owing to his nature. He was one of those rare and fortunate beings who without exertion draw to themselves the devotion of other people and are always surrounded by men and women eager to do and suffer for them." In manhood he loved his friends with a love passing that of woman; his great passionate and affectionate nature knit to him with bands of steel his chosen friends, and up to the day of his death some of these devoted and worshipful ones ministered to his wants and his comfort and his luxury with unstinting hand.

In his biography of Webster, Mr. George T. Curtis, speaking of his own return to Boston for a few hours, while Webster's life was slowly ebbing away, says: "A gentleman rang at my door and called me out. As I met him he placed in my hand a thick roll of bank-notes, desiring me to convey it to Mr. Webster. When I asked him from whom it came, he mentioned the name of a venerable and wealthy citizen of Boston, who had learned that Mr. Webster was dying, and who had said that at such a time there ought to be no want of money in Mr. Webster's house." While we applaud the generosity of the giver, it is impossible to restrain a feeling of profound regret that anything should have made this charity even apparently needful.

In due course of time he went to Dartmouth College, where his rustic dress and manners provoked the ridicule of his new associates. He found it difficult, if not impossible, to take part in some of the exercises of the school, such as

declamation and so on, in which he was expected to engage; but he speedily developed a rare faculty for absorbing knowledge, and not only became proficient in Latin and Greek, but readily acquired ancient and modern history, and became familiar with the drift of public events in this country and in Europe. So great was his reputation in the college and its neighborhood as a speaker and writer, that the people of the town of Hanover invited him to deliver an oration on July 4, 1800. He was then eighteen years old. This was his first public performance which was printed. It is characterized by the high-flown language of the sophomore, and was doubtless received with every demonstration of admiration and applause. He denounced France, then unfriendly to the United States and under the domination of Bonaparte, whom the young orator styled "the gasconading pilgrim of Egypt." He was graduated in due course in August, 1801, without either special credit or special mention. The straitened circumstances of the family made it necessary that he should at once begin to support himself. While in college he had added to his slender income in every possible way, and he now accepted the post of school-teacher in the town of Fryeburg, Me., considering himself a lucky young fellow to have secured the job.

Ezekiel Webster, who appears to have been a man of extraordinary parts, manifested a disposition to follow in his younger brother's footsteps. After many anxious family councils, it

(From Peter Harvey's "Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Daniel Webster.")

was decided that this step might be taken, the good mother of the house saying, in answer to the remonstrances of the father, "I will trust the boys." Daniel's life at Fryeburg was a hard one. The home farm was heavily mortgaged, and Ezekiel, who was now in college, was no longer the prop and stay as he had been of the house. Daniel manfully carried his share of the burdens, and out of school-hours copied deeds and other legal papers, an occupation which he detested, in order that he might give all his salary to his brother preparing for college.

Ezekiel Webster lived to attain eminence in the profession of the law. He was a man of high talent and much professional learning; he was in person and physique not unlike his brother, the "godlike Daniel." He died very suddenly in the court-room, at Concord, N. H., while addressing a jury. He was then only forty-nine years old, and had he lived would have doubtless reached great fame as a lawyer. Years later, when time had so assuaged his bitter grief that he could speak tranquilly of his brother's death, Daniel Webster said of him who was gone: "He appeared to me the finest human form that I ever laid eyes on. I saw him in his coffin-a tinged cheek, a complexion clear as the heavenly light."

Daniel Webster was a good teacher. His dignity, even temper, and firmness commanded the respect of his pupils, and wherever he went he produced an impression upon those whom he met. Those who could in later years recall his

eyes.

young manhood in Fryeburg, invariably spoke of his imposing presence and his wonderful He was known in the village as "AllEyes." He devoured with keen zest every book upon which he could lay his hands, and in a single winter exhausted the resources of the little circulating library of Fryeburg. His memory seems to have been like iron; an impression once made was ineradicable. On his death-bed he quoted a phrase, "The Jackdaw in the Steeple," from a poem of Cowper's, which none about him could recall, and the strangeness of which led some of them to suppose his mind was wandering.

It is impossible to think of Webster at any period of his life as other than the grand, imposing figure that looms up in history and in the memory of the few who survive him. His form in his manhood was tall, massive, and commanding; his face was rugged, and his overhanging brows were projected over deep and cavernous eyes in which gloomed and glowed a wonderful tropical light. There was, indeed, about his presence and in his habit of thought a certain Oriental flavor that seemed strangely foreign to New England and to the cold and inhospitable climate in which he was reared.

The costume in which he generally appeared on public occasions has become historic. He wore a dress-coat of blue cloth, with brass buttons; a buff waistcoat cut low and showing an expanse of white shirt-bosom, and on his nether limbs trousers of black cloth. On these occasions,