losophical acquirements and elegant literature, | repeat it has never before been my disagreeable but much superior in practical knowledge, and duty to appear against so desperate a criminal. adaptation of means to ends. The speech that I know the danger of confounding physical and he puts into Mr. Adams's mouth on the ques-moral deformity, and I will not ask you to contion of the Declaration of Independence by the demn this man because of his countenance; Congress, in '76-" Sink or swim, live or die, still you can not look at him, gentlemen, withsurvive or perish, I give my hand and my heart out an impression of his guilt. His whole asto this vote"-is a reflex of his mind, eminently pect bears the consciousness of crime.' direct and purposeful. It goes at once to the point and heart, and never misses. "I recollect distinctly," said Mr. Webster, at the close of this dinner-conversation, "the particulars of the last interview I ever had with Mr. Adams. It was in the afternoon of the day I delivered my little speech on the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument. He had been unable to attend, and on my way home I called to see him and pay my respects. "It was a hot and sultry day in June. found him lying on a sofa, seemingly fatigued, and breathing heavily. He had become fat, gross, and incapable of easy motion; his cheeks, which were full and flabby, hung down below his collar. "Here another R-11-s entered the court, and laid his nose alongside of his brother's, with the profiles toward us. "Gentlemen of the Jury,' continued the Attorney General, 'I believe this man is not only an offender, but a hardened offender. I believe he is steeped in guilt. Nor can one well suppose that a person so callous to all feelings of pity as he has been proved to be-so utterly insensible to every sentiment of humanIity, so wholly lost even to the recollection of virtue-ever could have been an innocent man. He is a leprous spot upon society, Gentlemen of the Jury, which your sentence must forever remove, or society itself will become tainted and sicken.' "He had an original nervous expression, even in ordinary conversation; and always said something which impressed you at the time, and you easily recalled afterward. "While I was with him, and conversing on the ordinary topics of the day, some one-a friend of his came in, and made particular inquiries for his health. 'I am not well,' he replied; I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement, open to the winds, and broken in upon by the storms; and what is worse, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair!” "At the time I was practicing law in New Hampshire," said Mr. Webster, "it once happened that I was counsel for the defendant in some capital case, while Mr. Attorney-General Atkinson-a particular friend of mine, afterward Judge of the Supreme Court of the State-conducted the prosecution. The court was holden at Dover, the shire town of Stafford County. A family by the name of R-ll-s lived somewhere in the vicinity, no otherwise remarkable, so far as I now recollect, than for the large and somewhat peculiar shape of their noses. It was not merely that they were long, or rose high from the face, but they described, from where they joined the forehead to their termination over the mouth, a parabola. Other men have had eminent noses, but this family had them peculiar to themselves, and were as easily recognizable by them as Jews by theirs. There were some five or six brothers, with noses describing almost the same curve, and rejoicing in the same altitude. "A third R-11-s now came in, and made another layer or stratum of noses. This was too much for my self-command or M—n's, who sat next me, and whose attention, indeed, I had attracted to this nasal exhibition, and we indulged in audible laughter, or we should have died from spontaneous suffocation. Atkinson turned to us in angry surprise: 'The counsel for the defendant may laugh at my language. I am no orator as Brutus is; but he can't controvert my facts!' After one or two desperate efforts, we finally regained control over our countenances, and looked as solemn as the occasion demanded. For a time every thing went well; we resolutely turned our backs upon the noses, and Atkinson was getting finely on with his peroration, when hearing M-n exclaim, in a mock-tragic tone, "What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom ?" I looked round, and behold a fourth nose had laid itself alongside the others! and, to cap the climax of our misery, a sternutation took place, as if concerted among these probosces, which you could see, under the effects of the motion, bobbing up and down like the corks of the angler's line. This was past human endurance. In vain M-n and myself stuffed our handkerchiefs in our mouths; in vain bit our lips till the blood flowed freely; the very efforts we made to repress our desire to laugh excited it, and, carried away in spite of ourselves, we fairly gave way to an unseasonable mirth. This was too much for the Attorney General. He stopped short in