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WEBSTEK 533 George Ticknor Curtis (2 vols., New York, 1869). See also "Daniel Webster and his Contemporaries," by the Hon. C. W. March (New York, 1876). WEBSTER. I. Ebenezer, an American patriot, father of Daniel "Webster, born in Kingston, N. H., in 1739, died in Salisbury (now Frank- lin), N. H., in 1806. He served under Gen. Am- herst in the "old French war," and in 1761 was one of the original settlers of that part of the town of Salisbury now known as Franklin, then the northernmost New England settle- ment. He was a farmer and innkeeper, and at the outbreak of the revolution led the Salis- bury militia to Cambridge. Subsequently he fought at White Plains and Bennington, was at West Point during the treason of Arnold, and served in other campaigns until the close of the war, when he had attained the rank of colonel of militia. He was at various times a member of one or the other branch of the legislature, and from 1791 till his death was judge of the court of common pleas of Hills- borough oo. II. Ezekiel, eldest son of the pre- ceding by his second wife, born in Salisbury, March 11, 1780, died in Concord, April 10, 1829. He graduated at Dartmouth college in 1804, studied law, and rose to eminence in his profession. He also served in the state legis- lature. He died instantaneously of disease of the heart while trying a cause in Concord. WEBSTER, John, an English dramatist, in the latter part of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century. He was a friend and contem- porary of Decker, Drayton, and Middleton, with whom, particularly Decker, he was jointly engaged in the production of plays. His own dramas comprise "The White Devil" (1612), "The Duchess of Malfey" (1623), and "Ap- pius and Virginia" (1624). His works were edited by the Eev. A. Dyce (4 vols., London, 1830), and by W. Hazlitt (4 vols., 1857). WEBSTER, Noah, an American philologist, born in that part of Hartford, Conn., now form- ing the town of West Hartford, Oct. 16, 1758, died in New Haven, May 28, 1843. He entered Yale college in 1774, served under his father, a captain in the militia, during the campaign of 1777, and graduated in 1778. He taught school in Hartford, and was admitted to the bar in 1781. In 1782 he opened a classical school at Goshen, Orange co., N. Y. Having determined to engage in the preparation of school books, and received encouragement from Mr. Madison and others on a visit to Philadelphia, he returned to Hartford, and in 1783 published his " First Part of a Grammati- cal Institute of the English Language," which was followed in the course of the next two years by the second and third parts. This "First Part" was t-he basis of the spelling books which he afterward published. About the same time he undertook the publication of "Governor Winthrop's Journal." He also wrote newspaper articles upon questions of national policy. In 1785 he published a pam- phlet entitled " Sketches of American Policy," in which he foreshadowed the character of 'a new constitution of the United States. The same year he visited the southern states, to procure the enactment of state copyright laws. In 1786 he delivered a course of lectures in the principal American cities on the English lan- guage, which were published in 1789, under the title of " Dissertations on the English Lan- guage." In 1787 he became principal of an academy in Philadelphia ; and when the labors of the constitutional convention were closed, he wrote a pamphlet entitled "Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Con- stitution." In 1788 he established in New York, and published for one year at a heavy loss, the "American Magazine." He returned to Hartford in 1789, and began the practice of law. For some years his business was large and profitable; but in the autumn of 1793, at the solicitation of friends of the administra- tion, he established for its support a daily news- paper in New York, " The Minerva," to which he added soon after a semi-weekly edition, called " The Herald." These names were sub- sequently changed for those of the " Commer- cial Advertiser " and " New York Spectator," which are still retained (1876). In 17U5 he contributed to his journal papers under the signature of "Curtius," in defence of Jay's treaty with Great Britain, concluded in the preceding year, which did much to allay the violent opposition to that treaty. In 1799 he published " A Brief History of Epidemics and Pestilential Diseases" (2 vols. 8vo, Hartford), which he had been led to investigate by the prevalence of yellow fever. He had removed to New Haven in 1798, having resigned the editorial charge of his journal, though he re- tained the proprietorship for some time. In 1802 he published a work on the rights of neutral nations in time of war, and a com- pilation of "Historical Notices of the Origin and State of Banking Institutions and Insu- rance Offices;" and in 1807 his "Philosophi- cal and Practical Grammar of the English Lan- guage." He had published in 180G a "Com- pendious Dictionary," and in 1807 he began the preparation of the " American Dictionary of the English Language." He soon found himself seriously embarrassed for want of a knowledge of the origin of words, and there- fore laid aside his work, and spent ten years in an inquiry into the origin of our language and its connection with those of other coun- tries. He then commenced anew his dic- tionary, brought it nearly to a close in seven years, and sailed for Europe in June, 1824. After spending two months in Paris, examin- ing rare works in the royal library, he went to England, and, in a residence of eight months at the university of Cambridge, com- pleted the dictionary. At the close of the year 1828 an edition of 2,500 copies was published in the United States, in 2 vols. 4to, followed by one of 3,000 in England. In 1840 a second