THE PRIVATE LIFE OF . DANIEL WEBSTER. BY CHARLES LANMAN. He that hath the vantage-ground to DO GOOD, is an HONEST MAN.--Bacon. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. PRELIMINARY NOTE. THE writer of this little volume was attached to its distinguished subject by the official tie of private secretary, and also by the endearing ties of admiration for a great intellect, and the strongest attachment to a most noble Heart and the best of Friends. He has frequently visited Elms Farm in New Hampshire, and Marshfield in Massachusetts, as the friend and guest of their distinguished proprietor; and while in their vicinity, it was natural that he should have had opportunities of gathering from the older inhabitants, and other authentic sources, many incidents of personal history. These were, for the most part, repeated to him for his own gratification; but, now "that the mold," in the statesman's own words, "is beginning to gather upon the tomb" of Daniel Webster, the writer has deemed it his duty to present them to the public for their edification and pleasure. His fame as a patriot, a jurist, a statesman, an orator, and a scholar, is coextensive with the civilized world, and it can not but be of essential service to the rising generation, and agreeable to all admirers of intellectual greatness, to become acquainted with some of the facts which tend to illustrate the every-day life and personal character of such a man. In the following pages a regular biography has by no means been attempted; it was only the writer's intention to narrate, in a simple and unpretending manner, a collection of authentic personal memorials, which may tend to embellish the extensive biographies of Webster which will hereafter be added to our national literature. Washington, November, 1852. CHARLES LANMAN. |