As I am not a very frequent speaker in this assembly, and have shown a desire, I trust, rather to listen to the wisdom of others than to lay claim to superior knowledge by undertaking to advise, even when advice, by being seasonable in point of time, might have some chance of being profitable, you will, perhaps, bear with me if I venture to trouble you once more on that eternal subject which has lingered here, until all its natural interest is exhausted, and every topic connected with it is literally worn to tatters. I shall, I assure you, sir, speak with laudable brevity--not merely on account of the feeble state of my health, and from some reverence for the laws of good taste which forbid me to speak otherwise, but also from a sense of justice to those who honor me with their attention. My single purpose, as I suggested yesterday, is to subject to a friendly, yet close examination, some portions of a speech, imposing, certainly, on account of the distinguished quarter from whence it came--not very imposing (if I may so say, without departing from that respect which I sincerely feel and intend to manifest for eminent abilities and long experience) for any other reason. * * * * * I confess to you, nevertheless, that some of the principles announced by the honorable gentleman from New York, with an explicitness that reflected the highest credit on his candor, did, when they were first presented, startle me not a little. They were not perhaps entirely new. Perhaps I had seen them before in some shadowy and doubtful shape, "If shape it might be called, that shape had none, Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb?"