HONORS RECEIVED IN ENGLAND.
It would require a volume far larger than the present to speak in
detail of Mr. Webster’s public life, to point out his public services,
to enumerate the occasions on which he took a distinguished part in
debate. But this does not come within my plan. Fortunately there are
other works in which such as desire it can gain all the information
they desire upon these points. They will find how closely Mr. Webster
was identified with the history of the nation, and what a powerful
influence he exerted upon all public measures. And all the while he
was making an equally brilliant reputation at the bar. He was employed
in numerous “great cases,” and in none was he found unequal to his
opportunity.
The result of his multifarious and exhausting labors was a
determination to make a tour of recreation, and not unnaturally
he decided to visit England, a country which to every American of
Anglo-Saxon race must possess a first attraction. His second wife, who
died but a few weeks since, his daughter, and Mrs. Page, the wife of
his brother-in-law, were of the party. His youngest son, Edward, then a
Dartmouth student, joined them later.
Mr. Webster’s fame had preceded him, and he received unusual honors.
One paper in announcing his arrival said, “We cordially welcome to our
shores this great and good man, and accept him as a fit representative
of all the great and good qualities of our transatlantic brethren.”
So great was the curiosity to see him that the press of carriages
about the door of his hotel was almost unprecedented. He was invited
everywhere, and was cordially received by the most prominent men. In
fact, he was a “lion,” and that in a marked sense.
Among others he met that eccentric and craggy genius, Thomas Carlyle,
and I am sure my readers young and old will like to know what
impression the great senator made upon the Scotch philosopher.
This is what Carlyle writes:
“American notabilities are daily becoming notable among us, the ties of
the two parishes, mother and daughter, getting closer and closer knit.
Indissoluble ties!
“I reckon that this huge smoky wen may for some centuries yet be the
best Mycale for our Saxon Panionium, a yearly meeting-place of ‘all
the Saxons’ from beyond the Atlantic, from the antipodes, or wherever
the restless wanderers dwell and toil. After centuries, if Boston, if
New York, have become the most convenient ‘All-Saxondom,’ we will right
cheerfully go thither to hold such festival and leave the wen.
“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 our Yankee Englishman; such limbs we
make in Yankee-land!’ As a logic-fencer, advocate or parliamentary
Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against the
extant world. The tanned complexion, that amorphous crag-like face, the
dull black eyes under the precipice of brows [I am sure no one ever
called Mr. Webster’s eyes dull before or since], like dull anthracite
furnaces only waiting to be _blown_, the mastiff mouth accurately
closed—I have not traced so much of _silent Berseker’s rage_ that I
remember of in any other man. ‘I guess I should not like to be your
nigger.’ Webster is not loquacious, but he is pertinent, conclusive, a
dignified, perfectly-bred man, though not English in breeding, a man
worthy of the best reception among us, and meeting such, I understand.”
In a letter to Mr. Ticknor, John Kenyon indulges in some reminiscences
of Mr. Webster, whom he met intimately, having traveled with him and
his family party during four days.
“Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of any great
man who had not ‘much of the woman in him.’ Even so, that large
intellect of Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled with all softer
feelings, and his countenance and bearing at the very first impressed
me with this.
“All men, without having studied either science, are, we all know,
more or less phrenologists and physiognomists. Right or wrong, I had
found as I thought much sensibility in Webster’s countenance. A few
weeks afterwards I had an opportunity of learning that it was not
there _only_. We were in a hackney coach, driving along the New Road
to Baring’s in the City. It was a longish drive, and we had time to
get into a train of talk, also we were by that time what I may presume
to call ‘intimate.’ I said, ‘Mr. Webster, you once, I believe, had
a brother?’ ’Yes,’ he kindly said, ‘when I see you and your brother
together I often think of him,’ and—I speak the fact as it was—I saw,
after a little more talk on the subject of his brother, the tears begin
to trickle down his cheek till he said to me, ‘I’ll give you an account
of my early life,’ and he began with his father, and the farm in New
Hampshire, and his own early education, and that of his brother, the
details of his courtship and first marriage, and his no property at
the time, but of his hopes in his profession and of his success, as he
spoke showing much emotion. How could one help loving a man at once so
powerful and so tender?”
