LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER. BY GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS, ONE OF HIS LITERARY EXECUTORS. VOLUME I. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1870. 17ご 4 s. 223.21 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE LIBRARY OF ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE. R. WEBSTER, who died on the 24th of October, 1852, MR. made the following provision in his will, which he executed a few days before his death: "I appoint Edward Everett, George Ticknor, Cornelius Conway Felton, and George Ticknor Curtis, to be my literary executors; and I direct my son, Fletcher Webster, to seal up all my letters, manuscripts, and papers, and, at a proper time, to select those relating to my personal history and my professional and public life, which, in his judgment, should be placed at their disposal, and to transfer the same to them, to be used by them in such manner as they may think fit. They may receive valuable aid from my friend George J. Abbott, Esq., now of the State Department." were After the probate of the will, Mr. Fletcher Webster transferred to the literary executors all the papers which supposed to be embraced within the purpose of this provision; and steps were taken to collect from other sources whatever else might be in existence which would be important to the preparation of a Life of Mr. Webster. The result was the accumulation of a large mass of papers and documents of a very important character, among which were a number of exceedingly interesting reminiscences in MS., furnished by the surviving few who had known Mr. Webster from his youth. Great pains were taken in collecting these materials, which were chiefly gathered by Mr. Ticknor, acting for his associates in the literary executorship. The whole of these collections, with the exception of those which belonged to Mr. Ticknor's personal relations with Mr. Webster, were then passed over to Mr. Everett, with the full understanding, however, that every thing else would be at his service whenever he should think it proper to undertake the writing of a Life of Mr. Webster. As I was the draughtsman of Mr. Webster's will, and as he conversed freely with me respecting all of its provisions, I may mention what occurred in reference to this literary executorship. After naming Mr. Everett and Mr. Ticknor as the friends whom he most desired to place in this relation, he dictated to me the substance of the clause as it now stands. When it had been written down, he added, after a short pause: "Put in also Professor Felton's name and your own; it is the only way I have to mark my affection for him and for you, and four will be as good as two." When I assented to this addition of my own name, there seemed to me scarcely a remote possibility that it would fall to me to perform the office which was evidently in Mr. Webster's contemplation in making this provision; and, when the will had taken effect, and for years afterward, it was always tacitly assumed among us that Mr. Everett would, at some period, be the person on whom that office would devolve. But Mr. Everett did nothing, I believe, after this time, toward the preparation of a full Life of Mr. Webster. Nothing, at least, was found, after his own lamented death, to show |