Unclench the iron grasp of your embargo. Take measures for that end, before another sun sets upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves, you would still have some commerce. That commerce would give you some revenue. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy, in turn, will protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said, that not one ship of force, built by your hands since the war, yet floats upon the ocean. Turn the current of your efforts into the channel, which national sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force, competent to defend your coast against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If, then, the war must continue, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortunes points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge. They are lost in attachment to the national character, on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resource. In time you may be enabled to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered; and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon."

Later, in the same Congress, he contributed very much to the establishment of a sound currency, by the overthrow of the paper-bank system. He was re-elected to New Hampshire for the fourteenth Congress, and sat there during the sessions of 1815-16, and 1816-17. It was during this period that he introduced and carried a Resolution, still a part of the law of the United States, the effect of which was to require the revenue to be received only in the legal currency of the country, or in bills equal to that currency in value.

His income at Portsmouth being insufficient to repair the heavy loss he had sustained in the great fire of 1813, Mr. Webster now retired for a season from public life, and, in 1816, removed to Boston, in search of wider practice in his profession and ampler revenues. For six or eight years, he refused to accept office, avoided all political discussion, and gave his entire energies to the business of the bar. He had now distinguished himself as a lawyer in Massachusetts, as well as in his native State, and two terms in Congress had caused him to be widely known as a distinguished statesman, young as he But the hour now came, when his rank as a jurist, was to be no less clearly determined and widely proclaimed. On the 10th of March, 1818, before the Supreme Court of the United States, at Washington, he made his argument in behalf of Dartmouth College. It is said the court-room was excessively crowded, not only with a large assemblage of the most eminent lawyers of the Union, but with many of its leading statesmen,-drawn there no less by the importance of the 'cause, and the wide results that would follow its decision,

was.

than by the known eloquence of Mr. Hopkinson and Mr. Mr. Wirt, both of whom were engaged in it. Webster opened the discussion, on behalf of the college. A spectator describes the scene as follows. "He opened his cause, as he always does, with perfect simplicity in the general statement of its facts; and then went on to unfold the topics of his argument, in a lucid order, which made each position sustain every other. The logic and the law were rendered irresistible. But, as he advanced, his heart warmed to the subject and the occasion. Thoughts and feelings, that had grown old with his best affections, rose unbidden to his lips. He remembered that the institution he was defending, was the one where his own youth had been nurtured; and the moral tenderness and beauty this gave to the grandeur of his thoughts; the sort of religious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals and demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and justice required, wrought up the whole audience to an extraordinary state of excitement. Many betrayed strong agitation; many were dissolved in tears. When he ceased to speak, there was a perceptible interval before any one was willing to break the silence; and, when that vast crowd separated, not one person of the whole number doubted, that the man who had that day so moved, astonished, and controlled them, had vindicated for himself a place at the side of the first jurists of the country."

The Massachusetts Reports, and the Reports in the Circuit and Supreme Courts of the United States, show that at this period, Mr. Webster's professional labors and success were very great. But his fame and usefulness

were not confined to the bar. In 1820-21, a convention of delegates was assembled in Boston, to revise the constitution of Massachusetts. The venerable John Adams, then eighty-five years old, represented his native village; Justice Story, of the Supreme Court of the United States, was a delegate from Salem; Judge Davis, of the District Court of the United States, and the majority of the judicial officers and most influential citizens of the State were there. It was the most dignified and talented assembly ever collected in New England, in which Mr. Webster bore a distinguished part. Of his eloquence developed therein, we shall speak in the sequel.

The people of Boston repeatedly urged that such talents and acquirements as Mr. Webster possessed, should again be in the service of the whole country. He had already declined an offer of a seat in the Senate, but, in 1822, he accepted a seat as their Representative in Congress. His labors in the years 1823-4, and his great work of digesting and causing to be adopted the Crimes Act in 1825, can now be referred to only. In 1826, by a very large majority of both houses in the Legislature of Massachusetts, he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United States. Of his career in that body, and of his great diplomatic services recently performed, it would be superfluous to give details, as they are all before the world, highly appreciated and everywhere known. We shall have occasion to recur to several of them, while we proceed,

Fourthly, to portray some of the chief features of Mr. Webster's eloquence. We think that distinct perception, accurate combination, severe deduction, and forci.

ble illustration, are the chief elements blended in his composition, which we will endeavor to verify by specific analysis, and pertinent examples from his social addresses, congressional speeches, literary productions, and forensic arguments.

In the first place, let us consider Mr. Webster's distinctness of mental perception. All qualities of oratorical excellence concur in this one elemental principle, as a focal-point-clearness of insight, and facility of execution. No excellence of finish can atone for meanness of design; and he alone can conceive vividly and compose effectively, who sees the whole of his work before him at the beginning. Mr. Webster's mind is one of that rare class which aspires to the serenest heights, expatiates over the widest and most diversified domain, embracing at once the two poles of human intelligence, imagination the most imperial, and science the most. exact. Of perhaps the greatest living French savan and orator, whom our countryman in physical and mental character much resembles, Vericour has said, "Unlike many orators who will speak on all subjects, M. Arago only speaks on subjects that he has studied-questions possessing either the interest of political circumstances, or the attraction of science. When he ascends the tribune, his noble figure and fine head awe the assembly into attention. If he confines himself to the narration of facts, his eloquence has the natural grace of simplicity; when face to face with a question of paramount importance to the liberty of his country, or with one of science, whether in the Chamber or in the professional chair, he contemplates his subject with earnestness,