5J\E UNIVERS//,
 
 THOMAS 
 
 A SKETCH
 
 THOMAS CORWIN 
 
 A SKETCH 
 
 A. P. RUSSELL 
 
 AUTHOR OP " LIBRARY NOTES ' 
 
 CINCINNATI 
 KOBEKT CLARKE & CO 
 
 1881
 
 Copyright, 1881, 
 BY A. W. WHELPLEY. 
 
 All rights reserved.

 
 >* 1. 
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. GEORGE R. SAGE 
 
 THIS SKETCH OF HER FATHER 
 
 IS MOST RESPECTFULLY 
 
 INSCRIBED
 
 THOMAS CORWIN WAS BORN IN BOURBON COUNTY, 
 KENTUCKY, JULY 29, 1794; DIED IN WASHINGTON, D. C., 
 DECEMBER 18, 1865. HE WAS ADMITTED TO THE BAR IN 
 1817. HE WAS FIRST "CHOSEN TO THE LEGISLATURE OF 
 OHIO IN 1 822, SERVING THEREIN SEVEN YEARS J AND WAS 
 
 FIRST CHOSEN TO CONGRESS IN 1830. IN 1840 HE WAS 
 
 ELECTED GOVERNOR OF OHIO. IN 1845 HE WAS ELECTED 
 TO THE UNITED STATES SENATE. IN ISoO^HE WAS AP- 
 POINTED SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. IN 1858 HE 
 WAS AGAIN ELECTED A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS, 
 
 AND RE-ELECTED IN 18GO. IN 1861 HE WAS APPOINTED 
 
 MINISTER TO MEXICO.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 THOMAS CORWIN ! There is magic in liis 
 name, to every one who knew him person- 
 ally, or who had opportunity of hearing 
 him talk or speak. 
 
 In any intelligent "Western circle, con- 
 versation relating to him is always welcome 
 and entertaining. The subject is always 
 new, for the reason that each one saw him 
 in a different light, in a different phase of 
 feeling, under different influences ; and the 
 result of his observation is a revelation to 
 every other. So variable he was now 
 
 (9)
 
 10 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 joyous, now wretched now sweet, now 
 terrible now impenetrable, now trans- 
 lucent that he seemed a compound of 
 incompatibles to his nearest friend who 
 saw him often, and made his friend some- 
 times walk round him before approaching 
 him. An anecdote of him at one time 
 would not illustrate him at another; and 
 the strange discordance of memories and 
 incongruity of impressions, made the view 
 of him always a dissolving one, and kept 
 one always wondering at the questionable 
 shape. 
 
 He knew the world, and seemed to see 
 quite through the deeds of men. Sagacious 
 enough for a seer, he was wise enough for 
 an oracle ; his best utterances being inter- 
 preted by the capacity or want of those 
 who heard them. He seemed all eyes, like 
 the light, and to see every side at the same
 
 THOMAS CORWFN. 11 
 
 time. His .fancy, when not on the wing, 
 played upon every thing like a flame, or 
 penetrated it like a-subtile force. His quick 
 sympathies took up every phase of life, 
 and made it his own. To his great heart, 
 indeed, it may be said, he owed his great- 
 ness, more than to his great intellect. His 
 illustrations, when not drawn from the 
 human heart every recess and secret im- 
 pulse of which he seemed to understand 
 with a fatal intuition were big with 
 images of the grand, in nature, in charac- 
 ter, and in achievement. He was saturated 
 with Milton, and Shakespeare, and Bacon, 
 and Buuyan. He would take a seat at the 
 old Turk's Head Tavern, and at once you 
 had a vivid interior view of the memorable 
 haunt, with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and 
 Burke, visibly present, and in their places; 
 and Sir Joshua, with his indispensable ear-
 
 12 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 trumpet so attentively poised, that you felt 
 an impulse to drop a word of thankfulness 
 into it for his portraits of so many of the 
 Grub Street immortals. With the styles 
 of many of the English writers he was 
 curiously familiar, and one of his favorite 
 amusements, when with bookish young 
 men, was the making of sentences in imi- 
 tation of Johnson, Gibbon, Carlyle, and 
 others. The last-named, without any great 
 stretch of fancy, you heard growl out 
 some of his volcanic incoherencies from 
 his thought-shop on the Thames. Caesar, 
 and Napoleon, and William of Orange, and 
 Washington, he carried in his mind for 
 constant reference, and when he spoke of 
 them, their characters and lives were illu- 
 minated. The book of Job he seemed as 
 familiar with as if he had translated it. 
 To him, it was indeed "the drama of the
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 13 
 
 trial of man, with Almighty God and the 
 angels as the spectators of it." The patri- 
 archs and prophets, he seemed to know as 
 if by daily companionship. Abraham, and 
 Moses, and Joshua, and Daniel, he spoke 
 of, when in profound or exalted moods, 
 with bowed head, as if in their awful 
 presence, with a rapt look of other-world- 
 liness glowing on his countenance. The 
 Savior of men, at such times, seemed to 
 be as apprehensible to him as any of the 
 Apostles, and Christianity appeared a sim- 
 ple, practicable, practical thing, separated, 
 by intellectual chemistry, from the forms 
 and modes and creeds and usages with 
 which professional theology and sectarian- 
 ism and bigotry have nearly buried it. A 
 " divine thing, large-hearted, brotherly, 
 not nice in trifles, a soft creditor, hating 
 only cant."
 
 14 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 He possessed, in a remarkable degree, 
 what the poet Rowe calls the foundation 
 of all the other virtues good -nature; 
 "good-nature, which is friendship between 
 man and man; good breeding in courts; 
 charity in religion ; and the true spring of 
 all beneficence in general." 
 
 "Very early in life he began to display his 
 unusual powers. His strong phrases and 
 vivid descriptions soon got beyond the 
 range of his own circle, and it was not long 
 until he was the acknowledged wit and 
 satirist of Turtle Creek valley. 
 
 Soon after he was admitted to the bar, 
 while yet a very young man, his generous 
 and admiring neighbors elected him to the 
 lower branch of the State Legislature, 
 where he distinguished himself by a fierce 
 war upon a bill to restore public whipping 
 as a punishment for small oiFenses. The
 
 THOMAS COKWIN. 15 
 
 subject was exactly suited to his abilities, 
 on the floor and by the fireside, and the 
 barbarous measure, could not withstand his 
 fiery sarcasms and invectives. Its defeat 
 was with a shout, and Mr. Corwin received 
 the glory of it. 
 
 In 1830 he was elected to Congress, 
 making his first political stump-speech at 
 Petersburg!!, in Highland county. The 
 gentleman who rode over with him from 
 Wilmington, and who heard the speech, re- 
 members it as rather a sober effort, except 
 the conclusion. " My speech," impressively 
 said the young orator, " is now ended. No 
 doubt you are all excessively weary. I can 
 say, most conscientiously (placing his right 
 hand solemnly upon his bosom, and betray- 
 ing a good deal of that facial power for 
 which he afterward became so famous), 
 that I am ; and my mouth is as dry as a
 
 16 THOMAS COKWIN. 
 
 powder-horn. I propose that we adjourn, 
 without further ceremony, to Captain Jes- 
 sup's, and refresh ourselves. I can certify 
 to the high qualities of the article he 
 keeps." With a laugh and a bound the 
 major part of the audience transferred 
 itself to the village grocery, and every man 
 was soon served his gill or half-pint, and 
 was soon after hail-fellow-well-met with 
 the orator of the day and the future states- 
 man. Returning, they met on the road 
 the old elephant Columbus, covered all 
 over, as was the wont of the menagerie 
 people, with a cloth of once white linen to 
 conceal the monster from the prying eyes 
 of the natives. The old mare they were 
 driving was very much frightened, and it 
 was with great difficulty they got by ; Cor- 
 win remarking, dryly, " Betty, it seems, is 
 not accustomed to elephants in shirts!"
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 17 
 
 His famous speech, in 1840, in reply to 
 Crary, of Michigan, who had heen so un- 
 wise as to attack, the military reputation 
 of General Harrison, then the Wliig candi- 
 date for the Presidency, immediately gave 
 him a national reputation. Sometime be- 
 fore, at home, he had defended, in a case 
 before a country magistrate, a militiaman 
 who had been charged with an assault and 
 battery, alleged to have been committed 
 upon his captain at a general muster. 
 Although the defendant was unquestion- 
 ably guilty, Corwin gained his discharge, 
 mainly by his overwhelming ridicule of 
 the unfortunate captain, who was the 
 prosecuting witness, and had provoked the 
 assault by the airs which he took upon 
 himself while exercising the functions of 
 his office. With a vivid recollection of the 
 affair, he fell upon Crary with the same
 
 18 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 weapons, in the same satirical vein, se- 
 lecting his most successful images, and 
 polishing his rhetoric, till the best part of 
 the speech must stand as a model of that 
 kind of eloquence. The next day after its 
 delivery, John Quincy Adams referred to 
 the vanquished militia general as " the late 
 Mr. Crary, of Michigan." The speech 
 caused a broad grin upon the face of the 
 nation. 
 
 The "Whigs of Ohio made him their 
 candidate for Governor the same year, and 
 during that canvass he rose to the zenith 
 of his popularity. Every day for more 
 than a hundred days, at as many different 
 places, he spoke from two to three hours 
 to great out-door assemblages, swaying 
 them as he willed by his magical ora- 
 tory. Never was man more completely the 
 idol of the people. They pressed round
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 19 
 
 him for the virtue of being near to him. 
 They carried him triumphantly on their 
 shoulders. They hung entranced upon his 
 lips. And every day that he grew in favor 
 he increased in intellectual stature, until it 
 seemed that the possibilities of his genius 
 were without limit. 
 
 "No American of fifty, especially if he 
 was a denizen of the West, could forget the 
 six wild months preceding the Presidential 
 election of 1840. Financial distress was 
 universal. Business was nearly suspended. 
 The people, or a great majority of them, all 
 at once came to believe that the govern- 
 ment the party in power was to blame 
 for all their calamities. Every day, in 
 every part of the republic, they assembled 
 in great crowds, to be harangued on the 
 crimes of their spendthrift President and 
 his vicious minions. Where they all came
 
 20 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 from was always a mystery. They gath- 
 ered like the bees or the birds; the in- 
 stinct of the citizen and the impulse of 
 the sovereign seemed to create them, full- 
 grown. Men walked like trees. In the 
 wilderness, they exhaled from the swamps 
 and emerged from the thickets and hollow 
 sycamores. In the cities, they came down 
 out of the garrets, up out of the cellars, 
 and up through the mud between the 
 paving stones. The intelligent were as 
 wild as the ignorant. The whole season, 
 from May till November, was one universal 
 frolic. Happy the man who had the tal- 
 ents for a stump orator ! Abreast with the 
 crowd, he had but to wag his tongue and 
 he was deified. "Vox populi vox Dei." 
 So ready to laugh or to swear, it was not a 
 very difficult thing to entertain them. 
 Notwithstanding such opportunities for
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 21 
 
 training in the great art of popular elo- 
 quence more powerful than any other in a 
 people's government few indeed who as- 
 pired to pre-eminence in it, proved them- 
 selves possessed of the rare qualities re- 
 quisite that would always bear the test, 
 always meet expectation, and never weary. 
 Mr. Corwin was one of the few, and the chief. 
 He was framed broad, and strong, and deep, 
 and looked every inch a man. His voice, 
 not very powerful, was indescribably rich, 
 and sweet, and flexible ; its lower tones es- 
 pecially were so soft and gentle that they 
 were nearly lost in occasional cadences. 
 His gesticulation was always graceful, and 
 at times exceedingly animated and impres- 
 sive. He knew the power of action, action, 
 action, which Demosthenes insisted upon, 
 and could express by gesture, like Roscius, 
 every variety of emotion or passion.
 
 22 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 In mere action, if any great American 
 orator exceeded him, it was William C. 
 Preston. Years ago, among a thousand 
 others, a gentleman was listening to one of 
 Mr. Preston's splendid harangues from the 
 stump. Beside him was one, as deaf as a 
 post, in "breathless attention, catching ap- 
 parently every word that fell from the ora- 
 tor's lips. Now the tears of delight would 
 roll down his cheeks, and now, in ungov- 
 ernable ecstasy, he would shout out ap- 
 plauses, which might have been mistaken 
 for the noise of a small thunder-storm. At 
 length the orator launched out one of those 
 passages of massive declamation for which 
 he was so distinguished. Its magnificent 
 splendor was what Byron has described in 
 the mountain storms of Jura. Its effect 
 upon the multitude was like a whirlwind. 
 The deaf man could contain himself no
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 23 
 
 longer; but bawled into the bystander's 
 ear, as if he would blow it open with a 
 tempest : " Who 's that a speaking ?" " Wil- 
 liam C. Preston," replied the gentleman, as 
 loud as his lungs would let him. " Who ?" 
 inquired the deaf man, still louder than be- 
 fore. " William C. Preston, of South Caro- 
 lina," replied the gentleman, almost split- 
 ting his throat in the effort. " Well, well," 
 continued he, " I can' t hear a darned word 
 he or you are saying ; but, great Jericho, 
 do n't he do the motions splendid !" 
 
