WENDELL PHILLIPS.

WENDELL PHILLIPS is the Patrick Henry of New-England If he has less natural eloquence, less thrilling pathos, than the orator of the Revolution, he has more polish and as much power of origination. He is a ripe scholar, a lawyer of no ordinary calibre, a magazine writer of considerable note, and a reformer of the most radical school. He is the pet speaker of the East. He has great power of perception, sincere sympathy for the oppressed, and wonderful command over the stores of varied knowledge treasured up in his retentive memory. He has the "gifts that universities cannot bestow," the current coin that cannot be counterfeited "the prophet's vision," the poet's fancy, the light of genius. He is at home on the mountain-top, and when he soars skyward he is not lost among the clouds; has all the sagacity of the man of business united with the enthusiasm of the utopian, and seems to be equally related to Maia the Eloquent, and Jupiter the Thunderer. He admires the eternal, the infinite, the heavenlike, the God-approximating in the nature of man, whatever may be the color of the envelope that contains these attributes.

Mr. Phillips's speeches have in them the breath of lifehence they live long to swell the bosom and make the heart

throb.

"He does not go to the lamp of the old schools to light his torch, but dips it into the sun, which accounts for its gorgeous effulgence." He is something of a metaphysician, but is too much absorbed in the work of revolutionizing public sentiment, to devote his attention to subtle research and profound analysis. He makes but little preparation, and always speaks extemporaneously; consequently some of his addresses are like a beautiful damsel in déshabillé; then his quotations are ringlets rolled up in papers, and the main part of the lecture like a loose gown, which now and then reveals a neck of pearl and a voluptuous bust of snowy whiteness and beautiful proportions. He is often brilliant, never tedious. Sometimes his scholarship is seen conspicuously, but it is never pompously displayed.

It is a rich treat to hear Wendell Phillips speak to a large and appreciative audience. Let the reader fancy he is at a mass meeting in some forest temple. The sun shines as though delighted with the gathering; the shy birds perch in silence on the neighboring trees, as though they were astonished at the proceedings; a song makes the welkin ring. The chairman announces the name of a favorite speaker. A genteel man steps gracefully upon the platform. He is neatly, not foppishly, dressed. A pleasant smile illuminates his noble face. He leaps, at a single bound, into the middle of the subject. He reasons, and his logic is on fire; he describes, and the subject is daguerreotyped on the retina of memory; he quotes from some classic author, and the excerpt is like an apple of gold in a picture of silver; he tells

a story, and the impression it gives is indelible; he makes an appeal, and tears flow freely; he declaims, and the people are intensely excited; he soars, and his lips are touched with a live coal from the altar of inspiration. Mr. Phillips believes in a "higher law," so he appeals to the sense of the everlasting in man. "He plays the Titanic game of rocks, and not a game of tennis-balls," and yet he "floods the heart with singular and thrilling pleasure." "He is the primed mouthpiece of an eloquent discharge, who presents, applies the linstock, and fires off;" and the conservatives, who stand with their fingers in their ears, are startled by the report. Is there a mob his words are like oil on the troubled billows of the chafed sea; he rebukes the winds of strife and the waves of faction, and there is a great calm. The serene face of his bosom-friend, the leader of the league, is radiant with smiles; the severe front of a turncoat or a tyrant present, begins to relax; the doughface is ashamed of himself, and determines that hereafter he will be " a doer and not dough;" the stifflimbed finds a hinge in his joints, and his supple knees bow in homage to the speaker.

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But I must find some fault, or I shall be deemed a flatterer. Let me see what shall I say? Oh, he is an impracticable radical; he goes for the dissolution of the Union, the dismemberment of the church, the destruction of the political parties." In this he is partly right and partly wrong. The Christian should do for Christ's sake what the worldling does for the sake of humanity, then there will be no necessity for such a reproof. The body politic should sever

the leprous limb of slavery, and then America would not limp so as to become the laughing-stock and a by-word of the nations of the earth. The political parties at the North are leavened with anti-slavery doctrines, and it is hoped they will soon rise to the level of that benevolence which will render such rebukes unnecessary. I declare it is difficult for me to find any fault in him. Reader, you may be Herod, but I cannot be Pilate, and consent to his crucifixion. I must confess that I love the man, although I cannot endorse all his creed. It is a pity that he limits his usefulness by his fierce warfare against men and measures that are too long or too short for his iron bedstead.

Mr. Phillips is a man of fortune, and one of the distinguished few who contribute to support the enterprise in which he feels an interest as much as he expends in sustaining himself and family. Physically he is a noble specimen of a man. His head is sparingly covered with reddish hair—

"The golden treasure nature showers down

On those foredoomed to wear Fame's golden crown."

A phrenologist would pronounce his head worth more than the South would be willing or able to give for it. He has large ideality and sublimity, hence he soars; large comparison and causality, so he reasons by analogy; large hope and benevolence, and the genial sunshine of good-nature irradiates his countenance; large firmness and adhesiveness, and he abides by his friends through evil and through good report. His face is pleasant, and indicates exquisite taste, pure gene.

rosity, and Roman firmness. He is now in the full vigor of manhood, and ever ready at a moment's warning to battle for what he deems the right. Woe be unto the man who enters the arena with him, for he wields a two-edged sword of Damascus steel. Many strong men have been slain by him; yea, many mighty men have fallen before him. Had he united with either of the great political parties, he would have been chosen as a champion, for he is brilliant as Choate, without his bedlamitish idiosyncrasies; clear as Clay, without his accommodating, compromising disposition; learned as Winthrop, without his bookishness and drawing-room mannerism; genial as Cass, without his dulness; fiery as Benton, without his unapproachable self-sufficiency. He would entertain a promiscuous audience better than either of the abovenamed men. He is not so logical as Webster; not so luminous as the ever-consistent Calhoun; not so learned as the second Adams; not so thrilling as Kentucky's favorite; and yet he is a more instructive and a more interesting speaker than either of those distinguished men ever were, even in their palmiest days.

Wendell Phillips is universally esteemed and beloved. Even those who hate his creed, and dread his power, admire his disinterested kindness and irresistible eloquence.

I regret that I have room for only the following extracts, from the last annual report of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

"Neither would I be understood as denying that we use denunciation, and ridicule, and every other weapon that the