protected us, and which now protects you, shower its everlasting blessings upon you and your posterity.'

'Great Father of your Country! we heed your words; we feel their force as if you now uttered them with lips of flesh and blood. Your example teaches us, your affectionate addresses teach us, your public life teaches us, your sense of the value of the blessings of the Union. Those blessings our fathers have tasted, and we have tasted, and still taste. Nor do we intend that those who come after us shall be denied the same high fruition. Our honor as well as our happiness is concerned. We can not, we dare not, we will not, betray our sacred trust. We will not filch from posterity the treasure placed in our hands to be transmitted to other generations. The bow that gilds the clouds in the heavens, the pillars that uphold the firmament, may disappear and fall away in the hour appointed by the will of God; but until that day comes, or so long as our lives may last, no ruthless hand shall undermine that bright arch of Union and Liberty which spans the continent from Washington to California."

Thus, we have presented the general outlines of Mr. Webster's public career, with the best specimens of his oratory. We must now bring this sketch to a close.

The decease of Mr. Webster took place at his residence. in Marshfield, on the quiet sabbath morning of the 24th of October, 1852. When the mournful tidings were announced, the heart of the American people was touched with the deepest sorrow. All mourned the departure of one, who, for real mental muscle was regarded as towering above all other men of the age. The great statesman calmly breathed his life away, uttering, as the icy hand of death was sealing his lips forever, those animating words "I still live." How well did such language express his immortality. The mighty mind of Webster stil lives,

although that once noble form which it inhabited now lies mouldering amidst the clods of the valley

"Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie,

But that which warmed it once can never die."

On the 29th of October, in the presence of a vast assem bly of mourners, the remains of Daniel Webster were consigned to the grave. "His resting-place is where it should be: in the fields which he has tilled; near the haunts alike of his hours of sublime contemplation, and his brighter and more genial moods; within sight of the window from which he looked, in the pauses of his study, upon the white tomb-stones which he had placed over his familyall but one gone before!

"It is all over! The last struggle is past; the struggle, the strife, the anxiety, the pain, the turmoil of life is over: the tale is told, and finished, and ended. It is told and done; and the seal of death is set upon it. Henceforth that great life, marked at every step; chronicled in journals; waited on by crowds; told to the whole country by telegraphic tongues of flame-that great life shall be but a history, a biography, ' a tale told in an evening tent.' In the tents of life it shall long be recited; but no word shall reach the ear of that dead sleeper by the ocean shore. Fitly will he rest there. Like the granite rock, like the heaving ocean, was his mind! Let the rock guard his rest: let the ocean sound his dirge!"

A critic, already quoted, in describing the character of Mr. Webster's eloquence several years before his decease, says: "In him we behold a mind of great native vigor; early roused to energy by the very necessities of his early origin; disciplined to habits of severe thought by the laborious study of law;- trained in all the arts of intellectual warfare on the hard arena of forensic strife; and finally expanded to its present mighty range of eloquence,

philosophy, and statesmanship, on the broad and stirring theater of the public councils. Those who have heard Mr. Webster, are well aware that he owes a portion of his power to personal advantages. The lofty brow, the dark and cavernous eye, and the heavy, deep-toned voice, might alone enchant a gazing auditory. These impart to his calmer and ordinary discourse, a serious earnestness, and a senatorial dignity; but in moments of high excitement, by no means of frequent occurrence, they seem like the blackness, and fire, and rolling peals of the o'ercharged and bursting cloud.

"His style is remarkable for its simplicity. To utter thoughts of the highest order, in language perfectly simple; by lucid arrangement and apt words, to make abstract reasoning, and the most recondite principles of commerce, politics, and law, plain to the humblest capacity, is a privilege and power in which Mr. Webster is equaled, probably, by no living man. This simplicity, which is thought so easy of attainment, is, nevertheless, in this as in most cases, undoubtedly the result of uncommon care. Like the great Athenian orator, Mr. Webster is always full of his subject. Like him, too, he can adorn where ornament is appropriate, and kindle, when occasion calls, into the most touching pathos, or loftiest sublime.

"As a public man, Mr. Webster is eminently American. His speeches breathe the purest spirit of a broad and generous patriotism. The institutions of learning and liberty which nurtured him to greatness, it has been his filial pride to cherish, his manly privilege to defend, if not to

save.

"In no emergency, on no occasion, where he has yet been tried, have the high expectations formed of his abilities, been doomed to disappointment. The time-honored rock of the Pilgrims; Bunker's glorious mound; and old Faneuil Hall; have been rendered even more illustrious

by his eloquent voice. Armed at all points, and ready alike for attack and defense, he has been found equally great, whether wrestling with champions of the law, before its most august tribunal, or contending on the broader field, and in the hotter conflicts of Congressional warfare."

"The oratory of Webster will go down to posterity with applause. In the monumental column of the world's eloquence, formed by the contributions to the illustrious of all ages, the name of the Massachusetts Senator will appear with those of Demosthenes, and Cicero, and Burke, and Fox, and Patrick Henry, and Clay; and if any stones in the column have a brighter polish, or more external beauty, not Grecian marble itself will attract more eyes than the enduring granite, inscribed with WEBster."

CHAPTER XVIII.

EDWARD EVERETT.

Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on the 11th of April, 1794. He was a son of the Rev. Oliver Everett, a clergyman of Boston. At the public schools of Dorchester and Boston, young Everett began his education. His preparation for college was completed in the Phillips Academy at Exeter, New Hampshire, under the instruction of the venerable Dr. Benjamin Abbott, the preceptor of Daniel Webster.

At a public festival at Exeter, in 1838, in honor of Dr. Abbott, who had been principal of the Academy for fifty years, Mr. Everett, in his remarks alludes, in a beautiful and touching manner, to the scenes of his schoolboy days those days which he passed so pleasantly and so profitably within the walls of the Exeter Academy:

"It was my good fortune," said he, "to pass here but a portion of the year before I entered college; but I can truly say that even in that short time I contracted a debt of gratitude, which I have felt throughout my life. I return to these endeared scenes with mingled emotion. I find them changed; dwelling-places are no more on the same spots; old edifices have disappeared; new ones, both public and private, have been erected. Some of the respected heads of society whom I knew, though as a child, are gone. The seats in the Academy-room are otherwise arranged than formerly, and even there the places that once knew me know me no more. Where the objects