3.

"Greeley sent for me some weeks before the convention and pressed me
with such vigour to take a position upon the State ticket that I
finally consented. He then secured from practically the whole State an
endorsement of the suggestion on my behalf. On the morning of the
convention he suddenly decided that some one connected with the army
must be chosen and sent around an order for a change of programme just
before the roll was called. It was the most fortunate thing that could
have happened to me, but created widespread distrust of his qualities
as a leader."--Speech of Chauncey M. Depew, April 4, 1902. _Addresses
of_, November, 1896, to April, 1902, pp. 238-239.]

Depew, then a young man of twenty-nine, gave promise of his subsequent
brilliant career. He lived a neighbour to Horace Greeley, whom he
greatly admired, and to whom he tactfully spoke the honeyed words,
always so agreeable to the _Tribune's_ editor.[913] Perhaps no one in
the State possessed a more pleasing personality. He made other people
as happy as he was himself. To this charm of manner were added a
singularly attractive presence, a pleasing voice, and the oratorical
gifts that won him recognition even before he left Yale College. From
the first he exhibited a marked capacity for public life. He had an
unfailing readiness, a wide knowledge of affairs, a keen sense of the
ridiculous, and a flow of clear and easy language which never failed
to give full and precise expression to all that was in his mind. He
rarely provoked enmities, preferring light banter to severe invective
or unsparing ridicule. Among his associates he was the prince of
raconteurs. In conventions few men were heard with keener interest,
and every Republican recognised the fact that a new force had come
into the councils of the party. There never was a time when people
regarded him as "a coming man," for he took a leading place at once.
In 1861, three years after his admission to the bar, the Peekskill
voters sent him to the Assembly, and the next year his colleagues
selected him for speaker, an honour which he generously relinquished
that his party might elect a United States senator. Now, within the
same year, he found a place at the head of the ticket, which he led
during the campaign with marked ability.[914]

[Footnote 913: "So far as politics were concerned, Greeley's
affections seemed to be lavished on politicians who flattered and
coddled him. Of this the rise of Governor