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ing to Dr. Abbott's description of him at this time, that he had a quick perception and a memory of great tenacity and strength. He did not seem barely to read and remember, as other people do. He appeared, rather, to grasp the thoughts and facts given by his author, with a peculiar force, to incorporate them into his mental being, and thus make them a part of himself. It is said of Sir Isaac Newton, that, after reading for the first time the geometry of Euclid, and on being asked what he thought of it, modestly observed, that he knew it all before. He understood geometry, it seems, by intuition, or by a perception so rapid as to appear like intuition; but it was also true of the great astronomer, that he had great difficulty of remembering even his own calculations, after he had gone through them. Daniel Webster, on the other hand, though endowed with a very extraordinary quickness of insight, worked harder for his knowledge than did Newton; but when once he had gained a point, or learned a fact, it remained with him, a part of his own essence, forever afterwards. His mind was also wonderfully fertile. A single truth, which, with most boys of his age, would have remained a single truth, in him became at once a starting-point for a remarkable series of ideas, original and striking, growing up out of the seed sown, by that mighty power of reflection, in which no youth of his years, probably, was ever his superior.

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It is singular, however, though not unaccountable, that, at this period of his life, he could not speak in public. In a brief memoir of his first tutor at Exeter, Joseph S. Buckminster, he makes an allusion to this circumstance. "My first lessons in Latin," says he, were directed by Joseph Stevens Buckminster, at that time an assistant at the academy. I made tolera ble progress in all the branches I attended under his instruction; 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 especially sought 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 rehearse in my own room, over and over again; but when the day came, when the school collected, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the masters frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated with the most winning kindness, that I would venture only once; but I could not command sufficient resolution; and when the occasion was over, I went home and wept tears of bitter mortification."

"Here, then," says an anonymous biographer of Webster, "is a striking fact: the man, who, during his first nine months at an academy, though a good reader, and naturally self-possessed, could not deliver a speech! and yet, afterwards, he became the greatest orator of his time! Bashful boys, take courage!"

This, undoubtedly, is a very good practical moral, which those concerned may well heed; but the philosopher will look into the causes of this anomalous timidity, and give some account of it to himself. A man will do with indifference that in which he is conscious he is not destined to excel; but bring him to the matter, whatever it may be, which, his heart and soul tell him, and every fibre of his being constantly assures him, is the thing for which he was made, which is to form the glory of his life, the burden of his fame, and the man shrinks from it, dreads to undertake it, pauses, trembles, fears, and perhaps flies from it. It is the momentous feeling of responsibility, of responsibility to himself and to his calling, and that keen and nervous sensibility that always comes with genius, which make him modest, and sometimes timid, in what he has the greatest promise of success. More than one inan of parts, who has resolved on some great work of art, some master-piece, to which he would commit his reputation, has spent the whole of

INFLUENCE OF DR. ABBOTT.

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his life in the execution of minor works, to which he attributed no value, only as they were studies preparing him for the grand design, and thus lived and died without ever touching the work which was to have immortalized his name.

After remaining in the school at Exeter about nine months, young Webster left, never to return to it; but the impressions made there upon his mind he never lost. He never lost anything, in fact, which he had once fairly possessed. Among the recollections of the academy, which he often mentioned, and which he carried with him to his grave, his early and continued veneration for his Preceptor took, perhaps, the most conspicuous place. Dr. Abbott was a wonderful man; he was universally respected by his pupils; and it has been thought by some, that he not only was the first to rouse the ambition of Daniel Webster to its utmost pitch, but imparted to him a portion of his own dignity of manner. He continued at the institution at Exeter till 1839; and, on his retirement, at the age of seventyseven, his scholars made it the occasion of a grand rally, from all parts of the Union, to the shades of the old academy. It must have been a scene of surpassing interest. The notices given of it in the public prints, though brief, and even meager, will help an imaginative mind to get an idea of the reality, and to look back, with an appreciating eye, on the influences so early at work on the destiny of Daniel Webster. "Having attained the age of seventy-seven years, and having filled the measure of his long and faithful services, Dr. Abbott an nounced his determination to resign his office at the conclusion of the summer term. This was to a large number of his pupils, to all whose health or business would permit their attendance, a signal for a spontaneous rally once more around their venerable teacher and friend, to offer him a heart-felt tribute of gratitude and respect. His portrait, painted by Harding for the occasion, will faithfully transmit the lineaments of his countenance to after days. The dining hall, selected for the festival,

was filled by a long procession of Dr. Abbott's former pupils, from all parts of the country, once more gladdened by the familiar salutation, and grown young again in the presence of their ancient instructor; renewing the friendships which time had interrupted; revisiting the homes of the hospitable inhabitants which had sheltered their early days; tracing once more the scenes of their boyish sports, and sadly bidding farewell to friends, whom most of them were to see no more. Political and all other divisions were, for the time, forgotten, as they listened to the eloquent and appropriate addresses of Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, and the other speakers, whom the occasion inspired. All eyes were directed to the man of the day. Dr. Abbott had prepared an address to the assembly. They clustered about him in breathless expectation. He arose to tender his acknowledgments and a parting benediction. The scenes and events of so many years came crowding upon his mind. His 'boys,' of days long gone by, were gathered in his presence with every demonstration of the warmest attachment. His eye fell upon those whom he had instructed, counseled, guided, and for whom his prayers had so often ascended to the throne of mercy. Some had fallen asleep. Perhaps at that moment of intense emotion, the image of his lamented son, taken from him in early life, might have passed before his mind, as it glanced from the present to the past. Overcome by the conflict of his emotion, he faltered and paused. His utterance was choked; his eyes were filled with tears; and he sank into his seat, wholly unable to proceed, amid the sympathy, the enthusiasm, and the overwhelming applause of the whole concourse.'

The relative standing of Daniel Webster, as a scholar, while attending school at Exeter, will be sufficient to dissipate the idle stories set afloat by those who wish to give all the credit of his greatness to nature, and to depreciate the value of a thorough discipline, of a careful education. It was the practice, it would

FIRST SCHOLAR OF THE SCHOOL.

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seem, at Exeter academy, to place all new pupils at the foot of the lowest class, leaving each to demonstrate his fitness for a higher position. This regulation was always trying, and sometimes disheartening. It was so in the case of Daniel. He began at the bottom of the school; and, a poor country boy as he was, with a head too big for his slender body, and with eyes too large for his head, he may have made a laughable appear ance by the side of the boys from Boston, and other large towns, who came there well dressed, and with heads and eyes, probably, of no very remarkable expression. At all events, the city boys laughed at the country boy; and the country boy, with a soul as keen as the apple of an eye, was chagrined, discouraged, and almost despairing. All this, too, when entirely unknown to himself, he was winning golden opinions from his teachers, and surprising them hourly by his masterly exhibitions of mental power. After school, weary of his thoughts and sadly crest-fallen, he would go to his lodgings, to weep and study, to study and weep, in secret. His tutors encouraged him; but that availed him little, while the well-dressed boys laughed. His time, however, at length came. One morning, when he had been in school about a month, Mr. Nicholas Emery, who was then an instructor at Exeter, marshaled the boys of his department before him for a general recitation. It was then that the laughed-at boy, and the laughing boys, could meet face to face, and try the questions of laughing and of being laughed at, before a competent tribunal. When the recitation was over, and each one had done his best, the master gave decision in the following language: "Webster, you will pass into the other room, and join a higher class. take your final leave of Webster, for you will again!"

his

Boys, you will never see him

The next winter, after leaving Exeter, he devoted to study at home, and to teaching a class of young people of about his own age. His school assembled in the house of his uncle Wil