Eutered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1835

BY PERKINS, MARVIN, AND COMPANY,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE SECOND VOLUME.

It is now about five years, since the publishers of the present collection presented their fellow-citizens with the former volume of the Speeches and Forensic Arguments of Mr. Webster. It commanded the attention, which might have been anticipated from the reputation of the author; and the curiosity and interest thus excited were amply sustained, by the contents of the work. It is believed, that no volume has ever issued from the American press, better calculated to take a permanent hold of the public mind;— to be regarded as a choice specimen of excellence in the various kinds of intellectual effort which it embraced ;-and to be consulted as a standard authority, on the great Political and Constitutional questions, which have agitated the public mind during the last twenty years. The estimation in which it was held from its appearance, may be safely inferred from the tenor of a very judicious and eloquent notice of it, in the eighteenth number of the American Quarterly Review; and the rapid sale of the edition has proved that the judgment of the critic was sanctioned by the reading community at large, not merely in this country, but in Europe. The critical journals of Great Britain have confirmed the estimate formed by his countrymen of Mr. Webster's professional and parliamentary talent, and have quoted his works as containing some of the best specimens of American forensic eloquence.*

The publishers now find themselves called upon for a second volume of the speeches and occasional addresses of Mr. Webster The five years since the appearance of the former volume have, as

Quarterly Journal of Jurisprudence, for August, 1834.