The New York “Herald” said:—­

“Morse was, perhaps, the most illustrious American of his age.  Looking over the expanse of the ages, we think more earnestly and lovingly of Cadmus, who gave us the alphabet; of Archimedes, who invented the lever; of Euclid, with his demonstrations in geometry; of Faust, who taught us how to print; of Watt, with his development of steam, than of the resonant orators who inflamed the passions of mankind, and the gallant chieftains who led mankind to war.  We decorate history with our Napoleons and Wellingtons, but it was better for the world that steam was demonstrated to be an active, manageable force, than that a French Emperor and his army should win the battle of Austerlitz.  And when a Napoleon of peace, like the dead Morse, has passed away, and we come to sum up his life, we gladly see that the world is better, society more generous and enlarged, and mankind nearer the ultimate fulfillment of its earthly mission because he lived; and did the work that was in him.”

The Louisville “Courier-Journal” went even higher in its praise:—­

“If it is legitimate to measure a man by the magnitude of his achievements, the greatest man of the nineteenth century is dead.  Some days ago the electric current brought us the intelligence that S.F.B.  Morse was smitten with, paralysis.  Since then it has brought us the bulletins of his condition as promptly as if we had been living in the same square, entertaining us with hopes which the mournful sequel has proven to be delusive, for the magic wires have just thrilled with the tidings to all nations that the father of telegraphy has passed to the eternal world.  Almost as quietly as the all-seeing eye saw the soul depart from that venerable form, mortal men, thousands of miles distant, are apprised of the same fact by the swift messenger which he won from the unknown—­speaking, as it goes around its world-wide circuit, in all the languages of earth.

“Professor Morse took no royal road to this discovery.  Indeed it is never a characteristic of genius to seek such roads.  He was dependent, necessarily, upon facts and principles brought to light by similar diligent, patient minds which had gone before him.  Volta, Galvani, Morcel, Grove, Faraday, Franklin, and a host of others had laid a basis of laws and theories upon which he humbly and reverently mounted and arranged his great problem for the hoped-for solution.  But to him was reserved the sole, undivided glory of discovering the priceless gem, ‘richer than all its tribe,’ which lay just beneath the surface, and around which so many savans had blindly groped.

“He is dead, but his mission was fully completed.  It has been no man’s fortune to leave behind him a more magnificent legacy to earth, or a more absolute title to a glorious immortality.  To the honor of being one of the most distinguished benefactors of the human race, he added the personal and social graces and virtues of a true gentleman and a Christian philosopher; The memory of his private worth will be kept green amid the immortals of sorrowing friendship for a lifetime only, but his life monument will endure among men as long as the human race exists upon earth.”