d to all alike, and strangers could not help admiring one
who had at so early an age been raised to so giddy a hight, and yet who
had retained such condescension of manner and such continual good-nature
to every body who approached him. His personal appearance, as we have
already said, was highly imposing; in which was combined a manliness of
demeanor and a strikingly handsome countenance and figure. His peculiar
fitness as a presiding officer made him popular in that capacity.
Seldom, indeed, has a Vice-President occupied the chair with such
perfect ease and such stately dignity. His oratory was worthy of a
Senator, elevated, earnest, and partaking less of passion and rancor
than other Southern speakers; but it rather lacked the substance and
solidity which a maturer stage of life would undoubtedly have given to
it. He seemed to be a fair representative of the Kentucky aristocracy,
possessing a delicate sense of honor, a bold spirit, though hardly
enthusiasm of soul. Evidently absorbed in a selfish ambition for power,
this fault is in some degree palliated by the circumstance of the early
age at which he was promoted to the public counsels. That this passion,
unduly encouraged, has led him into a deplorable and fatal mistake, is
now evident; and from what we have recently heard of him, we doubt not
that a similar conviction has made him wretched and desperate.

The father of the Senate, Mr. Crittenden, so well known during the last
weeks of his term as the would-be pacificator, by compromise, of the
impending rupture, was the last of the generation of statesmen of whom
Webster and Clay were the leading cotemporaries. His long service in the
national legislature procured him on all occasions a respectful and
attentive hearing, and were it not for this circumstance, the earnest
impressiveness of his declamation, at times relieved by sparks of
old-fashioned wit, would have attracted the notice of his auditors. He
was singular in his personal appearance, and a peculiarly fierce
expression of face frequently gave an erroneous idea of his character,
which was, making allowance for age and a life of turmoil, affable and
good-natured. He always reminded us of the portraits of Lord Chancellor
Thurlow, whose bushy eyebrows and stern countenance used to terrify
young barristers in Westminster eighty years ago. Rather negligent in
his dress, and far from elegant in manner, he would hardly be noticed at
first as one of the leading m