sunlight. This, in fact, was Mr. Gore's usual method with his pupils. It was a pleasure to him to instruct them; and his extemporaneous discourses, as Mr. Webster has said, were fre quently as learned, and always more eloquent and captivating, than the book.

It was in this office, that Mr. Webster first fully learned, or fra began to see with the force of a conviction, that the law is a historical science, and that if the student would understand it thoroughly, he must lay his foundation on history. At that time, Lingard, Turner, Hallam, and other similar though not equal critics, had written not a line of their celebrated works, which now lead the law-student directly and easily, along a beaten path, to the basis of his profession. The connection between law and history had not then been formed; but Mr. Webster, seeing the connection, and feeling his way along alone, by daily reading of the great historians, especially of Hume, made himself familiar, at last, with the elements of his science. The principles, which he saw were established by general concurrence and long precedent, he not only learned and fixed in his memory, as most law students try to do, but traced them back, from country to country, and from age to age, till he found their starting-points in time and their origin as ideas.

This, indeed, is what made Mr. Webster a lawyer such as he undeniably was. He was a lawyer, not of facts barely, but of reasons, able to go to the bottom of everything belonging to the law. It is this ability, founded upon this practice of thorough investigation, that makes, or will make, any man a lawyer, while nothing else will do it; and it is remarkable, that, of the vast multitude of young men, who make the law their profession, so few study it in this philosophical and thorough manner. If every law-student in the land would take up the study in this way-would take a principle of American law, for ex ample, and trace it through our own history into the history of the mother country, then back to its introduction into the juris

prudence of Great Britain, then still back to the older practice of the continental codes and courts, then farther and farther back to its germ in the Roman laws, where its relations to Roman civilization, and possibly its birth in the times of the Gre cian lawgivers, might be clearly seen-then should we have lawyers worthy of their great profession, worthy of their coun try, worthy of that admiration which many receive but few merit. No language can utter the fact with due force, that, as a general rule, the law is studied, in this country, very superficially. That science, which lies at the bottom of all social knowledge, which is the exponent of the civilizations of all people, which is the only key to an understanding of the world that now is, as well as a certain index of past and future periods, and which demands the best faculties fully developed by the best of discipline, is commonly undertaken by raw youth, whose education is very limited, whose ideas of their profession are equally narrow, and whose highest ambition is gratified after a brief course of hasty and superficial study. It is for this reason that we are a nation of pettifoggers. Every city, every town, every small village, swarms with these buzzing busybodies. In all the cities, and in all the land, we have, or rather have had, occasionally, a Hamilton, a Pinckney, a Clay, a Story, to redeem the profession from utter insignificance. It was dignified, noble, in fact sublime, in the hands of Daniel Webster; and he prepared himself to elevate his calling, to the degree here acknowledged, by that deep and thorough study, for which, in the beginning of his career, he is justly noted.

This severe labor of mind, however, began to wear upon the student's physical constitution. Rest was prescribed; and to rest he added recreation. In company with a Mr. Baldwin, an eccentric but very intelligent gentleman of considerable wealth and some position, he made quite a tour, during the autumn of 1804, through various parts of New England, and extended his rambles finally as far as the Hudson river. The friends trav

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eled in an open carriage, which gave them a fine opportunity for seeing the country, as well as for that free and familiar con versation, from which they would have been restricted in a public conveyance. On reaching Albany, they put up at a hotel at the foot of State street, where they remained a fort night. Into what sort of society, it is natural to ask, would such a man as Mr. Taylor Baldwin, unknown in those parts, and an equally obscure law-student, be likely to find themselves, among a wealthy and rather aristocratic population, such as at that time inhabited the old Dutch metropolis? From all we know of Mr. Baldwin, he was not the man to introduce Daniel Webster into such society as his talents claimed, and from all we know of Daniel Webster, he was not the person to take up with what was positively below him. So, in this dilemma, he is doomed to be without society, or to introduce himself. The latter, however, was no difficult thing for such a young man to do. He had no sooner taken his place at the hotel, than his remarkable appearance, his dignified and graceful man ners, his easy and captivating conversation, the apparently boundless extent of his knowledge and information, marked him as an object of general observation. Instead of trying to introduce himself to others, it was the desire of all to be introduced to him. Mr. Baldwin, though a man of years and selfconsequence, had to act between the parties as a sort of gentle man usher to his young friend. During the journey, the relation between the travelers had been, that Mr. Webster was traveling with Mr. Baldwin. Here, where neither was known, Mr. Baldwin found himself suddenly transformed into a gentleman traveling with Mr. Webster. The law-student was now all. He was soon known by all the guests. They consisted of transient boarders and citizens, among whom were merchants and lawyers. They, learning the object of Mr. Webster's visit, and forward to show him the town and all it contained worthy of his notice, at once put him into the hands of the leading characters of the

