prising publishers, in compliance with
opinions often expressed by the most respectable individuals,
and with a manifest public demand, to bring out a new edition
of Mr. Webster's speeches in uniform style. Such is the object
of the present publication. The first two volumes contain the
speeches delivered by him on a great variety of public
occasions, commencing with his discourse at Plymouth in
December, 1820. Three succeeding volumes embrace the greater
part of the speeches delivered in the Massachusetts Convention
and in the two houses of Congress, beginning with the speech on
the Bank of the United States in 1816. The sixth and last
volume contains the legal arguments and addresses to the jury,
the diplomatic papers, and letters addressed to various persons
on important political questions.

"The collection does not embrace the entire series of Mr.
Webster's writings. Such a series would have required a larger
number of volumes than was deemed advisable with reference to
the general circulation of the work. A few juvenile
performances have accordingly been omitted, as not of
sufficient importance or maturity to be included in the
collection. Of the earlier speeches in Congress, some were
either not reported at all, or in a manner too imperfect to be
preserved without doing injustice to the author. No attempt has
been made to collect from the cotemporaneous newspapers or
Congressional registers, the short conversational speeches and
remarks made by Mr. Webster, as by other members of Congress,
in the progress of debate, and sometimes exercising greater
influence on the result than the set speeches. Of the addresses
to public meetings it has been found impossible to embrace more
than a selection, without swelling the work to an unreasonable
size. It is believed, however, that the contents of these
volumes furnish a fair specimen of Mr. Webster's opinions and
sentiments on all the subjects treated, and of his manner of
discussing them. The responsibility of deciding what should be
omitted and what included, has been left by Mr. Webster to the
friends having the charge of the publication, and his own
opinion on details of this kind has rarely been taken."

This incompleteness, we think, will be regretted by all the parties most
deeply inter