In the long list of powers and endowments, we can select no faculty or attainment more useful and ennobling than that of eloquence. Brightening the gloom of intellect, and awakening the energies of feeling, it holds reason mute at its will and enkindles passion with its touch. The soldier on the tented field is incited to the charge, and animated in the conflict, and his last moments sweetened, by the magic of its influence. The cries of injured innocence it converts into notes of gladness, and the tears of sadness and sorrow into smiles of pleasure and rejoicing. The miser, gazing on the beauty of his coin, and living on the manna of its presence, and kneeling to its power as his idol, is taught to weep over his error, bow to his Creator, and despise the degrading destroyer of his peace. The infidel, unswayed by the voice of divinity, and ignorant of its attributes, and doubtful of its existence, enraptured with the glowing efforts of ethereal eloquence, is convicted of his depravity, and yields to the resistless current, which swelling in its onward course, dispels the cloud that obscures the mind, and leaves it pure and elevated. In the courts of justice, the criminal, his heart imbittered with torturing despair, and his soul torn with agonizing anguish, beholds his arms unshackled, his character unsullied by even suspicious glance, and futurity studded with honors, station and dignity. In the halls of legislation, corruption is unmasked, intrigue is exposed, and tyranny overthrown. Where is its matchless excellence inapplicable? The rich and the poor experience its effects. The guilty are living monuments of its exertion, and the innocent hail it as the vindicator of its violated rights and the preserver of its sacred reputation. In the cause of mercy it is ever omnipotent; bold in the consciousness of its superiority, and fearless and unyielding in the purity of its motives, it destroys all opposition and defies all power. The godlike Sheridan, unequalled and unrivalled, swayed all by its electric fire, charmed and enthralled the weak and the timid, and chained and overpowered the profound and the prejudiced. Burke, the great master of the human heart, deeply versed in its feelings and emotions, "struck by a word, and it quivered beneath the blow; flashed the light'ning glance of burning, thrilling, animated eloquence"--and its hopes and fears were moulded to his wish. Curran, whose speeches glitter with corruscations of wit, and sentiment, and genius, and whose soul burned with kindred feelings for its author, and teemed with celestial emanations, astonished, elevated and enraptured. Pitt, and Fox, and Henry, and Lee, and other great and gifted spirits of that golden age, have all unfolded the grandeur of its sublimity, the richness of its magnificence, and the splendor of its sparkling beauties.