was not large. That tribunal did not com mand the unexampled reputation and influ ence which it afterwards attained under Mr. Chief Justice Marshall. Mr. Ellsworth's ser vice was too short to enable him to make any impression upon judicial policy. He did what he had to do with his might. His puri tanical austerity was lightened by a playful
humor, which brightened a life and character that were, otherwise singularly sombre. There must have been something more in his personality, however, than has survived the years. If there had not been, he could not have held his high place among the men of his time. Yet in no sense of the word was he great.
WEBSTER AS AN ORATOR. BY SAMUEL W. McCALL. From ait address delivered at the Webster Centennial Celebration at Dartmouth College, September 25, rcor.
WHAT is the relative position of Web ster among the great orators of the world? All judges would not agree upon his exact place, although, all would doubtless place him very high among them. The two great orators of ancient times must, I think, be left out of the account. There is little more common ground for a comparison be tween Webster and Demosthenes than there would be for a comparison between one of the speeches of the former and a book of Homer. What common standard can be set up between the Greek who spoke to a fickle and marvelously ingenious people, whose verdict when he obtained it would often only be written on water, and Webster speaking in a different tongue to an altogether dif ferent people, and shaping in their minds the principles of practical government to endure for generations? How many English-speak ing people know enough Greek to under stand a speech of Demosthenes as they would one spoken in their own language? Those who do not cannot form an exact judgment, and the few, if any, who do are prone to find virtues in particles and, like Shakespeare's critics, to bring to view in the text things of which the author was abjectly ignorant. Too much has been swept away in the twenty centuries since Cicero and Demos thenes spoke, and it is easy to praise those orators too little or too much. Separated from us by the barriers of distance, of lan guage and of race, the most that can safely
be ventured is that in literary form they prob ably surpassed any of the moderns. The orators with whom Webster can most profitably be compared are those who employed the same language and spoke to the same race. Surely it is not a narrow field. It is a race that has employed the art of government by speaking for centuries, and has far outstripped any other race of ancient or modern times in the development of the parliamentary system. The result of that system has been to produce oratory which is not simply literature or merely spectacular, but which at its best is especially adapted to the practical purpose of influencing the judg ment of those who listen, upon some mo mentous public question. Where, as is the case among the English-speaking peoples, the fate of a government or an administration often turns upon the result of a single debate, where again the verdict of the parliamentary body is liable to be overturned by the people who are the sources of political power and before whom the discussion must ultimately be carried, there is a field for the develop ment of oratory which has only imperfectly existed in any other race. Among the orators of his own country there may be individuals who in some particulars surpass him. Everett carried the elaborate oratory at that time in vogue to a greater perfection of finish and form. Wrebster does not show the surprises and felicities to be found in the style of Choate, who is as rapid, pure and winding as
