e of the money on the ground that after having devoted
the labors of a long life to his profession, and attained in it a
high rank, which brought large fees, he should not be asked to
relinquish those professional emoluments without, in justice to
his obligations to his family, accepting an equivalent. Without
indorsing this State-Street view of the case, it is to be regretted
that the charges were made, to trouble Mr. Webster's spirit and
sour his heart.

Mr. Webster often sought consolation in his troubles from the grand
old poetry of the Hebrew Bible, which awakened peaceful echoes in
his own poetic soul. His chosen "crony" in his latter years, though
much younger than himself, was Charles Marsh, a New Hampshire man.
Well educated, polished by travel, and free from pecuniary hamper,
Marsh was a most delightful companion, and his wit, keen as Saladin's
cimeter, never wounded. Fletcher Webster was also a great favorite
with his father, for he possessed what Charles Lever called "the
lost art of conversation." Sometimes, when Mr. Webster's path had
been crossed, and he was black as night, Marsh and Fletcher would,
by humorous repartees and witticisms, drive the clouds away, and
gradually force him into a conversation, which would soon become
enlivened by the "inextinguishable laughter of the gods."

That Mr. Webster felt keenly the attacks upon him was undeniable,
and atonement could not afterward be made by eulogizing him. It
has been well said, that if charity is to be the veil to cover a
multitude of sins in the dead as well as in the living, cant should
not lift that veil to swear that those sins were virtues. Mr.
Webster was sorely troubled by the attitude taken by many Massachusetts
men at a time when he needed their aid to secure the Presidency,
which he undoubtedly believed would be tendered him by the Southern
Whigs, seconded by many Southern Democrats. He lost flesh, the
color faded from his cheeks, the lids of his dark eyes were livid,
and he was evidently debilitated and infirm. At times he would be
apparently unconscious of those around him, then he would rally,
and would display his wonderful conversational qualities. Yet it
was evident to those who knew him best that he was "stumbling down,"
as Carlyle said of Mirabeau, "like a mighty heathen and Titan to
his rest."

One pleasant afternoon in March, Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, delivered
a long speech in the House upon the politics of that Stat