The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1852-10-25
DEATH OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

The mIshtiest Inteliect OF the age mas SUI
cumbed to the only power that could pafaiyZe
its energies, or destroy lis activity. Daniei
Webster is no MORE With frame, apparent
" of iron. the fit tenement of the gigantic mind
whose operations would long since have worr
il out had it been less robust. he has yielded to
the universal corqueror, ere he had yet ad
vanced more than few years beyond his
grand cimacteric, When we saw him last
We fancied that he had still many campaign:
in that stalwart body, and we congratulate
ourselves that one, at least, of our mighty mex
would survive TO be the Nestor Of future gen
eratlons, as he had been the Ajax lebanon oi
those that had just left the stage. But Prov
dence, in its inscruable wisdom, has seen I'll
TO order it otherwise, and he belongs TO the H.
lustrious roll ofgreat men, to which cur coun'
try points in pride, as the record Of what she
has been. He goes down to posterity with his
illustrious rivals Clay and Calhoun. He tar
ried but short time behind them.
The structure of Mr.. Webster's mind, and
his style of eloquence, were unlike those OF
any man that ever lived. They were, both, as
simple, as majestic, as solid, and indesruc-
tible, as the granite hills among which he was
born. No orator, since the days of Edmund
Burke, ever took so wide a range ia his public
addresses, Or ever so effectually brought to his
aid those lessons of experience which time
has sown with such u lavish hand along the
paths Of history. The entire record of man,
from the time he was deniZen CT Eden, down
TO the hour in which he was speaking, seemed
opened before him. History, poetry, the arts,
the classics of Greece and Rome, the Scrip.
lures were all, by turns, pressed into his ser
vice with fitness that indicated not only thaj
he was familiar with them, but that he had
studied them so thoroughly us to have made
them his own. His mind resembled power
full alembic, which assimlated and made one
mass of everything that was thrown into it, ant
so nice was the amalgam, that the most acute
criticism could not detect the ingredients OF
the whole. Ii drew in, absorbed, and subject.
ed to a chemical change, all that came " thin
its reach, and when the burning material was
poured forth, it cooled into a monument as il
destructible as the principles for which he was
SO often called on TO contend. The most diff
fcult problems, the most complicated qucs-
tions, the most entangled points Of law and
politics, in his hands became so transparent,
that those who had before been involved in
hopeless darkness, saw their way at once, and
wondered how they could have doubted for a
moment His style is the very model of sim
plicity. Endowed by nature with an magma
ton OF the highest order, ne restrained It's
flights SO etfectually and subjected it so com
pletely TO the dominion Of reason, that while j,
threw bright lustre over all he said, ii never
for q moment led him from the world around
him into the region of baseless distractions
and Utopian dreams. Strong practical sense
formed the basis Of his eloquence, and fancy
was called in, not to dazzle and confound, bul
to illustrate and simplify.
This is not the time to write the biography
ofMr. Webster. His name belongs to posteri-
ty, and posterty will do justice to the match.
less powers of his intellect. Yet, even now,
all men, Of all parties, feel that the nation has
sustained an irreparabe loss. and that we shall
not look upon his like again. Spread as his
reputation is, over both hemispheres, known
as he is, to the nations of Europe, almost az
we'll as TO his own country, admired not less
at St. Stephens, than in the Senate of the
United States, even now, before the rage OF
party has had time to subsde, there is no
American who does not feel an interest and a
pride in the fame Of his great countryman.
THE TRIAL OF JANE AND JOHN WILLIAMS