No mortal man could have thrown off that magnificent piece of Miltonic prose at the heat, without some deep premeditation.

It is well known now that Mr.Webster afterwards pruned, amended and decorated it until it is recognized as one of the grandest passages in the English language.

I take down my Webster and read it occasionally, and it has in it the majestic "sound of many waters." That great passage is the prelude of the mighty conflict which thirty years afterwards was to be waged on the soil of Gettysburg and Chickamauga.

It became the condensed creed, and the battle-cry of the long warfare for the nation's life.

Well have there been placed in golden letters on the pedestal of Webster's monument in Central Park the last sublime line of that sentence: "Liberty and Union, now and forever: one and inseparable." Mr.Webster's power in sarcastic invective was terrific.