerhasset, an Irishman, who had come to this country to avoid what he called persecution, and who had retired to a beautiful island in the Ohio : " But he carried with him," says Mr. Wirt, "taste, science, and wealth, and 'lo! the desert smiled.' Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears upon it a palace, and deco- rates it with every romantic embellishment of fancy. A shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied blooms around him ; music that might have charm- ed Calypso and her nymphs, is his ; an extensive library spreads its treasures before him ; a philoso- phical apparatus offers to him all the secrets and mysteries of nature ; peace, trnnquillity, and in- nocence shed their mingled delights around him, and to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplislnuent that can render it irresistible, had blessed him with her love, and made him the father of her children. In the midst of all this peace, this innocence, this tranquillity, this feast of the mind, this pure banquet of the heart, the destroyer comes ; he comes to turn this paradise into hell ; yet the flowers do not wither at WIRT. 4< his approach, and no monitory shudderino; ihroufrh thcbosomof their unfortunate possessor, warns him of the ruin that is coming upon him." Blanner- hasset is caught in the toils which the arcli traitor has set to ensnare him, and he becomes a willing accomplice in the conspiracy. The result is thus described by the orator : " No more he enjoys the tranquil scene ; it has become flat and insipid to his taste ; his books are abandoned ; his retort and crucible are thrown aside ; his shrubbery blooms and breathes its fra- grance upon the air in vain ; he likes it not ; his ear no longer drinks the rich melody of music ; it longs for the trumpet's clangor, and the cannon's roar ; even the prattle of his babes, once so sweet, no longer affects him ; and the angel smile of his wife, which hitherto touched his bosom with ecsta- cy so unspeakable, is now unfelt and unseen. His enchanted island is destined soon to relapse into a desert ; and in a few months we find the tender and i)eautiful partner of his bosom, whom he lately ^ permitted not the winds of summer to visit too roughly,' we see her shivering, at midnight, on the winter banks of the Ohio, and mingling her tears with the torrents that froze as they fell. Yet this unfortunate man, thus deluded from his interest and happiness, thus seduced from the paths of in- nocence and peace, thus confounded in the toils which were deliberately spread for him, and over- whelmed by the mastering spirit and genius of another ; this man, thus ruined and undone, and 48 WIRT. made to play a subordinate part in his grand dra- ma of guilt and treason ; this man is to be called the principal offender ; while he by whom he was thus plunged and steeped in misery, is compara- tively innocent — a mere accessary. Sir, neither the human heart nor the human understanding will bear a perversion so monstrous and absurd ; so shocking to the soul ; so revolting to reason." By comparing these passages with some of Cur- ran's crim. con. speeches, you will discover a strong similitude, and an evident imitation; though the American orator does not fall far short of his Irish prototype in picturesque effect, and in splendor of painting. Mr. Wirt is now about fifty years of age ; his face is full and still handsome ; his features are regular and well proportioned ; his eye black and animated ; his body large and inclined to corpu- lency ; and his voice still strong and well modu- lated. His diction is rapid and flowing, his elocu- tion easy and graceful, and his action neither the- atrical nor extravagant, but suited to the sentiment and adapted to the expression. As a jurist, he is profoundly read ; not seeking distinction in wire- drawn subtleties or minute and refined technicali- ties, but in the application of the settled and com- prehensive principles of jurisprudence ; studying it as a science, and bringing it to bear on the vari- ous modifications of civil and personal rights and wrongs. As an orator, his power is acknowledged and his fascination irresistible ; and as a man, he stands high in the scale of moral excellence PI.XCKNEY. 49 WILLIAM PINCKNEY.t Mr. William Pinckney is a native of INIaryland. His parents, though indigent ttftd obscure, were yet animated by a strong desire of making their son illustrious. To effect this object, they exerted eve- ry effort within their power, and gave him such au education as their limited means would warrant. Mr. Pinckney was an orator by nature. When very young, and while speaking in a little debating club which had been established by some young men in Annapolis, to improve themselves in elo- cution, he excited the notice of a gentleman con- spicuous for his talents, who had accidentally at- tended the society. Mr. Chase immediately extend- ed to him his patronage and assistance ; and under the auspices of so able an instructor, and so pow- erful a friend, young Pinckney soon developed those extraordinary powers with which the benefi- cent hand of nature had endowed him. He studied the law in the office of his patron, and soon prepared himself for the bar, where, at his first appearance, he gave those promises of ability and greatness, which he has subsequently fulfilled. Mr. Pinckney has occupied some honorable and important stations under the American Government ; and though, in the discharge of his official functions, he has not fully realized public expectation, yet he has not fallen very far below it. + Written in 1817. 5* ^0 PINCKNEY. Mr. Pinckney is between fifty and sixty years of age. His form is sufficiently elevated and com- pact to be graceful, and his countenance, though marked by the lines of dissipation, and rather too heavy, is not unprepossessing or repulsive. His eye is rapid in its motion, and beams with the animation of genius ; but his lips are too thick, and his cheeks too fleshy and loose for beauty ; there is, too, a degree of foppery, and sometimes of splendor, manifested in the decoration of his person, which is not perfectly reconcileable to my ideas of mental superiority ; and an appearance of voluptuousness about him which is only calculated to suit the meridian of Greece and the soft and debilitating climate of the Egean isles, but which cannot surely be a source of pride or of gratifica- tion to one whose mind is so capacious and ele- gant. I should imagine, however, that this cha- racter was barely assumed for the purpose of ex- citing a higher admiration of his powers, by induc- ing a belief that, without the labor of study, or the toil of investigation, he can attain the object of his wishes, and become eminent without deigning to resort to that painful drudgery by which meaner minds are enabled to arrive at excellence and dis- tinction. At the first glance, no one could believe, from his external appearance, that he was in the least degree intellectually superior to his fellow men. But Mr. Pinckney is indeed a wonderful man, and one of those beings whom the lover of human nature feels a delight and pride in contemplating. Hi« PINCKNEY. 51 mind is, I think, of the very first order — quick, expanded, fervid and powerful. The hearer is at a loss which most to admire — the vigor of his judg- ment, the fertihty of his invention, the strength of his memory, or the power of his imagination. Each of these faculties he possesses in an equal degree of perfection, and each is displayed in its full matu- rity vi^hen the magnitude of the subject on which he descants, renders its operation necessary. This singular union of the rare and precious gifts of na- ture has received all the strength education could afford, and all the polish and splendor art could bestow. Under the cloak of dissipation and indo- lence, his application has been indefatigable, and his studies unintermitted ; the oil of the midnight lamp has been exhausted, and the labyrinths of knowledge have been explored. Mr. Pinckney is never unprepared and never off his guard ; he encounters his subject with a mind rich in all the gifts of nature, and fraught with all the resources of art and study. He enters the list with his antagonist armed like the ancient cavalier, cap a pe ; and is alike prepared to wield the lance, or to handle the sword, as occasion may require. In cases which embrace all the complications and intricacies of law, where reason seems to be lost in the ocean of technical perplexity, and obscurity and darkness assume the dignified character of science, he displays an extent of research, a range of inves- tigation, a lucidness of reasoning, and a fervor and brilliancy of thought, that excite our wonder, anji 53 PINCKNEY. elicit our admiration. On the driest, most abstract, and uninteresting questions of law, wlien no mini can anticipate such an occurrence, he occasionally blazes forth in all the enchanting exuberance of a chastened, but a rich and vivid imagination, and paints in a manner as classical as it is splendid, and as polished as it is brilliant. In the higher walks of eloquence, where the passions and feel- ings of our nature are roused to action or lulled to repose, Mr. Pinckney is still the great magician whose power is resistless, and whose touch is fas- cination. His eloquence becomes sublime and im- passionate, majestic and overwhelming. In calmer moments, when these passions are hushed and the mellowness of feeling has assumed the place of agitation and disorder, he weaves around you the fairy circles of fancy, and calls up the golden palaces and magnificent grottoes of enchantment. The imagination is fired, and you seem to stroll amidst bovvers of roses and regions of eternal ver- dure, where you are fanned to repose by the breath of zephyrs shedding '* ambrosial sweets," and lull- ed to forgetfulness by the seraphic harmony of Elysian songsters. You listen with rapture as he rolls along ; his defects vanish, and you are not conscious of any thing but what he pleases to in- fuse. From his tongue, like that of Nestor, *' lan- guage more sweet than honey flows," and the at- tention is constantly riveted by the successive ope- ration of the different faculties of the mind. There are no awkward pauses, no hesitation for the want PINCKNEY. -y^i of words or of arguments ; he moves forward with a pace sometimes majestic, sometimes graceful, but always captivating and elegant. His order is lucid, his reasoning logical, his diction select, magnificent and appropriate, and his style flowing, - oratorical and beautiful. The most labored and finished composition could not be better than that which he seems to utter spontaneously, and with- out effort. His judgment, invention, memory and imagination, all conspire to furnish him at once with whatever he may require to enforce, embel- lish, or beautify what he says. On the dullest sub- ject he is never dry, and no one leaves him without feeling an admiration at his powers that borders on enthusiasm. His satire is keen, but delicate ; and his wit scintillating and brilliant. His treasure is exhaustless : — possessing the most extensive and varied information, he never feels at a loss ; and he ornaments and illustrates every subject he touches. He is never the same : he uses no common-place artifice to excite a momentary thrill of admiration ; he is not obliged to patch up and embellish a few ordinary thoughts, or set off a few meagre and un- interesting facts ; his resources seem to be as un- limited as those of nature, and fresh powers and new beauties are exhibited whenever his eloquence is employed. A singular copiousness and felicity of thought and expression, united to a magnificence of amplification and a purity and chastity of orna- ment, gives to his eloquence a sort of enchantment which it is difficult to describe. ^4 PINCKNEY. Mr. Pinckney's mind is in a high degree poetical. It sometimes wantons in the luxuriance of its own creations, but these creations never violate the purity of classical taste and elegance. He loves to paint when there is no occasion to reason, and addresses the imagination and passions when the judgment has been satisfied and enlightened. I speak of Mr. Pinckney at present as a forensic orator. His career as a legislator was too short to afford an opportunity of judging of his parliamentary eloquence ; and perhaps, like Curran, he might have failed in a field in which it was anticipated he would excel, or at least retain his usual pre-emi- nence. Mr. Pinckney, I think, bears a stronger resemblance to Burke, than to Pitt ; but in some particulars he unites the excellencies of both. He has the fancy and erudition of the former, and the point, rapidity, and elocution of the latter. Com- pared with his countrymen, he wants the vigor and shadowy majesty of Clay, the metaphysical power and Ingenuity of Calhoun : but as a rhetorician he surpasses both. In his action, Mr. Pinckney has un- fortunately acquired a manner (borrowed, no doubt, from some illustrious model) which is far from being elegint. It consists in raising one leg on a bench or chair before him, and in thrusting his right arm in a horizontal line from his side, to its full length in front. This action is uniform, and never varies or changes in the most tranquil flow of sentiment, or the grandest burst of impassioned eloquence.^ His voice, though not naturally good, has been PINCKNiEY. 55 disciplined to modulation by art, and if it be not always musical, it is never very harsh or offensive- Such is Mr. Pinckney as an orator. As a diploma- tist, but little can be said that will add to his repu- tation. In his official notes and communications there is too great a diffusircness for beauty or ele- gance of composition. It is but seldom the orator possesses the requisites of the writer, and the fame which is acquired by the tongue sometimes evapo- rates through the pen. As a writer he is inferior to the present Attorney General,* who unites the powers of both in a high degree ; and thus, in his own person, gives a favorable illustration of the position which he has laid down as to the univer- ' sality of genius. So great was Mr. Pinckney's anxiety to sustain the reputation which he had acquired, that, though laboring under severe indisposition, he could not be prevailed upon to suspend his exertions in an important suit, in which he was engaged before the Supreme Court, till he recovered ; and in a speech of two days' duration, and of more than usual power and eloquence, he is said to have broken a blood vessel, and thus fell a lamented victim to the united impulse of duty and fame. Mr. Pinckney now slumbers with the dead. A plain tomb stone covers the body of him on whom listeninor Senates huno- with admiration. His ashes now mingle with the dust of those who once, like himself, occupied a large space in the public mind " 3Ir. Wilt. 56 LOWNDES. — and, like himself, were stimulated by the love of fame, or animated by the glow of patriotism. While the eye of the melancholy wanderer who visits the burial ground of our City, falls upon the last resting place of this once gifted individual, and feels " The death-like silence and the dread repose" which reigns around, how eloquent is the language of Pindar : " We are shadows; and the dreams of shadows are all that our fancies imagine." WILLIAM LOWNDES.t Permit me now to bring before you another prominent member of the body I have been de- scribing. I know you will readily pass over the imperfections of his person and figure, his quixotic countenance, lank, lean and rueful; his tall, slen- der and emaciated form, and all the inelegancies and defects of his body, when you are informed that this man stands deservedly in the first rank of American statesmen. Mr. Lowndes, like Mr. Cal- houn, is from the south. He is a man of wealth and of probity ; modest, retiring and unambitious ; but his mind is vigorous, comprehensive and rapid. He is Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and in that situation has discovered a profound and extensive knowledge of finance; a subject in itself dry and difficult, and to which very few of the citizens t Written in 1817. LOWNDES. 57 of this country have devoted much of tlicir leisure. To Mr. Lowndes, however, it appears to be a branch of political science, peculiarly pieasinf^, and to which he is much addicted, both from niclination and habit. He is not only an able political econo- mist, but a skilful statist. And for your further infor- mation, I will draw the distinction in the language of Peuchet,* who has given it more correctly than any writer I have yet had the opportunity of read- ing. *' The first, or political economy, conceives, produces and puts in execution the truths or prin- ciples of administration, whose utility it establishes, by reasoning, supported by comparison of facts. The second, or statistics, is occupied in preparing the elements proper to guide the mind ; it collects details, which it forms into one head, and estab- lishes results founded upon an analysis sufficiently complete to produce moral certainty." Mr. Lowndes never takes up an opinion, or adopts a theory that has not been sanctioned by his own judgment, or that cannot bear the test of logical analysis. His mind possesses a mathematical tact, and every subject which presents itself and which cannot be demonstrated, is rejected or admitted with hesitation and doubt. In the fields of fancy he but seldom suffers himself to loiter ; the glitter of imagination neither dazzles nor delicrhts him, and he prefers rather to wander through the som- bre groves of philosophy, than to stroll amidst the enchanted palaces and magic haunts of fiction. " Statistique Elemeutaire. 