LIFE OF DANIEL WEBSTER.
Daniel Webster, one of the greatest orators and statesmen that this country ever produced, was born in the town of Salisbury (now known as Franklin), New Hampshire, on the 18th of January, 1782. His father, Ebenezer Webster, was a distinguished soldier and officer in the Revolutionary War. After the war, he moved with his large family into what was then the savage wilds of New Hampshire. He was a man of little book-learning, but with his strong mind and vigorous frame he became a sort of intellectual leader in his neighborhood. He was appointed a "side-judge" for the county, a place of considerable influence in those days. His great aim was to educate his children to the utmost of his limited ability. Captain Webster married Abigail Eastman for a second wife. She was a woman of more than ordinary intellect, and possessed a force of character which was felt throughout the humble circle in which she moved. She was ambitious for her two sons, Ezekiel and Daniel, that they should excel. The distinction attained by both, and especially by Daniel, may well be traced in part to her early promptings and judicious guidance. In the last year of the Revolutionary War, in the humble house which his father had built in the woods on the outskirts of civilization, Daniel Webster was born. During his childhood, he was sickly and delicate, and gave no promise of the robust and vigorous frame which he had in his manhood. It may well be supposed that his early opportunities for education were very scanty. Because he was frail and delicate, Daniel's parents took great pains to send him to the winter schools, oftentimes three miles away from home. As an older half-brother said, "Dan was sent to school that he might get to know as much as the other boys." It is probable that the best part of his early education was derived from the judicious and experienced father, and the resolute, affectionate and ambitious mother. In those days books were very scarce and Daniel eagerly read every book he could find. He was fond of poetry and at the age of twelve could repeat from memory the greater part of Watts' "Psalms and Hymns." In his "Autobiography" he says: "I remember that my father brought home from some of the lower towns Pope's Essay on Man, published in a sort of pamphlet. I took it, and very soon could repeat it from beginning to end. We had so few books, that to read them once or twice was nothing. We thought they were all to be got by heart." At the age of fourteen, he was sent to Phillips Academy, in Exeter, N.H., but remained only nine months on account of the poverty of
