"
"Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise--the most consummate
orator of modern times."
"What can I say of what regards myself? To my humble name,
_Exegisti monumentum aere perennius_."
Many persons consider the Plymouth oration to be the finest of all Mr.
Webster's efforts in this field. It is certainly one of the very best of
his productions, but he showed on the next great occasion a distinct
improvement, which he long maintained. Five years after the oration at
Plymouth, he delivered the address on the laying of the corner-stone of
Bunker Hill monument. The superiority to the first oration was not in
essentials, but in details, the fruit of a ripening and expanding mind. At
Bunker Hill, as at Plymouth, he displayed the massiveness of thought, the
dignity and grandeur of expression, and the range of vision which are all
so characteristic of his intellect and which were so much enhanced by his
wonderful physical attributes. But in the later oration there is a greater
finish and smoothness. We appreciate the fact that the Plymouth oration is
a succession of eloquent fragments; the same is true of the Bunker Hill
address, but we no longer realize it.
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