rehearse in my room over and over again; yet when the day came and my name was called and I saw all eyes turned to my seat I could not raise myself from it." But at Dartmouth he seemed to have got over his timidity and devoted a great deal of time to speaking, and became a leader in the college societies, insomuch that he was called upon by the citizens of the town of Hanover, in which Dartmouth is located, to deliver a speech on the Fourth of July while he was yet but sixteen years of age. He practiced extempore speaking, but more frequently prepared his speeches very carefully by meditation on the subject. His manner in his earlier years was peculiar. He seemed at first sluggish and sleepy, but as he awakened under the glow of his thought and feeling he took possession of his audience and held them to the end of his speech. While he was naturally sluggish, "the time never came," says Senator Lodge," when, if fairly roused, he failed to sway the hearts and understandings of men by a grand and splendid eloquence. The lion slept very often, but it never became safe to rouse him from his slumber."

As a young man Webster took great pains to perfect his style of oratory. His first public speech being praised for its vigor and eloquence, and censured for its emptiness in parts, he says, "I resolved that whatever should be said of my style from that time forth, there should not be any emptiness in it. Besides, I remembered that I had to earn my bread by addressing the understandings of common men, by convincing juries, and that I must use language intelligible to them. . . . When I was a young man my style was bombastic, and pompous in the extreme, and I determined to correct it if labor could do it." His education in this particular was a constant growth. He was his own severest critic and strove always for strength and simplicity. His speeches on special occasions give evidence of the most painstaking preparation.

No wonder when we desire to laud the eloquence and solidity of men's oratory we call it Websterian.

His gifts in speaking, in his early forensic efforts at Portsmouth, were greatly stimulated by the opposition of Jeremiah Mason, then the most distinguished trial lawyer in New England. The two were pitted against each other in most of the great cases at that time. Mason's manner was anything but bombastic. He stood near to his jury and talked in simple, everyday English to them, "using no word that was not level to the comprehension of the least educated man on the panel," and he seldom lost a verdict. Webster soon learned that to compete with such a man he must speak simply and directly, so as to be perfectly intelligible at all times.

The supreme effort of Webster in his oratorical study was to gain simplicity and strength. His preference for Saxon words, instead of Latin or Greek derivatives, and the almost utter lack of Latin phrase, makes his style unite the simple with the picturesque and the massive. No strength is wasted in long and involved sentences. It is doubtful whether on this side the seas we have produced any better prose than that of Webster. He is studied by the schools for the weight of his thought and the strength of his imagery. His speeches have become classics in our literature; they are read and declaimed in the district schools. His maxims became the slogans of the North during the war for the Union.

Not so great a genius as Burke, he was far more effective as a speaker; like Burke, he could make excursions of fancy but he never lost sight of the issues—not so great a political philosopher but a better reasoner and a wiser statesman.

Webster excelled in all the types of oratory-the forensic, the political, and the occasional. There is no greater forensic address in our annals than Webster's speech in the White Murder Case, no greater political oration than his "Reply to

Hayne"; no finer occasional speech than his "First Bunker Hill Address." There are other speeches of nearly equal strength in each of these classes, all of them characterized by "massiveness of thought, dignity and grandeur of expression, and range of vision." "Other men," says Senator Lodge," have been more versatile, possessed of a richer imagination and more gorgeous style, with a more brilliant wit and a keener sarcasm, but there is not one so absolutely free from faults of taste as Webster, or who is so uniformly simple and pure in thought and style, even to the point of severity."

His speeches give him rank as one of America's greatest authors. What language more pure, style more harmonious, thought more profound among our authors? "As a repository of political truth and practical wisdom," says Edward Everett, "I know not where we shall find their equal. The works of Burke naturally suggest themselves as the only writings in our language that can sustain the comparison." And Choate declares that "his multiform eloquence, exactly as his words fell, became at once so much accession to permanent literature, in the strictest sense solid, attractive, and rich"; "whose words," says John D. Long, "come to the tongue like passages from the poets or the Psalms." Contrary to Fox's maxim that a good speech does not read well, Webster's speeches both read well and sound well.

Webster's oratory was greatly enhanced by his wonderful physical attributes, for he was perfectly formed by nature for the career of an orator and statesman. His personal presence made a lasting impression on all who saw him. He was five feet ten inches in height, and weighed about two hundred pounds. He had a massive head covered with raven-black hair, a lofty brow, and deep-set black eyes. His complexion was very dark, his nose aquiline, and his mouth large. In one of the studios of Rome his bust was once mistaken for

that of Jupiter. His dignity and impressiveness caused him often to be called the "god-like Daniel." His walk, his manner, his leonine look, were all in so grand a style that they not only never disappointed the eye, but one instinctively would turn to get a better glimpse of him as he passed along. Henry Hudson says, "He was incomparably the finest-looking, rather say the grandest-looking, man I ever set eyes on." Carlyle called him a "magnificent specimen, a parliamentary Hercules, whom one would back against the world."

His voice was of great compass-large and full, rich and organ-like in its swell. When he rose to speak throngs were ready to listen, and they hung on his every word. Mr. Ticknor, just after Webster's reply to Hayne, wrote to a friend: "Whether his speech was so absolutely unrivaled as I imagined when I was under the influence of his presence, of his tones, of his looks, I cannot be sure till I have read it, for it seems to me incredible. I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought my temples would burst from the gush of blood." Such was the effect on those who heard him in his loftiest moments. His massive intellectual power and his fine feeling, conveyed through so imposing a presence and a voice of such beauty and power, his simplicity in diction and directness in manner, made him the figure whom Americans delight to place highest in the roll of their great orators.

Webster never spoke except on great occasions and on great themes. Not so agile and adaptable as Clay, he was less useful in ordinary legislation. But when the occasion was one of national importance, all eyes turned to Webster as their mouthpiece. He was looked to as the defender of the Constitution and as the embodiment of national strength. Ready of resource, he was prepared for the gravest emergencies.

When a reply was to be made to Senator Hayne the North looked to Webster to champion the Union cause. But when certain senators expressed doubt as to his preparedness Webster drew forth from his desk a package of notes, saying

If Hayne had tried, he could not have hit my notes better." The principles embodied in his speech had been wrought out months before, for he was aware of the coming conflict. An example of his habit of previous thought and, in this instance, actual verbal preparation is shown in the paragraph on the greatness of England, in his speech of May 7, 1834, in which he speaks of that nation as "a power which has dotted the face of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts; whose morning drumbeat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, encircles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." The paragraph from which this extract is taken was composed fourteen years before its utterance, while its author stood on the citadel of Quebec and surveyed the vast panorama that lay before him along the picturesque St. Lawrence.

Webster was an attractive personality in a social way. He was affectionate in disposition, fond of good company, and enjoyed good stories. While not a humorist, he had a keen sense of the ridiculous, though his speeches contain but few indications of it. Though a splendid mimic in his daily intercourse, and a man of great dramatic power, who might have been a successful actor, yet in his speeches there was a weight and a strong sense of personal dignity that dispelled all impression of flippancy. But his gift of taunt and sarcasm in public address was a source of great effectiveness in moving assemblies. "His union of greatness with depth of heart made his speaking," says Choate, "more an exhibition of character than of mere genius."