ADDRESS.




   GENTLEMEN OF THE LAW SOCIETY:
                         I am not here to recount in set phrase
and with that courtesy which the living always pay to the dead,
the virtues, real or supposed, of one around whose fate, youth
and interesting private relations alone have cast a transient in-
terest. I come not merely to acquit me of a duty to one whom
I personally loved and admired, to weave a fading garland for
his tomb, or scatter affection's incense over his ashes. Mine is
a severer task, a more important duty. I stand here gentlemen,
as a member of a great commonwealth, amidst assembled thou-
sands of her citizens, to mourn with them the blow sudden and
overwhelming, which has fallen upon the country. He about
whose young brows there clustered most of honor-he, around
whose name and character, there gathered most of public hope-
the flower of our Kentucky youth, "the rose and expectancy of
the fair state" lies uprooted. He, who by the unaided strength
of his own great mind, had spurned from his path each obstacle
that impeded and rolled back the clouds which darkened his
morning march-who in his fresh youth had reached an emi-
nence of fame and of influence, which to a soul less ardent
might have seemed the topmost pinnacle, but which to him, was
only a momentary resting place, from whence, ;vi'a aii indaz-
zled eye and elastic limb, he was preparing to sprfig still up-
wards and nearer to the sun of glory which gio-ved 'o'v'e himn;
while the admiring crowd below were watchinla, With intensest
interest each movement of his towering step, each wave of his
eagle wing,
                     "Why sudden droops his crest
            The shaft is sped, the arrow's in his breast."
  Death canonizes a great name and the seal of the sepulchre
excludes from its slumbering tenant the breath of envy. I might
fling the reins to fancy and indulge in the utmost latitude of