 Corwin also could "do the motions;" 
 and his gestures always harmonized with 
 the expression of his wonderful face. Fig- 
 ure and face co-operated; together, we 
 know what they can do. We once saw a 
 little girl, a mute, a pupil at an asylum, in 
 the presence of her class, repeat the Lord's 
 Prayer, and we believe that no tongue
 
 24 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 ever uttered it more intelligently or im- 
 pressively than that dumb child did, by 
 face and person. At the conclusion, in the 
 solemn silence of the tomb, the speechless 
 little orator, like an embodied saint, sank 
 down, faint and spent with the passion and 
 the pain. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon we attended the 
 Baptist church in Lebanon, to hear the re- 
 markable pulpit-orator and wit, Elder John 
 Finlay, long since deceased. He was a 
 modern Chrysostom. Mr. Corwin was in 
 his pew, near the pulpit, with his family. 
 The preacher, who knew Mr. Corwin well, 
 often exchanging intellectual shots with 
 him, was in his best mood, and fitted his re- 
 marks with unpleasant closeness to his dis- 
 tinguished auditor. As the artillery of his 
 wit and invective increased, gradually grow- 
 ing to the unity and effectiveness of a vol-
 
 THOMAS CORWEST. 25 
 
 ley, Mr. Corwin grew impatient, then 
 restive, and his only weapon of resistance 
 and defense being his face, strengthened 
 occasionally by a movement of the head, it 
 was made to do its utmost. The contest 
 became so personal and well-defined that 
 the audience was soon absorbed looking at 
 the combatants. "While the preacher seemed 
 to drive the sinner into the corner of his 
 pew like the devil was after him, the sinner 
 kept the preacher at bay by his mute elo- 
 quence. The war lasted for some time, 
 and was a rare Sunday-afternoon enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 His experience at a dinner-table in the 
 city of Mexico, referred to amusingly by 
 him, by way of illustration, in a conversa- 
 tion at the "White House with Mr. Lincoln 
 and two other eminent Americans, will 
 give some idea of his extraordinary powers
 
 26 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 of facial expression. The people who hon^ 
 ored him with the dinner spoke only Span- 
 ish, and all of the guests, except Mr. Cor- 
 win. The ladies at each side understood 
 not one word of English, and he under- 
 stood not one word of Spanish. A trying 
 situation, certainly, for any one but Cor- 
 win. He spoke to the lady on his right in 
 the most pleasing and vivacious way, making 
 the best of his characteristic and peculiar 
 facial expressions, gesticulating a little, and 
 set her responding in Spanish, and laugh- 
 ing; then he turned to the lady on the 
 left, and did the same; and thus they 
 laughed and talked and enjoyed them- 
 selves exceedingly, but never a word did 
 either of them understand of what the 
 other was saying. 
 
 Once, while making a speech in the 
 woods to a large audience, he could not
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 27 
 
 help being annoyed by the frequent inter- 
 ruptions of a fellow on the outside of the 
 crowd, who was an opponent, and felt his 
 whiskey a little. To repress the " sover- 
 eign," Corwin would occasionally give him 
 a threatening look, the audience each -time 
 roaring with laughter; till, at length, ob- 
 serving the fellow would not down, he 
 gave him a look more terrible than any, 
 and, shaking his fist menacingly, said to 
 him that he would meet him after the 
 speech was ended, and whip him for his in- 
 solence. The crowd roared louder than 
 ever, of course, and the orator soon forgot 
 the affair, as, in profoundest earnestness, he 
 advanced to his peroration. Imagine his 
 susprise when going to the tavern for his 
 horse and saddle-bags, at finding the incor- 
 rigible rascal, fortified by another glass, 
 stripped of his coat, and ready for him!
 
 28 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 Still another glass was found indispensable 
 to appease the pugnacious fellow, and se- 
 cure the distinguished candidate for Gov- 
 ernor a safe exit from town. 
 
 At another time, when in the midst of a 
 speech, delivered in his most popular vein, 
 in which he had exerted all the powers of 
 his face, and most effectually, to express 
 every passion, a bull-dog was seen to ad- 
 vance up the aisle, and seat himself up- 
 right on his haunches in a listening atti- 
 tude. The creature was an opponent, too, 
 as it turned out, occasionally growling 
 dissent as the argument proceeded. The 
 scene was not less ludicrous than that in 
 the church, and was not less a test of the 
 speaker's powers of facial expression. The 
 orator soon gave exclusive attention to his 
 canine auditor, and not being able to con- 
 vert him, tried his powers at bullying him.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 29 
 
 His looks of menace and defiance had a 
 language not less expressive than that of 
 Count Fosco : " You big dogs are all cow- 
 ards. You would kill a poor cat, you in- 
 fernal coward. You would fly at a starv- 
 ing beggar. Any thing that you can sur- 
 prise unawares any thing that is afraid 
 of your big body, and your wicked white 
 teeth, and your slobbering, blood-thirsty 
 mouth, is the thing you like to fly at! 
 You could throttle me at this moment, you 
 mean miserable bully; and you daren't so 
 much as look at me in the face, because 
 I'm not afraid of you. Will you think 
 better of it, and try your teeth in my fat 
 neck ? Bah ! not you ! " And the bloody 
 creature, as in the story, crept meekly back 
 to his kennel. The pantomime continued 
 just long enough to tire the crowd with 
 laughing, and rest Mr. Corwin's speaking
 
 30 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 apparatus, which had been in daily ser- 
 vice for months. 
 
 During the same summer, he was travel- 
 ing in a stage-coach, a stranger to all the 
 passengers. Wearied by his arduous la- 
 bors, he kept the corner of the coach, in- 
 different to the talk that went on, till the 
 tall, muscular man in the seat before him, 
 with a big knife partly visible in his pocket, 
 commenced an assault upon his idol, Henry 
 Clay. He listened with as much patience as 
 he could, not saying a word, till the black- 
 guard had said every thing bad of the great 
 Kentuckian that he could invent, when he 
 broke into the conversation : " Sir ! do you 
 know Mr. Clay personally? Have you 
 ever lived with him? Has he told you, 
 sir, every motive for every act of his life ? " 
 "No," answered the ruffian, with an al- 
 ready cowed look, " I never saw Mr. Clay
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 31 
 
 in my life." " Then," ejaculated Mr. Cor- 
 win, his face black with indignation, and 
 his tongue on fire, "you are a damned 
 scoundrel!" The cowardly villain mut- 
 tered some incoherencies and subsided into 
 silence. One of the passengers, who after- 
 ward came to know Corwin well, says that 
 he never could have conceived the wrath 
 and desperation that can be put into a hu- 
 man face. Mr. Corwin looked as if he 
 would have rebuked the scoundrel though 
 he had known he was to be cut to pieces 
 for it the next minute. 
 
 That swarthy face, it has been truly 
 said, was a noble one, and there was no 
 passion or feeling in his heart but was pro- 
 claimed by his countenance before words 
 could utter it. It was a magic mirror, re- 
 flecting upon his auditors wrath, contempt, 
 patriotism, pity, ridicule, sarcasm, so strik-
 
 32 THOMAS 
 
 ingly, tliat all felt themselves sympathizing 
 with him in emotions not yet articulated. 
 Those who were witnesses will never for- 
 get the indescribable drollery of his tones, 
 gestures and physiognomy, at Columbus, 
 while answering the objections of some 
 man-of-straw antagonist. Mr. Corwin had, 
 the day previous, addressed a multitude of 
 forty or fifty thousand, and was to address 
 as great a multitude the succeeding day. 
 The citizens of Franklin county waylaid 
 him, and compelled him, although greatly 
 exhausted, to speak. His strain of re- 
 mark was uncommonly brilliant, seeming 
 to transcend his usual efforts. He sup- 
 posed an honest inquirer and opponent to 
 be proposing questions in reference to the 
 cry that " times are killing hard." " Why, 
 my dear sir," says the opponent, " how can 
 it be possible that so much trouble and
 
 THOMAS CORWEtf. 33 
 
 hard times exist, and yet the men whom we 
 have elected to office, and in whom we 
 have unshaken confidence, never whis- 
 pered a word of all this. Sir, you must 
 be mistaken, or our office-holders would 
 speak!" Mr. Corwin's face was the very 
 impersonation of the serio-comic gravity 
 while stating this objection. Then began 
 that droll working of his features, at the 
 very sight of which, before he had said a 
 word, hundreds found it impossible not to 
 laugh outright. "Fellow citizens," said 
 he, in deliberate tones, "I ever allude to 
 the Holy Scriptures with the deepest rev- 
 erence, and on occasions like the present 
 but seldom; but that venerable patriarch, 
 Job, has so completely unraveled the diffi- 
 culty of my honest opponent, that I must 
 trespass to quote his words : * Doth a 
 wild beast bray while he hath grass, or
 
 34 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 loweth the ox over liis fodder?'" By this 
 time his form was bent down toward his 
 hearers, his fun-speaking eye was glancing 
 from one countenance to another, and his 
 whole face radiant with inimitable queer- 
 ness. Who could resist it? Sedate old 
 men held their sides to roar, the younger 
 portion stamped and screamed with laugh- 
 ter, till the tears started. Peal of laughter 
 succeeded peal so rapidly and boisterously 
 as to preclude the possibility of speaking 
 for some minutes. Had some old Roman 
 pantomime, said the writer to whom we 
 are indebted for this description, witnessed 
 the swarthy face of " Tom, the Wagon 
 Boy," as his constituents sometimes affec- 
 tionately termed him, he would have died 
 of sheer envy. 
 
 He was fond of enriching his speeches, 
 at the bar and on the stump, with scrip-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 35 
 
 tural allusions, and they never failed to 
 produce a profound impression ; partly for 
 the reason that his great familiarity with 
 the characters and events of the Bible ena- 
 bled him to present them so vividly as to 
 make them appear present realities. "When 
 the patriarchs spoke through him it was as 
 if they spoke themselves, before all prece- 
 dents in law and all experience in politics, 
 of overwhelming authority. He quoted 
 of the wisdom of Solomon to make the 
 ignorance of his opponent pitifully appa- 
 rent. ~Now Solomon, now Jefferson Brick. 
 His irony, in the use of scriptural illus- 
 trations, was sometimes terrible. The novel 
 distinction he gave, in his great anti-war 
 speech, to Cain, will be recollected. " Sir," 
 said he, " the world's annals show very many 
 ferocious sieges, and battles, and onslaughts 
 before San Jacinto, Palo Alto, or Monterey.
 
