CHAPTER III.

1801-1807.

BEGINS THE STUDY OF THE LAW IN SALISBURY-TEACHES A SCHOOL IN MAINE-ENTERS THE OFFICE OF MR. GORE IN BOSTON-ADMISSION TO THE BAR-REFUSES A LUCRATIVE OFFICE-PRACTISES IN BOSCAWEN-DEATH OF HIS FATHER REMOVAL TO PORTSMOUTH.

L

EAVING his brother Ezekiel at college in the Sophomore class, Mr. Webster returned to his father's house immediately after he was graduated, in August, 1801, and commenced the study of the law in the office of Thomas W. Thompson, Esq., a lawyer in Salisbury, his father's neighbor and friend. He chose this profession in compliance with the wish of his father, who did not, however, make that wish known to him in any other than the most delicate manner. His other friends urged it strongly; and the nearness of a very good lawyer's office to his father's house probably had some influence on his decision. But his own inclination to the law was not at first very strong. The tenor of his correspondence at this period shows, at least, that he would gladly have spent some further time in exploring the wider fields of literature. Yet he "precipitated" himself "into an office," as he said at the time, and immediately began such a course of elementary law-reading as the books and the methods of that day afforded.

Mr. Thompson, the gentleman with whom he began to study his profession, was a lawyer in good country practice, an assidu

He

ous man of business, and a person of cultivated mind.' possessed a tolerably good law library, and a much better one in general letters and history. The first works which Mr. Webster read in the law were in the department of the Law of Nations-being Vattel, Burlamaqui, and Montesquieu. These were followed by a part of Blackstone's Commentaries, and he read, at the same time, the historians Hume and Robertson. Nothing could have been better at that period for a student before entering upon the principles of the municipal and common law. He read Shakespeare, too, a good deal at this time, some of the poetry of Cowper, and Pope's translation of the Iliad. His knowledge of Shakespeare and of Milton commenced while he was at Dartmouth. He now began to quote them familiarly in his letters. He also read, during the autumn of this year, a large amount of what he calls "miscellaneous stuff of no great account.' His dog and gun and his

fishing-rod filled up his leisure hours."

But reading and shooting or fishing were not the sole vocations of a young law-student in those days. He was expected to look after the minor affairs of the office business, and a part of his professional education consisted in "making writs." There was another and older student in the office, Daniel Abbot, afterward a leading lawyer and most estimable citizen of Nashua, and a life-long friend of Mr. Webster. On one occasion, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Abbot were both absent, and the entire charge of affairs devolved on Webster, who thus indulged his wit upon a case that fell into his hands:

"I have made some few writs, and am now about to bring an action of trespass for breaking a violin. The owner of the violin was at a husking, where

'His jarring concord and his discord dulcet'

made the girls skip over the husks as nimbly as Virgil's Camilla over the tops of the corn, till an old surly creature caught his fiddle, and

He was graduated at Harvard College in 1786, and was for three years afterward a tutor in that university.

2 "With the assistance of my first minister, Mr. Gallatin, formerly called Leo, I have dismissed from the office of this life a few Federal partridges, pigeons, and squirrels, and have drawn

from the abundance of Merrimac a few anti-Federal fishes-no loaves—such as sword-back, perch, and flat-headed demi-semi-crotchet quavers, alias scaly flat-sides."-(Letter to James H. Bingham, September 22, 1801.) The fun of this consists in some allusion to the party politics of the time.

broke it against the wall. For the sake of having plump witnesses, the plaintiff will summon all the girls to attend the trial at Concord.”1

But this pleasant and profitable life for our young student was soon to be interrupted.

As the winter came on, it brought with it Ezekiel's accumulating expenses at college. In December, Daniel thus writes to his friend Bingham, to whom he was accustomed to impart his troubles :

"Having found myself at home after commencement, I found, on con sideration, that it would be impossible for my father, under existing circumstances, to continue Ezekiel at college. Drained of all his little income by the expenses of my education thus far, and broken down in his exertions by some ever-lamented family occurrences, I saw he could not afford Ezekiel means to live abroad with ease and independence; and I knew too well the evils of penury to wish him to stay half-beggared at college. I thought it therefore my duty to suffer some delay in my profession for the sake of serving my elder brother, and was making a little interest in some places to the eastward for an employment. My father, however, determined to hire a few hundreds till future days, being very averse to my leaving him. He accordingly rode to Exeter, told his Excellency of the state of affairs, and the good governor helped him to what he wanted on reasonable terms. This was much more favorable than I expected, and I have now hopes of continuing here for the present."

