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+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+       than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26424]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN, FAMOUS WOMEN, VOL. 4 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
+been maintained.
+
+Captions marked with [TN] have been added while producing this file.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Berlin Conference.]
+
+
+
+
+GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
+
+
+_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
+
+THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
+
+
+VOL. IV.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
+
+edited by Charles F. Horne
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
+
+New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.
+
+
+  SUBJECT                         AUTHOR                          PAGE
+
+  JOHN ADAMS,                 _Edwin Williams_,                    251
+  Letter from Adams to a friend
+    on the "Destiny of America,"                                   252
+  LOUIS AGASSIZ,              _Asa Gray_,                          350
+  PRINCE VON BISMARCK,        _Prince Outisky_,                    385
+  SIMON BOLIVAR,              _Hon. John P. St. John_,             306
+  EDMUND BURKE,               _Dr. Heinrich Geffcken_,             226
+  JEAN FRANÇOIS CHAMPOLLION,  _Georg Ebers_,                       311
+  GROVER CLEVELAND,           _Clarence Cook_,                     403
+  GEORGES CUVIER,             _John Stoughton, D.D._,              287
+  CHARLES DARWIN,             _Arch. Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S._,       355
+  BENJAMIN DISRAELI,          _Harriet Prescott Spofford_,         370
+  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,                                               231
+  LÉON GAMBETTA,                                                   363
+  WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE,    _Justin McCarthy_,                   377
+  HORACE GREELEY,             _Noah Brooks_,                       345
+  ALEXANDER HAMILTON,                                              265
+  PATRICK HENRY,              _General Bradley T. Johnson_,        236
+  ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT,     _Louis Agassiz_,                     292
+  ANDREW JACKSON,             _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_,        317
+  THOMAS JEFFERSON,           _Hon. John B. Henderson_,            256
+  ABRAHAM LINCOLN,            _Terence Vincent Powderly_,          338
+  WILLIAM MCKINLEY,           _Rossiter Johnson_,                  398
+  MARIA THERESA,              _Anna C. Brackett_,                  221
+  COUNT DE MIRABEAU,          _Charles S. Hathaway_,               273
+  ISAAC NEWTON,               _John Stoughton, D.D._,              211
+  DANIEL O'CONNELL,           _Justin McCarthy_,                   300
+  CHARLES STEWART PARNELL,    _Thomas Davidson_,                   395
+  JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI,      _Harriet Martineau_,                 282
+  PETER THE GREAT,                                                 215
+  MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE,                                          278
+  WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD,       _Hon. Charles E. Fitch_,             332
+  LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS,                                            360
+  GEORGE WASHINGTON,                                               242
+  _Letter from Washington to his adopted
+    daughter on the subject of "Love,"_                            250
+  DANIEL WEBSTER,             _Rev. Dr. Tweedy_,                   326
+  _Letter from Webster to his friend
+    Brigham on the "Choice of a Profession,"_                      331
+  WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND,                                         205
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME IV.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATION                           ARTIST               TO FACE PAGE
+
+  THE BERLIN CONFERENCE,                 _Anton von Werner_  _Frontispiece_
+  THE THIRD ESTATE TAKES REFUGE IN THE
+    TENNIS COURT,                        _Étienne Lucien Mélingue_ 276
+  PESTALOZZI, THE CHILDREN'S FRIEND,     _Konrad Grob_             286
+  THE ENROLLMENT OF VOLUNTEERS, 1870,    _Alfred Paul de
+                                           Richemont_              368
+  BISMARCK BEFORE PARIS,                 _Ludwig Braun_            390
+
+
+
+
+WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
+
+
+  COUNCIL OF WAR AFTER THE LANDING OF WILLIAM OF
+    ORANGE,                              _H. G. Glindoni_          208
+  NEWTON ANALYZING THE RAY OF LIGHT,     _Loudan_                  212
+  THE LIFE OF PETER THE GREAT SAVED AT
+    THE FOOT OF THE ALTAR,               _Steuben_                 216
+  BURKE, JOHNSON, AND THEIR FRIENDS,     _James E. Doyle_          228
+  THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS TO
+    WASHINGTON,                          _Armand Dumaresq_         246
+  ROBESPIERRE'S ARREST,                  _François Flameng_        280
+  A. LINCOLN,                                                      340
+  HAWARDEN CASTLE, THE HOME OF
+    GLADSTONE,                           _G. Montbard_             378
+  GLADSTONE'S FIRST HOME RULE BILL,                                382
+  PROCLAMATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE AT
+    VERSAILLES,                          _Anton von Werner_        386
+  PARNELL TESTIFYING AGAINST THE
+    "TIMES,"                             _Walter Wilson_           396
+  PRESIDENT MCKINLEY TAKING THE OATH OF
+    OFFICE,                              _A. de Thulstrup_         402
+  THE CEREMONY AT GROVER CLEVELAND'S
+    MARRIAGE,                            _A. de Thulstrup_         406
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND
+
+(1650-1702)
+
+[Illustration: William III. [TN]]
+
+
+William, Prince of Orange, the third king of England of that name, born
+November 14, 1650, was the posthumous son of William II., Prince of
+Orange, and Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I. of England. The fortunes
+of his childhood did not promise that greatness which he attained. His
+father had been thought to entertain designs hostile to the liberties of
+the United Provinces, and the suspicions of the father produced distrust
+of the son. When Cromwell dictated terms of peace to the Dutch in 1654,
+one of the articles insisted on the perpetual exclusion of the Prince of
+Orange from all the great offices formerly held by his family; and this
+sentence of exclusion was confirmed, so far as Holland was concerned,
+thirteen years after, by the enactment of the Perpetual Edict, by which
+the office of Stadtholder of Holland was forever abolished. The
+restoration of the Stuarts, however, was so far favorable to the
+interests of the House of Orange, as to induce the princess-royal to
+petition, on her son's behalf, that he might be invested with the
+offices and dignities possessed by his ancestors. The provinces of
+Zealand, Friesland, and Guelderland warmly espoused her cause: even the
+States of Holland engaged to watch over his education, "that he might be
+rendered capable of filling the posts held by his forefathers." They
+formally adopted him as "a child of the state," and surrounded him with
+such persons as were thought likely to educate him in a manner suited to
+his station in a free government.
+
+A storm broke upon Holland just as William was ripening into manhood;
+and discord at home threatened to aggravate the misfortunes of the
+country. The House of Orange had again become popular; and a loud cry
+was raised for the instant abolition of the Perpetual Edict, and for
+installing the young prince in all the offices enjoyed by his ancestors.
+The Republican party, headed by the De Witts, prevented this; but they
+were forced to yield to his being chosen captain-general and
+high-admiral. Many persons hoped that William's military rank and
+prospects would incline his uncle Charles II. to make common cause with
+the friends of liberty and independence; but the English monarch was the
+pensioner of the French king, and France and England jointly declared
+war against the States, April 7, 1672. The Dutch made large
+preparations; but new troops could not suddenly acquire discipline and
+experience. The enemy meditated, and had nearly effected, the entire
+conquest of the country; the populace became desperate; a total change
+of government was demanded; the De Witts were brutally massacred, and
+William was invested with the full powers of stadtholder. His fitness
+for this high office was soon demonstrated by the vigor and the wisdom
+of his measures. Maestricht was strongly garrisoned; the prince of
+Orange, with a large army, advanced to the banks of the Issel; the Dutch
+fleet cruised off the mouth of the Thames, to prevent the naval forces
+of England and France from joining. The following year, 1763, Louis XIV.
+took Maestricht; while the Prince of Orange, not having forces
+sufficient to oppose the French army, employed himself in retaking other
+towns from the enemy. New alliances were formed; and the prince's
+masterly conduct not only stopped the progress of the French, but forced
+them to evacuate the province of Utrecht. In 1674 the English Parliament
+compelled Charles II. to make peace with Holland. The Dutch signed
+separate treaties with the Bishop of Munster and the Elector of Cologne.
+The gallantry of the prince had so endeared him to the States of
+Holland, that the offices of stadtholder and captain-general were
+declared hereditary in his male descendants. Meanwhile he continued to
+display both courage and conduct in various military operations against
+the French. The battle of Seneffe was desperately fought. After sunset,
+the conflict was continued by the light of the moon; and darkness,
+rather than the exhaustion of the combatants, put an end to the contest,
+and left the victory undecided. The veteran Prince of Condé gave a
+candid and generous testimonial to the merit of his young antagonist:
+"The Prince of Orange," said he, "has in every point acted like an old
+captain, except in venturing his life too much like a young soldier."
+
+In 1675 the sovereignty of Guelderland and of the county of Zutphen was
+offered to William, with the title of duke, which was asserted to have
+been formerly vested in his family. Those who entertained a bad opinion
+of him, and attributed whatever looked like greatness in his character
+to ambition rather than patriotism, insinuated that he was himself the
+main-spring of this manifest intrigue. He had at least prudence enough
+to deliberate on the offer, and to submit it to the judgment of the
+States of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht. They viewed with jealousy the
+aristocratic dignity, and he wisely refused it. This forbearance was
+rewarded by the province of Utrecht, which adopted the precedent of
+Holland, in voting the stadtholdership hereditary in the heirs-male of
+his body.
+
+The campaign of 1675 passed without any memorable event in the Low
+Countries. In the following year hopes of peace were held out from the
+meeting of a congress at Nimeguen; but the articles of peace were to be
+determined rather by the events of the campaign than by the
+deliberations of the negotiators. The French took Condé and several
+other places; the Prince of Orange, bent on retaliation, sat down before
+Maestricht, the siege of which he urged impetuously; but the masterly
+movements of the enemy, and a scarcity of forage, frustrated his plans.
+Aire had already been taken; the Duke of Orleans had made himself master
+of Bouchain; Marshal Schomberg, to whom Louis had intrusted his army on
+retiring to Versailles, was on the advance; and it was found expedient
+to raise the siege of Maestricht. It was now predicted that the war in
+Flanders would be unfortunate in its issue; but the Prince of Orange,
+influenced by the mixed motives of honor, ambition, and animosity, kept
+the Dutch Republic steady to the cause of its allies, and refused to
+negotiate a separate peace with France. In October, 1677, he came to
+England, and was graciously received by the king, his uncle. His
+marriage with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, was the object
+of his visit. That event gave general satisfaction at the time; the
+consequences which arose from it were unsuspected by the most
+far-sighted. At first the king was disinclined to the match, then
+neutral; and at last favorable, in the hope of engaging William to fall
+in with his designs, and listen to the separate proposals of the French
+monarch. The prince, on his part, was pleased with the prospect, because
+he expected that the King of England would, at length, find himself
+obliged to declare against Louis, and because he imagined that the
+English nation would be more strongly engaged in his interest, and would
+adopt his views with respect to the war. In this he was disappointed,
+though the Parliament was determined on forcing the king to renounce his
+alliance with Louis. But the States had gained no advantage commensurate
+with the expense and danger of the contest in which they were engaged,
+and were inclined to conclude a separate treaty. Mutual discontent among
+the allies led to the dissolution of the confederacy, and a peace
+advantageous to France was concluded at Nimeguen in 1678; but causes of
+animosity still subsisted. The Prince of Orange, independent of
+political enmity, had now personal grounds of complaint against Louis,
+who deeply resented the zeal with which William had espoused the
+liberties of Europe and resisted his aggressions. He could neither bend
+so haughty a spirit to concessions, nor warp his integrity even by the
+suggestions of his dominant passion, ambition. But it was in the power
+of the French monarch to punish this obstinacy, and by oppressing the
+inhabitants of the principality of Orange, to take a mean revenge on an
+innocent people for the imputed offences of their sovereign. In addition
+to other injuries, when the Duchy of Luxembourg was invaded by the
+French troops, the commanding officer had orders to expose to sale all
+the lands, furniture, and effects of the Prince of Orange, although they
+had been conferred on him by a formal decree of the States of the
+country. Whether to preserve the appearance of justice, or merely as an
+insult, Louis summoned the Prince to appear before his Privy Council in
+1682, by the title of _Messire Guillaume Comte de Nassau_, living at The
+Hague in Holland. In the emergency occasioned by the probability of the
+Dutch frontier being attacked in 1683, the Prince of Orange exerted all
+his influence to procure an augmentation of the troops of the republic;
+but he had the mortification to experience an obstinate resistance in
+several of the States, especially in that of Holland, headed by the city
+of Amsterdam. His coolness and steadiness, qualities invaluable in a
+statesman, at length prevailed, and he was enabled to carry his measures
+with a high hand.