 36 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 Generals of bloody renown have frightened 
 the nations before the revolt of Texas, or 
 our invasion of Mexico ; and I suppose 
 we Americans might properly claim some 
 share in this martial reputation, since it 
 was won by our own kindred, men clearly 
 descended from !Nbah, the great ' proposi- 
 tus' of our family, with whom we all 
 claim a very endearing relation. But I 
 confess I have been somewhat surprised of 
 late that men, read in the history of man, 
 who knew that war has been his trade for 
 six thousand years, (prompted, I imagine, 
 by those noble 'instincts' spoken of by 
 the Senator from Michigan,) who knew 
 that the first man born of woman was a 
 hero of the first magnitude, that he met 
 his shepherd brother in deadly conflict, and 
 most heroically beat out his brains with a 
 club I say," etc.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 37 
 
 Once, when speaking of the corruption 
 of the times, to terrify wrong-doers, he 
 took occasion to dwell long upon K"oah 
 the one only man, amidst the general cor- 
 ruption of the race, who was found by the 
 Almighty to be righteous. With great 
 particularity and earnestness, he described 
 the venerable patriarch as the only preacher 
 of righteousness at the time of the Deluge ; 
 who incessantly preached and declared to 
 men, not only by his discourses, but by his 
 unblamable life, and by the building of 
 the ark, in which he was employed one 
 hundred and twenty years, that the cloud 
 of Divine vengeance was about to burst 
 upon them; how his preaching produced 
 no effect; that when the Deluge came it 
 found mankind practicing their usual enor- 
 mities. During the wonderful narrative, 
 you saw the loafing crowd of dissolute 
 
 10715
 
 38 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 idlers, that, every day, and all the time, 
 for the hundred and twenty years the ark 
 was building, lounged over the timbers 
 and interrupted the workmen with their 
 gibes and skeptical inquiries; and you 
 saw, as distinctly, the hoary priest, in his 
 solemn loneliness, when " the waters were 
 dried up from off the earth," building the 
 first " altar unto the Lord." There he 
 stood, before the people, in their very 
 midst, in an Ohio forest, the one righteous 
 man the last preacher of righteousness 
 before the destruction of mankind the 
 first to set up an altar afterward the 
 saved, the trusted, and blessed. The si- 
 lence was oppressive; the audience was 
 transfixed; something must occur to re- 
 lieve it. Just then the orator, observing 
 an unbelieving auditor doubtingly blink- 
 ing his eyes, turned upon him with a
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 39 
 
 look of inimitable drollery and irony, 
 arching his eyebrows grotesquely, work- 
 ing, at the same- time, in a most lu- 
 dicrous manner, the laughing machinery 
 about his mouth, and said to him in a 
 familiar inquiring tone : " But I think I 
 hear you say, my unbelieving Democrat, 
 that the old commodore did once get 
 tight ! " That was sufficient. The tears 
 that had gathered in hundreds of eyes 
 during the delivery of passage after pas- 
 sage of unsurpassed sublimity, fell at once 
 over faces convulsed with laughter. Again 
 and again the multitude laughed, strag- 
 glingly and in chorus. When the voice 
 of the orator could again be heard, he 
 was still upon Noah, but in a different 
 vein, now teaching the lesson of fidelity, 
 and the price of irreverence. "Yes, my 
 fellow citizens, I fear me, you had forgot-
 
 40 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 ten that the righteous old patriarch was a 
 man. He was a farmer, as most of you 
 are the only occupation for a gentleman ; 
 he cultivated the vine, as all of you should ; 
 his vintage, no doubt, was the best ever 
 tasted in this world. Once, we are told, 
 he took an excusable one glass too much, 
 and fell asleep, and lay uncovered in his 
 tent. A sad plight, you will say, for an 
 old man, just entering upon his seventh 
 century. He was observed in that naked, 
 pitiful condition by his 'younger son/ 
 Ham, (they say a gentleman of my color,) 
 the father of the Canaanites, a satirical 
 rascal, who, instead of behaving with be- 
 coming reverence toward his old father, 
 ridiculed and made sport of him, and went 
 to tell his 'two brethren without,' that 
 they too might enjoy the spectacle. But 
 Shem and Japheth good boys, and fair to
 
 THOMAS CORWIX. 41 
 
 look upon saw the matter differently. 
 With hearts full of grateful and loving 
 recollections, and With the fear of the Lord 
 before their eyes, they ' took a garment, 
 and laid it upon both their shoulders, and 
 went backward, and covered the naked- 
 ness of their father : and their faces were 
 backward, and they saw not their father's 
 nakedness.' Oh, my unsanctified broth- 
 er ! " his eye again fixed upon his unbe- 
 lieving auditor, his body bent over, and 
 his hands lifted imploringly " I will not 
 repeat to you the curse that was pro- 
 nounced when 'Noah awoke from his 
 wine and knew what his younger son had 
 done unto him.' I pray you, be warned 
 by it. Turn from your evil ways. Quit 
 your ridicule and abuse of your good 
 pioneer father protector, General Harri- 
 son. Help to avert the flood of evils about
 
 42 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 to overwhelm the nation. Go along with 
 us ; we will do you good. God have mercy 
 on your soul ! " The effect on the multi- 
 tude may be imperfectly imagined by those 
 who have heard the incomparable orator. 
 The people shook, and screamed, and 
 stamped, and yelled, till the voice of their 
 matchless idol again enchanted them, when 
 they were at once as breathless as they 
 had been boisterous. 
 
 The people seemed never to weary of 
 him. For hours they would sit or stand, 
 in rain or sunshine, in most uncomfortable 
 positions, without complaining, if they 
 could but hear his voice, or see his won- 
 derful face. They took no note of time. 
 One lovely summer afternoon, more than 
 thirty years ago, while he was addressing 
 an out-door audience at Zanesville, on the 
 Muskingum river, the steamboat Moxahala
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 43 
 
 whistled her hour of departure. Three 
 o'clock came too soon. Hundreds of ex- 
 cursionists, in the crowd, from every point 
 below, all the way down to the Ohio, had 
 come up on her, to attend the meeting, 
 and return the same day. The signal 
 sounded just at the most interesting part 
 of Mr. Corwin's speech, and the consterna- 
 tion it produced was too serious to be 
 altogether amusing. The poor dissatisfied 
 men and women started, stopped to listen, 
 forgot themselves, started again when the 
 whistle blew, stopped again, after a few 
 steps, to listen, and again forgot them- 
 selves, to be aroused again and again by 
 the remorseless whistle, till, one by one, 
 after it seemed to us a long time, each 
 casting one longing lingering look behind, 
 they disappeared over the hill on their way 
 to the steamboat, crying and swearing like
 
 44 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 children and madmen. Oh, unwelcome 
 whistle ! Milton, could he have witnessed 
 such a spectacle, might have got a hint or 
 two, and revised the expulsion scene. 
 
 During the two years Mr. Corwin was 
 Governor he was proverbially in the best 
 humor. All the time he could get from 
 public duty was spent at his home in Leb- 
 anon. He seemed running over with fun 
 and anecdote, and he never lacked appreciat- 
 ing listeners when he wished to talk. Very 
 busy people avoided him as a dangerous 
 temptation. Young men, especially, gath- 
 ered about him, with big eyes of wonder. 
 They had no envies or jealousies to pre- 
 vent them from devotedly admiring him. 
 To them he discoursed with the utmost 
 freedom. "With them, when his mind was 
 fullest and freest, lie indulged, without 
 limit, in monologue. So, most effectually,
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 45 
 
 he trained his fancy and improved his un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 He was fond of "young men ; especially 
 those who were inclined to improve them- 
 selves, and who seemed to be promising. 
 Some of his longest letters were written to 
 such. They abounded in wise observa- 
 tions upon literature and life, and were 
 judiciously freighted with the soundest 
 and most encouraging advice. One we 
 remember to have seen, written to one of 
 his students. After running over, phil- 
 osophically, many of the greatest names in 
 history and general literature, he said : " It 
 is with me, in my lonely moments, a cher- 
 ished hope that I shall yet, in another and 
 better world, enjoy the society of such 
 spirits; where we shall be purified from 
 the frailty that drags us down to the earth 
 and its petty cares and strifes, and revel on
 
 46 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 through eternity in a perpetual feast of 
 pure and unadulterated truth." Naming 
 a number of books for the young man to 
 read, and offering him the use of them, he 
 concluded : " After all, however, you must 
 have one other thing at command, with- 
 out which all books are useless a mind 
 that hungers and thirsts after truth. This 
 last and greatest requisite you can com- 
 mand if you will : and I do not flatter (I 
 am too old for that) when I express a hope 
 from what I know and hear, that you have 
 it. If you have, let me assure you that I 
 know you have one of the rarest attri- 
 butes in the character of our young men. 
 They seem to me not to know that they 
 have work to do. It is one of the most 
 discouraging signs of our times, that young 
 men live in the habitual idea that they are 
 to be fed with a pap spoon. They will
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 47 
 
 learn, when it may be too late, that God 
 has sent just one message to every man 
 and woman which lie ever has created or 
 will create. It is short, simple, and can 
 not be misunderstood: 'Know thy work, 
 and do it.' " 
 
 His observation, and experience too, had 
 taught him the uncertainty of public life, 
 and he was loth to encourage young men 
 to aspire to it; especially he discouraged 
 them from seeking or holding .positions 
 which are subordinate and only clerical, 
 as sure to weaken their manhood, and 
 unfit them for independent honorable oc- 
 cupations. It was while he was Secretary 
 of the Treasury that a young man pre- 
 sented himself to him for a clerkship. 
 Thrice was he refused; and still he made 
 a fourth effort. His perseverance and 
 spirit of determination awakened a friendly
 
 48 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 interest in his welfare, and the Secretary 
 advised him, in the strongest possible terms, 
 to abandon his purpose, and go to the 
 "West, if he could do no better outside the 
 Departments. " My young friend," said he, 
 "go to the North-west, buy 160 acres of 
 Government land or, if you have not the 
 money to purchase, squat on it ; get you an 
 axe and a mattock; put up a log cabin for 
 a habitation, and raise a little corn and po- 
 tatoes ; keep your conscience clear, and live 
 like a freeman your own master, with no 
 one to give you orders, and without de- 
 pendence upon any body. Do that and you 
 will be honored, respected, influential, and 
 rich. But accept a clerkship here, and 
 you sink, at once, all independence ; your 
 energies become relaxed, and you are un- 
 fitted in a few years for any other and 
 more independent position. I may give
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 49 
 
 you a place to-day, and I can kick you out 
 to-morrow ; and there is another man over 
 there at the "White House, who can kick 
 me out, and the people by-and-by can kick 
 him out ; and so we go. But if you own 
 an acre of land, it is your kingdom, and 
 your cabin is your castle you are a sover- 
 eign, and you will feel it in every throb- 
 bing of your pulse, and every day of your 
 life will assure me of your thanks for hav- 
 ing thus advised you." 
 
 Socially, he sometimes delighted in risks, 
 and dared to do the most extraordinary 
 things, for his own amusement and the 
 entertainment of others. One morning, 
 while he was enjoying his after-breakfast 
 cigar, by the big old-fashioned fire-place 
 in his law-office, there was a knock at the 
 door, and a tall, awkward, verdant-looking 
 young man, with a package under his arm,
 
 50 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 came in and inquired for Mr. Corwin. He 
 said he was agent for a book, and had 
 called upon the " big man of the village " 
 to sell him a copy of it, at the same time 
 unrolling the package and handing to Mr. 
 Corwin the book. It proved to be The 
 Pilgrim's Progress. Mr. Corwin turned it 
 over inspectingly, looking up occasionally 
 at the peddler, as if he was not quite sure 
 that all was right. "What he said was in 
 broken sentences, with measured pauses 
 between more effective in puzzling and 
 confounding the poor fellow than all the 
 words he uttered. " A handsome thing, 
 my young friend. Lovely letter-press. 
 Good illustrations. Seems to be a religious 
 book. John Bunyan. John Bunyan ! 
 Sell many of them?" The young man, 
 with as much confidence as he could mus- 
 ter, the conceit so rapidly being taken out
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 51 
 
 of him, said, that he had sold a good many 
 copies in Montgomery county ; that he had 
 not offered it before in Warren; that he 
 hoped to dispose of a number before he 
 left the county. A longer pause than any 
 now ensued Mr. Corwin, with the book 
 open in his lap, inspecting the face and 
 conduct of the stranger with such scrutiny 
 as good manners would permit, at length, 
 in the most confidential tone and manner 
 possible, with a reluctance that made him 
 hobble a little in expressing himself at 
 first hitching his chair a little nearer the 
 young man placing one hand on his knot- 
 ted knee, and handing him the book . 
 shut with the other said to him : " My 
 dear sir, you look like an honest man, and 
 I sympathize with your efforts to get an 
 honest living. This seems to be a good 
 orthodox book you are selling. God knows
 
 52 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 I would not put a straw in your way. But, 
 let me tell you, sir, as a friend, you can 
 not sell a copy of this book here. John 
 Bunyan lives in this town, and every 
 body knows he can 't write a book ! " In- 
 stantly, before there was time for a word 
 of explanation, with infinite adroitness and 
 skill, he changed the subject to something 
 so completely foreign from that they had 
 been talking about, as to make the poor 
 victim totally forget it, and the awkward 
 situation it left him in. For an hour he 
 was amused and enchanted as he never had 
 been before by Mr. Corwin's brilliant and 
 suggestive conversation. It bore a flatter- 
 ing tone, of course, that put the man per- 
 fectly at his ease, and made him feel that 
 the throbs of bigness he had felt in old 
 Massachusetts were not all to cheat him; 
 that here was somebody that appreciated
 
 THOMAS CORWItf. 53 
 
 him ; that, please God, he would represent 
 Barnstable in the Assembly yet ! A law- 
 student, in the room at the time, says he 
 never knew Mr. Corwin's mind in a better 
 condition. He insists upon it that the 
 thumb that kept his place in Blackstone 
 while he observed the ludicrous scene and 
 listened to the charming talk, left its mark 
 indelibly in the old book, and was flat- 
 tened so that it has never looked quite 
 like the other since. Tired at length of 
 the amusement and practice, and recollect- 
 ing suddenly that he had an appointment 
 at the court-house, Mr. Corwin gave the 
 peddler his hand, with a genuine cordial- 
 ity, and, rising with him, hurriedly made a 
 memorandum of his name and residence 
 apologized for his tediousness said that he 
 did not often meet a man that set his tongue 
 going so that he should never forget the in-
 
 54 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 terview that lie hoped the time would come 
 when they could meet again good bye ! 
 he must go. For reasons not known sat- 
 isfactory to him no doubt the peddler was 
 not seen afterward, nor did he offer in Leb- 
 anon, or Warren county, a single copy of 
 Bunyan's book ! 
 
