When he entered upon a discussion in Parliament, or on the hustings, he elevated it to the highest possible plane.

The discussion became alike one of the highest moral principles and the profoundest political philosophy.

What he had to say would have been true and apt and fit to be uttered in the earlier days of Athens and Rome, and true and apt and fit to be uttered for thousands of years to come.

He had, in a large measure, a failing which all Englishmen have, and always had; the notion that what is good for England is good for humanity at large.

Still it was a lofty morality and a lofty ideal statesmanship.

He once began a prayer, "O Lord, it is a braw thing to loe ye.

But it is a better (bitter) thing to hate ye.

The beauty of this dialect is that while it is capable alike of such tenderness, and such lofty eloquence, and such exquisite and delicate humor, it is, like our Saxon, incapable of falsetto, or of little pomposities.

But with inferior magistrates and juries, however intelligent, however determined they were in a made-up opinion, however on their guard against the charmer, he was almost irresistible.

He never appealed to base motives, nor tried to awake coarse prejudices or stormy passions.

When he was confronted with some general rule, or some plain fact, he had a marvellous art of subtle distinction.

He showed that his client, or witness, or proposition, belonged to a class of itself.

The phraseology with which he clothed some commonplace or mean thought or fact, when he was compelled to use commonplace arguments, or to tell some common story, kept his auditors ever alert and expectant.

Whether you liked him or disliked him, you gave him your ears, erect and intent.

I had just time to hear this sentence, and shut the door and hurry to my train: "She went down the harbor, painted and perfidious--a coffin, but no ship.

It is only on fitting occasions, when great principles are to be vindicated, and solemn truths told, when some moral or political Waterloo or Solferino is to be fought, that he puts on the entire panoply of his gorgeous rhetoric.

Edward Everett seems to me, on the whole, our best example of the orator, pure and simple.

He was above all things--I am tempted to say, above all men--the foremost American orator in one class.

There is one function of the orator peculiar to our country, and almost unknown elsewhere.

That is the giving utterance to the emotion of the people, whether of joy or sorrow, on the occasions when its soul is deeply stirred--when some great man dies, or there is a great victory or defeat, or some notable anniversary is…

In sorrow it must utter its cry of pain; in victory, its note of triumph.

It must give voice to its love and its approbation and its condemnation.

If it be commonplace and hackneyed he makes it fresh and pleasant by giving in detail the circumstances when it was first uttered, or describes some occasion when some orator has applied it before; or calls attention to its very triteness…

If any speaker have to get ready in a hurry for a great occasion, let him look through the index of the four volumes of Everett's speeches, and he will find matter enough, not only to stimulate his own thought and set its currents running…

Some lofty sentiment, some stirring incident, some patriotic emotion, some play of fancy or wit comes from the brain or heart of the speaker.