attack New England, and especially Massachusetts.
This brought Mr. Webster into the arena, and he concluded a brief
speech by declaring that, as a true representative of the State
which had sent him into the Senate, it was his duty and a duty
which he should fulfill, to place her history and her conduct, her
honor and her character, in their just and proper light. A few
days later, Mr. Webster heard his State and himself mercilessly
attacked by General Hayne, of South Carolina, no mean antagonist.
The son of a Revolutionary hero who had fallen a victim to British
cruelty, highly educated, with a slender, graceful form, fascinating
deportment, and a well-trained, mellifluous voice, the haughty
South Carolinian entered the lists of the political tournament like
Saladin to oppose the Yankee Coeur de Lion.

When Mr. Webster went to the Senate Chamber to reply to General
Hayne, on Tuesday, January 20th, 1830, he felt himself master of
the situation. Always careful about his personal appearance when
he was to address an audience, he wore on that day the Whig uniform,
which had been copied by the Revolutionary heroes--a blue dress-
coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and a high, white
cravat. Neither was he insensible to the benefits to be derived
from publicity, and he had sent a request to Mr. Gales to report
what he was to say himself, rather than to send one of his
stenographers. The most graphic account of the scene in the Senate
Chamber during the delivery of the speech was subsequently written
virtually from Mr. Webster's dictation. Perhaps, like Mr. Healy's
picture of the scene, it is rather high-colored.

Sheridan, after his forty days' preparation, did not commence his
scathing impeachment of Warren Hastings with more confidence that
was displayed by Mr. Webster when he stood up, in the pride of his
manhood, and began to address the interested mass of talent,
intelligence, and beauty around him. A man of commanding presence,
with a well-knit, sturdy frame, swarthy features, a broad, thoughtful
forehead, courageous eyes gleaming from beneath shaggy eyebrows,
a quadrangular breadth of jawbone, and a mouth which bespoke strong
will, he stood like a sturdy Roundhead sentinel on guard before
the gates of the Constitution. Holding in profound contempt what
he termed spread-eagle oratory, his only gesticulations were up-and-
down motions of his arm, as if he were beating out with sledge-
hammers his forcib