do I discover in the splendid career and the aims of his lofty ambition any thing to prove "what shadows we pursue."

The life of such a man as Daniel Webster is one of solid greatness; and the objects he pursued are worthy of a being made in the image of God. A life of honorable distinction is a substantive and permanent object. The good of man, and the true glory and happiness of his country, are the substantial things, the record of which generation hands down to generation, inscribed with the name of him who pursued them.

I will not, sir, trespass on this House by any attempt to sketch the character, or narrate the services of Mr. Webster; too many will have a share in this day's exercise to allow one speaker so extensive a range. It is enough for me, if, in obeying the indications of others, I give to my effort the tone of respect with which the statesman and the patriot, Webster, was regarded, as well by the nation at large as by those whom I have the honor to represent on this floor. And in the remarks of those whose means of judging have been better than mine, will be found his characteristics of social and domestic life.

How keenly Mr. Webster relished the relaxations which public duties sometimes allowed, I had an opportunity of judging; for he loved to call to my recollections scenery which had been familiar to me in childhood, as it was lovely to him in age. The amusements, in which he gratified a manly taste in the midst of that scenery, were promotive of physical recuperation, rendered necessary by the heavy demands of professional or official life. He was stimulated to thought by the activity which the pursuits on land required, or led to deep contemplation by the calmness of the ocean on which he rested. Though dying in office, Mr. Webster was permitted to breathe his last in those scenes made classical to others by his uses, and dear to him by their ministrations to, and correspondence with, his taste.

The good of his country undoubtedly occupied the last moments of his ebbing life; but those moments were not disturbed by the immediate pressure of official duties; and in the dignity of domestic quiet, he passed onward; and

while at a distance communities awaited in grief and awe the signal of his departure, the deep diapason of the Atlantic wave, as it broke upon his own shore, was a fitting requiem for such a parting spirit.

XI.

MR. BAYLY, of Virginia, remarked:

I had been, sir, nearly two years a member of Congress. before I made Mr. Webster's acquaintance. About that time a proceeding was instituted here, of a delicate character so far as he was concerned, and incidentally concerning an eminent constituent and friend of mine. This circumstance first brought me into intercourse with Mr. Webster. Subsequently, I transacted a good deal of official business with him, some of it also of a delicate character. I thus had unusual opportunities of forming an opinion of the man. The acquaintance I made with him, under the circumstances to which I have referred, ripened into friendship. It is to these circumstances that I, a political opponent, am indebted for the honor, as I esteem it, of having been requested to say something on this occasion.

From my early manhood, of course, sir, I have been well acquainted with Mr. Webster's public character, and I had formed my ideal of him as a man; and what a misconception of it was that ideal! Rarely seeing him in public places, in familiar intercourse with his friends, contemplating his grave, statue-like appearance in the Senate and the Forum, I had formed the conception that he was a frigid, iron-bound man, whom few could approach without constraint; and I undertake to say that until of late years, in which, through personal sketches of him by his friends, the public has become acquainted with his private character-such was the idea most persons who knew him

only as I did formed of him. Yet, sir, what a misconception! No man could appreciate Mr. Webster who did not know him privately. No man could appreciate him who did not see him in familiar intercourse with his friends, and especially around his own fireside and table. There, sir, he was confiding, gay, and sometimes downright boyish. Full of racy anecdotes, he told them in the most captivating manner.

Who that ever heard his descriptions of men and things can ever forget them? Mr. Webster, sir, attached a peculiar meaning to the word talk, and in his sense of the term he liked to talk; and who that ever heard him talk can forget that talk? Sometimes it was the most playful wit, then the most pleasing philosophy. Mr. Webster, sir, owed his greatness, to a large extent, to his native gifts.