+
+The accession of James II. to the throne of Great Britain, in 1685, was
+hailed as an opportunity for drawing closer both the personal friendship
+and the political alliance between the stadtholder of the one country
+and the king of the other; but a totally different result took place.
+The headstrong violence of James brought about a coalition of parties to
+resist him; and many of the English nobility and gentry concurred in an
+application to the Prince of Orange for assistance. At this crisis,
+William acted with such circumspection as befitted his calculating
+character. The nation was looking forward to the prince and princess as
+its only resource against tyranny, civil and ecclesiastical. Were the
+presumptive heir to concur in the offensive measures, he must partake
+with the king of the popular hatred. Even the continental alliances,
+which William was setting his whole soul to establish and improve, would
+become objects of suspicion to the English, and Parliament might refuse
+to furnish the necessary funds. Thus by one course he might risk the
+loss of a succession which was awaiting him; by an opposite conduct, he
+might profit by the king's indiscretion, and even forestall the time
+when the throne was to be his in the course of nature. The birth of a
+son and heir, in June, 1688, seemed to turn the scale in favor of James;
+but the affections of his people were not to be recovered; it was even
+asserted that the child was supposititious. This event, therefore,
+confirmed William's previous choice of the side which he was to take;
+and his measures were well and promptly concerted. A declaration was
+dispersed throughout Great Britain, setting forth the grievances of the
+kingdom, and announcing the immediate introduction of an armed force
+from abroad, for the purpose of procuring the convocation of a free
+parliament. In a short time, full four hundred transports were hired;
+the army rapidly fell down the rivers and canals from Nimeguen; the
+artillery, arms, stores, and horses were embarked; and, on October 21,
+1668, the prince set sail from Helvoetsluys, with a fleet of near five
+hundred vessels, and an army of more than fourteen thousand men. He was
+compelled to put back by a storm; but, on a second attempt, he had a
+prosperous voyage, while the king's fleet was wind-bound. He arrived at
+Torbay on November 4th, and disembarked on the 5th, the anniversary of
+the gunpowder treason. The remembrance of Monmouth's ill-fated rebellion
+prevented the western people from joining him; but at length several
+persons of consideration took up the cause, and an association was
+formed for its support. At this last hour James expressed his
+readiness to make concessions; but it was too late, they were looked on
+only as tokens of fear; the confidence of the people in the king's
+sincerity was gone forever. But, how much soever his conduct deserved
+censure, his distresses entitled him to pity. One daughter was the wife
+of his opponent; the other threw herself into the hands of the
+insurgents. In the agony of his heart the father exclaimed, "God help
+me! my own children have forsaken me!" He sent the queen and infant
+prince to France. Public affairs were in the utmost confusion, and
+seemed likely to remain so while he stayed in the island. After many of
+those perplexing adventures and narrow escapes which generally befall
+dethroned royalty, he at length succeeded in embarking for the
+continent.
+
+[Illustration: Council of war after the landing of William of Orange.]
+
+The prince issued circular letters for the election of members to a
+convention, which met January 22, 1689. It appeared at once that the
+House of Commons, agreeably to the prevailing sentiments both of the
+nation and of those in present authority, was chiefly chosen from among
+the Whig party. The throne was declared vacant by the following vote:
+"That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
+constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between
+king and people; and having, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked
+persons, violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out of the
+kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby
+vacant." By the national consent, the vacancy was supplied by his
+daughter Mary and her husband William jointly.
+
+The Prince of Orange lost no time in apprising the States-General of his
+accession to the British throne. He assured them of his persevering
+endeavors to promote the well-being of his native country, which he was
+so far from abandoning, that he intended to retain his high offices in
+it. War with France was renewed early in 1689 by the States, supported
+by the house of Austria and some of the German princes; nor was it
+difficult for William to procure the concurrence of the English
+Parliament, when the object was the humiliation of France and her
+arbitrary sovereign. In the spring of 1689, James landed in Ireland with
+a French force, and was received by the Catholics with marks of strong
+attachment. Marshal Schomberg was sent to oppose him, but was able to
+effect little during the campaign of that year. William, in the
+meantime, had been successful in suppressing a Jacobite insurrection in
+Scotland, and embarked for Ireland with a reinforcement in the summer of
+1690. He immediately marched against James, who was strongly posted on
+the River Boyne. Schomberg passed the river in person, and put himself
+at the head of a corps of French Protestants. Pointing to the enemy, he
+said, "Gentlemen, behold your persecutors!" With these words he advanced
+to the attack, but was killed by a random shot from the French
+regiments. The death of this general was near proving fatal to the
+English army; but William retrieved the fortune of the day, and totally
+dispersed the opposite force. In this engagement the Irish lost 1,500
+men, and the English about one-third of that number.
+
+Disturbances again took place among the Jacobites in the Scotch
+Highlands. A simultaneous insurrection was planned in both kingdoms,
+while a descent from the French coast was to have divided the attention
+of the friends of government; but the defeat of the French fleet near
+Cape La Hogue, in 1692, frustrated this combined attempt, and relieved
+the nation from the dread of civil war. In 1691 the king had placed
+himself at the head of the Grand Alliance against France, of which he
+had been the prime mover; he was, therefore, absent on the continent
+during the dangers to which his new kingdom was exposed. His repeated
+losses in the following campaigns rather impaired than enhanced his
+military renown, though they increased his already high reputation for
+personal courage. The death of Queen Mary, which took place early in
+1695, proved a severe calamity, both to the king and the nation. She had
+been a vigilant guardian of her husband's interests, which were
+constantly exposed to hazard by the conflicts of party and by the
+disadvantages under which he labored as a foreigner. In 1696 a congress
+was opened at Ryswick, to negotiate a general peace; and William did not
+interpose any obstacles. In the following year the treaty was concluded.
+
+The King of Spain's death led to the last event of great importance in
+William's reign. The powers of Europe had arranged plans to prevent the
+accumulation of the Spanish possessions in the houses of Bourbon and
+Austria; but the French king violated all his solemn pledges, by
+accepting the deceased monarch's will in favor of his own grandson, the
+Duke of Anjou. In consequence of this breach of faith, preparations were
+made by England and Holland for a renewal of war with France; but a fall
+from his horse prevented William from further pursuing his military
+career, and the glory of reducing Louis XIV. within the bounds of his
+own kingdom was left to be earned by the generals of Queen Anne. The
+king was nearly recovered from the lameness consequent on his fall, when
+fever supervened; and he died March 8, 1702, in the fifty-second year of
+his age and thirteenth of his reign.
+
+The character of King William has been drawn with all the exaggeration
+of panegyric and obloquy by opposing partisans. His native country owes
+him a lasting debt of gratitude, as the second founder of its liberty
+and independence; and his adopted country is bound to uphold his memory,
+as its champion and deliverer from civil and religious thraldom. In
+short, the attachment of the English nation to constitutional rights and
+liberal government may be measured by its adherence to the principles
+established at the Revolution of 1688 and its just estimate of that
+sovereign and those statesmen who placed the liberties of Great Britain
+on a solid and lasting foundation.
+
+
+
+
+ISAAC NEWTON
+
+By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
+
+(1642-1727)
+
+[Illustration: Isaac Newton. [TN]]
+
+
+As a literary philosopher, Bacon surpasses Newton; as an experimental
+philosopher, Newton surpasses Bacon. Newton's works contain nothing in
+point of style and illustration comparable to Bacon's essays; Bacon's
+works contain nothing in point of scientific discovery and mathematical
+calculation comparable to Newton's "Optics" and "Principia."
+
+Newton has been the great glory of the Royal Society; and the Royal
+Society is justly proud of its most illustrious ornament. He joined it
+in January, 1674, when he was excused the ordinary payment of a shilling
+a week, "on account of his low circumstances as he represented." In 1703
+he was elected to the presidential chair, which he continued to occupy
+until his death, in 1727. Characteristic mementoes of him are preserved
+among the Royal Society's treasures. There is a solar dial made by the
+boy Isaac, when, instead of studying his grammar and learning Virgil and
+Horace, he was busy making windmills and water-clocks. We fancy we see
+him going along the road to Grantham on a market day with the old
+servant whom his mother sent to take care of him, and then stopping by
+the wayside to watch the motions of a water-wheel, reflecting upon the
+mechanical principles involved in the simplest contrivances. It is
+pleasant, with our knowledge of what he afterward became, to sit down on
+the green bank by the river side, and to speculate upon the ignorance of
+the old servant who accompanied him, and of the farmers they saluted by
+the way, as to the illustrious destiny which awaited the widow's son who
+lived in the manor house of Woolsthorpe. The reflecting telescope,
+preserved along with the dial, was made by Newton in his thirtieth year,
+and reminds us of the deep mathematical studies he was then pursuing at
+Cambridge. The autograph MS. of the "Principia," also in the possession
+of the Royal Society, gives increased vividness to the picture of this
+extraordinary person in his study, solving mysterious problems, and
+suggesting others still more mysterious; and then the lock of silvery
+hair adds the last touch to fancy's picture--like a stroke of the pencil
+which, when a portrait is nearly complete, gives life and expression to
+the whole.
+
+Newton was portly but not tall, his silvery locks were abundant without
+any baldness, and his eyes were sparkling and piercing, though perhaps
+they failed to indicate the profound genius which through them looked
+into the secrets of the universe. Wonderful humility blended with his
+intellectual greatness. To other men he seemed a spirit of higher rank,
+having almost superhuman faculties of mental vision, wont to soar into
+regions which the vulture's eye hath never seen; to himself he was but a
+boy playing with the shells on the seashore, while the ocean lay
+undiscovered before him. Others were taken up with what Newton
+accomplished, Newton was taken up with what remained to be done. So it
+is ever with the highest genius; the broader the range of view, the
+wider the horizon of mystery. He who understands more than others is
+conscious beyond others of what still remains to be understood.
+
+Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on December 25,
+1642, one year after the death of Galileo, and just as England was being
+plunged into the confusion and miseries of civil war. Strange to say, as
+a lad, at first he was inattentive to study; but being struck a severe
+blow by a school-fellow, he strangely retaliated by determining to get
+above him in the class, which he accomplished, and ere long became head
+of the school. His play hours were employed in mechanical contrivances,
+and a windmill in the course of erection on the Grantham road was an
+object of intense curiosity and a source of immense instruction. He soon
+had a windmill of his own, at the top of the house in which he lived. He
+had also a water-clock in his bedroom, and a mechanical carriage in the
+parlor, in which he could wheel himself. Paper kites and paper lanterns
+were his favorite toys. In the yard of the house he traced on a wall the
+movements of the sun by means of fixed pins; the contrivance received
+the name of "Isaac's dial," and was a standard of time to the country
+people in the neighborhood.
