Protestant minister who ever adininistered the communion in the place, arrived at St. Charles on the Missouri. He here established himself as a missionary, and remained for three years thus employed in the town and surrounding country. He then removed to Arkansas, but returned after a few months to St. Charles. In 1822 he visited New Orleans, where he remained during the winter, and passed the next summer in Covington, Florida. Returning to New Orleans in the autumn, he removed to Alexandria on the Red River, in order to take charge of a school, but was forced by ill health, after a year's residence, to return to the North.

T.Thnt.

In 1826 he published an account of these wanderings, and the scenes through which they had led him, in his Recollections of the last Ten Years passed in occasional residences and journeyings in the Valley of the Mississippi, in a series of letters to the Rev. James Flint, of Salem, Mass. It was successful, and was followed the same year by Francis Berrian, or the Mexican Patriot, a story of romantic adventure with the Comanches, and of military prowess in the Mexican struggle, resulting in the fall of Iturbide. The book has now become scarce. In its day it was better thought of by critics for its passages of description, than for its story, which involved many improbable and incongruous incidents. His third work, The Geography and History of the Mississippi Valley, appeared at Cincinnati in 1827, in two octavo volumes. It is arranged according to states, and gives ample information, in a plain style, on the subject comprised in its title.

In 1828 he published Arthur Clenning, a romantic novel, in which the hero and heroine are shipwrecked in the Southern Ocean, reach New Holland, and after various adventures settle down to rural felicity in Illinois. This was followed by George Mason the Young Backwoodsman, and in 1830 by the Shoshonee Valley, the scene of which is among the Indians of Oregon.

His next work, Lectures upon Natural History, Geology, Chemistry, the Application of Steam, and Interesting Discoveries in the Arts, was published in Boston in 1832.

On the retirement of Mr. C. F. Hoffinan from the editorship of the Knickerbocker Magazine, Mr. Flint succeeded to his post for a few months in the year 1833. He translated about the same time L'art d'être heureuse by Droz, with additions of his own, and a novel entitled, Celibacy Vanquished, or the Old Bachelor Reclaimed. In 1834 he removed to Cincinnati, where he edited the Western Monthly Magazine for three years, contributing to it and to other periodicals as well, a number of tales and essays. In 1835 he furnished a series of Sketches of the Literature of the United States to the London Athenæum. He afterwards removed to Louisiana, and in May, 1840, returned to New England on a visit for the benefit of his health. Halting at Natchez on his way, he was for some hours buried in the ruins of a house thrown down, with many others, by the violence of a tornado. On his arrival at Reading

his illness increased, and he wrote to his wife that his end would precede her reception of his letter, an announcement which hastened her own death and anticipated his own, by but a short time however, as he breathed his last on the eighteenth of August.

THE SHORES OF THE OHIO.

The

It was now the middle of November. weather up to this time had been, with the exception of a couple of days of fog and rain, delightful. The sky has à milder and lighter azure than that of the northern states. The wide, clean sand-bars stretching for miles together, and now and then a flock of wild geese, swans, or sand-hill cranes, and pelicans, stalking along on them; the infinite varieties of form of the towering bluffs; the new tribes of shrubs and plants on the shores; the exuberant fertility of the soil, evidencing itself in the natural as well as cultivated vegetation, in the height and size of the corn, of itself alone a matter of astonishment to an inhabitant of the northern states, in bending under their fruit, the surprising size and the thrifty aspect of the young orchards, literally

