I have already referred to the early occasion he took, in his connection with the _Standard_, to try his judgment upon Webster, and it is interesting to observe that no other statesman of the time was so constantly the subject of his criticism. In common with others, he watched with eagerness the course of Webster in connection with the Whig nomination for the presidency in 1848, when the disappointment of the Massachusetts senator was so little disguised. “What Will Mr. Webster Do?” was the title of the article which he published in the _Standard_ after General Taylor had been nominated--that nomination “not fit to be made.” Lowell never had the modern journalist’s faculty for jumping at once into the centre of his subject. Like his own “musing organist,” he is very apt to “begin doubtfully and far away,” but he is also pretty sure to strike a note at the outset which has, it turns out, a real relation to the theme he means to play. Thus in this article he begins with the reflection: “It is astonishing to see how fond men are of company. We demand a select society even upon the fence, and will not jump on this side or that till we have made as accurate a prospective census as possible;” and so on for several paragraphs of acute and amusing variations, noting especially the disposition to set expediency in the place of principle, when looking out for the majority with whom we wish to side. “After all,” he goes on, “even in estimating expediencies, we are loath to trust ourselves. We desire rather the judgment of this or that notable person, and dare not so much as write _Honesty is the best policy_, or any other prudent morality, till he has set us a copy at the top of the page. In Massachusetts just now there are we know not how many people waiting for Mr. Webster’s action on the recent nomination for the Presidency, and no doubt there is hardly a village in the country which has not its little coterie of self-dispossessed politicians expecting in like manner the moment when the decision of some person, whose stomach does the thinking for theirs, shall allow them to take sides. “‘What will Mr. Webster do?’ asks Smith. ‘Greatest man of the age!’ says Brown. ‘Of any age,’ adds Jones triumphantly. Meanwhile the greatest mind of any age is sulking at Marshfield. It has had its rattle taken away from it. It has been told that nominations were not good for it. It has not been allowed to climb up the back of the Presidential chair. We have a fancy that a truly great mind can move the world as well from a three-legged stool in a garret as from the easiest cushion in the White House. Where the great mind is, there is the President’s house, whether at Wood’s Hole or Washington.