red the oration for the Crown."

Could there be higher praise than this? Keen nor Kemble nor any other
masterly delineator of the human passions ever produced a more powerful
impression upon an audience or swayed so completely their hearts. No one
ever looked the orator as he did; in form and feature how like a god!
His countenance spake no less audibly than his words. His manner gave
new force to his language. As he stood swaying his right arm like a huge
tilt-hammer, up and down, his swarthy countenance lighted up with
excitement, he appeared amid the smoke, the fire, the thunder of his
eloquence like Vulcan in his armory forging thoughts for the gods!

Time had not thinned nor bleached his hair; it was as dark as the
raven's plumage, surmounting his massive brow in ample folds. His eye
always dark and deep-set enkindled by some glowing thought shown from
beneath his somber overhanging brow like lights in the blackness of
night from a sepulcher. No one understood better than Mr. Webster the
philosophy of dress; what a powerful auxiliary it is to speech and
manner when harmonizing with them. On this occasion he appeared in a
blue coat, a buff vest, black pants and white cravat; a costume
strikingly in keeping with his face and expression. The human face never
wore an expression of more withering, relentless scorn than when the
orator replied to Hayne's allusion to the "Murdered Coalition"--a piece
of stale political trumpery well understood at that day.

"It is," said Mr. Webster, "the very cast off slough of a polluted and
shameless press. Incapable of further mischief it lies in the sewer,
lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honorable
member to give it dignity or decency by attempting to elevate it and
introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it from what it is--an
object of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he
choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down, down to the
place where it lies itself." He looked as he spoke these words as if the
thing he alluded to was too mean for scorn itself, and the sharp
stinging enunciation made the words still more scathing. The audience
seemed relieved, so crushing was the expression of his face which they
held onto as 'twere spell-bound--when he turned to other topics. But the
good-natured yet provoking irony with which he described the imaginary,
though life-like scene of direct collision between the marshal