+
+[Illustration: Newton analysing the ray of light.]
+
+He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, June 5, 1660, just as England was
+astir with restoration festivities, and he soon devoted himself to
+mathematical studies. Euclid he took in at a glance, and afterward
+proceeded to master Descartes's geometry. Isaac Barrow, then Lucasian
+Professor of Mathematics, became his friend and tutor; and the pupil
+repaid the master's kind attention by services rendered to him in
+connection with his optical lectures. In 1669, Newton succeeded Barrow
+in his professorship. He rose to eminence in the university, and in 1688
+was chosen its representative in the Convention parliament. In 1695 he
+was appointed Warden of the Mint, and was promoted to the Mastership in
+1699. After his appointment to a government office he left Cambridge to
+reside in London, and occupied for a time a house in Jermyn Street. From
+1710 till two years before his death he lived close to Leicester Square.
+Next door to Orange Street Chapel there stands an old house which has
+seen a good many changes, and is identified as the abode of Sir Isaac,
+who had been knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. We visited it many years
+ago. The part of the house most intimately associated with his name is
+the little observatory perched on the roof. We were permitted to ascend
+into that spot, to see it desecrated by its present use, for there we
+found a shoemaker busy at his toil. A glass cupola probably crowned
+the observatory in Newton's time, and evidently there was a window in
+each of the four walls. So here he looked out on the London of nearly a
+century and a half ago, hardly less crowded and smoky about the
+neighborhood than now. Overhead, where Newton turned his eyes with most
+interest, we know it was just the same; the same beautiful stars shining
+out on a cold winter's night, the same planets sailing along the same
+blue ocean, the same moon throwing its light over the same old city.
+What observations, keen and searching, what calculations, intricate and
+profound, what speculations, far-reaching and sublime, must there have
+been, when one of the most gifted of mortals from that spot looked out
+upon the heavens, and in thought went forth on voyages of discovery into
+the distant regions of the universe! At the calm, still hour of
+midnight, Sirius watching over the city of sleepers, Jupiter carrying
+his brilliant lamp along his ancient pathway, every one of the
+luminaries in the place appointed by Him who calleth them all by their
+names--there stood the thoughtful man, with his reflecting telescope,
+occupied with thoughts which we common mortals in vain endeavor to
+conjecture.
+
+The first department in the field which Newton explored with
+characteristic success was the study of optics. Philosophers were busy
+with inquiries into the nature of light. It had been long believed that
+every colored ray is equally refracted when passing through a lens.
+Newton determined to analyze the prismatic hues. He made a hole in a
+window-shutter, and darkening the room, let in a portion of light, which
+he passed through a prism. The _white_ sunbeam formed a circular image
+on the opposite wall, but the _prismatic colors_ formed an image five
+times as long as it was broad. He was curious to know how this came to
+pass. Satisfied that the length of the image in the latter case did not
+arise from any irregularity in his glass, or from any differences in the
+incidence of light from different parts of the sun's disk, or from any
+curvature in the direction of the rays, he concluded, after thorough
+reflection, that light is not _homogeneous_, but that it consists of
+rays of diverse refrangibility. The red hue he saw was less refracted
+than the orange, the orange less refracted than the yellow, and the
+violet more than any of the rest. These important conclusions he applied
+in the construction of the first reflecting telescope ever used in the
+survey of the heavens, and an instrument is preserved in Trinity College
+Library bearing the inscription, "Invented by Sir Isaac Newton, and made
+with his own hands, 1671."
+
+At the request of the Royal Society, he published in the "Transactions"
+an account of his optical discoveries, and proved that white light is a
+compound of seven prismatic colors.
+
+Everybody is familiar with the story of Newton's watching the apple fall
+from the tree. The tradition is fondly cherished on the spot where the
+philosopher is said to have been struck by the fact. The _law_ by which
+the apple falls, not the _reason_ which underlies the law, formed the
+subject of Newton's reflections, and led to the grandest of modern
+discoveries. The unknown cause of the apple's descent is the unknown
+cause of the planet's motion. That was the truth, simple and grand,
+which he brought to light and inculcated on the world. He undertook long
+calculations which he expected would prove this theory, but they failed
+to give the desired result. He consequently for a time desisted from the
+inquiry and turned his attention to other subjects. The error in
+Newton's first calculation arose from his taking the radius of the earth
+according to the received notion that a degree measured sixty miles,
+whereas Picard had determined it to be sixty-nine and a half miles. This
+was mentioned at a meeting of the Royal Society in 1682, at which Newton
+was present. "It immediately struck him that the value of the earth's
+radius was the erroneous element in his first calculation. With a
+feverish interest in this result, little imagined by those present, he
+hurried home, resumed his calculation with the new value, and having
+proceeded some way in it, was so overpowered by nervous agitation at its
+anticipated result, that he was unable to go on, and requested a friend
+to finish it for him, when it came out, _exactly establishing the
+inverse square_ as the true measure of the moon's gravitation, and thus
+furnishing the key to the whole system." Hence proceeded Newton's
+immortal work, the "Principia."
+
+The sublimest conclusion which Newton drew from his cautious and
+successful investigations of the laws of nature is put, with his
+characteristic humility, in the form of a query: "These things being
+rightly described, does it not appear from the phenomena that there is a
+Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who, in infinite
+space (as it were in His sensory), sees the things themselves
+intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly
+by their immediate presence to Himself?"
+
+Newton spent his last days in Kensington. "I was, Sunday night," says
+his nephew, "March 7, 1725, at Kensington, with Sir Isaac Newton in his
+lodgings, just after he was come out of a fit of the gout, which he had
+in both of his feet for the first time, in the eighty-third year of his
+age. He was better after it, and had his health clearer and memory
+stronger than I had known them for some years." A year later the same
+diarist says: "April 15, 1726. I passed the whole day with Sir Isaac
+Newton, at his lodgings, Orbell's Buildings, Kensington, which was the
+last time I saw him." The house was lately in existence, situated in
+what is called Bullingham Place, retaining, when we visited it, a
+mansion-like aspect, with a large garden and tall trees. There he died,
+March 20, 1727, having on the previous day been able to read the
+newspaper and to hold a long conversation with Dr. Mead.
+
+His body was laid in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and then buried in
+Westminster Abbey.
+
+
+
+
+PETER THE GREAT
+
+(1672-1725)
+
+[Illustration: Peter the Great. [TN]]
+
+
+At the close of the sixteenth century, the dominions of Russia, or
+Muscovy, as it was then more generally called, were far thrown back from
+the more civilized nations of southern Europe, by the intervention of
+Lithuania, Livonia, and other provinces now incorporated in the Russian
+empire, but then belonging either to Sweden or Poland. The Czar of
+Muscovy, therefore, possessed no political weight in the affairs of
+Europe, and little intercourse existed between the court of Moscow and
+the more polished potentates whom it affected to despise as barbarians,
+even for some time after the accession of the reigning dynasty, the
+house of Romanoff, in 1613, and the establishment of a more regular
+government than had previously been known. We only read occasionally of
+embassies being sent to Moscow, in general for the purpose of arranging
+commercial relations. From this state of insignificance, Peter, the
+first Emperor of Russia, raised his country, by introducing into it the
+arts of peace, by establishing a well-organized and disciplined army in
+the place of a lawless body of tumultuous mutineers, by creating a navy,
+where scarce a merchant vessel existed before, and, as the natural
+result of these changes, by important conquests on both the Asiatic and
+European frontiers of his hereditary dominions. For these services his
+countrymen bestowed on him, yet living, the title of Great; and it is
+well deserved, whether we look to the magnitude of those services, the
+difficulty of carrying into effect his benevolent designs, which
+included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp
+of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to conceive
+such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will
+not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners were coarse and
+boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished
+taste; if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be
+the reformer of others was unable to control the violence of his own
+passions.
+
+The Czar Alexis, Peter's father, was actuated by somewhat of the spirit
+which so distinguished the son. He endeavored to introduce the European
+discipline into his armies; he had it much at heart to turn the
+attention of the Russians to maritime pursuits; and he added the fine
+provinces of Plescow and Smolensko to his paternal dominions. At the
+death of Alexis, in 1677, Peter was but five years old. His eldest
+brother Theodore succeeded to the throne. Theodore died after a reign of
+five years, and named Peter his successor, passing over the second
+brother, Ivan, who was weak-minded. Their ambitious sister, Sophia,
+stirred the strelitzi, or native militia, to revolt in favor of Ivan,
+and Peter and his mother had to take refuge in the Troitski convent.
+This retreat being discovered, they were driven for protection to the
+church altar itself, where the religion or superstition of the wild
+soldiery saved the intended victims. We pass in silence over the
+remaining intrigues and insurrections which troubled the young czar's
+minority. It was not until the close of the year 1689, in the eighteenth
+year of his age, that he finally shook off the trammels of his ambitious
+sister, and assumed in reality, as well as in name, the direction of the
+state. How he had been qualified for this task by education does not
+clearly appear; but even setting aside the stories which attribute to
+his sister the detestable design of leading him into all sorts of
+excess, and especially drunkenness, with the hope of ruining both his
+constitution and intellect, it is probable that no pains whatever had
+been taken to form his intellect or manners for the station which he was
+to occupy. One of the few anecdotes told of his early life is, that
+being struck by the appearance of a boat on the river Yausa, which runs
+through Moscow, and noticing it to be of different construction from the
+flat-bottomed vessels commonly in use, he was led to inquire into the
+method of navigating it. It had been built for the Czar Alexis by a
+Dutchman, who was still in Moscow. He was immediately sent for; he
+rigged and repaired the boat, and under his guidance the young prince
+learned how to sail her, and soon grew passionately fond of his new
+amusement. He had five small vessels built at Plescow, on the lake
+Peipus; and not satisfied with this fresh-water navigation, hired a ship
+at Archangel, in which he made a voyage to the coast of Lapland. In
+these expeditions his love of sailing was nourished into a passion which
+lasted through life. He prided himself upon his practical skill as a
+seaman; and both at this time and afterward exposed himself and his
+friends to no small hazard by his rashness in following this favorite
+pursuit.
+
+[Illustration: The life of Peter the Great saved at the foot of the
+altar.]
+
+The first serious object of Peter's attention was to reform the army. In
+this he was materially assisted by a Swiss gentleman named Lefort; at
+whose suggestion he raised a company of fifty men, who were clothed and
+disciplined in the European manner, the Russian army at that time being
+little better than a tribe of Tartars. As soon as the little corps was
+formed, Peter caused himself to be enrolled in it as a private soldier.
+It is a remarkable trait in the character of the man, that he thought no
+condescension degrading which forwarded any of his ends. In the army he
+entered himself in the lowest rank, and performed successively the
+duties of every other; in the navy he went still further, for he
+insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest cabin-boy, rising
+step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an able seaman. Nor was
+this done merely for the sake of singularity; he had resolved that
+every officer of the sea or land service should enter in the lowest rank
+of his profession, that he might obtain a practical knowledge of every
+task or manoeuvre which it was his duty to see properly executed; and he
+felt that his nobility might scarcely be brought to submit to what in
+their eyes would be a degradation, except by the personal example of the
+czar himself. Meanwhile he had not been negligent of the other arm of
+war; for a number of Dutch and Venetian workmen were employed in
+building gunboats and small ships of war at Voronitz, on the river Don,
+intended to secure the command of the Sea of Azof, and to assist in
+capturing the strong town of Azof, then held by the Turks. The
+possession of this place was of great importance, from its situation at
+the mouth of the Don, commanding access to the Mediterranean Sea. His
+first military attempts were accordingly directed against it, and he
+succeeded in taking it in 1696.
