Charles Fox is credited with saying that a good speech never reads well. This opinion, taken in the sense in which it was intended, that a carefully-prepared speech, which reads like an essay, lacks the freshness and glow that should characterize the oratory of debate, is undoubtedly correct. But it is equally true that when a speech which we know to have been good in delivery is equally good in print, a higher intellectual plane is reached and a higher level of excellence is attained than is possible to either the mere essay or to the effective retort or argument, which loses its flavor with the occasion which draws it forth. Mr. Webster's speeches on the tariff, on the bank, and on like subjects, able as they are, are necessarily dry, but his speeches on nobler themes are admirable reading. This is, of course, due to the variety and ease of treatment, to their power, and to the purity of the style. At the same time, the immediate effect of what he said was immense, greater, even, than the intrinsic merit of the speech itself. There has been much discussion as to the amount of preparation which Mr. Webster made. His occasional orations were, of course, carefully written out beforehand, a practice which was entirely proper; but in his great parliamentary speeches, and often in legal arguments as well, he made but slight preparation in the ordinary sense of the term. The notes for the two speeches on Foote's resolution were jotted down on a few sheets of note-paper. The delivery of the second one, his masterpiece, was practically extemporaneous, and yet it fills seventy octavo pages and occupied four hours. He is reported to have said that his whole life had been a preparation for the reply to Hayne. Whether he said it or not, the statement is perfectly true. The thoughts on the Union and on the grandeur of American nationality had been garnered up for years, and this in a greater or less degree was true of all his finest efforts. The preparation on paper was trifling, but the mental preparation extending over weeks or days, sometimes, perhaps, over years, was elaborate to the last point. When the moment came, a night's work would put all the stored-up thoughts in order, and on the next day they would pour forth with all the power of a strong mind thoroughly saturated with its subject, and yet with the vitality of unpremeditated expression, having the fresh glow of morning upon it, and with no trace of the lamp.