Excerpt from Modern Eloquence, Vol. 2: After-Dinner Speeches, E O If I manage to make a speech it will be the one speech of the evening which was most carefully prepared. The pre parafions were all made, arrangements were completed and it was perfectly understood that I Should not make it. The name set down under this toast is that of Hon. John Ran dolph Tucker, and the wild absurdity of asking a writer who does not make Speeches, to take the place of such an orator as John Randolph Tucker would seem to be like asking a seasick land-lubber to take the captain's place upon the bridge of the ocean steamer in a storm, and there is another reason by which I am peculiarly unfit to speak in response to the toast Southern Literature, and that is, that I am firmly convinced that there is no Southern Liter ature; that there never was a Southern Literature; that there never will be a Southern Literature, and that there never ought to be a Southern Literature. Some very great and noble work in literature has been produced by men of Southern lineage and birth and residence. John Marshall, if he had not been the greatest of American jurists, would have been counted, because of his Life of Washington. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.