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by Unknown

EDWARD EVERETT.

THE GREAT CLASSIC ORATOR OF NEW ENGLAND.

EORGE S. HILLARD, himself an orator of no slight renown, has spoken with much critical insight and appreciation of the mental characteristic and oratorical style of Edward Everett, the great classic orator of Massachusetts: “The great charm of Mr. Everett’s orations consists not so much in any single and strongly developed intellectual trait as in that symmetry and finish which, on every page, give token to the richly endowed and thorough scholar. The natural movements of his mind are full of grace; and the most indifferent sentence which falls from his pen has that simple elegance which it is as difficult to define as it is easy to perceive. His style, with matchless flexibility, rises and falls with his subject and is alternately easy, vivid, elevated, ornamented, picturesque, [♦]adapting itself to the dominant mood of the mind, as an instrument responds to the touch of a master’s hand. His knowledge is so extensive and the field of his allusion so wide, that the most familiar views, in passing through his hands, gather such a halo of luminous illustrations that their likeness seems transformed, and we entertain doubts of their identity.”

[♦] ‘adpating’ replaced with ‘adapting’

He was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 11, 1794, and was graduated from Harvard College with the highest honors in 1811. He entered the ministry, and at the age of nineteen he was installed as pastor of the Unitarian Church in Brattle Square, Boston, and only six years later he preached a sermon in the Hall of Representatives at Washington, which made a marvelous impression on all who heard it, and won him great fame for eloquence.

He was chosen at the age of twenty to fill the Chair of Greek Literature at Harvard College, and he spent four years abroad to qualify himself for this position, and Victor Cousin said of him at this period that he was one of the best Grecians he ever knew.

In 1820, crowded with honors and distinguished in many fields, he became editor of the “North American Review;” during the four years of his editorship he contributed fifty articles to this magazine.

He sat in Congress as Representative from Massachusetts from 1824 to 1834. In 1835, and for three years following, he was Governor of Massachusetts, and in the election following he was defeated by one vote.

While traveling abroad he received the appointment as Minister to England, and during this period of sojourn he received from Oxford the degree of D.C.L., and from Cambridge and Dublin that of LL.D.