father, who were all eldest sons, were named Ebenezer. Not only this cherished name, but the history of the whole family, in all its branches, evinces, also, its third strongest peculiarity, a decided inclination to religion. Perhaps no family in the country, not excepting any of New England, can show in its records a larger list of names, in proportion to the whole number, taken from the Scriptures.

Another marked peculiarity of the Webster family was its love of knowledge. They were strikingly intellectual. It is related of Daniel Webster's father, who was apprenticed to a trade at an early age, that, though he never went to school a day in his life, he made himself a good reader while quite a youth, and afterwards became a man noted for the extent, depth and accuracy of his information. While a boy, he studied late of nights, by the blaze of pitch-pine knots, when his master and the family were asleep. Those who remember him in mature age say, that he was then the best reader, the best elocutionist, and the most thoroughly informed man, of the place where he lived. The books he read most, and which he most admired, were the plays of Shakspeare and the bible; and his taste, in this respect, seems to have followed him to the most distinguished of his children.

Patriotism was another mark of the Webster family. All through the earliest periods of the history of New England, it furnished soldiers, but more commonly officers, to the companies raised for the defence of the inhabitants. In 1757, the French and Indian war was raging with uncommon violence. The enemy seemed to be advancing regularly and successfully with the plan of destroying the American colonies. An emergency at length arose. A new enlistment was ordered for the protection of the north-eastern frontier against the savages. It was at this time, and for this purpose, that that celebrated corps, known in history as Roger's Rangers, was commissioned. All its members were to be picked men, selected from the lead

ing families, and known to be hardy, able-bodied, and courage ous. By the side of Stark, and Putnam, and several others, who afterwards became heroes in the revolution, the father of Daniel Webster, then but eighteen years

of age, was enrolled to fight the battles of his country. Some of those battles are reputed as among the most brilliant ever fought even on the blood-stained soil of New England. The services required of this band of men were exceedingly difficult and dangerous. They were to do their work in winter. They were to be doubly armed, to be prepared for all the rigors of the season, to carry with them snow-shoes that they might be able to march through the trackless forests, ascend and descend the snow-clad mountains, and pursue the enemy without regard to the changes or chances of the weather. They were also to carry skates, to enable them to cross the frozen streams and lakes, or to meet the savage foe upon the ice. Into this company, for this business, and with these horrors in the prospect, Ebenezer Webster, the eldest son, was permitted to enlist. The love of country was stronger than the love of family. The son went and performed his duty. The exploits of his company, when told by the few that lived to see their own firesides again, appeared like fiction; and from that day, the survivors were marked men, the heroes of their neighborhoods, set down in public opinion as equal to any demand that could be made upon them.

A demand afterwards arose. At the age of thirty-six, under the command of Stark, he was commissioned as a captain, and joined the army of the revolution. General Burgoyne had entered the territory of New York. He had taken Ticonderoga, and was advancing, by rapid marches, across the state. His object seemed to be to penetrate New England and reach the seaboard. General Stark marched out to meet him. On his way, he fought the battle of Bennington, in which Captain Webster took a leading part. Subsequently, at the battle of White Plains, Webster was again among the heroes of the

HIGH AND LOW BIRTH.

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day; and, at a still later period, he had the satisfaction of witnessing, as a soldier, the surrender of the British general on the plains of Saratoga.

In other countries, to be descended from the most ancient family is accounted the greatest honor. In this, we have no prejudices of such a nature; but if we had, it would be honor enough for any young man to be the son of a revolutionary soldier. This honor Daniel Webster had; and this, except that patent to nobility which nature stamped upon his mind, was his only fortune. His father, it is true, before the close of the revolutionary war, had purchased a large tract of land north of Concord, in New Hampshire; but the land was wild, the growth of the primeval forest still standing dense upon it. With his own hands, principally, the soldier cleared a few acres and erected a log cabin for his family. In this humble spot, far enough from the refinements of life, such as they were in this country at that period, several of Daniel Webster's brothers and sisters were born; but, upon his birth, his father had so improved in his circumstances, as to have built a small framed addition to the original structure. In this new part, Daniel first saw the light; and nearly sixty years af terwards, he referred to the event in a characteristic manner. In a speech delivered at Saratoga, in the month of August, 1840, he was advocating the election of General Harrison, who was sneeringly styled the "log cabin candidate;" and Mr. Webster took occasion, in a very beautiful and artful manner, to make capital out of the epithet for his client, by a reference which he knew would cast no dishonor upon himself: "It is only shallow-minded pretenders," said the orator, "who either make distinguished origin matter of personal merit, or obscure origin raatter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life, affect nobody in this country but chose who are foolish enough to indulge in them; and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man,

who is not ashamed of himself, need not be ashamed of his early condition. It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, as that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narrations and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who raised it and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name, and the name of my posterity, be blotted forever from the memory of mankind!"

The emphatic part of this quotation, however, is the reference made to the father of the speaker. From every account, and most of all, from every allusion made to him by his distin guished son, it is certain that he must have been a man of uncommon mold. His success, both in business and in his social standing, was decided. He became independent, if not wealthy; he was frequently elected to represent his township in the state legislature; and in advanced life he was appointed a judge of the court of common pleas, the duties of which he is said to have discharged, to the close of his career, with integrity and honor.

THE OLD HOMESTEAD.

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Such was the life of Ebenezer Webster. His character has been drawn by a master's hand: "He had in him," says Daniel Webster, in a letter, "what I recollect to have been the character of some of the old Puritans. He was deeply religious, but not sour-on the contrary, good-humored, facetious -showing even in his age, with a contagious laugh, teeth all white as alabaster-gentle, soft, playful—and yet having a heart in him that he seemed to have borrowed from a lion. He would frown-a frown it was; but cheerfulness, good-humor and smiles composed his most usual aspect." Did ever a father receive such a eulogy from such a son!

The house in which Daniel Webster was born does not now stand. There is no part of it left, excepting the cellar, which is a ruin, and, if preserved, will be a shrine. It lies on what is called the North Road, on the side of a hill which comes down to the bank of the Merrimack. Near this cellar stands a solitary tree, an apple-tree, which, though dead in its trunk, has sprouted from the roots below. It should be allowed to revive and mark the spot to be held in reverence by a whole people as long as it can be certainly defined.

Still farther from the site of the old homestead is the family well, dug by Daniel Webster's father, who planted near it, about the year 1768, a young elm, which has now grown to be so large as to cover with its branches a circle of a hundred feet in diameter. It is to this well, in particular, that Mr. Webster has made his annual pilgrimages for the last thirty years. It is there, under the shadow of that broad tree, that he has been accustomed to recline, in the soft weather of every summer, and think of his father and mother, of his brothers and sisters, of all the scenes of the family in that early day, and thus rejuvenate his heart, and keep it tender and delicate, in spite of all the influences of his laborious public life. That well, and that tree, should be guarded safely, that they may remain to refresh the pilgrims who are yet to visit the birth-place of the greatest