rankness of the weeds, and, in the enclosures where cultivation had been for a while suspended, the matted abundance of every kind of vegetation that ensued, all these circumstances united to give a novelty and freshness to the scenery. The bottom forests everywhere display the huge sycamore, the king of the western forest, in all places an interesting tree, but particularly so here, and in autumn, when you see its white and long branches among its red and yellow fading leaves. You may add, that in all the trees that have been stripped of their leaves, you see them crowned with verdant tufts of the viscus or mistletoe, with its beautiful white berries, and their trunks entwined with grapevines, some of them in size not much short of the human body. To add to this union of pleasant circumstances, there is a delightful temperature of the air, more easily felt than described. In New England, when the sky was partially covered with fleecy clouds, and the wind blew very gently from the southwest, I have sometimes had the same sensations from the temperature there. A slight degree of languor ensues; and the irritability that is caused by the rougher and more bracing air of the north, and which is more favourable to physical strength and activity propitious to meditation. There is something, too, than enjoyment, gives place to a tranquillity highly in the gentle and almost imperceptible motion, as you sit on the deck of the boat, and see the trees apparently moving by you, and new groups of scenery still opening upon your eye, together with the view of these ancient and magnificent forests, which the axe has not yet despoiled, the broad and beautiful river, the earth and the sky, which render such a trip at this season the very element of poetry. Let him that has within him the bona indoles, the poetic mania, as yet unwhipt of justice, not think to sail down the Ohio under such circumstances, without venting to the genius of the river, the rocks, and the woods, the swans, and perchance his distant beloved, his dolorous notes.

HENRY PICKERING.

HENRY, the third son of Colonel Timothy Pickering and Rebecca Pickering, was born on the 8th of October, 1781, at Newburgh, in the Hasbrouck house, memorable as having been the headquarters of General Washington. Colonel Pickering was at the time quartermaster-general of the army

of the Confederated States, and was absent with the commander-in-chief at the siege of Yorktown.

In 1801, after a long residence in Pennsylvania, Colonel Pickering returned with his family to his native state, Massachusetts; and subsequently Henry engaged in mercantile pursuits in Salem. In the course of a few years he acquired a moderate fortune, which he dispensed most liberally; among other things, contributing largely towards the support of his father's family and the education of its younger members. In 1825, in consequence of pecuniary losses, he removed from Salem to New York, in the hope of retrieving his affairs; but being unsuccessful in business, he retired from the city, and resided several years at Rondout, and other places on the banks of the Hudson, devoting much of his time to reading, and finding in poetical composition a solace for his misfortunes. His writings take occasionally a sombre tint from the circumstances which shaded the latter years of his life, although his natural temperament was cheerful. He was a lover of the beautiful, as well in art as in nature, and he numbered among his friends the most eminent poets and artists of our country. An amiable trait in his character was a remarkable fondness for children, to whom he was endeared by his attentions. The affection with which he regarded his mother was peculiarly strong; and he deemed himself highly blest in having parents, the one distinguished for ability, integrity, and public usefulness, the other, beautiful, pure, gentle, and loving.

A Pickering

The following just tribute to his memory appeared in the Salem Gazette, in May, 1838:Died in New York on the 8th instant Henry Pickering. His remains were brought to this city on Friday last, and deposited at the side of the memorial which filial piety had erected to the memory of venerated parents-and amid the ancestral group which has been collecting since the settlement of the country.

"A devoted, affectionate, and liberal son and brother, he entwined around him the best and the warmest feelings of his family circle. To his friends and acquaintances he was courteous, delicate, and refined in his deportment. With a highly cultivated and tasteful mind he imparted pleasant instruction to all who held intercourse

with him, while his unobtrusive manners silently forced themselves on the affections, and won the hearts of all who enjoyed his society."

The poems of Pickering are suggested by simple, natural subjects, and are in a healthy vein of reflection. A flower, a bird, a waterfall, childhood, maternal affection are his topics, with which he blends his own gentle moods. The Buckwheat Cake, which we print with his own corrections, first appeared in the New York Evening Post, and was published in an edition, now rare, in Boston, in 1831.

THE HOUSE IN WHICH I WAS BORN: ONCE THE HEADQUARTERS OF WASHINGTON.

