old Italy to a fresh sense of civilized antiquity than like a spontaneous manifestation of native thought or feeling. In a few years New England developed a considerable political literature, of which the height was reached in formal oratory; it developed a new kind of scholarship, of which the height was reached in admirable works of history; in religion it developed Unitarianism; in philcsophy, Transcendentalism; in general conduct, a tendency toward reform which deeply affected our national history; and meantime it developed the most mature school of pure letters which has yet appeared in this country. To these various phases of the New England Renaissance we may now devote ourselves in turn.

WORKS: Works, 6 vols., Boston: Little & Brown, 1851; E. P. Whipple, The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster, with an Essay on Daniel Webster as a Master of English Style, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1879.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: G. T. Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster, 2 vols., New York: Appleton, 1869-70; H. C. Lodge, Daniel Webster, Boston: Houghton, 1884 (AS).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Channing and Hart, Guide, §§ 181–182, 191, 197.

SELECTIONS: Carpenter, 105-118; Duyckinck, II, 32-34; Hart, Contemporaries, III, No. 159; Stedman and Hutchinson, IV, 450-477.

EVERETT

WORKS: Orations and Speeches, 4 vols., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1853-68.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: R. W. Emerson, "Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New England," (Wks., X, 307 ff.).

SELECTIONS: Duyckinck, II, 171-173; Hart, Contemporaries, IV, No. 79; Stedman and Hutchinson, V, 329-339.

CHOATE

WORKS: Works, with Memoir by S. G. Brown, 2 vols., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1862.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: S. G. Brown, Life of Rufus Choate, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1870.

SELECTIONS: Stedman and Hutchinson, V, 495-501.

R. C. WINTHROP

WORKS: Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions, 4 vols., Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1852-86.

BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM: R. C. Winthrop, Jr., Memoir, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1897.

SELECTIONS: Duyckinck, II, 501-503; *Stedman and Hutchinson, VI,

420-429.

THROUGHOUT the seventeenth century, the literary expression of New England had been chiefly theological;

Sermons.

Oratory of the Revo

lution.

in the eighteenth century this expression, at least in the region of Boston, became chiefly political. In each case the dominant phase of New England expression had been decidedly serious, and had been concerned with one of the ideals most deeply associated with our ancestral language. These ideals we have broadly called those of the Bible and of the Common Law; the former incessantly reminds us that we must do right, the latter that we must maintain our rights. And they have in common another trait than either their deep association with the temper of English-speaking races or their pervasive seriousness; both are best set forth by means of public speaking.

From the very beginning the appetite for public discourse in New England had been correspondingly keen. In the seventeenth century a minister who preached or prayed well was sure of admiration and popularity; in the eighteenth century a similar popularity was the certain reward of a lawyer, too, who displayed oratorical power; and until long after 1800 native Yankees had a traditional liking, which they honestly believed unaffected, for hearing people talk from platforms or pulpits.

When the Revolution came, accordingly, the surest means of attaining eminence in New England was public speaking. James Otis, always a man rather of speech than of action, began the career which made his name national by his spoken argument against Writs of Assistance. The heroic memory of Joseph Warren is almost as closely associated with his oration at the Old South Church concerning the Boston Massacre as with his death at Bunker Hill. Samuel Adams, too, is remembered as eloquent; and John Adams was a skilful public speaker. There is something widely characteristic, indeed, in the

speech which. Webster's eulogy of 1826 attributed to this first New England President of the United States. The famous "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish," closely imitates the harangues and speeches of classical historians. In each case the speeches may possibly have been based on some tradition of what was actually said; in each case, obeying the conventional fashion of his time, the writer-Thucydides, Livy, or Webster-puts into the mouth of a hero eloquent words which are really his own. In each case these words not only characterize the personages who are feigned to have uttered them, but as elaborately artificial pieces of rhetoric they throw light as well both on the men who composed them and on the public for which they were composed. In more than one way, we can see the speech which Webster's superb fiction of 1826 attributed to the John Adams of half a century before illustrates the New England oratory of which Adams was one of the first exponents and Webster himself the greatest.

For between Adams's early maturity and Webster's prime there was a flood of public speaking in New England, more and more punctilious and finished in form. Were oratory pure literature, indeed, and not rather related to the functions of the pulpit or the bar, we should have to linger over the American oratory of the century which followed the Revolution. In a study like ours, however, we need only glance at it; and this hasty glance shows clearly that its most eminent exponent in New England was Daniel WebsteR (1782-1852).

Webster's public life is a matter of familiar history. Webster. The son of a New Hampshire farmer, he graduated at Dartmouth College. He began his legal career in his na

Webster's
Speeches.

Webster's

tive State; but before 1820 removed to Boston.
active life in Massachusetts coincided with the full de-
velopment of those manufacturing industries at the head
of which were some of the most substantial members of
the old Whig party, which for a good while controlled
Massachusetts politics. Of this party Webster soon
became the recognized leader, acquiring such power as no
other political leader of New
England has known before or
since.

As an advocate at the bar, as a representative of public sentiment on memorable festal occasions, and finally as the most influential of American Senators, Webster's means of asserting himself remained the same. had an unsurpassed power of getting up before great bodies of his fellow-citizens and talking to them in a way which should hold their attention, influence their convictions, and guide their conduct.

Dual Walter

He

Webster's most famous occasional speeches are those at the Pilgrim anniversary (1820), at the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill Monument (1825), and on Adams and Jefferson (1826); his most noted legal arguments are on the Dartmouth College case (1817) and on the White Murder case (1830); his greatest political speech is his "Reply to Hayne" (1830). As one reads in chronologic order these great speeches and the others in the six volumes of Webster's collected works, one finds a gain in solidity, simplicity, and eloquence. These qualities