Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-11-22
SEWARD AND WEBB.
Their Appetites and Refine
ments.

A Washington letter-writer to an Ohio
paper says Seward is a Injurious charae-
ter. If he travels anywhere he wants
whole ship. He buys seven millions
worth of manifest destiny for a morn
ing's shopping, aud gives Clarence or
any old "ehum" q messengershIp, to
England, or Turkey, or India, if they
wish to go over to the Bal MabiLte.
Nothing short Of a locomotive and a
drawing car will keep dignity with his
silver ticket. At the government print
ing Office he has staff of sworn print
ers who set up his diplomatic copy and
spare his eyes the pains of reading
manuscript. A prince Of the blood is
he. Marshal Murry sees that he gets
the real 0porto vintage, and that his
Burgundy has come straight from the
vaults at Besuve or Dion. Here he
finds favor and cheerfulness for all
those Mark Tapley speeches and dis
patches, which used to assure us that we
were happy and that he would look out
for US. Certainty no man in the govern
ment has a softer thing than Mr. Sew
ard, and I often think, with admiration,
when Payne OF Powell stabbed the Sec
retary, how admirable were his tactics
in dropping off the bed, rolling undeI1
it, and curling himself up like a raecoon
or hedgehog. In playing possum, he
is a genius. With broken jaw, he yet
continued to use his quill, and We have
never heard a moan out of him from
that day to this. johnson tried to rope
in Stewards dislOeated jaw, on his
Douglas trip, as a political argument,
but the Secretary talked so much that
the people saw it would get well before
he we're twice married Personally, Mr..
Seward makes no reference to the escape
from assassination. He says that Payne
was an unmannerly fellow, but he asked
that the latter's life be spared for Sew
ard would have wished to give the fellow
good dinner, warm him up with pint
Of Asst and philosophize with him upon
the idiosyncracy Of breaking a great
statesman's Uranium. The egotsim Of
Seward Is delightful. He can show you
his finger prints in every monument of the
State. Get him down to a good, square
talk about himself, and he will magnify
himself, by his misty generalizatiOns,
like windmill in fog. Altogether, he
Is Epicurus come again. Only tender
partridges disappear from his plate
There Is a poem Of Tennyson which is a
very little like him, referring, l believe,
to man who said the earth was beau
tiful, and with lack-luster, dead blue
eye revolved his rounded periods"
GENERAL JAMES WATSON WEBB.
One of Stewards oldest friends, a
gentleman singuIarly ike him in appetite
and refinement, is James Watson Webb,
Stewards Minister to Brazil. He IS the
bravest piece of modern chivalry that
ever lived out of a slave State. Fight
ing aud writing are equally agreeable to
him. He was shot in the knee by 7. f.
Marshall, at Wilmington, Delaware, in
the month of June, 1912, and It being
contrary to the laws Of New York to
send or accept a challenge, Webb was
committed to prison for two years.
Mr.. Seward was at the time Governor,
and he had expressed himself strongly
against dueling and in favor Of punish
ing It's abettors but Webb had been his
oracle. He went back on the principle,
and pardoned the General forthwith, for
which he laid himself open to great
censure.
Webb was the original challenger of
poor Cilley, whom Graves afterward
killed at Marlboro, near this city, and
while Cilley, was standing up against
destiny, Webb and his posse we're hunt
ing him up with rifles to force him to Try
another shot with a fresh man.
Beyond this bad episode and good
deal of Characteristic wrangling street
fighting, etc, Webb is a splendid piece
Of Quixotism. He mashed the head Of
James G.. Bennett most dreadfully once,
| following him into a brokers' shop
where Bennett fell on his knees and beg
ged to be spared. The General eaned him
with dignifed equanimity and apollo
gized with the toe of his boot. Mr.
! Bennett, who is the most enterprising
reporter in either hemisphere, stopped
on the way to a pump, to write descrip-
ton of the outrage, and 1t was an episode
in the early history of the Herald, as
everybody who wanted to" lick" Bennett
bought a copy, and this Immediately
trebled the circulation.
General Webb, being a high liver, has
not probably accumulated great deal Of
money, but he is the most luxuriously
Ducai journalist that exists. At Rio
Janeiro, am told, he sets sumptuous
table, displays a hospitality that takes
your breath, lights such cigars as Mo
BANNED in heaven keeps for his private
smoking, and makes you feel as if you
were come to the alabaster lamps Of the
Prince Of Como, who gives away gold
snuff-boxes as if they were Confederate
money. And as a husband, General
Webb is married to sweet little lady,
and. though sexagenarian, his family
increases annually, and every princely
scion is more beautiful than the last.
As diplomatic is firm as a rock, con-
siders the army of the United States as
his private six shooter, and the navy
thereof as his dueking gun. King Pc
dro hears him come as Louis Xl heard
the iron-shod foot Of Nemours. In
person he is stately and pOrtly together,
horid and benignant of face, with beau
tifully luxuriant white hair, and in all
his impassibility of temperament you
recognize the type of character that
made Bayard and Duguesclin and Gas
ton de Faix, a man in mail, restive un-
Ger law, Wallenstein among authors,
without purse, but with sword and
head.
A sad story.