“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