Square, and rough-hewn, and solid is the mass,
And ancient, if aught ancient here appear

Beside yon rock-ribb'd hills: but many a year
Hath into dim oblivion swept, alas!
Since bright in arms, the worthies of the land

Were here assembled. Let me reverent tread; For now, meseems, the spirits of the dead Are slowly gathering round, while I am fann'd By gales unearthly. Ay, they hover near

Patriots and Heroes-the august and greatThe founders of a young and mighty state, Whose grandeur who shall tell? With holy fear, While tears unbidden my dim eyes suffuse,

I mark them one by one, and marvelling, muse.

II.

I gaze, but they have vanish'd! and the eye,
Free now to roam from where I take my stand,
Dwells on the hoary pile. Let no rash hand
Attempt its desecration for though I
Beneath the sod shall sleep, and memory's sigh
Be there for ever stifled in this breast,-
Yet all who boast them of a land so blest,
Whose pilgrim feet may some day hither hie,-
Shall melt, alike, and kindle at the thought

That these rude walls have echoed to the sound
Of the great Patriot's voice! that even the ground

I tread was trodden too by him who fought

To make us free; and whose unsullied name,
Still, like the sun, illustrious shines the same.

THE DISMANTLED CABINET.

Go, beautiful creations of the mind,

Fair forms of earth and heaven, and scenes as fairWhere Art appears with Nature's loveliest airGo, glad the few upon whom Fortune kind Yet lavishes her smiles. When calmly shin'd My hours, ye did not fail a zest most rare To add to life; and when oppress'd by care, Or sadness twin'd, as she hath often twin'd,

With cypress wreath my brow, even then ye threw Around enchantment. But though I deplore The separation, in the mirror true

Of mind, I yet shall see you as before:

Though ne'er to be forgot, we part to meet no more. Then, go! like friends that vanish from our view,

THE BUCKWHEAT CAKE.

But neither breath of morn, when she ascends With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower, Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers; Nor grateful evening, without thee is sweet! Muse, that upon the top of Pindus sitt'st, And with the enchanting accents of thy lyre Dost soothe the immortals, while thy influence sweet Earth's favor'd bards confess, be present now; Breathe through my soul, inspire thyself the song, And upward bear me in the adventurous flight: Lo the resistless theme-THE BUCKWHEAT CAKE.

Let others boastful sing the golden ear
Whose farinaceous treasures, by nice art
And sleight of hand, with store of milk and eggs,
Form'd into pancakes of an ample round,
Might please an epicure-and homebred bards
Delight to celebrate the tassell'd maize
Worn in the bosom of the Indian maid,
Who taught to make the hoe-cake, (dainty fare,
When butter'd well!) I envy not their joys.
How easier of digestion, and, beyond
Compare, more pure, more delicate, the cake
All other cakes above, queen of the whole,
And triumph of the culinary art-

The Buckwheat Cake! my passion when a boy,
And still the object of intensest love-
Love undivided, knowing no decline,
Immutable. My benison on thee,

Thou glorious Plant! that thus with gladness crown'dst

Life's spring-time, and beneath bright Summer's eye, Lured'st me so oft to revel with the bee,

Among thy snow-white flowers: nay, that e'en yet
Propitious, amidst visions of the past

Which seem to make my day-dreams now of joy,
Giv'st me to triumph o'er the ills of time.
Thou, when the sun ❝ pours down his sultry wrath,”
Scorching the earth and withering every flower,
Unlock'st, beneficent, thy fragrant cells,
And lavishest thy perfume on the air;

