Clay was of striking physique. He was quite tall, nearly six feet two inches, rather sparsely built, with a crane-like neck that he endeavored to conceal by his collar and stock. He had an immense mouth, phenomenal for size as well as shape, and kindly blue eyes which were electrical when kindled. Yet he was so magnetic in his power over men that when he was defeated for the Presidency, thousands of his Whig followers wept as they heard the news. Henry Clay was born in Hanover county, Virginia, April 12, 1777, and died at Washington, June 29, 1852, preceding his compeer Webster to the grave by only a few months. On reaching his majority, he removed to Lexington, Kentucky, which became his future home, although he was so rarely out of public life that he was comparatively little there. Having chosen the law for his profession, he was admitted to the bar, and before attaining his thirtieth year, was sent to the Senate of the United States. He was strenuous in his support of home industries, and endeavored by legislation to enforce upon legislators the wearing of homespun cloths. So ardent was he in this, that his course led to a duel with Humphrey Marshall, in which both were slightly wounded. At the close of the war of 1812, Clay was one of the commissioners appointed to negotiate the treaty of peace with [Illustration: HENRY CLAY Age 48] Great Britain, and as such signed the Treaty of Ghent. He was known as “the great Pacificator,” from his course in the events that led to the Missouri Compromise and later averted Southern “nullification.” He was an active and bitter opponent of Andrew Jackson, and supported John Quincy Adams against him for the Presidency, his reward being the portfolio of State; but there was no bargain and corruption about this business as his enemies claimed and which haunted Clay’s political career throughout the rest of his life. He was an ambitious man, and his failure to reach the goal of his ambition--the presidential chair--was a fatal blow. Clay was undoubtedly one of the greatest orators this country has produced, and a man with much natural ability, but little study and cultivation. His name is one to conjure with in old Kentucky, and it is with a moist eye that personal reminiscences of Clay are related out there in the blue grass State, even at this day, nearly half a century after his decease. [Illustration] XII _America’s Master Painter_ _Gilbert Stuart_