Like mountain cat who guards her young,
Full at Fitz-James's throat he sprung;
Received, but recked not of a wound,
And locked his arms his foeman round.
Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own!
No maiden's hand is round thee thrown!
That desperate grasp thy frame might feel,
Through bars of brass and triple steel!
They tug, they strain! down, down they go,
The Gael above, Fitz-James below.
The chieftain's grip his throat compressed,
His knee was planted in his breast;
His elotted locks 1 he backward threw,
Across his brow his hand he drew,
From blood and mist to clear his sight,
Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright!
-But hate and fury ill2 supplied
The stream of life's exhausted tide,
And all too late the advantage came,
To turn the odds of deadly game;'

8

For, while the dagger gleamed on high,
Reeled soul and sense, reeled brain and eye.
Down came the blow! but in the heath
The erring blade found bloodless sheath.
The struggling foe may now unclasp 5
The fainting chief's relaxing grasp;
Unwounded from the dreadful close,6
But breathless all, Fitz-James arose.

1 clotted locks. Explain.

2 ill. Part of speech?

* deadly game. Unequal combat.

4 erring blade. Explain. unclasp. What is the prefix? 6 close, grapple.

VIII.-DANIEL WEBSTER.

LIFE AND WORKS.

WEBSTER holds a high place in the literature of our country; for while a great lawyer, a great statesman, and a great orator, he was also a great writer. It is as a writer only that we have here to regard him, and as such he stands among the very foremost of his class. "In the sphere of literature," says Evarts, "Webster has a clear title to be held as one of the greatest authors and writers of our mother tongue that America has produced. I propose to the most competent critics of the nation, that they can find nowhere six octavo volumes of printed literary production of an American that contains as much noble and as much beautiful imagery, as much warmth of rhetoric, and of magnetic impression upon the reader, as are to be found in the collected writings and speeches of Daniel Webster."

As a

Daniel (born in the town of Salisbury, N.H., Jan. 18, 1782) was one of the ten children of Ebenezer Webster, a frontiersman of the New Hampshire wilderness, at a time when there was nothing between his own log cabin and the settlements of Canada. young man, Ebenezer Webster was one of the boldest Indian fighters in the French and Indian war; and during the Revolution he commanded a company of militia, and was trusted and esteemed by Washington. Without a day's schooling, the elder Webster was obliged to pick up learning as best he might; but his innate common sense and his strong character made

him a leader among his neighbors, and in the latter part of his life he was made a judge of the local court.

At a very early age Daniel began to go to school; sometimes in his native town, sometimes in another, as the district school moved from place to place. He thus describes his boyhood: "I read what I could get to read, went to school when I could, and when not at school was a farmer's youngest boy, not good for much for want of health and strength, but expected to do something."

That "something" consisted generally in tending his father's sawmill, but the reading went on even there. He would set a log, and while it was going through would devour a book. There was a small circulating library in the village; and young Webster read everything it contained, committing most of the contents of the volumes to memory, for books were so scarce that he believed this to be their chief purpose.

The elder Webster, though in straitened circumstances, had it greatly at heart that his son should enjoy the advantages of that education he had himself missed. Accordingly, after rather hasty preparation, Daniel contrived in 1797 to enter Dartmouth College, where he pursued his studies till he took his degree in 1801. Though not a fine scholar in the technical sense of the term, he was recognized both by the professors and by his fellow-students as the foremost man in the college. All were conscious of something in him indefinable, but conveying a sense of greatness.

The four years following Webster's leaving college were passed in the study of law, varied by some ex

perience as a country schoolmaster. Soon after his admission to the bar he took up his residence at Portsmouth, where he pursued his profession, and began to take part in politics.

The distinction won by Webster in the discussion of questions connected with the war of 1812 led to his election to the national House of Representatives as a member for New Hampshire. He took his seat in 1813, was reëlected in 1815, and at the end of his second term retired for a while from public life. Though but thirty-two years of age when he entered Congress, he was after a few months of service acknowledged to be one of the foremost men in the House, and the strongest leader of the Federal party.

In 1816 Webster removed from Portsmouth to Boston, where he at once took rank with the best lawyers, and speedily built up a large and lucrative practice. In 1822 he was chosen to the House of Representatives as member from Boston, and was a member of that body till 1827, when he was elected to the United States Senate, where his greatest triumphs were to be achieved. He continued to represent Massachusetts in the Senate for twelve years, when he was appointed Secretary of State by President Harrison. On the accession of President Tyler, Webster, unlike the rest of the Harrison cabinet, remained in office; and in 1842 he concluded the famous treaty with Lord Ashburton, defining the northeastern boundary between the United States and Canada. In 1845 Massachusetts again sent him to the Senate; and he was a member of that body during the eventful period of the Mexican War, and during the

administration of Taylor. Webster remained in that position until 1850, when he was made Secretary of State by President Fillmore. In this high office death found him. He died at Marshfield, Mass., Oct. 24, 1852. The last words that passed his lips were, "I still live.”

Webster's person was imposing: he was of commanding height and well proportioned; his head was of great size, and his eyes were deep-seated, large, and lustrous. His voice was powerful, sonorous, and flexible; his action, without being remarkably graceful, was appropriate and impressive. Carlyle, in a letter to Emerson written in 1839, thus describes the appearance of Webster, then on a visit to England:—

"" Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen; you might say to all the world, 'This is your Yankee Englishman, such limbs we make in Yankeeland!' As a logic-fencer, advocate, or parliamentary Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all the extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face; the dull black eyes under their precipice of brows, like dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown; the mastiff-mouth, accurately closed:- I have not traced as much of silent Berserkir-rage, that I remember of, in any other man."

Webster's productions are preeminently national. His works all refer to the history, the policy, the laws, the government, the social life, and the destiny of his own land. They came from the heart and understand-. ing of one into whose very nature the life of his coun