But when brown Autumn sweeps along the glebe,
Gathering the hoar-frost in her rustling train,
Thou captivat'st my heart! for thou dost then
Wear a rich purple tint, the sign most sure
That nature hath perform'd her kindly task,
Leaving the husbandman to sum his wealth,
And thank the bounteous Gods. O, now be wise,
Ye swains, and use the scythe most gently; else
The grain, plump and well-ripen'd, breaks the tie
Which slightly binds it to the parent stalk,
And falls in rattling showers upon the ground,
Mocking your futile toil; or, mingled straight
With earth, lies buried deep, with all the hopes
Of disappointed man! Soon as the scythe
Hath done its work, let the rake follow slow,
With caution gathering up into a swarth
The lusty corn; which the prompt teamster next,
Or to the barn floor clean transports, or heaps
Remorseless on the ground, there to be thresh'd—
Dull work, and most unmusical the flail!
And yet, if ponderous rollers smooth the soil,
The earth affords a substitute not mean
For the more polish'd plank; and they who boast
The texture of their meal-the sober race
That claim a peaceful founder for their state-
(Title worth all the kingdoms of the world!)
Do most affect the practice. But a point,
So subtile, others may debate: enough
For me, if, when envelop'd in a cloud
Of steam, hot from the griddle, I perceive,
On tasting, no rude mixture in the cake,
Gravel, or sandy particle, to the ear
Even painful, and most fearful in effect:
For should the jaws in sudden contact meet,
The while, within a luscious morsel hid,
Some pebble comes between, lo! as the gates
Of Hell, they "grate harsh thunder;" and the man
Aghast, writhing with pain, the table spurns,
And looks with loathing on the rich repast.

But now, his garners full, and the sharp air,
And fancy keener still, the appetite
Inspiriting, to the mill, perch'd near some crag
Down which the foamy torrent rushes loud,
The farmer bears his grist. And here I must
To a discovery rare, in time advert:

For the pure substance dense which is conceal'd
Within the husk, and which, by process quick
As simple, is transform'd to meal, should first
Be clean divested of its sombre coat:
The which effected, 'tween the whizzing stones
Descends the kernel, beauteous, and reduced
To dust impalpable, comes drifting out
In a white cloud. Let not the secret, thus
Divulg'd be lost on you, ye delicate!
Unless, in sooth, convinc'd ye should prefer
A sprinkling of the bran; for 'tis by some
Alleg'd that this a higher zest confers.
Who shall decide? Epicurean skill
I boast not, nor exactest taste; but if
I am to be the umpire, then I say,
As did the Baratarian king, of sleep-
My blessing on the man who first the art
Divine invented! Ay, let the pure flour
Be like the driven snow, bright to the eye,
And unadulterate. So jovial sons

Of Bacchus, with electric joy, behold
"The dancing ruby;" then, impatient, toss
The clear unsullied draught. But is there aught
In the inebriate cup: to be compar'd
To the attractive object of my love,

The Buckwheat Cake? Let those who list, still quaff
The madd'ning juice, and, in their height of bliss,
Believe that such, she of the laughing eye
And lip of rose, celestial Hebe, deals
Among the Gods; but O, ye Powers divine!
If e'er ye listen to a mortal's prayer,
Still give me my ambrosia. This confers
No "pains arthritic," racking every joint,
But leaves the body healthful, and the mind
Serene and imperturb'd.—A nicer art
Than all, remains yet to be taught; but dare
I venture on the theme? Ye Momus tribes,
Who laugh even wisdom into scorn-and ye,
Authoritative dames, who wave on high
Your sceptre-spit, away! and let the nymph
Whose smiles betoken pleasure in the task,
(If task it be,) bring forth the polish'd jar;
Or, wanting such, one of an humbler sort,
Earthen, but smooth within: although nor gold,
Nor silver vase, like those once used, in times
Remote, by the meek children of the Sun,
(Ere tyrant Spain had steep'd their land in gore,)
Were of too costly fabric. But, at once,
Obedient to the precepts of the muse,
Pour in the tepid stream, warm but not hot,
And pure as water from Castalian spring.
Yet interdicts she not the balmy tide
Which flows from the full udder, if preferr'd;
This, in the baking, o'er the luscious cake,
Diffuses a warm golden hue-but that
Frugality commends and Taste approves:
Though if the quantity of milk infus'd
Be not redundant, none can take offence.
Let salt the liquid mass impregnate next;
And then into the deep, capacious urn,
Adroitly sift the inestimable dust,
Stirring, meanwhile, with paddle firmly held,
The thickening fluid. Sage Discretion here
Can best determine the consistence fit,

Nor thin, nor yet too thick. Last add the barm-
The living spirit which throughout the whole
Shall quickly circulate, and airy, light,
Bear upward by degrees the body dull.

