his seat in the senate his form still erect, with a voice by no means indicating such a degree of physical weakness as did in fact possess him, with clear tones, and an impressive, and I may say, an imposing manner who did not feel that he might imagine that we saw before us a senator of Rome, when Rome survived. 4. Sir, I have not, in public nor in private life, known a more assiduous person in the discharge of his appropriate duties. I have known no man who wasted less of life in what is called recreation, or employed less of it in any pursuits not connected with the immediate discharge of his duty. He seemed to have no recreation but the pleasure of conversation with his friends. 5. There was a charm in his conversation not often found. He delighted, especially, in conversation and intercourse with young men. that there has been no man among us I suppose who had more winning manners, in such an intercourse and such conversation, with men comparatively young, than Mr. Calhoun. I believe one great power of his character in general, was his conversational talent. I believe it is that, as well as a consciousness of his high integrity, and the greatest reverence for his talents and ability, that has made him so endeared an object to the people of the state to which he belonged. 6. Mr. President, he had the basis, the indispensable basis, of all high character; and that was unspotted integrity,-unimpeached honor and character. If he had aspirations, they were high, and honorable, and noble. There was nothing groveling, or low, or meanly selfish, that came near the head or the heart of Mr. Calhoun. However, sir, he may have differed from others of us in his political opinions or his political principles, those principles and those opinions will now descend to posterity, under the sanction of a great name. 7. He has lived long enough, he has done enough, and he has done it so well, so successfully, so honorably, as to connect himself for all time with the records of his country. He is now a historical character. Those of us who have known him here, will find that he has left upon our minds, and upon our hearts, a strong and lasting impression of his person, his character, and his public performances, which, while we live, will never be obliterated. 8. We shall hereafter, I am sure, indulge in it as a grateful recollection, that we have lived in his age, that we have been his contemporaries, that we have seen him, and heard him, and known him. We shall delight to speak of him to those who are rising up to fill our places. And, when the time shall come, that we ourselves shall go, one after another, in succession, to our graves, we shall carry with us a deep sense of his genius and character, his honor and integrity, his amiable deportment in private life, and the purity of his exalted patriotism. LESSON CIII. EULOGY ON HENRY CLAY.- - COOPER. The 1. Mr. President: It is not always by words, that the living pay to the dead the sincerest and most eloquent tribute. tears of a nation, flowing spontaneously over the grave of a public benefactor, is a more eloquent testimonial of his worth, and of the affection and veneration of his countrymen, than the most highly-wrought eulogium of the most gifted tongue. 2. The heart is not necessarily the fountain of words, but it is always the source of tears, whether of joy, gratitude, or grief. But sincere, truthful, and eloquent, as they are, they leave no permanent record of the virtues and greatness of him on whose tomb they are shed. Mr. Clay died in the city of Washington, June 29, 1852, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He was a member of the United States senate, from Kentucky, at the time of his death. 3. As the dews of heaven, falling at night, are absorbed by the earth, or dried up by the morning sun, so the tears of a people, shed for their benefactor, disappear without leaving a trace to tell to future generations of the services, sacrifices, and virtues of him, to whose memory they were a grateful tribute. But as homage paid to virtue, is an incentive to it, it is right that the memory of the good, the great, and noble of the earth, should be preserved and honored. 4. This being the case, it is befitting here, to-day, to add to the life of Henry Clay, the record of his death, signalized as it is by a nation's gratitude and grief. It is right that posterity should learn from us, the contemporaries of the illustrious deceased, that his virtues and services were appreciated by his country, and acknowledged by the tears of his countrymen poured out upon his grave. 5. The career of Henry Clay was a wonderful one. And what an illustration of the excellence of our institutions would a retrospect of his life afford! Born in an humble station, without any of the adventitious aids of fortune by which the obstructions on the road to fame are smoothed, he rose, not only to the most exalted eminence of position, but likewise to the highest place in the affections of his countrymen. 6. Taking into view the disadvantages of his early position, disadvantages against which he had always to contend, his career is without a parallel in the history of great men. To have seen him a youth, without friends or fortune, and with but a scanty education, who would have ventured to predict for him a course so brilliant and beneficent, and a fame so welldeserved and enduring? 7. Like the pine, which sometimes springs up amidst the rocks on the mountain-side, with scarce a crevice in which to fix its roots, or soil to nourish them, but which, nevertheless, overtops all the trees of the surrounding forest, Henry Clay, by his own inherent, self-sustaining energy and genius, rose to an altitude of fame almost unequaled in the age in which he lived. 8. As an orator, legislator, and statesman, he had no superior. All his faculties were remarkable, and in remarkable combination. Possessed of a brilliant genius, and fertile im agination, his judgment was sound, discriminating, and eminently practical. Of an ardent and impetuous temperament, he was nevertheless persevering, and firm of purpose. Frank, bold, and intrepid, he was cautious in providing against the contingencies and obstacles which might possibly rise up in the road to success. Generous, liberal, and entertaining broad and expanded views of national policy, in his legislative course, he never transcended the limits of a wise economy. 9. But, of all his faculties, that of making friends, and attaching them to him, was the most remarkable and extraordinary. In this respect, he seemed to possess a sort of fascination, by which all who came into his presence were attracted toward, and bound to him, by ties which neither time nor circumstances had power to dissolve or weaken. In the admiration of his friends, was the recognition of the divinity of intellect; in their attachment to him, a confession of his generous personal qualities, and social virtues. 10. Of the public services of Mr. Clay, the present occasion affords no room for a sketch more extended than that which his respected colleague has presented. It is however sufficient, to say, that for more than forty years he has been a prominent actor in the drama of American affairs. During the late war with England, his voice was more potent than any other in awakening the spirit of the country, infusing confidence into the people, and rendering available the resources for carrying on the contest. 11. In our domestic controversies, threatening the peace of the country, and the integrity of the Union, he has always been first to note danger, as well as to suggest the means of averting it. When the waters of the great political deep were upheaved by the tempest of discord, and the ark of the Union, freighted with the hopes and destinies of freedom, tossing about on the raging billows, and drifting every moment nearer to the vortex which threatened to swallow it up, it was his clarion voice, rising above the storm, that admonished the crew of impending peril, and counseled the way to safety. 12. But, devotedly as he loved his country, his aspirations were not limited to its welfare alone. Wherever freedom had a votary, that votary had a friend in Henry Clay. But neither the services which he has rendered his own country, nor his wishes for the welfare of others, nor his genius, nor the affection of friends, could turn aside the destroyer. No price could purchase exemption from the common lot of humanity. Henry Clay, the wise, the great, the gifted, had to die. LESSON CIV. EULOGY ON DANIEL WEBSTER.—CLARKE. 1. The voice of national eulogy and sorrow unite to tell us, Daniel Webster is numbered with the dead. Seldom has mortality seen a sublimer close of an illustrious career. No Amer ican, since Washington, has, to so great an extent, occupied the thoughts, and molded the minds of men. The past may hold back its tribute, and the present give no light, but the future will show, in colors of living truth, the honor which is justly due him as the political prophet, and great intellectual light of the new world. His life-time labors have been to defend the Constitution, to preserve the Union, to honor the great men of Mr. Webster died at Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852, in the seventy-first year of his age. He was secretary of state at the time of his death. |