His last days were such as his best friends could have wished them to be,—­calm, dignified, affectionate, worthy of his lineage.  His burial, too, was singularly becoming, impressive, and touching.  We have been exceedingly struck with the account of it given by Mr. George S. Hillard, in his truly elegant and eloquent eulogy upon Mr. Webster, delivered in Faneuil Hall.  In his last will, executed a few days before his death, Mr. Webster requested that he might be buried “without the least show or ostentation, but in a manner respectful to my neighbors, whose kindness has contributed so much to the happiness of me and mine.”  His wishes were obeyed; and he was buried more as the son of plain, brave Captain Ebenezer Webster, than as Secretary of State.  “No coffin,” said Mr. Hillard,

“concealed that majestic frame.  In the open air, clad as when alive, he lay extended in seeming sleep, with no touch of disfeature upon his brow,—­as noble an image of reposing strength as ever was seen upon earth.  Around him was the landscape that he had loved, and above him was nothing but the dome of the covering heavens.  The sunshine fell upon the dead man’s face, and the breeze blew over it.  A lover of Nature, he seemed to be gathered into her maternal arms, and to lie like a child upon a mother’s lap.  We felt, as we looked upon him, that death had never stricken down, at one blow, a greater sum of life.  And whose heart did not swell when, from the honored and distinguished men there gathered together, six plain Marshfield farmers were called forth to carry the head of their neighbor to the grave.  Slowly and sadly the vast multitude followed, in mourning silence, and he was laid down to rest among dear and kindred dust.”

In surveying the life and works of this eminent and gifted man, we are continually struck with the evidences of his magnitude.  He was, as we have said, a very large person.  His brain was within a little of being one third larger than the average, and it was one of the largest three on record.  His bodily frame, in all its parts, was on a majestic scale, and his presence was immense.  He liked large things,—­mountains, elms, great oaks, mighty bulls and oxen, wide fields, the ocean, the Union, and all things of magnitude.  He liked great Rome far better than refined Greece, and revelled in the immense things of literature, such as Paradise Lost, and the Book of Job, Burke, Dr. Johnson, and the Sixth Book of the Aeneid.  Homer he never cared much for,—­nor, indeed, anything Greek.  He hated, he loathed, the act of writing.  Billiards, ten-pins, chess, draughts, whist, he never relished, though fond to excess of out-door pleasures, like hunting, fishing, yachting.  He liked to be alone with great Nature,—­alone in the giant woods or on the shores of the resounding sea,—­alone all day with his gun, his dog, and his thoughts,—–­alone in the morning, before any one was astir but himself, looking out upon the sea and the glorious sunrise.