Be prudent now, nor let the appetite
Too keen, urge forward the last act of all.
Time, it is true, may move with languid wing,
And the impatient soul demand the cate
Delicious; yet would I advise to bear
A transient ill, and wait the award of Fate,

The sluggish mass must be indulg'd, till, wak'd
By the ethereal spirit, it shall mount
From its dark cell, and court the upper air;
For, bak'd too soon, the cake, compact and hard,
To the dissolving butter entrance free
Denies, while disappointment and disgust
Prey on the heart. Much less do thou neglect
The auspicious moment! Thee, nor business then
Must urgent claim, nor love the while engross:
For, ever to the skies aspiring still,

The fluid vivified anon ascends,

Disdains all bound, and o'er the vase's side
Flows awful! till, too late admonish'd, thou
The miserable waste shalt frantic see,
And, in the acid draff within, perceive
Thy hopes all frustrate. Thus Vesuvius in
Some angry hour, 'mid flames and blackening smoke,
From his infuriate crater pours profuse
The fiery lava-deluging the plains,

And burying in its course cities, and towns,
And fairest works of art! But, to avert
Catastrophe so dire, the griddle smooth,-
Like steely buckler of the heroic age,
Elliptical, or round-and for not less
Illustrious use design'd-make ready quick.
Rubb'd o'er the surface hot, a little sand
Will not be useless; this each particle
Adhesive of the previous batch removes,
And renders easy the important work,
To gracefully reverse the half-bak'd cake.
With like intent, the porker's salted rind,
Mov'd to and fro, must lubricate the whole:
And this perform'd, let the white batter stream
Upon the disk opaque, 'till silver'd o'er
Like Cynthia's, it enchants the thoughtful soul.
Impatient of restraint, the liquid spreads,
And, as it spreads, a thousand globules rise,
Glistening, but like the bubble joy, soon burst,
And disappear. Ah, seize the occasion fair,
Nor hesitate too long the cake to turn;
Which, of a truth, unsightly else must look,
And to the experienc'd, nicer palate, prove
Distasteful. See! 'tis done: and now, O now
The precious treat! spongy, and soft, and brown;
Exhaling, as it comes, a vapor bland:

While, all emboss'd with flowers, (to be dissolv'd,
Anon, as with the breath of the warm South,)
Upon the alluring board the butter gleams—
Not rancid, fit for appetite alone

Of coarsest gust, but delicate and pure,
And golden like the morn. Yet one thing more;-
The liquid amber which, untir'd, the bee
From many a bloom distils for thankless man;
For man, who, when her services are o'er,
The little glad purveyor of his board
Remorseless kills. But to the glorious feast!
Ye Gods! from your Olympian heights descend,
And share with me what ye, yourselves, shall own
Far dearer than ambrosia. That, indeed,
May haply give a zest to social mirth,
And, with the alternate cup, exhilarate
The sons of heaven: but my nepenthe rare,
Not only cheers the heart, but from the breast
Care, grief, and every nameless ill dispels-
Yielding a foretaste of immortal joy!

HENRY J. FINN.

HENRY J. FINN was born in the city of New York, in the year 1782. When a boy he sailed for England, on the invitation of a rich uncle resident there. The vessel sank at sea, and the passengers and crew were for many days exposed in small boats until they were picked up by a ship which landed them at Falmouth. Finn resided

in London until the death of his uncle, who made no mention of him in his will. He then returned to New York in 1799, studied law for two years, -became tired of the profession, returned to London, and made his first appearance at the Haymarket Theatre "in the little part of Thomas in the Sleep Walker." He continued on the stage with success, and in 1811 returning to America made his first appearance at Montreal. He next performed in New York, and afterwards became a member of the stock company of the Federal Street Theatre, Boston. Here he remained for several years, and was at one time manager of the theatre. He was extremely successful here, and in every part of the country which he subsequently visited, as a comic actor, and accumulating a handsome fortune, retired in the intervals of his engagements to an elegant residence at Newport. He was on his way to his pleasant home, when with many others he met a sudden and awful death, in the conflagration of the steamboat Lexington on the night of January 13, 1840.

