THE

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

DANIEL WEBSTER.

CHAPTER I.

Birth of Daniel Webster-Sketch of his Family—His Boyhood-His First Teachers-Enters a Law-Office-Becomes a Student of Phillips Academy-Peculiarities of Dr. Abbot-Webster commences to teach School-His Usefulness and Success.

ALL civilized nations have been proud of the fame of their most eminent orators and statesmen. Greece, the gifted land of ancient art and genius, boasts of her Demosthenes and Eschines; Rome, the martial mistress of the world, of her Cicero and Hortensius; England, of her Chatham and Burke; France, of her Mirabeau and Vergniaud. Our own country justly entertains the same sentiment of partiality and admiration for her two most illustrious citizens, her CLAY and WEBSTER. These are her greatest intellectual giants; and around their achievements as orators, as patriots, and as statesmen a deathless interest will continue to cluster, as long as this Republic retains a place either in reality, or even in history, and as long as liberty is enjoyed or revered among men.

DANIEL WEBSTER, the intellectual Colossus of the New

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World, was born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, on the 18th of January, 1782. He was the youngest son of Ebenezer and Abigail Webster. He first saw the light in the remotest recesses of what was at that time the extreme verge of civilization, on the northeastern boundary of the United States. The humble tenement in which he was born was the last house which then existed in the direction of the Canadian frontier.

Daniel was one of a family of ten children; and his ancestors were worthy to have preceded so illustrious a man. They had been residents of Rockingham county, New Hampshire, from the commencement of the eighteenth century, and had always been esteemed for their superior intelligence and moral worth. His father, Ebenezer Webster, was a man of rare virtues and of great mental powers. His large, muscular frame encased a soul gifted with qualities which allied him in character to the sternest sages of Greece or Rome. He never attended school a single day; yet by his self-taught exertions he attained a wide and accurate acquaintance with knowledge of almost every description. In those primeval times when the luxuries and even the conveniences of civilization were rarely attainable, except by those most favored by fortune, Ebenezer Webster pursued his lonely and undirected studies at night by the lurid light of blazing pine-knots; and thus he gradually prepared himself to assume no humble place among his contemporaries. During the trials of the Revolutionary era he was made the captain of a company of his co-patriots; he served with honor at Bennington and White Plains; and, after peace was proclaimed, he received, among other marks of esteem and confidence from his fellow-citizens, the office of Associate Judge in the Court of Common Pleas.

Of the other members of the family, the most remark

able was Ezekiel Webster, an elder brother of Daniel. He too became a lawyer, was a man of superior ability, possessing the same massive mould of intellectual as well as physical character which marked his more illustrious brother; but he died suddenly and prematurely, in the midst of an argument which he was delivering before the court at Concord, in his native State, at the age of fortynine.

The boyhood of Daniel Webster was spent in the obscure and rural retreat where he was born. At this period he was of slender frame and delicate health. It is narrated that the most remarkable feature of the strangely intelligent and thoughtful child then were two immense eyes, which seemed to be instinct with thought, feeling, and expression; and, as we turn over the annals of the earliest years of this wondrous man, we meet with additional proofs that a mother's mind and power, as in the vast majority of cases, moulded and gave character to the future mental and moral qualities of the man. Daniel's mother was his first and best teacher. From her he received the first rudiments of learning. His first text-book was also the best; for it was the Bible. So early had he been taught his letters, that he is reported to have declared that he could not remember the time when he could not spell. As he grew in years, he increased in intelligence, and was remarked for a degree of wit which surpassed his fellows. When a boy, having set the bed-clothes on fire while reading late at night, he replied, when reproved for his carelessness, that he was in search of light, but was sorry to say that he received more of it than he desired.

The first school which Daniel attended was situated two miles and a half from the paternal residence, and it was necessary for him, even during the severest rigors of winter, to walk thither and back. He was ardent in the pursuit of

knowledge, and, indeed, seemed intuitively to appreciate its vast importance. At the age of fourteen he could repeat from memory the whole of Pope's Essay on Man, together with a large proportion of the hymns and psalms of Dr. Watts. His first teachers were Thomas Chase and James Tappan, to whom belonged the honor of having aided in the opening of the mind and the first development of the powers of this as yet quiescent and infant giant. These faithful and patient pedagogues have long since passed away to the oblivious repose of the tomb; but their services in this connection entitle them to honorable mention in the history of their illustrious pupil through all coming time.

It is also worthy of remark that during his boyish days Daniel was called on to contribute his share of manual work to the usual labors of his father's farm; and we may readily imagine the boy, arrayed in his tow frock and trowsers, with his rake or sickle in his hand, perspiring at every pore, toiling hard during the long days of harvesttime to gather the gold-bearing crop. Of this feature of his youthful days Daniel Webster was ever afterward proud; and in his great speech on the "Agriculture of England," delivered in Boston in 1840, he referred with undisguised pleasure to the fact that in his early life he had been made familiar with the labors and the details of husbandry.

At the age of fourteen Daniel was permitted by his father to become office-boy to Mr. Thomas W. Thompson, a young lawyer who at that period removed to Elm Farm and commenced practice. The latter was frequently compelled to be absent from home, and he needed some one to answer for him to clients and visitors when he himself was not present. He rewarded the lad by permitting him to use some of his books, and by giving him useful