CHAPTER XIV.

IN

SOME ACCOUNT OF A BYGONE DEBATING SOCIETY.

N the last chapter I spoke of the advantages of debate and debating societies. In this I shall give,

by way of illustration, some personal reminiscences of a debating society to which I once belonged. Well do I remember that society, the first society I ever joined. It was called the "Franklin Debating Society," and met in one of the rooms of old Clinton Hall, New York, where now the fine new structure of the Mercantile Library stands. We met in Room No 7, second floor, a room which remains more distinctly in my mind than any other room in existence. Well do I remember the exciting debates we had in that room, and equally well the looks and tones of most of the speakers. The society was composed of some twentyfive young men; all of the middle class; all earning their bread in various useful occupations, and all striving to gain an education and a development of their powers such as would enable them to do good work in the world. The fire of ambition was glowing in most of those young hearts, and I know that many of them, filled with high hopes and noble aims, looked forward to the time when they would fill honorable and useful stations in the world. And some of them have done so,

What ambitious speeches we youngsters used to make in those

Our salad days,

When we were green in judgment !

How fluently and confidently we declaimed on subjects of which we knew nothing! What fiery harangues we poured out on slavery and freedom, on aristocracy and democracy; on the wrongs of Ireland and the injustice of England; on monarchy and republicanism; on Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth Queen of England; on Hannibal, Cæsar, Alexander, and Napoleon; on Junius, Tom Paine and the French revolutionists! We settled the world's affairs, past and present, in that little room in Clinton Hall, we youngsters did; and some of us imagined, I have no doubt, that we could have arranged things much better, had we had the chance, than the heroes and heroines whose actions we discussed.

We had our famous nights, too, as well as other deliberative bodies. No one that was present, for instance, on the night on which Tom Kelly made his brilliant speech on the banishment of Napoleon to St. Helena will ever forget it. He fairly flowed out in genuine, moving eloquence; he completely forgot himself in the intensity of his feeling; and, with a flood of indignation, he consigned to eternal infamy the remorseless British ministry that "dared to treat as a common criminal, and banish to a barren rock in the distant Pacific, a distinguished general and ruler of France, an unhappy warrior who had voluntarily surrendered himself to the victorious but ungenerous enemy!" Then we had our literary treats, rich and racy, which usually consisted of a batch of anonymous

communications, prose and poetry, and very personal, addressed to "The Editor," who read them aloud with all the energy and force he had at command; communications which, like Falstaff's speeches, were not only witty in themselves, but the cause of wit in others. Oh, those bright, joyful, happy days, when the world seemed rosy and beautiful, and hope animated every heart, how little we appreciated them! Such a period comes only once in a lifetime.

ure.

To me this was the golden age of life; the most hopeful, the most promising, and the most free from care. It is pleasant to me even now to recall those days. I never think of them but with renewed pleas'Remembrance," says Richter, "is the only Paradise from which we cannot be driven away." We had so far hardly known any serious care or trouble, and the future seemed all brightness. Our heroes were brilliant parliamentary orators and shining political leaders; our favorite authors were historians and dramatic poets, and our pastimes study, conversation, and dreams of future fame and fortune. I might

say of those days what Cowley said of the pleasant days he spent with his friend Harvey:

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;

But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poetry;

Arts which I loved; for they, my friend, were thine.

Many have observed that the realization of high hopes does not bring half so much pleasure as their anticipation; and this we found out, too. Schiller tells us of a certain king who, on his death-bed, was asked by his appointed successor what, in all the aspects of life, had given him most satisfaction-what was now, as the

curtain fell, his opinion of the great drama of life-upon which the dying king, opening his eyes, replied: "I have no satisfaction in any part of it-I have now nothing but contempt for everything that once seemed great and desirable to me."

There were some among those young orators who have since attained positions of importance in the world; and there are three or four whose career, not yet ended, will, I trust, shine all the brighter the nearer they approach its close. There were a few who, even then, were regarded among ourselves as persons of distinction; and we were confident that nothing but time and opportunity were needed to cause all the world to esteem them as much as we did. There was, for instance, the Critic, brave-hearted Michael Ducey, a bright, enthusiastic youth of seventeen or eighteen years, who declaimed in the style of Pitt, in high-flown and sonorous sentences, and who wrote such fearless and trenchant criticisms of the performances of the others, that he often roused the ire and gained the enmity of those whom he assailed. What a marvellously clever boy he was, and what a prodigious stock of learning he had at command! How my heart used to flutter when he rose to read his high-sounding criticisms and with what admiration I used to listen to his grandiloquent speeches! I believe I used to look at him and listen to his speeches with as much admiration and respect as ever follower of Pitt or Fox looked at and listened to his great leader; and I believe most of the other members regarded him in the same way. He was our "head boy;" and I may say with Thackeray: "I have seen great men in my time, but never such a great one as that head boy of my boyhood; we

all thought he must become prime minister, and I was disappointed on meeting him in after life to find he was no more than six feet high."

A self-taught lad, earning his bread as a clerk in the law office of Richard Busteed, Esq., Corporation Counsel of New York, Ducey had acquired a considerable fund of literary and legal lore, and possessed such a marvellous fluency of speech, together with such an imposing air and tone in his delivery, that he seemed to me a born orator, destined to mould the minds of men and

Th' applause of listening senates to command. But "past is all his fame; the very spot, where many a time he triumphed, is forgot." Clinton Hall has just been taken down, and a new and stately edifice put in its place.

When the Civil War broke out, Ducey entered the army, and fell in one of the first battles, leaving a widowed mother and many that loved him to mourn his untimely fate. Had he lived, he would, I am sure, have attained eminence in his profession.

There was Ducey's great opponent, the uneasy, irritable, fiery-tempered Cunningham, the Hotspur of the Society, who was always in trouble with somebody; and there was his opposite, the smooth-mannered and silver-tongued Smith, who was suspected, however, of being the author of half the anonymous communications to the Editor. There was the well-informed but impetuous and Church-loving Keiley, who never rose to address the meeting without speaking to the point and hitting the nail right on the head; so strong a speaker, that on whichever side Keiley went, Victory was almost sure to light. There, too, was the redoubtable Adam