ave assembled in the sight of the world to
do deserved honor to the name and memory of HENRY WINTER DAVIS, a native
of Annapolis, in the State of Maryland, but always proudly claiming to
be no less than a citizen of the United States of America.

We have not convened in obedience to any formal custom, requiring us to
assume an empty show of bereavement, in order that we may appear
respectful to the departed. We who knew HENRY WINTER DAVIS are not
content to clothe ourselves in the outward garb of grief, and call the
semblance of mourning a fitting tribute to the gifted orator and
statesman, so suddenly snatched from our midst in the full glory of his
mental and bodily strength. We would do more than "bear about the
mockery of woe." Prompted by a genuine affection, we desire to ignore
all idle and merely conventional ceremonies, and permit our stricken
hearts to speak their spontaneous sorrow.

Here, then, where he sat for eight years as a Representative of the
people; where friends have trooped about him, and admiring crowds have
paid homage to his genius; where grave legislators have yielded
themselves willing captives to his eloquence, and his wise counsel has
moulded, in no small degree, the law of a great nation, let us, in
dealing with what he has left us, verify the saying of Bacon, "Death
openeth the good fame and extinguished envy." Remembering that he was a
man of like passions and equally fallible with ourselves, let us review
his life in a spirit of generous candor, applaud what is good, and try
to profit by it; and if we find aught of ill, let us, so far as justice
and truth will permit, cover it with the vail of charity and bury it out
of sight forever. So may our survivors do for us.

The subject of this address was born on the 16th of August, 1817.

His father, Rev. Henry Lyon Davis, of the Protestant Episcopal church,
was president of St. John's College at Annapolis, Maryland, and rector
of St. Ann's parish. He was of imposing person, and great dignity and
force of character. He was, moreover, a man of genius, and of varied and
profound learning, eminently versed in mathematics and natural sciences,
abounding in classical lore, endowed with a vast memory, and gifted with
a concise, clear, and graceful style; rich and fluent in conversation,
but without the least pretension to oratory and wholly incapable of
_extempore_ speaking. He was removed from the presidency of St. John's
by a board of democratic