The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1830-07-14
From the .Me,o York Cabinet of Religion IN
teiigence, &c.
DANIEL WEBSTER.

{
controverted, that mind capable of attract
Ing any considerable share of public atten
ton and admiration, in these intellectual
! times, possesses the elements of moral pow.
er, 1t not the creative attributes of genius
There are, at the present moment, many
men in our country whose influence, exert.
ed over large masses of our community, is
irresistably moulding the national charac-
ter to high and generous model. Were
these masterspirlts exclusively the members
OF single profession or occupation in life
there would be danger to the public veal
from the preponderance of talent directed
to single point; the Just proportions of our
blendid, yet multiform interests, would suffer
detrlment by concentrating the boldest and
brightest talents in the work of illustrating
and perfecting part, which from its unnat-
ural brightness, would seem to cast shade
over the neglected portions. But it is not
so with our country. We can speak of one
and measure the widest circle of his infu-
ence, without encroaching on the spheres
OF others, equally perfect, but described in
other directions.
Daniel Webster, during the recent ses-
sion of Congress, has been placed in atti-
e'NNS VI unusual OGpdILlL0
from the restricted, because local, fields of
ms professional renown, he rose, not indeed
ter the first time, before an audience of
fourteen millions, in an effort, every word
Of which has been read in the remotest
hamlet in the Union. 1t was in a war of
glants-and so spirit-stirrng were the lead =
ing tones of defiance-so proud and impos-
ing the array of political conflict on either
side, that mutitudes of mere butterflies in
war, sought to gain their truly brief immor-
tallty by scorching their feeble wings in a
flame they had not famed into being, nor
yet were able to extinguish.
We leave the details of, perhaps, the most
brilliant Congressional campaign ever wit
messed in our country to the dispassionate
pen of the historian-agd will, in a few
words, allude to the personal appearance
and intellectual energies of a man whose
fame even now belongs 10 our whole coun-
try as constituent pant of national great
ness.
Mr.. Webster is about FIVE feet ten inches
in height, well formed, indicating muscular
energy, if not uncommon bodily strength.
His motions, when not excited, Indicate
freedom, holiness and careless, unstudied
ease-as little trammeled by the rules of
the French school, as fettered by those of
the Puritan. The contour of his face dis
closes generosity, courage, determination
OF purpose, with but few of the outlines Of
RsasIy ue Hs S9sd 1{e an ShnsuSy heavy
brow, with very deep, dark shades or lines
below them. The appearance of his brow
and eye are uLique-and are properly char
acteristic. His action, when speaking IN
public, appears rather the simple expression
of earnestness than the rhetorical flourish
of the schools. But in the sarcastic wreath
ings Of his bloodless and sallow counte
nance when he has put his adversary in
quandary, or hung him up on the horns OF a
dilemma, or placed him astride of the re-
ductio ad absurdttm, there may be some
thing of the art, although none of the NAL
ice, of Brougham.
The elements of his mind are not those
of the meteor blaze, or of the poets enthu-
sasm. His style is eminently sldlple--sub-
lime. at times indeed, but only the sublimity
of thought. His continual aim in his more
highly finished addresses is to present his
gigantic thoughts under the thinnest cover
ing of words, so that, instead of flowing,
redundant !rapery, the eye meets the sin
ews of iron and the bones of brass, half
seen through the simple attire in which ma
ture and Webster have clothed them. Un-
like Brougham, he does not, in the COM
mencement of his addresses, draw from
heaven above, earth below, and all creation
around-history behind and prophecy be-
fore-the seemingly irrelevant materials OF
nature and art, and lay them, painfully dis
iinct, the beautiful by themselves, and
the horrible by themselves, to hurl them, in
the tremendous peroration, full in the face
of his staggering, blinded adversary who
has barely faculties of sense enough re-
naming to understand the serpent hiss OF
the fiend that has wrought his overthrow.
Not so Webster. His first sentences are
like Newton's principals good for his
antagonist as for himself; calculations Of
truth made for one age as well as al
ages. He is imbued and penetrated to the
hearts core, with the fact that there are
many points of view through which subject
must be approached in order to ascertain
lis real position ond relative Importance
Thus each limb of one of his speeches is a
direct, intense view of, or approach to, his
suhiect-and woefully indeed are those dis
appointed who have made their beautiful
theories and plausible arguments al. on one
side of the question, when they see the lghl
of Webster's argument breaking in upor
adverse, as we'll as their own, quarters
and the entire subject, in its relative import
moved, from what seemed to them its noun
tain foundations, far out of the hearing o
their voices, and the sight of their eyes.
1t is but three weeks since tho profession
al and literary gentleman of this city-th'
cognoscenti and the weavers of gothic Eng
lish into due statute form-had an opportu
nifty of Witnessing proof of Webster
manner. 1t was in the celebrated Asto
Casa case hallowed by the display o
much previous talent, and by the fact that oil
this very argument the eloquent Emmett
like the fabled swan, gave out the last tone
of his eloquence-the sweetest because tn,
lust. The course of Webster's argumen
and his manner, on this occasion, need no
be described, as the court room was crowd