Among his contemporaries there were lawyers more learned, yet he was, by common consent, assigned the first place at the American bar. As a statesman, there were those more thoroughly informed than he, yet what statesman ranked above him? Among orators there were those more graceful and impressive, yet what orator was greater than he? There were scholars more ripe, yet who wrote better English? The characteristics of his mind were massive strength and classic beauty, combined with a rare felicity. His favorite studies, if I may judge from his conversations, were the history and the Constitution of his own country, and the history and the Constitution of England; and I undertake to say that there is not now a man living who was more perfectly familiar with both. His favorite amusements, too, if I may judge in the same way, were field-sports and out-door exercise. I have frequently heard Mr. Webster say, if he had been a merchant, he would have been an out-door partner. Mr. Webster was, as all great men are, eminently magnanimous. As proof of this, see his whole life, and especially that crowning act of magnanimity, his letter to Mr. Dickinson. Mr. Webster had no envy or jealousy about him-as no great man ever had. Conscious of his own powers, he envied those of no one else. Mr. Calhoun and himself entered public life about the same time; each of them strove for

the first honors of the Republic. They were statesmen of rival schools. They frequently met in the stern encounter of debate, and when they met the conflict was a conflict of giants. Yet how delightful it was to hear Mr. Webster speak, as I have heard him speak, in the most exalted terms of Calhoun; and how equally delightful it was to hear Mr. Calhoun, as I have heard him, speak in like terms of Webster! On one occasion, Mr. Calhoun, speaking to me of the characteristics of Webster as a debater, said that he was remarkable in this-that he always stated the argument of his antagonist fairly, and boldly met it. He said he had even seen him state the argument of his opponent more forcibly than his opponent had stated it himself; and, if he could not answer it, he would never undertake to weaken it by misrepresenting it. What a compliment was. this, coming, as it did, from his great rival in constitutional law! I have also heard Mr. Calhoun say that Mr. Webster tried to aim at truth more than any statesman of his day.

A short time since, Mr. Speaker, when addressing the House, at the invitation of the delegation from Kentucky, on the occasion of Mr. Clay's death, I used this language:

"Sir, it is but a short time since the American Congress buried the first one that went to the grave of that great triumvirate, (Calhoun.) We are now called upon to bury another, (Clay.) The third, thank God! still lives; and long may he live to enlighten his countrymen by his wisdom, and set them the example of exalted patriotism. [Alas! how little did I think, when I uttered these words, that my wish was so soon to be disappointed!] Sir, in the lives and characters of these great men there is much resembling those of the great triumvirate of the British Parliament. It differs principally in this: Burke preceded Fox and Pitt to the tomb. Webster survives Clay and Calhoun. When Fox and Pitt died, they left no peer behind them. Webster still lives, now that Calhoun and Clay are dead, the unrivalled statesman of his country. Like Fox and Pitt, Clay and Calhoun lived in troubled times. Like Fox and Pitt, they were each of them the leader of rival parties. Like Fox and Pitt, they were

idolized by their respective friends. Like Fox and Pitt, they died about the same time, and in the public service; and, as has been said of Fox and Pitt, Clay and Calhoun died with their harness upon them.' Like Fox and

Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom
Whom fate made brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,

Where wilt thou find their like again?"

I may reproduce on this occasion, with propriety, what I then said, with the addition of the names of Burke and Webster. The parallel that I undertook to run on that occasion, by the aid of a poet, was not designed to be perfect, yet it might be strengthened by lines from another poet. For though Webster's enemies must admit, as Burke's satirist did, that

"Too fond of the right to pursue the expedient,"

yet, what satirist, with the last years of Webster's life before him, will undertake to shock the public sentiment of America by saying, as was unjustly said of Burke by his satirist

"Born for the universe, he narrow'd his mind,

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind"?

Mr. Speaker, during the brief period I have served with you in this House, what sad havoc has Death made among the statesmen of our Republic! Jackson, Wright, Polk, McDuffie, and Sergeant, in private life, and Woodbury, from the bench, have gone to the tomb! We have buried in that short time Adams, Calhoun, Taylor, and Clay, and we are now called on to pay the last tribute of our respect