Part 16

2. He gains none of those battles which renew the bloody triumphs of Arbela[580] and Pharsalia;[581] he puts not his foot upon the necks of kings; he does not say to them, waiting on the vestibule of his palace, _how often you come!_ and how you weary Attila![582] A certain spirit of silence envelops the actions of Washington: slow caution marks them all. One would say that he had ever the sentiment of his great mission with him, and that he feared to compromise it by rashness.

3. His own personal destiny seems not to have entered into the calculations of this hero of a new species; the destinies of his country alone occupied him, and he did not permit himself to risk or gamble with what did not belong to him. But from this profound obscurity what light breaks forth! Seek through the unknown forests where the sword of Washington glittered, and what will you find there? Tombs? No! A world. Washington has left the United States as a trophy of his field of battle.

4. Bonaparte possessed no single trait of this great American. His wars were all waged on an ancient continent, environed[583] by splendor and stunning with noise. His object was personal glory: his individual destiny filled all his thoughts. He seems to have known that his mission would be short: that the torrent that fell from such a height would quickly expend its force. He hurried forward to enjoy and to abuse his glory, as if aware that it was a fugitive dream of youth. Like the gods of Homer, four steps must suffice him to reach the end of the world.

5. Each of these men has been recompensed according to his works. Washington, after having raised a nation to independence, slept peacefully, as a retired magistrate, under his paternal roof, amid the regrets of his countrymen, and the veneration of all people, Bonaparte, having robbed a nation of its independence was hurled, a dethroned emperor, into exile, and the terrified earth hardly thought him secure enough under the custody of the ocean.

6. Even while exhausted and chained to a rock, he was struggling with death: Europe dared not lay down her arms, for fear of him. He died; and this event, published at the gate of the palace before which the conqueror had proclaimed so many funerals, hardly arrested the passer-by. What, indeed, had citizens to weep for!

7. Washington and Bonaparte both arose out of the bosom of a republic. Both were born of liberty; the first was faithful to it, the second betrayed it. Their lot will be according to the different part they chose: very different with future generations. The name of Washington will spread with liberty from age to age, and mark the commencement of a new era for the human race: the name of Bonaparte will be pronounced also by distant generations, but no benedictions will be attached to it; it will serve on the contrary, as an authority to oppressors, great and petty of all times.

8. Washington represented completely the wants, the ideas, the state of enlightenment and opinions of his epoch. He seconded, instead of thwarting, the advancing movement: he willed that which he ought to have willed; the fulfilment of the mission to which he was called. Hence the coherence[584] and perpetuity of his work.

9. This man, who strikes the imagination so slightly, because he was natural, and kept within his just proportions, has confounded his history with that of his country: his glory is the common patrimony of increased civilization: his renown rises like one of those sanctuaries whence a stream, pure and inexhaustible, flows forth for ever, for the solace of the people.

10. Bonaparte might also have enriched the public domain. His action was on the nation the most civilized, the most intelligent, the most brave, the most brilliant of the earth. What a rank would he have occupied at present in the universe, if he had joined magnanimity to his other heroic qualities! if—Washington and Bonaparte at the same time—he had nominated liberty the inheritor of his glory!

11. But the disproportioned giant did not completely identify his destiny with that of his country. His genius belonged to modern, his ambition to ancient times. He did not perceive that the miracles of his life by far surpassed the value of a diadem, and that this gothic ornament but ill became him. Sometimes one might see him take a step with the age; at others he would retrograde toward the past. But whether he reascended the stream of time or followed its course, the prodigious force of his genius seemed to command a flow or a flux at his will.

12. Men were, in his eyes, only a means of power: there was no sympathy between their welfare and his own. He promised to liberate, and he enchained them: he separated himself from them, and they shrunk back from him. The kings of Egypt built their funeral pyramids, not amid fertile plains, but sterile sands. On a like site has Bonaparte constructed the monument of his renown.

[579] TRAVˊ-ERSES, crosses over.

[580] AR-BEˊ-LA, it was near Arbela that Alexander gained his great victory over the Persians.

[581] PHAR-SAˊ-LIA, it was here Julius Cæsar defeated Pompey.

[582] AT-TIˊ-LA, a celebrated king of the Huns. He invaded Europe with an immense army, in 451. He crossed the Rhine and penetrated to the heart of Gaul, sacking and burning all the towns in his way. He was defeated by Ætius at Chalons.

[583] EN-VIˊ-RON, to surround.

[584] CO-HERˊ-ENCE, consistency.

LXXXIII.—CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN.

BROUGHAM.

