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.

man.

Daniel was one of a family of ten children; and his ancestors were worthy to have preceded so illustrious a 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