"
Hamlet's words are a perfect picture of Mr. Webster's outer man, and we
have but to add to the description a voice of singular beauty and power
with the tone and compass of an organ. The look of his face and the sound
of his voice were in themselves as eloquent as anything Mr. Webster ever
uttered.
But the imposing presence was only the outward sign of the man. Within was
a massive and powerful intellect, not creative or ingenious, but with a
wonderful vigor of grasp, capacious, penetrating, far-reaching. Mr.
Webster's strongest and most characteristic mental qualities were weight
and force. He was peculiarly fitted to deal with large subjects in a large
way. He was by temperament extremely conservative. There was nothing of the
reformer or the zealot about him. He could maintain or construct where
other men had built; he could not lay new foundations or invent. We see
this curiously exemplified in his feeling toward Hamilton and Madison. He
admired them both, and to the former he paid a compliment which has become
a familiar quotation. But Hamilton's bold, aggressive genius, his audacity,
fertility, and resource, did not appeal to Mr.
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