+
+In the spring of the ensuing year, the empire being tranquil and the
+young czar's authority apparently established on a safe footing, he
+determined to travel into foreign countries, to view with his own eyes,
+and become personally and practically familiar with the arts and
+institutions of refined nations. There was a grotesqueness in his manner
+of executing this design, which has tended, more probably than even its
+real merit, to make it one of the common-places of history. Every child
+knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of Saardam in
+Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have been
+affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in the
+earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers of the
+dock-yard, and in all points of outward manners and appearance, put
+himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily
+bread. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter's mind always
+to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here, perhaps, pushed
+beyond reasonable bounds. And his abode and occupations in Holland
+formed only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he sent sixty
+young Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building and
+navigation, and especially the construction and management of galleys
+moved by oars, which were so much used by the Venetian republic. Others
+he sent into Holland, with similar instructions; others into Germany, to
+study the art of war, and make themselves well acquainted with the
+discipline and tactics of the German troops. So that while his personal
+labor at Saardam may have been stimulated in part by affectation of
+singularity, in part, perhaps, by a love of bodily exertion common in
+men of his busy and ardent temper, it would be unjust not to give him
+credit for higher motives; such as the desire to become thoroughly
+acquainted with the art of ship-building, which he thought so important,
+and to set a good example of diligence to those whom he had sent out on
+a similar voyage of education.
+
+Peter remained nine months in Holland, the greatest part of which he
+spent in the dock-yard of Saardam. He displayed unwearied zeal in
+seeking out and endeavoring to comprehend everything of interest in
+science and art, especially in visiting manufactories. In January, 1698,
+he sailed for London in an English man-of-war, sent out expressly to
+bring him over. His chief object was to perfect himself in the higher
+branches of ship-building. With this view he occupied Mr. Evelyn's
+house, adjoining the dock-yard of Deptford; and there remain in that
+gentleman's journal some curious notices of the manners of the czar and
+his household, which were of the least refined description. During his
+stay he showed the same earnestness in inquiring into all things
+connected with the maritime and commercial greatness of the country, as
+before in Holland; and he took away nearly five hundred persons in his
+suite, consisting of naval captains, pilots, gunners, surgeons, and
+workmen in various trades, especially those connected with the naval
+service. In England, without assuming his rank, he ceased to wear the
+attire and adopt the habits of a common workman; and he had frequent
+intercourse with William III., who is said to have conceived a strong
+liking for him, notwithstanding the uncouthness of his manners. Kneller
+painted a portrait of him for the king, which is said to have been a
+good likeness.
+
+He left London in April, 1698, and proceeded to Vienna, principally to
+inspect the Austrian troops, then esteemed among the best in Europe. He
+had intended to visit Italy; but his return was hastened by the tidings
+of a dangerous insurrection having broken out, which, though suppressed,
+seemed to render a longer absence from the seat of government
+inexpedient. The insurgents were chiefly composed of the Russian
+soldiery, abetted by a large party who thought everything Russian good,
+and hated and dreaded the czar's innovating temper. Of those who had
+taken up arms, many were slain in battle; the rest, with many persons of
+more rank and consequence, suspected of being implicated in the revolt,
+were retained in prison until the czar himself should decide their fate.
+Numerous stories of his extravagant cruelties on this occasion have been
+told, which may safely be passed over as unworthy of credit. It is
+certain, however, that considerable severity was shown. This
+insurrection led to the complete remodelling of the Russian army, on the
+same plan which had already been partially adopted.
+
+During the year 1699 the czar was chiefly occupied by civil reforms.
+According to his own account, as published in his journal, he regulated
+the press, caused translations to be published of various treatises on
+military and mechanical science and history; he founded a school for the
+navy; others for the study of the Latin, German, and other languages; he
+encouraged his subjects to cultivate foreign trade, which before they
+had absolutely been forbidden to do under pain of death; he altered the
+Russian calendar, in which the year began on September 1st, to agree in
+that point with the practice of other nations; he broke through the
+Oriental custom of not suffering women to mix in general society; and he
+paid sedulous attention to the improvement of his navy on the river Don.
+We have the testimony of Mr. Deane, an English ship-builder, that the
+czar had turned his manual labors to good account, who states in a
+letter to England, that "the czar has set up a ship of sixty guns, where
+he is both foreman and masterbuilder; and, not to flatter him, I'll
+assure your lordship it will be the best ship among them, and it is all
+from his own draught: how he framed her together, and how he made the
+moulds, and in so short a time as he did, is really wonderful."
+
+He introduced an improved breed of sheep from Saxony and Silesia;
+despatched engineers to survey the different provinces of his extensive
+empire; sent persons skilled in metallurgy to the various districts in
+which mines were to be found; established manufactories of arms, tools,
+stuffs; and encouraged foreigners skilled in the useful arts to settle
+in Russia, and enrich it by the produce of their industry.
+
+We cannot trace the progress of that protracted contest between Sweden
+and Russia, in which the short-lived greatness of Sweden was broken: we
+can only state the causes of the war and the important results to which
+it led. Peter's principal motive for engaging in it was his leading wish
+to make Russia a maritime and commercial nation. To this end it was
+necessary that she should be possessed of ports, of which, however, she
+had none but Archangel and Azof, both most inconveniently situated, as
+well in respect of the Russian empire itself, as of the chief commercial
+nations of Europe. On the waters of the Baltic Russia did not possess a
+foot of coast. Both sides of the Baltic, both sides of the Gulf of
+Finland, the country between the head of that gulf and the Lake Ladoga,
+including both sides of the River Neva, and the western side of Lake
+Ladoga itself, and the northern end of Lake Peipus, belonged to Sweden.
+In the year 1700, Charles XII. being but eighteen years of age, Denmark,
+Poland, and Russia, which had all of them suffered from the ambition of
+Sweden, formed a league to repair their losses, presuming on the
+weakness usually inherent in a minority. The object of Russia was the
+restoration of the provinces of Ingria, Carelia, and Wiborg, the country
+round the head of the Gulf of Finland, which formerly had belonged to
+her; that of Poland, was the recovery of Livonia and Esthonia, the
+greater part of which had been ceded by her to Charles XI. of Sweden.
+Denmark was to obtain Holstein and Sleswick. But Denmark and Poland very
+soon withdrew, and left Russia to encounter Sweden single-handed. To
+this she was entirely unequal; her army, the bulk of it undisciplined,
+and even the disciplined part unpractised in the field, was no match for
+the veteran troops of Sweden, the terror of Germany. In the battle of
+Narva, a town on the river which runs out of the Peipus Lake, fought
+November 30, 1700, 9,000 Swedes defeated signally near forty thousand
+Russians, strongly intrenched and with a numerous artillery. Had Charles
+prosecuted his success with vigor, he might probably have delayed for
+many years the rise of Russia; but whether from contempt or mistake he
+devoted his whole attention to the war in Poland, and left the czar at
+liberty to recruit and discipline his army, and improve the resources of
+his kingdom. In these labors he was most diligent. His troops, practised
+in frequent skirmishes with the Swedes quartered in Ingria and Livonia,
+rapidly improved, and on the celebrated field of Pultowa broke forever
+the power of Charles XII. This decisive action did not take place until
+July 8, 1709. The interval was occupied by a series of small, but
+important additions to the Russian territory. In 1701-2, great part of
+Livonia and Ingria were subdued, including the banks of the Neva, where
+on May 27, 1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. It was not till
+1710 that the conquest of Courland, with the remainder of Livonia,
+including the important harbors of Riga and Revel, gave to Russia that
+free navigation of the Baltic Sea which Peter had longed for as the
+greatest benefit which he could confer upon his country.
+
+After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued
+for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on
+spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but
+hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning by the battle of
+the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not
+mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times
+that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catherine, first the
+mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner
+and successor of Peter on the throne of Russia. By her coolness and
+prudence, while the czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and
+self-reproach, was laboring under nervous convulsions, to which he was
+liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the vizier in
+command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed
+life, liberty, and honor, but were obliged to resign Azof, to give up
+the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that
+name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been very
+bitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of
+government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to
+breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by
+prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland.
+Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and of
+the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to Russia by
+the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion the senate or state
+assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title of Emperor of all
+the Russias, with the adjunct of Great, and Father of his Country.
+
+If our sketch of the latter years of Peter's life appears meagre and
+unsatisfactory, it is to be recollected that the history of that life is
+the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense within
+our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all that we are
+competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the exertions of
+Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to consolidate and improve
+the internal condition of the empire, by watching over the changes which
+he had already made, than to effect farther conquests, or new
+revolutions in policy or manners. He died February 8, 1725, leaving no
+surviving male issue. Some time before he had caused the Empress
+Catherine to be solemnly crowned and associated with him on the throne,
+and to her he left the charge of fostering those schemes of civilization
+which he had originated.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA THERESA[1]
+
+By ANNA C. BRACKETT
+
+(1717-1780)
+
+         [Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Maria Theresa. [TN]]
+
+
+Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, was born May 13, 1717, daughter
+of Charles VI. of the house of Hapsburg--ruling Austria for more than
+four hundred years--and of Elizabeth of Brunswick. From her father she
+inherited the "deadly Hapsburg tenacity," and from her mother much good
+sense and capacity for managing affairs, all of which stood her in good
+stead. She was especially fortunate in three things: that she lived in
+the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia, for thus she had given to
+her a chance to know of what stuff she was made; that she did not marry
+him, as was proposed by the great Eugene; and that she did not live to
+see the beautiful head of her daughter, Marie Antoinette, fall under the
+guillotine. Though the court of Charles VI. rivalled in ceremonial
+observance that of Spain, the little archduchess was reared in almost
+Spartan simplicity of dress and food. From Jesuit text-books she learned
+her history and geography, and she spoke several languages, none of
+which, however, could she ever write or spell quite correctly. But
+chiefly she was taught the pre-eminent dignity and power of the
+Hapsburgs, and the necessary indivisibility of the Austrian state. She
+learned to hunt, to shoot, and to dance, and at suppers of state she and
+her little sister were sometimes allowed to present to their stately
+mother her gloves and fan when the emperor rose. She had an aversion to
+business and great diffidence of her own capacity, and though the
+emperor took her to the council of state at the time of the Polish
+election, when she was only sixteen, he yet failed to give her any real
+knowledge of the commonest forms of business. In this austere court,
+never seeing a smile on her father's face, she grew up, "the prettiest
+little maiden in the world," to a radiant woman, heir-expectant to the
+throne by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, an order of state by means
+of which the Emperor Charles VI. had undertaken to settle the Austrian
+succession.
+
+At nineteen she was "beautiful to soul and eye," tall and slight, with
+brilliant complexion, sparkling gray eyes, and a profusion of golden
+wavy hair. She had an aquiline nose,--strange to say for a Hapsburg, an
+exceedingly lovely mouth,--and very beautiful hands and arms. Her voice
+was sharp but musical, and her quick speech and animated gestures
+betrayed an ardent and impetuous nature, though she never lost her high
+and dignified bearing. Her anger was easily roused, but never lasted
+long, especially when a fault had been committed against herself, and
+when she knew that she had been too angry she tried to atone by
+overflowing kindness. She needed only to be convinced that a thing was
+wrong, to give it up. Whatever she did she did with her whole heart, and
+gratitude was one of her strongest characteristics. Withal she kept a
+constant and steadfast soul, and her nature was delicate and refined;
+she was a worthy sister of Isabella of Castile. At nineteen, largely
+through her own persistence, she escaped being made a sacrifice to the
+political needs of Austria in being given to the heir of Philip V. of
+Spain, and married the man of her choice, Francis Stephen, the grandson
+of that Duke of Lorraine who, in 1683, together with John Sobieski, King
+of Poland, had saved Vienna from the Turks. Her husband was of comely
+person and suave manners, kind-hearted, though not strong nor brilliant.
