Mr. Ticknor was a man of learning and scholarship, just returned from a prolonged sojourn in Europe, where he had met and conversed with all the most distinguished men of the day, both in England and on the Continent.  He was not, therefore, disposed by training or recent habits to indulge a facile enthusiasm, and such deep emotion as he experienced must have been due to no ordinary cause.  He was, in fact, profoundly moved because he had been listening to one of the great masters of eloquence exhibiting, for the first time, his full powers in a branch of the art much more cultivated in America by distinguished men of all professions than is the custom elsewhere.  The Plymouth oration belongs to what, for lack of a better name, we must call occasional oratory.  This form of address, taking an anniversary, a great historical event or character, a celebration, or occasion of any sort as a starting point, permits either a close adherence to the original text or the widest latitude of treatment.  The field is a broad and inviting one.  That it promises an easy success is shown by the innumerable productions of this kind which, for many years, have been showered upon the country.  That the promise is fallacious is proved by the very small number among the countless host of such addresses which survive the moment of their utterance.  The facility of saying something is counterbalanced by the difficulty of saying anything worth hearing.  The temptation to stray and to mistake platitude for originality is almost always fatal.

Mr. Webster was better fitted than any man who has ever lived in this country for the perilous task of occasional oratory.  The freedom of movement which renders most speeches of this class diluted and commonplace was exactly what he needed.  He required abundant intellectual room for a proper display of his powers, and he had the rare quality of being able to range over vast spaces of time and thought without becoming attenuated in what he said.  Soaring easily, with a powerful sweep he returned again to earth without jar or shock.  He had dignity and grandeur of thought, expression, and manner, and a great subject never became small by his treatment of it.  He had, too, a fine historical imagination, and could breathe life and passion into the dead events of the past.

Mr. Ticknor speaks of the Plymouth oration as impressing him as a series of eloquent fragments.  The impression was perfectly correct.  Mr. Webster touched on the historical event, on the character of the Pilgrims, on the growth and future of the country, on liberty and constitutional principles, on education, and on human slavery.  This was entirely proper to such an address.  The difficulty lay in doing it well, and Mr. Webster did it as perfectly as it ever has been done.  The thoughts were fine, and were expressed in simple and beautiful words.  The delivery was grand and impressive, and the presentation of each