the body of the hall, and I pushed my way towards it, up close to Mr. Webster, and was so near that I put my hand on his back, proud that I had touched him. I heard him say to some one, " Mr. Mason, I wish I had a seat for you," and, turning, I saw a man towering above every one else, and I knew it was .that giant in body and mind, one of the greatest lawyers New England has ever produced, Jeremiah Mason. He stood upon a little elevation at last, and, with his deep-
trial, " Broad Seal " Gov. Pennington of New Jersey, George Evans of Maine, Benjamin Watkins Leigh of Virginia, Gov. Kent, for whom " Maine went hell-bent," and Reverdy Johnson. I saw Mr. Webster next at a Dartmouth College Commencement, when Levi Wood bury, who would have been President in stead of Franklin Pierce had he lived, gave an oration, and Rufus Choate was present, the three alumni of whom the college is so
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toned, powerful voice, called the crowd to order. His first words were, alluding both to the financial distress and the struggling crowd in the Hall, " My friends, our op ponents make a mistake, as you can all wit ness, when they say there is no pressure in the country that an honest man need feel." He spoke with much emphasis and gesture, dwelling on the strong reasons for a change in the administration, and then introduced the speakers of the evening. I remember best Ogden Hoffman, the eloquent New York lawyer, then at the height of his fame from his success in a recent noted criminal
proud. He was dressed in the well-known• blue coat with bright buttons, and wore a white beaver. He declined to make an ad dress. Mr. Choate was also requested to make a political speech, but with a sense of propriety that all public men do not have, he replied that partisan politics should never disturb the harmony of a gathering of scholars. Such was' my interest in Mr. Webster, that if I met any one who had known him, I was anxious to make the most particular inquiries. Professor Shurtleff, of Dartmouth College, remembered him well in his college
