He is an admirable
narrator; not rapid, but gliding along like a rivulet through a green
meadow, giving and taking a thousand little beauties not absolutely
required to give his story due relief, but each, in itself, a separate
boon.
I admired, too, his urbanity; so opposite to the rapid, slang,
Vivian-Greyish style, current in the literary conversation of the
day. "Sixty years since," men had time to do things better and more
gracefully.
CHALMERS.
With Dr. Chalmers we passed a couple of hours. He is old now, but
still full of vigor and fire. We had an opportunity of hearing a
fine burst of indignant eloquence from him. "I shall blush to my very
bones," said he, "if the _Chaarrch_" (sound these two _rrs_ with
as much burr as possible, and you will get an idea of his mode of
pronouncing that unweariable word,) "if the Chaarrch yield to the
storm." He alluded to the outcry now raised by the Abolitionists
against the Free Church, whose motto is, "Send back the money;" i.e.,
the money taken from the American slaveholders. Dr. C. felt, that
if they did not yield from conviction, they must not to assault.
His manner in speaking of this gave me a hint of the nature of his
eloquence.
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