(with particular reference to the question of slavery) might make his election to the floor of Congress, liable to misapprehension by our southern neighbors, and injudicious at the actual delicate crisis of affairs, notwithstanding the general acknowledgment of his signal merits and claims. An attempt has also recently been made to revive "The Plain Dealer," the discontinuance of which was regarded as a serious public loss. It was temporarily abandoned solely on account of Mr. Leggett's impaired health, which rendered it impossible for him to undertake its editorial charge. Mr. Leggett's success in acquiring a high reputation and great power over the minds of his contemporaries, has shown that the walk of the journalist is not unworthy of the choice of minds governed by an honorable ambition. The man of clear reason, a richly furnished mind, elevated principles, and an eloquence which can stir men's hearts within them, should not disdain a vocation in which these qualities can be rendered so useful, and, as the example we are now contemplating has shown, so productive of fame. The influence of the journalist is even greater than that of the orator, inasmuch as it is constant and perpetual, at the same time that it is more widely diffused-he is the daily counsellor of his reader, and of thousands of readers. Mr. Leggett's example has shown how much he can effect in propagating salutary truths, exploding hurtful errors, resisting selfish and dangerous schemes, and hastening necessary reforms. In the midst of the proud and bright hopes inspired by his character and career-while the vast success of that purity and sternness of principle which he had espoused in advance, and advocated with such singlehearted and disinterested energy, was infusing new strength and power into the great party of American Democracy, giving to its cause a resistless armament of truth and righteousness which carried it from victory to victory in the most momentous crisis of its history, and animating it for new conflicts in the keenest warfare of principles our country has ever known;-honored in a rare degree with the respect and confidence of the party professing the principles which that warfare and that success had thus signally tested and sustained; in the midst of all thisperhaps the most gratifying homage ever won by a public writer-was Leggett himself suddenly called from the scene of all mortal honors and interests. He died at his residence in New Rochelle at 9 o'clock on the evening of Wednesday, the 29th of May last, from one of the severe attacks of bilious colic, by which his valuable life had been frequently endangered for years past. The following article from the same pen that traced, while he was alive, the generous and discerning sketch of his character, which we have just given, thus announced the melancholy event in the New York Evening Post of May 30th. Alas, that before its publication, it should have been found necessary to complete that sketch by such a sequel. "It is with sorrow that we announce the death of William Leggett, formerly one of the editors and proprietors of this paper. He expired at his residence in New Rochelle at nine o'clock last evening, in the thirtyninth year of his age. "As a political writer, Mr. Leggett attained, within a brief period, a high rank, and an extensive and enviable reputation. He wrote with great fluency and extraordinary vigor; he saw the strong points of a question at a glance, and had the skill to place them before his readers with a force, clearness, and amplitude of statement and illustration rarely to be found in the writings of any journalist that ever lived. When he became warmed with his subject, which was not unfrequently the case, his discussions had all the stirring power of extemporaneous eloquence. "His fine endowments he wielded for worthy purposes. He espoused the cause of the largest liberty and the most comprehensive equality of rights among the human race, and warred against those principles which inculcate distrust of the people, and those schemes of legislation which tend to create an artificial inequality in the conditions of men. He was wholly free—and, in this respect, his example ought to be held up to journalists as a model to contemplate and copy-he was wholly free from the besetting sin of their profession, a mercenary and time-serving disposition. He was a sincere lover and follower of truth, and never allowed any of those specious reasons for inconsistency, which disguise themselves under the name of expediency, to seduce him for a moment from the support of the opinions which he deemed right, and the measures which he was convinced were just. What he would not yield to the dictates of interest he was still less disposed to yield to the suggestions of fear. "We sorrow that such a man, so clear-sighted, strong-minded, and magnanimous, has passed away, and that his aid is no more to be given in the conflict which truth and liberty maintain with their numerous and powerful enemies." Few men of his years have been more widely and deeply regretted than Mr. Leggett. In his case, the political regard naturally felt towards the bold and eloquent champion of favorite popular truths appeared, in a remarkable degree, to be quickened and warmed into an enthusiasm of personal attachment and admiration. Nor will this be a subject of wonder when we consider the striking prominence of the position in which he had so long stood almost alone as a public political writer; the fearful odds, of numbers, wealth, and power, against which he had unshrinkingly sustained, as it were, a single-handed struggle-the truly popular character of the principles he advocated, so broad, so simple, so harmonious;-the generous and