1. One of the most remarkable men certainly of our times as a politician, or of any age as a philosopher, was Franklin; who also stands alone in combining together these two characters, the greatest that man can sustain, and in this, that, having borne the first part in enlarging science by one of the greatest discoveries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one of the greatest empires in the world.

2. In this truly great man every thing seems to concur that goes toward the constitution of exalted merit. First, he was the architect of his own fortune. Born in the humblest station, he raised himself by his talents and industry, first to the place in society which may be attained with the help only of ordinary abilities, great application, and good luck; but next, to the loftier heights which a daring and happy genius alone can scale; and the printers’ boy who at one period of his life had no covering to shelter his head from the dews of night, rent in twain the proud dominion of England, and lived to be the ambassador of a commonwealth which he had formed, at the court of the haughty monarchs of France, who had been his allies.

3. Then he had been tried by prosperity as well as by adverse fortune, and had passed unhurt through the perils of both. No ordinary apprentice, no commonplace journeyman, ever laid the foundation of his independence in habits of industry and temperance more deep than he did, whose genius was afterwards to rank him with the Galileos and Newtons of the old world. No patrician born to shine in courts, or assist at the councils of monarchs, ever bore his honors in a lofty station more easily, or was less spoiled by the enjoyment of them, than this common workman did when negotiating with royal representatives, or caressed by all the beauty and fashion of the most brilliant court in Europe.

4. Again, he was self-taught in all he knew. His hours of study were stolen from those of sleep and of meals, or gained by some ingenious contrivance for reading while the work of his daily calling went on. Assisted by none of the helps which affluence tenders to the studies of the rich, he had to supply the place of tutors by redoubled diligence, and of commentaries by repeated perusal. Nay, the possession of books was to be obtained by copying what the art which he himself exercised furnished easily to others.

5. Next, the circumstances under which others succumb he made to yield, and bent to his own purposes—a successful leader of a revolt that ended in complete triumph after appearing desperate for years: a great discoverer in philosophy without the ordinary helps to knowledge; a writer famed for his chaste style without a classical education; a skillful negotiator, though never bred to politics; ending as a favorite, nay, a pattern of fashion when the guest of frivolous courts, the life which he had begun in garrets and in workshops.

6. Lastly, combinations of faculties, in others deemed impossible, appeared easy and natural in him. The philosopher, delighting in speculation, was also eminently a man of action. Ingenious reasoning, refined and subtle consultation, were in him combined with prompt resolution and inflexible firmness of purpose. To a lively fancy he joined a learned and deep reflection; his original and inventive genius stooped to the convenient alliance of the most ordinary prudence in every day affairs; the mind that soared above the clouds, and was conversant with the loftiest human contemplations, disdained not to make proverbs and feign parables for the guidance of apprenticed youths and maidens at service; and the hands that sketched a free constitution for a whole continent, or drew down the lightning from heaven, easily and cheerfully lent themselves to simplify the apparatus by which truths were to be illustrated or discoveries pursued.

7. His whole course, both in acting and in speculation, was simple and plain, ever preferring the easiest and shortest road, nor ever having recourse to any but the simplest means to compass his ends. His policy rejected all refinements, and aimed at accomplishing its purposes by the most rational and obvious expedients. His language was unadorned, and used as the medium of communicating his thoughts, not of raising admiration; but it was pure, expressive, racy. His manner of reasoning was manly and cogent, the address of a rational being to others of the same order; and so concise, that preferring decision to discussion, he never exceeded a quarter of an hour in any public address. His correspondence on business, whether private or on state affairs, is a model of clearness and compendious shortness; nor can any state papers surpass in dignity and impressiveness those of which he is believed to have been the author in the earlier part of the American revolutionary war.

8. His mode of philosophizing was the purest application of the inductive principle, so eminently adapted to his nature, and so clearly dictated by common sense, that we can have little doubt that it would have been suggested by Franklin, if it had not been unfolded by Bacon, though it is clear that in this case it would have been expounded in far more simple terms. But of all this great man’s scientific excellencies, the most remarkable is the smallness, the simplicity, the apparent inadequacy of the means which he employed in his experimental researches. His discoveries were made with hardly any apparatus at all; and if, at any time, he had been led to employ instruments of a less ordinary description, he never rested satisfied until he had, as it were, afterward translated the process, by resolving the problem with such simple machinery, that you might say he had done it wholly unaided by apparatus. The experiments by which the identity of lightning and electricity was demonstrated were made with a sheet of brown paper, a bit of twine, a silk thread, and an iron key. Upon the integrity of this great man, whether in public or in private life, there rests no stain. Strictly honest, and even scrupulously punctual in all his dealings, he preserved in the highest fortune that regularity which he had practiced, as well as inculcated, in the lowest.

