And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, VII. I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led! The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, VIII. Thus having spoke, the illustrious chief of Troy * Andromache (an drom' a ke), wife of Hector. † Argive (ar' jive), Grecian; so called from Argos, one of the prin cipal cities of Greece. Hyperia (hyp e' ria), a fountain of Thessaly. IX. O thou! whose glory fills the ethereal throne, And all ye deathless powers! protect my son! Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown, To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown, Against his country's foes the war to wage, And rise the Hector of the future age! So when triumphant from successful toils, Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, Whole hosts may hail him with deserved acclaim, And say: "This chief transcends his father's fame; While pleased, amidst the general shouts of Troy His mother's conscious heart o'erflows with joy. X. He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms, The softened chief with kind compassion viewed, XI. Andromache! my soul's far better part! Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart? EXERCISE CLXXVII. In HENRY CLAY, one of America's most illustrious men, was born in Hanover county, Virginia, April 12th, 1777, and died in Washington city, June 29th, 1852. His father, a Baptist clergyman, died in 1782: leaving seven children, of whom Henry was the fifth. The circumstances of the family being very moderate, the education of the children was necessarily very limite 1792 his mother, having married again, emigrated with her husband to Ken tucky: taking with her all the children except Henry and his eldest brother He never saw her afterwards; but went to live in Richmond. There, follow ing his tastes, he finally got a clerkship in a law office, and, for the direction of his studies, had the good fortune to receive, and the good sense to follow the counsels of the eminent Chancellor Wythe, for whom he acted as an amanuensis. In 1797 he was licensed to practice law, and soon after emigrated to Kentucky. He commenced business in Lexington. "Immediately," he says himself, he "rushed into a lucrative practice." Thenceforth his career was one of almost unexampled honor and usefulness. Few have ever taken so strong a hold upon the hearts of the people, few have been by them more implicitly trusted in places of power and responsibility, and few have ever so well deserved their confidence. "If I were to write his epitaph," said a life-long political adversary, in the House of Representatives, "I would inscribe, as the highest eulogy, on the stone which shall mark his resting-place: Here lies a man who was in the public service for fifty years, and never attempted to deceive his countrymen !'" FAREWELL ADDRESS TO THE SENATE. HENRY CLAY. 1. From 1806, the period of my entrance upon this noble theater, with short intervals, to the present time, I have been engaged in the public councils, at home or abroad. Of the services rendered during that long and arduous period of my life, it does not become me to speak; history, if she deign to notice me, and posterity, if the recollection of my humble actions shall be transmitted to posterity, are the best, the truest, and the most impartial judges. When death has closed the scene, their sentence will be pronounced, and to that I commit myself. 2. During that long period, however, I have not escaped the fate of other public men, nor failed to incur censure and detrac tion of the bitterest, most unrelenting, and most malignant character; and, tough not always insensible to the pain it was meant to inflict, I have borne it, in general, with composure, and without disturbance, waiting, as I have done, in perfect and undoubting confidence, for the ultimate triumph of justice and of truth, and in the entire persuasion that time would settle all things as they should be, and that, whatever wrong or injustice I might experience at the hands of man, He to whom all hearts are open and fully known, would, by the inscrutable dispensations of His providence, rectify all error, redress all wrong, and cause ample justice to be done. 3. But I have not, meanwhile, been unsustained. Every. where throughout the extent of this great continent, I have had cordial, warm-hearted, faithful, and devoted friends, who have known me, loved me, and appreciated my motives. To them, if language were capable of fully expressing my acknowledg ments, I would now offer all the return I have the power to make for their genuine, disinterested, and persevering fidelity and devoted attachment, the feelings and sentiments of a heart overflowing with never-ceasing gratitude. If, however, I fail in suitable language to express my gratitude to them for all the kindness they have shown me, what shall I say, what can I say at all commensurate with those feelings of gratitude with which I have been inspired by the State whose humble representative and servant I have been in this chamber? 4. I emigrated from Virginia to the state of Kentucky, now, nearly forty-five years ago; I went as an orphan boy who had not yet attained the age of majority; who had never recognized a father's smile, nor felt his warm caresses; poor, penniless, without the favor of the great, with an imperfect and neglected education, hardly sufficient for the ordinary business and common pursuits of life; but scarce had I set my foot upon her generous soil, when I was embraced with parental fondness, caressed as though I had been a favorite child, and patronized with liberal and unbounded munificence. 5. From that period the highest honors of the State have been freely bestowed upon me; and, when, in the darkest hour of calumny and detraction, I seemed to be assailed by all the rest of the world, she interposed her broad and in penetrable shield, repelled the poisoned shafts that were aimed for my destruction, and vindicated my good name from every malignant and unfounded aspersion. I return with indescribable pleasure to linger a while longer, and mingle with the warm-hearted and whole-souled people of that state; and when the last scene shall forever close upon me, I hope that my earthly remains will be laid under her green sod with those of her gallant and patriotic sons. 6. In the course of a long and arduous public service, especially during the last eleven years in which I have held a seat in the Senate, from the same ardor and enthusiasm of character, I have no doubt, in the heat of debate, and in an honest endeavor to maintain my opinions against adverse opinions alike honestly entertained, as to the best course to be adopted for the public welfare, I may have often inadvertently and unintentionally, in moments of excited debate, made use of language that has been offensive, and susceptible of injurious interpretation, toward my brother senators. If there be any here who retain wounded feelings of injury or dissatisfaction, produced on such occasions, I beg to assure them that I now offer the most ample apology for any departure on my part from the established rules of parliamentary decorum and courtesy. On the other hand, I assure senators, one and all, without exception and without reserve, that I retire from this chamber without carrying with me a single feeling of resentment or dissatisfaction to the Senate or any of its members. 7. I go from this place under the hope that we shall mutually consign to perpetual oblivion whatever personal collisions may, at any time, unfortunately have occurred between us; and that our recollections shall dwell in future only on those conflicts of mind with mind, those intellectual struggles, those noble exhibitions of the powers of logic, argument, and eloquence, honorable to the Senate and to the nation, in which each has sought and contended for what he deemed the best mode of accomplishing one common object, the interest and the best happiness of our beloved country. To these thrilling and delightful scenes, it will be my pleasure and my pride to look back, on my retirement, with unmeasured satisfaction |