EDWARD EVERETT AND DANIEL WEBSTER.

The some time expected new edition of The Speeches, Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers of Daniel Webster, has just appeared, in six large and beautifully printed volumes, from the press of Little & Brown, of Boston. The editorial supervision of the work was undertaken by Edward Everett, who has prefixed to the first volume a brief memoir of the illustrious statesman, orator, and author, from the beginning and the end of which we copy a few important paragraphs. Respecting the past and present collections of these great compositions, Mr. Everett says:

"The first collection of Mr. Webster's speeches in the Congress of the United States and on various public occasions, was published in Boston in one volume octavo, in 1830. This volume was more than once reprinted, and in 1835 a second volume was published, containing the speeches made up to that time, and not included in the first collection. Several impressions of these two volumes were called for by the public. In 1843 a third volume was prepared, containing a selection from the speeches of Mr. Webster from the year 1835 till his entrance into the cabinet of General Harrison. In the year 1848 appeared a fourth volume of diplomatic papers, containing a portion of Mr. Webster's official correspondence as Secretary of State. The great favor with which these volumes' have been received throughout the country, and the importance of the subjects discussed in the Senate of the United States after Mr. Webster's return to that body in 1845, have led his friends to think that a valuable service would be rendered to the community by bringing together his speeches of a later date than those contained in the third volume of the former collection, and on political subjects arising since that time. Few periods of our history will be entitled to be remembered by events of greater moment, such as the admission of Texas to the Union, the settlement of the Oregon controversy, the Mexican war, the acquisition of California and other Mexican provinces, and the exciting questions which have grown out of the sudden extension of the territory of the United States. Rarely have public discussions been carried on with greater earnestness, with more important consequences visibly at stake, or with greater ability. The speeches made by Mr. Webster in the Senate, and on public occasions of various kinds, during the progress of these controversies, are more than sufficient to fill two new volumes. The opportunity of their collection has been taken by the enterprising publishers, in compliance with opinions often expressed by the most respectable individuals, and with a manifest public demand, to bring out a new edition of Mr. Webster's speeches in uniform style. Such is the object of the present publication. The first two volumes contain the speeches delivered by him on a great variety of public occasions, commencing with his discourse at Plymouth in December, 1820. Three succeeding volumes embrace the greater part of the speeches delivered in the Massachusetts Convention and in the two houses of Congress, beginning with the speech on the Bank of the United States in 1816. The sixth and last volume contains the legal arguments and addresses to the jury, the diplomatic papers, and letters addressed to various persons on important political questions.

"The collection does not embrace the entire series of Mr. Webster's writings. Such a series would have required a larger number of volumes than was deemed advisable with reference to the general circulation of the work. A few juvenile performances have accordingly been omitted, as not of sufficient importance or maturity to be included in the collection. Of the earlier speeches in Congress, some were either not reported at all, or in a manner too imperfect to be preserved without doing injustice to the author. No attempt has been made to collect from the cotemporaneous newspapers or Congressional registers, the short conversational speeches and remarks made by Mr. Webster, as by other members of Congress, in the progress of debate, and sometimes exercising greater influence on the result than the set speeches. Of the addresses to public meetings it has been found impossible to embrace more than a selection, without swelling the work to an unreasonable size. It is believed, however, that the contents of these volumes furnish a fair specimen of Mr. Webster's opinions and sentiments on all the subjects treated, and of his manner of discussing them. The responsibility of deciding what should be omitted and what included, has been left by Mr. Webster to the friends having the charge of the publication, and his own opinion on details of this kind has rarely been taken."