6 ^^ ' LOWNDES. His memory is powerful and retentive, and furnish- es him, in an instant, with whatever he may have wished to retain ; but he is no orator; his voice is low and feeble, his gesticulation awkward and in- elegant, and his whole manner unprepossessing and defective. What he says, however, is said with perspicuity and force, and can-ies with it con- viction to the mind. In speaking, he has no ex- ordiums or perorations ; he marches, like Homer, to the point at once, and endeavors to satisfy the judgment, without deigning to tickle the fancy. I do not con3eive that the highest powers are requir- ed to form an orator of the present day. It is not essential that he should plunge into the labyrinth of science, or be conversant with the intricacies of art. The truth is that sound sense and virtue are the "princijnu7n et fons'' of fine oratory, as well as of good writing. The orator must indeed feel the common interests and passions of our nature more intensely, to be capable of directing our prejudices, of controlling our will, or exciting our feelings ; but still his object is not always to inform, but to propel and stimulate the mind to action. For this purpose, it is sufficient that his sensibilities are acute, that his knowledge of mankind is accurate, and that his ac- quaintance with the common affiiirs and transac- tions of life is not more imperfect than that of those around him. His business is with the living world, and with the common feelings and passions and prejudices of our nature. We do not wish him to exhibit the philosopher or the poet ; but we wish LOWNDES. 'iO him to be always clear, luminous and persuasive ; not to create new worlds ; but to c uiduct us through the one we occupy ; not to sport in the rainbow, or to flutter on a moon beam ; but witli the torch of truth, to illumine our path and to lead us in safety through the darkness of error, and tlie obscurity of ignorance. And all this he can do without a mind of vast general powers or a more than ordinary extent of knowledge. Mr. Lowndes seems to be aware of his defects and does not wish to excel as an orator : his object is of a more ex- tended and comprehensive character ; his ambition is the ambition of virtue, and he aspires to the lofty and imposing elevation of a statesman and a patriot. The contracted views and paltry intrigues of party are beneath the dignity of his mind, and revolting to the virtues of his heart : and he labors not for adventitious and fleeting reputation, but for the permanent good and lasting glory of his country. When he addresses the House, every ear is atten- tive, lest any thing should escape, and every mind is satisfied, because the truths which have been ut- tered were recommended by the charms of virtue, and arrayed in the simple beauty of moral worth. He possesses great sensibility of heart, and great delicacy of feeling ; he would rather relinquish the exultation of triumph over his antagonist in argu- ment, than experience the pain of having inflicted a wound on his vanity. I know not for what sta- tion destiny has designed him, but his mind would qualify him for almost any thing ; he realizes the 60 LOWNDES. idea which Mirabeau has formed of a statesman.— '^This word," says he, "presents to the mind the idea of a vast genius, improved by experience, ca- pable of embracing the mass' of social interests, and of perceiving how to maintain true harmony among the individuals of which society is compos- ed, and an extent of information which may give substance and union to the different operations of government."* The great talents and high stand- ing of Mr. Lowndes, induced the executive of this country to offer him the situation of Minister of War ; but he refused to accept it, and seems to be satisfied with the condition to which his constit- uents have elevated him, and which, I presume, he can retain as long as he feels inclined to do so. Of the private character of this gentleman, I know nothing ; but 1 should infer, from my short ac- quaintance with him, that he is as conspicuous for moral as for intellectual excellencies, and that in the humbler and less brilliant walks of domestic life, though he may not acquire so much reputation, he is still not less distinguished than in the blaze of political splendor. Mr. Lowndes lived but a few years after the above was penned. He paid the debt of nature 6n his passage to Liverpool, for the benefit of his health, deeply lamented by his countrymen, by whom his memory is still fondly cherished. His extraordinary merit had pointed him out as one eminently qualified to fill the Executive Chair of hi? •"^ Mirabeau's Gallery of Portraits. KING. 61 country ; to which, if death had not so early closed his career, he vvotdd most probably have been ele- vated. When applied to, on this subject, he made the following memorable reply: "It is an honor which is neither to be solicited nor declined." It is due to the memory of so distinguished a man, and would be useful to his countrymen, that his speeches should be collected and given to the world with some memoir of his life; which, though not eventful, would nevertheless be replete with instruction. I trust that some friend will yet un- dertake it, for the honor of his name and that of his country. RUFUS KING.* Mr. King is now about sixty years of age, abov^ the middle size, and somewhat inclined to corpu- lency. His countenance, when serious and thought- ful, possesses a great deal of austerity and rigor ; but at other moments it is marked with placidity and benevolence. Among his friends, he is facetious and easy; but when with strangers, reserved and distant — apparently indisposed to conversation and inclined to taciturnity ; but when called out, his colloquial powers are of no ordinary character, and his con- versation becomes peculiarly instructive, fascinating and humorous. Mr. King has read and reflected *^ Written in 1818. 6* m KING. much ; and though long in public life, his attention has not been exclusively devoted to the political sci- ences, for his information on other subjects is equally matured and extensive. His resources are numerous and multiplied, andcaneasilybe called intooperation. In his parliamentary addresses he always displays a deep and intimate knowledge of the subject un- der discussion, and never fails to edify and instruct, if he sometimes ceases to delight. He has read history to become a statesman, and not for the mere gratification it affords. He applies the expe- rience of ages, which the historical muse exhibits, to the general purposes of government, and thus reduces to practice the mass of knowledge with which his mind is fraught and embellished. As a legislator, he is perhaps inferior to no man in this country. The faculty of close and accurate observation, by which he is distinguished, has enabled him to treasure up every fact of politi- cal importance that has occurred since the organ- ization of the American Government ; and the citizen, as well as the stranger, is often surprised at the minuteness of his historical details; the facility with which they are recalled ; and the cor- rectness and accuracy with which they are applied. With the various subjects immediately connected with politics, he has made himself well acquainted ; and such is the strength of his memory, and the extent of his information, that the accuracy of his statements is never disputed. Mr. King, however, is somewhat of an enthusiast, and his feelings some- KING. C3 times propel him to do that which his judgment cannot sanction. I am disposed to think, from a rapid survey of his poHtical and parliamentary ca- reer, that the fury of party has sometimes betrayed him into" the expression of sentiments, and the support and defence of measures, that were in their character not always accordant with his feelings ; and that, whatever he may have been charged with, his intentions at least were pure, and his exertions, as he conceived, calculated for the public good. He was, indeed, cried down by some emigrants in this country, who have a considerable influence in the political transactions of the United States ; and though unquestionably an ornament to the nation which has given him birth, his countrymen, averse to him from party considerations, joined in the cry, and he became a victim perhaps to the duty he owed and the love he bore his country. Prejudice, however, does not always continue; and the American people, with that good sense which forms so prominent a feature of their character, are beginning justly to appreciate those virtues and talents they once so much decried. Mr. King has a sound and discriminating mind, a memory un- commonly tenacious, and a judgment vigorous, prompt, and decisive. He either wants imagina- tion, or is unwilling to employ a faculty that he conceives only calculated to delight and amuse. His object is more to convince and persuade by the force of reason, than to play upon the mind by the gaudy drapery of fancy. His style of eloquence is plain, but 64 KING. bold and manl}' ; replete with argument, and full of intelligence ; neither impetuous nor vehement, but flowing and persuasive. His mind, like that of Fox, is historical; it embraces consequences the most remote without difficulty, and eifects the most distant with rapidity and ease. Facts always form the basis of his reasoning. Without these his analysis is defective, and his combinations and deductions often incorrect. His logic is not artificial, hut na- tural ; he abandons its formal divisions, non-essen- tials, moods and figures, to weaker minds, and ad- heres to the substantials of natural reason. Of Mr. King's moral character I can say nothing from my own personal knowledge, as my acquaintance with him has not been long and intimate enough to en- able me to judge correctly. I have not, however, heard any thing alleged against it calculated to lessen his reputation as an honorable statesman, or a virtuous member of society. He is wealthy, and has, no doubt, something of pride and hauteur in his manner offensive to the spirit of republicanisin, and inconsistent with the idea of equality ; but as a father, husband, and friend, I have not yet heard him charged with any dereliction of duty, or any violation of those principles which tend to harmonize society and unite man to man by the bonds of affection and virtue. Mr. King was appohited Minister to England a few years after the preceding sketch of his charac- ter was written : but indisposition and the infirmi- ties of age induced him lo relinquish this last honor nusii. C5 which the nation had bestowed upon him, and to return to his nat ve land, where he soon aft(!r re- posed with his fathers. To have been distinguish- ed among the great men of his age was no small honor, but it is one which few, if any, will deny to the subject of these remarks. Of such men the nation must feel proud ; and however party hatred may endeavor to distort, or political envy may strive to blacken and pollute their character or virtues while living, death, like the sun, dispels the clouds which have involved them, and draws them forth in their native beauty and splendor. There are few men who have played a distinguished part on the theatre of the world, that cannot say at the close ®f life : Va dans I'ombre etevnelle, ombre pleine d'envie Et ne mele plus de censurer ma vie. RICHARD RUSH. ' Mr. Rush, late Secretary of the Treasury, is a gentleman of great suavity of manners and amia- bleness of disposition; polished, affable, and cour- teous to all, paying the same attention and mani- festing the same respect to a subordinate, that he would to the highest officer of Government. He is about fifty years of age, of a delicate frame, but neat in his person. His countenance is mild, pre- possessing, and strongly indicative of the gentle ^^ RUSH. and benevolent feelings of his heart. He is a man of fine taste and cultivated mind— perhaps more brilliant than solid— but not deficient in penetration and acuteness. He was educated for the bar, and practised the law for several years with success, which caused him to be selected to fill the first law office under the Government. He preceded Mr. Pinckney as Attorney Genera?, was afterwards sent as Minister to England, and finally appointed Se- cretary of the Treasury under the administration of Mr. Adams. To that simplicity which should al- ways characterise a republican, is added all the ease and urbanity of a gentleman accustomed to the most refined and polished society. Although, both at home and abroad, he has freely mingled in the most polished circles, he remains still the same, and has neither acquired additional grace, nor lost those traits of republicanism by which he has always been distinguished. He writes and speaks with great neatness, and sometimes elegance. His offi- cial papers or communications discover an intimate acquaintance with the subjects on which he treats, and are composed in a style of clearness and pre- cision, indicating the power of his intellect, and the soundness and discrimination of his judgment. Mr. Rush has filled every office to which he has been appointed with credit to himself and advan- tage to the nation. A philanthropist and a patriot, he has appropriated his talents and his time to the service of his country and the happiness of man ; and, amidst the rancor and bitterness of party feel- Rt SH. 6^7 ing, he has, 1 believe, lost no personal friends among those who are hostile to his political opinions and principles. Mr. Rush is more eminent as a statesman than a lawyer. He has studied the vari- ous wants and conditions of society, the resource.9 of his country, and the nature of mankind. The sphere of politics is better suited to the bent of his inclinations and the character of his mind, than the technical subtleties and ingenious sophistry of the bar. He prefers the condition in which he can contribute more extensively to the glory of his country and the happiness of his fellow-men, and where he may be less circumscribed in the opera- tions of his philanthropy. Though he possesses the suaviter in modo, he is not wanting in energy, nor deficient in perseverance. If an object is\'o be accomplished, he is not retarded by difficulties, however formidable ; and what he cannot attain by his eloquence, he sometimes effects by his industry and assiduity. Though placid, urbane, and bene- volent, he is not deficient in bitterness of satire and can use it to great effect, when the occasion requires its employment. In Europe and America he is known and esteem- ed as an accomplished gentleman, and as a man of fine talents and eminent worth. He has retired for a time, into private life, but not into obscurity' His country will again, ere long, solicit his ser- vices, and once more call into successful employ- ment those powers which were intended for the benefit and happiness of mankind. 68 HOLMES. JOHN HOLMES. Mr. Holmes is a Senator from Maine, and has been long known as a public speaker, and distin- guished for his well established republican prin- ciples. He has served for several years in the councils of his country, and has manifested a firm- ness and independence at once indicative of energy of mind and correctness of judgment. He is pecu- liarly fitted for party conflicts, and displays, on all questions under discussion, a calm and untiring power of investigation, great intellectual resources, and a fund of information which enables him to enforce his argunients and to illustrate his sub- ject with felicity and effect. His facts are gene- rally so arranged and presented — are so full and satisfactory — that his opponent finds it difficult to answer them, or to weaken their force. And though not prepossessing in his appearance, though slow and deliberate in his enunciation, he seizes upon his hearers and forces them to follow him. There are too, occasionally, in Mr. Holmes a keen- ness of sarcasm, and a bitterness of invective, that are the more striking as they are the less ex- pected. He is a sensible speaker, and does not labor after those bursts of eloquence, and tiiose corruscations and flashes of imagination which are intended to draw forth involuntary acclamations of applause. He prepares no clap-traps — seeks not to play upon the feelings of his hearers — but addresses himself directly to the judgment; and is satisfied, SPRAGUE. ^•> if he gains his object, without beinsc very soHcitous about the splendor or beauty of tlic medium through which it is readied. The Hberality and independence of his mind induce liim to act, on all occasions, in obedience to the dictates of his judgment and according to the principles of un- changeable truth. He reasons justly and feels correctly, and the nation owes much to his ex- ertions. PELEG SPRAGUE. Mr. Sprague has not been many years in the councils of the nation. He is comparatively young ; but he has enriched his mind with various knowledge, which he employs with great eifect, when occasion requires it. He is well versed in the political history of tlie world ; his classical attainments are respectable ; and his general in- formation extensive. He brings to subjects on which he intends to address tlie body of which he is a member, a mind fraught with intelligence, and prepared by previous study and reflection, to en- lighten their obscurity and to dispel the mists of Sophistry and delusion which surround them. Mr. S. indulges" in no extravagant flights, in no affected or unnatural bursts of oratory. He thinks and feels profoundly, and expresses what he feels and thinks in a style chaste, vigorous, and flowing. He is a close and logical reasoner, and but seldom 7 ■^0 SPRAGUE. permits himself to sport amid the enchantments of imagination, or to cull the flowers of fancy. His logic possesses all the precision of mathematical accuracy ; his premises are so well laid down, and his deductions so conclusively drawn, that few can resist the conviction to which he leads the mind of the hearer. He never plays upon the outskirts of his subject, but encloses his ground, not with the *' dazzling fence," but the substantial and inde- structible wall of argument. His path is not in- deed strewed with flowers, nor is the landscape distinguished for its splendor or magnificence, but the course is clear and unobstructed, and the force of truth lends its charm to the hearer, which, though it may not be so beautiful, is not less gratifying, than if it were decorated with all the ornaments of imagination. Mr. S. seldom indulges in declama- tion, and does not covet the reputation of being merely a fine speaker. His ambition is more ele- vatetl, and his object more laudable. He speaks be- cause he conceives it to be his duty to enforce truth and to destroy error ; he speaks from a desire to benefit his country, and not to acquire the fame of an eloquent debater. His views are expanded and liberal, and his mind is not less influenced by phi- lanthropy than patriotism. He is a sagacious po- litician and an able advocate, always found on the side of the oppressed, and always ready to defend, and always eloquent in the support of the true in- terests of his country. In person, Mr. Sprague is above the middle size, thin, delicate, but well pro- WEBSTER. 