Speeches and Writings of Hon.: Thomas F. Marshall (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Speeches and Writings of Hon.: Thomas F. Marshall

Whether we have acted prudently in this matter, whether it had been better for Mr. Marshall, that his writings, few as they are, Should have been left in their dispersed condition, the public must and will decide. NO criticism that we could pronounce in advance upon our own book could possibly change the case or affect the verdict. Yet we must be allowed to make one remark, as to the peculiar intellectual character of the author. His most dis tinctive trait is his versatility - not versatility Of principle, but of genius and of manner. Let any one read his report on Banking, and the Principles of Paper Currency, and then turn to the oration on the life and character Of Richard H. Mlenefee, - would he conjecture that they were from the same pen, the product of the same mind? Yet there is nothing in the entire series we have collected, which will give the faintest idea of his style as a public speaker - we mean what we call in Kentucky a stump-speaker. Perhaps a few passages from his letter to the Louisville Journal, a very few from his reply to the questions put to him when a candidate for Congress, in 1845, in relation to the Slave law, still fewer in reply to Mr. Adams, in 1842, may convey some shadowy notion of it. We have not made this com pilation to Show what manner Of stump-speaker, popular orator, or declaimer he was, but to Show that in the intel lectual scale, he is something higher, better, purer than all, Mr. Marshall himself has been frequently heard to say, that the world is entirely mistaken in this matter of fine speaking, fine writing, and fine conversation. He thinks that the talents are entirely different, - a Speech can not be reported, or an essay spoken. The man who writes Speeches that would fire a multitude, will never be read by any body. The man who would attempt to deliver before a crowd, the finest essay ever penned by human genius, as a Speech, would inevitably disperse it. Fox wrote speeches, no body ever reads him. Sir James Macintosh spoke essays, no mortal ever listened to him. Yet England crowded to hear Fox, and all England still reads and praises Sir James. Conversation differs from both. He, who in company bursts into Splendid declamation, or delivers sage and sus tained discourses, though drawn with the power and beauty Of Addison, will be shunned by every one. The man who combines all these powers in perfection, is the greatest of human geniuses. We have heard Mr. Marshall. Say that no man ever succeeded in all, save Lord Bolingbroke, the ablest orator in England, the finest writer in Europe, and the most elegant and agreeable drawing-room gentle man in the world. We will attempt no description of Mr. Marshall as a public speaker, or the means by which he chains to him for hours and hours the largest crowds, some times composed of all sorts of people, and again purely of the most refined and educated classes.

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