dying smile sheds a flood of soft light upon the deep and warm affections of Mr. Webster's solemn and reserved nature. It was the first great grief. Mr. Webster wept convulsively as he stood beside the dead, and those who saw that stately creature so wrung by anguish of the heart never forgot the sight. Thus the period which began at Portsmouth in 1807 closed in Boston, in 1817, with the death of the eldest born. In that decade Mr. Webster had advanced with great strides from the position of a raw and youthful lawyer in a back country town of New Hampshire. He had reached the highest professional eminence in his own State, and had removed to a wider sphere, where he at once took rank with the best lawyers. He was a leading practitioner in the highest national court. During his two terms in Congress he had become a leader of his party, and had won a solid national reputation. In those years he had rendered conspicuous service to the business interests of the nation, and had established himself as one of the ablest statesmen of the country in matters of finance. He had defined his position on the tariff as a free-trader in theory and a very moderate protectionist when protection was unavoidable, a true representative of the doctrine of the New England Federalists. He had taken up his ground as the champion of specie payments and of the liberal interpretation of the Constitution, which authorized internal improvements. While he had not shrunk from extreme opposition to the administration during the war, he had kept himself entirely clear from the separatist sentiment of New England in the year 1814. He left Congress with a realizing sense of his own growing powers, and, rejoicing in his strength, he turned to his profession and to his new duties in his new home. CHAPTER III. THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.--MR. WEBSTER AS A LAWYER.