This incompleteness, we think, will be regretted by all the parties most deeply interested, as well as by the public generally. Mr. Webster does not often repeat himself, and no man who has said or written so much has said or written so little that is undeserving a place in literature or in history. The next paragraph introduces us to Mr. Webster's birthplace, and to his father:

"The interval between the peace of 1763 and the breaking out of the war of the Revolution, was one of excitement and anxiety throughout the Colonies. The great political questions of the day were not only discussed in the towns and cities, but in the villages and hamlets. Captain Webster took a deep interest in those discussions. Like so many of the officers and soldiers of the former war, he obeyed the first call to arms in the new struggle. He commanded a company chiefly composed of his own townspeople, friends, and kindred, who followed him through the greater portion of the war. He was at the battle of White Plains, and was at West Point when the treason of Arnold was discovered. He acted as a Major under Stark at Bennington, and contributed his share to the success of that eventful day. In the last year of the Revolutionary war on the 18th of January, 1782, Daniel Webster was born, in the home which his father had established on the outskirts of civilization. If the character and situation of the place, and the circumstances under which he passed the first year of his life, might seem adverse to the early cultivation of his extraordinary talent, it still cannot be doubted that they possessed influences favorable to elevation and strength of character. The hardships of an infant settlement and border life, the traditions of a long series of Indian wars, and of two mighty national contests, in which an honored parent had borne his part, the anecdotes of Fort William Henry, of Quebec, of Bennington, of West Point, of Wolfe, and Stark, and Washington, the great Iliad and Odyssey of American Independence,—this was the fireside entertainment of the long winter evenings of the secluded village home. Abroad, the uninviting landscape, the harsh and craggy outlines of the hills broken and relieved only by the funereal hemlock and the 'cloud-seeking' pine, the lowlands traversed in every direction by unbridged streams, the tall, charred trunks in the cornfields, that told how stern had been the struggle with the boundless woods, and, at the close of the year, the dismal scene which presents itself in high latitudes in a thinly settled region, when

these are circumstances to leave an abiding impression on the mind of a thoughtful child, and induce an early maturity of character."

Of his early professional life, and of some of his contemporaries, Mr. Everett says:

"Immediately on his admission to the bar, Mr. Webster went to Amherst, in New Hampshire, where his father's court was in session; from that place he went home with his father. He had intended to establish himself at Portsmouth, which, as the largest town and the seat of the foreign commerce of the State, opened the widest field for practice. But filial duty kept him nearer home. His father was now infirm from the advance of years, and had no other son at home. Under these circumstances Mr. Webster opened an office at Boscawen not far from his father's residence, and commenced the practice of the law in this retired spot. Judge Webster lived but a year after his son's entrance upon the practice of his profession; long enough, however, to hear his first argument in court, and to be gratified with the confident predictions of his future success.

"In May, 1807, Mr. Webster was admitted an attorney and counsellor of the Superior Court in New Hampshire, and in September of that year, relinquishing his office in Boscawen to his Brother Ezekiel, he removed to Portsmouth, in conformity with his original intention. Here he remained in the practice of his profession for nine successive years. They were years of assiduous labor, and of unremitted devotion to the study and practice of the law. He was associated with several persons of great eminence, citizens of New Hampshire or of Massachusetts, occasionally practising at the Portsmouth bar. Among the latter were Samuel Dexter and Joseph Storey; of the residents of New Hampshire, Jeremiah Mason was the most distinguished.

"During the greater part of Mr. Webster's practice of the law in New Hampshire, Jeremiah Smith was Chief Justice of the state, a learned and excellent judge, whose biography has been written by the Rev. John H. Morrison, and will well repay perusal. Judge Smith was an early and warm friend of Judge Webster, and this friendship descended to the son, and glowed in his breast with fervor till he went to his grave. Although dividing with Mr. Mason the best of the business of Portsmouth, and indeed of all the eastern portion of the State, Mr. Webster's practice was mostly on the circuit. He followed the Superior Court through the principal counties of the state, and was retained in nearly every important cause. It is mentioned by Mr. March, as a somewhat singular fact in his professional life, that, with the exception of the occasions on which he has been associated with the Attorney-General of the United States for the time being, he has hardly appeared ten times as junior counsel. Within the sphere in which he was placed, he may be said to have risen at once to the head of his profession; not, however, like Erskine and some other celebrated British lawyers, by one and the same bound, at once to fame and fortune. The American bar holds forth no such golden prizes, certainly not in the smaller states. Mr. Webster's practice in New Hampshire, though probably as good as that of any of his contemporaries, was never lucrative. Clients were not very rich, nor the concerns litigated such as would carry heavy fees. Although exclusively devoted to his profession, it afforded him no more than a bare livelihood. But the time for which he practised at the New Hampshire bar was probably not lost with reference to his future professional and political eminence. His own standard of legal attainment was high. He was associated with professional brethren fully competent to put his powers to their best proof, and to prevent him from settling down in early life into an easy routine of ordinary professional practice. It was no disadvantage under these circumstances (except in reference to immediate pecuniary benefit), to enjoy some portion of that leisure for general reading, which is almost wholly denied to the lawyer of commanding talents, who steps immediately into full practice in a large city."