71 portioned. His eye is dark and intelligent ; his countenance open and ingenuous ; liis voice full and sufficiently powerful ; and his action appro* priate, and occasionally graceful. DANIEL WEBSTER. Of this distinguished orator, statesman, and lawyer, the American people have heard much. He has been long known at the bar and in the councils of the nation, as one in whom every American must feel a pride. Emerging from com- parative obscurity, he has, like most of his coun- trymen who have acquired distinction, reached the *' vantage ground" he now holds in the estimation of the people, by the almost unaided efforts of his own powerful mind — thus furnishing a splendid ex- ample of the success of industry and talent, in a na- tion where talent and industry, if properly directed, but seldom fail to lead to wealth and fame. There is something in the very exterior of Mr. Webster that is calculated to make a strong impression on the beholder : His head is peculiar, and would iiiake an admirable study for the phrenologist. His features are regular, but there is something in his dark and deeply sunk eye, that indicates the gigantic grasp and vigorous energies of a powerful mind ; while his Shakspearian pile of forehead, his sallow complexion, strongly defined mouth, I "/'^ WEBSTER. dark raven hair, and heavy eye brows, present a head that no one can contemplate with a feehng of indifference. In person, he is about the middle size, rather broad across the shoulders, and not elegantly proportioned. His gait is slow and stea- dy, and wants elasticity ; and his dress is usually plain and in good taste. The prominent traits of his mind are acuteness, depth, fertility, and com- prehensiveness ; and those of his heart are, recti- tude, liberality, a lofty feeling of independence, and a deep sense of what is honorable and just. He is not, however, exempt from the appearance of pride, blended with haughtiness, which operates, in some degree, as a barrier to his popularity, but which may originate rather from the abstraction of a mind intensely and frequently occupied on mo- mentous subjects, than from any real feeling of contempt for his fellow men. Mr. Webster is ad- mitted to be profound as a jurist and skilful as a politician. He has read much and thought deeply on all questions connected with his profession ; and his mind is so constituted as to apply with great accuracy the principles of jurisprudence to the peculiar case submitted to his judgment. The power of his memory, and his habitual research, have made him familiar with the decisions of the hio-hest tribunals of EnMand and America ; and though long in public life, and frequently called upon to take a prominent part in the discussion of the most important and interesting subjects of le- gislation, he has not omitted to pursue that course WEBSTER. "*^^ of reading and investigation which is so essential to eminence at the bar. Nor while tlius employed has he neglected to make himself intimately ac- quainted with the history of the legislation of his country, and the necessary operation of the policy of the government on its prosperity and happiness. With a mind thus gifted by nature, and enriclied by study and reflection, it would be a matter of surprise, if he did not stand forth " proudly emi- nent" among his countrymen. Mr. Webster mar- shals his arguments with the skiJl of an experienced general, and pushes them forward in masses and solid columns till all resistance is vain, and the conquest is achieved ; or, like the hunter, he draws his net closer and closer, till the prey is completely enclosed. His mind seems to expand by the in- troduction of a new thought, like the successive circles of a lake, moved by a pebble. He sup- ports his positions not only by the force of logical truth, but by all the aids which experience and historical facts can furnish, and the natural and moral u orld is ransacked for the most strikinor and apposite illustrations. His eloquence is charac- terised by vigor, simplicity, and power ; he seldom indulges in any extravagant bursts of oratory, or attempts any fine flourishes of rhetoric. On ordi- nary occasions his style is plain and simple, and scarcely rises above the common level of colloquial ease ; while at the same time he pours out masses of thought, that overwhelm by their force, if they do not dazzle by their brilliancy. In his extem- 7# 74 WEBSTER. poraneous efforts, and these are by far the moat frequent, he does not seem desirous to make a dis- play, or to figure merely as an orator, but moves steadily forward, piling argument upon argument, and heaping thought upon thought, suhjecto Pclio Ossam, till he reaches the conclusion he has pro- posed, and has convinced, as he believes, the minds of those he is addressing. There is, I think, much more of judgment than imagination in Mp, Webster. He lias been so long used to the exer- cise of the former, that he deems the employment of the latter unnecessary, if it ever existed to a suf- ficient extent to render it a useful auxiliary ; and his memory, from the want of practice or of taste, though it may serve him in that particular vocation to which he has been called, sometimes fails him when he desires its aid to illustrate or embellish by a happy quotation from the poet, historian, or orator. His temperament is not poetical, nor is his mind imaginative. He throws out no pictures that can be admired for their beauty or magnificence ; but there are occasional passages in his speeches, of splendid declamation, which will always be read or heard with admiration. Mr. Webster partakes more of Demosthenes than Cicero ; and resembles' Fox more than Sheridan. He has the vehemence and strength of the former, but wants the epigram- matic point and imagery of the latter. His mind is naturally logical, and has not been impaired by the sophistry of the bar. It analyses every subject -presented to it,, and if it be of such a nature as to WEBSTER. 'i> require great depth and research, the operations of his mind, it is said, are so intense and unre- mitted, that his complexion becomes darker and more biHous, and thus indicates the importance and magnitude of the question he is investigating. It is not often, however, that he is called upon thus to exercise his great powers. Occasionally in the Senate, but more frequently at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, he throws out his whole strength, and exhibits the full range, 'iepth, clearness, and power, of his magnificent in- tellect. This was eminently the case in the great debate during the last session, on Mr. Foot's reso- lution. On that question Mr. W. gave one of the finest specimens of his eloquence — a specimen which has not been surpassed in any country, and which will be preserved and admired by suc- ceeding ages as much as it can be by the present. Mr. Webster's style is plain but vigorous, occasion- ally rising to splendor, but usually unadorned. His voice is good, but wants variety of tone for brilliant effect ; and his action is easy and appro- priate.* Though he may not be a poet, he is nevertheless Ingenium cui sit, cui mens divinior atque os Mag-na soniturum. * A very correct and well-written sketch of Mr. W. has been recently g-iven in a work lately publishedj and attributed to the pen of Mr. Knapp. '^^ FRELINGHUYSEN. THEODORE FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. F. is between 40 and 50 years of age. His countenance, though grave, possesses much sweet- ness, is often lighted up with the smile of benevo- lence, and indicates great sensibility. The last was, it is believed, the second session he had served in the Senate of the United States, and though it was one in which the highest intellectual efforts were called into exertion, he did not fall behind the most gifted, in the conflict of mind which was then exhi- bited. Mr. F.'s views are patriotic, benevolent, and enlarged ; animated by the spirit of philan- thropy, and guided by the dictates of a sound judgment, he is always found on the side of the oppressed and persecuted ; and always the advo- cate of the true interests of his country. Called out by the natural feelings of his heart, and im- pelled by a strong sense of duty, he entered into the discussion of one of the most important and interesting subjects of legislation which has for many years been submitted to the consideration of Congress, and displayed an acuteness of penetra- tion, a depth of feeling, and a power of eloquence, which have elevated him to a high rank among the orators and statesmen of his country. The Indian question was one in which he felt a deep interest, and on which he brought to bear all the energies of a vigorous and cultivated mind. The subject was adapted to the nature of his eloquence, FRELINGHUYSEN. ** and he did ample justice to it. There are in Mr. Frelinghuysen, a zeal and earnestness tliat give great effect to wliat he says, and a mellowness and plaintiveness in his tones which liarmonize finely with the pathos of the subject on which his elo- quence is employed. His voice has, perhaps, too much of uniformity in its intonations, but it falls agreeably upon the ear, is listened to with plea- sure, and its effect would be wonderful, if it were "nodulated with more art, and made to suit the particular sentiment which the speaker feels. With the questions on which Mr. Frelinghuysen speaks, he previously makes himself well acquaint- ed, and never comes unprepared to elucidate, am- plify, and enforce, the various topics to be discus- sed. He thinks profoundly and justly on whatever he attempts to handle, and employs with great judgment the labors of others as well as his own, to deveiope and enlighten whatever may be dark, obscure, or intricate. But the most distincruished excellence of this gentleman is the exquisite moral and religious tone which he infuses into and which breathes through all he utters. Every one who listens admits its power, and feels that he is listen- ing to one whose heart is deeply imbued with reli- gious purity and truth. Mr. F. does not often employ his imagination. His mind is more logical than poetical ; he prefers reasoning to embellish- ment ; and endeavors to convince rather than de- light. His style is chaste, and occasionally ora- torioal ; and his action easy and appropriate. The '^^ CLAYTON. correctness of his views, the soundness of his judgment, and the sincerity of his heart, give to all he says such impressiveness and effect, that he never rises at his seat that he does not claim the undivided attention of the body of which he is a member. In short, his talents and virtues render him an honor to his State and an ornament to his country. JOHX M. CLAYTON. Mr. C. is about forty years of age. Ilis form is above the middle size, robust, but not very muscu- lar. His features are regular ; his eye dark, but soft ; his complexion uncommonly fair ; and his hair just beginning to be sprinkled with the snows of age. Like Mr. Barton, he made his splendid debut in the vSenate during the last session of Con- gress, and electrified the grave body of which he is a member, by the power of his eloquence. He might have been, as he no doubt was, distinguish- ed in his native State, but he was still " unknown to fame" in the political world, and therefore his magnificent effort excited the more admiration as it was the less expected. His speech on Mr. Foot's resolution may be ranked next to Mr. Webster's on that question. In chastity of diction, classical pu- rity of style, felicity and elegance of thought, and beauty of composition, it has been seldom surpass- CLAYTON. 79 ed by the parliamentary orators of our country. Mr. Clayton is not less conspicuous for judgment than imagination. He not only reasons with great logical power, but gives to his reasoning the charms of ornament, and arrays his conceptions in language sometimes figurative, and almost always beautiful. His style possesses a polish, ease, and gracefulness, which render it not only pleasing to the ear, but agreeable in the closet. It is graceful without being elaborate, and polished without being recherche. As an illustration, I give the following beautiful passage from the speech to which I have referred : '' It has been said, and I believe truly, that we can never fall without a struggle ; but in the con- test with such a man, thus furnished by ourselves with ' all the appliances and means to boot' against us, we must finally sink. For a time our valleys will echo with the roar of artillery, and our moun- tains will ring with the reports of the rifle. The storm of civil war will howl fearfully through the land, from the Atlantic border to the wildest re- cesses of the West, covering with desolation every field which has been crowned with verdure by the culture of freemen, and now resounding with the echoes of our happiness and industry. But tiie tempest must subside and be succeeded by the deep calm and sullen gloom of despotism — after which the voice of a freeman shall never again be heard within our borders, unless in the fearful and suppressed whispers of the traveller from some so CLAYTON. distant land, who shall visit the scene of our de- struction to gaze in sorrow on the melancholy ruin." Mr. Clayton's reasoning is distinguished for its lucidus orclo ; his arguments are consecutive, and arranged with great clearness. He deals but lit- tle in sophistry, never attempts the epigrammatic, and is more anxious to produce conviction than to excite admiration. In the most extensive range of investigation, he never loses sight of the goal he has in view, and never suffers the warmth of his imafjination or the ardor of his feelings to lead him from the point at which he aims. When he draws upon his imagination or his memory, it is only to gild the shaft, to give it more splendor and effect. His urbanity and courtesy in debate, even amidst the intemperance of party warfare, are striking and uniform. He never allows himself to be thrown off his poise, or to descend to incivility or rudeness, however strong the temptation, and always exhibits the deportment and feelings of a gentleman, wliatever may be the [provocation or the excitement. To a commanding person, he unites an agreeable voice, and an appropriate gesticula- tion ; though the one is not sufiiciently varied, nor the other regulated by art. Indeed, Mr. C. is a man of whom any country might well be proud, and from whom his own cannot loner withhold the honors due to his distinguished merit. RANDOLPH. ^1 JOHN RANDOLPH. Mr. Randolph has been long in the councils ol" his country, and long distinguished as an orator. He commenced his parliamentary career at an early age, and soon displayed those talents and that pe- culiar species of eloquence which have thrown around his name so much brilliancy. His mind appears to have been precocious, and to have at- tained maturity too soon to warrant great expecta- tions of permanent excellence and usefulness. He was for upwards of thirty years a member of the House of Representatives, and for some time one of the most brilliant and popular orators it con- tained. But either from disappointed ambition, or the peculiar bent and eccentricity of his mind, he unfortunately, if not imprudently, aberrated too soon from the course which would have insured continued fame, as well as promotion under our government. Like Alexander the Great, he sighed for more conquests, and endeavored to raise up a new party, which failed, and he sunk under the ruins he had himself created^ Mr. R. was never, however, distinguished for great power and force of reasoninsT, and in close and accurate analysis was almost always defective. The feebleness of his health, an^J^the frailties of his body, have con- tributed to affeC< his temper, and to render him somewhat ascetic and petulant. His invective is terrible, and his sarcasm keen and overwhelming. Full of caprice and eccentricities, you know not 8 82 KANDOLPH. wiien, or against whom, his deadly sliaft is to be levelled, and the hearer is sometimes surprised to find the flamino^ sword severing the bones and marrow of friend as well as foe. Ilis style is chaste and polished — his language always the most select and appropriate, and his images, figures, and quotations, are big with meaning, and their application striking and felicitous. His pronun- ciation is founded upon that of the best models of England, and remarkable for its correctness. He is never at a loss for a word, and the word he se- lects is always the one which should have been chosen, and no other. His declamation is some- times splendid, and always elegant. Mr. Randolph's reading is extensive, his taste classical, and his knowledge of history, especial- ly British history, profound, minute, and accu- rate. He often makes the most apt and happy quotations, and exhibits analogies which, perhaps, no one else would have thought of; but which he renders strikincr and forcible. His associations are, however, slight, and he thus becomes occa- sionally excursive and exceedingly erratic ; but ia the midst of his wildest aberrations, he scatters around him flowers so beautiful, that very few are offended at his devious wanderings, and follow him with pleasure wherever he chooses to lead them. He never loses a good thought, or a fine image, that mav occur to him either in conversation or solitude, " but treasures it up in the volume of his brain," till it may be wanted, and he never fails to -i'- RANDOLPH. 