Washington's Farewell Address, and Webster's Bunker Hill OrationsCambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012 - 106 pages Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: vra THE SECOND BUNKER HILL ORATION Eighteen years after the laying of the cornerstone at Bunker Hill, Webster stood upon the same place to deliver again an occasional address. A few feeble veterans of the Revolution took the place of the gallant band of venerable survivors of 1825, and Lafayette, the great friend of America, slept in his native land. But a completed monument, lifting its head to the sky before the orator, gave a new subject of thought. It raised his speech to the highest eloquence, it filled his vision with the glories of popular government, and to offset the personal appeal to the martyred Warren and the venerated Lafayette, it became to Webster's glowing imagination the emblem of the colossal grandeur of the character of Washington. It is well to study the characteristics of Webster's imagination. It was masterful and grand. The great movements of mankind he saw in then large proportions. The past, the present, and the future were in his thoughts as one mighty stream. His wasnot a mind to study and burrow into the details. His intellect was massive. This oration furnishes a good opportunity to study the broadness and power of Webster's genius. In clearness, force, and beauty of style this oration resembles the other. It has a similar gracious and pleasing beginning. Like the other, it soon secures the greatest interest and arouses the deepest feelings of patriotism. It maintains the interest likewise by bringing before the mind the noblest subjects for consideration, the strongest persuasion to satisfaction in the country's government and heritage. When at last, in enumerating the gifts of America to the world, the climax is'reached, it ends as the first oration, with an impassioned appeal to duty. The following is a topical analysis of this orati... |