" He
concludes his letter with an old song, beginning,
"Fol de dol, dol de dol, di dol,
I'll never make money my idol."
In the New Hampshire of 1805 there was no such thing possible as
leaping at once into a lucrative practice, nor even of slowly
acquiring it. A country lawyer who gained a thousand dollars a year
was among the most successful, and the leader of the bar in New
Hampshire could not earn two thousand. The chief employment of Daniel
Webster, during the first year or two of his practice, was collecting
debts due in New Hampshire to merchants in Boston. His first tin sign
has been preserved to the present day, to attest by its minuteness and
brevity the humble expectations of its proprietor. "D. Webster,
Attorney," is the inscription it bears. The old Court-House still
stands in which he conducted his first suit, before his own father as
presiding judge. Old men in that part of New Hampshire were living
until within these few years, who remembered well seeing this tall,
gaunt, and large-eyed young lawyer rise slowly, as though scarcely
able to get upon his feet, and giving to every one the impression that
he would soon be obliged to sit down from mere physical weakness, and
saying to his father, for the first and last time, "May it please your
Honor.
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