There is a vague tradition that when Mr. Webster took up his residence in Boston, some of the worthies of that ancient Puritan town were disposed at first to treat him rather cavalierly and make him understand that because he was great in New Hampshire it did not follow that he was also great in Massachusetts. They found very quickly, however, that it was worse than useless to attempt anything of this sort with a man who, by his mere look and presence whenever he entered a room, drew all eyes to himself and hushed the murmur of conversation. It is certain that Mr. Webster soon found himself the friend and associate of all the agreeable and distinguished men of the town, and that he rapidly acquired that general popularity which, in those days, went with him everywhere. It is also certain that he at once and without effort assumed the highest position at the bar as the recognized equal of its most eminent leaders. With an income increased tenfold and promising still further enlargement, a practice in which one fee probably surpassed the earnings of three months in New Hampshire, with an agreeable society about him, popular abroad, happy and beloved at home, nothing could have been more auspicious than these opening years of his life in Boston. The period upon which he then entered, and during which he withdrew from active public service to devote himself to his profession, was a very important one in his career. It was a period marked by a rapid intellectual growth and by the first exhibition of his talents on a large scale. It embraces, moreover, two events, landmarks in the life of Mr. Webster, which placed him before the country as one of the first and the most eloquent of her constitutional lawyers, and as the great master in the art of occasional oratory. The first of these events was the argument in the Dartmouth College case; the second was the delivery of the Plymouth oration. I do not propose to enter into or discuss the merits or demerits of the constitutional and legal theories and principles involved in the famous "college causes," or in any other of the great cases subsequently argued by Mr. Webster. In a biography of this kind it is sufficient to examine Mr. Webster's connection with the Dartmouth College case, and endeavor, by a study of his arguments in that and in certain other hardly less important causes, to estimate properly the character and quality of his abilities as a lawyer, both in the ordinary acceptation of the term and in dealing with constitutional questions.