‘Say, for whose brow this laurel crown? For whom this web of life is spinning? Turn this, thy album, upside down, And take the end for the beginning.’ The meaning of this was somewhat mystical, but, by turning to the back of the book, and inverting it, on its last page a piece was found with the signature of ‘H. CLAY!’ Seldom, perhaps, has an administration been assailed with more violence, or with less cause, than that of Mr. Adams. Perhaps the hostility manifested towards it, was occasioned, to a considerable extent, by Mr. Clay’s connection with it, and from the fact that the views of the president, in relation to the great measures of national policy, harmonized perfectly with his own. This gave to the opposition, of the ultra advocates of state rights, its bitterest venom, which was profusely lavished upon it. As soon as Mr. Clay left the house, his old eccentric foe, Mr. Randolph, cast off all restraint, and spoke and acted as though law and order were not for him; suffering no occasion to pass unimproved in abusing Mr. Clay, and often travelling out of his way to seek one. The subject of the Panama mission furnished him rich materials for exercising his peculiar genius, which he employed in the most insulting manner towards him. He characterized that unison of sentiment to which we have alluded, which existed between the president and Mr. Clay, as a ‘coalition of Blifil and Black George――a combination of the Puritan with the black-leg’――and charged Mr. Clay with ‘stealing a leaf from the curse book of PANDEMONIUM.’ Such language would be disgraceful under any circumstances, but especially on the floor of the senate chamber. Mr. Randolph seemed determined to bring about a personal conflict with Mr. Clay, from what motives it is difficult to determine, for the latter gave him no cause of abuse, carefully avoiding him as he did. But the former went on, day after day, unprovoked, adding injury to injury, heaping insult upon insult upon the latter, until further forbearance became exceedingly difficult, to say the least, especially as Mr. Clay was surrounded by his family. Says an individual intimately acquainted with the parties, ‘Mr. Randolph knew that his every word, whether spoken in his sober or inebriated moments, was pregnant with death, to the pride and the happiness of the innocent and the lovely.’ Although he himself had no family; although he was an individual in reference to whom a distinguished friend of ours once thanked God in congress, that monsters could not perpetuate their species; still he must have known, from hearsay, that the feelings of a wife and a daughter are keenly sensitive. Had Mr. Clay held a seat in the senate, Mr. Randolph, dark as were his designs, and much as he longed for a quarrel, would not have dared to use the language of open outrage. There was ever something in Mr. Clay’s eye, before which his spirit quailed and