were Theophilus Parsons, Chief Justice of Massachusetts; Samuel Dexter, the ablest of them all, fresh from service in Congress and the Senate and as Secretary of the Treasury; Harrison Gray Otis, fluent and graceful as an orator; James Sullivan, and Daniel Davis, the Solicitor-General. All these and many more Mr. Webster saw and watched, and he has left in his diary discriminating sketches of Parsons and Dexter, whom he greatly admired, and of Sullivan, of whom he had a poor opinion professionally. Towards the end of the year 1804, while Mr. Webster was thus pleasantly engaged in studying his profession, getting a glimpse of the world, and now and then earning a little money, an opening came to him which seemed to promise immediate and assured prosperity. The judges of his father's court of common pleas offered him the vacant clerkship, worth about fifteen hundred dollars annually. This was wealth to Mr. Webster. With this income he could relieve the family from debt, make his father's last years comfortable, and smooth Ezekiel's path to the bar. When, however, he announced his good luck to Mr. Gore, and his intention of immediately going home to accept the position, that gentleman, to Mr. Webster's great surprise, strongly urged a contrary course. He pointed out the possible reduction of the salary, the fact that the office depended on the favor of the judges, and, above all, that it led to nothing, and destroyed the chances of any really great career. This wise mentor said: "Go on and finish your studies. You are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty; live on no man's favor; what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of independence; pursue your profession, make yourself useful to your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing to fear." Mr. Webster, always susceptible to outside influences, saw the wisdom of this advice, and accepted it. It would have been well if he had never swerved even by a hair's breadth from the high and sound principles which it inculcated. He acted then without delay. Going at once to Salisbury, he broke the news of his unlooked-for determination to his father, who was utterly amazed. Pride in his son's high spirit mingled somewhat with disappointment at the prospect of continued hardships; but the brave old man accepted the decision with the Puritan stoicism which was so marked a trait in his character, and the matter ended there.