DEMEANOR AS A STUDENT.

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Ilis general demeanor as a student is worthy of particular remark: "Mr. Webster, while in college," says Professor Shurtliff," was remarkable for his steady habits, his intense application to study, and his punctual attendance upon all the prescribed exercises. I know not that he was absent from a recitation, or from morning and evening prayers in the chapel, or from public worship on the Sabbath; and I doubt if ever a smile was seen upon his face during any religious exercise. He was always in his place, and with a decorum suited to it. He had no collision with any one, nor appeared to enter into the concerns of others, but emphatically minded his own business. But as steady as the sun, he pursued with intense ap plication the great object for which he came to college." Many a young man in college has been misled, deceived, ruined by the vaunted examples, like those of Byron and of Shelly, of successful idleness. They forgot, however, while following such guides, the laborious efforts of nine-tenths of the greatest men of modern history. If they wish to behold another proof of the value of hard study, let them look here into the early life of Daniel Webster, who, though endowed by nature beyond any one of his day, did not reach the highest eminence, nor could he satisfy the requirements of his mind, without the most diligent and thorough application to his studies.

The freshman and sophomore classes at Dartmouth, at this time, devoted themselves to the rudiments of the mathematics, to the Latin and Greek languages, and to regular exercises in speaking and in composition. In mathematics, especially the higher mathematics, Daniel Webster took no great interest, as he did not regard this branch of study as very practical, nor therefore as very important. His mind, indeed, always leaned toward facts, and the proper use of facts, rather than toward calculations. The languages, however, were his delight. He pursued them as did no other student of the institution. He went to the bottom of them, making himself thoroughly 4

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acquainted with their elements, their first principles, and their philosophy. He was the best, the deepest, grammarian of his college. He studied carefully the origin, the history, the exact meanings, and the perversions of words. His philosophical and comprehensive mind would not be satisfied with knowing the use of words simply, but he at once sought out their relations to other words, and put them into their etymological places according to their mutual relationships, thus abridging the immense task of learning the vocabulary of the languages by ma king out for himself brief and logical classifications. He paid special attention, also, to the formation of a good style of ren dering his classics into English. He endeavored to catch the manner of his author and then copy it in his version. He thus studied language and rhetoric together. Among all the works of the first two years, Cicero, as might be expected, was his favorite author. Him he read, day and night, not barely as a school-boy, but as a philosopher, as a critic, and particularly with a view to a knowledge of the fundamental principles of elocution. He would read, and re-read, those orations which charmed the Roman senate and the Roman people, as if they were his own speeches, and he was delivering them to an actual auditory. He made himself perfectly familiar with them, so that he could repeat several of them from memory, and make large quotations from any of them, without a moment's warning. After uttering long passages to his class-mates, he would criticise their style, showing up the faults, or pointing out the merits, of the great orator. In this way, he made the pervading spirit of Roman eloquence, in its highest form, his own spirit, a part of his own way of thinking and of speaking, which continued with him, and was afterwards always manifest in him, in his greatest efforts.

It was at this time, too, that he acquired that taste for classic poetry, and especially his partiality for Virgil, which never left him. The author of the Eneid, next to Cicero, was to him

HIS LOVE OF THE CLASSICS.

the most captivating of the Roman writers.

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He read the

poems of this classic, and particularly his great epic, so repeatedly and constantly, that he could quote the most remarkable passages, while yet a boy, as he used to quote them after he became a man. Those who have had the good fortune to hear him, on the platform, or at the bar, or in the senate, have often wondered at the readiness with which, on the spur of a moment, without the opportunity of any preparation, he would rise to his feet, and, in the course of an extemporaneous debate, not only utter himself in the most classic English, but make the most apposite quotations from the Roman classics, and especially from the Roman poets. His quotations always seemed to be, indeed, more to the point, than those of any other orator of modern times. This facility, which was actually a power, he laid the foundation for during his first and second years in college.