+To him she bore five sons and eleven daughters. She was looking forward
+to the birth of her eldest son, when, at the age of twenty-three,
+October 20, 1740, she was proclaimed by the heralds Sovereign
+Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, for her father lay
+dead in Vienna, and all the cares and anxieties of government had fallen
+upon her shoulders. Austria was not one nation, but composed of many
+differing and scattered peoples jealous of their ancient rights, among
+whom there could be no sense of unity, and in his many disastrous wars
+her father had lost several of its possessions. There was the depression
+of defeat and mismanagement among the state-counsellors, there were only
+$65,000 in the treasury, and an army of but 68,000 soldiers. The powers
+that had given in their adhesion to the Pragmatic Sanction were tardily
+and but half acknowledging her succession, and from France she could get
+nothing but dissimulation and uncertainty. On November 1st the young
+royal wife was joyfully and peacefully creating her husband Grand Master
+of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and co-regent, and conferring upon
+him the Bohemian electoral vote. In less than six weeks from that day
+the Elector of Bavaria had laid formal claim to her throne, Frederick of
+Prussia had marched his troops into Silesia, one of her finest
+provinces, calling it his own, and the war of the Austrian Succession
+was on for seven long years; for the high, heroic heart would not yield
+one inch, and the sovereign ruler of Austria had met with fine Hapsburg
+scorn the insulting proposition of the King of Prussia that he would
+gladly support her right to the throne of her ancestors, provided she
+would resign to his obliging majesty the whole of Silesia.
+
+The aged counsellors who took it upon themselves to dictate to the young
+and inexperienced ruler soon found out their mistake. The little girl
+who had displayed an aversion for business was now a woman with talent
+for its details, only eager for instruction in order to make up her own
+mind. The army must be increased and improved, and the people aroused to
+enthusiasm, if Frederick was to be checked. And it was not Frederick
+alone that was to be feared, for a great coalition of European powers
+was formed against her, and she had but England and Saxony to depend on
+for help, while the enemy was already within her dominions. March 13,
+1741, her son Joseph was born, and by September 11th the young mother
+was in Hungary to urge its people to come to the aid of the threatened
+country in its extremity. In deep mourning and still pale and delicate,
+holding the little archduke in her arms, her appeal to the Hungarian
+nobles roused them to lofty enthusiasm and gained their unswerving
+devotion. She never forgot this, and when she lay dying, spoke of them
+with grateful affection. The war went on with varying fortunes, but she
+kept heart and hope, though by the end of 1741 the powers were plotting
+the partition of Austria as a probable event. By 1743 the luck had
+changed; the Austrian army had redeemed itself, and Maria Theresa was
+fancying that she should be able to conquer Prussia. It was about this
+time that she began greatly to rely on Kaunitz, who afterward became
+Prime Minister, and who shaped for all the after-years of her reign the
+policy of her rule. The old ministers left her by her father were not
+able to meet the new difficulties, and the sovereign was often in great
+anxiety amid conflicting and hesitating counsels, for it was nothing
+less than the very existence of the country that was at stake. She was
+thirty-one years old when the war came to an end by the peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle, the particulars of which were entrusted to Kaunitz
+while he was ambassador at London. By that treaty Maria Theresa gained
+the final guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, though she had to cede
+two of her Italian duchies to the Spanish Bourbons, and Glatz and the
+much-desired Silesia to the "bad neighbor," as she always called
+Frederick. She was twenty-eight when she had the pleasure of seeing her
+husband elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, gaining as his wife
+the title of empress, and being thus often spoken of as the
+empress-queen.
+
+The war was over, but she knew full well that it was only for a short
+time, and she spent the eight years of restless peace that followed, in
+the most unremitting efforts to enable her country to endure the next
+attack. She had proved that she could create heroes out of common men;
+she was now to extort praise even from Frederick of Prussia for
+"accomplishing designs worthy of a great man." A military academy was
+created at Vienna; order and economy were brought into the treasury and
+the army; she established camps of instruction and went herself to visit
+them, recompensing brave officers, calling forth abilities and
+emulation. The Department of Justice was disjoined from that of the
+Police, a superior court was established, and the direction of the
+finances given to a special council, reporting every week to the
+empress. She often consulted men who were not in office upon matters of
+policy, and thus got many valuable suggestions. Meantime Kaunitz was
+ambassador at Paris, and had been bending all his efforts to secure a
+French alliance, which seemed to him of so much importance that he even
+induced his royal mistress to write to the Pompadour with a view to
+securing the influence of Louis XV. in the impending war. This was not
+the only time that Maria Theresa sacrificed the woman in her to the
+ruler, for though above all breath of scandal, and devotedly attached to
+husband and children, she never forgot that she was Austria, and must
+maintain her inheritance. Then came on the Seven Years' War, in which
+she had as allies almost all Europe, though at its close she had to give
+up the last hope of ever regaining Silesia, which was as dear to her as
+Calais to Mary of England, Frederick agreeing to vote for Joseph as
+successor to his father as emperor. It was in this war, after the
+victory of Kolin, that she founded the military order of Maria Theresa,
+the beautiful cross of which is still the highest and most coveted
+Austrian decoration. At the end of the war she was forty-six years old,
+and it was only two years after, August 18, 1765, that she herself made
+the shroud for her husband, and put on the mourning which was to last
+for fifteen years. Ever after that she spent in seclusion the whole
+month of August and the 18th of every other month, thus breaking the
+routine of her busy days. I give in brief the account of one of these:
+Rising at five or six, according to the season, prayer, dressing,
+hearing mass, breakfast, work till nine on petitions and reports, a
+second mass, a visit to her children, more work till dinner at one, and
+again work. This she was apt to do in a sentinel-guarded arbor to which
+she would go from the palace, carrying despatches and papers in a tray
+slung by a cord round her neck. Vespers at six, an evening card-party,
+supper, a walk at eight, and then sleep. After the death of Francis she
+made her son Joseph joint-ruler, but soon found herself obliged to limit
+his authority to the care of the army. At fifty the small-pox greatly
+marred her beauty, though she was now at the age when the constant
+beauty of soul of her life shone fair on the lofty face. When she was
+fifty-three she bade good-by to the little fifteen-years-old Marie
+Antoinette, going, as she hoped, to assure the alliance of France, never
+to see her again. To her for the rest of Maria Theresa's life, as to the
+other married daughters, went a courier every three weeks with letters,
+which have been preserved, and may still be read for knowledge of the
+mother and empress. At fifty-five Maria Theresa became a party to the
+partition of Poland, and because this transaction is regarded as a blot
+upon her character, I give in full the words which she sent to Kaunitz
+when she returned to him the signed agreement. She was then fifty-five
+years old, and keen memories of 1741 and of her young life must have
+stirred the trembling pen as she wrote on it: "_Placet_, because so many
+great and learned men wish it; but when I have been long dead, people
+will see what must come from the violation of everything that until now
+has been deemed holy and right." And then on a slip of paper sent with
+the document stood these words: "When all my countries were attacked,
+and I no longer knew where I might go quietly to lie in, I stood stiff
+on my good right and the help of God. But in this affair, when not only
+clear justice cries to Heaven against us, but also all fairness and
+common-sense condemn us, I must confess that all the days of my life I
+have never felt so troubled, and I am ashamed to show myself before the
+people. Let the prince consider what an example we give to the world,
+when, for a miserable slice of Poland or of Moldavia and Wallachia, we
+risk the loss of our honor and reputation. I feel that I am alone, and
+no longer in health and strength; and therefore, although not without my
+greatest sorrow I allow matters to take their own course."
+
+The heaviest burdens and greatest trials of her life were now over. The
+fruit of her careful plans was beginning to be reaped in prosperity, and
+a long period of tranquillity had come. She turned all her attention to
+reforms: academies were established, among others one for the education
+of the Magyar noble youth in Vienna, that these might become the more
+surely incorporated with the Austrian system. The public schools were
+reconstituted, the monasteries reformed, and no longer allowed to
+furnish asylums for criminals. Priests were forbidden to be present at
+the making of wills, and the Inquisition was suppressed. Through most
+convincing efforts on the part of Kaunitz, the Jesuits had been finally
+expelled from the country. Agriculture, trade, and commerce were
+encouraged, though by the advice of England the navy was given up.
+Inoculation for the small-pox was introduced, and a hospital for its
+treatment, as well as a home for veteran soldiers, built in Vienna. When
+she was sixty, the war of the Bavarian Succession was happily ended, in
+opposition to the will of Joseph, by her most untiring efforts.
+Servitude and the torture had been abolished; the taxes, on a better
+basis, were bringing in large returns; a standing army had been created,
+the monarchy lifted and strengthened, and the court and the people stood
+together against oppression from the aristocracy. Austria had been
+carried from the Middle Ages into modern times, and was no longer a
+conglomeration but a nation.
+
+Maria Theresa had reached the age of sixty-three when the brave
+religious spirit, over which flattery had had no power, was waiting in
+pain and anguish but not in fear the hour of its release. The generous
+and open hand could no longer give; the heart so keenly sensitive to
+criticism was to dread it no more; the eyes that, as she had written to
+Marie Antoinette, had shed so many relieving tears were nevermore to
+need that relief. "You are all so timid," she said, "I am not afraid of
+death. I only pray to God to give me strength to the end." She did not
+forget Poland, she gratefully remembered Hungary, and then, with the
+cry, "To Thee! I am coming!" she sank back dead, in the arms of the son
+whom, as a little baby, she had held up in her brave arms to plead for
+the loyalty of the Hungarian nobles. The high imperial heart had ceased
+to beat, the house of Hapsburg had come to an end, and Joseph II., of
+the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, was the sovereign ruler of Austria.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+EDMUND BURKE[2]
+
+By DR. HEINRICH GEFFCKEN
+
+(1730-1797)
+
+         [Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Edmund Burke. [TN]]
+
+
+Edmund Burke, the great British politician, and one of the greatest
+political philosophers that ever lived, was born at Dublin, January 1,
+1730, as son of a petty attorney. Conformably to the wishes of his
+father, he began to study law in London, but found it so little
+attractive that, encouraged by eminent men, particularly by Johnson, he
+turned to literary pursuits. His first work, "Vindication of Natural
+Society" (1756), which at once won him fame, is a keen satire on
+Bolingbroke, showing that the attacks of that writer upon revealed
+religion might as well be turned against all social and political
+institutions. His reputation was still enhanced by the "Philosophical
+Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful"
+(1757); and at the same time he showed, by publishing "Dodd's Annual
+Register," that he was equally gifted for politics. As a preliminary for
+practical activity in that domain, he became private secretary of Gerard
+Hamilton, the lieutenant-general's assistant for Ireland, but soon found
+that his chief's smart mediocrity only wanted to turn to advantage the
+secretary's scantily rewarded talent. He returned to London (1764), and
+at once entered upon the political career in which he was to play so
+eminent a part.
+
+The Grenville ministry was dismissed and replaced by an administration
+of rather heterogeneous elements, under Lord Rockingham, not a great
+statesman, but combining unblemished character and solid gifts with rank
+and wealth. Burke became his private secretary and influential adviser,
+being at the same time elected a member for Wendover. Matters then were
+in a very critical state: while discontent was fast rising in America
+and commerce trembling for its colonial trade, two parties were fiercely
+opposed in Parliament. Pitt deemed it treason against the Constitution
+and to the colonies to tax America without its consent. Grenville
+declared it treason to crown and legislature to abandon that right.
