WEBSTER DEFENDING HIS ALMA MATER.

MR. WEBSTER went on for more than four hours with a statement so luminous, and a chain of reasoning so easy to be understood, and yet approaching so nearly to absolute demonstration, that he seemed to carry with him every man of his audience without the slightest effort or uneasiness on either side. A single circumstance will show you the clearness and absorbing power of his argument.

I observed that Judge Story, at the opening of the case, had prepared himself, pen in hand, as if to take copious minutes. Hour after hour I saw him fixed in the same attitude, but, so far as I could perceive, with not a note on his paper. The argument closed, and I could not discover that he had taken a single note. Others around me remarked the same thing; and it was among the on dits of Washington, that a friend spoke to him of the fact with surprise, when the Judge remarked, "Every thing was so clear, and so easy to remember, that not a note seemed necessary, and, in fact, I thought little or nothing about my notes." The argument ended, Mr. Webster stood for some moments silent before the court, while every eye was fixed intently upon him. At length, addressing the Chief-Justice, he proceeded thus:

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This, Sir, is my case. It is the case, not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in the land.

It is more. It is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our country, - of all those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors, to alleviate human misery, and scatter blessings along the pathway of life. It is more! It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has property of which he may be stripped; for the question is simply this: Shall our State Legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to such ends or purposes as they in their discretion shall see fit?

"Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But, if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land!

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"It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it"

Here, the feelings, which he had thus far succeeded in keeping down, broke forth. His lips quivered; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion; his eyes were filled with tears, his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling. I will not attempt to give you the few broken words of tenderness in which he went on to speak of his attachment to the college. The whole seemed to be mingled throughout with the recollections of father, mother, brother, and all the privations and trials through which he had made his way into life. Every one saw that it was wholly unpremeditated, a pressure on his heart, which sought relief in words and tears.

The court-room during these two or three minutes presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief-Justice Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure bent over, as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheek expanded with emotion, and his eyes suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Washington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance more like marble than I ever saw on any other human being, — leaning forward with an eager, troubled look; and the remainder of the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as it were, towards a single point, while the audience below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath the bench, to catch each look and every movement of the those speaker. If a painter could give us the scene on canvas, forms and countenances, and Daniel Webster as he there stood in the midst, it would be one of the most touching pictures in the history of eloquence. One thing it taught me, that the Pathetic depends not merely on the words uttered, but still more on the estimate we put upon him who utters them. There was not one among the strong-minded men of that assembly, who could think it unmanly to weep, when he saw standing before him the man, who had made such an argument, melted into the tenderness of a child.

Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and, fixing his keen eye on the Chief-Justice, said, in that deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of an audience,

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"Sir, I know not how others may feel," (glancing at the oppo

nents of the college before him,) "but, for myself, when I see my Alma Mater surrounded, like Cæsar in the Senate-house, by those who are reiterating stab after stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her turn to me, and say, Et tu quoque, mi fili! And thou too, my son!"

He sat down. There was a death-like stillness throughout the room for some moments; every one seemed to be slowly recovering himself, and coming gradually back to his ordinary range of thought and feeling.

CHAUNCY A. GOODRICH: 1819.

BRITISH BLUNDERING IN AMERICA.

THE spirit of independence animating the nation of America is not new among them: it is, and has ever been, their confirmed persuasion. When the repeal of the Stamp Act was in agitation, a person of undoubted respect and authenticity on that subject assured me that these were the prevalent and steady principles of America; that you might destroy their towns, and cut them off from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences, of life; but that they were prepared to despise your power, and would not lament the loss, whilst they have what, my Lords?their woods and their liberty!

If illegal violences have been committed in America, prepare the way for acknowledgment and satisfaction: but cease your indiscriminate inflictions; amerce not thirty thousand, oppress not three millions, for the fault of forty or fifty individuals. Such severity of justice must irritate your Colonies to unappeasable rancour. What though you march from town to town, and from province to province? How shall you be able to secure the obedience of the country you leave behind you in your progress, to grasp the dominion of eighteen hundred miles of continent?

This resistance to your arbitrary system of taxation might have been foreseen from the nature of things and of mankind; above all, from the Whiggish spirit flourishing in that country. The spirit which now resists your taxation in America is the same which formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship-money in England; the same which, by the Bill of Rights, vindicated the English Constitution; the same which established the essential

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maxim of your liberties, that no subject of England shall be taxed but by his own consent.

I recog

This glorious spirit of Whiggism animates three millions in America, aided by every Whig in England, to the amount, I hope, of double the American numbers. Ireland they have to a man. Let this distinction, then, remain for ever ascertained, - taxation is theirs, commercial regulation is ours. They say you have no right to tax them without their consent. They say truly. nize to the Americans their supreme, unalienable right in their property; a right which they are justified in the defence of to the last extremity. To maintain this principle is the great common cause of the Whigs on the other side of the Atlantic and on this. 'Tis "liberty to liberty engaged"; the alliance of God and Nature; immutable and eternal.

To such united force what force shall be opposed? A few regiments in America, and seventeen or eighteen thousand men at home! The idea is too ridiculous to take up a moment of your Lordships' time. Unless the fatal Acts are done away, the hour of danger must arrive in all its horrors, and then these boastful Ministers, spite of all their confidence, shall be forced to abandon principles which they avow, but cannot defend; measures which they presume to attempt, but cannot hope to effectuate.

It is not repealing a piece of parchment that can restore America to your bosom you must repeal her fears and her resentments; and you may then hope for her love and gratitude. Insulted with an armed force posted in Boston, irritated with a hostile array before her eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, would be insecure. But it is more than evident that, united as they are, you cannot force them to your unworthy terms of submission.

When your Lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause, and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must avow that, in all my reading, and I have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the master-States of the world, for solidity of reason, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the General Congress at Philadelphia. The histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it; and all attempts to impose servitude upon

such a mighty continental nation must be vain. We shall be forced ultimately to retract: let us retract while we can, not when we must. These violent Acts must be repealed: you will repeal them; I pledge myself for it, I stake my reputation on it, that you will in the end repeal them. Avoid, then, this humiliating necessity. With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, make the first advances to concord, peace, and happiness; for that is your true dignity. Concession comes with better grace from superior power; and establishes solid confidence on the foundations of affection and gratitude. Be the first to spare. Throw down the weapons in your hand.

Every motive of justice and policy, of dignity and prudence, urges you to allay the ferment in America by a removal of your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your Acts of Parliament, and demonstrating amicable dispositions towards your Colonies. On the other hand, to deter you from perseverance in your present ruinous measures, every danger and every hazard impend; foreign war hanging over you by a thread; France and Spain watching your conduct, and waiting for the maturity of your errors.

If the Ministers persevere in thus misadvising and misleading the King, I will not say that the King is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the kingdom is undone; I will not say that they can alienate the affections of his subjects from his crown, but I will affirm that, the American jewel out of it, they will make the crown not worth his wearing.

EARL OF CHATHAM: 1708-1778.

VANITY.

THERE is, it will be confessed, a delicate sensibility to character, a sober desire of reputation, a wish to possess the esteem of the wise and good, felt by the purest minds, which is at the farthest remove from arrogance or vanity. The humility of a noble mind scarcely dares to approve of itself, until it has secured the approbation of others.

Very different is that restless desire of distinction, that passion for theatrical display which inflames the heart and occupies the whole attention of vain men. This, of all the passions, is the most unsocial, avarice itself not excepted. The reason is plain.