had four children; Grace, Fletcher, Julia and Edward; but one of whom, Fletcher, survives. Edward died with the army in Mexico, 1847, Major of the Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers. He was one of the most gentlemanly, amiable, and honorable young men of the age.

Mr. Webster lived in Portsmouth nine years, wanting one month. The counsel most eminent at the bar of the county at that time, were Jeremiah Mason, Edward St. Loe Livermore, Jeremiah Smith, Judge of the Superior Court and Governor of the State; William King Atkinson, AttorneyGeneral of the State; George Sullivan, also Attorney-General; Samuel Dexter and Joseph Story, of Massachusetts, all lawyers of much more than ordinary ability, and some of surpassing excellence. No bar, at that time, probably, in the country, presented such an array of various talents. Mr. Webster's estimate of Judge Story and Mr. Mason, expressed in public, will form not the least important nor least enduring monument to their fame. It will out last the sculptured marble. For Mr. Mason, his professional rival sometimes, his friend always, he entertained a warm regard as well as respect. Mr. Mason was of infinite advantage to him, Mr. Webster has said, in Portsmouth, not only by his unvarying friendship, but by the many good lessons he taught him, and the good example he set him in the commencement of his career. "If there be in the country a stronger intellect," Mr. Webster once said, "if there be a mind of more native resources, if there be a vision that sees quicker or sees deeper into whatever is intri

cate, or whatever is profound, I must confess I have not known it."

Mr. Webster's practice, while he lived in Portsmouth, was very much a circuit practice. He followed the Superior Court in most of the counties of the State, and was retained in nearly all the important causes. It is a fact somewhat singular of his professional life, that with the exception of instances in which he has been associated with the attorneygeneral of the United States for the time being, he has hardly appeared ten times as junior counsel. Once or twice with Mr. Mason, once or twice with Mr. Prescott, and with Mr. Hopkinson, are the only exceptions within recollection.

Mr. Webster's practice in New Hampshire was never lucrative. Clients then and there were not rich, and fees, consequently, were not large; nor were persons so litigious as in places less civilized by intelligence. Though his time was exclusively devoted to his profession, his practice never gave him more than a livelihood.

He never held office, popular or other, in the government of New Hampshire. He occasionally took part in political affairs, and was then not unfelt in his action. His vote was always given, his voice and pen sometimes exercised, in favor of the party whose principles he espoused. Even in that early period of his life, however, when something perhaps, could be pardoned to the vehemence of youth, he used no acrimonious language of his political opponents, nor suggested

or participated in any act indicative of personal animosity towards them.

At thirty years of age, he had become well known and respected throughout the State; so much so, that he was elected a Representative of the State in Congress, after an animated contest, in November, 1812, and took his seat at the extra session in May, 1813.

What has been written thus far, relates rather to the private life of Mr. Webster; what follows concerns, mostly, his public; as gathered from the records and contemporaneous testimony.

But the ingenuous youth of the country should understand, that Mr. Webster, great as he is, has not become so, without great study. Greatness has not been thrust upon him. He has studied books, he has studied mankind, he has studied himself, (which is the very fountain of all true wisdom,) deeply and conscientiously, from his earliest youth. There has been no unappropriated time with him; none trifled away. Even in the hours of relaxation, he has thought of, and methodized the gleanings of the Past, or prepared results for the Future.

He laid early and solid the foundation of his fame. While the mind was eager and facile to receive earnest impressions, he sought after everything in the way of learning, that was sincere, elevated, and ennobling, to fill and satisfy it. He pursued no study he did not comprehend; undertook no task to

which he did not devote his whole mind.

Whatever he strove

after, he acquired, and whatever he acquired, he retained.

It was this early and constant seeking after knowledgethis desire unsatisfied with acquisition-this all-embracing pursuit, that determined his intellectual character, and prepared him for any encounter with the world. What he has said of Adams and Jefferson might be applied with equal truth to himself. "If we could now ascertain all the causes which gave them eminence and distinction, in the midst of the great men with whom they acted, we should find not among the least, their early acquisition in literature, the resources which it furnished, the promptitude and facility which it communicated, and the wide field it opened, for analogy and illustration; giving them, thus, on every subject, a larger view, and a broader range, as well for discussion, as for the government of their own conduct."

CHAPTER II.

THE hall of debate is certainly not so dangerous as the battle-field. Life is not involved in its struggles; but still there can be perilled in it, no less, all that renders life dosirable;-character, position, influence. These all may be staked upon the decision of the moment:

"Concurritur:

Aut cita mors, aut victoria læta."

Moral and physical courage too are equally required in the one as in the other; there are many, indeed, who would prefer to lead a storming party or a forlorn hope, to undergoing the hazards of a forensic contest.

To Mr. Webster, a deliberative assembly was a scene of action entirely new. He had undergone, before his entrance into Congress, no preliminary training. The common schools of our orators-State Legislatures—he knew nothing of: all that he now saw resembled nothing he had ever scen. Yet he was neither perplexed, nor discouraged; he had subdued to a great degree his early diffidence, and became self-reliant. It may be said of him as it has been said of the younger Pitt;