It seems to us, also, that Mr. Everett gives little evidence in his biography of a sustained and vigorous conception of Mr. Webster’s mind and character. We do not mean that his epithets are not appropriate, that his judgments are not accurate, that his generalities are not abstractly just; but he evinces no power of diffusing the results of analysis through the veins of narration, of making the reader feel constantly that he is following the life of a man as peculiar and individual as he is great. The Websterian quality of the subject never flashes once out from Mr. Everett’s elegant sentences. Take any page from the biography and compare it with any paragraph in the speeches, and the defect we have noticed will be apparent to the most unapprehensive reader. There is no mental and moral agreement between them. It would seem to be one duty of the biographer to translate into intelligible form the vague impression which the works of the subject of the biography leaves on the most superficial mind; to detect, to fix, to embody the subtle spirit which, emanating from character, gives unity and individuality equally to the events of a man’s life and the productions of a man’s mind. A man of the large dimensions and massive force of Mr. Webster, whose personality stamps itself so readily upon the imagination, and groups fit words round its own image by a kind of magnetism, offers few obstacles to a right psychological treatment; and we are somewhat astonished that a man of Mr. Everett’s various talents and accomplishments should have failed in this important part of the biographer’s duty. We trust that this collection of Mr. Webster’s writings will have an extensive circulation, were it only for the good influence it is calculated to exert on the literature of the country. To one party in the United States they are invaluable as containing the best exposition they possess of their political principles—to all parties they must be attractive for the many electric passages of purely patriotic eloquence with which they teem; but to the author they are especially valuable as models of style. We use the word models not in its usual sense, for we certainly would not give any one the ridiculous advice to imitate the diction even of Mr. Webster; but we would advise every one to follow Mr. Webster’s own method of composition, which is simply the method of common sense and common honesty. The great literary sin of the day is pretension; and it is refreshing to read a man who, comprehensive and powerful as he is, modestly accepts the limitations of his genius, never borrows a thought or an emotion, and rarely uses a word which he has not a right to use. If we compare him for a moment with men who gain popularity by debauching in language, we feel at once the force of that expression which austerely limits itself within the bounds of character, and stamps on every sentence the authority of personal experience.