in his own mind, and keep them shut up there until the time came for their development; hence he was a sage politician

-a smart tactician. He was a warm friend, and a cold, dignified enemy; an affectionate husband (when addressing a large audience of beautiful ladies, a short time previous to his decease, he told them they were very handsome, but there was an old lady in Ashland, he loved more than he loved them), a tender father (there can be no doubt that the death of his son, on the Mexican battle-field, cut him to the heart, and hastened him to the grave, by irritating the disease to which he was predisposed), and an appreciating teacher (he educated the eminent scholar and distinguished orator, Bascom).

He had more courage than cruelty, and would defend himself when assailed with a degree of patriotic pluck which was a caution to the invader. The love of money was not remarkable in him. It is my impression that he left only a moderate competency behind him. In his younger days, he occasionally indulged in games of chance, not for the profit but for the excitement of the game. Gambling, however, is always reprehensible, and no excuse can whitewash it into innocent amusement. After all, it was his mind that made him such an attractive man. He was fond of the sublime and beautiful, had a nice discriminating taste, hence his language and his illustrations were chaste and elegant, and he became the most eloquent expounder of the principles of his party. The magazines are filled with specimens of his glowing imagery and subtle reasoning. It was, indeed, a rich treat to look up at his stalwart form and listen to the deep

notes that pealed from his organ-chest, until the senate chamber rang with the mighty magic of his unapproachable eloquence. He had not the massive grandeur of Webster, but he was more acute in his argument, and had a more gracious manner of delivery. He did not display the scholarship of Benton, but he had a richer fancy and more declamatory power, and far exceeded him in matters of diplomacy. Without the calmness of Cass, he always commanded. more attention in Congress than the great giant of Michigan.

Perhaps he may be called, the Canning of America; although his style is peculiar to himself, there is the same fascinating finish-the same mingling of pathos and poetry, argument and invective. He was rapid, forcible, brilliant, piercing. His wit was always refined as attic salt, his humor perfectly irresistible, though seldom indulged, his invective as rankling as the bite of an adder. Now he sounded the deep sea of passion-then he soared to the sky of fancy. He would have shone in Parliament with such men as Pitt, Fox, Burke, and Sheridan.

His mind was not like the eye of Cyclops, "letting in a flood of rushing and furious splendor," but a Drummond light, illuminating without impairing what it shone upon. His letters are lucid, terse, fluent, courteous, classical, with the heart of their author throbbing in them. His collected speeches form volumes of American eloquence, which should be found in every well-appointed library in our land. The last speeches he made breathe the same youthful vigor of his earlier efforts, and the reader never thinks that the speaker was

a venerable white-haired man; indeed, his heart never became grey. If the Congress of the United States may be called an aviary of birds of prey, he was the eagle in that aviary; if it may be termed a menagerie, he was the lion of that menagerie. It is to be deeply deplored that such a man was a slaveholder, that he lived and died a defender of slavery; that he ever countenanced in any way the cruel code of honor which demands a man to make a martyr of himself to "preserve his honor unsullied."

I here annex a specimen of the style of Mr. Clay's oratory:—

Hon. Henry Clay's appeal in behalf of Greece.

"Mr. Chairman:-There is reason to apprehend that a tremendous storm is ready to burst upon our unhappy country -one which may call into action all our vigor, courage, and resources. Is it wise or prudent, then, sir, in preparing to breast the storm, if it must come, to talk to this nation of its incompetency to repel European aggression, to lower its spirit, to weaken its moral energy, and to qualify it for easy conquest and base submission! If there be any reality in the dangers which are supposed to encompass us, should we not animate the people and adjure them to believe, as I do, that our resources are ample, and that we can bring into the field a million of freemen ready to expend their last drop of blood, and to spend their last cent in the defence of their country, its liberty and its institutions?

"Sir, are we, if united, to be conquered by all Europe combined? No, sir, no united nation that resolves to be free can

be conquered. And has it come to this? Are we so humble, so low, so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy for suffering Greece; that we dare not articulate our detestation of the brutal exercise of which she has been the bleeding victim, lest we might offend one or more of their imperial and royal majesties? Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to express our horror, utter our indignation at the most brutal and atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high heaven; at the ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which the heart sickens and recoils?

"But, sir, it is not for Greece alone that I desire to see the measure adopted, it will give her but little support, and that purely of a moral kind. It is principally for America-for the credit and character of our common country, for our own unsullied name, that I hope to see it pass. What appearance, Mr. Chairman, on the page of history, would a record like this exhibit? In the month of January, in the year of our Lord and Saviour 1824, while all European Christendom beheld with cold and unfeeling indifference, the unexampled wrongs and inexpressible misery of Christian Greece, a proposition was made in the Congress of the United States, almost the sole, the last, the greatest depository of human hope and freedom, the representatives of a gallant nation, containing a million of freemen ready to fly to arms, while the people of that nation were spontaneously expressing its deep-toned feeling, and the

whole continent, by one simultaneous emotion, was rising and solemnly and anxiously supplicating and invoking high heaven to spare and succor Greece, and to invigorate her arms, in her glorious cause; while temples and senate-houses were alike resounding with one burst of generous and holy sympathy; in the year of our Lord and Saviour-that Saviour of Greece and of us-a proposition was offered in the American Congress to send a message to Greece, to inquire into her state and condition, with a kind expression of our good wishes and our sympathies—and it was rejected!'

"Go home, if you can, go home, if you dare, to your constituents, and tell them that you voted it down. Meet, if you can, the appalling countenances of those who sent you here, and tell them that you shrunk from the declaration of your own sentiments; that you cannot tell how, but that some unknown dread, some indescribable apprehension, some indefinite danger, drove you from your purpose; that the spectres of scimitars, and crowns, and crescents, gleamed before you, and alarmed you; and that you suppressed all the noble feelings prompted by religion, by liberty, by national independence, and by humanity.

"I cannot, sir, bring myself to believe that such will be the feelings of a majority of this committee. But for myself, though every friend of the cause should desert it, and I be left to stand alone with the gentleman from Massachusetts, I will give to his resolution the poor sanction of my unqualified approbation."