began to rise within him. His horizon was a limited
one; the practice of his profession, as he saw it carried on about him, was
small and petty; but his mind could not be shackled. He saw the lions in
the path plainly, but he also perceived the great opportunities which the
law was to offer in the United States, and he prophesied that we, too,
should soon have our Mansfields and Kenyons. The hand of poverty was heavy
upon him, and he was chafing and beating his wings against the iron bars
with which circumstances had imprisoned him. He longed for a wider field,
and eagerly desired to finish his studies in Boston, but saw no way to get
there, except by a "miracle."

This miracle came through Ezekiel, who had been doing more for himself and
his family than any one else, but who, after three years in college, was at
the end of his resources, and had taken, in his turn, to keeping school.
Daniel went to Boston, and there obtained a good private school for his
brother. The salary thus earned by Ezekiel was not only sufficient for
himself, but enabled Daniel to gratify the cherished wish of his heart, and
come to the New England capital to conclude his professional studies.

The first thing to be done was to gain admittance to some good office. Mr.
Webster was lucky enough to obtain an introduction to Mr. Gore, with whom,
as with the rest of the world, that wonderful look and manner, apparent
even then, through boyishness and rusticity, stood him in good stead. Mr.
Gore questioned him, trusted him, and told him to hang up his hat, begin
work as clerk at once, and write to New Hampshire for his credentials. The
position thus obtained was one of fortune's best gifts to Mr. Webster. It
not only gave him an opportunity for a wide study of the law under wise
supervision, but it brought him into daily contact with a trained barrister
and an experienced public man. Christopher Gore, one of the most eminent
members of the Boston bar and a distinguished statesman, had just returned
from England, whither he had been sent as one of the commissioners
appointed under the Jay treaty. He was a fine type of the aristocratic
Federalist leader, one of the most prominent of that little group which
from the "headquarters of good principles" in Boston so long controlled the
politics of Massachusetts. He was a scholar, gentleman, and man of the
world, and his portrait shows us a refined, high-bred face, suggesting a
French marquis of the eighteenth