the very torrent and tempest of his eloquence, and sat down; but immediate"Mr. Atkinson was addressing the jury, and ly rose to his feet, and in a tone of undisguised insisting, with great earnestness of manner and anger addressed the court: 'May it please your eloquent periods, upon the guilt of the accused, honors,' said he, 'it is impossible for me to prowhen one of the R-11-s entered the court, and ceed farther. Too long have I borne the prestood by the railing which separated the pro-meditated and continued insults of the counsel fession from the outsiders: for the defense; insults as gross as they are un"Gentlemen of the Jury,' said Atkinson, I provoked. I claim the protection of the court.' So much seems to have been necessary as a preface to what follows: Plutarch's heroes would have crowded the Inaugural Message, to the exclusion of all Amercan, and perhaps modern characters, but for an untimely fate. Miltiades would have fought Marathon over again, the Horatii re-exterminated the Curiatii, and Quintus Curtius taken a second leap into that fatal chasm, had the old General's original purpose been carried out. "Atkinson's serious manner and address act- | duced to him. "Have you ever read Plutarch's ed upon us like a counter-irritant, and imme-lives, my young friend?" he inquired. diately restored our self-control. I got on my feet, and begged pardon of the court for my unintentional violation of decorum-assuring the Attorney General that nothing was farther from my mind than any purpose of wounding his feelings; that so far from wishing to turn into ridicule any thing he had said, I had listened with the greatest gratification to his remarks till an unfortunate incident had occurred which I could not explain, but which, in spite of all efforts to the contrary, had made me seem- A day or two before the Message was delivingly forgetful of the place and the grave occa-ered, the Secretary of State elect was seen comsion.' The Attorney General took my apolo-ing out of General Harrison's residence, seemgetic explanation in good part, and finished his ingly no little agitated. His step was unequal, speech without farther interruption. and his brow seemed charged with a lowering storm. "What is the matter with you, this morning?" inquired a friend, unexpectedly coming upon him; "you seem agitated, Mr. Webster." "Agitated, Sir! and who would not feel agitated that had committed the crimes I have this morning?" "Crimes, Mr. Webster!" exclaimed his friend, incredulously. "But I laugh to this day when I recall that scene; those four noses overlapping each other like horses on a stretch, one just advanced ahead of another, and so different from the noses we meet in our usual experience; the perplexed countenance of Atkinson, the grave surprise of the court, and the wondering stare of the crowd. On the gravest occasions, an incident most trivial, if unexpected, will sometimes give rise to irrepressible laughter. One such nose might have been tolerated, but when they come in battalions they carry every thing before them. Every one recollects that the Message com"My client was fortunately acquitted-part-mences in this manner: "It was the remark ly, perhaps, owing to the sympathetic inclina- of a Roman consul, in an early period of that tion of juries toward the predominant feeling celebrated republic," etc., etc. It was said at of the crowd, who, on this occasion, suspected the time that the old General, while he relucsomething ludicrous had occurred, and, though |tantly assented to the exclusion of other Roman ignorant what it was, laughed on trust." celebrities, insisted upon retaining this Roman consul-to which his Secretary finally yielded, "Ay, Sir, crimes-murders most foul, and from malice aforethought, of I know not how many Greeks and Romans !” Some one saying in his presence that a dis-on condition that his name were suppressedtinguished politician, whose future course on so that Roman consul and Junius are destined the questions that divided the two parties was to be enigmas to all ages. a matter of no little doubt, had assured him that he would "do nothing incompatible with his antecedents," Mr. Webster replied: "Let him at least express himself in English." Mr. Webster always opposed the composite language of the present day. His own style was Doric, simple, massive, and strong. But Mr. Webster entertained feelings of much respect for General Harrison. He considered him a man of great integrity, of honest intentions, and much above mediocrity in ability. A pardonable literary vanity, often accompanying the military profession, did not obscure his vision, nor prevail upon him to prefer his own opinion to the sounder judgment of his advisers. It is true, he sometimes expressed himself weakly; but seldom, if ever, did he act other than The Whig party, tired of defeat under the lead of such statesmen as John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, brought forward General Har-wisely. rison, who had overcome a mixed army of En- The day after the inauguration, Mr. Webster glish and Indians, and