 We remember another incident that will 
 equally illustrate Mr. Corwin's colloquial 
 powers. The scene was in the court-room 
 at Lebanon. A querulous attorney was 
 addressing the court upon the merits of 
 his little certiorari case. Corwin was pres- 
 ent, in a corner of the room, in a happy 
 humor, with a dozen persons about him, 
 talking. His listeners were attorneys, sher- 
 iff, constable, clerk every body, indeed, 
 but the judge and the aforesaid irritable 
 attorney. Every now and then the build- 
 ing would shake with the noiseless laugh-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 55 
 
 ter of the convulsed listeners, as Corwin 
 would open a view of all that was ludicrous. 
 The judge did his best to be indifferent to 
 the extraordinary scene to avoid seeing, al- 
 together, the story-teller's wonderful face 
 and to listen respectfully to the argument 
 that was slowly proceeding. There was 
 no noise, except the voice of the speaker, 
 to claim his ear. The attorney did his ut- 
 most to continue, under the embarrassing 
 circumstances. At length, however, when 
 an unusual sensation of convulsive shaking 
 was felt in every surrounding object, ani- 
 mate and inanimate, he turned, in high 
 irritation, and looked upon Corwin the 
 cause of the earthquake with his fear- 
 fulest intimidating scowl. The ridiculous- 
 ness of the scene, now nearly at its height, 
 was brought to a climax by Corwin, slowly 
 rising, in a manner to make his little audi-
 
 56 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 tory do the same, and lifting up his hands 
 with great solemnity of face and manner, 
 said, in an inimitable, subdued, nearly in- 
 audible tone: "Let us look to the Lord, 
 and be dismissed !" 
 
 Under the old Constitution, when relig- 
 ious heterodoxy disqualified a witness, Or- 
 son Murray, then somewhat famous for his 
 personal eccentricities as well as for the pe- 
 culiarity of his religious views, was called 
 as a witness for his old friend Butterworth, 
 and the fact to be proved could be shown 
 by no one else. He was objected to on the 
 ground of his religious skepticism, and 
 Governor Morrow, his neighbor, was called 
 to prove his infidelity; for they would not 
 even call Murray to prove that. The Gov- 
 ernor testified to his lack of common or- 
 thodoxy, but said at the same time that he 
 knew Murray well, and knew him to be
 
 THOMAS COBWIN. 57 
 
 upright, and said he would believe him un- 
 der oath or not under oath as soon as any 
 man he ever saw. -Corwin and A. H. Dun- 
 levy argued in favor of Murray's testimony. 
 Corwin was never more eloquent. But all 
 would not do. The court ruled him out. 
 The old man got up indignantly, and 
 shaking the dust off his feet as a testi- 
 mony against " wickedness in high places," 
 walked out of court. Corwin followed him 
 out. Murray, you must know, wore his 
 hair like Absalom, hanging down on his 
 shoulders, and, like the patriarchs, wore 
 his beard unshaven. Corwin overtaking 
 him, tapped him on the shoulder, saying : 
 " Go home, my old friend, and shave, and 
 shear, and turn hypocrite, like the rest of 
 us, and then come back here, and your 
 word will be as good as ours !" 
 
 His free social way made him accessible
 
 58 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 to every body. His neighbors loved him, 
 and he loved them. There was nothing he 
 would not do for them. Help of any sort 
 he could render them they were sure to 
 get. Many of them were poor, and often 
 in distress for money. "When he came in 
 possession of any he was sure to divide 
 it with them. In truth, he cared too little 
 for money ; it would have been better for 
 him and all concerned with him if he had 
 cared more for it. He was constantly em- 
 barrassed on account of the embarrassments 
 of others. He could not resist an appeal, 
 however well he knew the penalty ; the re- 
 sult was that the sheriff paid him visits 
 about as often as the poor debtor. Again 
 and again he resolved not to be surety for 
 any body, and again and again, in the pity 
 of his heart, he forgot his prudential resol- 
 utions.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 59 
 
 A student in his law-office relates an 
 incident illustrative of the troubles he so 
 often got into, and how his head and heart 
 struggled against each other. Mr. Cor- 
 win, one morning, was in a particularly 
 lugubrious temper of mind. He sat look- 
 ing into the fire, in the old fire-place, a 
 long time, in profound silence. At length 
 he broke forth, with unusual energy and 
 vehemence, announcing that he was in 
 trouble ; that he had four hundred dollars 
 to raise as security for Billy "Wiles, and he 
 did not know where it was to come from. 
 (Billy was an eccentric tavern-keeper in 
 town, was a notorious "Whig, at one time 
 " entertained " Henry Clay, and conceived 
 such an affection and admiration for the 
 great Kentuckian that he named his tav- 
 ern for him, and wrote to him every morn- 
 ing, for the rest of his life, just at four
 
 60 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 o'clock ! Mr. Clay once quoted one of his 
 queer epistles in a speech in the Senate, 
 with telling effect.) Mr. Corwin opened 
 upon the student in a regular speech upon 
 the responsibilities and perils of surety- 
 ship, advising him, imploring him, never 
 to be surety for any body, " not even for 
 his own father, for twelve and a half cents, 
 to save him from prison." He had not 
 ended his impetuous harangue, when a 
 briefless young lawyer of the village made 
 his appearance, with a bit of paper in his 
 hand, awaiting Mr. Corwin's attention. 
 Mr. Corwin asked him his errand. The 
 young man replied that he had come to 
 request him to go on a note for two hun- 
 dred dollars ! Corwin looked at the note, 
 and asked him, kindly, what he wanted 
 with so much money. " To make a clean 
 breast of it, Mr. Corwin," the young man
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 61 
 
 answered, " I must leave this neck o' woods. 
 I have been here a year, and have not had 
 a case ; I am in debt for living expenses ; 
 they must be paid. Two hundred dollars 
 will pay all my debts, and take me to New 
 Orleans, where I mean to make another ven- 
 ture, and, if I succeed, you will never hear 
 of this two hundred dollars again." Mr. 
 Corwin, of course, put his name to the 
 note. After the happy fellow went out, 
 the student took the liberty of expressing 
 surprise at his strange conduct after his 
 earnest sermon upon the risks and dan- 
 gers of suretyship. Mr. Corwin emphati- 
 cally denied being surety on the note. 
 His mind was made up on the whole per- 
 ilous business. Nothing that he had said 
 would he retract. "My boy!" exclaimed 
 he, with a peculiarly mingled expression 
 of satisfaction, regret, and confusion in his
 
 62 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 face, " you do not understand tliat trans- 
 action ; I am not surety on that note ; I am 
 principal, and expect to pay it, of course. 
 Mind you, sir, my advice; I repeat it to 
 you; never do you be surety for any 
 body ; not even for your old father, for a 
 shilling, to save him from being locked up 
 in prison !" 
 
 Ready as he was to extend pecuniary 
 favors, he showed as remarkable readiness 
 in forgetting them after he had rendered 
 them. A person who happened to be 
 present when it occurred, relates this inci- 
 dent : One evening there was a rap at the 
 door, and a farmer-like looking man was 
 admitted, who inquired hurriedly for Gov- 
 ernor Corwin. He was ushered into the 
 family room, where the Governor was en- 
 gaged, reading his National Intelligencer. 
 Mr. Corwin rose and received the stranger
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 63 
 
 cordially, but said that he did not remem- 
 ber to have met him. " Do not remember 
 me !" exclaimed the visitor. " Let me tell 
 you a little story to refresh your memory. 
 A few years ago, returning from a visit to 
 Illinois, I had got as far back on my way 
 home as Eaton, where I was taken sick, 
 and ran out of money. "What should I 
 do ? I thought of every thing, in my ex- 
 tremity. Hearing that you were in town 
 attending court, and knowing your reputa- 
 tion for kindness, I made so bold as to 
 send for you. You came to my room, and I 
 frankly made known to you my necessities. 
 You lent me freely all you said you had 
 forty dollars, and left me, after a few min- 
 utes of encouraging talk. After so long a 
 time, I have come to pay the forty dollars 
 back, principal and interest, and to thank 
 you for your timely assistance and kind-
 
 64 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 ness. Heaven has prospered me, I believe, 
 that I might not die tormented with the 
 remembrance of being in debt to you. 
 Here, sir, is a fifty dollar bill, and God 
 bless you !" Corwin began to protest, de- 
 claring that he had no recollection or evi- 
 dence of the transaction, when the stranger 
 interrupted : " Tut, tut ; take the money ; 
 the stage-driver gave me just ten minutes 
 to see you ; I must go on to-night ; I wish 
 I could sit down with your family and tell 
 them more about you, of the same sort, 
 that I have heard since." And the relieved 
 stranger hurried out of the room with a 
 half-uttered final blessing. 
 
 The same person who gave us the pre- 
 ceding circumstance, remembered another, 
 more remarkable. It occurred while Mr. 
 Corwin was most popular throughout the 
 country, and when he was constantly so-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 65 
 
 licited to be a candidate for the Presidency. 
 After spending a little time with a mass of 
 letters that had jufet been brought to him, 
 he handed to a gentleman who was present 
 three or four to read, remarking, quietly : 
 " Isfo other man, I dare say, ever hid from 
 the constable, to read his letters, propos- 
 ing him for the Presidency! " 
 
 Mr. Corwin made no pretensions to be- 
 ing a writer. He could only in a few in- 
 stances be induced to write out his speeches, 
 and then from notes, after they were deliv- 
 ered. They always disappointed him, as 
 they did those who heard them, hot from 
 his teeming brain. He was even a poor 
 letter writer, and his letters were generally 
 short and carelessly written. Composition 
 was too cold and slow a process for his fac- 
 ulties, and his dilatoriness, even in the most 
 ordinary correspondence, was proverbial.
 
 66 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 Charles Lamb's excuse to his sister for not 
 finishing the letter she had partly written 
 to Mrs. Hazlitt, would have been " exquisite 
 reason" enough for Corwin : "He must 
 write a letter to Manning in three or four 
 weeks, and he could not be always writing 
 letters." 
 
 The letter that follows never before 
 printed is a characteristic one, and will 
 be considered a gem by Mr. Corwin's per- 
 sonal and political friends. Its allusions 
 can only be perfectly relished by those 
 who were contemporary with him. It was 
 addressed to Thomas B. Stevenson, a Whig 
 politician, lawyer, and editor, who, it 
 would seem, had written very familiarly 
 to Corwin, asking him to meet him at 
 Drennon Springs, in Kentucky then a 
 popular place of resort for Ohio and Ken- 
 tucky people in hot weather or at Cin-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 67 
 
 cinnati, or he might "go to the devil." 
 Recent unfavorable election news from 
 Tennessee had put Mr. Corwin not in the 
 best humor, as the letter will show : 
 
 LEBANON, Aug. 9th, 1849. 
 
 DEAR TOM : I won't go to Drennon, I 
 won't go to Kentucky, I won't go to Cin- 
 cinnati, nay, more, (don't think me un- 
 kind,) I won't go to the devil. 
 
 The dominions of the latter potentate 
 have so many of my friends, old settlers, 
 there, that I have resolved to try another 
 climate, and see if it will not improve the 
 breed of our family. Poor little Cally, who 
 can persuade me to almost any thing in rea- 
 son, looked eloquent on the subject, when 
 I read your proposal, but I was adamant. 
 
 After the news of yesterday, Rhadaman- 
 thus, had he got a glimpse of me, would
 
 68 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 have cut his throat of pure envy. How 
 could I live a day at Drenuon ? There are 
 not juleps enough (if they had five tons 
 of mint to the acre, and a full moiety 
 of Noah's deluge were brewed with it) 
 to drown the chagrin and blue-devilism, 
 which seized me as joint tenants in fee 
 of my inner man, with the jus accrescendi 
 to the survivor, when I looked into my 
 letter and newspaper mail yesterday. 
 
