et, I say, what a strange feeling, to find himself Chief Governor
of England; girding on, upon his moderately sized new soul, the old
battle-harness of an Oliver Cromwell, an Edward Longshanks, a William
Conqueror. "I, then, am the Ablest of English attainable Men? This
English People, which has spread itself over all lands and seas, and
achieved such works in the ages,--which has done America, India, the
Lancashire Cotton-trade, Bromwicham Iron-trade, Newton's Principia,
Shakspeare's Dramas, and the British Constitution,--the apex of all its
intelligences and mighty instincts and dumb longings: it is I? William
Conqueror's big gifts, and Edward's and Elizabeth's; Oliver's lightning
soul, noble as Sinai and the thunders of the Lord: these are mine, I
begin to perceive,--to a certain extent. These heroisms have I,--though
rather shy of exhibiting them. These; and something withal of the
huge beaver-faculty of our Arkwrights, Brindleys; touches too of
the phoenix-melodies and _sunny_ heroisms of our Shakspeares, of
our Singers, Sages and inspired Thinkers all this is in me, I will
hope,--though rather shy of exhibiting it on common occasions. The
Pattern Englishman, raised by solemn acclamation upon the bucklers of
the English People, and saluted with universal 'God save THEE!'--has
now the honor to announce himself. After fifteen hundred years of
constitutional study as to methods of raising on the bucklers, which
is the operation of operations, the English People, surely pretty well
skilled in it by this time, has raised--the remarkable individual now
addressing you. The best-combined sample of whatsoever divine qualities
are in this big People, the consummate flower of all that they have done
and been, the ultimate product of the Destinies, and English man of men,
arrived at last in the fulness of time, is--who think you? Ye worlds,
the Ithuriel javelin by which, with all these heroisms and accumulated
energies old and new, the English People means to smite and pierce, is
this poor tailor's-bodkin, hardly adequate to bore an eylet-hole, who
now has the honor to"--Good Heavens, if it were not that men generally
are very much of the canary-bird, here, are reflections sufficient to
annihilate any man, almost before starting!

But to us also it ought to be a very strange reflection! This, then,
is the length we have brought it to, with our constitutioning, and
ballot-boxing, and incessant talk and effort in every kind for s