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speeches ever made in any public body by any statesman in the world-a speech which is the "crowning glory" of our present collection--we present, from the excellent work by Mr. CHARLES W. MARCH, entitled “ Daniel Webster and his contemporaries” a very vivid sketch of the scene in the Senate Chamber, (during and at the conclusion of the great orator's "Great Speech" in reply to Mr. HAYNE, of South Carolina.) It is authentically related of Mr. WEBSTER, that as he was walking down the centre-walk in the Capitol Park, the day after Mr. HAYNE's speech, a friend said to him:

"Mr. WEBSTER, that will be a difficult speech to answer."

"We shall see," said Mr. WEBSTER, taking off his hat, and passing his hand over his great broad forehead. "We-shall-see-sir, tomorrow; we shall see to-morrow, Sir!"

And they did see-and the country-and the world.”

It was on Tuesday, January the 26th, 1830,-a day to be here- . after forever memorable in Senatorial annals,-that the Senate resumed the consideration of Foote's Resolution. There was never before in the city, an occasion of so much excitement. To witness this great intellectual contest, multitudes of strangers had for two or three days previous been rushing into the city, and the hotels overflowed. As early as nine o'clock of this morning, crowds poured into the Capitol, in hot haste; at 12 o'clock, the hour of meeting, the Senate-Chamber,-its galleries, floor and even lobbies, was filled to its utmost capacity. The very stairways were dark with men, who hung on to one another, like bees in a

swarm.

1 The House of Representatives was early deserted. An adjournment would have hardly made it emptier. The speaker, it is true, retained his chair, but no business of moment was, or could be, attended to. Members all rushed in to hear Mr. Webster, and no 'call of the House or other Parliamentary proceedings could compel them back. The floor of the Senate was so densely crowed, that persons once in could not get out, nor change their position; in the

rear of the Vice-Presidential chair, the crowd was particularly intense. Dixon H. Lewis, then a Representative from Alabama, became wedged in here. From his enormous size, it was impossible for him to move without displacing a vast portion of the multitude. Unfortunately too, for him, he was jammed in directly behind the chair of the Vice-President, where he could not see, and hardly hear, the speaker. By slow and laborious effort-pausing occasionally to breathe-he gained one of the windows, which,, constructed of painted glass, flank the chair of the Vice-President on either side. Here he paused, unable to make more headway. But determined to see Mr. Webster as he spoke, with his knife he made a large hole in one of the panes of glass; which is still visible as he made it. Many were so placed, as not to be able to see the speaker at all.

The courtesy of Senators accorded to the fairer sex room on the floor-the most gallant of them, their own seats. The gay bonnets and brilliant dresses threw a varied and picturesque beauty over the scene, softening and embelishing it.

Seldom, if ever, has speaker in this or any other country had more powerful incentives to exertion; a subject, the determination of which involved the most important interests, and even duration, of the republic; competitors, unequalled in reputation, ability, or position; a name to make still more glorious, or lose forever; and an audience, comprising not only persons of this country most eminent in intellectual greatness, but representatives of other nations, where the art of eloquence had flourished for ages. All the soldier seeks in opportunity was nere.

Mr. Webster perceived, and felt equal to, the destinies of the moment. The very greatness of the hazard exhilarated him. His. spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the time of onset with a stern and impatient joy. He felt, like the war-horse of the Scriptures, who "paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: who goeth on to meet the armed men,-who sayeth among the trumpets, Ha, ha! and who smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting."

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A confidence in his own resources, springing from no vain estimate of his power, but the legitimate offspring of previous severe mental discipline sustained and excited him. (He had guaged his opponents, his subject and himself.

He was too, at this period, in the very prime of manhood. He had reached middle age-an era in the life of man, when the faculties, physical or intellectual, may be supposed to attain their fullest organization, and most perfect development. Whatever there was in him of intellectual energy and vitality, the occasion, his full life and high ambition, might well bring forth.

He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulousness in his voice nor manner; nothing huried, nothing simulated. The calmness of superior strength was visible everywhere; in countenance, voice, and bearing. A deep seated conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. If an observer, more than ordinarily keensighted, detected at times something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of victory.

The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepressible, and universal, that no sooner had the Vice-President assumed the chair, than a motion was made and unanimously carried, to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of Senatorial action, and to take up immediately the consideration of the resolution.

Mr. Webster rose and addressed the Senate. His exordium is known by heart, everywhere: "Mr. President, when the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence; and before we float further, on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, at least, be able to form some conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution."

There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There was a spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager approbation, as the orator concluded these opening remarks. And while the clerk read the resolution, many attempted the impossibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head was inclined closer towards him, every ear turned in the direction of his voice--and that deep, sudden, mysterious silence followed, which always attends fulness of emotion. From the sea of upturned faces before him, the orator beheld his thoughts reflected as from a mirror. The varying countenance, the suffused eye, the earnest smile, and ever-attentive look assured him of his audience's entire sympathy. If among his hearers there were those who affected at first an indifference to his glowing thoughts and fervent periods, the difficult mask was soon laid aside, and profound, undisguised, devoted attention followed. In the earlier part of his speech, one of his principal opponents seemed deeply engrossed in the careful perusal of a newspaper he held before his face; but this, on nearer approach, proved to be upside down. In truth, all, sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves, were wholly carried away by the eloquence of the

orator.

One of the happiest retorts ever made in a forensic controversy was his application of Hayne's comparison of the ghost of the "murdered coalition" to the ghost of Banquo:

"Sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely happy in his allusions to the story of Banquo's murder, and Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the murdered Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not down. The honorable gentleman is fresh in his reading of the English classics, and can put me right if I am wrong; but, according to my poor recollection, it was at those who had begun with caresses, and ended with foul and treacherous murder, that the gory locks were shaken! The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It knew where its appearance would strike terror, and who would cry out, a ghost! It

made itself visible in the right quarter, and compelled the guilty, and the conscience-smitten, and none others, to start, with,

“Pr'ythee, see there! behold! look! lo,

If I stand here, I saw him!'

THEIR eyeballs were seared (was it not so, sir?) who had thought to shield themselves, by concealing their own hand, and laying the imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward consciences, by ejaculating, through white lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst not say I did it!" I have misread the great poet if those who had no way partaken in the deed of death, either found that they were, or feared that they should be, pushed from their stools by the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed, to a spectre created by their own fears, and their own remorse, "Avaunt and quit our sight!

There was a smile of appreciation upon the faces all around, at this most felicitous use of another's illustration—this turning one's own witness against him-in which Col. Hayne good humoredly joined.

As the orator carried out the moral of Macbeth, and proved by the example of that deep-thinking, intellectual, but insanely ambitious character, how little of substantial good or permanent power was to be secured by a devious and unblessed policy, he turned his eye with a significance of expression, full of prophetic revelation upon the Vice-President, reminding him that those who had foully removed Banquo had placed

"A barren sceptre in their gripe,

Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand,

No son of theirs succeeding."

Every eye of the whole audience followed the direction of his own --and witnessed the changing countenance and visible agitation of Mr. Calhoun.

Surely, no prediction ever met a more rapid or fuller confirmation, even to the very manner in which the disaster was accom