 Tom, my dear fellow, you are a fool ! It 
 is true ; and pure love of you compels me 
 to tell you so. Besides, you do n't stand 
 any chance of finding it out in Kentucky, 
 for they don't know it there; so I can't 
 keep the secret any longer. You are a 
 fool, Tom B. Stevenson ! I know it, be- 
 cause I am one myself, and I know what 
 ails a man with that complaint, having suf- 
 fered from it from the 19th day of December,
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 69 
 
 A. D. 1822, within a few months of twenty- 
 seven years. God help me ! I am chronic ; 
 I am in the "rice-water stage." Go to 
 Drennon, Tom, and let me alone, to die easy. 
 
 Do n't say this is a letter ; it is no such 
 thing; it is only answering a question. 
 Do n't misrepresent me on that point in 
 your obituary notice of me. Quit lying, 
 Tom. It is bad enough to be an honest 
 truthful humbug, but lying has not been 
 respectable since Moses came down from 
 the Mount, with half a perch of granite 
 on his back, calling it a " revised code." 
 
 If you would make a fortune for your 
 daughters, such as would beguile dukes to 
 their marriage beds, dig up my carcass 
 cut off my head, and show my face for an 
 incarnation of sublime melancholy. All 
 the sculptors, from Phidias to Powers, could 
 not match it, or imitate it.
 
 70 THOMAS CORWIN, 
 
 "We had a thunder-storm last night, that 
 threatened a "clausum fregit" in my bed- 
 chamber. I seized the news from Tennes- 
 see, threw off my night-shirt, and stood, 
 stark naked, looking grim defiance at the 
 lightning. At each thunder-peal I waved 
 my Tennessee newspaper. The storm, 
 ashamed that it had come near a " desolate 
 old man," in extremis, blushed white, and 
 skulked off toward the Western Keserve, 
 where, I humbly trust, it deposited a bath 
 or two in the godly abdominal sanctum 
 sanctorum of Joshua R. Giddings, Esq., 
 charging his executors mileage for its travel 
 by the usual route. 
 
 I shall take a dose of hornet's nests and 
 blue whiskey this evening after tea. In- 
 quire of the widow Corwin, when you 
 come back, how it worked. You may 
 want to try it yourself some day. If you
 
 THOMAS CORWIX. 71 
 
 write, on jour return, direct to the " Elys- 
 ian Fields," care of any friend of yours, if 
 you have any there. Do n't let Amos Ken- 
 dall know of your writing. He would be 
 sure to telegraph Polk to have the letter 
 stopped on his side of Styx, and copious 
 extracts sent back to Burke and Ritchie. 
 
 If you see Crittenden, tell him to hang 
 himself. If Letcher is there, kill him. 
 Neither of these men is of any account. A 
 new constitution, ordaining perpetual sla- 
 very and perpetual locofocoism for old Ken- 
 tucky ! "Will it not blast such men ? If 
 they can stand it, I pray God they may be 
 condemned to live forever in this world. 
 Yours, TOM CORWIX. 
 
 The old Town-Hall in Lebanon for 
 many years the court-house was the 
 scene of most of Mr. Corwin's early foren-
 
 72 THOMAS CORWIX. 
 
 sic efforts. There he contended with such 
 men as the Rosses, McLean, Bcnham, and 
 Ben Collett. Giants there were in those 
 days in the little valley ; and a session of 
 court was a great event. The people as- 
 sembled from far and near, to transact 
 business, make acquaintance, gossip, talk 
 politics, enjoy their sports, and, especially, 
 to hear the lawyers " plead." Oratory was 
 every thing; good business capacity not 
 much. Juries decided the cases; judges 
 were of minor importance. An attorney 
 then must be an advocate, or content him- 
 self with a low rank in his profession. Of- 
 ten, in cases of great public interest, the 
 jury was overwhelmed by the crowd, and 
 the five hundred more than the twelve de- 
 termined the verdict. But, whatever the 
 case, there was always a crowd to talk to, 
 and there was no limit put upon the orator.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 73 
 
 A two day's speech on a horse-trade, in- 
 stead of being ridiculous, was considered 
 creditable, and gave the pettifogger fame 
 who could so capaciously spread himself. 
 "While such opportunities and incentives 
 served to expand emptiness, they also 
 tended to develop genius; and from un- 
 known and unsuspected material greatness 
 was made. Then, more than now, the ex- 
 tremes were seen at the bar ; the little and 
 the big jostled each other; now there 
 seems almost a dead level of mediocrity. 
 Pigmies there still are, in fair proportion ; 
 but not giants, so many, at least, as in 
 those days. And there was an answering 
 distinction throughout society. Here and 
 there was a man who stood for something; 
 an incarnation, an influence. Modern ideas 
 and systems and modes have made men 
 so much alike, that when they are brought
 
 74 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 together they are nearly as indistinguish- 
 able as eggs in a basket. The great 
 man of the city or county or village 
 now-a-days is often a bag of commonplaces, 
 or a bundle of intellectual and moral ped- 
 antries. 
 
 In that old court-room and Town-Hall 
 were born some of the finest passages of 
 Corwin's famous speeches. There they 
 were spoken into existence, and from there 
 they go on forever. Never shall we forget 
 being present at the birth of those sublime 
 passages upon the career and death of Na- 
 poleon, which occur in the famous anti- 
 war speech. It was at a meeting of the 
 Mechanics' Institute a debating society 
 and lyceum, which has been in existence 
 nearly as long as the State, and to the 
 town of Lebanon is an institution. It was 
 a wild, stormy night, and not more than a
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 75 
 
 dozen were present. The venerable Judge 
 Kesling was in the chair. The question 
 under discussion" Had the campaigns of 
 Napoleon been of benefit to the world? " 
 had elicited a very dull debate, and the In- 
 stitute was about to adjourn, when, to the 
 surprise and delight of the little audience, 
 Governor Corwin came in, hurriedly evi- 
 dently to escape the storm, which was just 
 then furious. The resolution under discus- 
 sion was read to him, and he was asked to 
 say something upon it. Reluctantly he 
 arose, with his cloak upon his shoulders 
 and his hat in his hand, and commenced, 
 in a rambling, apologetic way, to talk about 
 the subject. At length, he got at it, when 
 he set down his hat, and his mind, as the 
 Quakers say, enjoyed more " freedom." It 
 was not, however, till he was fairly into the 
 subject, that he disencumbered himself of
 
 76 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 "his cloak, and gave himself full swing. He 
 rapidly reviewed the war history of the 
 ancient world, and came at length to mod- 
 ern Europe, and at last to the conquests 
 of Napoleon. Oh, how interesting, and 
 instructive, and vigorous, and sublime, and 
 graphic he was ! You saw the " blind in- 
 strument of Providence at work" through- 
 out Europe. "With the help of the tem- 
 pest outside you heard the "thunders of 
 his cannon at Jena;" you saw "the suc- 
 cessors of the Great Frederic, the drill-ser- 
 geant of Europe, flying across the sandy 
 plain that surrounded their capital, right 
 glad if they escaped captivity or death;" 
 you saw Napoleon's " six hundred thousand 
 men marching upon Moscow." Xow oc- 
 curred a fearful cannonading of the ele- 
 ments ; the lightnings flashed continuously ; 
 the rains fell upon the old house like they
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 77 
 
 would destroy it; Omnipotence seemed just 
 outside ; and the little handful of us shivered 
 in distressing terror. " Mr. President ! " 
 exclaimed Mr. Corwin, reverently and fix- 
 edly pointing through the window, and 
 through the storm, " a mind more prone 
 to look for the judgments of Heaven in 
 the doings of men than mine, can not fail 
 in this to see the providence of God. "When 
 Moscow burned it seemed as if the earth 
 was lighted up, that the Nations might be- 
 hold the scene. As that mighty sea of 
 fire gathered and heaved and rolled up- 
 ward, and yet higher, till its flames licked 
 the stars, and fired the whole Heaven, it 
 did seem as though the God of the Na- 
 tions was writing in characters of flame on 
 the front of his throne, that doom that 
 shall fall upon the strong nation which 
 tramples in scorn upon the weak." A lull
 
 78 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 now in the storm, and the man Napoleon 
 was again visible. "He, too, conceived 
 the notion that his destiny pointed on- 
 ward to universal dominion. France was 
 too small Europe, he thought, should 
 bow down before him. But as soon as this 
 idea took possession of his soul, he, too, 
 became powerless. His Terminus must re- 
 cede too. Right there, where he witnessed 
 the humiliation, and doubtless meditated 
 the subjugation of Russia, He who holds 
 the winds in his fist, gathered the snows 
 of the North and blew them upon his six 
 hundred thousand men; they fled they 
 froze they perished. And now the mighty 
 Napoleon, who had resolved on universal 
 dominion, he too is summoned to answer 
 for the violation of that ancient law, * Thou 
 shalt not covet any thing which is thy neigh- 
 bor's.' How is the mighty fallen. He, be-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 79 
 
 neath whose proud footstep Europe trem- 
 bled, he is now an exile at Elba, and now 
 finally a prisoner on the rocks of St. Hel- 
 ena, and there on a barren island, in an 
 unfrequented sea, in the crater of an ex- 
 tinguished volcano, there is the death-bed 
 of the mighty conqueror. All his annexa- 
 tions have come to that. His last hour is 
 now come, and he, the man of destiny, he 
 who had rocked the world as with the 
 throes of an earthquake, is now powerless, 
 still even as the beggar, so he died." 
 The storm was now terrific, and proved an 
 awful accessory to the orator. " On the 
 wings of a tempest that raged with un- 
 wonted fury, up to the throne of the only 
 power that controlled him while he lived, 
 went the fiery soul of that wonderful war- 
 rior, another witness to the existence of 
 that eternal decree, that they who do not
 
 80 THOMAS CORWIff. 
 
 rule in righteousness, shall perish from the 
 earth." The words of the sentence were 
 mixed up with the peals of reverberating 
 thunder. At the conclusion of the speech 
 the Institute adjourned of itself. The 
 storm had ended, the moon had risen, and 
 the little audience went home entranced. 
 
 His great speech in opposition to the Avar 
 with Mexico, produced a profound sensa- 
 tion throughout the country. The war 
 proved to be popular, as all wars will, in 
 an aggressive popular government. They 
 make tests for patriotism that are appre- 
 hensible to every body, besides opening a 
 way for violences of every sort. The moral 
 tone of the speech was too high, too radi- 
 cal for politics even for the party to 
 which it was especially addressed. The 
 virus of slavery had tainted the whole 
 body politic. Twenty years must elapse
 
 THOMAS CORWIX. 81 
 
 before it could be attacked by constitu- 
 tional remedies. 
 
