departure of a mighty conqueror, than of a private citizen. At Natchez, his arrival was anticipated, by the congregating of individuals from all parts of Mississippi, comprising the elite of her distinguished men, irrespective of partisanship, who thronged the wharf, waiting to receive him. On the arrival of the boat, the rush into it was so great as to excite alarm, and the multitude environing it was so large and dense, that some time was consumed in making an opening through it. Mr. Clay found it easier to accept an invitation to a public dinner, than to resist the importunity with which it was tendered. The guests were numerous. Says one who witnessed the assembly, ‘it was no partisan gathering. The warmest political opponents, sat down face to face with each other, united in one subject at least――the desire to do honor to their distinguished guest――to one whose patriotic motives none of them could doubt, however much they might differ from his principles. In his remarks, he was interrupted more than once by the deep, involuntary murmurs of applause, which burst forth around him. Every word which he uttered, went down and rested upon the hearts of his auditors, like the kind tones of some blessed visitant. It was a proud moment for Henry Clay. The dark elements of faction sank down into quietude before him. Men who had been arrayed for years in political contention, who had hitherto met each other with the compressed lip and knitted brow of hatred, gave back, on this occasion, the smiles of one another. ‘Mr. Clay commenced by an acknowledgment of his gratitude for the honors bestowed upon him. “There is nothing in life,” said he, “half so delightful to the heart, as to know that, notwithstanding the conflicts that arise among men――the whirlwind and madness of party feeling――there yet are times, as on the present occasion, when passion and prejudice slumber――moments, when old differences cease from troubling, and when all that is turbulent, and all that is distrustful, are sacrificed to the generous and social dictates of humanity.” ‘He spoke of general Jackson. He spoke of his great battle. Darkly as he had been traduced, deeply as he had been injured by that man, he yet hesitated not to bestow upon him his full measure of patriotic encomium. His feelings rose with the subject. His eye kindled. There was a moral grandeur in his look; and all who saw it felt that it was the visible manifestation of the triumph of his nobler feelings over the dark sense of wrong.