elected him. When this gave a dinner to the young men of the Whigs military hero was first proposed, in 1836, he who, by pen or otherwise, had distinguished stated, in answer to some friends who had in-themselves in the preceding campaign. The quired regarding the conduct of his soldiers at Tippecanoe, "that every private in his whole army, on that occasion, was a Leonidas, Epaminondas, or Horatius Cocles." In truth, the old General was much attached to these men, and to many others whom Plutarch has commemorated. After the General's election to the presidency, and while he was in Washington preparing for his inauguration, a young gentleman fresh from one of our universities was intro festivity was brilliant and well-prolonged. No one was "fou,” but all had plenty. "Now, boys," said the host, as if he thought it time for the stirrup-cup, "I will give a toast all will drink. Fill your glasses to the brim for a bumper. Are you all ready?" "Ready!" shouted all. "I will give you-Our glorious old chief, William Henry Harrison, President of the United States." All, of course, drank the toast with a will." Some one, who had taken a glass too little or too much, rose to propose "John Tyler, VicePresident of the United States." of course, in the translation-much from our ignorance of the rules of Hebrew versification, of which, indeed, we retain only the division of the verses; but changed, emasculated as it is, where shall we look for its like ?" "I have met with men in my time," Mr. Webster said on another occasion, "accounted learn "Oh!" said the host, with a deprecatory motion of the hand, "we can not go beyond the climax. Some other day we will drink John Tyler!" How little did any of that company foresee ed scholars-who knew Homer by heart, recited what a few days would bring forth! The author of "Daniel Webster and his Contemporaries," has well remarked that it was impossible for any one to listen to Mr. Webster's discourses upon the Sacred Writings, or to his recitations, without believing in their inspiration or his. No layman, perhaps, was ever more familiar with them, or more deeply imbued with their spirit. Upon no subject was he more fond of conversing with those he admitted to his intimacy, or could speak with the same enthusiastic eloquence. The writer has often asked himself "What could not such a man have done in the pulpit ?" On ordinary occasions, he was ordinary. He required a great subject to call forth his latent powers. What other theme could so have excited him as to justify the ways of God to man? With more eloquence than Bossuet, he could have moved more than courtiers or maids of honor to tears. With a more irresistible and piquant logic than Chillingworth, he would have demolished unbelievers. With a deeper-seated enthusiasm than Whitfield, he would have called crowded cities to the highway or the wilderness, and turned them to God. How far superior his reading of the Scriptures to the listless drawl, the imperfect pronunciation, and the mistaken emphasis so common to the pulpit of these days! With what a deep and moving intonation he was wont to repeat Isaiah's announcement of the Messiah's coming! "Who is this that cometh from Edom? With garments deeply dyed from Bozrah? I, the announcer of righteousness, mighty to save. And thy garments, as one that treadeth the wine-vat? And of the peoples there was not a man with me. "The Hebrew poets," said Mr. Webster, "borrow a great deal of their imagery from common life; and to have invested familiar subjects with the greatest dignity is a commendation, I should say, peculiar to them. Homer, who has attempted the same, and not without success, still falls far below the sacred writers in boldness and sublimity. What other writer, indeed, of ancient or modern times, would have dared, or daring could have succeeded, in conveying a shadow or outline of this glorious delineation from imagery taken from the wine-press? Much of the force and beauty of the language we lose, Pindar, were at home with Eschylus, and petted Horace who could not understand Isaiah, Moses, or the Royal Poet. Why is this? Why in cultivating profane poetry, should they neglect sacred-so far superior in original force, sublimity, and truth to nature? "Moses, like Homer, had antecedent poets. We perceive in the productions of both a certain maturity of beauty and strength, not wholly theirs, but the aggregate energies of their own and preceding minds. Indeed the writings of Moses have direct reference to, even where they do not purport to be extracted from, the works of others; for instance, to the poem of the Moabites on the victories of their king, the prophetic blessing of Jacob, the address of Lamech to his wives, the execration of Noah upon Ham. These, for many reasons unnecessary now to be mentioned, were doubtless extant before the time of Moses, in the form of traditions which constituted in those days the sole literature of the people, and were subsequently collected by him and reduced to writing as a more certain means of preservation than memory. And many times he