Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1866-02-05
PERSONAL "REMINISCENCES OF
THOMAS EWING,
ANECDOTES OF WEBSTER, CLAY
AND PRESIDENT TAYLOR.


AND PRESIDENT TAYLOR.
The following personal sketches of
Webster, Clay and Taylor, the Wing
leaders and luminaries of twenty and
thirty years age, are rendered Of peculiar
interest by the fact that their author is the
venerable Thomas Ewing, the Nestor of
Ohio statesmen, who occupied a seat in
the Senate with Webster and Clay, be-
came a member of President Taylor's
Cabinet, and was for many years the po-
litical associate and intimate personal
friend of all these distinguished leaders.
The manuscripts were forwarded by Mr..
Ewing as contributions to the Sanitary
Fair, held here in the spring of 1854, but
were mislaid at that time, and have never,
until now, been published:
DANIEL WEBSTER
Mr.. Webster's speech in reply to
Hayne exhibits the mental photograph
Of the man most perfectly. 1t was
delivered Just before l knew him, but
after I became familiar with his manner l
could see him in any and every part of it,
as perfectly as if I had been actually pres
ent. I thought and still think it the
mightiest effort Of parliamentary or loren
sic eloquence found in Neutrality-suspicious.
to Demosthenes' plea for the crown,
Cicero against Verres, or Fox on the
Westminster election.
He was perfectly familiar with the
British classics, from Spenser to Sheridan
inclusive, and with the Latin of the
Augustan age. But he knew little OF
Latin prosody. ! sat Immediately behind
him in the Senate. One day Mr.. Forsyth
was declaiming on that n~ever-endIng
theme, the Tariff, when Mr.. Webster
wrote upon a piece Of paper and handed
back to me a Latin line, saying:
al have half q mind to quote this on
Forsyth"
1t struck me Al wrong, but knowing
less perhaps of prosody than himself, ]
could not tell why. / replied:
sit is nearly Virgil, but / think not
quite"
He said We will soon see" and, beck
oning to him Mr.. Everett, who was lean
ing against a column neal the Presidents
seat, Mr.. Webster handed to him the
paper, and said: ais that Virgil ?"
He took up a pen, struck out a word of
one syllable, interlined the same word in
another place, and handed it back, saying:
"Now it is" The line was from the
Fourth Book of Eneid:
"Exoriars allquis nostriS ex osSfbus utter"
He had misplaced the tex"
One of his quotations l thought unsur-
passed for force and brevity. He was dis
cussing General Jackson's proposition to
reject all bank repositories and take
charge of the public funds himself. ut
was the age of banks, though banks some
times broke: it was the age Of steamboats,,
though steamboats, sometimes blew up.
But what community or people would go
back to private depository? who that go
upon seas or rivers would reject the steam
boat and adopt the old scoWf" This was
the general course of thought cannot
recall his language. He then referred, as
the representative boat and boatmen We
were about to initiate, to the ancient fer
ryman Char n and his outfit: "Ipse re-
tenn eonto su6ioit.n It did not, however,
make an impression according to its
merit.
I was in New York city with him, 1
do not remember the year, but viii he
wa a widower. On n Of our rides he
told mi a pleasant story of a gentleman a
little past the middle line of life, who
asked in marriage q blooming girl just
touching womanhood. The point of the
story was answered by the father refusing
his request. 1 had heard it told of Web
ster himself, and 1 replied in part of a
line of Horace, which 1 chanasd to re-
member: "Ds to h0c fa6uta norratur."
He made the line complete by adding
the first words in a tone of interrogation
" Mutato nomine >" "No" I said, " with
your own proper name" He received it
very pleasantly, and 1 thought the per-
sonal application the true one.
Wa dinad, with Chancellor Kent and
his hne Yankee wife, ut rtprese-t~ti,O Vf
the Roman matron, if that were indeed
praise beyond what she in fact was. 1
think it was in the fftieth year of their
marriage. Chancellor Jones and Judge
Kent the younger made up the party. The
winter previous, in discussing Postofice
frauds, I referred to what had occurred in
8 former sesEion-I not a member, but
" q locker on here in Vienna" The quo
tation was ~hackneyed "past all use, but
always quoted wrong"-Venice. Young
Kentsaid it had been great deal discussed
ed in their social circles he was conf
dent 1 had it right, but could not find it.
Mr.. Webster Immediately replied "Meas-
ure for Measure. Vincentio, in the Fifth
Act" and gave a few lines Of the context.
The old Chancellor sprung to his feet and
ran across the room like a pleased boy, de-
with Webster's reading. The play
is seldom or never represented on the
stage, and therefore little known in fashion
able circles.
The last time I met him, before some
as tonational policy cast a shade
of unkindness between US, was in the
Supreme Court. I was then attending to
my causes; he in the Senate, but waiting
the coming on Of s0me very important
l met him every morning about
for near a month. The Senate sat
twelve, and we walked behind the
Judges seats and were social. One day I
detained at home. The next morning
met at the usual hour, and as we shook
hands, he said: zone morn I missed
This was kindly and handsome,
md when I read that on his death-bed he
lsked for "Gray's Elegy" the scene rushed
Ipon my memory with a force that almost
unnamed me. How often, morning,
loon and evening, have I since missed
him.
HENRY CLAY.
Mr.. Clay, with all his terrible power of
len~unciation, was in ordinary debate
and playful. When dealing
With an ordinary adversary he often re-
me Of the lines in Millions de-
of Eden before the fall
"sportive the Lion ramped, and in bis paw
banded the kid"
On one occasion, the year I do not re-
member, but it was the first time the
Wings carried an election in the city of
New York, l found him early in his seat
With a newspaper in his hand. As soon
5 the journal was read he rose, quite out D.,
f order-announced TO the President
Mr.. Van Buren, the Wing victory, spoke
f their noble efforts in the cause of their
ountry, and of their brilliant success.
Your own fellow-citiEens, Mr.. President T
the proud capital of your noble State q
made its voice heard in our halls, in :.
efence of the Constitution of our country. !