From Farm Boy to Senator

“All my recollections of Ezekiel Webster are of a gratifying character. In the Senior year we occupied rooms opposite to each other, in a building directly north of the college. I am therefore able to state, from intimate personal acquaintance, that he was altogether exemplary in his habits and faithful in his studies. He had no enemies, and all were happy to be numbered in the list of his friends.

“Owing to his absence in teaching school, no part was assigned him at Commencement. But I have no doubt he stood high in the estimation of the college Faculty; and although I should hesitate to pronounce him the first scholar in his class, it would be doing injustice to his memory to say that he was excelled by either of those who received the highest college honors on the day of our graduation. It has been recently stated that he was particularly distinguished for his knowledge of Greek; but I cannot now recall the circumstance to mind, nor, in fact, make any discrimination as to relative proficiency in the several branches of study. He was deficient in none. He was good in all. Such at least is my recollection of the reputation he enjoyed. After leaving college, from all that I have heard, he obtained a greater degree of eminence in the eye of the public than any of his classmates; and when I revert to college days, after the lapse of almost half a century, all my recollections of what he then was cause me to feel no surprise at the subsequent elevation which he attained.”

I think I am justified in saying that Ezekiel was worthy of his relationship to Daniel, though he was overshadowed by the more brilliant talents and success of his younger brother. It is to be considered, however, that he was cut off in the midst of his career, before he had attained the age of fifty, and we cannot tell what might have been had he lived twenty years longer.

But we must not forget that it is the life and the gradual development of Daniel’s powers that we are studying. My young readers will probably be surprised to learn that in college he was known as a poet, and appears to have written verse on many occasions with considerable facility. That he would ever have achieved eminence in this class of composition no one will claim, but as the productions of such a youth his verses merit notice. That my readers may judge for themselves, I will quote entire a letter in rhyme written by Daniel a little before he attained the age of seventeen. It was addressed to his friend, George Herbert:

“Dartmouth College, Dec. 20, 1798

“Dear George, I go. I leave the friend I love.
Long since ’twas written in the books above.
But what, good God! I leave thee, do I say?
The thought distracts my soul, and fills me with dismay.
But Heaven decreed it, let me not repine;
I go; but, George, my heart is knit with thine.
In vain old Time shall all his forces prove
To tear my heart from the dear friend I love;
Should you be distant far as Afric’s sand,
By Fancy pictured, you’d be near at hand.
This shall console my thoughts till time shall end:
Though George be absent, George is still my friend.
But other friends I leave; it wounds my heart
To leave a Gilman, Conkey and a Clark;
But hope through the sad thought my soul shall bear:
Bereft of hope I’d sink in dark despair.
When Phœbus a few courses shall have run,
And e’er old Aries shall receive the sun,
I shall return, nor more shall fear the day
That from my friends shall take poor me away.
Oh then roll on, ye lagging wheels of time,
Roll on the hours; till then, dear George, I’m thine.

    “D. W.”
Verse-writing was but an episode, an occasional diversion, with Daniel, and when he entered upon his professional life he found little time to devote to it. I will therefore cite but one other specimen of his college productions in this line. It was written shortly after his eighteenth birthday, and was appended to a letter written to his intimate friend, Mr. Bingham.

It runs thus:

“SYLVARUMQUE POTENS DIANA. A FABLE

“Bright Phœbus long all rival suns outshone,
And rode triumphant on his splendid throne.
When first he waked the blushes of the dawn,
And spread his beauties o’er the flowery lawn,
The yielding stars quick hastened from the sky,
Nor moon dare longer with his glories vie;
He reigned supreme, and decked in roseate light
Beamed his full splendors on the astonished sight.
At length on earth behold a damsel rise,
Whose growing beauties charmed the wondering skies!
As forth she walked to breathe the balmy air,
And view the beauties of the gay parterre,
Her radiant glories drowned the blaze of day,
And through all nature shot a brighter ray.
Old Phœbus saw—and blushed—now forced to own
That with superior worth the damsel shone.
Graced with his name he bade her ever shine,
And in his rival owned a form divine!”

One trait of the young college student I must refer to, because young men at that stage in their mental training are too apt to be marked by a self-sufficient and not altogether agreeable opinion of their own powers. Notwithstanding his great abilities Daniel was always modest, and disposed to under rather than overestimate himself. Shortly after his graduation he took occasion to express himself thus, in speaking to some friends:

“The opinion of my scholarship was a mistaken one. It was overestimated. I will explain what I mean. Many other students read more than I did, and knew more than I did. But so much as I read I made my own. When a half hour, or an hour at most, had elapsed, I closed my book and thought over what I had read. If there was anything peculiarly interesting or striking in the passage I endeavored to recall it and lay it up in my memory, and commonly could effect my object. Then if, in debate or conversation afterwards, any subject came up on which I had read something, I could talk very easily so far as I had read, and then I was very careful to stop. Thus greater credit was given me for extensive and accurate knowledge than I really possessed.”

