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strikes awe, while the final ejaculation of that much-anticipated word would burn it into the very fibre of the brain, for an everlasting memory. In boyhood, we heard him thus utter the word 66 vasse;" we didn't even know then what a "crevasse" was, but it was struck, as by some tremendous die, into our mind, and has been there ever since, the type and synonyme of every thing appalling and to be dreaded.

Although, as we have said, he spoke in the open air, his style was there also much the same as with chamber audiences. The sustained tumultuous frenzy of the Irish school of eloquence he was never urged on to, even by the shoutings of the thousands in the open air. Even there, beneath the blue sky, and before the million, it was as unlike as possible to the rough hill-side stormings, with which we may imagine O'Connell used to meet and grapple with his monster-gatherings. In the very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of his oratory, he could beget the Shakesperean temperance which could give it smoothness and beauty.

His management of his body was very manly, dignified, and graceful; whether flinging his arms about in the storm of passion, or pausing in his course to take the pinch of snuff, so indispensable, his movement was fit to be seen by a theatric audience. His bye-play, as he went along in his speech, was capital; and, indeed, his whole expression, by face, form, fingers, and arms, added so prodigiously to the effect of what he was saying, that the reporters would often fling down their pens in despair, declaring, "He's a great actor, and that's the whole of it." That, however, was not the whole of it, by a good deal; for a vast, moral, and intellectual steam-power was behind all this physical machinery; and when, at one moment, it was all brought into full play, the effect was wondrous; then, when his mind was full of broad thoughts-when his soul was all aglow with burning sentiments, when his bodily sensibilities were all up, and reacting on all his faculties, the rapid throb of his pulse, beating a reveille to all his powers-then, indeed, for one moment, you might fancy that Cicero's splendid dream was realized; that in the senate-house, Roscius was, indeed, in action; that the all-perfect combination of the statesman and the actor was standing right before you. In those moments, the genius of Clay-Harry Clay, as those who loved him fondly called him -wielded an imperatorial supremacy over the subdued spirit of others; then, like

Andrew Jackson, his sole rival in the single point of powerful character, he could say, with defiant front, "By the Eternal, it shall be so!" and no man dared gainsay him.

There are many anecdotes told of the wonderful ascendency of his character, when expressed in eloquence, which indicate its practical effect-instantaneous, lightning-like. One anecdote may be related of circumstances which took place many years since, when he was in the full flush of his as yet unbroken hope: "Hope elevating and joy brightening his crest." As it took place in secret session of the Senate, it has never been generally known. It happened thus: A democratic President had nominated a Virginia democrat as Minister near the Court of St. James. In the political complexion of the Senate, it was necessary, in order to secure his confirmation, for at least one whig vote to be thrown for him. For reasons best known to himself, a very leading whig senator had been induced to intimate that he would fill that otherwise fatal chasm. Mr. Clay heard of this bargain, or tacit understanding, on the very morning upon which the question was to come up for decision. It didn't take him long to make ready for that debate. Indeed, his oratoric forces were always a sort of flyingartillery. Just as the question was about to be put to the senate, he towered up on the whig side of the hall, to the infinite anxiety of the democratic managers, and the deadly heart-shaking of the single recusant, the lone-star whig. Quite contrary to his usual custom, he launched forth at once into a tornado of denunciation on the proposed ambassador. He made not the faintest allusion to the understood bargain; but he reviewed his whole political career, bringing out into the boldest relief the steadfast animosity to the whig party which that career had consistently displayed. Every act of thorough-paced anti-whiggism he dragged forth, and painted in the most glowing colors. When he thought he had laid a foundation impregnable, then, and not till then, the whirlwind broke upon the head of the hitherto unsuspected victim. Fiercely he glared round on the rows of senators. "And now," he almost screamed out, "and now, what whig would vote for this man? What whig would promise to vote for this man? What whig, having promised, would dare to keep that promise?"

As the fierce hawk in the heavens surveys from the sky his quarry far below, and sweeps towards the victim, in broad

wheeling, narrowing momentarily till with one fatal plunge, he strikes the death-blow, -so here the orator, in this fierce assault, seemed in these three tremendous interrogations to approach his victim with three narrowing sweeps of his great arm, and with more and more certain indications of his appalling manner. till, as he came to the final-the most accusing and defying question, he turned full on the object of his wrath.

The oratorial cannonade was too tremendous to be endured, and the senator, leaving his chair, walked round behind the Vice-President's desk, where the Corinthian pillars and ample curtains, hiding him from that brandishing arm, and accusatorial eye, shrouded him as in some tranquil heaven, from the terrors of the tempest. It is needless to add that no "whig" voted that day for that man. The nomination was rejected, and it was further whispered about at the time, that a long and violent fever supervened to the nominee, upon that disappointment and the invective.

