r, ends as follows:

"Such, in a brief and imperfect narrative, is the public life
of Mr. Webster, extending over a period of forty years, marked
by the occurrence of events of great importance. It has been
the aim of the writer to prevent the pen of the biographer from
being too much influenced by the partiality of the friend.
Should he seem to the candid not wholly to have escaped that
error, (which, however, he trusts will not be the case,) he
ventures to hope that it will be forgiven to an intimacy which
commenced in the youth of one of the parties and the boyhood of
the other, and which has subsisted for nearly half a century.
It will be admitted, he thinks, by every one, that this career,
however inadequately delineated, has been one of singular
eminence and brilliancy. Entering upon public life at the close
of the first epoch in the political history of the United
States under the present Constitution, Mr. Webster has stood
below none of the distinguished men who have impressed their
character on the second.

"There is a class of public questions in reference to which the
opinions of most men are greatly influenced by prejudices
founded in natural temperament, early associations, and real or
supposed local interest. As far as such questions are
concerned, it is too much to hope that, in times of high party
excitement, full justice will be done to prominent statesmen by
those of their contemporaries who differ from them. We greatly
err, however, if candid men of all parties, and in all parts of
the country, do not accord to Mr. Webster the praise of having
formed to himself a large and generous view of the character of
an American statesman, and of having adopted the loftiest
standard of public conduct. They will agree that he has
conceived, in all its importance, the position of the country
as a member of the great family of nations, and as the leading
republican government. In reference to domestic politics it
will be as generally conceded, that, reposing less than most
public men on a party basis, it has been the main object of his
life to confirm and perpetuate the great work of the
constitutional fathers of the last generation. By their wisdom
and patriotic forethought we are blessed with a system in which
the several s