he lived but for one object,--the education and advancement of his
children. All men were poor then in New Hampshire, compared with the
condition of their descendants. Judge Webster was a poor, and even
embarrassed man, to the day of his death. The hardships he had endured
as soldier and pioneer made him, as he said, an old man before his
time. Rheumatism bent his form, once so erect and vigorous. Black care
subdued his spirits, once so joyous and elastic. Such were the fathers
of fair New England.

This strong-minded, uncultured man was a Puritan and a Federalist,--a
catholic, tolerant, and genial Puritan, an intolerant and almost
bigoted Federalist. Washington, Adams, and Hamilton were the civilians
highest in his esteem; the good Jefferson he dreaded and abhorred. The
French Revolution was mere blackness and horror to him; and when it
assumed the form of Napoleon Bonaparte, his heart sided passionately
with England in her struggle to extirpate it. His boys were in the
fullest sympathy with him in all his opinions and feelings. They, too,
were tolerant and untheological Puritans; they, too, were most
strenuous Federalists; and neither of them ever recovered from their
father's influence, nor advanced much beyond him in their fundamental
beliefs. Readers have, doubtless, remarked, in Mr. Webster's oration
upon Adams and Jefferson, how the stress of the eulogy falls upon
Adams, while cold and scant justice is meted out to the greatest and
wisest of our statesmen. It was Ebenezer Webster who spoke that day,
with the more melodious voice of his son. There is a tradition in New
Hampshire that Judge Webster fell sick on a journey in a town of
Republican politics, and besought the doctor to help him speedily on
his way home, saying that he was born a Federalist, had lived a
Federalist, and could not die in peace in any but a Federalist town.