The oration at Plymouth first revealed the power of Mr. Webster. There are some men who exhaust themselves in one speech, one poem, or one story, and never attain again the high level which they have once reached. It was not so with Daniel Webster. He had a fund of reserved power which great occasions never drew upon in vain. It might be that in an ordinary case in court, where his feelings were not aroused, and no fitting demand made upon his great abilities, he would disappoint the expectations of those who supposed that he must always be eloquent. I heard a gentleman say once, “Oh, I heard Mr. Webster speak once, and his speech was commonplace enough.” “On what occasion?” “In court.” “What was the case?” “Oh, I don’t remember—some mercantile case.” It would certainly be unreasonable to expect any man to invest dry commercial details with eloquence. Certainly a lawyer always ambitious in his rhetoric would hardly commend himself to a sound, sensible client. But Mr. Webster always rose to the level of a great occasion. His occasional speeches were always carefully prepared and finished, and there is not one of them but will live. I now have to call special attention to the address delivered at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument, at Charlestown, June 17, 1825. It was an occasion from which he could not help drawing inspiration. His father, now dead, whom he had loved and revered as few sons love and revere their parents, had been a participant, not indeed in the battle which the granite shaft was to commemorate, but in the struggle which the colonists waged for liberty. It may well be imagined that Mr. Webster gazed with no common emotion at the veterans who were present to hear their patriotism celebrated. Though the passages addressed to them—in part at least—are familiar to many of my readers, I will nevertheless quote them here. Apart from their subject they will never be forgotten by Americans. “Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has boun “All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population come out to welcome and greet you with an universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mound, and seeming fondly to cling around “But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country’s independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of liberty you saw arise the light of peace, like ‘another morn, Risen on mid-noon;’ and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless.” After a tribute to General Warren ‘the first great martyr in this great cause,’ Mr. Webster proceeds: “Veterans, you are the remnants of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden,. Bennington and Saratoga. Veterans of half a century, when in your youthful days you put everything at hazard in your country’s cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to an hour like this. At a period to which you could not reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fellowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of an universal gratitude. “But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, throng to your embraces. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have Not only were there war-scarred veterans present to listen entranced to the glowing periods of the inspired orator, but there was an eminent friend of America, a son of France, General Lafayette, who sat in a conspicuous seat and attracted the notice of all. To him the orator addressed himself in a manner no less impressive. “Fortunate, fortunate man! with what measure of devotion will you not thank God for the circumstances of your extraordinary life! You are connected with both hemispheres, and with two generations. Heaven saw fit to ordain that the electric spark of liberty should be conducted, through you, from the New World to the Old; and we, who are now here to perform this duty of patriotism, have all of us long ago received it in charge from our fathers to cherish your name I should like to increase my quotations, but space will not permit. I have quoted enough to give my young readers an idea of this masterly address. When next they visit the hill where the monument stands complete, let them try to picture to themselves how it looked on that occasion when, from the platform where he stood |