Fortune showered many favors upon Mr. Webster, but none more valuable than that of having Jeremiah Mason as his chief opponent at the New Hampshire bar.  Mr. Mason had no spark of envy in his composition.  He not only regarded with pleasure the great abilities of Mr. Webster, but he watched with kindly interest the rapid rise which soon made this stranger from the country his principal competitor and the champion commonly chosen to meet him in the courts.  He gave Mr. Webster his friendship, staunch and unvarying, until his death; he gave freely also of his wisdom and experience in advice and counsel.  Best of all was the opportunity of instruction and discipline which Mr. Webster gained by repeated contests with such a man.  The strong qualities of Mr. Webster’s mind rapidly developed by constant practice and under such influences.  He showed more and more in every case his wonderful instinct for seizing on the very heart of a question, and for extricating the essential points from the midst of confused details and clashing arguments.  He displayed, too, more strongly every day his capacity for close, logical reasoning and for telling retort, backed by a passion and energy none the less effective from being but slowly called into activity.  In a word, the unequalled power of stating facts or principles, which was the predominant quality of Mr. Webster’s genius, grew steadily with a vigorous vitality while his eloquence developed in a similar striking fashion.  Much of this growth and improvement was due to the sharp competition and bright example of Mr. Mason.  But the best lesson that Mr. Webster learned from his wary yet daring antagonist was in regard to style.  When he saw Mr. Mason go close to the jury box, and in a plain style and conversational manner, force conviction upon his hearers, and carry off verdict after verdict, Mr. Webster felt as he had never done before the defects of his own modes of expression.  His florid phrases looked rather mean, insincere, and tasteless, besides being weak and ineffective.  From that time he began to study simplicity and directness, which ended in the perfection of a style unsurpassed in modern oratory.  The years of Mr. Webster’s professional life in Portsmouth under the tuition of Mr. Mason were of inestimable service to him.

Early in this period, also, Mr. Webster gave up his bachelor existence, and made for himself a home.  When he first appeared at church in Portsmouth the minister’s daughter noted and remembered his striking features and look, and regarded him as one with great capacities for good or evil.  But the interesting stranger was not destined to fall a victim to any of the young ladies of Portsmouth.  In the spring of 1808 he slipped away from his new friends and returned to Salisbury, where, in May, he was married.  The bride he brought back to Portsmouth was Grace Fletcher, daughter of the minister of Hopkinton.  Mr. Webster is said to have seen her first at church in Salisbury, whither she came on horseback in a tight-fitting