great tendency of his life and character was, to elevate the whole tone of the public mind. He did this, indeed, not merely by example; he did it by dealing, as he thought, truly, and in manly fashion, with that public mind. He evinced his love for the people, not so much by honeyed phrases, as by good counsels and useful service-vera pro gratis.

He showed how he appreciated them by submitting sound arguments to their understandings, and right motives to their free will. He came before them less with flattery than with instruction; less with a vocabulary larded with the words humanity and philanthropy, and progress and brotherhood, than with a scheme of politics, an educational, social and governmental system, which would have made them prosperous, happy and great.

What the Greek historians said of Pericles, we all feel might be said of him: "He did not so much follow as lead the people, because he framed not his words to please them, like one who is gaining power by unworthy means, but was able, and dared on the strength of high character, even to brave their anger by contradicting their will."

I should indicate it as another influence of his life, acts and opinions, that it was in an extraordinary degree uniformly and liberally conservative. He saw, with the vision as of a prophet, that if our system of united government can be maintained till a nationality shall be generated of due intensity and due comprehension, a glory indeed millennial, a progress without end-a triumph of humanity hitherto unseen-were ours, and therefore he addressed himself to maintain that united government.

Standing on the rock of Plymouth, he bid distant generations hail, and saw them rising,-demanding life—" impatient from the skies," from what then were "fresh, unbounded, magnificent wildernesses"-from the shore of the great tranquil sea-not yet become ours. But observe to

what he would welcome them. It is "to good government." It is to "treasures of science and delights of learning." It is to the "sweets of domestic life-the immeasurable good of a rational existence-the immortal hopes of Christianity-the light of everlasting truth."

It will be happy, if the wisdom and temper of his ad

ministration of our foreign affairs shall preside in the time which is at hand. Sobered, instructed by the examples and warnings of all the past, he yet gathered, from the study and comparison of all the eras, that there is a silent progress of the race without return, to which the counsellings of history are to be accommodated by a wise philosophy. More than or as much as that of any of our public characters, his statesmanship was one which recognised a Europe, an Old World, but yet grasped the capital idea of the American position, and deduced from it the whole fashion and color of its policy; which discerned that we are to play a high part in human affairs, but discerned also what part it is, peculiar, distant, distinct and grand, as our hemisphere; an influence, not a contact-the stage -the drama-the catastrophe, all but the audience, all our own; and if ever he felt himself at a loss, he consulted, reverently, the genius of WASHINGTON.

In bringing these memories to a conclusion-for I omit many things, because I dare not trust myself to speak of them-I shall not be misunderstood or give offence, if I hope that one other trait in his public character, one doctrine, rather, of his political creed, may be remembered and appreciated. It is one of the two fundamental precepts in which Plato, as expounded by the great master of Latin eloquence, and reason and morals, comprehends the duty of those who share in the conduct of the state, "Ut quæcunque agunt, TOTUM corpus reipublicæ curent nedum partem aliquam tuentur, reliquas deserant," that they comprise in their care the whole body of the republic, nor keep one part and desert another. He gives the reason, one reason, of the precept, "Qui autem parti civium consulant, partem negligunt rem perniciosissimam in civitatem inducunt seditionem atque discordiam." The patriotism which embraces less than the whole, induces sedition and discord, the last evil of the State.

How profoundly he had comprehended this truth-with what persistency, with what passion, from the first hour he became a public man to the last beat of the great heart, he cherished it-how little he accounted the good, the praise, the blame, of this locality or that, in comparison of the larger good and the general and thoughtful approval

of his own, and our, whole America,-she this day feels. and announces. Wheresoever a drop of her blood flows in the veins of man, this trait is felt and appreciated. The hunter beyond Superior-the fisherman on the deck of the nigh night-foundered skiff-the sailor on the uttermost sea -will feel, as he hears these tidings, that the protection of a sleepless, all-embracing, parental care is withdrawn from him for a space; and that his pathway henceforward is more solitary and less safe than before.

But I cannot pursue these thoughts. Among the eulogists who have just uttered the eloquent sorrow of Engiand at the death of the great Duke-one has employed an image and an idea, which I venture to modify and appropriate :

"The Northman's image of death is finer than that of other climes; no skeleton, but a gigantic figure, that envelops men within the massive folds of its dark garment. Webster seems so enshrouded from us as the last of the mighty three, themselves following a mighty series; the greatest closing the procession. The robe draws round him, and the era is past."

