The weekly Lancaster gazette. (Lancaster, Ohio) 1852-1855, 1853-06-30


have laughed heartily at the recital, aud
propose to give our friends the benefit of the
same exercise. Find a cool place, reader,
and then imagine the "pheelinks" Of Trsstem
under the circumstances:
"No one at all familiar with Congress
sional chronicle sscan be unacquainted with
the name Of Tristem Burgess. Few were
more formidable--not even Timothy Pick
ering himoelf, the terror and scOurge of tr-
umphant Jeffersonianism-in the annals Of
party vengeance and personal inyective.-
There was, in all his time, when single COM
bats between the adverse hosts of Federal
ism and Democracy since confounded to-
getherl were yet frequent, no tougher hand
at the art of public reproach, no ruder cham
pion of a cause still, though defeated, dan
gerous for the abilities, the character and
the courage of those that upheld it. John
Randolph, seldom worsted at the weapon Of
vituperation (almost the only arm he WELD
ed) had been ANONYMOUSLY laid low, by
one of his tremendous back-handed blows,
enough, (like that famous lick in romance
to have cloven in twaina pair of giants. -
Never, except when mauled by seeming
feminine hand, that of his ex-sister-in-law,
Mrs. Nancy Randolph Morris, had more
dreful castigation lighted upon his lean and
sexless carcass. Ineed hardly recall how
again, about Davis time, Tristem, in his
old age, attacked by your own shallow strip
pling, Camberling, had torn limb from
limb that puny assailant and delivered him
over to universal derision. Well, that vet
eran stone-breaker attracted, of necessity,
Warren's admiration. But the Demosth.
enes ofparliamentary objurgation had, with
all his vigor and abundance of anomalies
and Davis inveterate waggery found de-
lieht-though he loved the fierce old FEEDER
aiist-in drawing them out. For this pur-
pose-being far too knowing to bring down
threshing upon himself, by any direct at
tack--he resorted to all sorts of amusing
stratagems The psrferuidHm tngenium--
the exhuberant mind is apty in its ear.
lier efforts, to give into the fault of hyper
rhetorical style; as rich soils, until turned
by culture. breed more weeds than CORN
Thus Wirt's youthful compositions (see hi'
British Spy, and his Life Of Patrick Henry,)
were foil of the dulcia vita of direction
while nothing could be manlier, ofa more
inorante and vigorous elegance that the
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William Pinkney was long hyperbolical
Everett, Channing,and even Webster, ,tiorid'
Who knows but Bancroft may cease, some
day or other, to be so! There was never q
great actor who did not begin by mouthing
it muchas Forrest will do'to the end OF hi'
life; to sbe poet, one must have begun by
being insane, to grow an orator, one mus
set out with being bombaStic. Indulge your
genius, then, yeyoung rahpsodist! 10 scale
the submits of eloquence, ye must pass ovel
the heights Of rant. True, vast majority
will stop at these, like roaring Allen of Ohio
or fool-hero Houston, and think themselves
atopt; but no matter; that's the road but moi
the place. If you can ever get beyond the
ridiculous, you'll reach the sublime; they
live next door to each other, as John Tylel
and Harry Clay did, in Washington. In
truth, not only is Rant the great highway tc
Acting, to Poesy, and to Oratory, but tt
Civil Liberty and to National Grandeur =
We are making our way to the one, we are
confirming the other, by rhodomontade.--
Our Freedomis system ofraving, our For
eign Policy of rumfustian. And, as in tht
other matters, SO in these; If we ever ge
ever the rantng, we shall reach the Free
dom and the Greatness.
Well, like others, Tristem Burgess had
in his youth, given in to such fustian haran
CUES as make the delight Of Fourth of Jul.
celebrations. There was in particular,
flaming Address of his, which sored to tn
empyrean ofrapturous eloquence, and wa
like John QuincyAdam's "Lectures on Rhe
toric," an admirable example and compen
of all the fault in that Art. Of course,
met the taste of day which was enrapturc
with the extravagances of Curran, and eve
the turgid freshness of his poor imitatol
Phillips, accordingly, it had conspicuou
place in "Columbian Orators" "America
Speakers" and such like school selection:
) where, to teach the young idea of eloquenc
its brightest gems are strung togeather.-
In some such obsolete repository of i'll taste
where, perhaps, the divine dscourses c
Miton's internal council-chamber wer
jumbled with the rigomrole Of school boys
the mischievous Warren recollected Iris
TENS high-aown strain. Nay, it may b
that he had once declaimed it himself to a
admiring audience. At any rate, the ra:
cal had it by heart. So he would ,interregr
um of debate, ,go around to Mr.. Burgess sea-
and planting himselfin BETTING attitude
begin: "Guded by reason, man has traver:
ed the illimitable fields Of space; has sore
in the eccentric track of the flaming come
and dived to the dark recesses of the deep
has scaled the snowy submits of fChimbora
20, plunged through the mine far into tn
mysterious laboratory of her most recon
dite operations"
imagine how the imhamable Tristen
now grown the most impatient man alive
all balderdash, would chafe at this resusc
!. tation Of his own flummery. He would,
course, fall into passion, such as compel
ed his tormentors to take to fiight;but it WI
only to return to the charge and renew tn
teazng, in some other form. For instanc
he, would, in order to have double victim
/, pitch upon some greenhorn srepresentatV
. of Southern or Western prejudice again
Burgess, dilute to him ON the ungenerou
ness, ofsuch local or party antipathies, Ell
large upon the real merits of the formidt
BILE Rhode Islander, and thus lead on h
man to request an introduction to that n
markable parsonage. As they went ulon
for that purpose Davis would say to b
portege, "By the bye, it will be as well fu
you to lay hold, at once, on Mr.. Burgess
good will, by letting it seem that you hav
studied and admired his discourses. Now
, there is one of them,a "a youthful performanc,
which is his particular pride, and very justl
80; for it is SPLENDID piece of philosophit
al eloquence, hardly exceeded by any i
Lord Bacon. 1t begins: 'sGuided by reason
! man has traversed the illmitable fields G
space" The neophyte would, Of course
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