ine would be useful. He replied: 'No,
doctor, I prefer a plate of soup; and when His Honor the Mayor calls for
me, perhaps you will accompany me.' I assented, and did accompany him.
That evening, before Mr. Webster had closed his speech, a certain
political rival left the hall and was met by a friend, who inquired, 'Is
the meeting over?' The envious politician answered, 'No; I have come
away disgusted. Webster is intoxicated.'" Who was the most reliable
witness in this case,--his honest physician, an eye-witness, who spoke
from knowledge, or the political rival, who spoke from false inference?
This is but one of several similar instances of misapprehension and
consequent cruel injustice which I might relate, did the time and
occasion permit.

There is now living in this city a gentleman of the highest
respectability, personally well-known to me for thirty-five years, who
was for about twenty-five years intimately connected with Mr. Webster,
at Marshfield, as the manager of his affairs, and consequently with him
under all circumstances during his summer residence there. Mr. Webster
regarded him with the affection of a father for a son. This gentleman
has said to me more than once, with emotion and evident feelings of
indignation: "No one has ever seen Mr. Webster at Marshfield unduly
under the influence of stimulants." He adds: "I was with him on festive
occasions here and in New Hampshire, when others were indulging in the
customary habit of drinking; but I have never seen Mr. Webster, on those
occasions, use stimulants to excess."

The late Judge Peleg Sprague, whom from family relationship it was my
privilege to know intimately until the very last year of his life, a
short time before his death, in conversation with me, refuted the
charges of Mr. Webster's alleged excessive drinking habits in
Washington. Judge Sprague was ten years in Congress, and was associated
with Mr. Webster, under various circumstances, in public and social
life.

I have thus offered the evidence of three witnesses, whose opportunity
of knowledge and whose credibility, it cannot be denied, are to be
accepted against rumors so easily put in circulation by reckless as well
as by mistaken men, but which have beyond question been believed by very
many good men who had not the opportunity, or perhaps the sense of
obligation, to investigate the origin of them.

As to Mr. Webster's religious character and habits of mind, I can hardly
express the g