said:       'Venerable men, you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bountifully lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day.'     

       “Well I remember how, when he had ceased, the people were still for half a moment dreading to break the spell. Suddenly they were like a sea in a wind, although many held their places and were loath to go, and lingered awhile talking of the speech, and I among them. And I saw the vast crowd slowly break and go drifting away by thousands, and I fancied that some of the men held their heads a bit higher, and that certain of those near me were trying the Websterian tone. Since then that tone and that manner have become as familiar as the flag. At the inn I heard much talk of the great man—idle words which one may hear to this day and be none the wiser, but possibly much the worse for it.     

       “Some said that he always took a tumbler of brandy before he made a speech; but I observed that these gossipers had the odor of rum about them. There was, too, a relish of Me and Dan'l in all their talk. However, the tradition has come down to us, and had its effect in the life of this village, and of others like it. However well you may do, young men, there will be those seeking ever to pull you down to their level, and if they cannot move your character they will attack your reputation.”      

       I have often thought of these words of the schoolmaster. They showed me some of the curious monkey traits of man. Through them I began to know Griggsby, to which I had lately come. I suddenly discovered that I was living in the Websterian age, and a high-headed, reverberating time it was.     

       But, first, let me introduce myself. People have always called me       “Havelock, of Stillwater,” though I am plain Uriel Havelock. I have little in my purse, but there are treasures in my memory, and I am trying here to give them to the world with all my joyous thoughts about them and never a feeling of ill will.     

       I write of that time when the fame of Webster was on every lip, although his soul had passed some twenty years before. All through the North, from the Atlantic to far frontiers beyond the Mississippi, men in beaver hats and tall collars were playing Daniel Webster. They dressed as he had dressed, and had his grand manners, while their diaphragms were often       

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