3.  When he first spoke at Faneuil Hall some of the most renowned American orators were still in their prime.  Webster and Clay were in the Senate, Choate at the bar, Edward Everett upon the academic platform.  From all these orators Phillips differed more than they differed from each other.  Behind Webster, and Everett, and Clay there was always a great organized party or an entrenched conservatism of feeling and opinion.  They spoke accepted views.  They moved with masses of men, and were sure of the applause of party spirit, of political tradition, and of established institutions.  Phillips stood alone.

4.  With no party behind him and appealing against established order and acknowledged tradition, his speech was necessarily a popular appeal for a strange and unwelcome cause, and the condition of its success was that it should both charm and rouse the hearer, while, under cover of the fascination, the orator unfolded his argument and urged his plea.  This condition the genius of the orator instinctively perceived, and it determined the character of his discourse.

5.  He faced his audience with a tranquil mien and a beaming aspect that was never dimmed.  He spoke, and in the measured cadence of his quiet voice there was intense feeling, but no declamation, no passionate appeal, no superficial and feigned emotion.  It was simple colloquy—­a gentleman conversing.  Unconsciously and surely, the ear and heart were charmed.  How was it done?  Ah! how did Mozart do it, how Raphael?  The secret of the rose’s sweetness, of the bird’s ecstacy, of the sunset’s glory—­that is the secret of genius and of eloquence.

6.  What was heard, what was seen, was the form of noble manhood, the courteous and self-possessed tone, the flow of modulated speech, sparkling with matchless richness of illustration, with apt illusion, and happy anecdote, and historic parallel, with wit and pitiless invective, with melodious pathos, with stinging satire, with crackling epigram and limpid humor, like the bright ripples that play around the sure and steady prow of the resistless ship.  The divine energy of his conviction utterly possessed him, and his

    “Pure and eloquent blood
    Spoke in his cheek, and so distinctly wrought
    That one might almost say his body thought.”

7.  Phillips cherished profound faith in the people, and because he cherished it he never flattered the mob, nor hung upon its neck, nor pandered to its passion, nor suffered its foaming hate or its exulting enthusiasm to touch the calm poise of his regnant soul.  He moved in solitary majesty, and if from his smooth speech a lightning flash of satire or of scorn struck a cherished lie, or an honored character, or a dogma of the party creed, and the crowd burst into a furious tempest of dissent, he beat it into silence with uncompromising iteration.  If it tried to drown his voice, he turned to the reporters, and over the raging tumult calmly said, “Howl on, I speak to 30,000,000 here.”