As a rich specimen of off-hand eloquence, I think the address he
delivered on that occasion was unequaled. Unlike any other speech,
he had the arts to deal with, and of course the associations were of
surpassing splendor. I knew that he was ignorant of the technicalities
of art, and had paid but little attention to their study, and my
surprise was unbounded to see him, thus unexpectedly called upon,
instantly arrange in his mind ideas, and expressing facts and
illustrations that would have done honor to Burke, when dwelling upon
the sublime and beautiful. Had he been bred to the easel, or confined
to the sculptor's room, he could not have been more familiar with the
details of the studio--he painted with all the brilliancy of Titian,
and with the correctness of Raphael, while his images in marble
combined the softness of Praxiteles, and the nervous energy of Michael
Angelo. All this with Prentiss was intuition--I believe that the whole
was the spontaneous thought of the moment, the crude outlines that
floated through his mind being filled up by the intuitive teachings of
his surpassing genius. His conclusion was gorgeous--he passed Napoleon
to the summit of the Alps--his hearers saw him and his steel clad
warriors threading the snows of Mount St. Bernard, and having gained
the dizzy height, Prentiss represented "the man of destiny" looking
down upon the sunny plains of Italy, and then with a mighty swoop,
descending from the clouds and making the grasp of Empire secondary to
that of Art.

I had the melancholy pleasure of hearing his last, and, it would seem
to me, his greatest speech. Toward the close of the last Presidential
campaign, I found him in the interior of the State, endeavoring
to recruit his declining health. He had been obliged to avoid all
public speaking, and had gone far into the country to get away from