yourself or to
others; and the rule of the successful student is to gather information
from whatever source he may, not doubting that it will prove useful to
himself or to his fellow-men.

Our own age has furnished two men,--one living, the other dead,--quite
opposite in talents and attainments, whose power and influence may not
have been surpassed in ancient or modern times. I speak of Kossuth and
Webster. Our history has no parallel for the first. Most men, young or
old, gay or severe, radical or conservative, were touched by his
mournful strains, and influenced by his magic words. He came from a land
of which we knew little, and so laid open the history of its wrongs that
he enlisted multitudes in its behalf. I speak not now of the views he
presented, nor of the demands he made upon the American people. If he
taught error and asked wrong, so the more wonderful was his career. No
doubt his cause did much for him; but other patriots and exiles have
had equal opportunities with Kossuth, yet no one has so swayed the
public mind.

He was distinguished in intellect, a master of much learning, a man of
nice moral feeling and strong religious sentiments, all of which were
combined and blended in his addresses to the people. But he spoke a
language whose rudiments he first learned in manhood. In his speech he
neglected the chief rule of Grecian eloquence. With one theme,
only,--the wrongs of Hungary; with one object, only,--her relief and
elevation,--he commanded the general attention of the American mind. The
mission of Kossuth in America deserves to be remembered as an
intellectual phenomenon, whose like, we of this generation may not again
see.

Mr. Webster had never great personal popularity. His presence was
majestic, but forbidding. His manners were agreeable, and sometimes
fascinating to his friends, when he was in a genial mood; but he was
often reserved or even austere to strangers, and terrible to his
enemies. His style of thought was mathematical, his language expressive,
but never popular. He wrote as a man would dictate an essay which was to
appear as a posthumous work. His eloquence was not that which often
passes for eloquence upon the stump or at the bar. He seldom attempted
to court the people, and when he did, it was as if he mocked himself,
and scorned the spirit which could be moved by the breezes of popular
favor. He was not free from faults, personal and political; yet he
acquired a control which has