and attendant influences, which we have noted as the basis of the power and influence of this later son of Dartmouth. He played a famous part in his time as lawyer, senator, and minister of state, in all the greatest affairs, and in all the highest spheres of public action; and to his eloquence his countrymen paid the singular homage, with which the Greeks crowned that of Pericles, who alone was called Olympian for his grandeur and his power. He died with the turning tide from the old statesmanship to the new, then opening, now closed, in which Mr. Chase and his cotemporaries have done their work and made their fame. Twenty-one years ago this venerable college, careful of the memory of one who had so greatly served as well as honored her, heard from the lips of Choate the praise of Webster. What lover of the college, what admirer of genius and eloquence, can forget the pathetic and splendid tribute which the consummate orator paid to the mighty fame of the great statesman? What mattered it to him, or to the college, that, for the moment, this fame was checked and clouded, in the divided judgments of his countrymen, by the rising storms of the approaching struggle? But, instructed by the experience of the vanquished rebellion, none are now so dull as not to see that the consolidation of the Union, the demonstration of the true doctrine of the Constitution, the solicitous observance of every obligation of the compact, were the great preparations for the final issue of American politics between freedom and slavery.

To these preparations the life-work of Webster and his associates was devoted; their completeness and adequacy have been demonstrated; the force and magnitude of the explosion have justified all their solicitudes lest it should burst the cohesions of our unity. The general sense of our countrymen now understands that the statesmen who did the most to secure the common government for slavery and freedom under the frame of the Constitution, and who in the next generations did the most to strengthen the bonds of the Union, and to avert the last test till that strength was assured; and, in our own latest times, did the most to make the contest at last become seasonable and safe, thorough and unyielding and unconditional, have all wrought out the great problem of our statesmanship, which was to assure to us "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." They all deserve, as they shall all receive, each for his share, the gratitude of their countrymen, and the applause of the world.

To the advancing generations of youth that Dartmouth shall continue to train for the service of the republic, and the good of mankind, the lesson of the life we commemorate, to-day, is neither obscure nor uncertain. The toils and honors of the past generations have not exhausted the occasions nor the duties of our public life, and the preparation for them, whatever else it may include, can never omit the essential qualities which have always marked every prosperous and elevated career. These are energy, labor, truth, courage, and faith. These make up that ultimate WISDOM to which the moral constitution of the world assures a triumph.—"Wisdom is the principal thing; she shall bring thee to honor; she shall give to thy head an ornament of grace; a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee."