and command; free from arrogance, timidity, or hesitation. His gestures were graceful, but not in the slightest degree studied; his language was rich, gentlemanly, select, but not painfully chosen; he not only had words for all occasions, but the very words he should have used.

"As a writer, he excelled in judgment and taste; there was a classical elegance in his familiar writings; and his higher compositions were marked with that lucid order, and clearness of thought, and purity of expression, which distinguished the Augustan Age. His sentences were not grappled together by hooks of steel, but connected by golden hinges that made a harmonious whole. His library was rich in works of merit, ancient and modern. The history of literature and science was as familiar to him as that of his native state, and he had the means of turning to it with much greater facility. He was an instance in point that a man may be a good lawyer, and yet devote some of his time to classical pursuits.

"Ezekiel Webster was one of those great men, rare instances in the world, who had thrown away ambition, and who professed to be learned and happy in his course of life, rather than to court the gale and spread his sails to be wafted along on popular opinion. He sought not popularity, but he had it; that popularity which follows, not that which is run after. He watched the signs of the times, and was as good a diviner in politics as any one; but, whatever the presages were, he looked at coming events unmoved, leaving their results to Heaven.

"For several of the last years of his life, he was curtailing his business in order to devote some portion of the

prime of his manhood to literary and scientific pursuits, so congenial to his heart; but in this he was disappointed, for, while yet in the fullness of his strength, he was called to leave the world, for whose benefit he was formed. His death was sudden and remarkable; he fell and expired while in the midst of an argument at the bar, without a sigh or a struggle. No event could have been more unexpected by the public, for he was one of those models for a picture of health and strength that Salvator Rosa would have drawn in his mountain scenery, if he had wished to exhibit a commander able to bear the fatigues and duties of council and of war. He was lamented by his professional brethren, and sincerely mourned by the community at large."

H

PRIVATE LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. 171

ILLNESS AND DEATH.

WEEP not, weep not for the mighty dead! In the sunset of his days, and the plenitude of his fame, Daniel Webster has passed from among the living. His great spirit ascended to the skies through the peaceful atmosphere of a Sabbath morning, and while the glory of Autumn was upon the land. And this was well; for, through life, he habitually hallowed the Sabbath, and loved, above all others, the closing season of the year. But what is more, he died a Christian. With all his intellect, when he came to resign his soul into the keeping of his Creator, he did it with a prayer for mercy, and with the meekness and confidence of a little child. Who, then, can for an instant doubt that he is now in heaven? As surely as there is an All-merciful Savior, he must be among the redeemed. He lived as this nation would have its subjects live, and died the pride of nature, and, beyond all question, the well-beloved child of God.

He occupied, more completely than any other man of his age, the "vantage-ground" to do his country good, and therefore he deserves the fame of having been an "honest man." If honest, he was true; and if true, he was true to his God, to his country, to his fellow-men, to his family, and true to himself. And thus he died, one of the best of men, and the foremost intellect of his time.

But, alas! it is also true, to use the eloquent figure of a chief mourner, the "heart of the nation throbs heavily at the portal of Webster's tomb." There are private griefs, however, wholly to the world unknown. Among those who knew him well and sincerely loved him, I claim the right and the privilege to be numbered. On the lonely sea, whose ground-swell was an emblem of his beating heart-among his native mountains, and in the sanctuary of his sick-chamber, have I been his sole companion. He was to me like a father, and he uttered words to me which I hold sacred as my life. My own feelings toward him were those of unbounded admiration; and yet, when enjoying his companionship alone, our relative positions seemed mutually to be forgotten; he descended to my level, and I only thought of loving him, and doing my all to make him happy. And now, as I think upon his pleasant ways, his kindly smiles and words, and his noble deeds, I feel as if my pen, from very weakness, should abandon its present task. Let, then, the voice of eulogy be uttered every where by the gifted and the good who have studied. his intellectual character, while I content myself by recording some of the more interesting facts attending his decline and death.

I date his more rapid decline from the autumn of last year, at which time he was afflicted with one of the severest attacks of his annual catarrh. I was with him during its entire continuance, and I remember well that I wondered how any man could endure so much bodily suffering without a murmur. This singular cold or disease was one which had come upon him at a particular period