+Burke, though in principle more inclining to Pitt, advised a middle
+course by redressing the grievances of the colonies, while maintaining
+the dignity of the crown. The government proposed (January, 1766) to
+repeal Grenville's Stamp Act, but to guard the constitutional rights of
+the mother-country by a "Declaratory Act." In the debate on these bills
+Burke made his maiden speech, which called forth universal admiration; a
+friend wrote to him, "You have made us hear a new eloquence." The bills
+passed, but the ministry, mined by both parties, soon afterward was
+obliged to resign. Burke summed up its activity in an excellent
+pamphlet, "A Short Account of a Late Short Administration," and now
+entered into opposition against Lord Chatham's ministry, which he called
+"a tessellated pavement without cement." On the other hand, he
+victoriously refuted the attacks of the Grenvilles against Rockingham,
+in his "Observations on the Present State of the Nation," exhibiting the
+emptiness of his opponents' declamations on the declining wealth of the
+country, and proving that its resources were fast increasing.
+
+Burke rises still higher in the "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present
+Discontents" (1770), a powerful plea for the British Constitution in its
+development from 1688, and exhibiting the full maturity of his talent.
+He denies that the prevailing discontents are due to some factious
+libellers exciting the people, who have no interest in disorder, but are
+only roused by the impatience of suffering. The discontents were real,
+and their cause was a perversion of the true principles on which the
+Constitution rested. As hitherto, business had gone alternately through
+the hands of Whigs and Tories, the opposition controlling the
+government; but now a court faction had sprung up called "the king's
+friends," a double cabinet, acting as irresponsible wire-pullers behind
+the scenes. These men deriving, like Janissaries, a kind of freedom from
+the very condition of their servitude, were sitting in secondary, but
+efficient, departments of office and in the household of the royal
+family, so as to occupy the avenues to the throne and to forward or
+frustrate the execution of any measure according to their own interests;
+they endeavored to separate the crown from the administration, and to
+divide the latter within itself. To this cabal it was owing that British
+policy was brought into derision in those foreign countries which, a
+while ago, trembled at the power of England's arms. Above all, they
+tried to pervert the principles of Parliament by raising divisions among
+the people, by influencing the elections, by separating representatives
+from their constituents, and by undermining the control of the
+legislature over the executive. They maintained that all political
+connections were in their nature factious; but free commonwealths were
+ever made by parties, _i.e._, bodies of men united for promoting by
+their joint endeavors the national interest upon great leading
+principles in which they were agreed; government by parties was the very
+soul of representative institutions; it had raised England to her
+present power and protected the liberty of the people; while the cant,
+"measures not men," had always been the pretext for getting loose from
+every honorable engagement.
+
+Burke finds the remedy in restoring the Constitution to its original
+principles; all patriots must form a firm combination against the cabal;
+a just connection between representatives and constituents must be
+re-established; Parliament ought not to meddle with the privileges of
+the executive, but exercise real control upon the acting powers of the
+state, and if necessary, not be afraid to resort to impeachment, "that
+great guardian of the purity of the Constitution;" finally, if all means
+fail, there must be an interposition of the body of the people
+itself--"an unpleasant remedy but legal, when it is evident that nothing
+else can hold the Constitution to its true principles."
+
+He at the same time displayed a prominent activity in Parliament, where
+soon all internal questions gave way to the great contest with America.
+In 1771 he had accepted the place of an agent for New York, had become
+intimately acquainted with Franklin, and won a deep insight into
+American affairs. Of the six duties imposed by Townshend's Revenue Act
+(1767) five had been repealed, the tea duty alone remained. December 18,
+1773, the cargo of an East Indian tea-ship was thrown into the sea at
+Boston, and the first armed conflict ensued. Court and government were
+resolved to put down this rebellion; Burke, on the contrary, supported
+in his great speech "On American Taxation" Rose-Fuller's motion (April,
+1774) for suppressing the last duty. England had no right to tax the
+colonies, nor had she ever pretended to do so before Grenville's Stamp
+Act; that, as well as the most important duties of the Revenue Act, had
+been repealed; the tea-duty was slight and it produced short of nothing,
+the cost of collection devouring it to the bone; for the Americans
+refused to buy imported tea, and they were right to do so; having
+inherited English principles they resisted for the same reason for which
+Hampden had resisted the payment of the trifling ship-money, because the
+principle on which it was demanded would have made him a slave. It would
+be a signal folly to maintain the shadow of a duty and to risk the loss
+of an empire merely because the preamble of the Revenue Act said it was
+expedient that a revenue should be raised in his majesty's dominions in
+America.
+
+[Illustration: Burke, Johnson and their friends.]
+
+The blindness of the majority turned away from those wise counsels.
+Parliament was dissolved. Burke, elected for Bristol, forthwith
+introduced thirteen resolutions, which he defended in his celebrated
+speech for "Conciliation with the Colonies" (March 22, 1775). As he had
+told his constituents his aim was to reconcile British superiority with
+American liberty, he proposed to remove the ground of the difference in
+order to restore the former confidence of the colonies in the
+mother-country. "Fighting is not the best way of gaining a people of
+more than two millions, in which the fierce spirit of liberty is
+probably stronger than in any other country, and that liberty is founded
+upon English principles." Now, a fundamental point of our Constitution
+is that the people have power of "granting their own money;" the
+colonial assemblies have uncontested competence to raise taxes, and have
+frequently granted them for imperial purposes; sometimes so liberally
+that, in 1743, the Commons resolved to reimburse the expense; no method
+for procuring a representation in Parliament of the colonies has
+hitherto been advised, consequently no revenue by imposition has been
+raised before the Stamp Act; we therefore ought to acknowledge that only
+the general assemblies can grant "aids to his Majesty." To enforce the
+reverse principle is not only unjust, but impossible, "when three
+thousand miles of ocean lie between us and them. Seas roll and months
+pass between the order and the execution. We may impoverish the
+colonies and cripple our own most important trade, but it is
+preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order to keep them
+obedient." The motions were rejected; three years afterward, when it was
+too late, Burke's opponent, Lord North, proposed a similar plan.
+
+In 1780 Burke introduced his bill for "Economical reform in support of
+several petitions to correct the gross abuses in the management of
+public expenditure before laying fresh burdens upon the people." His
+speech derives a particular interest from its defining the difference of
+timely and gradual reformation from hasty and harsh, making clear work.
+The former was an amicable and temperate arrangement with a friend in
+power, leaving room for growth; the latter was imposing terms upon a
+conquered enemy under a state of inflammation. In 1782 Lord North was
+obliged to resign, and Rockingham became again premier, Burke
+paymaster-general of the army. He now carried his economical reform,
+abolishing sinecures, suppressing useless expenses, and cutting down
+salaries, among which was his own.
+
+After Rockingham's death and the overthrow of the short Shelburne
+administration, Burke turned his activity to the misgovernment of India;
+his speeches in support of Fox's East-India Bill (December 1, 1783), and
+on the Nabob of Arcot's debts (February 15, 1783), show that he had
+thoroughly mastered that intricate subject. He violently denounced the
+oppression exercised by the company, a prelude to his campaign against
+Warren Hastings, which he continued for eight years. His speech
+justifying the impeachment of the governor-general, said Erskine,
+"irresistibly carried away its brilliant audience by a superhuman
+eloquence."
+
+Burke in this contest was, as always, animated by the purest motives,
+but his passion went too far in comparing Hastings to Verres, and did
+not sufficiently allow for the difficult circumstances in which his
+adversary was placed. Without the latter's unscrupulous energy, India
+would have been lost. Hastings finally was acquitted, but Burke's
+attacks nevertheless had the effect of uncovering and redressing the
+prevailing abuses.
+
+The last period of Burke's life is filled up by his great struggle
+against the French revolution. Already in 1769 he had prophetically
+asserted that the derangement of French finances must infallibly lead to
+a violent convulsion, the influence of which upon France and even Europe
+could be scarcely divined; now he directed the attention of the House
+(February 4, 1790) to the dangers of the revolution, by which the French
+had shown themselves "the ablest architects of ruin," pulling down all
+their domestic institutions, making "a digest of anarchy" called "the
+rights of men," and establishing a ferocious, tyrannical, and
+atheistical democracy. It might be said that they had done service to
+England, a rival, by reducing their country to impotence and expunging
+it out of the system of Europe; but, by the vicinity of the two
+countries, their present distemper might prove more contagious than the
+gilded tyranny of Louis XIV. had been, and "much as it would afflict
+him, he would abandon his best friends and join with his worst enemies
+to oppose all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, which by
+tearing to pieces the contexture of the state prevented all real
+reformation;" the last passage alluding to the apology of Fox, hitherto
+his closest friend, for French proceedings.
+
+These ideas Burke more fully developed in his famous "Reflections on the
+Revolution in France" (1790); liberals maintained that by this work he
+had deserted the cause of liberty; conservatives asserted that he had
+become the stoutest champion of order combined with rational freedom. It
+must be acknowledged that Burke erred by judging the state of France
+before the revolution too favorably; if he justly appreciated the
+pernicious influence of Rousseau, "that great professor and hero of
+vanity," he ought to have discerned that a nation, the higher classes of
+which were undermined by materialism and unbelief, while the masses
+lived in deep misery, was incapable of a temperate reform; the follies
+and terrors of the revolution were the children of the sins of the
+"ancien régime." But how amply has history confirmed his judgment on the
+revolution itself! While Fox admired the constitution of 1791 as "the
+most astonishing and glorious edifice of liberty that ever was erected,"
+Burke foresaid that this constitutional king would be torn from his
+throne by the mob, that the wildest anarchy would put France in
+confusion, and that after its exhaustion an unlimited military despotism
+would be established.
+
+This work, which produced a European sensation, receives its true light
+by Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" (1791). His former
+friends having sided with Fox, he refuted the reproach of having
+abandoned his principles by an elaborate comparison of the English
+revolution of 1688 with that of France. His later writings, among which
+the "Thoughts on French Affairs" (1791) and "Thoughts on a Regicide
+Peace" (1796) are the principal, were directed against the foreign
+influence of the revolutionary system, "France being no more a state but
+a faction, which must be destroyed or will destroy Europe." Here again
+Burke was wrong; if France was a revolutionary crater, the safest way
+was to let it burn out in itself, while the insane aggression of
+continental powers only confirmed the reign of terror. Burke would go to
+war for the idea of prescriptive right; Pitt declined to fight for the
+French monarchy, and would make war only for the defence of English
+interests.
+
+Although Burke had the satisfaction of gaining the majority for his
+views, he retired from Parliament in 1794; a pension which he obtained
+he defended in the "Letter to a Noble Lord," a dignified plea, "pro
+domo." One of his last works was "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity"
+(1795). In a time when political economy was still in a state of
+infancy, he held the most enlightened opinions on all questions relating
+to it; his doctrines on prices, wages, rent, etc., are still worth
+reading. Above all, he opposes indiscreet government tampering with the
+trade of provisions. "Once habituated to get cheap bread, the people
+will never be satisfied to get it otherwise, and on the first scarcity
+they will turn and bite the hand that fed them."
