Of the three men whom we have named, Daniel Webster was incomparably the most richly endowed by nature.  In his lifetime it was impossible to judge him aright.  His presence usually overwhelmed criticism; his intimacy always fascinated it.  It so happened, that he grew to his full stature and attained his utmost development in a community where human nature appears to be undergoing a process of diminution,—­where people are smaller-boned, less muscular, more nervous, and more susceptible than their ancestors.  He possessed, in consequence, an enormous physical magnetism, as we term it, over his fellow-citizens, apart from the natural influence of his talents and understanding.  Fidgety men were quieted in his presence, women were spellbound by it, and the busy, anxious public contemplated his majestic calm with a feeling of relief, as well as admiration.  Large numbers of people in New England, for many years, reposed upon Daniel Webster.  He represented to them the majesty and the strength of the government of the United States.  He gave them a sense of safety.  Amid the flighty politics of the time and the loud insincerities of Washington, there seemed one solid thing in America, so long as he sat in an arm-chair of the Senate-chamber.  When he appeared in State Street, slowly pacing, with an arm behind him, business was brought to an absolute stand-still.  As the whisper passed along, the windows filled with clerks, pen in mouth, peering out to catch a glimpse of the man whom they had seen fifty times before; while the bankers and merchants hastened forth to give him salutation, or exchange a passing word, happy if they could but catch his eye.  At home, and in a good mood, he was reputed to be as entertaining a man as New England ever held,—­a gambolling, jocund leviathan out on the sea-shore, and in the library overflowing with every kind of knowledge that can be acquired without fatigue, and received without preparation.  Mere celebrity, too, is dazzling to some minds.  While, therefore, this imposing person lived among us, he was blindly worshipped by many, blindly hated by some, calmly considered by very few.  To this hour he is a great influence in the United States.  Perhaps, with the abundant material now accessible, it is not too soon to attempt to ascertain how far he was worthy of the estimation in which his fellow-citizens held him, and what place he ought to hold in the esteem of posterity.  At least, it can never be unpleasing to Americans to recur to the most interesting specimen of our kind that has lived in America since Franklin.

He could not have been born in a better place, nor of better stock, nor at a better time, nor reared in circumstances more favorable to harmonious development.  He grew up in the Switzerland of America.  From a hill on his father’s New Hampshire farm, he could see most of the noted summits of New England.  Granite-topped Kearsarge stood out in bold relief near by; Mount Washington and its attendant peaks,