It may be remarked generally that men of great abilities are more likely to be modest than third-rate men, who are very much afraid that they will not be rated as high as they should be. There are indeed exceptions, and those of a conspicuous character. The poet Wordsworth had a comfortable consciousness of his superiority to his contemporaries, and on one occasion, when he was asked if he had read the poems of such a one (a prominent poet), he answered, “I never read any poetry except my own.”

It is a safe rule to let the world pronounce you great before you call attention to your own greatness.

CHAPTER XI.

DANIEL AS AN ORATOR

The four years spent in college generally bear an important relation to the future success or non-success of the student. It is the formative period with most young men, that is, it is the time when the habits are formed which are to continue through life. Let us inquire, then, what did Daniel Webster’s college course do for him?

We cannot claim that his attainments at graduation were equal to those of the most proficient graduates of our colleges to-day. The curriculum at Dartmouth, and indeed at all colleges, was more limited and elementary than at present. Daniel was a good Greek and Latin scholar for his advantages, but those were not great. He did, however, pay special attention to philosophical studies, and to the law of nations. He took an interest in current politics, as may be gathered from letters written in his college days, and was unconsciously preparing himself for the office of a statesman.

He paid special attention also to oratory. No longer shrinking from speaking before his classmates, he voluntarily composed the pieces he declaimed, and took an active part besides in the debating society. I am sure my young reader will like to know how Daniel wrote at this time, and will like to compare the oratory of the college student with that of the future statesman. I shall, therefore, quote from a Fourth of July oration, which he delivered by invitation to the citizens and students at the age of eighteen. As in a boy’s features we trace a general likeness to his mature manhood, so I think we may trace a likeness in passages of this early effort to the speeches he made in the fullness of his fame.

This is the opening of the address:

“Countrymen, Brethren and Fathers: We are now assembled to celebrate an anniversary, ever to be held in dear remembrance by the sons of freedom. Nothing less than the birth of a nation, nothing less than the emancipation of three millions of people from the degrading chains of foreign bondage is the event we commemorate.

“Twenty-four years have this day elapsed since these United States first raised the standard of liberty, and echoed the shouts of independence. Those of you who were then reaping the iron harvest of the martial field, whose bosoms then palpitated for the honor of America, will at this time experience a renewal of all that fervent patriotism, of all those indescribable emotions which then agitated your breasts. As for us, who were either then unborn, or not far enough advanced beyond the threshold of existence to engage in the grand conflict for liberty, we now most cordially unite with you to greet the return of this joyous anniversary, to welcome the return of the day that gave us freedom, and to hail the rising glories of our country.”

Further on he paints the hardships and distresses through which the colonists had passed:

“We behold a feeble band of colonists engaged in the arduous undertaking of a new settlement in the wilds of North America. Their civil liberty being mutilated, and the enjoyment of their religious sentiments denied them in the land that gave them birth, they braved the dangers of the then almost unnavigated ocean, and sought on the other side of the globe an asylum from the iron grasp of tyranny and the more intolerable scourge of ecclesiastical persecution.

“But gloomy indeed was the prospect when arrived on this side of the Atlantic.

“Scattered in detachments along a coast immensely extensive, at a distance of more than three thousand miles from their friends on the eastern continent, they were exposed to all those evils, and encountered or experienced all those difficulties, to which human nature seemed liable. Destitute of convenient habitations, the inclemencies of the seasons harassed them, the midnight beasts of prey howled terribly around them, and the more portentous yell of savage fury incessantly assailed them. But the same undiminished confidence in Almighty God, which prompted the first settlers of the country to forsake the unfriendly climes of Europe, still supported them under all their calamities, and inspired them with fortitude almost divine. Having a glorious issue to their labors now in prospect, they cheerfully endured the rigors of the climate, pursued the savage beast to his remotest haunt, and stood undismayed in the dismal hour of Indian battle.”

Passing on to the Revolutionary struggle the young orator refers to “our brethren attacked and slaughtered at Lexington, our property plundered and destroyed at Concord,” to “the spiral flames of burning Charlestown,” and proceeds as follows:

“Indelibly impressed on our memories still lives the dismal scene of Bunker’s awful mount, the grand theater of New England bravery, where slaughter stalked grimly triumphant, where relentless Britain saw her soldiers, the unhappy instruments of despotism, fallen in heaps beneath the nervous arm of injured freemen!

“There the great Warren fought, and there, alas! he fell. Valuing his life only as it enabled him to serve his country, he freely resigned himself a willing martyr in the cause of liberty, and now lies encircled in the arms of glory.

“’Peace to the patriot’s shade—let no rude blast
Disturb the willow that nods o’er his tomb;