 The speech and 'the author of it were 
 violently assailed. Mr. Corwin was de- 
 nounced as a traitor by the scurvy politi- 
 cians and press of the country. The dis- 
 guished men of his party who prom- 
 ised to stand by him, deserted him. !N"ot 
 so \\dth the anti-slavery "Whigs of the Mi- 
 ami valley ; they applauded his sentiments, 
 and asked him to speak to them, at Leb- 
 anon, on the subject of the war. "We dare 
 say, no orator ever had such an audience 
 of friends. The meeting was not very 
 large not so great but that it could be 
 held in the court-house but it was com- 
 posed in great part of the leading anti- 
 slavery Whigs in that part of the country. 
 The good Governor Morrow, we believe, 
 presided. Mr. Corwin's speech on that
 
 82 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 occasion was regarded by his friends, familiar 
 with his oratorial achievements, as the great- 
 est of his life. There was no reporter pres- 
 ent, and no attempt was ever made to re- 
 cover any part of the incomparable effort. 
 There was not a humorous word in it; 
 it was grave, sober, serious, tragic. The 
 struggles of the orator, at times, to ex- 
 press himself, were painful to witness. 
 The great veins and muscles in his neck 
 enlarged ; his face was distorted ; his arms 
 wildly reached, and his hands desperately 
 clutched, clutched, in paroxysms of unut- 
 terable emotion. Men left their seats, 
 and gathered close around him, standing 
 through most of the speech; and many 
 of them unconsciously repeated with their 
 lips, almost audibly, every word that he 
 uttered the tears streaming over their 
 faces. Every man in the audience was his
 
 THOMAS CORWEST. 83 
 
 personal friend. The speech was a long 
 one, lasting two or three hours. He re- 
 viewed with much particularity and candor 
 his sentiments and acts in relation to the 
 war, and concluded by alluding with great 
 feeling to old friendships to his growing 
 attachment to his old home, and to old 
 home-friends how they had assisted him 
 in every effort, and fortified him in every 
 trial but, grateful as he felt to them, lov- 
 ing them as he did, if they all were to im- 
 plore him, upon their bended knees, to 
 change his sentiments, and were to remain 
 in that posture till their bones bored the 
 oaken floor, still he would not retract one 
 syllable of truth he had uttered, as he 
 should answer to God ! The audience dis- 
 solved of itself, swarming over the streets 
 and side-walks, nearly every auditor going 
 his own way, alone. Schenck and Steven-
 
 84 THOMAS CORWIX. 
 
 son walked down the street together, but 
 did not speak a word for a block or two. 
 All at once Schenck ejaculated : " What a 
 speech ! " " Yes ! " responded Stevenson, 
 with Kentucky emphasis, " what a speech ! 
 I was born and bred in a land of orators ; 
 have been accustomed, all my life, to hear 
 such giants as Clay and Menifee, Critten- 
 den and Marshall ; but, blessed be God ! I 
 never heard a speech like that ! " 
 
 Perhaps no two brilliant minds ever 
 were more alike, in some striking respects, 
 than Corwin's and Sydney Smith's. They 
 resembled in those respects as far as it was 
 possible for a university-bred English cler- 
 gyman to resemble a free-born genius of 
 an American frontier, educated by the 
 trials and responsibilities of life, and com- 
 pelled to get his living by jostling the 
 world and thinking for it constantly. The
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 85 
 
 play of their minds was much the same. 
 The genius of each was best displayed in 
 conversation. ^That' has been said of one 
 side of Smith, may with the same truthful- 
 ness be said of the same side of Corwin. 
 Many of the current sayings of Smith natu- 
 rally create the impression that his wit was 
 exhibited in short and pointed repartee. 
 It consisted, as Corwin's did, in great part, 
 in a species of burlesque representation 
 of any circumstance that occurred, the 
 rapid invention of his humorous imagina- 
 tion presenting it in all manner of ridicu- 
 lous lights. There are few subjects, it has 
 been well said, which will not lend them- 
 selves to this mirth-moving process, few 
 which are not capable of being shown with 
 a little distortion under ludicrous aspects. 
 Those who are adepts in this descrip- 
 tion of fun are therefore more uniformly
 
 86 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 entertaining than men who deal in the 
 terser retorts for which the course of con- 
 versation seldom affords any scope. Of 
 the latter kind of wit there is not much 
 that will bear to he repeated ; "but the whole 
 of the former expires with the burst of 
 laughter it originally provokes. Disso- 
 ciated from the circumstances which pro- 
 duced it, the comicality is lost, and the 
 nonsense remains. Not only must the tree, 
 with all its roots and fibres, be transplanted, 
 but the entire soil from which it derived 
 its nutriment. Moore records in his Jour- 
 nal, that, walking home at night with Lut- 
 trell and Sydney Smith, they "were all 
 three seized with such convulsions of cach- 
 innation at something Avhich Sydney said, 
 that they were obliged to separate, and 
 reel each his own way with the fit." 
 Yet the poet could not remember, when he
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 87 
 
 came to make the entry, what this " some- 
 thing " was, so entirely was it dependent 
 upon the whim of the moment for its value, 
 and so fleeting the impression which it left 
 upon the mind. Moore on various occa- 
 sions has epitomized sallies of Sydney 
 Smith which were more than ordinarily 
 amusing, and they give about the same 
 idea of his fun as an index would do of 
 a "Waverley novel or one of Byron's tales. 
 Many a time we have witnessed the morti- 
 fication of intelligent persons, who, with- 
 out reflection, attempted to produce speci- 
 mens of Mr. Corwin's peculiar humor. 
 The exclamation of Sydney Smith, when 
 he was told that a young Scotchman was 
 about to marry a portly widow, was just 
 such as we are ready to affirm Corwin 
 would have made under similar circum- 
 stances : " Going to marry her ! going to
 
 88 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 marry her! impossible! you mean a part 
 of her : he could not marry her all himself. 
 It would be a case not of bigamy, but 
 trigamy; the neighborhood or the magis- 
 trates should interfere. There is enough 
 of her to furnish wives for a whole parish. 
 One man marry her! it is monstrous. 
 You might people a colony with her, or 
 give an assembly with her, or perhaps 
 take your morning's walk round her, al- 
 ways provided there were frequent resting- 
 places, and you were in rude health." 
 
 One morning we met Mr. Cor win, after 
 a serious fit of indigestion that had kept us 
 in the house for a fortnight. He saw in- 
 stantly the fix we were in, and dashed at 
 once into a dissertation upon the bile its 
 ingredients, functions, uses, blessings, and 
 terrors; how when the mysterious thing 
 was healthy, unvexed by anxiety or too
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 89 
 
 much pudding, it painted the cheeks with 
 the hues of the rose, and made all the 
 world look rosy ; Bow at another time the 
 subtile fluid would break away, and go 
 rioting through the blood, inundating the 
 whole venous system, coloring the com- 
 plexion a sickly yellow, and making all 
 the world look somber and despairing; 
 speculated upon its influence in determin- 
 ing our religious views; how at one time 
 it made us orthodox, at another hetero- 
 dox ; how, when humored by brown bread 
 and broiled tenderloin, it made us optim- 
 ists ; how, when maddened by sour bread 
 and rusty bacon, it made us pessimists ; 
 in the one state making existence a luxury, 
 and this world not a bad sort of a place, 
 and men and women pretty good crea- 
 tures ; in the other, all the world appear- 
 ing wrong, and eternity too short to reform
 
 90 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 it in. "When we recollect that half-hour's 
 wit, that ransacked physiology, and sur- 
 veyed the world of man making us laugh 
 heartily when we had supposed the laugh- 
 ing machinery in us was all destroyed 
 we recollect also with it, inevitably, a pas- 
 sage like it from the famous wit we have 
 been quoting in illustration and parallel: 
 " The longer I live the more I am con- 
 vinced that the apothecary is of more im- 
 portance than Seneca, and that half the 
 unhappiness in the world proceeds from 
 little stoppages, from a duct choked up, 
 from food pressing in the wrong place, 
 from a vexed duodenum, or an agitated 
 pylorus. The deception as practiced upon 
 human creatures is curious and entertain- 
 ing. My friend sups late; he eats some 
 strong soup, then a lobster, then some 
 tart, and he dilutes these excellent varieties
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 91 
 
 with wine. The next day I call upon him. 
 He is going to sell his house in town, and 
 to retire into the country. He is alarmed 
 for his eldest daughter's health. His ex- 
 penses are hourly increasing, and nothing 
 but a timely retreat can save him from ruin. 
 All this is the lobster: and when over- 
 excited nature has had time to manage 
 this testacious encumbrance, the daughter 
 recovers, the finances are in good order, 
 and every rural idea is effectually excluded 
 from the mind. In the same manner, old 
 friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, 
 and hard salted meat has led to suicide." 
 
 But Thomas Corwin was not Sydney 
 Smith ; if inferior in some parts we think 
 he was superior in others ; we believe, at 
 least, that his powers were more varied. 
 At one time he would rub his intellectual 
 lamp and create unimaginable wonders ; at
 
 92 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 another, " condense one side of a question 
 into an epigram of ten words," and make 
 it "pierce in every ear and stick in every 
 memory ; " at another, he would brew tem- 
 pests and hurl thunderbolts. The extrava- 
 gances of his humor all his friends had 
 frequent exhibitions of; he was apt to be 
 extravagant when with more than one per- 
 son ; two were an assembly, and he talked 
 to them as to a multitude. Alone, with 
 one person, he was almost sure to be grave, 
 introspective, and profound ; if another ap- 
 peared he was another man. " Girt in 
 mystery and enigma," like Coleridge, he 
 sometimes whispered " strange things, un- 
 certain whether oracles or jargon." His 
 best wit was in flashes, the brightness of 
 which illuminated the whole subject. In 
 his profoundest moods he was awful. He 
 went down into the deep places of the
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 93 
 
 heart, those solitudes wherein the voice of 
 God echoes so confusedly that you can not 
 tell what it says. "He fathomed the dread 
 abysses of experience, and came up choked 
 with the atmosphere of curses and sighs. 
 With an easy wing, he rose to the empy- 
 rean of hope and aspiration, inspiring 
 always the belief, so natural to every hu- 
 man being, " that man, despite all his fol- 
 lies and errors, led by a higher hand, 
 reaches some happy goal at last." 
 
 No man ever lived who felt more keenly 
 the responsibilities of existence; no man 
 ever had a more sensitive conscience. 
 "When I reflect," said he, on one occa- 
 sion, " that I am to be judged by a right- 
 eous and omnipotent God," (grasping his 
 head with both hands), " I nearly go mad ! " 
 " It is not the big sins," he said, on another 
 occasion, " that trouble me ; it is the little
 
 94 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 snakes," holding up Ms hands, extending 
 his fingers, and wriggling them in a most 
 snake-like manner. 
 
 There is a remembrance of a speech he 
 once made at a meeting of the "Warren 
 County Bible Society, which greatly sur- 
 prised the few clergymen and good people 
 present. Thirty years ago it was often 
 talked about. He had happened to go in 
 upon the little assembly, and was pressed 
 to say something upon the subject which 
 had brought it together. He began by 
 apologizing for uttering a single word, with- 
 out the greatest preparation, upon so im- 
 portant a theme as the Bible. It was a 
 book for which he had always had the great- 
 est reverence and veneration ; a book that 
 he had been in the habit of reading ever 
 since he had read any thing ; a book that, 
 in his judgment, contained a reference to,
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 95 
 
 if not a description of, every vice and every 
 virtue ; a specimen of every type of char- 
 acter ; and precepts" adapted to every con- 
 dition. The history and conduct of the 
 race, as related in the Old Testament, and 
 the Christian system, as developed in the 
 New, were as familiar to him as any thing 
 he had read of in books. The speech 
 abounded with varied and accurate in- 
 formation relating to the origin, author- 
 ship, authenticity, sacredness, and preser- 
 vation of the Old Testament Scriptures; 
 to the character and rank of the patri- 
 archs and prophets; to the trial of Christ 
 both under the Jewish and Roman law; 
 to the Apostles, their abilities and their 
 characteristics. Once fairly into the sub- 
 ject, he knew not how nor where to con- 
 clude. Clergymen present, who had made 
 the Bible and Christianity a study all their
 
 96 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 lives, were amazed at the extent and accu- 
 racy of his knowledge. His acquaintance 
 with the facts was that of the profoundest 
 Bible scholar, and his reflections upon 
 them were those of the sincerest Chris- 
 tian believer. His allusions to Moses, 
 Joshua, Job, and St. Paul, were startlingly 
 impressive. The possible good man pos- 
 sible under the Christian system as he 
 drew him, was a shining example to be im- 
 itated, suggesting a remote likeness 
 only remote to the Founder and Great 
 Exemplar himself. For two hours or more 
 he enchanted and amazed the little au- 
 dience of a dozen or so of clergymen and 
 church-going people in a manner as inimit- 
 able as it was eloquent. 
 
 At his own table Mr. Corwin was charm- 
 ing. Once he asked us to dine with a 
 Scotch author of eminence who was visit-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 97 
 
 ing him. The American statesman and 
 the Scotch writer were counterparts, and 
 inspired each other. " Scotland, Scott, and 
 Burns, were of course subjects of conver- 
 sation. Mr. Corwin, we remember, re- 
 lated with great spirit and energy the fa- 
 mous hand to hand fight between Balfour 
 and Bothwell, from Old Mortality. Tarn 
 O'Shanter, The Twa Dogs, The Address to 
 the Unco Guid, the Epistle to a Young 
 Friend, and the Epistle to Davie, were 
 rifled of their sweets. The Scotchman 
 mingled snatches of music. Corwin illus- 
 trated from his exhaustless stores. From 
 two till six were " golden hours on angel 
 wings." 
 