83 let it out when he has an opportuuity. Ilis invec- tive, like the deadly siroc, withers every thing it sweeps across, and his opponent is sure to quail and shiver beneath its touch. His sarcasms are barbed with the most deadly acrimony, and the bit- terness of his feelinjTS indicates a ferocious and misanthropic character. He indulges more in satire than logic, more in invective than rc-isou- ino" ; but there is a fascination about him, as nn orator, that few can or are willing to resist. His very silence is sometimes speaking and elo- quent, and the bare motion of his finger or his head often conveys as much meaning as the most finished or elaborate sentence. But between his delivered and published speeches, there is a vast difference. In the latter, you lose that charm by wliich you are bound when you listen to what he utters ". the attitude, gesticulation, emphasis, action, are gone. The skeleton is left, but the spirit has fled ; the body is there, but the soul is no more. To judge of Mr. R. as an orator, you must hear him, or rather you must have heard him, when his mind was in the plenitude of its power, and his imagination luxuriating in the delicious images of youth and poetry. Burke seems to be his model, and Shakspeare his constant companion. From both he draws largely, and with the latter he is as familiar as Alexander was with the works of the immortal Homer. But Mr. R.'s mind and habits are wholly averse from the necessary routine and details of business. The meie labors of legislation. 84 TAZEWELL. are not suited to his temper or intellect, and both as a member of a committee and the House, he is 'almost wholly inefficient. Mr. R. is tall, meagre, and badly formed. His eye is black and piercing ; his complexion sallow and cadaverous ; his hair smoothed down on his head, and tied in a cue; and his voice, though of no great compass, is uncommonly clear and dis- tinct. He is remarkable for his eccentricity, and eccentricity has been justly denominated a species of derangement. He has recently been appointed Minister to Russia, but what figure he will make in this new character, or what benefits he will ren- der to the nation, time will soon determine. It has been considered by those who know Mr. R. as a rather extraordinary appointment, and one not at all calculated to add to his own fame or the repu- tation of his country. JLITTLETON W. TAZEWELL. Mr. Tazewell held for many years the first rank at the bar of his native State. He is an able law- yer, and well versed in all the learning connected with his profession. His mind has been disciplin- ed at the bar, and possesses all the subtilty, acute- ness, and sophistry, which the legal profession is too apt to produce. By this habit of subtilizing, Mr. T. has, I think, impaired the power of intel- TAZEWELL. ^'^ lectual discrimination. Of him it may be empha- tically said, that he can " m ke the worse appear the better cause ;" and this power he exercises with so much force, ingenuity, and skill, that it requires no little reflection, and some analysis, to detect the sophistry he has employed, or the er- rors of logic into which he has fallen. It is a pity so fine a mind should have been injured by a prac- tice so little suited to invigorate the judgment, whatever may be its tendency to sharpen the facul- ties. The habitual practice of indiscriminately defending the right and wrong, may brighten, but does not streno-then the mind, because the inven- tion, and not the judgment, is most generally em- ployed ; and though fertility may be the result, it is not ahvays accompanied by correctness of de- duction or accuracy of decision. Had Mr. Taze- well be' ■ trained in the school of legislation, in- stead of law, he would unquestionably have beea one of the brightest luminaries this country has produced. He possesses an intuitive quickness of perception and comprehensiveness of intellect, that would have given him, in the opinion of his countrymen, as elevated a standing as a legislator and statesman, as he now holds as a civilian and advocate. But having belonged to a party tliat has not been held in high estimation in his native State, it was his destiny to be excluded, till recent- ly, from the councils of the nation, and he has been obliged to revolve in a sphere of usefulness much more contracted and less suited to the exer- 8* 8^ HAYNE. cise of the native powers of his mind. As an ora* tor, Mr. T.'s diction is plain, but vigorous ; his elocution flowing and easy ; his voice full-toned and finely modulated, and his action appropriate and good. He is tall and stately in his person, and his countenance is strongly marked, and indicative of the workings of passion. He is altogether a remarkable man, and perhaps a fair exemplifica- tion of the Virginian character. He is high- minded and honorable, blending a feeling of aristocracy with that of republicanism ; magnifi- cent in his notions, yet simple in his habits ; pas- sionately attached to his native State, yet loving the other citizens of his country ; clanish, yet libe- ral ; refining, yet practical ; seeking fame, yet not neglecting wealth ; proud, but not oppressive ; haughty, but not overbearing. He is now upwards of sixty years of age, and has reached the zenith of his fame. Time has silvered his locks, and age has wrinkled his brow, but his voice and his motion still denote a healthy body and a vigorous constitution. As a legislator, he has left no re- cord of his wisdom, and no monument which will transmit his name to posterity. ROBERT Y. HAYNE. This gentleman is from the South, and belongs to the Jackson party. He is about forty years of age ; his countenance is prepossessing and HAYNE. S7 agreeable, and his form compact and well pro- portioned. He has been a Senator for some years, and is as distinguished for his urbanity as his talents. His temper is warm, and his feelings ardent and generous. He is an orator of no com- mon excellence. His mind is fruitful and aflluent; his imagination vigorous, and his judgment correct- He reasons with a good deal of power, and wields the weapons of logic with much skill and effect. The polish and elegance which distinguish him, are always calculated to please ; and while wrestling with his opponent, he displays so much courteousness, that all asperity is lost, and nothing like bitterness or mortification is felt. He casts upon the subject he is discussing, the light of a luminous mind, and concentrates and varies and sports with its rays so elegantly, that the listener cannot but be delighted with the charm he wields. He has, however, embarked in a career that is not likely to conduct him to greatness, and the notions and opinions which he and the school of politi- cians to which he belongs, entertain, are not those which will harmonize with the convictions and sentiments of the great majority of his countrymen. But whatever may be his errors of opinion, or the warmth and obstinacy with which he supports them, no one can deny him knowledge, eloquence, and genius. He stands deservedly at the head of his party in the Senate, and was the only opponent during the last session, the giant of the North deigned to enter the arena to contend with. ^S FORSYTH. JOHN FORSYTH.* Mr. Forsyth is a young man, of handsome per- son and agreeable manners; he seems to be about thirty-five years of age ; his countenance possesses a great deal of sweetness and benignity, is very prepossessing and very regular. He has, like most of the members of the American Congress, been educated for the bar, at which he has prac- tised for some years, with considerable success. He received his education in the seminary of which Mr. Crawford was usher ; and first distinguished himself in a case of impeachment instituted by tlie Legislature of Georgia against the Commis- sioners employed to dispose of some public lands belonging to that State. On this occasion, though but a stripling, he displayed much ability, and acquired no little reputation. It was the means of making him known through his native State, and of bringing him into public life as a member of the great national council. The practice of the law has, therefore, for the present, been relinquished, either from necessity or inclination. Legislation, however, seems to be better adapted to his habits and feelings, and it is scarcely probable he will ever retmrn to his profession, if he should be so for- tunate as to succeed in tlie difficult and arduous duties of a politician and statesman, in which he is now engaged. I think Mr. Forsyth has some * This sketch was written In 1817", and published in the " Letters from Washing-ton." FORSYTE* S9 amuition, and is solicitous to render himself con- spicuous in political life. His talents are by no means of an ordinary character, and were he to devote more of his time to the improvement of his mind, and the acquisition of that various and ge- neral knowledge so essential to a statesman, he would have but few superiors in this country. I think him a fine and sometimes an eloquent speak- er ; his voice is harmonious, and susceptible of great modulation, but not sonorous or powerful. He wants impetuosity and vehemence, but sup- plies this deficiency by a constant, regular, and uninterrupted flow, which resembles a stream where no rocks arise or projections intervene to disturb the gentle motion of its current. His style is not figurative or ornamented, but sufficiently flowing and oratorical to gratify the ear and please the mind. I believe Quinctilian and Lonffinus have asserted, that revolutions and republics al- ways produced great orators. This is unquestion- ably true ; but the speakers of this country do not seem to cultivate oratory as an art, and its artifi- cial embellishments and elegancies are therefore somewhat neglected. Habit has given the public speakers and declaimers of this country a facility of speech and a rapidity and ease of elocution, with which they seem to rest satisfied, and make no farther effort to attain the sublimity and eleva- tion of true eloquence. Mr. Forsyth is more of a debater than an orator ; his elocution flows, but never gushes ; his phraseology is not tastefully se- &0 FORSYTH. lected or artfully arranged ; his deductions are noi always conclusive, nor his sophistry ingenious ; he wants the '* dazzling fence of argument," the epi- grammatic point, and the graceful antithesis, which may be noticed in Grattan and the Irish orators ; but still Mr. Forsyth is capable of excellence, and has received from nature those powers which, with proper polish and cultivation, would conduct him to a niche in the temple of immortality. Mr. Forsyth has continued ever since the above was written, in public life. He was, soon after its appearance, made Senator of the United States; then Minister to Spain ; afterwards Governor of his native State ; and is again a Senator from Georgia. He is devoted to party, and ambitious of high station and political eminence. But he has yet to learn that each is but A proud mendicant, it boasts and begs : It begs an alms of homage from the throng, And oft the tlirong denies its charity. Shakspeahe. Popular favor is but a transient bauble, and every politician will experience its emptiness. He who prostitutes talent, or sacrifices private friend- ship at the shrine of ambition, may live to repent his folly in bitterness of spirit, and learn too late that he has followed a shadow and left the sub- stance behind, and that his idol has been a glitter- ing meteor, radiant and glorious to the vision, but hollow and worthless to the touch. LIVINGSTON. '^1 EDWARD LrlVINGSTON. Mr. Livingston, though now upwards of seventy years of age, still retains the powers of mind which distinguished him in tlie maturity of life. lie is tall, thin, and but little bent by age. His step is still firm and elastic, and nothing seems to have failed him but his vision, the deficiency of which is supplied by a lens suspended from his neck, which he uses instead of spectacles. Mr. L. has been ioncr known as a lawyer and civilian of the first rank. The famous batture question, in whi^h he was opposed by the illustrious JeflTerson, gave him a notoriety which his subsequent conduct has not tended to diminish. His Louisiana Code, the re- sult of profound knowledge and laborious investi- gation, has been adopted in all the courts of that State ; and his researches in this branch of science, and his labors in codification, like those of Jeremy Bentham, have been profound and indefatigable. He has been recently, it is believed, engaged in preparing a criminal code for the District of Co- lumbia, which is certainly much wanted, and which Congress will no doubt adopt as a substitute for the wretched system of criminal jurisprudence which now prevails in this District. Mr. Livingston is a gentleman of extensive reading and great attain- ments. He is acquainted with the ancient and most of the modern languages, which has opened to him the treasures those languages contain. As a legislator and lawyer, he stands deservedly high. i^2 LIVINGSTON. Though a septuagenarian, his mind is still acute, subtle, and discriminating, and no evidence as yet appears of a decay of intellectual power. His speeches are elaborate, recherche, and ingenious, often indeed as much intended to convince him- self as his hearers, and perhaps bordering too close- ly on the sophistry of the bar. His written are, however, better than his oral speeches ; for in the former he endeavors to polish the style and elabo- rate the argument, to meet the public eye and to sustain his reputation, while in the latter he seems to be more careless and indifferent. Mr. L. is not very fluent ; he pauses and hesitates too frequently, and his enunciation, from the loss of his teeth, is somewhat indistinct, and his voice too low. He is listened to more for the matter than the manner, which is nevertheless not disagreeable. He evinces a liberality and fiiirness in the discussion of a sub- ject, which are always felt and appreciated, and which render him at all fimes an lionorable oppo- nent Mr. Livingston's mind has not been exclu- sively applied to political and legal subjects; it has been occasionally refreshed at the Pierian fount, and enriched by the treasures of literature. He does not, like Brougham, relax his ficulties by de- monstrating a mathematical proposition, but by clipping into the scenes of Shakspeare, Alfieri, or Voltaire. He has not yet outlived his reputation, though it is somewhat diminished, and has sunk from the *' high and palmy state" it had once at- tained. Age has impaired the vigor of his imagi- <^ JOHNSTON. i>«^ nation, but has not dainped the native ardor of his feelinsrs. Thouirh he has ontlived the ijiiantasics Oct I of life, its vapid realities do not seem to have les- sened his attachment to tlie world. Perhaps the experience of seventy years may now induce him to feel, in the language of Petracli, *' Che quanto place al mondo e breve sogno." If it do not, the conflicts of party rancor, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the sickening vanities of the world, have been experienced in vain, and life has not been to him a school of wisdom, but a scene of successive and uninterrupted enjoyments, not " stale, dull, and unprofitable," but redolent of joy, radiant with hope, and teeming with pleasure. JOSIAH S. JOHNSTON. Mr. Johnston has been in Cong:ress for several years, and a member of both branches of the Na- tional Legislature. lie is not less conspicuous as a legislator than as a gentleman. He has all the intelligence necessary to constitute the one, and all the propriety of action and the urbanity and courtesy of manners which form the other. As a statesman, his views are liberal and just, always supporting those principles which he conceives to be the best calculated to promote the great into?