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DANIEL WEBSTER.*

THE verbal honors of literature in this country are lavished with a free hand. The mind of the nation is held responsible for all the mediocrity which rushes into print. Every thin poetaster, who wails or warbles in a sentimental magazine, is dignified with the title of an American author, and is duly paraded in biographical dictionaries and "specimens" of native poets. Literary reputations are manufactured for the smallest consideration, and in the easiest of all methods. A clique of sentimentalists, for example, find a young dyspeptic poet, and think they see in his murmurings a mirror which reflects the "mysteries" of our nature. Two or three excitable patriots are in ecstasies at discovering a national writer, when they bring forward some scribbler who repeats the truisms of our politics, or echoes the slang of our elections. These fooleries, it must be admitted, are not peculiar to this country. They are now practised in most civilized communities. In England, a poem by Mr. Robert Montgomery passed through eleven editions, attaining a greater circulation in a year or two, than the writings of Wordsworth had obtained in twenty. The art of puffing,

* Speeches and Forensic Arguments. By Daniel Webster. Boston: Tappan and Dennet, 1830-1843. 3 vols. 8vo.-North American Review, July, 1844.

an art which has succeeded in consummating the divorce between words and ideas, is the method employed on both sides of the Atlantic for effecting this exaltation of mediocrity.

For our own part, we deny that the swarm of writers, to whom we have adverted, are to be considered as the representatives of the national mind, or that their productions are to be deemed a permanent portion of our national literature. A great portion of the intellectual and moral energy of the nation is engaged in active life. Those who most clearly reflect the spirit of our institutions are those who are not writers by profession. If we were to make a list of American authors, a list which should comprehend only such as were animated by an American spirit, we should pass over the contributors to the magazines, and select men who lead representative assemblies or contend for vast schemes of reform. We should attempt to find those who were engaged in some great practical work, who were applying large powers and attainments to the exigencies of the times, who were stirred by noble impulses, and laboring to compass great ends. The thoughts and feelings, which spring warm from the hearts and minds of such men, in such positions, would be likely to possess a grandeur and elevation before which the mere trifling of amateurs in letters would be humbled and abased.

Believing thus, that our national literature is to be found in the records of our greatest minds, and is not confined to the poems, novels, and essays which may be produced by Americans, we have been surprised that the name of Daniel Webster is not placed high among American authors. Men in every way inferior to him in mental power have obtained a wide reputation for writing works, in every way inferior to those spoken by him. It cannot be, that a generation like

ours, continually boasting that it is not misled by forms, should think that thought changes its character, when it is published from the mouth instead of the press. Still, it is true, that a man who has acquired fame as an orator and statesman is rarely considered, even by his own partisans, in the light of an author. He is responsible for no "book." The records of what he has said and done, though perhaps constantly studied by contemporaries, are not generally regarded as part and parcel of the national literature. The fame of the man of action overshadows that of the author. We are so accustomed to consider him as a speaker, that we are somewhat blind to the great literary merit of his speeches. The celebrated argument in reply to Hayne, for instance, was intended by the statesman as a defence of his political position, as an exposition of constitutional law, and a vindication of what he deemed to be the true policy of the country. The acquisition of merely literary reputation had no part in the motives from which it sprung. Yet the speech, even to those who take little interest in subjects like the tariff, nullification, and the public lands, will ever be interesting, from the profound knowledge it displays, its clear arrangement, the mastery it exhibits of all the weapons of dialectics, the broad stamp of nationality it bears, and the wit, sarcasm, and splendid and impassioned eloquence, which pervade and vivify, without interrupting, the close and rapid march of the argument.

Considered merely as literary productions, therefore, we think the three volumes of "Speeches and Forensic Arguments," quoted at the head of this article, take the highest rank among the best productions of the American intellect. They are also thoroughly national in their spirit and tone, and are full of principles, arguments, and appeals, which come directly home to the hearts and understandings of the

great body of the people. They contain the results of a long life of mental labor, employed in the service of the country. They give evidence of a complete familiarity with the spirit and workings of our institutions, and breathe the bracing air of a healthy and invigorating patriotism. They are replete with that true wisdom, which is slowly gathered from the exercise of a strong and comprehensive intellect on the complicated concerns of daily life and duty. They display qualities of mind and style, which would give them a high place in any literature, even if the subjects discussed were less interesting and important; and they show also a strength of personal character, superior to irresolution and fear, capable of bearing up against the most determined opposition, and uniting to boldness in thought intrepidity in action. In all the characteristics of great literary performances, they are fully equal to many works which have stood the test of age, and baffled the skill of criticism. Still, though read and quoted by every body, though continually appealed to as authorities, though considered as the products of the most capacious understanding in the country, few seem inclined to consider the high rank they hold in our literature, or their claim to be placed among the greatest works which the human intellect has produced during the last fifty years.

If the mind of Mr. Webster were embodied in any other form than speeches and orations, this strange oversight would never be committed; but the branch of literature to which his works belong has been much degraded by the nonsense and bombast of declaimers and sophists. It is edifying to read some of the "thrilling" addresses, which have "enchained the attention" of thousands, were it only to observe what tasteless word-piling passes with many for eloquence. Thought and expression, in these examples, are supplanted by the lungs and the dictionary. A man who is to address.

a crowd or a jury deems it necessary that a portion of his speech should be imaginative and passionate; and accordingly he painfully elaborates a mass of worn and wasted verbiage into a style senselessly extravagant or coldly turgid. The success with which he practises this deception emboldens him to continue his rhetorical foolery, and he soon obtains a reputation for affluence of fancy and warmth of feeling. A vast number of examples of detestable bad taste might be selected from the orations of eminent men, who have fallen into this style, and labored to make their eloquence "tell" upon the " masses." In these examples, we are not more struck by the poverty of thought than the poverty of feeling and invention. We find that the fine raiment of the orator is the mere cast-off clothes of the poet, --that he mistakes vulgarity for graceful ease, that his images are bloated, coarse, and flaring,-and that he has all the meanness of mediocrity without its simplicity of language. Amidst all the tasteless splendor and labored frenzy of his diction, we can hardly discover one genuine burst of feeling.

A self

The speeches of Daniel Webster are in admirable contrast with the kind of oratory we have indicated. They have a value and interest apart from the time and occasion of their delivery, for they are storehouses of thought and knowledge. The speaker descends to no rhetorical tricks and shifts, he indulges in no parade of ornament. sustained intellectual might is impressed on every page. He rarely confounds the processes of reason and imagination, even in those popular discourses intended to operate on large assemblies. He betrays no appetite for applause, no desire to win attention by the brisk life and momentary sparkle of flashing declamation. Earnestness, solidity of judgment, elevation of sentiment, broad and generous views of national

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