Thy friend sincerely, JOHN G.WHITTIER This note, so redolent of humility, was written a few days after he had received a most superb birthday ovation from the public men of Massachusetts, and from the most eminent literary men in all parts of the nation.
In the days of my boyhood the most colossal figure, physically and intellectually, in American politics, was Daniel Webster.

I well remember when I first put eye upon him.

It was when I was pursuing my studies in the New York University Grammar School in preparation for Princeton College.

I was strolling one day on the Battery, and met a friend who said to me: "Yonder goes Daniel Webster; he has just landed from that man-of-war; go and get a good look at him." I hastened my steps and, as I came near him, I was as much awe-stricken as if I had been gazing on Bunker Hill Monument, He was unquestionably the most majestic specimen of manhood that ever trod this continent.

Carlyle called him "The Great Norseman," and said that his eyes were like great anthracite furnaces that needed blowing up.