. This term is evidently a portion of a language wholly
differing from our own. It is at once a noun, adjective, and verb,
and, in the full flood of his eloquence, it changes from the one to
the other with astounding rapidity.

The extreme versatility of his genius renders it peculiarly difficult
to give any adequate idea of his oratory. He is equally bold in the
expression of his sentiments on any subject. Perhaps for convenience
in consideration we may roughly divide his oratory into wood-pile and
conversational eloquence.

Specimens of his genuine wood-pile eloquence, though by no means
uncommon, are yet not easily accessible to the biographical compiler.
Very few of his sayings have ever found their way into print, and when
thus presented they are of necessity shorn of much of their strength,
and deprived of the impressiveness which they derive from the orator's
gesticulation and delivery. We will, however, endeavor to present our
readers with a few, selected at random, from discourses on various
occasions and subjects.

It is morning. A group of students, just before going into recitation,
cluster around Bill in the hope of getting a speech from him. He
remains deaf to their entreaties till the bell sounds, when with
uplifted hand and glaring eye he thus addresses them, in a voice
audible for about half a mile.

"Go in and take your secretary, persecuting yourself with the
dandelions and robes of righteousness. All the life, all the music,
and the blood and electricity rolling over the mountains with the
elements of pietude spread all over the fundament. Ottah!! R-R-R-Rose
Ottah! Rack-a-tack."

As might be surmised from a perusal of this effort, his peroration is
rarely in keeping with the main portion of his oration. In fact, the
close of all his speeches may be said to be very similar, being
invariably "Ottah," or some variation of it.

Occasionally the exuberance of his genius leads him into the error of
crowding together metaphors to the detriment of perspicuity. When, for
example, he says:

"The waters of heaven descending on the breast-bones of the women; and
the youthful Moses, sitting on the back-bone of eternity, sucking the
pap of time," we feel that there is a redundancy in the expression.

Some specimens of his remarkable verbal and figurative power in
conversation are forcible in the extreme. It is said, with what truth
we know not, that on one occasion the venerable head of this
institution