the statesman should cease even to smile, and grow pensive and stern in the face of so vast an enterprise, and under the weight of such measureless responsibilities.

The world has yet to understand the intellectual efficiency derived from moral qualities, - how the candor of an honest and the clearness of an unperverted mind attain results beyond the reach of mere intelligence and adroitness, how conscious integrity gives both insight and directness to mental operations, and elevation above the plane of selfish motives affords a more comprehensive, and therefore a more reliable view of affairs, than the keenest examination based exclusively on personal ability. It becomes apparent, when illustrated by a life and its results, that the cunning of a Talleyrand, the military genius of a Napoleon, the fascinating qualities of a Fox, and other similar endowments of statesmen and soldiers, are essentially limited and temporary in their influence; whereas a good average intellect, sublimated by self-forgetting intrepidity, allies itself for ever to the central and permanent interests of humanity. The mind of Washington was eminently practical; his perceptive faculties were strongly developed; the sense of beauty and the power of expression, those endowments so large in the scholar and the poet, were the least active in his nature; but the observant powers whereby space is measured at a glance, and physical qualities noted correctly, the reflective instincts through which just ideas of facts and circumstances are realized, the sentiment of order which regulates the most chaotic elements of duty and work, thus securing despatch and precision, the openness to right impressions characteristic of an intellect, over which the visionary tendencies of imagination cast no delusion, and whose chief affinity is for absolute truth, these noble and efficient qualities eminently distinguished his mental organization, and were exhibited as its normal traits from childhood to age. To them we refer his prescience in regard to the agricultural promise of wild tracts, the future growth of localities, the improvement of estates, the facilities of communication, the adaptation of soils, and other branches of economics. By means of them he read character with extraordinary success. They led him to methodize his life and labors, to

plan with wisdom and execute with judgment, to use the most appropriate terms in conversation and writing, to keep the most exact accounts, to seek useful information from every source, to weigh prudently and decide firmly, to measure his words and manner with singular adaptation to the company and the occasion, to keep tranquil within his own brain perplexities, doubts, projects, anxieties, cares, and hopes enough to bewilder the most capacious intellect and to sink the boldest heart. His mental features beam through his correspondence. We say this advisedly, notwithstanding the formal and apparently cold tenor of many of his letters; for so grand is the sincerity of purpose, so magnanimous the spirit, so patient, reverent, and devoted the sentiment underlying these brief and unadorned epistles, whether of business or courtesy, that a moral glow interfuses their plain and direct language, often noble enough to awaken a thrill of admiration, together with a latent pathos that starts tears in the reader of true sensibility. The unconsciousness of self, the consideration for others, the moderation in success, the calmness in disaster, the grand singleness of purpose, the heroic selfreliance, the immaculate patriotism, the sense of God and humanity, the wise, fearless, truthful soul that is thus revealed, in self-possessed energy in the midst of the heaviest responsibilities that ever pressed on mortal heart, with the highest earthly good in view, and the most complicated obstacles around, serene, baffled, yet never overcome, and never oblivious of self-respect or neglectful of the minutest details of official and personal duty, — is manifest to our consciousness as we read, and we seem to behold the benign and dignified countenance of the writer through the transparent medium of his unpretending letters. Compare, as illustrations of character the authenticity of which is beyond dispute, the correspondence of Washington and that between Napoleon and his brother Joseph, recently published at Paris. All the romance of spurious memoirs, all the dazzling prestige of military genius, fails to obviate the impression the Emperor's own pen conveys, in the honest utterance of fraternal correspondence, of his obtuse egotism, arrogant self-will, and heartless ambition. In Washington's letters, whether expostulating, in the

name of our common humanity, with Gage, striving to reconcile Schuyler to the mortifications of a service he threatened to quit in disgust, freely describing his own trials to Reed, pleading with Congress for supplies, directing the manage ment of his estate from amid the gloomy cares of the camp, acknowledging a gift from some foreign nobleman, or a copy of verses from poor Phillis Wheatley, the same perspicuity and propriety, wisdom and kindliness, self-respect and remembrance of every personal obligation, are obvious.

