We have not often had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Everett speak, and cannot pronounce whether he possesses that magic power of voice, and countenance, and attitude and gesture, which should have been displayed in the utterance of his closing paragraph. Without these, it is a school-boy declamation. We rather fear that Mr. Everett is not so endowed. Such was our impression on hearing him, and this is confirmed by the fact, that his power over the house of which he has long been a member, is no way commensurate to his acknowledged talents. We subjoin the paragraph, adding this advice—"that no man attempt to utter such a passage who is not very sure of his own powers." He who can do it as it should be done, may rival Cooke in Richard, or Cooper in the ghost-scene in Hamlet. This is the paragraph.
"You have now assembled within these renowned walls, to perform the last duties of respect and love, on the birth-day of your benefactor, beneath that roof which has resounded of old with the master voices of American renown. The spirit of the departed is in high communion [does this mean high mass?] with the spirit of the place;—the temple worthy of the new name, which we now behold inscribed on its walls. Listen, Americans, to the lesson, which seems borne to us on the very air we breathe, while we perform these dutiful rites. Ye winds, that wafted the pilgrims to the land of promise, fan in their children's hearts, the love of freedom;—blood which our fathers shed, cry from the ground; echoing arches of this renowned hall, whisper back the voices of other days;—glorious Washington, break the long silence of that votive canvass;—speak, speak, marble lips, teach us THE LOVE OF LIBERTY PROTECTED BY LAW."1
1 Subjoined to Mr. Everett's speech is an account of the circumstances of the ceremonial, much in detail. From this it appears that by his side, on the platform where he stood, was placed a bust of La Fayette, on a pedestal just high enough to bring the face on a level with the speaker's. The taste of this we de not propose to discuss with the committee of arrangement. It seems to have imposed on Mr. Everett a sort of necessity to have a word to say to the figure, and we do not know that he could have done it better than he has done. We incline to suspect that he would gladly have escaped from that part of his task. We are glad he got through it so well. We are glad too we were not there. The thought of Punch and the Devil knocking their noses together, might have made us laugh most unreasonably. Now that the thing is over, we venture to intreat that no man of genius and taste may be placed in a situation so perilous and so painful.
At pages six and seven, we have a passage, which besides savoring of transcendentalism, smacks of the school of Garrison and Tappan. We pass it by, because it is not with a mere occasional volunteer like Mr. Everett that we would discuss the subject there hinted at. Indeed we would touch him with a lenient hand, for his eulogy has great merit, and has deepened the kindly impression which his amiable character and classic talent had already made on us. The blemishes we have noted are but
"Stains upon a vestal's robe,
The worse for what the soil."
We recommend it to the perusal of all (if any there be) who have not read it.
We had noted for animadversion some of the most faulty passages of Mr. Adams's oration, but do not find them so much at variance with the general character of the work as to merit particular censure. When Secretary of State to a President, who, while minister to England, informed his government, in an official despatch, that he "had enjoyed very bad health," he acquired by contrast the reputation of a fine writer. He was the cheval de battaille of the administration. Afterwards, when the head of a dominant party, it pleased him to lay claim to the first place among the writers of the day, and his followers of course accorded it to him. A fatal claim, most fatally acknowledged! Had he known no more of writing than his successor, he might have been President now. As it was, he perilled the enjoyment of power, for the sake of vaunting it, in well turned sentences about "light-houses in the skies." His vanity tore away the veil under which federalism had lain securely hid for years. Had he, like his successor, unmasked a battery in doing so, he might have done it safely. This may explain some of our former remarks, when classing him among those whose weakness afforded the people an opportunity (fatally abused) of retrieving their rights.
Mr. Adams's style is any thing but felicitous. He has not the art of gliding gracefully on from topic to topic. His digressions are abrupt, untimely and rectangular; his allusions are generally of the ebony and topaz school; his blows are never inflicted with that dexterous sleight which engages our admiration too much to permit sympathy with the sufferer. They never take effect but when the victim is bound hand and foot, or on some imbecile wretch, like Jonathan Russel, who can neither parry nor elude them. His oratory reminds us of the fa sol la of a country singing school, differing as much from the easy flow of spontaneous eloquence, as the mellifluous stream of real music from that harsh jangling in which each note claims its separate syllable.
To those who may be startled at this account of Mr. Adams's style, we recommend the perusal of his oration as an exercise. We venture to predict that by the time the sixty thousand copies ordered by Congress have found as many readers, our judgment will be confirmed by at least fifty-nine thousand of them. But that will never be.
To Mr. Everett's address are appended a requiem and a hymn, of which we will say, but more emphatically, what we said of the orations. They should have great excellence and no fault. Each should be a gem of the first water, and without flaw. The first consists of six stanzas, of which two or three are very fine. But what shall we say to this: