Sir, whilst Virginia, in the exercise of her own proper judgment, has differed from Mr. Clay in some of his views of national policy, she has never, at any period of his public career, failed to regard him with pride, as one of her most distinguished sons; to honor the purity and the manliness of his character, and to award to him the high credit of an honest and sincere devotion to his country’s welfare. And now, sir, that death has arrested for ever the pulsations of that mighty heart, and sealed in eternal silence those eloquent lips upon whose accents thousands have so often hung in rapture, I shall stand justified in saying, that a wail of lamentation will be heard from her people――her whole people――reverberating through her mountains and valleys, as deep, as genuine, and as sincere as that which, I know, will swell the noble hearts and the heaving bosoms of the people of his own cherished and beloved Kentucky. Sir, as I walked to the capitol this morning, every object which attracted my eye, admonished me that a nation’s benefactor had departed from amongst us. He is gone! Henry Clay, the idol of his friends, the ornament of the senate chamber, the pride of his country; he whose presence gathered crowds of his admiring fellow-men around him, as if he had been one descended from above, has passed for ever from our view. ‘His soul, enlarged from its vile bonds, has gone To that REFULGENT world, where it shall swim In liquid light, and float on seas of bliss.’ But the memory of his virtues and of his services will be gratefully embalmed in the hearts of his countrymen, and generations yet unborn will be taught to lisp with reverence and enthusiasm the name of Henry Clay. * * * * * Mr. PARKER, of Indiana, said: Mr. Speaker, This is a solemn――a consecrated hour. And I would not detain the members of the house from indulging in the silence of their own feelings, so grateful to hearts chastened as ours. But I cannot restrain an expression from a bosom pained with its fullness. When my young thoughts first took cognizance of the fact that I have a country, my eye was attracted by the magnificent proportions of Henry Clay. The idea absorbed me then, that he was, above all other men, the embodiment of my country’s genius.