seems to have adopted in his code popular proverbs, the accumulated wisdom of centuries expressed in a sententious, compact, metrical form, and therefore more impressive and better preserved. "From the time that at my mother's feet or on my father's knees I first learned to lisp verses from the Sacred Writings, they have been my daily study and vigilant contemplation. If there be any thing in my style or thoughts worthy to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my early mind a love for the Scriptures. My father had a sonorous voice, an untaught yet correct ear, and a keen perception of all that was beautiful or sublime in thought. How often after the labors of the day, before twilight had deepened into obscurity, would he read to me his favorite portions of the Bible, the Book of Job, the Prayer of Habbakkuk, and extracts from Isaiah! It was doubtless his impressive manner on such occasions, his suffused eye, his broken voice, and reverential intonation, that gave me a taste for the inspired authors, and preserved me from that danger of neglect into which our early familiarity with these books-a familiarity in the mean time rather with the sound of the words than with their sense and beauties-too often threatens to precipitate us. "The Book of Job is a complete epic, only instead of wars and combatants we have argument and orators. Its action is entire and complete, as the unity of the epic demands; or, as Aristotle expresses it, it has a beginning, mid dle, and end. The professed subject of the "Now the subject of the Book of Job is the fate of a good man eminent for his piety and integrity, abounding in riches and reputation, suddenly precipitated into the lowest depth of misery. This the Greek poets have told us is what the gods themselves contemplate with the greatest admiration, the spectacle of a good man struggling with adversity, and still preserving his manhood untainted. Though deprived of his immense possessions, bereaved of his children, and afflicted with the most loathsome disease; in the midst of his bodily and mental anguish, Job utters no complaint, breaks into no vain repinings, but bows his head submissively to the Divine will. In the expressive language of the historian, 'In all this, Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.' His light shall be put out; the light shall be dark in his The steps of his strength shall be straitened, Terrors shall frighten him on every side; the robber Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitations: He shall be driven from light into darkness: They that Shall be astonished at his day: He shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty." "With what beautiful and attractive imagery, What an too, he brings before us his past life! authority he shows us to have possessed before his people! "If I came out to the gate, nigh to the place of public resort, If I took up my seat in the street, The young men saw me, and they hid themselves: The princes refrained talking, Nay, they laid their hands upon their mouths. And their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth." "As this man accounted so holy, of such stainless integrity, went through the public streets, the old men not only rose, but stood till he had passed beyond their recognition; an undertaking to them in decrepitude and weakness of no little labor. But such, in this golden age of patriarchal simplicity, was the reverence paid to him who feared God and eschewed evil! "And in what book or in what tongue shall we find a more graphic and vivid description than this of the war-horse? "For cagerness and fury he devoureth the very ground. "The middle of this epic, corresponding with that portion of the Iliad which describes the various contests between the Greeks and Trojans, is the sustained and at times irate conThe thunder of the captains and the shouting." troversy between Job and his friends-perhaps "He believeth it not when he heareth the the greatest visitation of Providence upon him. It is carried on with vehemence on either side, trumpet!' That is, the confirmation of his wishcharacterized always by ability, and occasion-es is so far beyond his even most sanguine exally rising to sublimity. With what express-pectations, that he dare not trust to his senses! ive figures Job paints the condition of the He doubted more than he hoped, and still fears to believe. The clangor of the trumpets is his wicked: the thunder of the captains and the shouting the breath of his nostrils. He paweth the ground in his impatience, he scattereth the foam from his face, and champeth the bit with his teeth. His neck is clothed with thunder, and the earth trembles with the sound of his steps. "Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth, That the triumph of the wicked was short, the joy of Yet shall he perish forever: He shall fly away as a And not be found; yea, he shall be chased away, as a The eye also which saw him shall see him no more; slay him: In the fullness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth rise up against him. The