Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1855-06-20

THE CHARACTER OF CLAY's ELooUENcE
1t was our good fortune to hear the perora
tion Of Henry Clay's great speech on the Re.
moyal of the Deposits. He was Western
man, of this Western hemisphere kind OF
incarnation of American genius self-taught,
with little cultivation of any kind from books,
like one of the magnificent trees of his own
Kentucky, an out-growth OF nature If we had
not heard him, we feel quite sure that we
should haye gone TO the grave without the
knowledge Of tho amazing superiority of spo-
ken words over the silent eloquence of the
printed page. We never before knew the
meaning of the word orafory. But it was not at
! all like our imagination of it. There was not
a syllable of rant, there was not tone of
vociferation. Our readers, who never heard
Mr.. Clay, will hardly believe US when we say
that, in the very tempest, torrent, and whirl-
| wind of his passion, he spoke slO,cly, deliber-
otcly--eyery stone about the weight of talent.
tsWe will tell the reader of our fancy, not quite
sure that he will understand it; it put us in
mind Of the trained horses of Apollo, who
drew the chariot OF the Sun. The chariot was
OF the richest and most brilliant work kmanship,
the harness of divine fabric, and the steeds
were demi-gods. Their inconceivable strength
and velocity was perfectly even and musical
balance; they kept pace 10 an inch, and every
trace was of precisely the same traction, and
never overstrained. Mr.. Clay's tone, when it
sunk nearly to whisper, was as distinctly au-
dible as distant running water at midnight,
and his outpouring of denunciation was slow
and steady as the tread Of Nemesis. Every
syllable, we had almost said every letter was |
distinctly audible, and as musical as the fall of /
water in marble fountain: the very lightning |
that scathed to the bone, curled first beautiful
ly around his arm, like that of the Phidian |
JoYe, and was launched, not az by stealth, but |
with deliberation that that would exceed be-
lief. His language had, by the instinct of q |
wonderful genius, classic polish, which is
usually only learned by slow and sedulous cul-
tivation; there was indeed no richness of quo
tation allusion, no bubbiing UP from con
cealed fountains of learning, no faint colors of
the flowers long before plucked in the
haunts of the MUSES.; but instead, kind of
creative power, as of one who had interviewer
in his nature and essence, all that he could
have learned of the force of language if he had
studied, as of ono who had been to the pene-
tralla OF the temple, and did not need to hear
ken to its priests. The result was, of course,
not like Webster, or Burke, or Cicero, but it
cas like Chatham, and still more like the Ora
ion for the Crown, and the traditions we
nave Of Demosthenes.
Our conclusion IS, that if, in this greatest of
orators, consumate genius led not 10 wildness
'r eccentricity, not to dislocation or vocifera-
ion, not to anything rough or inelegant, but ,
-eiled glory, and sublinify which yet T5u III
t a noble simplicity, that we, who have not
lis wondrous gifts, must seek by cultivation +
that he possessed as his birth-right; and if he y
i'd not think ii well OF wise to throw himself 9
ut Of harmony with nature, or the great
nodels of art which, scarcely becoming in us
ave approximated nature most nearly, it is
o act differently. II the master kept within v
empered bounds might not this also be well 4
nth the scholar!