"With great regard, yours,
"N. Biddle."
The cloth having been removed, Mr. Ingersoll rose, and said,—
"The friends of the drama are desirous of paying a merited tribute of respect and esteem to one of the most distinguished and successful of its sons. Well-approved usage upon occasions not dissimilar has pointed to this our cheerful greeting as a fitting method for carrying their desires into effect. It combines the compliment of public and unequivocal demonstration with the kindness and cordiality of social intercourse. It serves to express at once opinions the result of deliberate judgment, and sentiments warm and faithful from the heart.
"To our guest we owe much for having devoted to the profession which he has selected an uncommon energy of character and peculiar personal aptitudes. They are both adapted to the happiest illustrations of an art which, in the absence of either, would want a finished representative, but, by a rare combination of faculties in him, is enabled effectually 'to hold the mirror up to nature.' It is an art, in the rational pleasures and substantial advantages derived from which all are free to participate, and a large proportion of the educated and liberal-minded avail themselves of the privilege. It is an art which, for thousands of years, has been practised with success, admired, and esteemed; and the men who have adorned it by their talents have received the well-earned plaudits of their age, and the honors of a cherished name.
"To our guest we owe the acknowledgment (long delayed, indeed) of the sternest critics of an experienced and enlightened public, not our own, that of one department at least of elegant literature our country has produced the brightest living representative.
"To our guest we owe especial thanks that he has been the prompt, uniform, and liberal patron of his art; that dramatic genius and merit have never appealed to him for aid in vain; that he has devoted the best-directed generosity, and some of his most brilliant professional efforts, to their cause.
"To our guest we owe unmeasured thanks that he has done much by his personal exertion, study, and example, to identify our stage with the classic drama, and that he has made the more than modern Æschylus—the myriad-minded Shakspeare—ours.
"We owe him thanks, as members of a well-regulated community, that, by the course and current of his domestic life, the reproaches that are sometimes cast upon his profession have been signally disarmed.
"And, in this moment of joyous festivity, we feel that we owe him unnumbered thanks that he has offered us an opportunity to express for him an unfeigned and cordial regard.