H enry Clay was by all accounts a brilliant, eloquent, and altogether remarkable politician. Not only was he said to be the greatest dancer of his generation, Clay single-handedly transformed the House of Representatives into a functioning legislature and forestalled the Civil War by decades. But the Great Compromiser’s intellect, although widely praised, had one rather peculiar, if chronic, lacuna: a complete inability to remember poetry. For Clay, this was particularly troublesome, as he was wont to burst out with a few lines of favored verse amid orations that, in typically nineteenth-century fashion, could last for hours. Once, when Clay garbled an obscure passage from Hamlet during a speech on the House floor, several members jointly and acidly shouted out the correct phrases, greatly embarrassing the Kentuckian.