He laid his head upon his father's shoulder and wept. With Dr. Wood Webster remained only six months. He went home on one occasion, but haying was not to his tastes. He found it "dull and lonesome," and preferred rambling in the woods with his sister in search of berries, so that his indulgent father sent him back to his studies. With the help of Dr. Wood in Latin, and another tutor in Greek, he contrived to enter Dartmouth College in August, 1797. He was, of course, hastily and poorly prepared. He knew something of Latin, very little of Greek, and next to nothing of mathematics, geography, or history. He had devoured everything in the little libraries of Salisbury and Boscawen, and thus had acquired a desultory knowledge of a limited amount of English literature, including Addison, Pope, Watts, and "Don Quixote." But however little he knew, the gates of learning were open, and he had entered the precincts of her temple, feeling dimly but surely the first pulsations of the mighty intellect with which he was endowed. "In those boyish days," he wrote many years afterwards, "there were two things which I did dearly love, reading and playing,--passions which did not cease to struggle when boyhood was over, (have they yet altogether?) and in regard to which neither _cita mors_ nor the _victoria laeta_ could be said of either." In truth they did not cease, these two strong passions. One was of the head, the other of the heart; one typified the intellectual, the other the animal strength of the boy's nature; and the two contending forces went with him to the end. The childhood of Webster has a deep interest which is by no means usual. Great men in their earliest years are generally much like other boys, despite the efforts of their biographers to the contrary. If they are not, they are very apt to be little prigs like the second Pitt, full of "wise saws and modern instances." Webster was neither the one nor the other. He was simple, natural, affectionate, and free from pertness or precocity. At the same time there was an innate power which impressed all those who approached him without their knowing exactly why, and there was abundant evidence of uncommon talents. Webster's boyish days are pleasant to look upon, but they gain a peculiar lustre from the noble character of his father, the deep solicitude of his mother, and the generous devotion and self-sacrifice of both parents. There was in this something prophetic. Every one about the boy was laboring and sacrificing for him from the beginning, and this was not without its effect upon his character. A little anecdote which was current in Boston many years ago condenses the whole situation. The story may be true or false,--it is very probably unfounded,--but it contains an essential truth and illustrates the character of the boy and the atmosphere in which he grew up. Ezekiel, the oldest son, and Daniel were allowed on one occasion to go to a fair in a