sessed in a remarkable degree. The position of "side justice," when filled by such a man, was a highly useful and respectable one. There was a salary attached to the office, amounting to three or four hundred dollars a year, which Mr. Webster says was "a sum of the greatest importance to the family." It is not probable that this increase of his income caused Judge Webster to decide immediately to give Daniel a collegiate education, but there can be no doubt that, when the time came for that decision, he felt that this salary would be a very important aid to him in carrying out his plan. If his pecuniary circumstances had been such as to enable him to devote the whole of this sum to his youngest son's expenses at college, it would have been quite sufficient for the purpose. But this was not the case. The sequel did not show that the judicial salary could meet what the excellent parent finally had to do. 1 Daniel was eleven years old when this improvement in his father's affairs took place. He passed three or four years more in the kind of life which he thus describes: "I read what I could get to read, went to school when I could; and, when not at school, was a farmer's youngest boy, not good for much for want of health and strength, but was expected to do something." At the end of this time, in the summer of 1795, his father disclosed to him his purpose to give him a better education than he had been able to afford to his elder sons. But it does not appear, by what can be gathered from a collation of Mr. Webster's autobiography and portions of his correspondence, that he understood at this time that he was to be sent to college, or that his father mentioned the subject of his education to him in reference to such a step. What occurred in 1795, however, can be related by no one else as he has related it, and I therefore transcribe his own touching account of it: "Of a hot day in July, it must have been in one of the last years of Washington's administration, I was making hay with my father, just where I now see a remaining elm-tree. About the middle of the forenoon the Honorable Abiel Foster, M. C., who lived in Canterbury, six miles off, called at the house, and came into the field to see my father. He was a worthy man, college-learned, and had been a minister, but was not a person of any considerable natural power. My father was his friend and supporter. He talked a while in the field, and went on his way. When he was gone, my father called me to him, and we sat down beneath the elm, on a hay-cock. He said, 'My son, that is a worthy man; he is a member of Congress; he goes to Philadelphia, and gets six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had an education, which I never had. If I had had his early education I should have been in Philadelphia in his place. I came near it as it was. But I missed it, and now I must work here.' 'My dear father,' said I, 'you shall not work. Brother and I will work for you, and will wear our hands out, and you shall rest.' And I remember to have cried, and I cry now at the recollection. 'My child,' said he, 'it is of no importance to me. I now live but for my children. I could not give your elder brothers the advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for you. Exert yourself, improve your opportunities, learn, learn, and, when I am gone, you will not need to go through the hardships which I have undergone, and which have made me an old man before my time." 1 When the next spring arrived, his father took an important step, but still without informing him that he was to be prepared for college, and apparently without having definitively decided that point in his own mind. In 1781 there had been founded at Exeter, by the Honorable John Phillips, an institution, which has ever since been known as the Phillips Exeter Academy. It has always been conducted like some of the great schools in England; that is to say, the boys are lodged in the houses of respectable families in the town, and they attend a school that is held in the academy building erected for the purpose, and furnished with appropriate rooms for the different classes. Its principal, in Mr. Webster's time, and for forty years afterward, was Dr. Benjamin Abbot, one of the most eminent instructors of youth that this country has produced. To this institution young Webster was taken by his father in May, 1796. He had never been from home before, and the change, he says, overpowered him. He found himself among ninety boys, who had seen more, and appeared to know more than he did; “and I scarcely remained," he adds, “master of my own senses. But this probably soon wore off, on all occa 1 Letter to Mr. Blatchford.-(Correspondence, ii., 228.) 2 Mr. Webster had an elder halfbrother, whose name was Joseph, and who was accounted the wit of the family. He was in the habit of saying that Daniel was sent to school in order to make him "equal to the rest of the boys." sions, at least, but one. He was put into the lowest class, and began English grammar, writing, and arithmetic. The following anecdote is given by Mr. Everett, as a proof of the rapidity of his progress: At the end of a month, the usher' said to him one morning, "Webster, you will pass into the other room, and join a higher class;" and added, "Boys, you will take your final leave of Webster-you will never see him again." That he was transferred to a higher class, in rather a marked manner, was told by himself to one of his early friends, who has added. the following explanation of the occurrence, as he received it from Mr. Webster: "The incident related by Mr. Everett, in his Memoir of Mr. Webster, respecting his elevation to a higher class, at the end of the first month at the academy in Exeter, needs, I think, a little correction or explanation, in order to present its most important bearing upon his future life. When his first term at Exeter was near its close, the usher said: 'Webster, you may stop a few minutes after school; I wish to speak to you.' When the other scholars had gone, the usher asked him whether he intended to return to the academy after the vacation. The answer indicated something like reluctance. It had not escaped the observation of the usher, that Webster's rustic manners and unfashionable raiment had drawn upon him the ridicule of some of his associates, who, in every respect, except habiliments and external accomplishments, were greatly his inferiors. The inference was justly drawn that the academy was in danger of losing an estimable and promising pupil, while it retained others who gave no promise of doing honor to that distinguished seminary. The usher, therefore, judiciously and kindly remarked to Mr. Webster that he was a better scholar than any in his class; that he learned more readily and easily than they did; and, if he would return at the commencement of the next term, he should be put into a higher class, and should no longer be hindered in his progress by those boys who cared more for play and dress than for solid improvement. 'These were the first truly encouraging words,' said Mr. Webster, 'that I ever received with regard to my studies. I then resolved to return, and pursue them with diligence and so much ability as I possessed.' Probably the kindness and good judgment of the usher had an important influence upon the whole course of Mr. Webster's after-life." In October he went home for a short vacation, and then 1 Nicholas Emery, afterward an eminent lawyer and judge in Portland, Maine. Biographical Memoir.-(Works, i., 2 xxiv.) 3 Letter by J. W. McGaw, Esq., of Bangor, November 16, 1852.-(Correspondence, i., 48–52.) returned to the academy, and began the Latin grammar. Dr. Abbot was absent on account of indisposition, and a very young usher was fulfilling a part of the doctor's duties. This was Joseph Stevens Buckminster, whose early maturity, personal graces, scholarship, piety, and eloquence, left an impression in New England that is even now but little weakened, although more than half a century has elapsed since his character became. sanctified in that community, by an early death, at the age of twenty-eight.' In 1796, Buckminster was an advanced pupil of the academy, where he had won great distinction as a scholar, and where his moral excellence, and the fascination of his manners, had made him the idol of all connected with the institution. To this youthful and brilliant teacher, younger than himself, Webster's first exercises in Latin were recited. It was Buckminster who first endeavored to overcome in the pupil a native diffidence, which will astonish any reader, who now learns, for the first time, that Daniel Webster could not, when a boy, make a school declamation. This fact, which would scarcely be credited on any other testimony than his own, was recorded by him in his autobiography with perfect frankness, and with his usual precision, and is therefore to be accepted just as he states it: “I believe I made tolerable progress in most branches which I attended to while in this school; but there was one thing I could not do-I could not make a declamation. I could not speak before the school. The kind and excellent Buckminster sought, especially, to persuade me to perform the exercise of declamation like other boys, but I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse in my own room, over and over again, yet, when the day came, when the school collected to hear declamations, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated, most winningly, that I would venture, but I could never command sufficient resolution. When the occasion was over, I went home, and wept bitter tears of mortification." 2 It would have been interesting if he had added a few 1 Buckminster was born May 26, 1784; Autobiography. (Correspondence, entered Harvard College in July, 1797; vol. i., p. 9.) graduated in 1800; died in 1812. ! words more, and had given us his own recollection of the He remained at Exeter only about nine months. In De- |