 After he left the Cabinet he opened a 
 law-office in Cincinnati, and he spent a 
 greater part of his time for a few years in 
 that city. His town home was the Burnet
 
 98 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 House. His residence there of course made 
 it a social center. The supper-room of the 
 hotel at that day was also used as a " la- 
 dies' ordinary." It was a very cosy little 
 eating-room, and many are the persons 
 who have pleasant recollections of it. It 
 was a habit of Corwin's to drop in, for a 
 bite from ten to eleven at night. lie 
 nearly always met some one there to pro- 
 voke conversation. Strangers, guests, who 
 happened to be present, remained to a 
 feast they had not expected, and which the 
 bill at the office could not include. The 
 interior of the room was visible from Vine 
 street, and persons passing would be oc- 
 casionally startled by bursts of laughter. 
 Now and then a gentleman who knew Cor- 
 win well, and who had the run of the ho- 
 tel, would find his way in, till pretty soon 
 there was a generous audience. The more
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 99 
 
 the better for Mr. Corwin, if he was in the 
 humor for talking. A good share of his 
 thousands of brilliant colloquial triumphs 
 occurred in that room, and under those cir- 
 cumstances. Often, no doubt, he stole in, 
 in a reticent mood; but meeting unex- 
 pectedly somebody that he loved, that he 
 had common experiences with, or that from 
 some cause inspired him, he launched away, 
 and, once in the open sea, no telling when 
 or where he would anchor. Brilliant be- 
 yond comparison, humorous beyond con- 
 ception, profound beyond plummet, his 
 conversations on some of these occasions 
 are reported to have been. There is no 
 limit to the praises of those who heard 
 them ; even of cold men of the world, who 
 apply unconsciously, from habit, the se- 
 verest tests to every thing. A gentleman 
 has told us of one of these occasions when
 
 100 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 he was so delighted as to forget himself, in 
 the charms and splendors of Mr. Corwin's 
 conversation, till two in the morning, when 
 only the engagements of the morrow sent 
 him up-stairs to his bed-room. After 
 breakfast he was curious enough to in- 
 quire about the party he had so reluctantly 
 left, and was told that they remained till 
 the "red-armed washers" made their ap- 
 pearance in the morning, to prepare the 
 room for the day's uses. 
 
 In '58 the people of his old district 
 asked him to represent them again in the 
 lower House of Congress. The twenty 
 years since he had served there had made 
 great changes; he felt himself a stranger, 
 and was ill at ease. He was an old man, 
 with philosophical ideas, amongst younger 
 ones, with knives in their brains. John 
 Brown had struck the first direct blow at
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 101 
 
 slavery, and thousands upon both sides 
 had sworn new oaths. The House of Rep- 
 resentatives was unorganized for two 
 months. During the desperate contest for 
 the Speakership, he made a long, rambling, 
 discursive speech, remarkable for nothing 
 BO much as the tone of sadness which is 
 distinctly visible through all its hopeless 
 logic and forced humor. Disunion and 
 " fratricidal " war, which had long been a 
 terrible apprehension of his, was now a 
 horrible specter, and seemed to paralyze 
 his hopes. " I wish," said he, " if it could 
 be so, that from the beginning of this ses- 
 sion the Journal clerk had every night 
 blotted out the record of our proceedings, 
 that they might not be heard of any more 
 among men. "When I entered this Hall a 
 new man the other day, there was a strange 
 feeling came upon me that I was not in the
 
 102 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 Congress of the United States. Over the 
 chair where the Speaker presided, sat, in 
 the old time, the Muse of History, with 
 her pen. The men who built the first 
 Hall of the House of Representatives, 
 thought that this grand inquest of this 
 great Republic was to make that history 
 which should illustrate our annals. Clio 
 was there, emblematical of what was to be 
 submitted to the dread tribunal of pos- 
 terity." . . . "If we halt," said he, 
 in closing, " in this great exodus of the na- 
 tions; if we are broken into inconsidera- 
 able fragments, and ultimately dispensed, 
 through our follies of this day, what im- 
 agination can compass the frightful enor- 
 mity of our crime! "What would the 
 world say of this unpardonable sin ? Ra- 
 ther than this, we should pray the kind 
 Father of all, even His wicked children,
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 103 
 
 to visit us with the last and worst of all 
 the afflictions that fall on sin and sinful 
 man. Better for us- would it be that the 
 fruitful earth should be smitten for a sea- 
 eon with barrenness, and become dry dust, 
 and refuse its annual fruits; better that 
 the heavens for a time should become brass, 
 and the ear of God deaf to our prayers; 
 better that Famine, with her cold and 
 skinny fingers, should lay hold upon the 
 throats of our wives and children; better 
 that God should commission the Angel of 
 Destruction to go forth over the land, scat- 
 tering pestilence and death from his dusky 
 wing, than that we should prove faithless 
 to our trust, and by that means our light 
 should be quenched, our liberties destroyed, 
 and all our bright hopes die out in that 
 night which knows no coming dawn." 
 On his return from Mexico he seemed to
 
 104 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 feel more than ever his loneliness and isola- 
 tion. His old associates in public life were 
 nearly all gone. " The gods," he said, " are 
 all dead." He fully realized what had been 
 so well expressed by Buchanan Read in his 
 poem on the death of Webster: 
 
 "The great are falling from us, one by one, 
 As fall the patriarchs of the forest trees; 
 The winds shall seek them vainly, and the sun. 
 Gaze on each vacant space for centuries. 
 
 "Lo, Carolina mourns her steadfast pine, 
 
 Which, like a main-mast, towered above her 
 
 realm ; 
 
 And Ashland hears no more the voice divine 
 From out the branches of her stately elm. 
 
 "And Marshfield's giant oak, whose stormy brow 
 Oft turned the ocean tempest from the west, 
 Lies on the shore he guarded long and now 
 Our startled eagle knows not where to rest." 
 
 The public mind was engaged with new 
 questions, and was directed by new men.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 105 
 
 He missed the high, social atmosphere 
 which had sweetened his public life, and 
 the chivalrous honor and generous courtesy 
 that made it safe sometimes to think aloud, 
 and pleasant always to be a gentleman. 
 That old set never felt each others elbows ; 
 and they looked straight into each others 
 eyes, every one a man. Limits to manner 
 and language, under pressure of will or 
 impulse, felt and obeyed by Sidney and 
 Raleigh and every gentleman since Adam, 
 were pretty well defined and acknowl- 
 edged. In all their violences of feeling, 
 growing out of sharp differences upon 
 public questions, they rarely forgot to be 
 considerate, respectful, and courteous. The 
 cherished thing called character was such 
 a creation as the possessor had been able 
 to make it, hedged about by such defenses 
 as its weaknesses had made necessary, and
 
 106 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 its shadow, reputation, was of quick blood 
 enough to require to be cautiously dealt 
 with. Especially was character, as con- 
 nected with the public service, jealously 
 and scrupulously guarded and defended. 
 That old-time virtue, which had not very 
 many years before caused a Secretary of 
 the Treasury to confess an amour, and all 
 the petty pecuniary expenses attending it, 
 rather than to permit himself to rest under 
 suspicion that the public exchequer had 
 been drawn upon to meet demands be- 
 yond the ability of his own private purse, 
 was still in existence, still governed as a 
 rule of conduct, and still sometimes re- 
 quired voluntary personal exposure to de- 
 fend suspected official integrity and honor. 
 In private life the character might lapse a 
 little and recover itself, but in public life, 
 never; delinquency was ruin. And the
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 107 
 
 people, too, felt the crime, like a wound, 
 that refused to be cicatrized, flowing forth 
 afresh with every remembrance. In place 
 of such manners, and ethics, and excel- 
 lences, he found the new-born modern 
 aggressiveness, which crushes its way 
 to notice; exacting, desperate, bullying; 
 which calls decency ceremony, and delib- 
 eration weakness ; which scorns to consult 
 the low hope, the passive acceptance, the 
 high expectation ; to which, in its incarnate 
 selfishness, the petitions of the wretched, 
 the gruntings of the comfortable, and the 
 grumblings of the opulent, are voices alike 
 insignificant and despicable. Made up 
 of greed, instinct, and a pettifogger's 
 cunning qualities which now-a-;days too 
 often stand for ability and ambition 
 it confronts society in the brusk attitude 
 of an assured bully, with the threatening
 
 108 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 manner of a highwayman : " Stand, and 
 recognize ! " So often buying its way to 
 place, it boldly looks for compensation in 
 contracts and patronage, and hesitates not 
 to vote in the direction of its private in- 
 terests. 
 
 The great civil war was raging in all its 
 fury, settling questions in the field that 
 had so long been anxiously deliberated in 
 Congress. Mr. Corwin's own great abili- 
 ties had been exerted to prevent the crisis 
 which he too clearly saw was impending. 
 In his eloquent speech upon the Mexican 
 "War he gave memorable warning in vivid 
 language of prophecy : " Why, then," he 
 said, " shall we, the representatives of the 
 sovereign States of this Union the chosen 
 guardians of this confederated Republic 
 why should we precipitate this fearful 
 struggle by continuing a war the result
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 109 
 
 of which, must be to force us at once upon 
 it? . . . It is a crime of such infer- 
 nal hue, that every other in the catalogue 
 of iniquity, when compared with it, whitens 
 into virtue. Oh, Mr. President, it does 
 seem to me, if Hell itself could yawn, and 
 vomit up the fiends that inhabit its penal 
 abodes, commissioned to destroy the har- 
 mony of this world, and dash the fairest 
 prospect of happiness that ever allured the 
 hopes of man, the first step in the consum- 
 mation of this diabolical purpose would be 
 to light up the fires of internal war, and 
 plunge the sister States of this Union into 
 the bottomless gulf of civil strife." 
 
 The little while he was at the Court of 
 the Montezumas was long enough to 
 change the whole state of things at home. 
 Events, so long brewing, had swept up 
 like a hurricane, culminating in the bloody
 
 110 THOMAS CORWIN, 
 
 collision of the two sections, which he had 
 so eloquently forewarned and foretold. An 
 old statesman, he had pondered oft and 
 deeply the causes of the conflict ; the de- 
 bate was now ended. Words were but 
 words now. The mightiest tongues were 
 still. Wisdom herself even, human wis- 
 dom, was dumb, amid the tumult and 
 clash of arms. Qualities which made the 
 ripened statesman capable in peace, were 
 powerless in war. Conservative thought 
 was counted obsolete, and history imper- 
 tinent. Young men, not troubled with 
 theories or memories, and not old enough 
 to count the cost of an object, who had no 
 past, but all future, were wanted. The 
 moment and action were every thing ; the 
 hazard of life, for country and oppor- 
 tunities such as glows in the heart of 
 youth nothing. IsTo wonder, apart from
 
 THOMAS CORWTtf. Ill 
 
 the active world, looking over the long 
 past, seeing the frightful present, realiz- 
 ing the tremendous change, he sadly ex- 
 claimed : " I am but a tradition ! " He 
 felt that Oblivion was already scattering 
 her poppy. 
 
 Mr. Corwin was indeed a profoundly 
 serious man. He had not trodden atten- 
 tively and anxiously the way of life without 
 knowing all on both sides of it. He had 
 not banqueted with the gods to bring 
 back only the pattern of the table-cloth. 
 It made him unhappy to think of being 
 known as a joker. Humorists are sure to 
 be misunderstood ; they always have been. 
 Great minds with great passions are full 
 of contrarieties and paradoxes. The ex- 
 tremes meet in character as in life. Be- 
 tween the tears of sorrow and of joy 
 chemistry would hardly discover a differ-
 
 112 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 ence. The hungry worm lies very close be- 
 hind the brightest complexion. It seems 
 to be a law of our nature that " as high as 
 we have mounted in delight, in dejec- 
 tion do we sink as low." Burns puts it: 
 " Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, 
 thrill the deepest notes of woe ; " and old 
 Burton, more strongly : " Naught so sweet 
 as melancholy ; " naught so " damned as 
 melancholy." "Even wit is brought to 
 bed with pain." Curran, who was so merry 
 and charming in conversation, once said 
 he " never went to bed in Ireland without 
 wishing not to rise again." Mr. Corwin 
 was often heard to declare his life a failure, 
 because he had not been, with the public, 
 more successful in serious veins. A friend 
 relates that he was riding with him in the 
 summer of 1860, when Corwin remarked 
 of a speech made the evening before : " It
 
 THOMAS CORWCT. 113 
 
 was very good, indeed, but in bad style. 
 Never make the people laugh. I see that 
 you cultivate that. It is easy and capti- 
 vating, but death in the long run to the 
 speaker." "Why, Mr. Corwin, you are 
 the last man living I expected such an 
 opinion from." " Certainly ; because you 
 have not lived so long as I have. Do you 
 know, my young friend, that the world has 
 a contempt for the man that entertains it ? 
 One must be solemn solemn as an ass 
 never say any thing that is not uttered with 
 the greatest gravity, to win respect. The 
 world looks up to the teacher and down at 
 the clown; yet, in nine cases out of ten, 
 the clown is the better fellow of the two." 
 The truth is, that, sensitive as Mr. Corwin 
 was in nature, and original in intellect and 
 character, humor was an essential an ar- 
 mor to shield his emotions, and a disguise
 
 114 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 in which to enact his thoughts ; without it 
 he could not have survived, or been under- 
 stood. "All thought is sad," and must 
 have vent, or burst in madness. The mul- 
 titude he did not pretend to teach or move 
 but by the most indirect methods; the 
 essence he wastefully diluted ; his thoughts 
 he diffused through a flood of words. The 
 great he illustrated by the little, the unu- 
 sual by the common. As he saw a subject, 
 to the bottom and all around, its aspect 
 was rather one for tears ; as he could make 
 an audience see it, it was only entertaining, 
 as a melodrama. Abstracted, his philoso- 
 phy or wisdom would have been jargon; 
 crystalized as a story, it was luminous. 
 From a long, comprehensive view, on one 
 occasion, of civilization, as developed and 
 influenced by different religions and gov- 
 ernments showing enlarged information
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 115 
 
 and profound knowledge of the condition, 
 struggles, and hopes of the race he 
 passed, with evident great relief, to him- 
 self and to his audience, to a description 
 of the habits of an African ant amus- 
 ingly illustrating human life by a close 
 parallel of man with the insect. The first 
 view of the race was thoughtful and grave, 
 but most of it flew over the heads of the 
 audience; the second was satirical, full of 
 nice observation, and was at least enter- 
 taining to the dullest hearer. 
 
