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REM

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We have now t whole story, to w having given circul

DANIEL WEBSTER.

WITH A PORTRAIT.

ETHNOLOGISTS are beginning to speculate on the character of the physical change, which the Anglo-Saxon race undergoes when transplanted to America. The fact of the change is undeniable. The remarkable aspect of the accompanying portrait strongly suggests it. There is intellect, there is energy in those features; but the face is decidedly unEnglish. Yet they are the features of a genuine descendant of the Anglo-Saxon stock. Daniel Webster's ancestors, for a few generations preceding him, lived and died in America; but very many anterior generations of them were English in residence as well as in race. The family emigrated in 1636. They were among the Pilgrim Fathers of New England: and the State of New Hampshire had the honour of giving America the great statesman and orator, whose recent death she is now deploring.

Daniel Webster was born on the 18th day of January, 1782. His father had served in the War of Independence, and was the owner of a small holding of land, in what was then the wilderness near the headwaters of the Merrimac river. The old man, in spite of the difficulties caused both by the narrowness of his means, and the distance of his settlement from the towns of the province, gave his son the advantages of a regular education, first at Exeter Academy, and afterwards at Dartmouth College. Daniel Webster afterwards became a student of law, and in March, 1805, was admitted to practice.

It was slowly that the more brilliant qualities of his mind developed themselves. His childhood gave little promise of superior abilities; nor did he in early youth show many signs of the acuteness in perception, the fertility of imagination, and the ready grace of expression, which afterwards distinguished him. But he, from first to last, was remarkable for the more valuable qualities of indomitable resolution and unflagging industry. As Cecil said of Sir Walter Raleigh, "When he studied he could toil terribly;" and herein lay the true secret of his success. Classical learning was a labour of love with Webster in his youth, and he never abandoned it either in his manhood or old age. He was also passionately fond of modern literature; and few of his contemporaries on either side of the Atlantic equalled him in familiarity with three of the great masters of our language; with Shakspeare, Milton, and Dryden. There are some remarks of his on the practical value of classical and literary studies to a statesman, which well deserve quotation, both on account of their general justice and beauty, and because their truth was so fully exemplified by the man who uttered them. They occur in Mr. Webster's funeral oration over Jefferson and Adams. He attributes much of the success of these statesmen to the beneficial training which their minds had received from classical and literary studies; and proceeds to observe that

"Literature sometimes, and pretension to it much oftener, disgusts, by appearing to hang loosely on the character, like something foreign or extraneous, not a part, but an ill-adjusted appendage; or by seeming to overload and weigh it down by its unsightly bulk, like the productions of bad taste in architecture, where Q Q

VOL. XXXII.

there is massy and cumbrous ornament, without strength or solidity of column. This has exposed learning, and especially classical learning, to reproach. Men have seen that it might exist without mental superiority, without vigour, without good taste, and without utility. But in such cases classical learning has only not inspired natural talent; or, at most, it has but made original feebleness of intellect, and natural bluntness of perception, something more conspicuous. The question, after all, if it be a question, is, whether literature, ancient as well as modern, does not assist a good understanding, improve natural good taste, add polished armour to native strength, and render its possessor not only more capable of deriving private happiness from contemplation and reflection, but more accomplished also for action in the affairs of life, and especially for public action. Those whose memories we now honour were learned men; but their learning was kept in its proper place, and made subservient to the uses and objects of life. They were scholars, not common nor superficial, but their scholarship was so in keeping with their character, so blended and inwrought, that careless observers, or bad judges, not seeing an ostentatious display of it, might infer that it did not exist, forgetting, or not knowing, that classical learning, in men who act in conspicuous public stations, perform duties which exercise the faculty of writing, or address popular, deliberative, or judicial bodies, is often felt where it is little seen, and sometimes felt more effectually because it is not seen at all."

Mr. Webster practised as an advocate in New Hampshire for several years. He was successful in obtaining business and reputation; but a career in the provincial courts of that state was not very lucrative; and in 1816, he left New Hampshire, and established his residence in Boston, which thenceforth was his home. His professional fame and income now increased rapidly; and he held the first rank both in the Massachusets courts, and in the Supreme Court of the United States. Many of his forensic arguments have been published, and have attracted much praise for the subtlety and closeness of reasoning, and the great extent of legal learning which they display. There is also printed in the Ame rican edition of his speeches his address to the jury in the remarkable trial of the Knapps for the murder of Joseph White, in Salem, Massachu sets, on the night of the 6th of April, 1830. This oration is highly lauded by American critics; but it is far too declamatory for English taste; especially as it is the speech of a counsel for the prosecution on a capital charge. It contrasts very unfavourably with the calm and temperate tone which every English barrister maintains in the discharge of such a duty.

But it is as a statesman that Daniel Webster won his right to permanent celebrity. He took his seat in Congress as member for New Hampshire in May 1813, and from that time to his death in this autumn, he was prominently before the world as one of the mightiest wielders of the great Trans-Atlantic democracy. When he first was elected to Congress, war was raging between America and England, and Mr. Webster at once attracted attention by his fervent eloquence in urging his countrymen to attack England by sea, and also by the historical knowledge and full acquaintance with international law, which he displayed in the debates respecting the communications between America and France, as to the Berlin and Milan decrees. Probably his personal advantages did much to ensure his success as an orator. His figure was commanding; his countenance was remarkable even in repose, but when animated by the excitement of debate, it "spake no less audibly than his words." His gestures were vehement, without being undignified; and his voice was unrivalled in power, in clearness, and in modulated variety of He also had the good sense to attend more to costume than his countrymen generally do. One of his American critics, in describing

tone.