Produced by Charlene Taylor, Louise Pattison and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) American Men of Letters. EDITED BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. [Illustration: N. Webster] American Men of Letters. NOAH WEBSTER. BY HORACE E. SCUDDER. [Illustration] BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. NEW YORK: 11 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1890. Copyright, 1881, BY HORACE E. SCUDDER. _All rights reserved._ _The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._ Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. CONTENTS. * * * * * Page CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE 1 CHAPTER II. THE GRAMMATICAL INSTITUTE 33 CHAPTER III. AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER 52 CHAPTER IV. POLITICAL WRITINGS 111 CHAPTER V. EXCURSIONS 150 CHAPTER VI. PREPARATIONS FOR THE DICTIONARY 182 CHAPTER VII. AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 235 CHAPTER VIII. CONCLUSION 277 * * * * * Acknowledgment is due to Mr. Gordon L. Ford, of Brooklyn, N. Y., for the valuable assistance which he has rendered by permitting the author to make use of his admirable collection of printed and manuscript material relating to Noah Webster. NOAH WEBSTER. * * * * * CHAPTER I. EARLY LIFE.