D. WEBSTER, ATTORNEY.
This was the sign that our young lawyer attached to his office, in
the town of Boscawan. The office was humble enough. It was on the
second floor of a store, painted red, and the staircase leading to it
was on the outside. His office rent was fifteen dollars a year, which
certainly could not have been considered an extravagant sum.
Here it was that the future great lawyer commenced practice. Though his
fees amounted to but six or seven hundred dollars a year, his practice
extended over three counties, Hillsborough, Rockingham and Grafton. We
infer from his meager income, though it was ample for his needs in a
place where living was so inexpensive, that his clients had no occasion
to complain of immoderate charges.
Judge Webster had the satisfaction of hearing his son make one speech
in court, but he was so near the end of his earthly pilgrimage that
he never heard another, being for the last few months confined within
doors. The father listened with satisfaction, and regarded his son’s
effort as a very creditable one.
Daniel’s sole object in establishing himself in an obscure country
place was to be near his father, who he knew could not live many years.
The end was nearer than he supposed, for he died little more than a
year later. It may have been a sacrifice, but probably he lost nothing
by it. The quiet seclusion gave him more time for study, and he was
laying a broad groundwork for his future fame to rest upon.
It was while he was at Boscawan that he first encountered Mr. Jeremiah
Mason, the acknowledged head of the New Hampshire bar. From a foot-note
in Curtis’s Life, I quote the circumstances as told by Mr. Mason
himself.
“I had heard,” said Mr. Mason,” that there was a young lawyer up there
who was reputed to be a wonderfully able fellow, and was said by the
country people to be as black as the ace of spades, but I had never
seen him. When they told me that he had prepared evidence for this
prosecution (it was a case of forgery, the defendant being a man of
respectable position), I thought it well to be careful, especially as
the trial was to be conducted by the attorney-general. But when the
trial came on the attorney-general was ill, and the prosecutors asked
that Webster should be allowed to conduct the case. I assented to this
readily, thinking I ought to have an easy time of it, and we were
introduced to each other.
“We went at it, and I soon found that I had no light work on my hands.
He examined his witnesses and shaped his case with so much skill that
I had to exert every faculty I possessed. I got the man off, but it
was as hard a day’s work as I ever did in my life. There were other
transactions behind this one which looked quite as awkward. When the
verdict was announced I went up to the dock and whispered to the
prisoner, as the sheriff let him out, to be off for Canada, and never
to put himself within the reach of that young Webster again. From that
time forth I never lost sight of Mr. Webster, and never had but one
opinion of his powers.”
This is remarkable testimony from the head of the bar to a practitioner
so young, who was a mere novice in the profession.
After the death of his father Daniel was still compelled for a time to
remain in his country office. His practice was now worth something, and
he had it in view to surrender it to his brother Ezekiel, who was now
studying law, but had not been admitted to the bar. His father had
left some debts, which Daniel voluntarily assumed. In the autumn of
1807 Ezekiel succeeded to the double office of managing the home farm,
and carrying on the law business of his younger brother. Then Daniel,
feeling that he might safely do so, took down his “shingle,” and
removed to Portsmouth, where he found a larger field for the exercise
of his abilities, where he could gain a higher and more conspicuous
position.
His appearance at this time has been thus described by a member of
Rev. Dr. Buckminster’s family. “Slender, and apparently of delicate
organization, his large eyes and narrow brow seemed very predominant
above the other features, which were sharply cut, refined and delicate.
The paleness of his complexion was heightened by hair as black as the
raven’s wing.”
Daniel soon became intimate with the family of Dr. Buckminster,
and from members of this family we learn much that is interesting
concerning him. He developed, according to Mr. Lee, a “genial and
exceedingly rich humor,” which did more to make him popular in society
than any of his other diversified gifts. “We young people saw him only
rarely in friendly visits. I well remember one afternoon that he came
in, when the elders of the family were absent. He sat down by the
window, and as now and then an inhabitant of the small town passed
through the street, his fancy was caught by their appearance and his
imagination excited, and he improvised the most humorous imaginary
histories about them, which would have furnished a rich treasure for
Dickens, could he have been the delighted listener, instead of the
young girl for whose amusement this wealth of invention was extended.”
