their Western homes. Then, too, came his marvelous bursts of eloquence as he re counted the heroic deeds of his auditors. The entire speech is accessible in printed report, and no volume devoted to elegant extracts from American oratory would be complete without including it. The sen tences of peroration that I now subjoin further display his unfailing beauty of dic tion and gems of expression : " Gallant gentlemen, you now leave us for your respec tive homes, where fond and grateful hearts await you. Everywhere you will have to run the gauntlet of friendship and affection. Bonfires are kindling upon an hundred hills. In every grove and pleasant arbor the feast is being spread. Thousands of sparkling eyes are watching eagerly for your return. Tears will fill them when they seek in vain among your thinned ranks for many a loved and familiar face; yet soon through those tears will shine smiles of joy and of wel come; even as the rays of the morning sun glitter through the dew drops which the sad Night hath wept." Unfortunately, eloquence at nisi prim or before the learned Bench is seldom pre served in print, and in the era of the Law illustrated by Sergeant Prentiss, stenography was in its weak infancy; wherefore, except in the wonderful address of Prentiss that snatched Judge Wilkinson from the scaffold, no report of his Bar eloquence exists; and exemplars of his eloquence are to be drawn from elsewhere. Yet, however grandly the sentences of his efforts in court might have marshaled each other in print, these must lack for their full effect the Prentiss manner; his high, smooth or corruscated forehead, his slight yet effective lisp, succeeded by sonorous utter ance; his kindling eyes; his facial gestures; his dauntless glance of intellectual prowess, and his torrent fluency of speech, that was not only far beyond the common average, but to an extent rarely witnessed in the most distinguished speakers of England or
of this country, or of even voluble France. But never a fluency that obscured or inter fered with his meaning. A fluency so swiftly obedient, that each word answered the gentle summons of thought; and that fell into place, so. orderly and gracefully that whole sentences seemed to present them selves as so-many-syllabled words ready formed to his mind. It is recorded that a friend once said to him : " You always mesmerize me when you speak"; and that he answered, "Then it is an affair of reciprocity, for auditors electrify me. I feel a preternatural rapture, new thoughts rush unbidden into my mind. I am as much astonished in my duality of brain at my own conceptions as any of my hearers; and when the excitement is over I could no more reproduce them than I could make a world." There may be living in Boston veteran citizens who can recall the flavor of his oratory from a notable speech that he once made in Faneuil Hall; where, he afterwards said, the place seemed to inspire him. I should sum up my estimate of his ora tory by averring that his eloquent power was due to greatness of emotion, accom panied by a versatility which enabled him to assume readily any passion suited to his ends; added to which was perfection of the organs of expression, including the entire apparatus of voice, intonation, pause, ges ture, attitude and play of countenance. Early in 1850 his incessant professional work brought on feebleness and prostration, so that he could not eat or sleep except with difficulty; yet he kept at work. One case occupied him nearly three weeks', ex posing him to the worst kind of winter weather. After toiling by day he would pass the night in pain and in fainting. Be ing a novice in illness, as is often the case with men of strong will and hitherto robust constitutions, he found it hard to submit to rules of prudence or to medical prescrip tions. But while the body weakened, the
