He
descanted, in a second or third rate style, on the horrors of famine in
Ireland,--its horrors especially as seen in the family. Coming to a
period, he said, "It is under these circumstances that I want you to
put your hands into your pockets, and pull out something, and throw it
into the lap of starving Ireland!" This caused the most tremendous
cheering I ever heard,--"bravo--bravo--bravo,--whoo--hoo--whoo!" The
last sound was to me altogether new. Not having learned phonography, I
can give you no adequate notion of it; but it was a combination of the
owl's screech and the pig's scream. The favoured orator continued his
speech a little longer, and at the close there was a storm of applause
ten times more terrific than the former. And who was the speaker? It
was none other, as I subsequently ascertained, than the celebrated
Henry Clay! In departing from the tone of eulogy in which it is
fashionable to speak of him, I may be charged with a want of taste and
discrimination. That I cannot help. My simple object in these letters
is to tell how Transatlantic men and manners appeared to my eye or ear.
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