It was Wendell Phillips—the flower of the anti-slavery chivalry. Memory recalls the words in which Robertus Monachus describes the leader of the twelfth century Crusaders, Godfrey of Bouillon: “He was beautiful in countenance,” says the chronicler, “tall in stature, agreeable in his discourse, admirable in his morals, and at the same time so gentle, that he seemed better fitted for the monk than the knight; but when his enemies appeared before him, and the combat approached, his soul became filled with mighty daring; like a lion, he feared not for his person—and what shield, what buckler, could resist the fall of his sword?” So might one describe the great Abolitionist. But a poetic heart would take from that rich old world Past a more lustrous figure than even Godfrey to stand as his representative. In England they call Lord Derby the Rupert of debate; and far more aptly might Wendell Phillips be termed the Tancred of liberty. In his personal appearance, as in the attitude of his life, the nature of his thought, and the style of his rhetoric, there was that which recalled the image of the loveliest of the antique chevaliers. As he stood on that brilliant platform, while the enthusiastic applause swelled and tossed in a tempest of sound and stir—one foot advanced, his hands lightly clasped behind him, his head curved a little to one side, the light bringing out in definite relief a face and form in strange contrast with every other around him, and whose statuesque repose seemed heightened by the tumultuous commotion of the audience—he impressed the eye like a piece of exquisite sculpture when seen among the alien shapes of men. A tall-browed, oval head of severe and singular grace; long, clear-cut, Roman features; a keen and penetrant eye; around the firm mouth a glimmer of feminine sweetness; the face harmonized with an expression of golden urbanity; and in the whole aspect the polished ease of the gentleman blended with the lofty bearing of the Paladin. And a Paladin he was—a star of oratoric tournament, proved so by many a hard-fought argument in the chivalrous fields of liberty, where his eloquence, that fiery sword wrought of Justice and Beauty, as his friend Parker has called it, flashed and rang on the armor of the vile, and brought new courage to the war. None listened to the bright and terrible music of his speech unmoved; no bitterest conservative could hear it without owning its magic. Robbed of his just due of fame by the unpopularity of the cause he championed, even his foes could whisper that he was the greatest orator in America—even the scholars of the Boston “Courier”, the representative pro-slavery organ in that latitude, and the deadly enemy of the Abolitionists, could call him, with strange warmth, the Cicero of anti-slavery.