"If, in the course of a career by you made both pleasant and prosperous, I have appropriated a portion of your bounty to the encouragement of dramatic literature, I have, as it were, acted as your almoner, and have found my reward in the readiness with which you have extended in its support the same cherishing hand that sustained me in my youthful efforts. One of the writers whose services, at my invitation, were given to the drama, after having proved his ability by the production of a play the popularity of which you have not exaggerated, lies in a recent and untimely grave. The other, to whose noble Roman tragedy you have also particularly alluded, is now pursuing a successful career of literature in another land; and it is a source of no little pleasure to think that I have been in some measure instrumental in calling into exercise a mind which, if I do not overestimate its powers, will add a fresh leaf to that unfading chaplet with which Irving and Cooper and Bryant and Halleck, with a few other kindred spirits, have already graced the escutcheon of our country.
"One allusion in your remarks has awakened emotions of the keenest sensibility. It brings home to me more strongly than all the rest how deeply I am indebted to you; for you have not only strewn my own path with flowers, but enabled me to discharge with efficiency the obligations of nature to orphan sisters and a widowed parent. To you I owe it that after a period of adversity I have been permitted to render her latter days pleasant 'and rock the cradle of reposing age.' So far, however, from any compliment being due to me on this score, I may rather chide myself with having fallen short in my filial duties. Yet were it otherwise, how could he be less than a devoted son and affectionate brother who has experienced parental kindness and fraternal friendship from a whole community?
"This token of your regard I need not tell you how dearly I shall prize. I am about to visit foreign lands. In a few months I shall probably behold the tomb of Garrick,—Garrick, the pupil of Johnson, the companion and friend of statesmen and wits,—Garrick, who now sleeps surrounded by the relics of kings and heroes, orators and bards, the magnates of the earth. I shall contemplate the mausoleum which encloses the remains of Talma,—Talma, the familiar friend of him before whom monarchs trembled. I shall tread that classic soil with which is mingled the dust of Roscius,—of Roscius, the preceptor of Cicero, whose voice was lifted for him at the forum and whose tears were shed upon his grave. While I thus behold with feelings of deferential awe the last resting-places of those departed monarchs of the drama, how will my bosom kindle with pride at the reflection that I, so inferior in desert, have yet been honored with a token as proud as ever rewarded their most successful efforts! I shall then look upon this memorial; but, while my eye is riveted within its 'golden round,' my mind will travel back to this scene and this hour, and my heart be with you in my native land.
"Mr. President, in conclusion, let me express my grateful sense of your goodness by proposing as a sentiment,—
"The Citizens of New York—Distinguished not more by intelligence, enterprise, and integrity than by that generous and noble spirit which welcomes the stranger and succors the friendless.
"This speech was delivered with remarkable feeling and dignity, and received the most earnest applause of every one present. The regular toasts were continued.
"3. Talent and Worth—The only stars and garters of our nobility.
"4. Hallam and Henry—The Columbus and Vespucius of the Drama,—who planted its standard in the New World.
"5. Garrick and Kean—The one a fixed and ever-shining light of the stage; the other an erratic star, which dazzled men by its brightness and perplexed them by its wanderings.
"6. Kemble and Talma—Their genius has identified their memory with the undying fame of Shakspeare and Racine.