+
+Burke died July 8, 1797. His was a character of unblemished purity,
+manly uprightness, and perfect disinterestedness. He was a conservative
+of the truest and best kind, but in his later years went too far in
+supporting existing institutions merely because they existed. Lacking
+practical accommodation to circumstances, he would probably not have
+been a great minister; neither was he a consummate parliamentary
+tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands in the first ranks of
+statesmen and orators. Lord Brougham goes too far in calling his
+speeches spoken dissertations; they were carefully prepared set
+speeches. In them, as in his writings, we admire the most varied
+information, philosophical acuteness, penetrating sagacity, curious
+felicity of expression, and an eloquence embracing the full range and
+depth of the subject. Fox avowed that he had learned more from Burke
+than from all other men and authors, and for the same reason his works
+will remain a mine of political wisdom. The only drawback is that in his
+eagerness he sometimes overstated his case, and, embittered by the
+struggles of his later years, occasionally condescended to expressions
+bordering upon scurrility.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
+
+(1706-1790)
+
+[Illustration: Benjamin Franklin. [TN]]
+
+
+Though eminent qualities are generally necessary to the acquisition of
+permanent fame, the life of Franklin affords signal proof that moderate
+talents, judiciously directed, when aided by industry and perseverance,
+will enable a man to render signal services to his country and his kind,
+and give him a claim to the homage of posterity. He was the fifteenth
+child of a tallow-chandler in Boston, where he was born January 17,
+1706. His father at first intended to educate him for the church, but
+finding that the expense was likely to exceed his means, he took the boy
+home after he had acquired little more than the elements of learning, to
+assist him in his own trade. The boy greatly disliked the nature of the
+employment, and was very anxious to become a sailor. Fortunately for him
+his friends controlled his inclinations; instead of going to sea he was
+apprenticed to his eldest brother, James, who was a printer. Franklin
+records in his Memoirs that though he had only at this time entered his
+twelfth year he paid so much attention to his business that he soon
+became proficient in all its details, and, by the quickness with which
+he executed his work, obtained a little leisure, which he devoted to
+study. His studious habits were noticed by a gentleman named Adams, who
+had a large collection of books, which he placed at the disposal of
+Franklin; among these were some volumes of poetry, which fired his
+emulation, and he began to compose little pieces in verse. Two of these
+were printed by his brother and sold as street-ballads, but they were,
+as he informs us, wretched doggerel, and the ridicule thrown on them by
+his father deterred him from similar attempts. But though he laid aside
+poetry, he did not abandon his ambition to become a good English writer;
+he studied the art of composition with great labor, being rewarded by
+the consciousness of improvement.
+
+Franklin's self-denial and power of control over his appetites were not
+less remarkable than his industry. Having, at the age of sixteen, read a
+work which recommended vegetable diet, he determined to adopt the
+system, and undertook to provide for himself upon his brother's allowing
+him one-half of the ordinary expenses of board. On this pittance he not
+only supported himself, but contrived, by great abstemiousness, to save
+a portion of it, which he devoted to the purchase of books. He soon had
+an opportunity of testing his literary progress; in 1720 his brother
+commenced the publication of a newspaper, the second which had appeared
+in America, called the _New England Courant_. This paper, at a time when
+periodicals were rare, attracted most of the literary men of Boston to
+the house of the proprietor; their conversation, and particularly their
+remarks on the authorship of the various articles contributed to the
+paper, revived Franklin's literary ambition; he sent some communications
+to the journal in a feigned hand; they were inserted, and he tells us
+that "he had the exquisite pleasure to find that they met with
+approbation, and that, in the various conjectures respecting the author,
+no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country
+for talents and genius." He was thus encouraged to reveal his secret to
+his brother, but he did not obtain the respect and fraternal indulgence
+which he had anticipated. James Franklin was a man of violent temper; he
+treated Benjamin with great harshness, and often proceeded to the
+extremity of blows.
+
+An article which appeared in the _Courant_ having given offence to the
+authorities, James was thrown into prison for a month, and the
+management of the paper devolved on Benjamin. He conducted it with great
+spirit, but with questionable prudence, for he made it the vehicle of
+sharp attacks on the principal persons in the colony. This gave such
+offence that when James was liberated from prison, an arbitrary order
+was issued that he should no longer print the paper called the _New
+England Courant_. To evade this order it was arranged that Benjamin's
+indentures should be cancelled in order that the paper might be
+published in his name, but at the same time a secret contract was made
+between the parties, by which James was entitled to his brother's
+services during the unexpired period of apprenticeship. A fresh quarrel,
+however, soon arose, and Benjamin separated from his brother, taking
+what he has confessed to be an unfair advantage of the circumstance
+that the contract could not be safely brought forward.
+
+The circumstance produced an unfavorable impression on the minds of the
+printers in Boston, and Franklin, finding it impossible to obtain
+employment in his native town, resolved to seek it in New York. Aware
+that his father would be opposed to this measure, he was compelled to
+sell his books to raise money for defraying the expenses of his journey.
+America was at this time very thinly inhabited; there were no public
+conveyances on the roads, the inns were few, and their accommodations
+miserable; but Franklin had accustomed himself to hard fare, and he did
+not allow the inconvenience he endured to interfere with his enjoyment
+of new scenery. On reaching New York he found that the printers there
+had no occasion for his services, and he continued his journey to
+Philadelphia. Having obtained employment in that city from a printer
+named Keimer, Franklin continued to devote his leisure hours to
+literature. The respectability of his appearance and the superior tone
+of his conversation began soon to be remarked; they led to his being
+introduced to several eminent men, and particularly to Sir William
+Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, who frequently invited him to his
+table. Keith urged Franklin to commence business on his own account, and
+when the young man had ineffectually applied for assistance to his
+father in Boston, he advised him to go to London and form a connection
+with some of the great publishing houses, promising him letters of
+credit and recommendation. Franklin sailed for London, but the promised
+letters were never sent; and he found himself, on his arrival in
+England, thrown entirely on his own resources.
+
+Having soon obtained employment, he exhibited to his fellow-workmen an
+edifying example of industry and temperance, by which many of them
+profited. He also published a little work of a sceptical tendency, which
+procured him introductions to some eminent men, but which he afterward
+lamented as one of the greatest errors of his life. After remaining
+about eighteen months in England, he returned to Philadelphia as a clerk
+to Mr. Denham, and on the death of that gentleman went back once more to
+his old employer, Keimer. About this time he established a debating
+society, or club of persons of his own age, for the discussion of
+subjects connected with morals, politics, and natural philosophy. These
+discussions gradually assumed political importance, and had a great
+effect in stimulating the public mind during the War of Independence.
+
+Having quarrelled with Keimer, Franklin entered into partnership with a
+young man named Meredith, and commenced publishing a paper in opposition
+to one which had been started by his former employer. Meredith proving
+negligent of business, Franklin was enabled by his friends to dissolve
+the partnership, and to take the entire business into his own hands. His
+steady adherence to habits of industry and economy had brought him
+comparative wealth; and he now married Miss Read, whom he had met on his
+first arrival in Philadelphia.
+
+In 1732 Franklin began the publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac,"
+which soon became celebrated for its important lessons of practical
+morality. These were subsequently collected in a little volume, and are
+still highly esteemed both in England and America. His high character
+for probity and intelligence induced the citizens of Philadelphia to
+intrust him with the management of public affairs; he was appointed
+clerk of the general assembly, postmaster, and alderman, and was put by
+the governor into the commission of the peace. All the hours he could
+spare from business he now devoted to objects of local utility, and the
+city of Philadelphia is indebted to him for some of its finest buildings
+and best institutions. As his wealth increased he obtained leisure to
+devote himself to the study of philosophy, and to take a leading part in
+political life.
+
+We shall first look at his philosophical labors, by which his name first
+became known abroad. His attention was drawn to the subject of
+electricity in 1746, by some experiments exhibited by Dr. Spence, who
+had come to Boston from Scotland. These isolated experiments were made
+with no regard to system, and led to no results. A glass tube, and some
+other apparatus that had been sent to Franklin by a friend in London,
+enabled him to repeat and verify these experiments. He soon began to
+devise new forms of investigation for himself, and at length made the
+great discovery, which may be said to be the foundation of electrical
+science, that there is a positive and negative state of electricity. By
+this fact he explained the phenomenon of the Leyden phial, which at that
+time excited great attention in Europe, and had foiled the sagacity of
+its principal philosophers. In the course of his investigations he was
+led to suspect the identity of lightning and the electric fluid; and he
+resolved to test this happy conjecture by a direct experiment. His
+apparatus was simply a paper-kite with a key attached to the tail.
+Having raised the kite during a thunder-storm, he watched the result
+with great anxiety; after an interval of painful suspense, he saw the
+filaments of the string exhibit by their motion signs of electrical
+action; he drew in the kite, and, presenting his knuckles to the key,
+received a strong spark, which of course decided the success of the
+experiment. Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial was
+charged, a shock given, and the identity of lightning with the electric
+fluid demonstrated beyond all possibility of doubt.
+
+Franklin had from time to time transmitted accounts of his electrical
+experiments to his friend, Mr. Collinson, in England, in order that they
+should be laid before the Council of the Royal Society; but, as they
+were not published in the "Transactions" of that learned body, Collinson
+gave copies of the communications to Cave, for insertion in the
+_Gentleman's Magazine_. Cave resolved to publish them in a separate
+form, and the work, soon after its appearance, became generally
+recognized as the text-book of electrical science. It was translated
+into French, German, and Latin; the author's experiments were repeated,
+and verified by the leading philosophers of France, Germany, and even
+Russia; the Royal Society atoned for its former tardiness by a hearty
+recognition of their value, and Franklin was elected a member of their
+body without solicitation or expense. The universities of St. Andrews,
+Edinburgh, and Oxford subsequently conferred upon him the honorary title
+of Doctor of Laws.
+
+We must pass more briefly over Franklin's political career. In 1753 he
+was appointed Deputy Postmaster of the American colonies. The
+post-office, which had previously supplied no revenue to the Government,
+became very productive under his management, and yielded three times as
+much as the post-office in Ireland. Nor was this the only service he
+rendered to the Government. At the time of Braddock's unfortunate
+expedition against the French and Indians, he provided conveyances for
+the troops and stores at his own risk; he took a leading part in
+obtaining a militia bill, and he proposed a plan for the union of the
+several colonies in a common system of defence against the Indians.
+These measures greatly increased his influence and popularity.
+
+Pennsylvania was at this period a proprietary government, and the
+proprietary body claimed exemption from taxation. In consequence of the
+disputes to which these claims gave rise, he was sent to England by the
+General Assembly, as agent for the provinces. He performed his duties
+with such zeal and ability, that he was appointed agent for the
+provinces of Massachusetts, Georgia, and Maryland; and, on his return to
+America in 1762, received not only the thanks of the House of Assembly,
+but a grant of £5,000. Previous to his return he made a short visit to
+the continent, and was everywhere received with great honor, especially
+at the court of Louis XV.
+
+In the year 1764, the American colonies, alarmed at the system of
+taxation with which they were menaced by the British, resolved that
+Franklin should be sent to England, no longer as an agent, but as the
+general representative of the States. In this character he arrived in
+London about forty years after his first appearance in that city as a
+distressed mechanic. His own mind was strongly impressed by the
+contrast; he went to the printing-office where he had worked, introduced
+himself to the men employed there, and joined in a little festival in
+honor of printing. He officially presented to Mr. Grenville a petition
+against the Stamp Act, but finding that the minister was not deterred
+from his purpose, he zealously exerted himself to organize an opposition
+to the measure. When it was proposed to repeal the bill in the following
+year, Franklin was examined before the House of Commons; the effect of
+his evidence was decisive, and the Stamp Act was repealed.
