his active life of more than fifty years Everett held many offices and discharged all their duties with much credit. He was editor of the North American Review for four years; was a member of Congress from 1824 to 1834; governor of Massachusetts from 1835 to 1839; as minister to England, Secretary of State, president of Harvard University, and United States Senator he displayed unusual tact and wisdom.

Everett was an easy and graceful speaker, but he possessed neither the fire of Clay nor the force of Webster. He was classical in his style, as is shown in his Gettysburg speech, which forms a marked contrast to Lincoln's delivered on the same occasion, the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Two other orations deserve particular mention, one delivered at Harvard on "The Circumstances favorable to the Progress of Literature in America," and the other given thirty years later on "The Genius and Character of Washington." The latter was so popular that Everett was called upon to repeat it more than one hundred times, contributing the money thus received toward the purchase of Mount Vernon, the home of Washington.

Rufus Choate [1799-1859] was one of the greatest forensic lawyers that America has produced. Choate and Webster were both graduates of Dartmouth College, and later practiced law in Boston.

Both served in the legislature, and Choate succeeded Webster as United States Senator when the latter entered William Henry Harrison's cabinet as Secretary of State. Choate's style was eloquent and florid, and his discourses were always interesting. One of his most popular speeches was that delivered at Dartmouth, July 27, 1853, on Daniel Webster. In his eulogy of his friend he closes with these words, referring to a recent visit to the old home of Webster :

"The great mind still seemed to preside, the great presence to be with you; you might expect to hear again the rich and playful tones of the voice of the old hospitality. Yet a moment more, and all the scene took on the aspect of one great monument, inscribed with his name, and sacred to his memory. And such it shall be in all the future of America! The sensation of desolateness, and loneliness, and darkness, with which you see it now, will pass away; the sharp grief of love and friendship will become soothed; men will repair thither as they are wont to commemorate the great days of history; the same glance shall take in and the same emotions shall greet and bless the harbor of the Pilgrims and the tomb of Webster."

Abraham Lincoln [1809-1865] won his laurels as an orator, not by his brilliancy of manner, but by his simplicity and earnestness of purpose. Without special training, Lincoln has left us at least two speeches which will last as long as

our literature endures, the Gettysburg speech, and the second inaugural address. The latter closes with these glowing words :

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

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Charles Sumner [1811-1874] was the knowledged leader of the Abolitionists in Congress, where he acted as United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1851 until his death in 1874. Sumner won recognition as an orator when he delivered his speech on "The True Grandeur of Nations," in 1845 before the city authorities of Boston. In 1856 his powerful speech, "The Crime against Kansas," aroused bitter hatred toward him by all the advocates of slavery and caused an assault to

be made upon him in the Senate Chamber by Representative Brooks of South Carolina. Sumner was devoted to the cause of Emancipation, and his orations, uttered in the most eloquent terms, glow with enthusiasm. He was scholarly, and his speeches are filled with classical allusions which are pointed and forceful. He had a commanding presence and a delivery which riveted the attention of his hearers.

Wendell Phillips [1811-1884], the "silvertongued orator" of the Abolitionists, was born in the same year as Charles Sumner. For a quarter of a century he delivered speech after speech in the interests of antislavery. Time after time did he risk personal violence at the hands of an angry mob for his fierce denunciations of slavery. Phillips was a graduate of Harvard and, like Sumner, was well equipped for public speaking, but he possessed two things which Sumner lacked, - wit and tact. He had a commanding figure, genial manner, and an eloquent tongue which could at once charm and captivate an audience. Phillips not only denounced slavery with all the eloquence at his command, but he was an ardent advocate of labor reform and woman's suffrage.

XXIII. OTHER WRITERS

IN the preceding chapters an attempt has been made to trace the outline of American literature by a brief study of the lives and works of the great men who may properly be termed our major writers. It now remains to mention some of those workers in the literary field, who, while not attaining the highest excellence, have helped to make American literature what it is to-day.

A certain number of contemporary writers have been included, but, for obvious reasons, any definitive criticism of their work is impossible at the present time. Just as development along their chosen lines may place them, a generation hence, among the "immortals," so a lack of this development may cause them to be forgotten.

The names have been grouped together, and arranged for convenience in chronological order.

James Kirke Paulding [1779-1860] was closely associated with the Irvings in the production of the Salmagundi papers (1807) and later he published a second series by himself (1819, 1820). Like Washington Irving, Paulding was a man of wit, but he lacked the polish and artistic touch which characterized the work of his friend. He wrote some verse, John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812), The Lay of the Scotch Fiddle (1813),