The opinions of those who are themselves eminent are of interest. Let
us see, therefore, what Hallam, the historian, says of our subject.
“I have had more than one opportunity,” he writes to Mr. Ticknor, “of
hearing of you, especially from your very distinguished countryman,
Mr. Webster, with whom I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted last
summer. It is but an echo of the common voice here to say that I was
extremely struck by his appearance, deportment and conversation. Mr.
Webster approaches as nearly to the _beau ideal_ of a republican
senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life,
worthy of Rome, or Venice, rather than of our noisy and wrangling
generation. I wish that some of our public men here would take example
from his grave and prudent manner of speaking on political subjects,
which seemed to me neither too incautious nor too strikingly reserved.”
It is seldom that a man’s personal appearance is so impressive as that
of Daniel Webster, seldom that his greatness is so visibly stamped
upon his face and figure. An admirer of Mr. Webster was once shocked
by hearing him called “a hum-bug.” “What do you mean?” he demanded
angrily. “I mean this,” was the reply, “that no man can possibly be as
great as he looks.”
I have said that Mr. Webster was the recipient of attentions from
all classes, I may add, from the highest in the land. Mr. and Mrs.
Webster dined privately with Queen Victoria by special invitation,
and it is recorded that the young Queen, for she was then young,
was much impressed by the majestic demeanor of the great American.
Even the Eton boys, who are wont to chaff all visitors, forgot their
propensity in the presence of Mr. Webster. As Mr. Kenyon, already
quoted, writes: “Not one look of unseemly curiosity, much less of the
quizzing which I had rather anticipated, had we to undergo. Webster was
not merely gratified, he was visibly touched by the sight. You remember
that Charles Lamb said at Eton—I do not pretend to quote his exact
words—‘What a pity that these fine youths should grow up into paltry
members of Parliament!’ For myself, when I saw them so cheerful and yet
so civilized and well-conditioned, I remember thinking to myself at
the moment, ’Well, if I had a boy I should send him to Eton.’”
While at the Castle Inn, in Windsor, Mr. Webster wrote the following
autograph, by request, for Mr. Kenyon:
“When you and I are dead and gone
This busy world will still jog on,
And laugh and sing and be as hearty
As if we still were of the party.”
There is no doubt that Mr. Webster enjoyed heartily his well-earned
recreation. He had good cause. Never certainly up to that time had an
American been received in England with such distinguished honors. I
will close by his own account of the way in which he was received.
“I must say that the good people have treated me with great kindness.
Their hospitality is unbounded, and I find nothing cold or stiff in
their manners, at least not more than is observed among ourselves.
There may be exceptions, but I think I may say this as a general truth.
The thing in England most prejudiced against the United States is the
press. Its ignorance of us is shocking, and it is increased by such
absurdities as the travelers publish, to which stock of absurdities
I am sorry to say Captain Marryatt is making an abundant addition.
In general the Whigs know more and think better of America than the
Tories. This is undeniable. Yet my intercourse I think is as much with
the Conservatives as the Whigs. I have several invitations to pass
time in the country after Parliament is prorogued. Two or three of
them I have agreed to accept. Lord Lansdowne and the Earl of Radnor
have invited us, who live in the south, the Duke of Rutland, Sir Henry
Halford, Earl Fitzwilliam, Lord Lonsdale, etc., who live in the north.”
Of one thing my young reader may be assured, that no attentions,
however elevated the source, had any effect upon the simple dignity of
a typical American citizen, or influenced him when a few years later,
as Secretary of State, it became his duty to deal with our relations
with England.