Mr. Mason, who appreciated the young man’s humor, as well as his
professional ability, used to say that “there was never such an actor
lost to the stage as he would have made had he chosen to turn his
talents in that direction.”
Daniel was still fragile, not having yet out-grown his early delicacy.
Dr. Buckminster prescribed as a remedy half an hour’s wood-sawing
before breakfast, with a long two-handed saw, one end of which he held
himself. The young lawyer doubtless found this early exercise a good
appetizer, qualifying him to do full justice to the breakfast that
succeeded.
Within a year of his removal to Portsmouth Mr. Webster took a step
most important to his happiness. He was married to Grace Fletcher,
daughter of Rev. Elijah Fletcher, of Hopkinton. There is no occasion
in a brief biography like this to speak at length of Mrs. Webster.
It is sufficient to say that she was qualified by her natural powers
and acquired culture to be a sympathizing friend and companion to the
husband whom she saw gradually expanding intellectually, and rising
higher in reputation, in the twenty years that they lived together.
I have said that Mr. Webster’s removal to Portsmouth brought him a
wider and more lucrative practice. He still lived plainly, however.
His office, though more pretentious than the one at Boscawan, which
he hired for fifteen dollars a year, was, according to Mr. Ticknor,
“a common, ordinary looking room, with less furniture and more books
than common. He had a small inner room, opening from the larger, rather
an unusual thing. He lived in a small, modest wooden house, which was
burned in the great fire in 1813,” a fire by which he lost a valuable
library.
Daniel Webster lived in Portsmouth nine years lacking one month. He
was in no hurry to remove to the still wider field that was waiting
for him in Boston. He says somewhere that these were very happy years.
His great powers were gradually expanding. He grew like an oak tree,
slowly, but his growth was steady, and the result was massive and
majestic. It was not long before he was regarded as one of the most
prominent lawyers in his native State, and he was generally matched
in important suits with Jeremiah Mason, already referred to as the
undisputed head of the bar. Mr. Mason was a remarkable man, not only
intellectually but physically. He was a very Titan, almost tall enough
to have attracted the attention of Barnum had he lived at a later
period. He was six feet seven inches in height, and naturally attracted
attention wherever he went—an attention, by the way, which he did not
court, and which was embarrassing to him. An amusing story is told of
him which I have somewhere read, and will record from memory.
In spite of his great height Mr. Mason did not sit high, having a
short body and legs of immense length. One day he was driving in the
neighborhood of Portsmouth, when in a narrow road he met a man driving
a cart, a stalwart man, inclined to be a bully, who, confident in his
strength, was disposed to take advantage of it.
“Turn out!” he said roughly to Mr. Mason.
“My friend,” said the lawyer, who was in a light buggy,” I have already
given you half the road.”
“No, you haven’t,” answered the other roughly. “At any rate, you must
turn out more.”
“But I see no justice in that,” said the great lawyer mildly.
The mildness of his manner led the bully to think Mr. Mason was afraid
of him; so, with an oath, he repeated his demand.
Mr. Mason felt that the matter had gone far enough. He slowly rose in
his seat; the countryman with astonishment saw what he had supposed to
be a man of average height towering into gigantic proportions, and he
became alarmed.
“Hold on!” he shouted; “you needn’t unroll yourself any more. I’ll turn
out myself.”
This great lawyer, though so often opposed to Webster, was unvaryingly
kind to him, and as Daniel himself testifies, was of infinite advantage
to him, not only by his friendship, but by the many good lessons he
taught him and the example he set him in the commencement of his career.
The young man admired his elder professional brother, and says of him:
“If there be in the country a stronger intellect, if there be a mind of
more native resources, if there be a vision that sees quicker or sees
deeper into whatever is intricate or whatsoever is profound, I must
confess I have not known it.”