677 



WEBSTER, DANIEL. 



WEBSTER, THOMAS, R.A. 



573 



academy at Exeter, whore he commenced his classical and literary 

 studies. After remaining there a few months, which were well spent, 

 he was placed by his father under the Rev. Samuel Wood, minister of 

 the neighbouring town of Boscawen, with whom he remained from 

 February till August 1797, when he entered Dartmouth College. He 

 remained there four years, completing his college course in August 

 1801. He then returned to Salisbury, and immediately commenced 

 his law-studies in the office of a neighbouring attorney ; but not long 

 afterwards, in order to assist his elder brother, Ezekiel Webster, to 

 obtain a college education, he took charge of a school at Fryeburg, in 

 the State of Maine ; and while this duty occupied him by day, he spent 

 his evenings in copying deeds for the registrar of the county. In 

 September 1802 he returned to the attorney's office at Salisbury, and 

 there remained eighteen months. 



In July 1804, Daniel Webster removed to Boston, and entered the 

 office of Mr. Gore, an eminent lawyer, afterwards governor of Massa- 

 chusetts, with whom he remained eight months, studying chiefly the 

 common law, and particularly special pleading. When about to com- 

 mence practice he was offered the situation, which had become vacant, 

 of clerk in the Court of Common Pleas for the county of Hillsborough, 

 New Hampshire, a situation to which a large salary was attached. 

 By the advice of Mr. Gore, and in opposition to the wish of his father, 

 who was a judge in the court, he rejected the offer. " Once a clerk," 

 said Mr. Gore, " and always a clerk, with no prospect of obtaining a 

 higher position." Immediately afterwards, in the spring of 1805, he 

 was admitted to the practice of the law in the Court of Common Pleas 

 for Suffolk county, when, in order to be near his father, whose health 

 was then infirm, he opened an office at Boscawen, not far from the 

 paternal residence. His father died in 1806. In May 1807, he was 

 admitted as an attorney and counsellor of the Superior Court of New 

 Hampshire, and in September the same year, relinquishing his office to 

 his brother Ezekiel, he removed to Portsmouth, which was the largest 

 town of New Hampshire as well as the seat of foreign commerce. 

 Ezekiel Webster continued in the successful practice of the law till 

 1829, when, while pleading a cause in the court at Concord, he 

 suddenly fell down, and expired instantaneously. 



Daniel Webster remained at Portsmouth nine yeara. His practice, 

 mostly in the circuit courts, was very large, but by no means lucra- 

 tive. In 1808 he married his first wife, by whom he had two sons and 

 two daughters, of whom only one son, Fletcher Webster, survived 

 him._ He is a naval officer of the port of Boston. In May 1813 

 Daniel Webster took his seat in congress as a representative of the 

 Federal party of New Hampshire. Placed by Mr. Clay, the speaker, 

 on the committee of foreign affairs, he made his first speech in the 

 house of representatives, June 10, 1813, ia moving a series of resolu- 

 tions on the Berlin and Milan decrees. In a great fire which occurred 

 at Portsmouth in December 1813, his house, furniture, library, and 

 manuscript collections, were all destroyed. In August 1814 he was 

 agaiu returned as a representative to congress. From March to 

 December 1815 he was busily enga?ed in the practice of the law at 

 Plymouth, whence, in August 1816, after the adjournment of congress, 

 he removed to Boston, where the causes for trial were of higher 

 importance and the practice was more lucrative. 



Mr. Webster retired from congress in 1817. He had purchased an 

 estate of about 2000 acres at Marshfield, about thirty miles from 

 Boston, and his time during the next six years was partly occupied 

 with law-business at Boston and partly with the cultivation of his 

 estate. His favourite amusements were angling in the streams and 

 fishing in his yacht. At the end of 1822 he waa again elected for 

 Boston, as he was also in 1824 and 1826. In 1827 his first wife died. 

 In January 1828 he took his seat in the senate of the United States, 

 having been elected by the legislature of Massachusetts. He was a 

 candidate for the dignity of President in 1836, but received only the 

 twelve votes of Massachusetts. In the spring of 1839 he visited 

 Europe for the first and only time in his life, and made a hasty tour 

 through England, Scotland, and France. When General Harrison 

 became President in 1841 Mr. Webster was appointed secretary of 

 state. In 1842 he negotiated with Lord Ashburton the Oregon 

 boundary, and the treaty which settled that question between Great 

 Britain and the United States was ratified August 20, 1842. In May 

 1843 he resigned his situation as minister, and retired to private life, 

 but was again elected senator in 1845. He opposed the war with 

 Mexico in 1846, as he had previously opposed the annexation of 

 Texas. In 1848 he was again a candidate for the Presidency, but was 

 unsuccessful. On the death of General Taylor in July 1850, he was 

 appointed secretary of state by Mr. Fillmore, and he continued to 

 perform the duties of that high office till his death, which occurred 

 October 24, 1852, at his country residence, Marshfield. 



Daniel Webster, as a statesman, an orator, and a lawyer, was one of 

 the greatest men that the United States of America have produced. 

 As a statesman his principles were founded on comprehensive views 

 and a wide range of information, legal, constitutional, and historical, 

 but during his later years he was suspected of shaping his course too 

 generally with a view to the presidency. He was a decided Federalist. 

