Daniel Webster | Page 7

high cheek bones and dark skin, but he was still impressive. The boys about him never forgot the look of his deep-set eyes, or the sound of the solemn tones of his voice, his dignity of mien, and his absorption in his subject. Above all they were conscious of something indefinable which conveyed a sense of greatness. It is not usual to dwell so much upon mere physical attributes and appearance, but we must recur to them again and again, for Mr. Webster's personal presence was one of the great elements of his success; it was the fit companion and even a part of his genius, and was the cause of his influence, and of the wonder and admiration which followed him, as much almost as anything he ever said or did.
To Mr. Webster's college career belong the first fruits of his intellect. He edited, during one year, a small weekly journal, and thus eked out his slender means. Besides his strictly editorial labors, he printed some short pieces of his own, which have vanished, and he also indulged in poetical effusions, which he was fond of sending to absent friends. His rhymes are without any especial character, neither much better nor much worse than most college verses, and they have no intrinsic value beyond showing that their author, whatever else he might be, was no poet. But in his own field something of this time, having a real importance, has come down to us. The fame of his youthful eloquence, so far beyond anything ever known in the college, was noised abroad, and in the year 1800 the citizens of Hanover, the college town, asked him to deliver the Fourth of July oration. In this production, which was thought of sufficient merit to deserve printing, Mr. Webster sketched rapidly and exultingly the course of the Revolution, threw in a little Federal politics, and eulogized the happy system of the new Constitution. Of this and his other early orations he always spoke with a good deal of contempt, as examples of bad taste, which he wished to have buried and forgotten. Accordingly his wholesale admirers and supporters who have done most of the writing about him, and who always sneezed when Mr. Webster took snuff, have echoed his opinions about these youthful productions, and beyond allowing to them the value which everything Websterian has for the ardent worshipper, have been disposed to hurry them over as of no moment. Compared to the reply to Hayne or the Plymouth oration, the Hanover speech is, of course, a poor and trivial thing. Considered, as it ought to be, by itself and in itself, it is not only of great interest as Mr. Webster's first utterance on public questions, but it is something of which he had no cause to feel ashamed. The sentiments are honest, elevated, and manly, and the political doctrine is sound. Mr. Webster was then a boy of eighteen, and he therefore took his politics from his father and his father's friends. For the same reason he was imitative in style and mode of thought. All boys of that age, whether geniuses or not, are imitative, and Mr. Webster, who was never profoundly original in thought, was no exception to the rule. He used the style of the eighteenth century, then in its decadence, and very florid, inflated, and heavy it was. Yet his work was far better and his style simpler and more direct than that which was in fashion. He indulged in a good deal of patriotic glorification. We smile at his boyish Federalism describing Napoleon as "the gasconading pilgrim of Egypt," and Columbia as "seated in the forum of nations, and the empires of the world amazed at the bright effulgence of her glory." These sentences are the acme of fine writing, very boyish and very poor; but they are not fair examples of the whole, which is much simpler and more direct than might have been expected. Moreover, the thought is the really important thing. We see plainly that the speaker belongs to the new era and the new generation of national measures and nationally-minded men. There is no colonialism about him. He is in full sympathy with the Washingtonian policy of independence in our foreign relations and of complete separation from the affairs of Europe. But the main theme and the moving spirit of this oration are most important of all. The boy Webster preached love of country, the grandeur of American nationality, fidelity to the Constitution as the bulwark of nationality, and the necessity and the nobility of the union of the States; and that was the message which the man Webster delivered to his fellow-men. The enduring work which Mr. Webster did in the world, and his meaning and influence in American