The memoir, which extends through nine chapters, comprising a survey of the intellectual and political life of Mr. Webster, down to the last year, ends as follows:

"Such, in a brief and imperfect narrative, is the public life of Mr. Webster, extending over a period of forty years, marked by the occurrence of events of great importance. It has been the aim of the writer to prevent the pen of the biographer from being too much influenced by the partiality of the friend. Should he seem to the candid not wholly to have escaped that error, (which, however, he trusts will not be the case,) he ventures to hope that it will be forgiven to an intimacy which commenced in the youth of one of the parties and the boyhood of the other, and which has subsisted for nearly half a century. It will be admitted, he thinks, by every one, that this career, however inadequately delineated, has been one of singular eminence and brilliancy. Entering upon public life at the close of the first epoch in the political history of the United States under the present Constitution, Mr. Webster has stood below none of the distinguished men who have impressed their character on the second.

"There is a class of public questions in reference to which the opinions of most men are greatly influenced by prejudices founded in natural temperament, early associations, and real or supposed local interest. As far as such questions are concerned, it is too much to hope that, in times of high party excitement, full justice will be done to prominent statesmen by those of their contemporaries who differ from them. We greatly err, however, if candid men of all parties, and in all parts of the country, do not accord to Mr. Webster the praise of having formed to himself a large and generous view of the character of an American statesman, and of having adopted the loftiest standard of public conduct. They will agree that he has conceived, in all its importance, the position of the country as a member of the great family of nations, and as the leading republican government. In reference to domestic politics it will be as generally conceded, that, reposing less than most public men on a party basis, it has been the main object of his life to confirm and perpetuate the great work of the constitutional fathers of the last generation. By their wisdom and patriotic forethought we are blessed with a system in which the several states are brought into a union so admirably composed and balanced,—both complicated and kept distinct with such skill,—as to seem less a work of human prudence than of Providential interposition. Mr. Webster has at all times been fully aware of the evils of anarchy, discord, and civil war at home, and of utter national insignificance abroad, from which the formation of the Union saved us. He has been not less sensible to the obstacles to be overcome, the perils to be encountered, and the sufferings to be borne, before this wonderful framework of government could be established. And he has been persuaded that, if destroyed, it can never be reconstructed. With these views, his life has been consecrated to the maintenance in all their strength of the principles on which the Constitution rests, and to the support of the system created by it.

"The key to his whole political course is the belief that, when the Union is dissolved, the internal peace, the vigorous growth, and the prosperity of the states, and the welfare of their inhabitants, are blighted for ever, and that, while the Union endures, all else of trial and calamity which can befall a nation may be remedied or borne. So believing, he has pursued a course which has earned for him an honored name among those who have discharged the duty of good citizens with the most distinguished ability, zeal, and benefit to the country. In the relations of civilized life, there is no higher service which man can render to man, than thus to preserve a wise constitution of government in healthful action. Nor does the most eloquent of the statesmen of antiquity content himself with pronouncing this the highest human merit. In that admirable treatise on the Republic, of which some precious chapters have been restored to us after having been lost for ages, he does not hesitate to affirm, that there is nothing in which human virtue approaches nearer the divine, than in establishing and preserving states."