While he was thus making such deep and lasting acquisi tions in the department of language, it must not be supposed, that, though not enthusiastic in the mathematics, he was neglectful of them. It was never his habit to neglect anything that properly belonged to him. He studied this branch well, and obtained a good reputation in it; and, in spite of the modera tion of his zeal in these studies, he was always at home, and could stand his ground under the most critical examination. It is probable, however, that it was sometimes his power of inind, rather than his knowledge, by which he maintained his points, and made himself even popular in this department. “He gained me," says the venerable Judge Woodward, at that time the professor of mathematics, "by combatting my opinions; for I often attacked him, merely to try his strength."

During the whole of these first two years, he devoted a great share of his time to general reading and to composition. His class-mates spent their hours principally in preparing their lessons, making but few excursions into the world of knowledge

ment.

outside of their class-room authors. He, on the other hand, after making a thorough preparation for his recitations, found time to read extensively in history, in poetry, and in criticism. American and English history, however, and the American and English classical belles-lettres writers, were his chief study. The history of England he studied with a glowing interest. He seemed to have a passion for it. Every book written about England, for or against, historical, political, or descriptive, he devoured. The discovery and first settlement of this country, also, the struggles of the several American plantations, the wars with the Indians, and everything pertaining to that primitive period of our annals, he read with equal interest. Our great men were then just in the act of giving a perma nent existence, an established character, to our national governWhat they were doing, and what they generally proposed to do, arrested and occupied his serious attention. From the day of the cotton handkerchief, he had been a student and & great admirer of the constitution. While in college, he could repeat it, and did more than once repeat it, from beginning to end, from recollection. He could remark upon it, too, and that wisely, as well as rehearse it. He took special pleasure in tracing the various provisions of the constitution to something that had preexisted in the institutions of Great Britain, or to the historical attempts made, at different periods, by the English patriots, to introduce new features into the government of their country. Questions frequently arose, in the debates of the students, relating to English and American affairs, in none of which could any student stand a moment against the thorough knowledge, the wide views, the deep reasoning, and the graceful as well as commanding and overpowering elocution of Daniel Webster.

Not only in books, studied as described with the ardor of a devotee, and with the penetration of a philosopher, but from living examples, from existing models, did he pursue his inves

STUDIES THE GREAT ORATORS.

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tigations respecting eloquence. The same spirit, which, at Ex eter, would not suffer him to make a declamation, was now burning in his bosom like a vestal fire, and urging him on to a most profound knowledge of the principles and practice of true oratory. After Cicero had become as familiar to him as his alphabet, he read Demosthenes with great animation, but, perhaps, not with so perfect an appreciation. The mind of Demosthenes, though forcible, was not so wide and comprehensive as to make him, in this respect, preeminent. He was a man of sound thought, of clear ideas, of great skill in argument; but his fame arose rather from the quickness and keenness of his temper, from the rapidity of his conceptions, from the impetuosity of his spirit, from the irresistible bursts of his fiery passion. Such a man, such a mind, could not be the favorite with a cool, deliberate, broad, slow, but mighty mind, like that of Daniel Webster. Demosthenes, though laborious in writing out his speeches, did not think enough, was not calm enough, for Webster. Cicero, on the other hand, was calm. He was also deep, wide, philosophical, and yet passionate. There were many points of resemblance between the American and the Roman; and the Roman was always, both in youth, and in mature age, the chosen model, so far as there was any model, with the great American. The truth is, however, young Webster made no one man his model. The classic orators were read, studied, criticised; and all that suited the temper and taste of the student were thoroughly incorporated into his own mental being. But he studied, particularly at about the end of his first two years in college, the English and American orators with as much zeal as ever he had studied the Roman and the Grecian. What a galaxy of great debaters were then before him, in England and in this country! Pitt, Fox, Burke, on the other side of the Atlantic, had electrified all Europe, and immortalized their names, in the wilds of a new continent, by those wonderful efforts, the like of which Europe had never before