This was the only challenge ever received by Mr.Webster.He never could have seemed a very happy subject for such missives, and, moreover, he never indulged in language calculated to provoke them.

Randolph, however, would have challenged anybody or anything, from Henry Clay to a field-mouse, if the fancy happened to strike him.

Mr.Webster's reply is a model of dignity and veiled contempt.

He refused to admit Randolph's right to an explanation, alluded to that gentleman's lack of courtesy in the House, denied his right to call him out, and wound up by saying that he did not feel bound to risk his life at any one's bidding, but should "always be prepared to repel, in a suitable manner, the aggression of any man who may presume on this refusal." One cannot help smiling over this last clause, with its suggestion of personal violence, as the two men rise before the fancy,--the big, swarthy black-haired son of the northern hills, with his robust common sense, and the sallow, lean, sickly Virginia planter, not many degrees removed mentally from the patients in Bedlam.
In the affairs of the next session of the fourteenth Congress Mr.Webster took scarcely any part.

He voted for Mr.Calhoun's internal improvement bill, although without entering the debate, and he also voted to pass the bill over Mr.Madison's veto.