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city. In this way, he made the acquaintance of nearly every frominent citizen. He visited the Schuylers at Schuyler Place. He was at the house of Stephen Van Rensselaer, the patroon of that day, and the first man in wealth of the whole region of the Hudson. He saw the institutions, literary, social and religious; and, in the course of his short visit of fourteen days, he made himself entirely familiar with everything there was, at that time, in Albany. It was his first attempt to enter into society; and, unlike young men of ordinary abilities, who experience such difficulties in their introduction to the world, he found every door and avenue wide open, with every one within the charmed circle beckoning and pressing him to enter.

Such marked respect, such sudden popularity, would have turned the head of many a young man. It was not so with Webster. Without a particle of pride, but with his usual simplicity of manner, he received it all as if he thought that nothing extraordinary, nothing not called for, had happened. Then, when his season of recreation was over, he returned to Boston, to the office, to his deep and laborious studies, as modest, as deferential, though not quite as bashful a young man as when he left them.

Just before he had completed his course of study, while still in the office with Governor Gore, an event occurred which nearly overturned the settled plans of Mr. Webster, and which would have robbed the profession of its greatest master, the nation of its most distinguished statesman, and the world, in almost every sense, of its most illustrious man. His father still remained a judge on the New Hampshire bench. He was old and infirm, but the respect of all classes still sustained him at his post. The money he had expended, and was still spending, for the education of his sons, had so exhausted his resources, that he had been obliged to increase the mortgage upon his farm. It was the purpose, it had always been the joint promise of Ezekiel an 1 Daniel, at the very first opportunity

after the completion of their studies, to lift this mortgage and set their self-sacrificing and patient father free. They had long known, too, that, in his age and infirmities, he could not bear up under the pressure of a debt, as he had done when weli and strong. They knew that it preyed upon his spirits; that he began to indulge in disagreeable forebodings; that he frequently mentioned to his wife, as well as to them, the prospect of his dying at last, after all his struggles, a poor and perhaps a needy man. Oftentimes, the family had been affected to weeping by his distress; and the resolution had been at such times repeated, and redoubled, by both the boys, to hasten their work, and press into active employment, that they might quiet the fears and soothe the sorrows of their parent, whom it troubled them to see thus disturbed. Now, Daniel was about through his course; now, he felt the duty and responsibility resting on him; and now, as Providence would have it, an opportunity occurred, at the nick of time, when all these pious resolutions might be redeemed. At the solicitation of the father, and by the unanimous and free consent of all concerned, Daniel was appointed clerk of his father's court, with a salary and perquisites amounting to the enviable sum of fifteen hundred dollars a year. This, in a short time, would not only pay off his father's debts, but soon bring in a competency to himself. In those days, in fact, this large salary was not barely a competency. It was wealth; and Daniel, with this situation, could look fortune in the eye, soothe the troubled heart of his good old father, and almost smooth down the wrinkles of old age. Young as he was and poor as he had always been, he may be seen, in our imagination, to leap with sudden joy at the pros pect so strangely and unexpectedly opened to him.

Perhaps, reader, as we see him now, in fancy, doing what history tells he actually did-leaving the office of his patron— proceeding directly, by the shortest and quickest route, to the residence of his father-hastening into the old homestead, with