elevated nature of the sympathies to which he addressed the fervid vehemence of his eloquence—and the transparently noble, true, and manly spirit in which he wrote. His most ardent admirers—his peculiar party, we may say—were chiefly found among the young men of his native city; because it was chiefly to the unsophiscated and uncorrupted mind of generous youth, that his mind addressed itself. No man can attain an extensive and deeply rooted popularity in this country, but as the representative, more or less truly and rightfully, of certain leading popular opinions or sentiments. Mr. Leggett's fearless energy, as a public writer, made him not only the representative of a certain set of opinions in political economy—he was not only the first that raised in New York the flag, round which we now behold the whole country rallying, inscribed with the motto of hostility to chartered monopoly and to the union of Bank and State-he was not only the leader and master-spirit of that gallant crusade of reform against the dangerous abuses of a too old and too absolute party ascendency, to which was at first attached in derision the name, now recognized as a badge of honor in all parts of the Union, of Locofocoism;-but he came also to be regarded as the representative of that freedom of thought and boldness of speech, of that noble impatience of the palsying conventionalism with which the time-serving expediency of the hour loves to gird and guard itself against the dangerous contact of first principles, and of that generous abhorrence of tyranny, and scorn of the corruption and cant too widely prevalent in the purest of political parties-which all felt and recognised as being, indeed, worthy of the true American Democrat, and as being a something long-needed and long-craved for. He was not only Leggett the Locofoco, but Leggett the Plain Dealer. And even though he might sometimes be impelled, by the noble enthusiasm which was necessary to make him what he was, to injudicious extremes, and even to a harsh and seemingly bitter asperity, calculated almost to bring plain dealing itself into disrepute, from too roughly shocking the prejudices and feelings of men—yet, throughout, all felt that it was a failing that leaned to virtue's side; and that such occasional abuse was but an insignificant drawback from the inestimable benefits of the much, and long needed use of the pen, which he wielded so vigorously, so searchingly and so unsparingly. In private life, Mr. Leggett was warmly beloved by his friends. He was honorable, frank, fearless and true; of a strong natural flow of animal spirits, and of great simplicity and directness in his manners and conversation. He has left no other family than his widow, having never had any children. We understand that a collection of the principal of his published writings, together with several posthumous MSS., is shortly to be made for the benefit of Mrs. Legget. It can scarcely fail to command a very extensive sale. It has also been stated that the Young Men's Committee of Tammany Hall are about erecting a monument to his memory. A resolution which does them much honor. But a few days before his death, Mr. Leggett received a tribute of respect to his personal and public character, alike honorable to the recipient and the giver. We refer to his appointment as Diplomatic Agent to the Republic of Guatemala. And we may, in conclusion, cite as a remarkable instance of the power of such a character, to extort a reluctant admi ration and sympathy, even from the fiercest of opponents, the fact, that virulent and embittered as had been his ancient feuds as a public journalist, with almost all the Opposition journals of the time, the announcement of his appointment was received with general satisfaction and approval, by foe as well as friend; and all united with apparent cordiality in the hope, so gladly cherished by the latter, that a more genial climate would repair the ravages that all regretted in his shattered constitution, and restore him in renovated vigor of mind and body to the honorable career of public life, which now at last seemed to stretch so promisingly before him. This unconscious tribute of respect was still more apparent when his decease became known. Rarely has the death of a citizen, never placed prominently before the community by the adventitious influence of public or official station, called forth more general and generous tributes of sorrow, admiration, or regret, even from that portion of the press distinguished for the most bitter condemnation of his principles when living. ODE TO THE SUN. A FRAGMENT BY A DECEASED CLERGYMAN. Sun! mighty orb of thought-surpassing glory Where million satellites their vigils keep,- Though but a speck, a worm, beneath that arch Oh! could I soar up to thy burning disc, Each earth-bound feeling in the proud desire, Within thy radiant light to steep my lyre; To see thy dazzling wheels career along, And to their awful music tune its wire; For first thy beams-drunk in while gazing long- My flight may be preposterous and vain The fate of Icarus may be my doom; Languid and shrivelled be my daring plume, Unhand me, Earth! lay not thy gelid finger Sweet as a cherub's voice and loud as thunder, What art thou, Sun? Oh! that a voice were thine, To answer my high cravings; if that sound Be Fire, oh! let its glow divine This moment thrill me with electric bound? The soul, contemning meaner glories round, Thou art the grandeur of the universe, Of all things visible, the brightest, best, And throned majestically dost rehearse And oh thy song is exquisitely sweet, Nor sweeter than sublime-for all the breast Of Nature doth delicious transport beat, And seems in loveliness to spring its lord, its life to meet. |