- rests of his country, and always ready to defend the cause of truth and humanity. ThouD-h his course 9 94 BARTON. while in public life has not been marked by its spleu- dor, it may be traced by its usefulness. It is not his ambition to figure as a politician, or to attain high political rank. He esteems it the highest honor to be the representative of a free people, and to discharge the duties of his station in such a manner as to merit .their approbation, while he re- tains his own ; and he covets neither place nor power. His talents and information have been so justly appreciated that he has generally been plac- ed on the most important committees, to which he is always deemed a valuable accession. His mind possesses considerable acumen, and does not want depth or comprehensiveness. His expositions are clear and satisfiictory, and he sometimes concen- trates his rays of light so strongly, that the obscur- est parts of what he is handling become luminous. As a speaker, he wants fluency, but possesses force ; and. as a politician, his conduct is fair and honorable. DAVID BARTON. This o-entleman is short of stature, but erect and well proportioned. His gait, like his enunciation, is slow and sedate, and his countenance is grave, with a spice of satire running through its linea- ments. His eye is gray and expressive, and his mouth peculiarly prim and eloquent. Till the last session of Congress, his talents were not fully known or appreciated. Tie occasionally made a BARTON. ir5 srpecch which was admired for its power and intel- ligence, but his retiring manners and melanclioly mood seldom allowed him to make a disi>lay of those talents with which he is gifted. He seemed ' to seek no distinction, and pursued the "even te- nor of his way" almost unnoticed and unknown, till the peculiar nature of the great question intro- duced into the Senate by Mr. Foot called him out, and gave him an opportunity to exhibit those pow- ers with which he is endowed. There was some- thing original in the manner in which he handled the subject under discussion ; and all were surpris- ed at the keenness of his invective and the pungen- cy of his satire, because they were unexpected, though not uncalled for or undeserved. From the general gravity of his manner, no one anticipated such a display, and all were struck with the peculiar severity and novelty he exhibited. Some of his sub- sequent efforts, during the same session, were more argumentative and less caustic, but they still evinc- ed a deep feeling of indignation against the acts of the administration. Mr. Barton's mode of warfare is like that of the Indian — he first scalps and then tomahawks his adversary. His allusions, though somewhat mystical, are nevertheless striking, and often felicitous, and his figures are purposely suited to the taste of the West, in which he has spent the most of his life. His bitterness originates as much from his hypochondriacal temperament, as from his contempt of folly and his disgust at profligacy. Con- vinced of the purity of his motives and the correct- 96 BAHTON. cess of his views, he is bold, independent, and fearless, and marches up to the point of his ene- my's sword, without blanching at its aspect, and with a determination neither to give nor receive quarters. There is another peculiarity in the cha- racter of Mr. Barton, v»'hich should not be omitted^ With almost repulsive gravity, his " heart is open as day to melting charity," and he bestows with princely munificence where the object is worthy of his benevolence, and sometimes, indeed, without inquiring whether it be so or not. The soubrequet which has been given him, is one which, from its appropriateness, will remain attached to him thro' life. " The Little Red" is one of those individuals who are destined to figure in the world, and who deserve the distinction they acquire. I shall now proceed to give a few brief sketches of the distinguished Members of the House of Re- presentatives, which, though it has not of late been so fruitful in talent and eloquence as it once was, still contains many who rank high in the scale of intellectual power and acquirement. These I shall arranofe, as I have done those of the Senators, ac- cording to States, beginning with Massachusetts. EVERETT. 97 EDWARD EVERETT. Mr. Everett has been but a few years a repre- sentative in Congress, and is still but a young man. His parliamentary career has been, so far, as bril- liant as his friends could have expected, or as he could himself desire. He was preceded by a high literary reputation, and his drhut on the floor of the House did not tend to lessen it. There was something splendid and classical in his first speech, which excited great attention, and produced plea- sure in those who heard him. Mr. Everett is more of an orator than a debater. He has practised in (he professor's chair, and in the pulpit, till his elo- <:ution has become easy and captivating. On ora- tory, as an art, he has bestowed much of his atten- tion and labor ; and when the subject suits the pe- culiar character of his mind, or the nature of his feelings, his declamation is splendid. He throws into his voice a pathos and beauty of intonation, that render it exceedingly agreeable. Its dulcet and mellow cadences, " Musical as is Apollo's lute," fall delightfully upon the ear, and when em])loyed in giving expression to a fine sentiment, a lofty conception, or a generous and noble feeling, they resemble poetry bloided with music, and act upon the mind with a charm that no one feels a wish to resist. His attitudes, though studied, are easy and gracefulj while the fire of his fine hazel eve. and 9* 9^3 EVERETT. the expression of his grave<-but intellectual counte- nance, give the most powerful effect to all he ut- ters. When Mr, Everett becomes heated with the subject, and stimulated by the gaze of those around him, his declamation is magniticent, and his elo- quence is poured out with so much power, and with such propriety and gracefulness of manner, that every hearer is delighted, and feels that he is addressed by one of no ordinary genius. The style of his eloquence, and the peculiar plaintive- ness of his voice, are finely adapted to subjects sus- ceptible of pathos. Though these are, perhaps, better suited to the pulpit than the Senate, they are nevertheless attractive everywhere, and give a charm to the tone of moral reflection and senti- ment in which he occasionally indulges, that every one must feel. From his habit of declaiminij in the pulpit, he is perhaps somewhat too didactic in his manner, for the sphere which he now occu- pies ; but there is a classical purity and beauty in his style and allusions, and a lucidness in his ar- rangement, that must give pleasure to every cul- tivated mind. Mr. E. is a ripe scholar : he has the reputation of being inferior in this respect to none in this country, and his general reading has been extensive and well digested. He possesses a culti- vated taste, a chastened though not very vigorous imagination, and a judgment at all times accurate and discriminating. As a logician, there are some of his coadjutors in legislation who surpass him in force and ingenuity, but not in clearness and truth EVERETT. 91) of moral deduction, or accuracy of rcasonin;:r. The bar has given to some of his associates greater rea- diness and facility in wielding the weapons of logic, but they have less range of argument, and less beauty of illustration. I have said that Mr. E. is less of a debater than an orator, because his incli- nations and pursuits having been more literarv than political, he is not at all times ready to meet his opponent, and but seldom addresses the Housr? untd he is fully prepared by previous research and reflection, and then only v/licn (pieations of deep interest and importance are brought up for discus- sion. On minor questions he will not often de- scend to speak, and he has not that temper whicli would lead him to deal in invective and bitter sar- casm. He treats his opponent with great mildness and candor, and reasons with the coolness of a phi- losopher, though he sometimes gives vent to indig- nant feelings, and on those occasions his bursts of oratory are truly splendid. He is far from giving '' to party, what is due to mankind ;" its bicker- ings, intemperance, and animosities, do not dis- turb the equanimity of his mind, and he meets his political adversary in fair and honorable combat, and never suffers himself to be thrown from his course by violence, indecorum, or uant of courlesy. It has been said of Mr. Everett, with great proprie- ty, as it was said of Goldsmith, " Nihil tctigit quod non ornavit." He handles no subject that he does not ornament from the natural and ac- quired elegance of his mind. His regular ora- 1^0 ^ EVERETT. tions, parliamentary speeches, and his literary es- says, all breathe a spirit of philanthropy, a justness of thought, a depth of feeling, and a tone of moral beauty, which every impartial mind must admire. There is however observable in some of his intel- lectual efforts, a want oi richness of coloring, which would indicate that in the cultivation of his judg- ment he had too much neglected the exercise of his imagination. It is not so often employed as it jiiight be with effect, to give richness and splendor to his composition, whether prepared in the closet or, delivered on the rostrum. American orators are usually, I think, too dry and didactic ; they confine themselves rather too strictly to mere argumenta- tion, and will but rarely suffer themselves to sport amid the brilliant corruscations of wit, or to use a faculty which, under the guidance of a cultivated taste, is so well suited to give magnificence and beauty to the productions of the mind. Mr. Everett, though long devoted to the refined and elegant pleasures of literature, to " Calm contemplation and poetic ease," is nevertheless a man of business, and is among the most punctual, regular, and assiduous, in the discharge of his parliamentary duties. lie is ne- ver absent from the House, or from a meeting of a committee to which he may belong, unless detain- ed by sickness, and is always prompt in bringing the business referred to him before the body of which he is a member, for its action. Mr. Everett PAVIS. 101 is ambitious of political distinction, which, I doubt not, he will attain, from the character of his mind, his industry, and the extent and variety of his at- tainments. Ilis patriotism is ardent and his assi- duity unceasing. In the pulpit, the editorial and professor's chair, on the rostrum and the floor of Congress, he has been equally conspicuous and equally successful. Asa reviewer, he has given reputation to the literary character of his country, and as an orator, he is held in high and merited estimation. His style of speaking and writing is neat, flowing, and oratorical, and his speeches are always listened to and read with edification and pleasure. Mr. E. is indeed one in whom, from the extent of his acquirements, the superiority of his intellect, and his devotion to the cause of truth, of letters, and his country, the nation must feel a just and honorable pride. JOHN DAVIS. Mr. Davis is a native of Massachusetts, and has been a member of the House of Representatives for about six years. He does not often address the body to which he belongs ; but when he does, it is with great ability and effect. He is sedate, grave, and circumspect, reflecting intensely on the sub- ject brought up for discussion, and speaking only when it is of such a nature as to require the lights and energies of superior minds. On such occa- 104 BURGES. There is, indeed, something youthful and elastic and glowing in its operations, a beautiful blending of the luxuriant verdure of spring with the rich maturity and abundance of autumn. The " sear and yellow leaf" is enclosed in a wreath of roses, and the maxims of age are decorated with the flowers of poetry. Mr. B. is a man of wealth ; he has been, it is said, a professor of elocution in one of the northern colleges, and is in some degree his own teacher. Like all self-taught men, he has read much and reflected more. The information he possesses has been carefully passed through the crucible of his mind, and can be called out when- ever it is required. His recollection enables him to call up whatever may be treasured in his memo- ry, and he can always give to his facts '* a local habitation and a name." Mr. Burges is among the few legislators of our country who have not made law a profession. The Congress of the Unit- ed States contains a large majority of this class of men. The legal profession supplies the most abundant and best materiel of both Houses. The practice of the law, however, is not, I think, exactly suited to the character of a legislator or a statesman. The bar and the Senate require different qualifica- tions and different powers. To be eminent at the bar, a strong memory, some subtilty, a good deal of sophistry, and a knowledge of jurisprudence, are ge- nerally all that are recjuired ; but to be distinguished in the chair of state, or the hall of legislation, a mind of greater range and comprehensiveness — a BURGES. 10:> more cultivated intellect, and a deeper knowledge of human action and human motives are necessary : hence it often occurs that those who have become eminent at the bar, are far from bcinjr the most prominent, or the most useful, in the halls of Con- gress. It is a new arena to which their previous studies and pursuits have rendered them, in some de- gree, strangers; and they find it is not enough, from a feeling of vanity, or a principle of 0{)position, to make the '' worse appear the better cause." They must act on a wider field, and operate on a more extended range of materials. '"The quirks, and quiddities," the sophistry and technicalities of the law, are of little avail in a field so extended and variegated, as that which a legislative assembly pre- sents. The study of jurisprudence as a science, or as a branch of liberal education, is unquestionably a useful ingredient in the formation of a legislator-; but the long and continued practice of the law has a tendency, I conceive, to contract the mind to the mere exercise of technical subtilties, or to limit it to the production of ingenious, though, perhaps, splen- did sophisms. The history of the world will prove that the most eminent legislators and statesmen have not been those who have devoted much of their time to the practice of the law. Solon, Lycurgus, and Numa, of ancient, and Pitt, Burke, and Fox, of mo- dern times, were not lawyers, and, most likely, if they had been, would not have reached the glorious eminence they attained. The most distinguisherl 10 lOG BURGES. statesmen of this country were not tho^e who were taken from the bar. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison (though the two latter had studied the law,) were not professional lawyers. Their minds had not been narrowed down by a habitual inter- mingling of right and wrong, or warped by a con- j5r,strained and constant perversion of moral truths. It is not always a fact that this profession expands the intellect, and produces habits of reflection, though the mind is indeed constantly employed ; but it is not in the developement of hidden, or in the pur- suit of obvious truths; on the contrary, it is often employed to darken, or pervert them ; and the pro- fession has, at best, no greater power than what the investigation of mathematical or abstract metaphy- sical subjects will afford. "The law, says Burke, is not apt, except in per- sons happily born, to open and liberalize the mind in exactly the same proportion as the other sciences." A mind disciplined at the bar, instead of being strengthened, is apt to lose its energies,, and the habit of incessantly seeking for arguments on either side, tends to weaken its powers of dis- crimination. Lawyers are, however, eminently useful in legislative assemblies. They are, from the 3iature of their profession, well skilled in the phrase- ology, mechanism, and interpretation of law ; and can, therefore, give them that finish, efficiency and operation, they ought to have. It has, indeed, some- times occurred, that statesmen of a high order have BURGES. 107 been taken from the bar, but tbey Ijave been men of genius, whose inclinations have lotl them, and whose reflections have been early direct- ed, to those great and interesting subjects, which concern the well being of society, and the prosperi- ity and happiness of nations. Their minds have early taken apolitical direction, and have not been weakened or degraded by exercising them in the indiscriminate and constant support of the right and the wrong. One of the principal evils resulting from this predilection for jurisprudence as a profession in this, as it will he perhaps in all republics, is too great a fondness for speaking. The habit of extempora- neous oratory acquired at the bar, and the reputa- tion it produces, lead to the too frequent exercise of the power of speech, which tends to lessen the standing of those who yield to it, and to consume the time of the body they address. Extem}X)raneous oratory, in which most of the legal gentlemen of this country excel, is unquestionably a most invalua- ble talarit, and when exercised with proper modera- tion, might be employed profitably to its possessor, and advantageously to the nation. But nothing can be more puerile and annoying, than a mere logocra- cy, v/here speeches continue to be poured out, long after the subject of discussion has ceased to inter- est, or to be susceptible of new or additional illustra- tion. The nature of our government, will, how- ever, always produce this evil, which belongs to, and is inherent in, every representative democracy. Members will often, either from vanity, a love oi' 108 BURGES. distinction, or a solicitude to please their constitu- ents, be induced to speak longer and more fre- quently than they would be disposed to do, under -a different order of things ; and though they feel, and acknowledge the evil of it, they perceive it is one that it would be worse than vain to attempt to de- stroy, while the motives and causes 1 have mention- ed continue to operate. But to return from this digression. Mr. Burgeg always throws into the subject which he discusses, the spirit and enthusiasm by which he is fired, and whatever may be its abstract nature, he gives it variety by a judicious exercise of the imagina- tion, as well as the judgment. He does not con- fine himself to mere logi3 alone, but avails himself of the aids of its kindred art, rhetoric, and tliQ beauties of elocution, employing a style figurative and ornate, and decorating his subject with the pictures of the poet, while he elucidates and en- forces it by the lights of history and the book of experience. His manner is too warm and vehe- ment for his years, but it is not offensive or displeas- ing, and the hearer listens till lie catches his en- thusiasm and regards his vehemence as appropri- ate. Mr. B. is fond of declamation, and indulges occasionally in satire, which is keen, but genteel. There is nothing in it of roughness or vulgarity; it is the Damascus blade, and not the scalping knife, and though it cuts with great keenness, the wound is not rankling. Mr. B. commenced his parliamentary career perhaps too late in life to bes STORRS. 