The second is when, having nothing to say, we are expected to fill a
void in the minds of our hearers. And I think the third, and most
formidable, is the necessity of following a speaker who is sure to say
all the things you meant to say, and better than you, so that we are
tempted to exclaim, with the old grammarian, "Hang these fellows, who
have said all our good things before us!"

Now the Fourth of July has several times been alluded to, and I believe
it is generally thought that on that anniversary the spirit of a certain
bird known to heraldic ornithologists--and I believe to them alone--as
the spread eagle, enters into every American's breast, and compels him,
whether he will or no, to pour forth a flood of national
self-laudation. This, I say, is the general superstition, and I hope
that a few words of mine may serve in some sort to correct it. I ask
you, if there is any other people who have confined their national
self-laudation to one day in the year. I may be allowed to make one
remark as a personal experience. Fortune had willed it that I should see
as many--perhaps more--cities and manners of men as Ulysses; and I have
observed one general fact, and that is, that the adjectival epithet
which is prefixt to all the virtues is invariably the epithet which
geographically describes the country that I am in. For instance, not to
take any real name, if I am in the kingdom of Lilliput, I hear of the
Lilliputian virtues. I hear courage, I hear common sense, and I hear
political wisdom called by that name. If I cross to the neighboring
Republic Blefusca--for since Swift's time it has become a Republic--I
hear all these virtues suddenly qualified as Blefuscan.

I am very glad to be able to thank Lord Coleridge for having, I believe
for the first time, coupled the name of the President of the United
States with that of her Majesty on an occasion like this. I was struck,