periods of repose to those of action
until, in his later years, a direct stimulus was needed to make him exert
himself. Even to the last the mighty power was still there in undiminished
strength, but it was not willingly put forth. Sometimes the outside impulse
would not come; sometimes the most trivial incident would suffice, and like
a spark on the train of gunpowder would bring a sudden burst of eloquence,
electrifying all who listened. On one occasion he was arguing a case to the
jury. He was talking in his heaviest and most ponderous fashion, and with
half-closed eyes. The court and the jurymen were nearly asleep as Mr.
Webster argued on, stating the law quite wrongly to his nodding listeners.
The counsel on the other side interrupted him and called the attention of
the court to Mr. Webster's presentation of the law. The judge, thus
awakened, explained to the jury that the law was not as Mr. Webster stated
it. While this colloquy was in progress Mr. Webster roused up, pushed back
his thick hair, shook himself, and glanced about him with the look of a
caged lion. When the judge paused, he turned again to the jury, his eyes no
longer half shut but wide open and glowing with excitement. Raising his
voice, he said, in tones which made every one start: "If my client could
recover under the law as I stated it, how much more is he entitled to
recover under the law as laid down by the court;" and then, the jury now
being thoroughly awake, he poured forth a flood of eloquent argument and
won his case. In his latter days Mr. Webster made many careless and dull
speeches and carried them through by the power of his look and manner, but
the time never came when, if fairly aroused, he failed to sway the hearts
and understandings of men by a grand and splendid eloquence. The lion slept
very often, but it never became safe to rouse him from his slumber.

It was soon after the reply to Hayne that Mr. Webster made his great
argument for the government in the White murder case. One other address to
a jury in the Goodridge case, and the defence of Judge Prescott before the
Massachusetts Senate, which is of similar character, have been preserved to
us. The speech for Prescott is a strong, dignified appeal to the sober, and
yet sympathetic, judgment of his hearers, but wholly free from any attempt
to confuse or mislead, or to sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. Under
the circumstances, which were very adverse to his client, the argume