 He expressed his belief that if ever the union of the States should be 

 dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth, the prosperity of 

 the States, and the welfare of their inhabitants, would be blighted for 

 ever ; but that while the Union endures, all else of trial and calamity 



BIOG. DIV. VOL. VI. 



which may befal the nation may be remedied or borne. He was un- 

 doubtedly the greatest American orator of his day. His power of fixing 

 the attention and producing an overwhelming effect on a deliberative 

 assembly was unequalled. His style was generally argumentative and 

 solid, never deficient of imagery where suitable, but never flowery. 

 Both as a parliamentary orator and a pleader his speeches were dis- 

 tinguished by extraordinary clearness, compactness, and condensation 

 of statement, sound logic, and, when he was excited, by intense ear- 

 neatness or vehemence. ' The Works of Daniel Webster,' 6 vols. 8vo, 

 Boston, 1851, consist of his speeches in congress, at the bar, and at 

 public meetings, his diplomatic papers, a few letters, and a Biographical 

 Memoir by Edward Everett. 



WEBSTER, JOHN, like many of his great dramatic contempora- 

 ries, has left few authentic records of his career, beyond his works. 

 We know not where he was born nor where he was educated. The 

 earliest notice we find of him is in the papera of Henslowe, where he 

 is mentioned as writing plays in conjunction with Dekker, Drayton, 

 Middleton, Munday, Chettle, Heywood, and Wentworth Smith. The 

 first work of his own which he published was ' The White Devil.' 

 This was printed in 1612. In 1623 was published his other great 

 play ' The Duchess of Malfi.' ' Appius and Virginia ' was printed in 

 1654. These are the works upon which the fame of Webster is prin- 

 cipally built : and certainly they exhibit him as one of the foremost 

 of that great band of writers who rose up as the later contemporaries 

 and the successors of Shakspere. His pathos is occasionally too 

 laboured, and his command over pity and terror is carried far beyond 

 the region of pleasurable emotion. But he is essentially a great dra- 

 matist, accomplishing his purpose with a terrible earnestness which 

 few have equalled. He thus speaks of himself in the address to the 

 reader prefixed to the ' White Devil : ' " To those who report I was 

 a long time in finishing this tragedy, I confess I do not write with a 

 goose-quill winged with two feathers; and if they will needs make it 

 my fault, I must answer them with that of Euripides to Alcestides, a 

 tragic writer : Alcestides objecting that Euripides had only, in three 

 days, composed three verses, whereas himself had written three 

 hundred ; ' Thou tellest truth (quoth he), but here's the difference ; 

 thine shall only be read for three days, whereas mine shall continue 

 three ages.' " The works of Webster were first collected and edited 

 by Mr. Dyce, in 1830. 



WEBSTER, NOAH, LL.D., was born at West Hartford, in Connec- 

 ticut, U. S., on the 16th of October 1758, and was descended from 

 John Webster, who, having being one of the original emigrants from 

 Massachusetts by whom the colony of Connecticut was founded, was 

 afterwards governor of the state in the year 1656. Noah Webster 

 entered Yale College in 1774; in 1777 he was withdrawn for a time 

 from his studies by joining the military service under the command of 

 his father, who was captain in the Alarm List, during Burgoyne's ex- 

 pedition from Canada ; but notwithstanding this interruption he took 

 his degree with great distinction the following year. He was called to 

 the bar in 1781; but, instead of following the profession of the law, 

 he engaged in that of a teacher of youth, opening at Goshen, New 

 York, a school, which he named ' The Farmers' Hall Academy.' Hia 

 ' First part of a grammatical institute of the English Grammar,' pub- 

 lished at Hartford in 1783, was the first of a number of elementary 

 works produced by him, all of which were well received and were 

 generally admitted to be much superior to any that his native country 

 had previously possessed. He also however took a leading part in the 

 discussion of the political questions of the time, both by his ' Sketches 

 of American Policy,' published in 1784, and his other writings in sup- 

 port of the principles of federalism, and by the establishment in 1793 

 of a daily newspaper in New York. In 1798 he removed to New- 

 haven, where he spent the remainder of his life. His great work, and 

 that which has chiefly made his name known in this country, his 'New 

 and complete Dictionary of the English language,' was begun in 1807, 

 and the -first edition was published in 1828. This work, which has 

 been since several times reprinted, is a performance of great labour 

 and care, and was perhaps more precise in its explanations than any 

 previous English dictionaries. Its etymological portion however is 

 more ingenious and showy than really learned or profound. Dr. 

 Webster, whose degree of LL.D., was bestowed upon him by the 

 Faculty of Yale College in 1824, died at Newhaven, May 28, 1843. 



* WEBSTER, THOMAS, R.A., was born in Pimlico, London, 

 March 20, 1800. His father, who was in the household of George III., 

 took him while yet a child to Windsor, and had him educated in St. 

 George's Chapel, with a view to his becoming a chorister. This inten- 

 tion was however ultimately abandoned, and the youth was permitted 

 to follow his own bent. In 1820 he entered the Royal Academy as a 

 student, and in 1825, he carried off the first prize for painting. His 

 first picture, exhibited at the Suffolk Street Gallery in 1825, 'Rebels 

 shooting a Prisoner,' was decidedly successful. In 1828 his 'Gun- 

 powder Plot' obtained a good place on the walls of the Royal 

 Academy ; and pictures in which children were the actors continued to 

 appear in the exhibitions of the Academy, the British Institution, and 

 the Society of British Artists. 



In 1841 Mr. Webster was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, 

 and the same year appeared his ' Frown,' and ' Smile,' which have 

 been rendered so familiar by the Art Union Engravings, and his 

 admirable ' Boy and many Friends.' His position was now secured. 



2 p 