He

Finn was celebrated as a comic writer as well as a comic actor. He published a Comic Annual, and a number of articles in various periodicals. The bills of his benefit nights were, says Mr. Sargent, "usually made up of the most extraordinary and inconceivable puns, for which his own name furnished prolific materials."* wrote occasional pathetic pieces, which possess much feeling and beauty, and left behind him a MS. tragedy, portions of which were published in the New York Mirror, to which he was a contributor in 1839. He also wrote a patriotic drama entitled Montgomery, or the Falls of Montmorenci, which was acted at Boston with success and published. He was a frequent versifier, and turned off a song with great readiness. He also pos sessed some ability as a miniature and landscape painter. Of his ingenious capacity in the art of punning, a paragraph from a sketch of May Day in New York in his "Comic Annual," may be taken as a specimen.

Then hogs have their essoine, the cart-horse is thrown upon the cart, and clothes-horses are broken upon the wheel. Old jugs, like old jokes, are cracked at their owners' expense, sofas lose their castors, and castors forsake their cruets, tumblers turn summersets, plates are dished; bellows, like bankrupts, can raise the wind no more, dog-irons go to pot, and pots go to the dogs; spiders are on the fly, the safe is not safe, the deuce is played with the tray, straw beds are down. It is the spring with cherry trees, but the fall with cherry tables, for they lose their leaves, and candlesticks their branches. The whole family of the brushes-hearth, hair, hat, clothes, flesh, tooth, nail, crumb, and blacking, are brushing off. Books, like ships, are outward bound; Scott's novels become low works, Old Mortality is in the dust, and Kenilworth is worthless in the kennel. Presidential pamphlets are paving the way for new candidates, medical tracts become treatises on the stone, naval tacticians descend to witness the novelty of American flags having been put down, and the advocates of liberality in thought, word, and deed, are gaining ground. Then wooden ware is every where. Pails are without the pale of preservation,

Life by Epes Sargent, in Griswold's Biographical Annual. 1841.

and the tale of a tub, at which the washerwoman wrings her hands, in broken accents tells

Of most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,
That wind up the travel's history

of a New York comic annual celebration.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

DANIEL WEBSTER was born in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire, Jan. 18, 1782. His father, a farmer, and according to the habit of the country and times an inn-keeper, a man of sterling character and intelligence, Major Ebenezer Webster, was a pioneer settler in the region on one of the townships* established after the conclusion of the old French War, in which he had served under Amherst at Ticonderoga. He was subsequently a soldier of the Revolution, with Stark at Bennington, and saw the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga. He closed his life in the honorable relation of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1806, at the age of sixty-seven. His son, in one of his Franklin letters, describes him as "the handsomest man I ever saw, except my brother Ezekiel," and adds, "he had in him what I recollect to have been the character of some of the old Puritans. He was deeply religious, but not sour-on the contrary, good-humored, facetious-showing even in his age, with a contagious laugh, teeth, all as white as alabaster-gentle, soft, playful-and yet having a heart in him that he seemed to have borrowed from a lion."t Webster's first speech at the bar was while his father was on the bench; he never heard him again.

