h as riper scholars and other advocates wait long
for, by confiding important matters to my untried hands; how they
encircled my first tremulous efforts by an atmosphere of affectionate
interest, roused my faint heart to exertion, absorbed the fever that
hung upon its beatings, and strengthened my first perceptions of
capacity to make my thoughts and impressions intelligible, on the
instant, to the minds of courts and juries. The impulse thus given to
my professional success at Reading, and in the sessions of Berkshire
during twelve years, gradually extended its influence through my
circuit, until it raised me to a position among its members beyond
my deserts and equal to my wishes. Another opening of fortune
soon dawned on me; in the maturity of life I aspired to a seat
in parliament--rather let me say, to _that_ seat which only I
coveted--and then, almost without solicitation, from many surviving
patrons of my childhood, and from the sons of others who inherited the
kindness of their fathers, I received an honor more precious to me as
the token of concentrated regards than as the means of advancement;
yet greatly heightened in practical importance by the testimony
it implied from the best of all witnesses. That honor, three times
renewed, was attended by passages of excitement which look dizzy even
in the distance--with much on my part requiring allowance, and much
allowance rendered by those to whom my utmost services were due; with
the painful consciousness of wide difference of opinion between some
of my oldest friends and myself, and with painful contests which those
differences rendered inevitable, yet cheered by attachments which
the vivid lights struck out in the conflict of contending passions
exhibited in scatheless strength, until I received that appointment
which dissolved the parliamentary connection, and with it annihilated
all the opposition of feeling which had sometimes saddened it, and
invested the close of my life with the old regard, as unclouded by
controversy as when it illumined its opening. And now the expressions
of your sympathy await me, when, by the gracious providence of God,
I have been permitted to enter on a course of less fervid action, of
serener thought, of plainer duty. For me political animosities are
forever hushed and absorbed in one desire, which I share with you
all, for the happiness and honor of our country, and the peaceful
advancement of our species; and all the feverish exci