9. In domestic life he was faultless, and in the intercourse of society, delightful. There was a constant good humor and a playful wit, easy and of high relish, without any ambition to shine, the natural fruit of his lively fancy, his solid, natural good-sense, and his cheerful temper, that gave his conversation an unspeakable charm, and alike suited every circle, from the humblest to the most elevated.

LXXXIV.—THE LAST MINSTREL.

SCOTT.

Sir Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, died September 21, 1832. He was distinguished as a poet, and unrivaled as a novelist.

1. The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have known a better day: The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy; The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry.

2. For well a day! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead; And he neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them and at rest. No more on prancing palfrey borne, He caroled, light as lark at morn; No longer courted and caressed, High-placed in hall, a welcome guest, He poured to lord and lady gay The unpremeditated lay.

3. Old times were changed, old manners gone, A stranger filled the Stuart throne, The bigots of the Iron time Had called the harmless art a crime. A wandering Harper, scorned and poor, He begged his bread from door to door, And tuned, to please a peasants ear, The harp a king had loved to hear.

4. He passed where Newark’s stately tower Looks out from Yarrow’s birchen bower; The Minstrel gazed with wistful eye, No humbler resting-place was nigh; With hesitating step, at last, The embattled portal arch he passed, Whose pond’rous grate and massy bar Had oft rolled back the tide of war, But never closed the iron door Against the desolate and poor.

5. The Duchess marked his weary pace, His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials tell, That they should tend the old man well: For she had known adversity, Though born in such a high degree; In pride of power and beauty’s bloom, Had wept o’er Monmouth’s bloody tomb!

LXXXV.—THE MINSTREL BOY.

THOMAS MOORE.

1. The minstrel boy to the war is gone; In the ranks of Death you’ll find him, His father’s sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him. “Land of song,” said the warrior-bard, “Though all the world betrays thee, One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee.”

2. The minstrel fell: but the foeman’s chain Could not bring his proud soul under. The harp he loved ne’er spoke again, For he tore its chords asunder, And said, “No chains shall sully thee, Thou soul of love and bravery; Thy songs were made for the pure and free; They never shall sound in slav’ry.”

LXXXVI.—ARMY HYMN.

O. W. HOLMES.

1. O Lord of Hosts! Almighty King! Behold the sacrifice we bring! To every arm thy strength impart, Thy Spirit shed through every heart.

2. Wake in our breasts the living fires, The holy faith, that warmed our sires; Thy hand hath made our nation free; To die for her is serving Thee.

3. Be thou a pillared flame to show The midnight snare, the silent foe; And when the battle thunders loud, Still guide us in its moving cloud.

4. God of all Nations! Sov’reign Lord! In thy dread name we draw the sword; We lift the starry flag on high, That fills with light our stormy sky.

5. From treason’s rent, from murder’s stain, Guard thou its folds till Peace shall reign; Till fort and field, till shore and sea, Join our loud anthem,—Praise to Thee!

LXXXVII.—THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

ARCHBISHOP SPALDING.

M. J. Spalding, D. D. Archbishop of Baltimore, is a native of Kentucky. He is a man of great learning and ability, and of untiring industry. He is the author of a very valuable “History of the Protestant Reformation,” and of several volumes of Essays and Lectures. The following is from his brilliant Introduction to the “History of the Church,” by Darras.

1. Take them all in all, the two hundred and fifty Popes and more, who have successively occupied the Chair of Peter, constitute the most respectable and venerable body of men whose deeds are recorded on the pages of history. Nearly all of them were highly respectable men, learned, enlightened, and pious, far beyond their age; very many of them were venerable for their personal sanctity. Seventy-nine of them—nearly a third of the entire number—were so remarkable for their holiness of character as to merit being inscribed on the Calendar of Saints; and this number includes thirty-three who willingly laid down their lives for Christ and His Church.

2. A very large proportion of the others were men of blameless life, and of indefatigable[585] zeal for the propagation[586] of the faith, while not a few of them were possessed of great learning and capacity. Such, for instance, were Innocent III., Innocent IV., Boniface VIII., and Benedict XIV.,—not to name a host of others in the earlier ages of the Church.

3. In this connection, it is a remarkable fact, and one which shows how effectually Christ has watched over His Church, in the person of His Vicars on earth; that during the last three centuries—since the so-called Reformation—not a single unworthy or immoral Pope has occupied the venerable Chair of Peter. While wickedness has abounded[587], and the very foundations of the faith have been boldly undermined by wicked men “lying in wait to deceive,” God has taken care of His own, and has spared scandals in the high places of His Church.