Yet how much there is which that all-ample fold shall not hide the recorded wisdom; the great example; the assured immortality.

They speak of moments!

"Nothing need cover his high fame but heaven,

No pyramids set off his memories,

But the eternal substance of his greatness,

TO WHICH I LEAVE HIM."

XVI.

EULOGY PRONOUNCED ON MR. WEBSTER IN FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, BY GEORGE S: HILLARD, ESQ.

It is now twenty-six years since the heart of the nation was so deeply moved by the death of two great founders of the Republic, on the fiftieth anniversary of the day when its independence was declared. Then, for the first

time, these consecrated walls wore the weeds of mourning. Then the multitude that filled this hall were addressed by a man whose thoughts rose without effort to the height of his great theme. He seemed inspired by the occasion, and he looked and spoke like one on whom the mantle of some ascended prophet had at that moment fallen. He lifted up and bore aloft his audience on the wings of his mighty eloquence. His words fell upon his hearers with irresistible, subduing power, and their hearts poured themselves forth in one deep and strong tide of patriotic and reverential feeling.

And now he, that was then so full of life and power, has gone to join the patriots whom he commemorated. Webster is no more than Adams and Jefferson. The people, that then came to listen to him, are now here to mourn for him. His voice of wisdom and eloquence is silent. The arm on which a nation leaned is stark and cold. The heroic form is given back to the dust. We that delighted to honor him in life are now here to honor him in death. One circle of duties is ended and another is begun. We can no longer give him our confidence, our support, our suffrages; but memory and gratitude are still left to us. As he has not

lived for himself alone, so he has not died for himself alone. The services of his life are crowned and sealed with the benediction of his death. So long as a man remains upon earth, his life is a fragment. It is exposed to chance and change, to the shocks of fate and the assaults of trial. But the end crowns the work. A career that is closed becomes a firm possession and a completed power. The arch is imperfect till the hand of death has fixed the keystone.

The custom of honoring great public benefactors by these solemn observances is natural, just and wise. But the tributes and testimonials which we offer to departed worth are for the living, and not for the dead. Eulogies, monuments and statues can add nothing to the peace and joy of that serene sphere into which the great and good, who have finished their earthly career, have passed. But these expressions and memorials do good to those from whom they flow. They lift us above the region of low cares and selfish struggles. They link the present to the past, and the world of sense to the world of thought. They break

the common course of life with feelings brought from a higher region. Who can measure the effect of a scene like this these mourning walls-these saddened faces-these solemn strains of music? The seed of a deep emotion here planted may ripen into the fruit of noble action.

A great man is a gift, in some measure, a revelation of God. A great man, living for high ends, is the divinest thing that can be seen on earth. The value and interest of history are derived chiefly from the lives and services of the eminent men whom it commemorates. Indeed, without these, there would be no such thing as history, and the progress of a nation would be as little worth recording, as the march of a trading caravan across a desert. The death of Mr. Webster is too recent, and he was taken away too suddenly from a sphere of wide and great influence, for the calm verdict of history to be passed upon him, and an accurate gauge to be taken of his works and claims. But all men, whatever may have been the countenance they turned toward him in life, now feel that he was a man of the highest order of greatness, and that whatever of power, faculty and knowledge there was in him was given freely, heartily, and during a long course of years, to the service of his country. He who, in the judgment of all, was a great man and a great patriot, not only deserves these honors at our hands, but it would be disgraceful in us to withhold them. We among whom he lived, who felt the power of his magnificent presence, his brow, his eyes, his voice, his bearing, can never put him anywhere but in the front rank of the great men of all time. In running along the line of statesmen and orators, we light upon the name of no one to whom we are willing to admit his inferiority.

The theory that a great man is merely the product of his age, is rejected by the common sense and common observation of mankind. The power that guides large masses of men, and shapes the channels in which the energies of a great people flow, is something more than a mere aggregate of derivative forces. It is a compound product, in which the genius of the man is one element, and the sphere opened to him by the character of his age and the institutions of his country is another. In the case of Mr. Webster, we