3

2

Whether it was that the supply obtained from "the good governor's" friendly aid was insufficient, or whether some unexpected demand broke down the family resources with the weight of the last feather, the result was that Daniel was obliged, before the new year came in, to quit his studies, mount his horse, and go forth in quest, not of adventures, but of the vulgar article money. It was a hard trial for him. He had been four months with Mr. Thompson, and very profitable months they had been to him. He was going on rapidly in his studies of all kinds, and he felt more at ease, after his father's visit to Governor Gilman, than he had felt for a long time. But duty and affection.

1 Letter to Bingham, October 26, 1801.

2 John Taylor Gilman, Governor of New Hampshire from 1797 until 1807, and from 1813 to 1815. He was a very decided Federalist; but his popularity

was so great, and his character so much respected, that he was more than once elected governor when his party was in the minority.

3 Letter to Bingham, December 8,

1801.

both demanded the sacrifice, and he made it instantly and cheerfully.

He had been written to, and offered the charge of ar academy in Fryeburg, Maine, which was at that time a "Prov ince" of Massachusetts. This town is at the head of the Saco River, not far from the border of New Hampshire, near the foot of the White Mountains, and opposite to the town of Conway. He purchased a horse for twenty-five dollars, and, with his wardrobe and such books as he could carry in his saddle-bags, made his way across the country. He found the village of his destination a new one, but it was growing rapidly, and had already an intelligent population, in which the learned professions were all duly represented by "men of information and conversable manners," as he described them in one of his letters. His salary was fixed at the rate of three hundred and fifty dollars a year, but his engagement was for only six months. As he had come there to earn money, he availed himself of an accidental source of further supply, in the humble occupation of copying deeds. It so happened that he went to board in the family of James Osgood, Esq., registrar of deeds for the then newly-created county of Oxford. This gentleman, Mr. Webster tells us in his autobiography, "was not clerical in and of himself, and his registration was to be done by deputy."

"The fee for recording at full length a common deed, in a large fair hand, and with the care requisite to avoid errors, was two shillings and three pence. Mr. Osgood proposed to me that I should do this writing, and that of the two shillings and three pence for each deed I should have one shilling and six pence. I greedily seized on so tempting an offer, and set to work. Of a long winter's evening I could copy two deeds, and that was half a dollar. Four evenings in a week earned two dollars; and two dollars a week paid my board. This appeared to me to be a very thriving condition, for my three hundred and fifty dollars' salary as a school-master was thus going on without abatement or deduction for vicers. I hope yet to have an opportunity to see once more the first volume of the records of deeds for the county of Oxford. It is now near thirty years since I copied into it the last witness my hand and seal,' and I have not seen its outside since. But the ache is not vet out of my fingers, for nothing has ever been so laborious to me as writing, when under the necessity of writing a good hand.”1

'Autobiography.

Certainly this is not the first instance, as it will not be the last, in which a similar labor has been, or will be, submitted to, by young men of education contending against adverse fortunes. But we naturally inquire for the motive that could have made such a drudgery possible to one whose extraordinary gifts of Nature had been enlarged and enriched by the delights of learning. On the other side of the range of hills that lay between his new abode and the college which he had recently left was that brother, for whose education he had made himself responsible to his parents; while at home was an anxious and aged father, now left without the prop on which he had meant to lean. The whole secret of this endurance, therefore, is comprehended in the following occurrence:

"In May of this year (1802), having a week's vacation, I took my quarter's salary, mounted a horse, went straight over all the hills to Hanover, and had the pleasure of putting these, the first earnings of my life, into my brother's hands for his college expenses. Having enjoyed this sincere and high pleasure, I hied me back again to my school and my copying of deeds."

It was on this visit to Hanover that my kinsman, George Ticknor, Esq., who, excepting myself, is now the sole survivor of his four literary executors, first saw him. As I shall have frequent occasion to quote from Mr. Ticknor's recollections of him, extending through a period of fifty years, and now forming, in manuscript, some of the most important and interesting of the materials before me, I avail myself of his mention of the time when the acquaintance and friendship between Mr. Webster and himself began. He observes:

"The first time I ever saw Mr. Webster was in Hanover, in May, 1802. All that I remember of him then is, that the students of the college, whom I was in the habit of seeing, were very proud and very fond of him. It was a knot of young men, among whom was Mr. Henry Hubbard, afterward Governor of New Hampshire; Amos Twitchell, afterward a distinguished surgeon; his own brother Ezekiel, and others, living in the old Kinsman House; at least I saw them there. He was returning from Fryeburg, where he had kept school. He was thin, and had not the appearance of being a strong man. He remained in Hanover only two or three days. The young men seemed rejoiced to have him with them, and

1 Autobiography.