10i» come an active or efficient debater, and prefers the cliaracter of an orator, for which his genius, tem- perament, and acquirements, better fit him, and at which he aims in most of his oratorical eflbrts. His poHtical views are expansive and cnHghtened, and party prejudice is seldom suffered to lead him into error, or to darken the native clearness of his judgment. His moral is, I believe, equal to his in- tellectual character, and his eloquence has, there- fore, all the charms of moral beauty, as well as the force of intellectual excellence. In short, there are few men of Mr. B.'s age in this country better fitted to adorn the circles of domestic life, or to give splendor to the sphere of political action. The vanities of the world have lost their hold upon him, but he still feels the stimulus of ambition, *'the last infirmity of noble minds." It is not, however, the ambition which leads to the attainment of rank or place, but that which conducts to intellectual and moral eminence. This he has reached, and this form.s the ultima thtde, the last boundary of hi^ earthly wishes and expectations. HENRY R. STORRS. Mr. Storrs is a member of the House of Repre- sentatives, and has been a Representative from New York for several years. In his person, he is above the middle size, well-formed, but rather 10* 110 STORKS. " fat llian bard beseems." His face is full and fleshy ; his eye small, and defective in vision, which renders it necessary for him to use specta- cles. He is, I believe, a native of Connecticut, between forty and fifty years of age, and has re- sided in New York for many years. As a debater, he has but kw equals, and his eloquence, when he is in the humor to employ it, and the subject is of sufficient importance to call it forth, is almost irre- sistible. His elocution is easy, and agreeable ; he moves forward without hesitation ; his style is neat and flowing, and sometimes ornamental ; and his gesture appropriate, and graceful. In answering the arguments of his opponent, he throws aside the rubbish which has been cast around them, and brushes away the cobwebs of sophistry in which they have been involved — exposes their fallacy and weakness — pours around his own such a flood of light, and maintains their correctness and truth with such ingenuity and force, that few who hear him can refuse their assent to the justness of his conclu- sions, or are able, if willing, to resist the power of his logic, and the force of his eloquence. He speaks, as if without premeditation, and the House is often surprised at the light he diffuses, and the information he displays. There is nothing, how- ever, in Mr. S.'s style of eloquence very brilliant — be does not often use many of the embellishments of rhetoric. The power he seems to exercise is that of genius cultivated to a certain extent ; hut without stooping to avail itself of the assistance of STORKS. Ill art. Like Bcrke, he is always prepared, because, like him, he reflects much ; and thougii, from his general habits, what he says has the appearance of being extemporaneous, he nevertheless tliinks deep- Jy on all subjects which are to present themselves for discussion, or are connected with the general objects of legislation. Mr. S. is therefore seldom at a loss, and never betrays any ignorance of the subject he may be called upon to discuss; and so great is the affluence of his mind that he pours out arguments with a profusion, and employs illustra- tions, with an aptitude and skill, that none can lis- ten to him without astonishment and pleasure. Mr. Storrs is a lawyer, and has all the acuteness and ingenuity which the practice of that profession is apt to produce, but his habits are indolent, and his temperament hypochondriacal, and it is but seldom he is sufficiently roused to come out in his full strength. When he does, there are few that can conquer him in intellectual combat. Of Mr. S. it may be said, in the language of Burke, "his style of argument is neither trite or vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse ; he always hits the House just between loind and waters With more firmness and decision of character, he would have a more de- cided influence, and if his ambition or his industry were equal to his genius, there is perhaps none that would take a higher stand in the opinion and esteem of his countrymen. 112 m' M DUFFIE. GEORGE M'DIFFIE. This gentleman has acquired a high reputatioHj and certainly not an unmerited one, in the political world. He is still young, not being more than 35 years of age, and ranks among the first in the na- tion in all that constitutes intellectual superiority. Like Webster, he affords another example of the success of genius and industry unaided by family influence or wealth. Mr. M'Duffie has risen, it is said, from humble begirmings, and perhaps has felt too warmly and sensibly for his interest, the noble principle of gratitude. ' His genius was early discovered and appreciated by one who, by extend- ing to him his patronage and friendship, has exer- cised an influence over him which it is thouo^ht has in some degree cast a shade upon his future prospects and lessened his political standing. He belongs to the southern school of politics, which may have some distinguished proselytes, but is not, I think, destined to spread its principles extensive- ly, or soon to become triumphant or successful in this country. He had acquired a merited reputa- tion by his abilities, and his course, during a part of the session of 1829-30, had exalted him in the estimation of his political friends and opponents. It was marked and approved by all ; but he was not satisfied — recklessly dashed the cup from his lips, and by one false step lost in some degree the rank which he held in the minds of his countrymen as a legislator and a statesman. Nothing can, how- m'duffie. 113 f>.^-;:'-^^j* ever, impair his reputation for ability. His talents and eloquence are not to be questioned. Ilia mind is acute, discriminating and powerful. He labors incessantly, and when his passions and pre- judices have no excitement, his intellectual opera- tions are not only vigorous, but successful. He confines himself to no particular mode of reason- ing ; it is sometimes synthetic and sometimes ana- lytic. His arguments are arranged with great clearness, and presented with force. His views are sometimes original and occasionally splendid. He is ingenious, and often makes up for the want of information on any particular subject by his in- genuity. Like Mr. Webster, he is a business speaker ; he reasons like a man of business, and strives to satisfy the judgment, without appearing desirous to seize upon the imagination. He is stu- dious and reserved, and devotes his time and at- tention to the business of the House, and that of the committees of which he may be a member, with unceasing assiduity. As a speaker, he is fluent, argumentative, and vehement. His manner, however, is rather ungraceful, and the vehemence of his gesture, instead of giving impressiveness to, tends to lessen the power of his eloquence. His action is too uniform and violent ; his right arm is drawn back and thrust forward with energy, as if he was hurling the truth at the Speaker, which gives him the appearance of a pugilist in the act of striking his antagonist a blow. His voice too wants power and modulation ; he cannot regulate 114 m'duffie. its cadences, or adapt its tones to the sentiment he utters. But what he says comes with great force and effect on the mind. He moves along with fluency, and declaims with vehemence. His rea- soning is often solid and always ingenious ; his sarcasm is keen, and his satire biting. He has an earnestness and fire about him, that give to all he says the appearance of sincerity and the force of truth. He does not dislike ornament, and his ima- gination is sometimes called upon for images, and his memory for illustrations, which are often appo- site and felicitous. Possessing the warmth of feel- ing common to the South, he is occasionally, per- haps, too intemperate in language, and extravagant in sentiment, and may, sometimes, " overstep the modesty of nature ;" but there is, notwithstanding, a redeeming spirit in the operations of his mind, which throw these minor blemishes into shade. We lose sight of the manner, in the soundness, and oc- casional elegance of the matter, Mr. McD. always makes himself well acquainted with the subject on which he means to address the House, and by read- ing, and reflection, stores his mind with images, arguments, and facts, calculated to enforce and defend the positions he may advance. There is in his speeches no pomp of erudition, no evidence of a mind embued with classical beauty, none of the embellishments of poetry, and no attempts at wit. His native ore does not glitter, but effused by the heat of his mind, casts out, not a brilliant, but a aniform and continuous light, which serves to illu- m'duffie. ii'» mine the path he takes, and to conduct the hearer to the retreats of trutli. His styki corresponds with the character of his mind, vigorous and occa- sionally elegant ; his words are not, however, al- ways the most choice or appropriate, but they flow with sufficient rapidity, and are well placed. lie has the substance without the shadow of elo- quence — the principiuvi ct fons of oratory, and the power of his mind is felt and acknowledged by all on whom he wishes it to operate. His temper is, however, somewhat too ardent, I think, to give him a decided influence, as the leader of a party. It is too apt to burst out into ebullitions and to be- come stormy and tempestuous. This must necessa- rily weaken his hold upon the opinions and feelings of his political friends, and though they acknow- ledge his ability, they cannot always confide in his discretion. He evidently aspires at political emi- nence, and this point he would assuredly attain, were he to pursue that policy which wisdom points out. He has merely to keep aloof from the con- flicts of party ; to lend hmiself to no faction ; to become the instrument of no demao-ofrue ; and to identify himself with no ambitious aspirant. Let him consult the crreat interests of his countrv, cast aside all local prejudices, and think and act inde- pendently and fearlessly on the great principles of national prosperity and happiness. Let the world see that he is stimulated more by the spirit of pa- triotism than by attachment to party ; that his great idol is the good of his country, and not the 116 MCDUFFIE. success of a faction or the advancement of an indi- vidual, and the eyes of the intelligent and virtuous will be fixed with delight upon him, because his career will be the career of patriotism, and his tri- umph the triumph of virtue, independence, and talent. WASHINGTON HT GEORGE WASHINGTON. WASniNGTON, , 1818.* Since my last, I have been to visit Mount Vernon^ memorable for having once been the residence of the illustrious Washington, the saviour of his coun- try. It is now in the possession of a near relation, of the same name, who is one of the associate judges of the supreme court, and a very amiable man. It is beautifully situated, on the right bank of the Po- tomac, which is seen from it as far as the eye can reach, pursuing its meandering course to the Ches- apeake. I must confess it was not without feelings of deep and intense interest, that I strolled over ground consecrated by the ashesof oneof the great- est and best men the world has produced. The richness and beauty of the landscape, were lost in the gloom of melancholy reflection, and I gazed on the humble sepulchre which contained his mor- tal remains, with those feelings which 1 know you would experience in beholding, on the far famed plain of Troy, the tumuli of Hector, Achilles, and Patroclus. There is a singular kind of pleasure in contemplating the ashes of the " mighty dead," who slumber beneath you. It is a pleasure which re- sembles the sensation produced by the heavenly tones of the ^Eolean harp, heard amid the repose and tranquillity of night. The mind is thrown off its poise, and floats along the stream of time, mellowed *From " Letters from Washiiig-ton." 11 1155 WASHINGTON. and chastened by retrospection. The fame of a great man preserves every thing connected with him from oblivion ; and, in the language of Bruce, " while even the situations of magnificent cities are forgot- ten, we are familiar with the insignificant village that sheltered some humble philosopher, or the rill that quenched the thirst of some indigent bard." From an attentive perusal of the American histo- ry, and a close examination of the character of Washington, it appears to me that the principal fea- ture of his mind was judgment, which always led liim to avoid the dangers of precipitancy, and the errors which sometimes result from a more vivid and brilliant imagination. The dictates of that judgment constituted the line of his conduct, which was, of course, marked with the most consummate pru- dence. This virtue never seems to have deserted liim either as a statesman or a warrior, in a public or a private capacity. His prudence and caution were particularly observable in his military career, and, like Pericles, he never willingly came to an engagement when the danger was considerable, or the success very uncertain ; nor did he envy the glo- ry, or imitate the conduct of those generals who are admired and applauded because their rash en- terprises have been attended with success.* He had many difficulties to encounter, but these difficulties he readily surmounted. Patriotism animated, and prudence conducted him to triumph. With a limit- * Plutarch's Pericles. WASHIIVGTON. 11^> ed education, and little patronage, he paved liis way to greatness, and by his virtues cast a hla/e of glory around his character, that time can only in- crease, and that posterity must contemplate with enthusiasm and delight. There is no parallel for such a man in the annals of the world ; so singular a combination of virtue, with so few vices ; sucli disinterested patriotism, and such unimpeachable integrity, with so many temptations to swerve, and so many inducements to betray, were never before united. Immovable in the hour of danger, no dif- ficulties could shake, no terrors appal him. He was always the same, in the glare of prosperity, and in the gloom of adversity. Like Fabricius, he could not be moved from the paths of virtue and honor, and like Epaminondas, he made every thing bend to the interest of his country. His country was his idol, and patriotism the predominant feeling of his mind. Personal aggrandisement and individual re- sentment and interest, werg alike sacrificed to this overwhelming passion, which no difficulty could weaken, and no neglect destroy. Washington was reserved, without being haughty ; religious, without being bigotted ; great in all stations, and sublime in all his actions, whether he moved in the sphere of domestic obscurity, or employed his energies in wielding the destinies of his country. Antiquity would have made him a demi-god ; posterity will revere him as a great and good man. Every nation can boast of its heroes, its statesmen, and its bards, but there are few that have produced their Washing- 120 WASHINGTON. tons. He stands almost alone in the history of the world, and will be venerated while virtue and patriotism have an influence on human action. You will, no doubt, be astonished to understand that the remains of this great and excellent man still repose in a humble sepulchre, on the estate at which he resided, and from which, like Cincinnatus, he was several times called by his country. The Ameri- cans are certainly not ungrateful, but they seem to have an aversion to perpetuate a man's name by "monumental brass," or to express their gratitude by splendid tombs, or ponderous and magnificent mausolea. Your long acquaintance with Westmin- ster Abbey, where the high and the low, the great and the obscure, the good man and the villain, are alike honored by their country or their friends, may perhaps draw from you a burst of indignation, at the apparent apathy and indifference of this great re- public, to the memory and past services of its il- lustrious dead ; but I question whether it be not cor- rect policy. To begin would be to have no end, and the erection of a monument to Washington might terminate, as in Russia, with a monument to a favorite dog. Since the invention of writing, and the present extension of knowledge, the *' storied urn and animated bust," have become almost useless. History will record v/ith fidelity the illustrious ac- tions of him who has deserved well of his country, and his name will be as perpetual as if Pelion had been piled on Ossa to preserve his memory. It was, doubtless, owing to the want of this art that the hum- WASHINGTON. 121 ble tumuli of the Celts and the massy pyramids* of the Egyptians were formed ; they had no other mode of expressing their gratitude or of perpetuat- ing the memory of their dead. After all, perhaps the best monument is to " read their gratitude in a nation's eyes." Can stoned urn, or animated bust, Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust. Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death ? It is but justice, however, to state that though the American government has refused to erect a monument to the memory of its illustrious hero, his countrymen have not been quite so fastidious ; and the citizens of Baltimore, with that enthusiasm and public spirit which have done them so much credit, are now engaged in building a monument that will at once evince their gratitude, their patriotism and their taste. It may be safely asserted that the Ame- ricans pay less attention generally to the depositories of their dead than most other nations ; they seem to be no sooner laid in the earth than they are forgot- ten, and the tear of sorrow and the hand of affection but' seldom bedews or decorates the sward under which the friend, the parent or the relative reposes. Among the ancients you will recollect this was part of their religion, and we owe to the tenderness and affection of a Corinthian nurse for her deceased ♦ Leur mass indistructible a fatigue le terns. T De Lille. 122 WASHINGTON. charge, the rich and splendid capital which beauti- fies the Corinthian shaft.