s necessary to
forming a correct idea of Mr. Webster's eloquence, of its characteristics
and its value. The Attic school of oratory subordinated form to thought to
avoid the misuse of ornament, and triumphed over the more florid practice
of the so-called "Asiatics." Rome gave the palm to Atticism, and modern
oratory has gone still farther in the same direction, until its predominant
quality has become that of making sustained appeals to the understanding.
Logical vigilance and long chains of reasoning, avoided by the ancients,
are the essentials of our modern oratory. Many able men have achieved
success under these conditions as forcible and convincing speakers. But the
grand eloquence of modern times is distinguished by the bursts of feeling,
of imagery or of invective, joined with convincing argument. This
combination is rare, and whenever we find a man who possesses it we may be
sure that, in greater or less degree, he is one of the great masters of
eloquence as we understand it. The names of those who in debate or to a
jury have been in every-day practice strong and effective speakers, and
also have thrilled and shaken large masses of men, readily occur to us. To
this class belong Chatham and Burke, Fox, Sheridan and Erskine, Mirabeau
and Vergniaud, Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster.

Mr. Webster was of course essentially modern in his oratory. He relied
chiefly on the sustained appeal to the understanding, and he was a
conspicuous example of the prophetic character which Christianity, and
Protestantism especially, has given to modern eloquence. At the same time
Mr. Webster was in some respects more classical, and resembled more closely
the models of antiquity, than any of those who have been mentioned as
belonging to the same high class. He was wont to pour forth the copious
stream of plain, intelligible observations, and indulge in the varied
appeals to feeling, memory, and interest, which Lord Brougham sets down as
characteristic of ancient oratory. It has been said that while Demosthenes
was a sculptor, Burke was a painter. Mr. Webster was distinctly more of the
former than the latter. He rarely amplified or developed an image or a
description, and in this he followed the Greek rather than the Englishman.
Dr. Francis Lieber wrote: "To test Webster's oratory, which has ever been
very attractive to me, I read a portion of my favorite speeches of
Demosthenes, and then read, always aloud, parts of Webster; then returne