sources of England, followed by an
enumeration of her colonies and military stations, all going to prove
the enormous strength of the nation against which the United American
colonies raised their improvised flag. But the thought which had
heretofore occurred to him at Quebec happily recurred to his mind the
moment it was needed; and he flashed on the imagination an image of
British power which no statistics could have conveyed to the
understanding,--"a Power," he said, "which has dotted over the surface
of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose
morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the
hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the
martial airs of England." Perhaps a mere rhetorician might consider
superfluous the word "whole," as applied to "globe," and "unbroken," as
following "continuous"; yet they really add to the force and majesty of
the expression. It is curious that, in Great Britain, this magnificent
impersonation of the power of England is so little known. It is certain
that it is unrivalled in British patriotic oratory. Not Chatham, not
even Burke, ever approached it in the noblest passages in which they
celebrated the greatness and glory of their country. Webster, it is to
be noted, introduced it in his speech, not for the purpose of exalting
England, but of exalting our Revolutionary forefathers, whose victory,
after a seven years' war of terrible severity, waged in vindication of a
principle, was made all the more glorious from having been won over an
adversary so formidable and so vast.

It is reported that, at the conclusion of this speech on the President's
Protest, John Sergeant, of Philadelphia, came up to the orator, and,
after cordially shaking hands with him, eagerly asked, "Where, Webster,
did you get that idea of the morning drum-beat?" Like other public men,
accustomed to address legislative assemblies, he was naturally desirous
of knowing the place, if place there was, where such images and
illustrations were to be found. The truth was that, if Webster had ever
read Goethe's Faust,--which he of course never had done,--he might have
referred his old friend to that passage where Faust, gazing at the
setting sun, aches to follow it in its course for ever. "See," he
exclaims, "how the green-girt cottages shimmer in the setting sun. He
bends and sinks,--the day is outlived. Yonder he hurries off, and
quickens other life. Oh,