* We do not often look in the burial grounds of this country for the pensive cypress, or the melancholy willow, the virgin weep- ing over the urn of her departed lover, or the moth- er hanging over the grave of her darling child ; no flower blooms bedewed with the tear of affection : no zephyr wafts the odours of melancholy love ; all is waste and dreary, and dead as the sunken grave over which you pass, and a few stones, on which are engraved the age and name of the deceased, are all that remain to manifest the affection of the living to those who have passed away and are no more. Bushrod Washington, the present proprietor of Mount Vernon, is the nephew of the General. He seems to be about fifty years of age ; is below the middle size, and apparently nervous and feeble. His complexion is pale and cadaverous, but his counte- nance has the lineaments of benevolence and good nature. He has long been one of the judges of the supreme court of the United States, and has, during that period, discovered no deficiency in his acquain- tance with the law. His decisions are, I believe, * (( Autrefois elles coupoient leurs long-ues tresses sur la tombe de leurs parens ou de leurs amis et leur sacrifi- cient ainsi Tornement dent elles etoient le plus jalouses. O vue delecieuse des tombeaux de la Greece combien de doux momens J'ai passes a vous contempler. Mes pensees erroient sur ees monumens comme les oiseaux funebres qui voltig-ent autour "— M. Guy's voyag-e litte- raire de la Greece. Iter mortis ing-ridimur nascentes Slnec. WASHINGTON. 1-^^ generally correct, thoiigTi not very remarkable. I know not whether he was ever distinguislied for his eloquence at the bar ; but little seems to be known of his powers as an advocate or a lawyer, and that little does not tend to place him much beyond me- diocrity. He appears to be one of those men to whom the pleasures of the domestic circle are more seducing than the fitful though captivating splen- dor which surrounds the temples of the statesman or the warrior ; and he prefers what the world would term the inglorious repose of domestic feli- city, to the feverish agitation and sickly turmoil of public life. Mount Vernon has become, like Jerusalem and Mecca, the resort of the travellers of all nations, who come within its vicinity ; veneration and re- spect for the memory of the great and illustrious chief, whose body it contains, lead all who have heard his name, to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of patriotism and public worth, and to stroll over the ground which has been consecrated by the re- pose, and hallowed by the ashes of heroism and virtue. A twig, a flower, or even a stone becomes interesting when taken from the spot where Wash- ington lived and died, and no man quits it without bearing with him some memento to exhibit to his familv and his friends. SOUTHARD. 125 X SAMUEL li. SOUTHARD. The life of this gentleman furnishes another illus- tration of the advantages of the free Constitution of this country. Like Clay, Webster, Wirt, and many others known to fame, he is the fabricator of his own fortune, and has acquired the distinction which he has reached by the unaided efforts of his own genius, and intellectual energies. He was not, in the language of Burke, '* swaddled, and rocked, and nursed," into eminence, but owes the reputa- tion he enjoys, and the rank he has attained, to himself and the liberal institutions of his country Mr. Southard is a native of New Jersey, and was born of parents respectable, but not wealthy. He is now in the 48th year of his age, of a feeble con- stitution, and with a body shattered by disease, to which he has been occasionally subject through life. With that spirit of independence which character- izes his genius, he threw himself early upon his own resources ; and, after passing through his collegiate studies at Princeton, with great honor, he com- menced his career at the age of seventeen, as an as- sistant instructor, in an academy which had been recently established at Mendham, in New Jersey. The great exertions and incessant labors which this new occupation demanded, so impaired his health, that he found it necessary to relinquish his school ; and, after spending some months in Washington, 12 128 SOUTHARD. earnest desire that he would continue in the situa- tion which he had filled with so much ability and satisfaction^ and, during the absence of Mr. Rush, then Minister to England, who had been appointed Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. S. was designated to perform the additional duties of that office. Af- ter his resignation in 1829, he returned to New Jer- sey, and, in a few years, was elected Governor of that State. In 1833 he was again sent to the Sen- ate of the United States, in the place of Mahlon Dickerson, where he is now considered as one of the most prominent among the eloquent and distin- guished members of that body. Mr. Southard is, in person, about the middle size, with a face strongly marked, and indicative of thought. His compressed lips evince great firmness, and the general character of his countenance is that of blended mildness and asperity. His mind pos- sesses great afiluence and energy, with a happy mixture of judgment and imagination. It is active in its operations, and fertile in its resources. He has accumulated a large treasure of facts, by reading and observation, and employs them to enforce, il- lustrate, and embellish what he has to say. His imagination gilds and ornaments what his judg- ment sanctions or his memory supplies. He does not sport on the surface of his subject, and amuse himself, or those whom he addresses, with the mere flowers of fancy, however gaudy, or the ornaments of rhetoric, however splendid ; but explores its EWING. 129 deepest recesses — casts the light of his intellect into it — illuminates what is dark, explains and il- lustrates what is obscure, and renders it clear and intelligible to the meanest capacity. His industry has been indefatigable and unceasing, and its fruits are seen in every intellectual effort he makes. He brings to the investigation of every subject, a mind fraught with knowledge, and capable of the closest and most accurate reasoning. As a speaker, his voice is not agreeable ; it wants melody and in- tonation, but is distinct, though, from the weakness of his body, sometimes tremulous. His action is appropriate, and occasionally vehement ; his dic- tion is correct and fluent, and his style vigorous and flowing. His feelings are ardent, and this ar- dor is imparted to his manner, when he speaks. In private life he is mild and amiable ; and no one. seeing him in the domestic circle, would suppose that he ever indulged in the bitterness of invective, or could give vent to the pungent sarcasm or terri- ble denunciations which he sometimes utters on the floor of the Senate, when roused by the appearance of oppression, folly, injustice, or tyranny. THOMAS EWING. This gentleman, like Mr. Southard, has risen to distinction by the native energies of his mind, and his own unaided exertions. It is pleasing to see, in \2'' 132 EWING. returned once more to his former labors, and con- tinued at them for two years. These severe toils atFected his health ; which, however, a short resi- dence at home restored, and he again entered the academy which he had left about two years before, and proceeded to labor mentally, with the same ardor and intensity that he had labored corporeally. His progress is said to have been very rapid ; but being satisfied that his funds, which were daily di- minishing, would be insufficient to enable him to complete his education, he opened a school in Gal- liapolis, which, in the course of a quarter he threw up, not liking the employment, and returned to his former occupation at the salt works. He now hired a furnace, and by extraordinary labor he acquired a sum in the course of a month, to enable him, as he believed, to complete his studies. He was right ; and in the spring of 1815 he received the degree of A. B. , and was the first to receive that academical honor in Ohio. He was now 26 years of age, and commenced the study of the law, in the office of Ge.neral Beecher, who, after he had finish- ed his legal studies, from a high opinion of his pow- ers, took him into partnership, and in his new and favorite profession he rose rapidly to distinction. As a proof of his ardor and assiduity, he practiced in eight different counties in the State in which he lived. His filial affection was again manifested, in the purchase of a fine tract of land in Indiana, with the proceeds of his profession, on which he placed EWINO. 133 his father and family. He had now acquired so high a reputation for ability and talent at the bar, that the Legislature of Ohio elected him, in 1852, to represent that State in the Senate of the United States ; and in this distinguished body he has con- tinued ever since, with an increase of fame, and an untiring application to the important duties of his station, that has given him a claim to the gratitude of his country. Mr. Kwing is, in person, athletic and muscular, broad across the chest, vigorous, but not elegant in his proportions, or graceful in his motions. His countenance is expressive of good nature, and en- livened by a frequent smile ; and though awkward in his appearance, his manners have a natural ease that even an ejirly intcrcourRe with refined and polished society could not have rendered more agreeable. Nature has bestowed upon him a mind of great powers, which have been cultivated to the extent his limited means and opportunities would afford. It is analytic and logical, rather than bril- liant and imaginative — oratory, as an art, has not claimed much of his attention ; and though his ar- rangement is lucid, and his mind affluent in topics, and fertile in arguments, his speeches possess few of the embellishments of rhetoric, or the elegancies of art. He cannot blend the utile with the dulci or amuse while he persuades. He always endeavors to edify, and but seldom attempts to please. Rea- soning is his forte — in that be is conscious of his N 136 ^ PRESTON. more in the creations of poetry than in the cold for- mula of argument. The mind of the hearer is never so much satisfied with the force of his reasoning, as it is gratified by the splendor of his decorations. These are not so puerile and exhuberant as to cloy, or offend, but are introduced with great delicacy of taste, and propriety of application, and sure to riv- et the attention, and charm the mind. His imagi- nation is too warm for great depth of thought 5 his judgement is sound and discriminating, but is al- ways exercised in connecti(m with the brilliant fac- ulty we have mentioned. The skeleton of argument is always adorned and rendered agreeable by the splendid drapery he casts around it ; and the hearer is struck with wonder and admiration, without being at all times satisfied with the truth of his positions, or the correctness of his conclusions. His style partakes of the character of his mind — it is rich, ornate and splendid, but still adapted to the subject on which it is employed. Mr. Preston is an admi- rable actor, as well as orator; he knows how to in- troduce his clap-traps — how to strike the auditor with astonishment and admiration, when he least suspects the blaze which is to follow— -and how to suit the word to the action, and the action to the word, without o'erstepping the ^'modesty of nature." When the vivid flash and burst of thunder have pas- sed off, the mind of the hearer is permitted to sink into repose, and to wander for a time along the paths of argument, till another peal startles him from PRESTON. 137 his tranquillity, rivets his whole attention, and fills his soul with delight and wonder. All this is done, too, with the most masterly power of acting — the attitude — the expression of the countenance— the whole action are suited to the thought, and calcula- ted to give etFect to the feeling he wishes to excite. His illustrations are happy and beautiful, and his images poetical, and sometimes gorgeous. He does not indulge in puerile conceits, or extravagancies of fancy» but in figures and images that the finest taste would relish as appropriate and beautiful. He does not labor to say striking things, but delights to throw out beautiful thoughts, "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." His is not the brilliancy of the epigramatist — not the brilliancy to which the lines of the French poet could apply — " Si tu brlllais sans etre utile, A ton dernier jour on dirait, Ce n'est qu'une etoile qui file, Qui file, file, et disparait-'* It is the light of a fervid imagination, becoming more glowing and heated by its action, as the " cha- riot wheels" — to use an expression of Coleridge — *'get hot by driving fast." No two men could dif- fer more essentially, than Mr. Preston and his col- league, Mr. Calhoun. The former possesses great warmth of imagination, and the latter scarcely any — the one delights in the richest arabesque orna- ments of fancy, and the other in the simple beauty of mathematical demonstration. The mind of the 13 138 PRESTON. f one is rhetorical and imaginative — that of the other analytic and axiomatic — fond of generalizing, and more pleased with a sylogism than the most splen- did poetical image; in short, the one is a rhetorician the other a logician. Mr. Preston bears a stronger resemblance to Mr. Pinckney, a sketch of whom will be found in this volume, than perhaps, any ora- tor this country has produced, tho' in depth and expansiveness of thought, Mr. Pinckney was, I think, superior. In action, and most of the artificial graces of oratory, Mr. Preston excels, though in voice they were both somewhat defective. Mr. Preston is more of an elocutionist than was the great Maryland orator. He has studied better mo- dels, or possesses greater histrionic talent. The declamation of some of his fine conceptiorvs is equal, if not superior to that of Macready, Booth or Coop- er; and his tall and dignified form — his manly atti- tude — his graceful gesticulation, and the appropri- ate adaption of his voice to the sentiment or feeling by which he is influenced, give an impressiveness and power to what he utters, that are felt and ac- knowledged by all. Mr. Preston seems to be aware that the taste of the Ameiican public is not pleased with what is merely airy and brilliant, in the eftbrts of an orator, and therefore, endeavors to blend the useful with the agreeable, the grave with the gay, the lively with the severe. He is more of the Roman than the Greecian orator; glowing superb — fervent and magnificent. On ordinary questions he does PRESTON 139 not reason like ordinary men ; and though he is not heated and stimulated as on great occasions, his oratorical habits and feelings never desert him ; and he pours out his thoughts in the style and with the action of an orator conscious of his powers. But he seems to think that these powers are chiefly felt, and possess their principal charm when employed in giving oral expression to the operations of his mind. I have heard that he will never consent to revise the notes of the Reporter, or prepare his speeches for publication, and hence no full report of those he has delivered on the floor of the Senate has yet been given to the public. If he perseveres in this determination, his fate may be that of Sheri- dan, whose speeches, from a similar indifference, are now almost forgotten from the skeleton form in which they were printed ; or, perhaps, as has been suggested by an English writer, from a " conscious- ness that their material was not fit for posterity." The reputation of an orator who leaves no specimen of his eloquence behind him, like that of thedistin* guished actor, hangs upon the pen of the biographer or historian. After he has passed away from the stage of life, nothing exists by which he can be judged, or which can give him a claim to the con- sideration of posterity. What idea can even the present generation form of the acting of Garrick, or the oratory of Patrick Henry ? We read the speeches of Burke, Erskine, Curran, &:c., with great pleasure and benefit, as monuments of genius, 142 LEIGH. ' anxious about display ; but speaks that he may en- lighten and convince, with all the earnestness and sincerity of one who thinks that what he utters is founded upon the immutable basis of truth and rea- son, and cannot be overthrown. He does not at- tempt to throw out brilliant things — to be epigrama- tic — sarcasm is not his foi te. " The gall bladder," as has be«n said of another, **was omitted in his composition" — he has no bitterness in his character; and, therefore, what he says is never offensive, or irritating to those with whom he contends. His style of speaking is more forensic than parliamen- tary. He has been more accustomed to the bar than the hall of legislation. He examines his sub- ject closely and analytically ; his observations are sometimes trite, but generally acute; his points are usually strong, and he forms them with some feli- city of illustration, and great strength and lucidness of argument. His attacks are never ferocious or wanton — the wounds he inflicts never rankle, and though he prostrates his opponent, his triumph is never the cause of pain. His conduct on the floor of the Senate, and his conduct in the social circle, are alike distinguished by urbanity. In all condi- tions he is courteous, gentlemanly and kind. His style is simple and vigorous — seldom diff*use, and occasionally elegant. His manner is quiet and easy, but not graceful ; his voice wants variety of intonation, and harmony of cadence, and his action is not impressive. But he is a strong and powerful ROBBINS. 