he plain people rather than with the intellectual ones. He
seized all subjects by their practical side, and his instinct was to
apply the rough-and-ready rules of common sense to all questions,
whether of politics, theology, or philology. Such men as Belknap and
Hazard looked with disdain upon him; they felt rather than said that
Webster was not one of them. So, when living in Hartford, Webster was
not identified with the circle of Hartford wits. His mind was not subtle
or graceful; he had not the faculty of creating, nor, so far as I can
discover, of appreciating literature; but he had an uncommonly active
manufacturing mind, and in his intellectual workshop he made, as he said
of his average American, "a variety of utensils,--rough, indeed, but
such as will answer his purpose."

He had much in common with Franklin, to whom he was strongly drawn. He
had Franklin's eminent common sense and homeliness, by which he gained a
hearing from plain men and women; but he had not Franklin's crystal
style, his instinct for the fewest and best words, his happy use of a
language which seemed made for his thoughts. We noticed that in the
spelling-book he displayed a fondness for the wisdom of proverbs and
familiar sayings, and among his earliest writings were a series of pithy
homilies to the people upon questions of morals and manners, published
first in the Connecticut "Courant," but early collected into a volume
entitled "The Prompter;" a little book which one may trace to a good
many different printing-offices and to various sections of the country,
certainly the most widely spread of Webster's writings, after his
text-books, and the most worthy of a repeated life. If I am not
mistaken, it is even now making its little mark on character.

The sub-title of the book is "A Commentary on Common Sayings and
Subjects, which are full of Common Sense,--the best sense in the world;"
and in the preface, explanatory of the purpose of the book, Webster's
manner as a popular writer is well shown. "A Prompter," he remarks of
the happy title, "is the man who, in plays, sits behind the scenes,
looks over the rehearser, and with a moderate voice corrects him when
wrong, or assists his recollection when he forgets the next sentence. A
Prompter, then, says but little, but that little is very necessary, and
often does much good. He helps the actors on the stage at a dead lift,
and enables them to go forward with spirit and propriety. The writer of