The future orator received his first education from his mother. In 1796 he was for a few months at Phillips (Exeter) Academy, under the charge of Dr. Benjamin Abbott, making his preparations for college, which he completed under the Rev. Dr. Samuel Wood, of Boscawen, one of the trustees who facilitated his admission. He entered Dartmouth in 1797, and having overcome by his diligence the disadvantages of his hasty preparation, took his degree, with good

It was in reference to this early habitation that Daniel Webster, in a speech at Saratoga in 1840, paid an elegant tribute to the memory of his father. He described the log-cabin in which his elder brothers and sisters were born, raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it, to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living, and if ever I am ashamed of it, ar if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for him who raised It and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and through the fire and blood of a seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity, be blotted for ever from the memory of mankind."

them

+ Letter of Webster, Franklin, May 3, 1846. Memorials (Appleton). 11. 248.

This school was founded in 1778 by John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard, son of a pions minister of Andover, in conjunction with his bro her, Samuel Phillips, of Andover. In 1750 John Phillips gave a further sum of $20,000, and bequeathed two thirds of his estate to the same object. He died! In 1795. Dr. Abbott was the principal of this academy for fifty years, from 1789. At the close of that period he retired from his position, on which occasion a festival of the pupils was beld, and speeches were made by Webster, Everett, and others Among his pupils, of the public men of the country, had toon Cass, Woodbury, the Everetts, Sparks, Bancroft.

reputation as a scholar, Aug. 26, 1801. In consequence of a difficulty with the Faculty respecting the appointments, he did not speak at the Commencement. There was a sharp feeling of competition growing out of the rival literary societies, which led him to resent the assignment of the chief post, the Latin Salutatory, to another; while the Faculty thought his fine talents in English composition might be better displayed in an oration on the fine arts or a poem.* He delivered a discourse the day previously, before the College Societies, on The Influence of Opinion. Subsequently, in 1806, he pronounced the Phi Beta Kappa College oration, on The Patronage of Literature.

66

now

While in College, in his nineteenth year, in 1800, he delivered a Fourth of July oration at the request of the citizens of Hanover, which was printed at the time. It is patriotic of course, and energetic, well stored with historical material, for Webster was not, even in a Fourth of July oration in youth, a sounder of empty words. A funeral oration, which he pronounced a short time before leaving college, on the death of Ephraim Simonds, a member of the Senior Class, has that dignity of enumeration which is noticeable in Webster's later orations of this description. "All of him that was mortal," he spoke, lies in the charnel of yonder cemetery. By the grass that nods over the mounds of Sunner, Merrill, and Cooke, now rests a fourth son of Dartmouth, constituting another monument of man's mortality. The sun, as it sinks to the ocean, plays its departing beams on his tomb, but they reanimate him not. The cold sod presses on his bosom; his hands hang down in weakness. The bird of the evening chants a melancholy air on the poplar, but her voice is stillness to his ears. While his pencil was drawing scenes of future felicity, while his soul fluttered on the gay breezes of hope,—in unseen hand drew the curtain, and shut him from our view."t

Upon leaving college, Webster began the study of the law with Thomas W. Thompson, a lawyer of distinction, who was subsequently sent to the United States Senate, and presently left, to take charge, for a year, of the town academy at Fryeburg, in Maine, with a salary of three hundred and fifty dollars, which he was enabled to save by securing the post of Assistant to the Register of Deeds to the county, and with which he managed to provide something to support him in his legal studies, and for his brother Ezekiel's education. In 1802 he returned to the office of Thompson at Salisbury, and two years afterwards went to Boston, where he completed his legal studies with the Hon. Christopher Gore. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1805. To be near his father he opened an office for the practice of his profession at Boscawen, N. H. After his father's death he removed to Portsmouth in his native state, where he maintained himself till 1816. In 1808 he had married the daughter of the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, of Hopkinton, N. H.‡

* Prof. Sanborn, of Dartmouth. Eulogy on Webster before the Students of Phillips Academy, Andover. + Lyman's Memorials of Webster, i. 246.

This lady died in 1827, leaving four children-Grace, who died early; Fletcher, who survives his father; Julia, married to Mr. Appleton, of Boston, and since dead; and Edward, who