Mr. Webster had never great personal popularity. His presence was
majestic, but forbidding. His manners were agreeable, and sometimes
fascinating to his friends, when he was in a genial mood; but he was
often reserved or even austere to strangers, and terrible to his
enemies. His style of thought was mathematical, his language expressive,
but never popular. He wrote as a man would dictate an essay which was to
appear as a posthumous work. His eloquence was not that which often
passes for eloquence upon the stump or at the bar. He seldom attempted
to court the people, and when he did, it was as if he mocked himself,
and scorned the spirit which could be moved by the breezes of popular
favor. He was not free from faults, personal and political; yet he
acquired a control which has not been possessed by any man since
Washington. Whenever he was to speak, the public were anxious to hear
and to read. Hardly any man has had the fortune to present his views in
addresses, letters, and speeches, to so large a portion of his
countrymen; yet the people whom he addressed, and who were anxious for
his words and opinions, did not always, or even generally, agree with
him. Mr. Webster"s power was chiefly, if not solely, intellectual. He
had not the personal qualities of Mr. Clay or General Jackson; he was
not, like Mr. Jefferson the chosen exponent of a political creed, and
the admitted leader of a great political party; nor had he the military
character and universally acknowledged patriotism of General Washington,
which made him first in the hearts of his countrymen. Mr. Webster stands
alone. His domain is the intellect, and thus far in America he is
without a rival. To Mr. Webster, and to all men proportionately,
according to the measure of their gifts and attainments, we may apply
his great words: 'A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly
great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary
flame, burning brightly for a while, and then giving place to returning
darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant
light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that,
when it glimmers in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no
night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the
potent contact of its own spirit.'