 Midnight was to him " the noon of 
 thought " when wisdom mounted " her ze- 
 nith with the stars." Never shall we forget 
 one late-hour vision of him. Happening one 
 day into the old " Star " printing-office, in 
 Lebanon, where we were employed as a com- 
 positor, he picked up a little volume lying 
 on our window, and asked the use of it for
 
 116 THOMAS COBWIN. 
 
 a few days. It was a translation of Dante, 
 which from some cause he had not seen. 
 A week or two after, from nine to ten 
 o'clock one drizzly, dismal night, when 
 we had been sitting moodily over our fire, 
 undetermined what to do with the rest 
 of the evening it being too dreary, we 
 thought, to go out, and too early to go to 
 bed there was a rap at the door; but 
 we supposed it only meant a visit from a 
 tiresome fellow next chamber who occa- 
 sionally fell upon us with all the weight of 
 his impenetrable dullness. There was an- 
 other rap, and who should come in but 
 Governor Corwin ! with the little red book 
 under his arm. We knew, by the way he 
 went down in his chair, and drew the pil- 
 low under his head, that he had come to 
 stay. The first words he spoke were of the 
 book. It had enabled him, he said, to
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 117 
 
 review Dante, which he had not read for 
 many years. It had engrossed him all day. 
 He made a lean analysis of it, in its three 
 parts, apparently as a basis for what he 
 himself had to say of life and death, pres- 
 ent and future, reality and possibility, 
 then cut the cables, and launched away 
 into the vasty deep of hia own illimitable 
 nature. His very figure, more than ever, 
 seemed to have a solemn aspect. His 
 countenance was serious and grave grave 
 as the divine Florentine's must have been 
 to make the people point to him and say, 
 " There goes the man who has been in 
 hell ! " It was hung all over, so to speak, 
 with sacks of emotion, which quivered 
 every one like a tear. It had the look 
 of anxious abstraction that Lincoln's used 
 to have when he had been out all day 
 on the broad prairie, in close commu-
 
 118 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 nion, in His own Temple, with the living 
 God. It had a look as if he had overleaped 
 the immediate and the ordinary, and had 
 scaled the topmost future, whence, look- 
 ing back, he saw the wrecks of all life's 
 bitter surrenders. His whole expression 
 and manner told that he had dwelt long 
 with " the mighty abstractions that incar- 
 nate themselves in all individual sufferings 
 of man's heart." He had been with the 
 embodied virtues and vices ; " by turns in 
 soaring heaven or vaulted hell." Oh, how 
 profoundly and sublimely he talked ! Every 
 sentence was big with thought, experience, 
 and emotion, and every one seemed bigger 
 than the one that preceded it. You saw 
 poor man, from the bottom of the hill of 
 life, gathering as he climbed, and throwing 
 away as he descended, till, at the foot, he 
 was ready, empty-handed, to go to sleep a
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 119 
 
 child again. Now you saw him, struggling 
 despairingly, with the taints of genera- 
 tions against him ; now again, with inher- 
 ited virtues and gifts, that glowed through 
 his eyes, beamed in his countenance, and 
 kept him ignorant of an infinitude of 
 evils. You saw complacent pharisaism, 
 enveloped in down, "swaddled, and dan- 
 dled, and rocked," carried on soft hands, 
 kissed with affectionate kisses, pampered, 
 petted, and flattered, kneeling upon cush- 
 ions of velvet, and " thanking gracious 
 Heaven for having made the circumstances 
 of all mankind so extremely happy." You 
 saw, also, wretched, appealing humanity, 
 begotten in a paroxysm, born in agony, re- 
 gretted by parents, whipped by contumely, 
 taught in the school of misery, shoulder- 
 ing sturdily the weights of life, sharing 
 cheerfully others burdens, and thanking
 
 120 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 God, with a bowed head and a broken 
 heart, in silence and in solitude, that it 
 was no worse with it than it was. Dante's 
 Divine Comedy, all the world knows, is a 
 great poem, but to us, that wonderful solil- 
 oquy or monologue of Corwin's seemed to 
 have more poetry in it by far. We spoke 
 not one word. The clock struck twelve, 
 and one. The great man had departed, 
 silently. But for that memorable de- 
 monstration of his genius, this monograph 
 would never have been written.
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 121 
 
 DEATH OF MR. 
 
 THE following letter, descriptive of Mr. 
 Corwin's death, appeared anonymously in 
 the Ohio State Journal : 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 19, 1865. 
 DEAR SIR: 
 
 It has never been deemed an invasion 
 of the sanctuary of private life to preserve for 
 the world and history the last utterances and 
 acts of the men of history. That license which 
 admits the treasuring up of the "last things" 
 of great and historic lives induces me to write 
 down \vhat I do here. 
 
 It was never my lot before to be thrilled by 
 seeing brought together in startling proximity 
 life and death, mirth and mourning, fame and
 
 122 -THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 frailty, as I saw them brought together in the 
 circumstances attending the last conscious mo- 
 ments of Thomas Corwin. How strange it 
 seems to me now! At a collection of men of 
 Ohio, in which were Chase, and Wade, and Sher- 
 man, and Schenck and Bingham, and Swayne, 
 and fifty others of the public men of the State, 
 Gov. Corwin was present. Upon his entering 
 the room he, of course, became, what he for 
 forty years had been everywhere, where his pres- 
 ence was, the center of interest and of admira- 
 tion. In ten minutes after he had entered the 
 room I saw from some distance (for I did not 
 soon go to him) men collected and compacted 
 around him in eager, excited, and, in some cases, 
 ridiculous attitudes Chief Justice and Associate 
 Justices of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, members of the Cabinet, Major Generals 
 of the Armies of the United States, Senators in 
 Congress, and members of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, were in a circle. Some were seated
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 123 
 
 by him; some stoDd erect about his chair; some 
 leaned and pressed eagerly forward between the 
 more inner circles of listeners, and pushed their 
 ears forward to hear the words and whispers 
 which came from the center figure of the circle. 
 Some sat, some stood, some kneeled, and all 
 leaned forward to listen. 
 
 I watched occasionally the effect, upon this 
 little company of men, of what was drawing 
 them to that center. The strange magician had 
 taken up once more, and the last time, his wand, 
 to try its spell upon a little company of its sub- 
 jects. It was the same one with which so often 
 before, in the mere wantonness and sport of his 
 powers, he had toyed and played with the storms 
 of human passions which it conjured up, con- 
 trolled and allayed at will. 
 
 His youth, with its inimitable charms and 
 graces, seemed for a moment to have come to 
 him again. There were once more the flow of 
 humor, the sparkle of merriment, the glow of
 
 124 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 enthusiasm, the flash of wit, and the charms 
 of anecdote and illustration ; and there the won- 
 drous play of features which made him Cor- 
 win. Men came repeatedly out from his pres- 
 ence at that seat, that night, exclaiming, "There 
 is but one Corwin!" For a moment men, who, a 
 thousand times before had bowed before the spell 
 of his genius, or had been swept off by its irre- 
 sistible force, and then, when the spell was gone, 
 wondered at their frailties, here again became its 
 victims. 
 
 When at last the press about him lessened, I 
 sat down by his side. What he happened first to 
 say to me furnishes one of those strange coinci- 
 dences which help to invest our lives with a tinge 
 of the mysterious and awful; and which makes 
 us superstitious. One of his first utterances to 
 me was a startling description of what Tom Cor- 
 win was to be in twenty-five minutes after its 
 utterance. It was this : He said, "You are more 
 bald than when I saw you last, the day before I
 
 THOMAS CORWEN T . 125 
 
 sailed for Mexico." I said, "Yes." He said, 
 with the semi-solemn, semi-comical face which 
 has become historical, "But then, Julius Csesar 
 was bald." I said, "But Caesar had fits." Then 
 he assumed a more serious manner, and said, 
 "Twenty years ago I saw a man fall in appar- 
 ently unconscious paralysis, when in the midst 
 of excited discourse. He was carried out by his 
 friends in this condition, and his first act of con- 
 sciousness was to utter the words you have just 
 said, 'Caesar had fits!'" 
 
 In twenty-five minutes after, I assisted in carry- 
 ing Corwin out in the precise condition he had so 
 strangely described. He then went into a more 
 general conversation with those around him, asked 
 after old friends in Ohio, etc. . . . Then he 
 was invited to the refreshment room. He arose 
 and asked me to accompany him, which I did ; 
 
 > 
 
 Senator Wade joining us at the foot of the stairs. 
 I urged him to be seated in a sofa at the table, 
 which he expressed reluctance in taking, owing to
 
 126 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 the presence of ladies standing. On this sofa his 
 last words were uttered in a few minutes after. 
 The scene I have alluded to as occurring below, 
 was here speedily repeated. Eager men again 
 pressed about him and leaned forward, and held 
 their breath to catch his last utterance. Once or 
 twice they shouted with laughter, and clapped 
 their hands in boisterous merriment; and every 
 eye and ear in the brilliant assemblage was di- 
 rected to the seat where Tom Corwin was playing 
 with skilled fingers upon that mystic harp whose 
 chords are human passion, sympathy, and emo- 
 tion, with all the wizard skill and power which 
 was his of old. In a moment afterward his voice 
 suddenly sank to whispers, and then he raised 
 suddenly from his seat, reached forward his hands, 
 asked for fresh air, and fell into the arms of sur- 
 rounding friends; and I helped carry him, speech- 
 less, from the chamber where his last auditory 
 had just hung in love and admiration upon his 
 lips, and stooped forward to get his last whis-
 
 THOMAS CORWIN. 127 
 
 pers. And we carried him into the death-cham- 
 ber, whence a soul, more eloquent than Patrick 
 Henry's, more beautiful than Sheridan's, more 
 graceful than Cicero's, went back to God who 
 made it. 
 
 When we laid him down he soon said to us, by 
 a significant act, what he could not say by speech, 
 "One side of me is dead!" This he did by rais- 
 ing up one arm, grasping tightly his hand, and 
 shaking his clenched fist. This he did twice, 
 looking, at the same time, earnestly and rather 
 wildly into the faces of immediate bystanders. 
 When he did this with his left hand, his right 
 one was lying dead at his side. This act was in- 
 stantly read by all as saying to us, "One side is 
 powerless, but the other is not." This was the 
 last communication to his fellow-men ever made 
 by him, unless subsequent grasps of recognition 
 may have indicated to a few that he* knew them. 
 And there at midnight I parted from that stricken 
 man! He, who had touched with the scepter
 
 128 THOMAS CORWIN. 
 
 of his imperial and godlike intellect States, Na- 
 tions, Peoples, Courts, and Senators, and made 
 them all bow to the majesty of its power, was 
 now touched in his turn touched by the scep- 
 ter of his Lord, and instantly bowed his head, 
 and laid himself submissively down and died. 
 
 I, a sojourner here at the National Capital for 
 a few days, and who happened to witness "The 
 Last of Earth" to Corwin, wrote down this. Let 
 it be preserved or thrown away as may be fit; 
 but, whether preserved or thrown away, 
 
 " Our hearts, though stout and brave, 
 Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
 Funeral marches to the grave."
 
 
 
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