increase of his house shall depart; his goods flow away: life; "Isaiah may be occasionally more sublime, and David superior in tenderness and in variety of style; but the author of Job, in force and fidelity of description, is unrivaled. The dignity of his imagery, also, and his elevated diction, are worthy of his theme. "These beautiful descriptions, and many others that I might bring forward, serve, in the light of episodes, to illustrate or relieve the main action of the Epic-as, in the Iliad, the parting of Hector and Andromache, or the appearance of Helen before the old generals on the walls of Troy, who, though they look upon her as the cause of all their troubles, can not sup- | improved. The design may have been anothpress their admiration of her beauties. Such er's-the execution is his own. diversify and embellish the narrative, and soften the catastrophe. "Job is not represented so faultless as to be beyond the reach of our sympathies. The author, whoever he was, had too much art for this. Though approaching so near to the perfection of virtue, this man of Uz had no little alloy of human infirmity. He had endured without repining the loss of wealth and children, as well as the agony of disease; but his last infliction-the visit and pretended condolence of malignant censors in the guise of friends-finally irritated him into certain intemperate attestations of innocence, and vehement, though indirect, murmurs against the Divine will. These, however, may be attributed to a sudden passion, arising from pertinacious and ingenious malice, and are not to be considered as belonging to settled character. They prove him, in fine, to have been a man possessed of integrity, but too conscious of it-a devout man, but rather presumptuous from that facta man visited by almost every complication of misery, both bodily and mental, and, under its overpowering pressure, temporarily hurried beyond the limits of finite endurance. He is patient and long-enduring, but yet remote from that insensibility to misfortune which the Stoics vainly affected. "His submission-sincere, unreserved, and final-to the will of God, and his subsequent restoration to greater wealth and happiness, concludes the epic. Its design is to teach men the superior wisdom of the Almighty; that having in due consideration the weakness and corruption of our common nature, and looking up to the infinite wisdom and purity of God, we should abandon all reliance upon our own unaided strength, and implicitly adopt His decrees as the guiding and sole rules of our life. "Oftentimes, in Hebrew poetry, I have noticed that the author, in the unrestrained vehemence of his passion, is led, as if insensibly, from the relation of an event into an imitation or representation of it; while at other times the dialogue form is too apparent for misconstruction. This," Mr. Webster said, "was evidently the case in the celebrated passage in Isaiah, in which the Messiah, hastening to vengeance, is introduced conversing with a chorus, as in a Greek tragedy: "CHORUS. Who is this that cometh from Edom? etc. "MESSIAN. I, the announcer of righteousness, mighty to save.' "God came from Teman, The Holy One from Mount Paran. And lifted up his hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their habitations, "The Hebrew poets have this advantage, that in the awful dignity of their subject they not only immeasurably surpass all other authors, but go beyond the confines of human genius. They celebrate the praises and the power of the Holy One under the influence of direct inspiration, and thus become the organs through which His greatness, and justice, and immensity reach our apprehensions. "And what," continued Mr. Webster, "can be more beautiful, more expressive than the closing lines of this ode? Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, The labor of the olive shall fail, I will joy in the God of my salvation." "The labor of the olive'-what an energetic simile! As if the olive, of its own accord, supplied or withheld its fruit; as if it had volition and powers inherent in itself. "The fields shall yield no meat!' how much more forcible and poetic than if he had said, 'The fields shall yield no produce, no crop, or return.' "The whole ode or 'prayer,' indeed, is full of vivid images, embellishing and strengthening And some contend the Greeks borrowed the the earnest ideas they illustrate." chorus from the Hebrews. "I read often, and always with increased pleasure," said Mr. Webster, "the prayer of Habbakkuk, as it is called. It may properly be denominated an ode, and has been accounted one of the best specimens of its class. He has been considered an imitator of former poets, and perhaps with justice; but this may be said of him, he has borrowed nothing which he has not HOW NELLIE LEE WAS PAWNED. HA Don't start, reader. I know you are highly respectable, that you have a house în Gramercy Park, and a balance of several thousands at the Merchant's Bank, nevertheless you may have been placed in circumstances which rendered it necessary for you to pawn your watch. I |