He stopped at Rouen, and two days after returned to Paris. It was the third of December. He sought for the Marquis, but could not find him. It is now thought he must have fallen in the firing on the Boulevard Montmartre, where his club is situated.
Such is the narrative which M. de R. had promised to tell in the salon of the old Polish lady, where he was waited for till midnight. He came just as the company were about separating, and showed the hairs of the Marchioness. One of them lies on the table before me.
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
'The snows descend; and, foul and fierce,
All winter drives along the darkened air'—