As we said at the outset, Mr. Clay seems to us the greatest natural orator whom we have ever heard. And we think him moreover the first orator, upon the whole, for native powers, that our country has yet produced, at any stage of our history. We shall doubtless be told, as John Adams indignantly wrote to Mr. Wirt-when his Life of Patrick Henry came out, “multi heroes ante Agamemnona,"-there were many heroes before Agamemnon. Per

haps there were, but we don't believe it. What Patrick Henry really was, we cannot tell. Our age sees him only through the dazzling haze, which the sympathetic genius of Wirt himself-with a great reputation for rhetorical prowess to maintain -threw around his subject. Wirt was then a young man, but an old orator; and for an orator to write about a departed orator, and not apotheosize him-the muse of eloquence would have walked him right out of her train. As for James Otis, he is a sort of bright myth. To be sure, as he argued the famous "Writs of Assistance" in the old State-house in Boston, Adams felt that "that day the child Independence was born," but with what agonies of eloquence the parturition was achieved, we really know as little accurately, as we know how Otis himself felt, when the lightning struck him dead, as he walked, on that fatal summer's day.

And

Indeed, therefore, we must place Henry Clay first on the American Forum. if a Ciceronian culture had fallen to his lot, we think that here among us, the scenes of Athens and of Pericles might possibly have been repeated, and the "Lost Art" of Oratory might have rolled back upon us, like recollected music. Would it had been so! For even now, we might be placing in our Pantheon of the unforgotten men of the Republic, a statue worthy to stand by the side of the great twin brethren of eloquence-the pride of the Grecian Bema, and the ornament of the Roman Forum.

THE CZAR AND THE SULTAN.

EVERY summer a series of military

manœuvres is executed in Russia, which as nearly as possible resembles actual warfare. The Czar takes command of an army of twenty thousand men, and the Grand Duke Alexander of another army of equal size. They fight mimic battles-the losing party (which is always the Grand Duke's!) retreats -is pursued to its quarters-the camp is stormed, and the war terminates amid the roar of cannon, the explosion of mines, and the blaze of bonfires.

This extraordinary but characteristic pastime of the Emperor's occupies about ten days, and attracts many visitors from England and the Continent. If they are

military men, whatever be their nation, they are entertained at the Czar's expense, furnished with horses and servants, and have every facility afforded them to behold and admire the discipline of the troops and the tactics of the generals.

It was at one of these manœuvres that I first saw the Czar. The army was on the march, and we had taken horses at Sarskaselo to follow it. We first overtook bands of peasants with carts laden with wood and provisions for the troops; long lines of baggage and amunition wagons guarded by detachments of infantry, carriages containing dozing officers inside, their chargers, snorting and prancing, led behind. We next came up with the rear

guard, pontoon trains, heavy dragoons with helmets and cuirasses of polished steel, gaily dressed hussars, rumbling artillery, rank and file of foot soldiers plodding along, tired and dusty.

There was a halt at a cross road to wait for orders. Many soldiers, and horses too, threw themselves upon the ground to rest; a scouting party of Don Cossacks were shoeing their horses at a travelling forge,-tall, fierce-looking men, dressed in plain blue, with wild, rough steeds. As we kept on our course we heard a loud shout of "Gossudar! Gossudar!" (The Lord! the Lord!) our postillion turned the carriage aside; the troops halted. An orderly dashed past at full speed, and close behind, a carriage was whirled along by four galloping horses. It contained two persons, and we were at no loss to distinguish the "Gossudar," the despotic lord of so many millions of subjects. Tall and well made, with no superfluous flesh about him, with a high forehead, piercing gray eyes, and an intellectual face marked with crowsfeet, his appearance would draw attention any where; though he has lost that youthful beauty, which gave him the name of the handsomest man in Europe. He was plainly dressed, with a cloak and military cap, looked fixedly at our party and gave the military salute, by raising his hand to his head, in answer to our uplifted hats. He was on his way to dine at a nobleman's residence near by, and was travelling at his usual rapid rate. Long after we lost sight of the dancing plumes in the outrider's cap, when the course of the carriage was marked only by a cloud of dust, we could hear the shout of "Gossudar! Gossudar!" caught up by file after file of the soldiery.

There was nothing save this to show the stranger that this was the Emperor; no pomp, no parade; a single attendant and a plain travelling carriage drawn by four posters. The personal supervision of the troops, the fatigues of the march and the camp constitute his summer pastime. His mode of living is always simple; his dress, on ordinary occasions, a plain military uniform, his equipage when in town a one horse drosky. He is accessible to his subjects and constantly appears in public unattended. His de

light is, like the fabled Haroun Alraschid, to visit his subjects in disguise and learn their sentiments and feelings. When omnibuses were first introduced in St. Petersburg, they were voted vulgar and were left to mujiks (serfs). To check this feeling, the Czar rode in one himself

and they at once became the rage. It is said that one night in returning from the opera he took a hack drosky and drove to the public entrance of the Winter Palace. He told the driver to wait and he would send him down the fare by a servant. "That won't do," said the fellow, "that's what all the officers tell me, and I may wait all night and lose my money." "Can you point out any that have served you thus ?" said the Emperor. To be sure I can,' was the reply. Nicholas threw him his cloak in pledge, and the servant that brought the money ordered him to appear before the Czar the next day. The trembling serf obeyed, and those whom he pointed out were severely punished for their dishonesty.