The eloquent biographer of Goethe has aptly compared the agency of strong passions to the torrents which leave ribs of granite to mark their impetuous course, and significantly adds: “There are no whirlpools in shallows." How much nobler the sustaining and concentrative result of these turbulent elements becomes when they are governed and guided by will and conscience, the character of Washington singularly illustrates; and "passion when in a state of solemn and omnipotent vehemence, always appears to be calmness." These considerations enable us to reconcile what is apparently incongruous in the reports of different observers who have attempted to describe Washington's manner, aspect, and disposition. Thus we are told by one of his intimate companions, that he was "more free and open in his behavior at levee than in private, and in the company of ladies than when solely with men"; and by another, that "hard, important, and laborious service had given a kind of austerity to his countenance and reserve to his manner, yet he was the kindest of husbands, the most humane of masters, the steadiest of friends." One speaks of his large hand, the token of practical efficiency; one, of his personal attention to an invited guest; one, of his sagacious observations, in travelling, upon the facilities for internal communication or agriculture, suggested by the face of the country; and another, of his avoidance of personal subjects in conversation. But, in our view, some of the most striking tributes to the gradual but absolute recognition of his character are to be found in the contemporary public journals. Thus a London paper of February, 1784, says: "His circular letter to the army was read at a coffee-house not very distant from the Royal Exchange; every hearer was full of the writer's NO. 172.

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praises; in composition it was said to be equal to anything of ancient or modern date." Subsequently, another popular English journal holds this language: "Whenever the shock of accident shall have so far operated on the policy of America as to have systematized and settled her government, it is obvious that the dictator, protector, stadtholder, or by whatever name the chief magistrate so appointed shall be called, will be General Washington." His retirement established the purity of his motives; and a Dublin print, dated the same year with our first extract, said:

"There are few so blinded by prejudice, as to deny such a degree of merit to the American general as to place him in a very distinguished point of view; but even those who have been accustomed to view him as the most illustrious character of this or any other age, will be astonished by the following instance of his integrity, which we give from the most unquestionable authority. When General Washington accepted the command of the American army, he rejected all pecuniary reward or pay whatever, and only stipulated for the reimbursement of such sums as he might expend in the public service. Accordingly, at the conclusion of the war, he gave in to Congress the whole of his seven years' expenditure, which only amounted to £16,000 Pennsylvania currency, or £10,000 sterling. In the eyes of our modern British generals, the above circumstance will appear totally incredible; at least, they will deem Mr. Washington little better than a fool; for, if we judge from certain accounts, £ 10,000 would scarcely have answered the demands of a commander-in-chief at New York a single month.”

These items, taken at random from the newspapers of his day, serve to make us understand how the man whose cautious generalship provoked the ridicule of Lord Howe's soldiers at the opening of the war, and whose firmness in resisting the French alliance awoke a storm of detraction from the Jeffersonian democracy, at a later period lived down aspersion, and became, by the evidence of facts, the acknowledged exemplar of human worth and wisdom described by his last and best biographer.

His moral serenity, keeping reflection intact and forethought vigilant, is nobly manifest in the deliberate process through which, by gradual and therefore earnest conviction, he came to a decision when the difficulties between the mother country and her colonies were pending. Not one of the leading patriots

of the Revolution ranged himself under its banner with more conscientious and rational motives. The same disposition is evident in his hesitation to accept the command, from that self-distrust which invariably marks a great and therefore modest soul, in his subsequent calmness in defeat and sobriety in victory, in the unexaggerated view he took of the means and his disinterested view of the ends of the momentous struggle, in the humility of spirit with which he assumed the reins of government when called to do so by the popular suffrage, in his uniform deference to the authority of all representative assemblies, in the prescient warnings of his parting address, in the unostentatious and simple habits that followed him into retirement, and in the unfaltering trust which gave dignity to his last hour. This normal characteristic of his nature, this being ever "nobler than his mood," is what pre-eminently distinguishes him from the galaxy of patriots, statesmen, and warriors whose names are blazoned in history; for the copious rhetoric of modern republicans, the fiery and yet often compromised pride of Paoli, the selfish instincts of Marlborough, the heartless ambition of Napoleon, were never long concealed, even from the eye kindled with admiration at their prowess. Washington seems not for a moment to have forgotten his responsibility to God and his fellow-creatures; and this deep sentiment permeated his whole nature, proof against all excitement, illusion, and circumstance. When he overheard a little boy exclaim, as the procession in his honor passed through the streets, "Why, father, General Washington is only a man!" the illustrious guest paused in his triumphal march, looked with thoughtful interest on the child, and, patting him on the head, replied, "That's all, my little fellow, that's all." He was, indeed, one of the few heroes who never forgot his humanity, its relations, obligations, dependence, and destiny; and herein was at once his safeguard and his glory.

These facts of character were viewed by distant and illustrious men in relation to their own experience; yet diverse as may be the inference of each, a like feeling of admiration, and a testimony equally sincere and emphatic, signalize every tribute to the unparalleled and inestimable worth of