The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-01-15
A PEERLESS ORATOR.

B. T. Underwood has contributed to one
of the magazines an article on Wendell
Phillips, the famous anti-slavery orator
and agitator. The article Of Mr.. Under
wood Is very complimentary and able
estimate of the great powers and noble
character of Mr.. Phillips, but We suspect
Mr.. Underwood never heard Mr. Phillips
speak in his best days, from 1852 TO
1861, when he was not only mastery
in the use of argument, invective
and illustration, but was an orator
of impassioned, poetic eloquence. The
writer once heard Phillips deliver his
magnificent Grafton on Daniel O'Connell,
the great Irish Liherator, to an audience
of 5000 persons in the Brooklyn Academy
of Music. The audience was composed
chiefly of persons of Irish birth or blood.
When he came TO describe the terrible
condition of Ireland in 1898, so powerful
and impressive was his eloquence that
when he paused for moment you could
hear one vast sigh rise out OF the audi
ence; il was like the soughing of the wind
through a mighty forest; a signing audi
ence OF Irish people who knew by history,
by family tradition, how truthful was the
great orators picture of the tears and ter
rors of 1873. Blu. the great orator was not
through with them. He put his hand
again on their hearts when in an exGuis-
itely pathetic. melodious voice, he said:
1.-THE saddest of Irelands poets has thus
described her:
oh. Ireland. NY country the hour of thy pride
aud thy spendor hath passed,
The chaia that was spurned in thy moments OF
power, hangs heavy around thee at last;
There are marks IN the fate OF each cline, there
are turns in the fortunes OF men,
But the changes OF realms snd the chances Of
time shall never restore thee again.
Thou art chained TO the wheel of the foe by
links which "a word cannot sever;
With thy tyrant through storm and through
cloud ;Aou shall so. and thy sentence is
bondage forever:
Thou art doomed for the thsnkless 10 toll. thou
~; let for tho proud to disds!n;
The blood ot thy Sons and tie wealth oithy soil
shall be IEvished aud lsvtshed In vain.
Thy riches with taunts shall bs taken, thy valor
with eoldusss BE- paid,
And OF millions Who see thee thus sunk and for-
saken, mot one shall 30 forth in thy aid.
In the nations thy place is lefs void; thou art
lost IN The list of the free;
Evsn realms by the plague aud the earthquake
destroyed
NAV revive, bat 40 hope IS FOR thee.
While the great orator with heautitu,
meditation recited these lines YOU could
have heard pin drop, and when he closed
many "a eye in the audience elistened
with the melancholy light OF tears, so
wonderful was this mans touch on the
kew. Of the human heart The rough and
the cultivated. all melted az the pa
thetic strains Of that yioloncelo voice,
which for the moment seemed 10 give
back the pathetic note Of the Irish harper,
plavlng ont Of the woe and darkness Of
Tara's desolate halls coronach over the
death Of the liberties Of his country: or
a Highland piper playing "Lochaber No
More" the farewell of the dying Cameron
n his clan. The writer never before or
since saw that scene equaled Of the power
Of one man 10 seize and sway the sensi-
biliiies Of all
The eloquencs of Phillips was that Of a
great artist. able 10 set his great sni vari-
GUS heart 70 the music Of tender flute or
trumpet last at will. The cause OF Phil
lips was slwsys what seemed 10 him the
cause Of the people, robbed or defrauded
OF tAsig rights the weird over. As spoke