On another occasion an istvostchik (hack drosky driver) told him he thanked God he did not belong to the Emperor, for in the part of the country he came from, a murrain had destroyed the cattle, and the crown serfs in the neighborhood had suffered great hardships in consequence; but his master had sent to a distance, purchased new herds, and supplied all his own serfs. Nicolai (for that is the name which we translate into Nicholas) asked his owner's name, and that night the nobleman was aroused from his bed and summoned before the Emperor. Alas, Sire," cried he, "what have I done to merit your displeasure?" To his astonishment, he was told he had been sent for to assume one of the chief offices of the empire, that of manager of the crown lands. The Czar told him the account he had heard, and saying, "Treat my serfs as you have treated your own." dismissed him to the enjoyment of his new dignity.

The Emperor is worshipped by the middle and lower classes and dreaded by the nobility. If one will study for a moment the condition of Russia, he cannot but admire the tact and wisdom of the man that controls that vast empire. A French author calls the Russian form of government "a despotism tempered by assassination." Her ruler is surrounded by fierce and haughty nobles, feudal princes, that never have hesitated nor would hesitate to use poison or the knife, when it might further their ambitious aims. The people are corrupt from top to bottom. Bribery is open even in the courts of justice. All, from the highest noble, who receives costly presents to wink at fraud, to the lowest policeman, who opens his palms and shuts his eyes, when the thief thrusts a few kopecks into his hand, are dishonest. Are not the Czar's predilec

tions for absolute monarchy not alone sincere, but correct, when applied to a people like his ? Are such men fit to govern themselves?

The past of Russia is but a day in the History of Europe. It is less than two centuries since Peter the Great ascended the throne. "He made the Russians Europeans, as Philip made the Macedonians Greeks." His success was due, not to his extension of the Russian dominions, but to his concentration of the powers of government. He reduced the overgrown power of the Boiards; he disbanded the Strelitzes, those Janissaries of Europe. He founded St. Petersburg, he built ships and armed and equipped a powerful navy, making Russia for the first time a maritime country; he raised an effective standing army; and more than all. he encouraged science, and introduced the mechanic arts among an almost barbarous people. In 1721, he was crowned Emperor, and was the first who bore the imposing title of "Emperor of all the Russias."

The next great instrument of Russian civilization was Catharine the Great. Both learned and warlike, she drew savans to her court, used every effort to advance the diffusion of knowledge in her dominions, and improved the machinery of government; while she quelled insurrections, and by conquest added 210,000 square miles of fertile land to her territory. Now, Nicholas is pursuing the course that Peter the Great marked out. He has been as vigorous in government as he was anxious to civilize his people.

We condemn his oppression of the Poles, and his interference in the Hungarian war. But while the true-hearted American sees with grief these two great nations reduced to slavery, must he not own that if he occupied the Emperor's position he must have taken the same course? The law of self-preservation is the highest human law. In obedience to its dictates the Poles and Hungarians sought their liberty, and in obedience to the same law Nicholas crushed the spirit of democracy.

It would be impossible for the most far-seeing politician to divine the future of Russia. Her fate must depend upon her rulers. Iron may be welded to iron, but when wood and iron are joined, their connection lasts only with the rivet that holds them together. No one is mad enough to suppose that all the Russias, extending from the North Pole to Persia, and from the Baltic to our own frontier, comprising one seventh of the globe, with a population of 57,000,000, could be

blended together into one great republic Catharine once called together a congress of her subjects at Moscow to devise general laws for her people. It represented twenty-seven different nations, speaking as many different languages, and after a few vain attempts at organization broke up in confusion. Imagine the stolid Esthonian fraternizing at the polls with the fiery Don Cossack, or the rude fisherman of Finland, or still ruder Kamtschatkan glorifying the double-headed eagle in a political speech to the Moslems of the Caucasus!

But let us turn from the frozen seas and dreary steppes of the Czar's domain; let us cross the frontier to the "land of the olive and myrtle," the golden East.

