The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-08-10

From Wendell Phillips Lecturer
O'COnneII'S ElO0uence.

do not think should eXaggerate if l said
that God, since he made Demosthenes, never
made man so fit for the great work as he did
O'Connell. You may think am partial to my
hero, very naturally. But John Randolph of
Roanoke, who hated an Irishman almost as
much as he did Yankee,-when he got to
London and heard O'Connell, the old slave.
holder held up his hands and said: ''This
is the man-those are the lips, the most elo.
quent that speak English in my day." And
think he was right. Webster could address
bench of Judges; Everett could charm co.,
lege; Choate could delude jury; Clay could
magnetic a senate; Tom Corwn could hold
the mob in his right hand; but no one of them
could do more than that one thing. The won
der of OCOnnell was, that he could out talk
Corwin; he could charm college better than
Everett; delude jury better than Choate, and
leave Clay himself far behind in magnetizing
senate. have heard all the grand and ma
jestic orators of America, who are singularly
famed OF the worlds circumference. 1 know
what was the majesty of Webster; 1 know
what it was to melt under the magnetism of
Henry Clay; have seen eloquence in the iron
logic of Calhoun; but all three together never
surpassed. and no one of them ever equaled,
the great Irishman. In the first place he had
what is half the power with popular orator
he had majestic presence. God put that
royal soul into body as royal He had, in
early youth. the brow Of Jove or Jupiter, and
the stature of Apollo; a little O'Connell would
have been no O. Cornell at ALL Sydney Smith
said of Lord John Russell's five feet, when he
went down to Yorkshire, after the reform bill
had been carried, the stalwart hunters of York.
shire said: ''That little shrimp! What he
carry the reform bill?" ''No, no." said sgd
of the bill SHRINK him." Do you remember
the story of Webster that Russell Lowell tells,
when we, in Mass achusetts, were about to
break up the Wing party? Webster came
home to Faneuil hall to protest; and four
thousand Wings went to meet him. He lifted
up that majestic presence before the sea of
human faces, his brow charged with thunder,
and he said: 81 am Whig-a Massachusetts
Whig-a revolutionary Whig-a constitutional
Whig-a Faneui! hall Wing. And, if you
And Russell Lowell says: "We held our
breaths. thinking where he could 60. But if
he had been five feet fve," said Lowell, ''we
would have said: "'Well, hang it, who cares
where you go?" Well, O'Connell had all
that Then he had, what Webster never had,
ard what Clay had, the magnetism and grace
that melts million souls into his. When L
saw him he was 66-lithe as boy; his every
attitude was beauty; every gesture was grace.
Macready or Booth never equaled him. Why,
him, if he bad not spoken at all: and all you
thought OF was greyhound. Then he had
what SO few American speakers have-a voice
that sounded the gamut. 1 heard him once in
Exeter hall say: Americans, send my voice
careeriDg, like the thunder storm, across the
Atlantic, to tell South Carolina that Gods
thunderbolts are hot, and to remind the negro
that the dawn of their redemption is break
ing" And seemed to hear the answer come
re-echoing back to London from the Rocky
mountains. And then, with the slightest pos
sible flavor of an Irish brogue, he would tell
story that would make all Exeter hall laugh
And, the next moment, tears were in his voice,
like an old song, and five thousand men would
be in tears. And he never made an effort
You would 90 out of this hall, after hearing
Mr.. Sumner, or any orator. and you would say,
"What a magnificent effortr' Well, no man
would never use the word effort with O'Con-
nell. L heard him twenty times, and L never
saw him more than three times at the full
sweep of his power. You would get provoked
that he did not, and you would say: "Oh
what magnificent creature he would be if he
would only but tryp' But he would not
"try"