conscience, his patriotism, all the conservative principles of his nature, though they would impel him to act and speak for the right, are liable to perplex his determinations, if they are not based on clear conceptions of the subject. With posterity and its inevitable verdict before him, and a clamorous party, urging him to do every thing unreasonable, at his back, he is forced to come to a decision, and maintain it

with his whole power. To do this requires courage and resolution. Now, if we examine Mr. Webster's speeches, we find that they display no disposition to shrink from the consequences of his conduct, no evasion of responsibility, no expressions studiously framed to bear two interpretations, but a plain, sturdy, unflinching expression of judgment, fortified by clear arguments, and ever ready to be tried by the result. This intellectual hardihood, unaffected by skeptical distrust, and daring the verdict of the present and the future, must be deemed a great quality by all capable of appreciating it. If the measure supported be evil, he is to suffer from one of two imputations. If his conduct sprung from ignorance or rashness, it is folly; if it sprung from selfishness, it is crime. In view of this fact, a little timidity is excusable in a statesman placed in a prominent station, whose opinions are axioms to great parties, and who is surrounded by partisans and enemies, while all his acts and words are scrutinized with the sharp analysis of malice and hatred; and it requires the rare union of a piercing and comprehensive intellect with great force of character, to enable a man to act, in such a position, with wisdom, boldness, and decision.

Much has been said and written in praise of Mr. Webster's imagination, often, we think, from overlooking the claims of his understanding and sensibility. A careful examination of his works will lead us to speak more guardedly

of the degree in which he possesses this faculty. We think, that loftiness of moral principle, reach of thought, and depth of passion are more apparent, than affluence of imagery. Imagination, however, is a word so loosely employed, that, in the common meaning of the term, it would be no compliment to apply it to any man of large intellect. The same term which is applied to the most marked characteristic of Shakspeare's "Tempest," is indiscriminately used in speaking of some florid oration, or some wild nonsense of passion. A poem is published, teeming with absurdities, and full of confused rant and bloated metaphors, and its faults are ascribed to an excess of imagination. A speaker indulges in the wildest vagaries of sentimentality, talks about the stars, the ocean, the progress of the species, and jumbles them all up in one series of worthless figures; and sensible people call him a fool, but a fool by virtue of his strong imagination. Flowery and feeble declaimers-writers like the Rev. Mr. Hervey, orators like Counsellor Phillips-are accused of possessing imagination. Thus a term, which, more than any other in the vocabulary of criticism, requires to be employed cautiously and with qualifications, is made a convenient word to cover the feebleness of a critic's insight and the clumsiness of his analysis.

The imagination, "the vision and the faculty divine," is by no means predominant in Mr. Webster's mind. With him, it is not a spontaneous, shaping power, but acts chiefly at the direction of reason and feeling, and is most fruitful when his intellect is most active in its operations. Many of its analogies may be referred to the reason. The images which it calls up are generally broad, distinct, and vivid, speaking directly to the eye, and informed with the feeling of the moment; but it has little of that subtile influence which touches minute shades of feeling, suggests remote

analogies, sheds ineffable beauty over the common realities of life, detects the latent spiritual meaning beneath rough forms, and combines things seemingly different into one consistent whole. Its power bears little comparison with the power of the understanding which directs it,-an understanding which often dives deeper and soars higher than his imagination, with the disadvantage of acting under more laborious processes. In some of his most splendid efforts, his imagination works rather by allusion than creation; by vivifying and applying old images and forms of expression, than by originating new. Throughout the speech in reply to Hayne, there is a constant reference to figures and phrases which are in the memories of all who have studed the Bible, Shakspeare, and Milton. Though suggested and applied to his own purposes by the imagination, and wonderfully felicitous in their introduction, they still receive their great effect from the spirit and feeling with which they are pervaded. Indeed, if Mr. Webster's invention were equal to his understanding, he would be a poet, before whose genius the brightest names in our literature would "pale their ineffectual fires." The mere fact, that his imagination is subsidiary to his reasoning powers, and that its products are not esteemed of equal value, proves that it is relatively inferior.

The imagination of Mr. Webster, if not that of a poet, is eminently the imagination which befits an orator and debater. A statesman, who is to present his views on a question of national policy in lucid order, and to illustrate them by familiar pictures, would fail in attaining his object, if he substituted fancies for reason, or linked his reasoning with too subtile images. Mr. Webster's imagination never leads him astray from his logic, but only illumines the path. It is no delicate Ariel, sporting with abstract thought, and clothing it in a succession of pleasing shapes; but a power

fettered by the chain of argument it brightens. Even in his noblest bursts of eloquence, we are struck rather by the elevation of the feeling, than the vigor of the imagination. For instance, in the Bunker Hill oration, he closes an animated passage with the well known sentence,-"Let it rise till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of morning gild it, and parting day linger and play upon its summit." If we take from this passage all the phrases which are not strictly original, and separate the sentiment from the invention, we shall find that it is not eminently creative. Wordsworth in one word conveys a similar but

more subtile imagination, in the lines commencing,

"There is an eminence, of these our hills,

The last that parleys with the setting sun."

When we consider, that the first comes from a mind in that excited state which prompts great images, and that the other is conceived in the calm of thought, we see the difference between a mind habitually looking at things with the eye of the understanding, and a mind habitually looking at things with the eye of imagination. Again, it would be dif ficult to believe, that the sound of exquisite music would suggest to a mind like Mr. Webster's an image of such grace, fineness, and beauty as the following from Shelley: My soul is an enchanted boat,

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float

Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;

And thine doth like an angel sit

Beside the helm, conducting it,

While all the winds with melody are ringing."

Here, the most inexpressible of all. sweet emotions is shaped into a palpable form. Shelley, we know, is an extreme case, but therefore the best to illustrate the distinction we wish to make.

Mr. Webster is celebrated for his use of images drawn from familiar objects. Here, likewise, we discern the difference between the poet's imagination and the imagination of the orator and reasoner. The products of the one are of "imagination all compact," and those of the other can be easily distinguished from the idea they illustrate. From Shelley, a multitude of examples might be taken, in which the most familiar things are linked with the most profound and most recondite analogies. We will quote one from his prose works, as a specimen. "The mind in inspiration is a fading coal, which some inconstant influence, like an invisible wind, wakes into momentary brightness." In this, the imagination not only suggests the analogy, but selects, with unerring tact, the words which best convey it to other imaginations; and yet, to Shelley, the whole process of its conception and expression was as natural an exercise of his peculiar mind, as to Mr. Webster would be the deduction of a conclusion from a premise. Indeed, we think that those who assert for our great statesman the inventive power of a poet misconceive both poetry and him. The most rapid glance at his productions shows, that he lacks the inwardness, the brooding spirit, which characterizes those men who "accommodate the shows of things to the desires of the mind." With all his tremendous power of thinking, he has little thoughtfulness,-little of the habit of quiet meditation. He could do things worthy of being recorded in a great poem; but he could not write a great poem.

We do not know, but that this predominance of the reasoning over the imaginative power, in Mr. Webster's mind, is owing to the severe training to which his faculties have been subjected in the exercise of his profession. It is said, that the compositions of his youth were more replete with images than deductions. But however this may be, it is