It was on Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath, that we stepped from the quay of Tophana into a light caique and darted across the sparkling waters of the Golden Horn into the rapid tide of the Bosphorus. It was a day of idleness for all good Mussulmen. Thousands were thronging to the mosques; the water was alive with caiques conveying the inhabitants of Pera or Stamboul to the "sweet waters of Asia," to the heights of Burguloo, or the "Sweet waters of Europe." Suddenly a flash of light from the Asiatic shore, followed by the dull roar of a cannon, proclaims that the Sublime Porte has left his palace to visit the mosque. A large caique darts from beneath the arches of the serai and cuts the water into foam as it heads across the Bosphorus. It is followed by another and another. The echo of the first cannon has hardly died away before a hundred brazen throats reply. The huge Turkish men-of-war that tower above the waters like castles, which, but an instant since, seemed deserted and solitary, now swarm with men. Every spar, from deck to mast-head, bears a living load. The sailors cling to the rigging like bees, and line the bulwarks. The caiques rapidly approach. They are high-prowed boats, painted in white and gold, each propelled at great speed by sixteen stout rowers. Astern, is a crimson canopy, under which recline the Sultan and the officers of state. The train sweeps by, and the roar of cannon is not silenced till the Sultan has landed and entered the mosque.

Thus, on each Mohammedan sabbath through the year, the descendant of the Caliphs and head of the church, visits a different mosque. The prayers lasted about an hour, and, in the mean time, we landed and secured a good position to see Abdul Megid, on his departure. There

was a crowd assembled, a detachment of soldiers was under arms, and five horses saddled and bridled, with housings thickly studded with diamonds, were led up and down to await the choice of their Imperial master. The troops wore dark blue European frock coats, and trowsers, and red fez caps, and had a slouching gait, and awkward look, in their ill-fitting and foreign habiliments.

At last the doors flew open and a crowd of the high officers of state, all in the same plain dress, poured out. When the Sultan came, they surrounded him and gave him the Eastern salutation by touching the hand first to the breast, and then to the cap, and bowing low, a substitute for the ancient custom of prostration. With assistance, the Commander of the Faithful mounted a white steed, who was led quietly to the serai or palace, followed by the officers and the guards, and a band of music. The Sultan is a man of middle height, dressed something after the European fashion, with a pale, melancholy, but fine face. His head drooped on his breast, and his dark eyes gazed vacantly before him, it not being etiquette for him to look at, or show the least recognition of those about him. A man came forward with a paper, some petition, which was taken by an officer, and the cortège passed on. It reminded one of the ancient Egyptian worship of bulls. The animals were deified, their passions gratified, and the priests governed for them. The Sultan is consigned to the pleasures of the harem, and is but a puppet that seems to act and speak what really emanates from his ministers behind the scenes.

As the feeble Abdul Megid, surrounded by pashas and soldiers, attended by bands of music and cringing favorites, riding a steed whose trappings glitter with precious stones, too proud to recognize, even by a glance, the bowing multitude, passes by,

and we remember the vigorous Omar, the second of the Caliphs, who entered Jerusalem, as a victor, seated upon a camel, laden with a bag of fruit, and another of corn, his only provisions, whose only furniture was a wooden platter, his couch the earth, and his canopy a horse-hair tent, we see how nearly pomp is allied with weakness, and simplicity with strength.

The sun of the Ottoman empire rose in splendor, when, in 1300, the robber Emir Osman ravaged Asia Minor, and proclaimed himself Sultan; reached its meridian, when, in 1453 Mohammed the Second crossed the Bosphorus and established his capital in Stamboul; and now when Abdul Megid turns piteously for aid against the Russian invader to the Sovereign of a distant isle in the Northern Ocean, it seems about to sink below the horizon.

Whatever may be our sympathies with the Sultan who sheltered the flying Hungarians, we cannot forget that the Turks have been for centuries the bitterest enemies of Christendom, that the Greeks long groaned under a rule far more galling than Austrian tyranny, that the Mussulman who embraces Christianity is doomed to death, and that this very Sultan is even now the oppressor of millions of Christian subjects.

The Frank who has had stones cast at him in the streets, and tongues thrust out at him in derision as the "Christian dog," who has seen the worse than anarchy of the Turkish Empire, who has been driven with contempt, as an infidel, from the mosque of St. Sophia, once a temple of the true faith, will never regret to see the sceptre torn from the hands of the descendant of the Caliphs, and the last of the Ottomans driven from the territory wrested from Europeans by ruthless conquest, and forced to seek refuge in the desert plains of his Turkoman ancestors.

STAGE-COACH STORIES. (Continued from page 219.)

"FRANK, the year before, had had so

much difficulty in persuading me to leave Naples, and my regrets at parting with my young friend Rosetta had been so violent, that he, the wisehead, alarmed at my soft-heartedness, had forced me to agree to, and with him in manner and form following; that is to say: If either of VOL. III.-32*

us should thereafter chance to fall in love with any individual of the fair sex, during the remainder of the time of our travels. the other should, by virtue of the compact, have full permission to consider him as quasi insane, and to use all proper means for the purpose of rescuing the affected party from any and all entanglements in

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