143 debater; a correct and high-minded man, and an eft'ective, and sometimes eloquent speaker. A. ROBBINS. This gentleman has been a Senator from Rhode Island, for several years. He would appear to be between sixt^ and seventy years of age, but no in- tellectual decay is yet visible. In person he is be- low the middle size — thin, and lame in one of his legs, which, from the fatigue he experiences in standing, prevents him from taking a part in the debates of the Senate as often as his inclination, and perhaps his sense of duty would induce him. Like most men of his age, he adheres to the fashions of his youth, and wears his thin hair in a cue, which, for a man of his years, is remarkable for its dark- ness. Mr. Robbins was, in the early part of his life, a professor of languages, and subsequently a Judge. There is no member of either House whose classical attainments can in the least approach those of Judge Robbins. His mind has been deeply imbued with classic lore, and enriched with all the trea- sures of the fine languages of Greece and Rome. He has made it his business to study them by day, and pour over them by night : '•Noctuma versate manu, versate diurna." until he has made himself master of all theirnuiner-'' / 144 CASS. ous beauties, and excellencies. Even now he amuses his leisure hours in turning over the pages of De- mosthenes, Isocrates, and the Greek historians and poets ; and would rather peruse a Greek than an English tragedy. On almost all the great questions brought up for discussion in the Senate, Mr. R. takes a part ; and he never fails to claim the atten- tion of that body. His speeches are distinguished for great purity and precision of style 5 fine classi- cal images, and historical and falicitous illustrations. They always partake of the character of the scholar, and are what may be called learned. His research is considerable ; his arrangements lucid, and his lo- gic clear and forcible. LEWIS CASS. Mr. Cass is now in the 54th year of his age. He was born in New Hampshire, in 1782. After com- pleting his education, he emigrated to Ohio, where he read law, under Governor Meigs, and pursued it as a profession for several years, with great success. He is said to have displayed, in this profession, dis- tinguished ability ; and his reputation at the bar, led to his election as a member of the Legislature of that State, and subsequently to the appointment of Marshal ; a situation which he held till the year 18 IS. Patriotic as well as talented, he volunteered his services in the army, under the command of CASS. 145 Gen. Hull, and received the commission of a Colo- nel. Situated as Mr. Cass was, this act must have sprung from the purest patriotism, and not from ambition, or the love of military distinction. It was his good fortune to strike thejirst blow against the enemy of his country, and with a detachment of two hundred and eighty men he attacked the ad- vanced posts of the British army, near Maiden, and drove them back on the main body. The proclama- tion issued by Gen. Hull, was the production of Mr. Cass' pen, and if his counsels had been followed, the American historian would never have had occasion to blush in recording the disgraceful surrender of Detroit. Though deeply mortified at this event, his ardor was not diminished, nor his spirit subdued. He continued to manifest the firmness of the patriot and the courage of the soldier, in all the subsequent contests on the frontiers, and had the glory to par- ticipate in the defeat of Gen. Proctor and the celebrated Indian Chief, Tecumseh, on the river Thames. After the termination of the war, in 1815, Col. Cass removed to Detroit, and was soon after appointed Governor of the Territory of Michi- gan, which owes much of its prosperity to his able and efficient administration. In 1820 he planned an expedition, for the purpose of exploring the sources of the Mississippi, which was successfully accomplished, and its result published in School- craft's Journal. For several years he was engaged by the General Government, in negotiating treaties 148 CASS. inent features of Governor Cass' mind, are judg- ment and memory ; both of which he has improved by observation and exercise. He has read much, and treasured up a mass of useful facts, and much valuable learning, on which he has the faculty to draw at pleasure. He is laborious, attentive and indefatigable in the discharge of his official duties; studious and devoted to the acquisition of know- ledge, and solicitous to render himself useful in every sphere of life in which he may be placed. He is kind and generous in his disposition — a friend to the poor, and the patron of merit in every rank of society. His mind is expanded and liberal, and does not stoop to the narrowness of party views. Fortune has been propitious to him in his temporal concerns, et longo post tempore venit — and has made him wealthy in his advanced age ; a condition which affords him an opportunity to indulge the lib- eral propensities of his nature, in elegant hospitali- ties, and to enlarge his sphere of usefulness. He can now enjoy the otium cum dignitate, and re- treat, when he pleases, into the shades of retire- ment, without the necessity of labor, and relieved from the anxieties which attend upon the privation of wealth in the evening of life. Governor Cass is, in person, about the middle size? well proportioned and not ungraceful. His face is oval and fleshy, his mouth is wide, and his complexion fair. He wears a wig, which, like most wigs, gives a heavy and clumsy appearance to his head ; but it is well WOODBURY. 149 and strongly marked. In his manners he is grave, without being repulsive; dignified without stiffness, and easy without being familiar. His countenance expresses the kindness of his nature, and his eye the warm feelings of his heart; and no one quits his society without being convinced of his moral worth and satisfied of his intellectual superiority. • LEVI WOODBURY. Mr. Woodbury was born in New Hampshire, early in the year 1790, and is now in the 46th year of his age. He received the elementary part of his education in the free schools of his native village, in which he afterwards taught at different times. He was engaged to instruct a large school at Pep- perell, in Massachusetts, when he was but fourteen years old, and though so young, is said to have gi- ven general satisfaction. In 1805 he entered Dart- mouth College, where he continued for four years. In 1824, as a testimony of the estimation in which his attainments were held, his Alma Mater confer- red on him the degree of L. L. D. During his col- legiate course he attended the law school at Litch- field, in Connecticut, for a year ; and commenced the practice of his profession in 1812. At this pe- riod of his life, he entered into the political contests which then prevailed, and united himself to the Democratic party, which he assisted with his ta- 13 i 150 WOODBURY. lents. The Federal party was, however, dominant in his State, and continued to be so till 1816, du- ring which he devoted himself to his profession, in which he acquired great distinction. His legal knowledge was so highly appreciated that he was appointed, in 1817, a judge of the superior court of iS'ew Hampshire — the highest judicial tribunal of the State. His legal opinions are said to have evinced extensive research and accurate discrimi- nation. Many of them have been published in New Hampshire Reports. In 1819 he married Miss Clapp, of Portland, and removed to Portsmouth. A few ^ears afterwards he was elected Governor of New Hampshire, and at the expiration of his term he returned to the practice of his profession. In 1 825 he was elected representative from the town of Portsmouth ; at the meeting of the legisla- ture he was chosen speaker of the house, and at the close of the session was elected Senator of the United States. During the six years he continued in that body, he participated in all its most important dis- cussions, and was placed on the most important committees. Though thus devoted to legislative life, he did not neglect his professional pursuits, and was employed during the recess of Congress as counsel, in cases involving great interests, be- fore the superior court of his native State. At the expiration of his Senatorial term, he de- clined a re-election 5 but was not, however, allowed WOODBURY. 151 to retire from public life. He was chosen a Sena- tor for his District in the State Senate ; but being invited by President Jackson to a seat in the Cabi- net, as Secretary of the Navy, he resigned the for- mer and accepted the situation of the head of the Navy Department. Upon a new organization of the Cabinet, at a subsequent period, he was transfer- red to the Treasury Department, where he now is. Mr. Woodbury is a member of the New Hamp- shire and American Historical Societies, and be- longs to several other scientific and literary associ- ations in this country. In person he is above the middle size, well proportioned, but somewhat en bon point. The top of his head is bald, but his hair is untouched with the frosts of age ; his face is oval, his eye black and soft in its expression, and an agreeable smile plays around his mouth. He has the ' mens sana incorpore sano.^ — His mind is as ac- tive and vigorous as his body. He is capable of grfeat intellectual labor, and to him labor est vo- luptas. Mr. Woodbury is more solid than brilliant, more desirous to reason than to sparkle ; more anxious to address the judgment than the imagination. His argument, however, when he spoke, possessed a good deal of ingenuity, and he was remarkable for the art with which he handled the subject under discussion. His elocution was easy and sufficiently graceful; his style is perspicuous and flowing, and his cadences not deficient in harmony. He was al- 152 WOODBURY. ways cool and collected, never indicating any warmth of temper, or suffering himself to indulge in sarcasm and invective. There was nothing showy or brilliant in his speeches ; nothing that was calculated to strike th^ imagination or excite the passions, but much to sa- tisfy and convince the reason of the hearer. From his long practice at the bar, he had acquired no little of that sophistry into which those who pursue the legal profession are too apt to fall, from the fre- quent necessity they are under to '' make the worse appear the better cause." Though prompt and ready, Mr. W. was not what may be called a good debater. He but seldom allowed himself to ad- dress the Senate until he was fully prepared by previous study to enter into the discussion ; and when he did so, he always acquitted himself well. He possesses the temperament of the North, and is apparently cold and selfish ; but I believe he is far from being so in fact. He wants the ease and fa- miliarity of our vitriolic countrymen of the South, but is not insensible to thfe warmer feelings of our nature. He is just in all his dealings as a man, and wishes *' to do unto others what he would that oth- ers should do unto him." His official papers are distinguished by great neatness and perspicuity. They contain nothing ambiguous, clumsy or unin- telligible, but indicate a mind of great clearness and vigor, capable of irradiating what is obscure, and TAN BUREN. 153 rendering agreeable what is dull. Such is the pre-' sent Secretary of the Treasury. MARTIN VAN BUREN. Mr Van Buren is small in stature, but his form is neat, agile and erect. The hair on each side of his head, once light, but now gray, is thick, and spreads out, while the crown is entirely bald, like the head of the elder Adams in the usual portraits of him. His eye is gray, his complexion fair, and his features regular. He wears a smile upon his countenance, when he addresses any one — his man- ners are bland and polite, and his deportment dig- nified and easy. Like Clay, Ewing, Webster, &c., he furnishes another striking illustration of the ad- mirable tendency of our free form of government, to call out and reward the talents of those whom nature has favored. From the humblest condition in life, he has risen to the high sphere in which he now revolves by his own exertions. It is true that he has been thrown within the range and operation of favorable circum- stances, but some intellectual power is necessary to render these propitious, even when they are fa- vorable. ** There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the floodgate lead to fortune ;" but it requires tact and discrimination to ascertain when the tide is at its floodgate, and to avail one's 13* 154 VAN BUREN. self of the proper moment to make the plunge, and float unresistingly on its bosom. Mr. Van Buren's almost intuitive knowledge of mankind, and his na- tive energies, have always enabled him to avail him^ self of every favorable circumstance as it occurred. He has not paused when the propitious moment presented itself, but seized it with the energy of one determined on success, and bent on pushing his fortune to the utmost. Thrown early upon the world, and forced into contact with his fellow men, his knowledge of human nature has been rendered profound and valuable. All the great and leading motives to human action are familiar to him. He is too deeply skilled in the secret movements and mysterious operations of the human heart to judge always of others from himself j and having early been conscious that the mind is susceptible of change, he saw the wisdom and felt the necessity of circumspection in what he said or did. He has what the phrenologists call the bump of caution ve- ry large, which renders him cautious in his decla- rations and careful in his intercourse with society. Though he is not taciturn in company, he seldom says any thing that can be turned against him j and is more successful in drawing out the secrets of others, than any man of the same distinction in this country. Either from mental superiority, or his knowledge of the secret springs of liuman action, he has the faculty of acting with great power upon those with w hom he comes in contact, and on whom VAN BUREN. 155 he feels any motive to operate. He possesses great secretiveness, never betrays his own thoughts or feelings, but always draws out the secrets of those whose secrets he feels an interest in knowing. The distinguishing features of his mind are quickness, penetration and acuteness. He is more ingenious than solid. He thinks more rapidly than profound- lyj and as a speaker is more forensic than parlia- mentary. When a member of the Senate, he was accustomed to handle the subject under discussion with great adroitness, ability and tact; but more as a lawyer than a statesman, though his views have all the expansiveness which belong to the latter. He was distinguished as an advocate, and the habit of reasoning acquired at the bar, still clung to him in the halls of legislation. There are, indeed, but few parliamentary orators in our country, consider- ing the great number of public speakers of which it boasts. The technicalities, hair-splitting and so- phistry of the bar, are too frequently carried into the legislative assembly, and often spoil the eftec- tiveness of parliamentary oratory. Mr. Van Buren had all the requisites necessary to constitute an ex- pert and able debater ; but as a debater few could rival the present Secretary of State. There was a readiness and preparation about Mr. Van Buren, that made him formidable as an opponent and effi- cient as a speaker. He had nothing however of bit- terness in his character ; he never retorted with acrimony, but always treated his opponents with 156 , VAN BUREN. courtesy and urbanity. He appears to be always om the qui vive ; never off his guard, and aever offen- sive in his manner (.r address. In conversation a& in political life, he is cautious and aeutPy always treading upon the skirts of a subject — throwing out thoughts as feelers, like the antenoe »f insects, and playing upon the surface in an off-handy agreeable manner. His colloquial powers are good, but not brilliant; not calculated " to set the table in a roar," nor to dazzle by their splendor; but still attractive from an agreeable and unembarrassed flow of ideas, so varied as to suit the different capacities of those with whom he converses, and which the intercourse of a few moments enables him to ascertain. His ambition, *'that last infirmity of a noble mind," is unbounded ; and has been but partially gratified. Nothing short of the high object in view will satisfy him, and no exertion will be spared that can enable him to attain it. The " weird sisters have breathed the word of promise to his ear," and may not break it to the hope. As a presiding officer Mr. Van Bu- ren conducts himself with propriety. He wants, however, the voice and person of his predecessor, Mr. Calhoun, and appears to some disadvantage, from the shortness of his stature ; but he presides with great temper, impartiality and fairness ; never manifesting the least irritation or uneasiness, even when made the target at which the shafts of party sarcasm are discharged, and warding off the blows by a smile of good nature, or a look of indifference. VAN BUREN. 157 Situated as he is, he finds it necessary to prac- tice the maxim of Zeno, '*to bear and forbear much" — a maxim of which experience has taught him the wisdom, and he sits amidst the storm of eloquent and bitter denunciation that sometimes rages around him, like a political petrifaction, calm, collected, and apparently unmoved. Mr. Van Buren is by nature, more of a politician than a statesman. With him *' self-love and social" are not the same. He likes to plan and execute ; but his plans are intend- ed more for individual than general good. He has all the ingenuity of Maelzel, though differently di- rected ; he can operate on the human machine with as much facility and skill as the latter upon his au- tomata, and produce nearly the same harmony of action. With a more enlarged and expanded mind, Mr. Van Buren would, perhaps, have been more useful, but would not have been so distinguished Or successful. What he will be as a statesman, should he ever reach the proud elevation at which he aims^ time will determine ; and the future histo- rian will be able to assign him his appropriate nitch in the temple of Fame. V •c> > "< .-^ ^'^'"'";' %.^^ .'jil'-- \>/ .'^^^/^"'^ .\WA' •.«t y*''. O r %-'' o \ ^•^"%. C^ '' V .s^ ^ .0 c" / 4/7 »K \\ 4-. -"> iV ■■% 0^ # ■p'C o Ik :<^ 1> v<» .0' •f'L'j'' "^ -'V ^^^'. '^^' ^"^ V \ ^' ^^. •-'-' V ^\ '^^^^^ ^'^ • i> "t. '> C^^ ^""^^ ^ O . * ) m^ 7 S -> *•<•»* tNM] s^^