4. The Reformation, has, perhaps, been instrumental in involuntarily and indirectly rendering this signal service to the cause of the Church, which it so unblushingly maligned. By removing from the pale of Catholic Christendom the most turbulent[588] and unrestrained of its members, it has contributed to purify the atmosphere breathed by the great body of Christians, who remained faithful; while by its bitter opposition, it has quickened their zeal and nourished their vigilance. Thus God’s providence hath drawn good out of evil.

5. Compare the Popes with the sovereigns who have contemporaneously[589] filled the various thrones of Europe and the world; and mark the difference, or rather the contrast. While among the latter it is very difficult to discover even one just man, in a long line of incumbents;[590] in the former, it is almost as difficult to find one who is wicked. Among the latter, personal morality, self-restraint, and purity are the exception; among the former, they are the rule. Among the latter, a ruler now and then appears clad with the virtues which mark the saint, as if to show that sanctity is compatible with every condition in life; among the former so many blameless and saintly men appear, that we cease to wonder, and yield to no surprise on discovering a new Pope who is true to the traditions[591] of his order. When we find a solitary flower in the bleak and dreary desert, we are startled into unbounded admiration; when we behold whole clusters of them in a flower-garden, we look with calm pleasure on the beautiful spectacle, but take it as a matter of course, and are not at all astonished.

[585] IN-DE-FATˊ-I-GA-BLE, unwearying; not yielding to fatigue.

[586] PROPˊ-A-GAˊ-TION, diffusion; increase.

[587] A-BOUNDˊ-ED, been prevalent or plentiful.

[588] TURˊ-BU-LENT, riotous; disorderly.

[589] CON-TEMˊ-PO-RA-NEOUS, living or existing at the same time.

[590] IN-CUMˊ-BENT, one who holds an office.

[591] TRA-ˊDI-TION, the history or account handed down from one to another.

LXXXVIII.—LABOR AND GENIUS

SYDNEY SMITH.

Sydney Smith was born in 1791, and died in 1845. His miscellaneous writings, comprising essays, reviews, and occasional pieces, are characterized by a happy combination of strong sense and brilliant wit.

1. The prevailing idea with young people has been, the incompatibility[592] of labor and genius; and, therefore, from the fear of being thought dull, they have thought it necessary to remain ignorant. I have seen, at school and at college, a great many young men completely destroyed by having been so unfortunate as to produce an excellent copy of verses. Their genius being now established, all that remained for them to do, was to act up to the dignity of the character; and as this dignity consisted in reading nothing new, in forgetting what they had already read, and in pretending to be acquainted with all subjects by a sort of off-hand exertion of talents, they soon collapsed[593] into the most frivolous and insignificant of men.

2. It would be an extremely profitable thing to draw up a short and well-authenticated account of the habits of study of the most celebrated writers with whose style of literary industry we happen to be most acquainted. It would go very far to destroy the absurd and pernicious[594] association of genius and idleness, by showing that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen, and historians—men of the most brilliant and imposing talents—have actually labored as hard as the makers of dictionaries and the arrangers of indexes; and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to other men is, that they have taken more pains than other men.

3. Gibbon was in his study every morning, winter and summer, at six o’clock: Burke was the most laborious and indefatigable[595] of human beings: Leibnitz[596] was never out of his library: Pascal killed himself by study: Cicero narrowly escaped death from the same cause: Milton was at his books with as much regularity as a merchant or an attorney; he had mastered all the knowledge of his time: so had Homer. Raphael lived but thirty-seven years; and in that short space carried the art of painting so far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model to his successors.

4. There are instances to the contrary; but, generally speaking, the life of all truly great men has been a life of intense and incessant[597] labor. They have commonly passed the first half of life in the gross darkness of indigent humility—overlooked, mistaken, contemned by weaker men,—thinking while others slept, reading while others rioted, feeling something within them that told them they should not always be kept down among the dregs of the world; and then, when their time has come, and some little accident has given them their first occasion, they have burst out into the light and glory of public life, rich with the spoils of time, and mighty in all the labors and struggles of the mind.

5. Then do the multitude cry out, “A miracle of genius!” Yes, he is a miracle of genius, because he is a miracle of labor; because, instead of trusting to the resources of his own single mind, he has ransacked a thousand minds; because he makes use of the accumulation of ages, and takes, as his point of departure, the very last line and boundary to which science has advanced; because it has ever been the object of his life to assist every intellectual gift of nature, however munificent,[598] and however splendid, with every resource that art could suggest, and every attention diligence could bestow.

6. But, while I am descanting[599] upon the conduct of the understanding, and the best mode of acquiring knowledge, some men may be disposed to ask, “Why conduct my understanding with such endless care? and what is the use of so much knowledge?” What is the use of so much knowledge? What is the use of so much life? What are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us? and how are we to live them out to the last?