+
+The quarrel with the colonies, however, grew more and more bitter; and
+while Franklin's words were always of peace, he championed the American
+cause with power and dignity. Attempts were made to win him over to the
+side of the Government, by offers of high honors and liberal emoluments;
+but threats and promises were alike unavailing to divert him from his
+course. He lingered in England, hoping that some turn in public affairs
+would avert the fatal necessity of war; but when the petition of the
+American Congress was rejected, and Lord Chatham's plan of
+reconciliation outvoted, he resolved to return home and share the
+fortunes of his countrymen. His departure was hastened by the
+intelligence that the ministers intended to arrest him on a charge of
+fomenting rebellion in the colonies; he narrowly escaped this danger,
+and on landing in America, he was elected a member of Congress.
+
+Soon after the declaration of independence was issued, Dr. Franklin was
+sent as ambassador to France, to solicit aid for the infant republic. On
+his first arrival, in 1776, he was not officially received; but when the
+intelligence of the English losses had given courage to the French
+court, negotiations were formally commenced, and on February 7, 1778, he
+had the honor of signing the first treaty between the United States and
+a foreign power. He remained at the French court as ambassador until the
+end of the war, when, as an American plenipotentiary, he signed the
+treaty of Paris, by which Great Britain recognized the independence of
+the United States. At the close of the negotiations (November, 1782), he
+was anxious to be recalled; but his diplomatic services were too highly
+valued to be spared, and he remained at Paris three years longer, during
+which period he negotiated treaties with Sweden and with Prussia. His
+residence in France was cheered by the enthusiasm with which he was
+regarded by all classes, particularly persons of literature and science;
+his departure from that city was lamented as a general loss to society.
+
+Honors of every kind awaited him on his return to his native land; he
+was appointed President of the State of Pennsylvania, and a member of
+the Federal Convention, by which the American Constitution was framed.
+But old age, and a painful disease, to which he had been long subject,
+compelled him to retire into the bosom of his family. Notwithstanding
+his sufferings, he preserved his affections and faculties unimpaired to
+the last, and died tranquilly, April 17, 1790. The American Congress,
+and the National Assembly of France, both went into mourning on
+receiving the intelligence of his death.
+
+Franklin's powers were useful rather than brilliant; his philosophical
+discoveries were the result of patience and perseverance; with a warmer
+imagination he would probably have been misled by speculative theory,
+like so many of his contemporaries. His industry and his temperance were
+the sources of his early success, and they nurtured in him that spirit
+of independence which was the leading characteristic of his private and
+public career.
+
+
+
+
+PATRICK HENRY[3]
+
+By GENERAL BRADLEY T. JOHNSON
+
+(1736-1799)
+
+         [Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Patrick Henry. [TN]]
+
+
+Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died
+in Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799. He was the son of Colonel
+John Henry, of Mount Brilliant, a Scotchman by birth, who was the nephew
+of Dr. William Robertson, the historian. Henry received only the limited
+education accessible in the rural locality in which he was born,
+consisting of the rudiments of an English training and absolutely no
+acquaintance with the classics. His early youth was spent on the
+plantation, occupied with the amusements of his age and his epoch;
+fishing and hunting gave him acquaintance with the fields, the streams,
+and the forests, and the observation of nature, her changes, her forces,
+and her moods. The habits thus formed evolved in part the great power of
+introspection and analysis of the feelings of men which afterward gave
+him such control of them.
+
+At the age of fifteen he was placed in a country store as assistant
+salesman, or clerk. After a year's experience, his father purchased a
+small stock of goods for him, and set him up on his own account in
+partnership with his brother William.
+
+This adventure came to grief in a year, and then Henry, at the age of
+eighteen, married Miss Shelton, the daughter of a neighboring farmer.
+
+The young couple were settled on a farm by the joint efforts of their
+parents, where they endeavored to win a subsistence with the assistance
+of two or three servants. In two years he sold out and invested in
+another mercantile undertaking. In a few years this ended in bankruptcy,
+leaving him without a dollar and with a wife and an increasing family to
+support. He was devoted to music, dancing, and amusement, and was
+incapable of continuous physical or intellectual labor. He had devoted
+himself to desultory reading of the best kind, and made himself
+acquainted with the history of England, of Greece, and of Rome. He
+therefore undertook to win a support by the profession and the practice
+of the law, and after a brief pretence of preparation, by the generosity
+of the bar at that period, was admitted to practice. The vigor of his
+intellect, his powerful logic, and his acute analysis induced the
+examining committee to sign his certificate.
+
+That committee consisted of Mr. Lyons, then the leader of the Provincial
+bar, afterward president-judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of
+Virginia; Mr. John Lewis, an eminent lawyer, and John Randolph,
+afterward knighted and as Sir John Randolph, the king's Attorney General
+for Virginia. Henry was twenty-four when admitted to the bar, and for
+three years did nothing.
+
+Under the law of Virginia the people, without regard to religious
+belief, were bound to pay a tax of so many pounds of tobacco per poll
+for the support of the clergy. The parson of each parish was entitled to
+sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. When the price of tobacco
+was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When short
+crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly of the
+colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their poll-tax in
+tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16_s._ and 8_d._ per
+hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was paid in
+currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to 50_s._ per
+hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries instead of
+16_s._ 8_d._ per hundred. The King in council declared the Commutation
+Act void, and the parsons brought suit for their salaries. The
+defendants pleaded the Commutation Act in defence; to this plea the
+plaintiffs demurred; and the court, as it was bound to do, gave judgment
+for the plaintiff on the demurrer. The only question then left was the
+_quantum_ of damages, to be assessed by a jury. The case selected for a
+test was the case of the Rev. James Maury against the sheriff of Hanover
+County and his sureties. It was set for trial at the December term of
+the County Court of Hanover, 1763. Henry was retained for the defendant,
+and made an argument so forcible, so conclusive, and so eloquent that it
+has made his fame as "the greatest orator who ever lived," as Mr.
+Jefferson wrote of him. He took the ground that allegiance and
+protection in government are reciprocal, that the King of Great Britain
+had failed to protect the people of Virginia in their rights as
+Englishmen, and that therefore they owed no allegiance to him and he had
+no right to declare laws made by them void, therefore his nullification
+of the Commutation Act was void and of no effect. The jury found for the
+plaintiff with one penny damages, and thus ended the attempt to rely
+upon the power of the king to set aside laws made by Virginia for her
+own government.
+
+It was the first announcement in America of the radical revolutionary
+doctrine that government is a matter of compact with the people, and
+when the former breaks the agreement, the latter are absolved from
+obedience to it.
+
+The next year Henry removed to Louisa County and was employed by
+Dandridge in the contested election case of Dandridge _v._ Littlepage
+before the House of Burgesses for a seat in that body. When the Stamp
+Act passed in 1765, Mr. William Johnson, member of the House of
+Burgesses for Louisa County, resigned his place to make way for Henry,
+who was elected to fill the vacancy.
+
+This body consisted of some of the ablest and most illustrious Americans
+who ever lived. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland,
+Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee were all members, and
+Henry at the first session won a place in the front rank among them. In
+May, 1765, he introduced a series of resolutions, reiterating and
+enlarging the propositions of the parson's case, and declaring that the
+people of Virginia are entitled to all the rights of British subjects,
+and that they alone, through their General Assembly, "have the sole
+right and power to lay taxes and impositions on this colony," and that
+any attempt by any other authority "has a manifest tendency to destroy
+British as well as American freedom." They were opposed by the old
+members, but the eloquent logic of Henry, backed by Johnston, a member
+from Fairfax, carried them by a close vote, the last one by a majority
+of one.
+
+In this debate, Henry in a passion of eloquence exclaimed, "Cæsar had
+his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George III.----"
+"Treason," cried the Speaker and the House----"may profit by their
+example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
+
+The next day, the House in a panic, reconsidered, rejected, and expunged
+from the _Journal_ the last resolution, which asserted the sole right
+of taxation in Virginia, and denied it to Parliament.
+
+Henry continued a member of the House of Burgesses from Louisa County
+until the close of the Revolution. He led Virginia in resistance to the
+tax on tea, and in organizing armed resistance to the Mother Country by
+all the colonies. He was among the first of the Americans who understood
+that liberty could only be preserved by defending it by force.
+
+He was sent as a deputy from Virginia to the first Continental Congress,
+which met at Philadelphia in September, 1774. He at once took a
+commanding influence in that body, and on its adjournment in October,
+returned home.
+
+In March, 1776, he attended the Convention of Virginia held in Richmond.
+Here he moved that "this colony be immediately put in a state of
+defence, and that a committee be appointed to prepare a plan for
+embodying, assigning, and disciplining such a number of men as may be
+sufficient for that purpose." Bland, Harrison, Pendleton, and Nicholas,
+all vigorously opposed these resolutions as leading inevitably and
+logically to revolution and separation; but Henry, in a storm of
+patriotic, eloquent enthusiasm, carried everything, uttering those
+deathless sentences, "Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand
+we here idle. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?
+
+"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
+chains and slavery?
+
+"Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as
+for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
+
+The resolutions were carried and Henry made chairman of the committee to
+organize the colony. He proceeded with great vigor to form companies of
+cavalry or infantry in every county. On April 20, 1775, Lord Dunmore,
+the royal governor, seized the powder of the colony and placed it on the
+armed schooner Magdalene. The country rose at once. Henry, as captain,
+marched the independent company of Hanover on Williamsburgh, to compel
+the governor to pay for or restore the powder. Five thousand armed men
+were marching from the counties to reinforce him, when Lord Dunmore,
+through the intercession of Peyton Randolph, paid Henry for the powder
+and induced the volunteers from Hanover, Frederick, Berkeley, and other
+counties to return to their homes. As soon as they had returned, Dunmore
+issued a proclamation denouncing Henry and his comrades as traitors and
+rebels.
+
+Henry was elected by the Virginia Convention one of the deputies to the
+second Continental Congress. He was also elected colonel of the first
+Virginia Regiment, and "commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and
+to be raised for the defence of the colony." Lord Dunmore having erected
+a fortification south of Norfolk, at Great Bridge, Colonel Woodford,
+with the second Virginia Regiment, was sent by the Committee of Safety
+to drive him away, which he did promptly and well. Henry claimed the
+right to command this expedition himself, but his claim was not admitted
+by the committee, and his authority was disclaimed by Colonel Woodford.
+Henry insisted upon having the question of rank between them decided,
+and the committee decided in favor of Colonel Henry. Yet when brigadiers
+were selected by Congress to command the troops of Virginia in the
+Continental Army, Andrew Lewis was made brigadier, Henry colonel of the
+first regiment. He promptly refused the Continental commission, and
+resigned the one held in the service of Virginia. Henry's conduct was
+justified in the opinion of his contemporaries and of posterity. He had
+led the colony at the risk of life and fortune, he had organized and led
+the first movement of troops against the royal authority, he had been
+appointed commander-in-chief and colonel of the First Regiment, and then
+had been superseded in command by another, without excuse or
+justification. He was thus driven out of the military service by petty
+intrigues and small jealousies of smaller men, and the country deprived
+of his great abilities in the military field.
+
+On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed their deputies in
+Congress "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,"
+and on June 29th adopted a form of State government and elected Mr.
+Henry governor. During the winter of 1776-77 was the darkest period of
+the revolution, and it has been charged that it was proposed to create
+him dictator; but his friends have always denied this, and it seems with
+truth, for he was re-elected governor, May 30th, 1777. He was a firm
+supporter of General Washington through all the trials of that period,
+and firmly stood by him against the intrigue in the army to supersede
+him with Gates. He was again elected governor in the spring of 1778, and
+the next year declined a re-election because in his opinion he was
+ineligible. His wife, Miss Shelton, died in 1775, leaving him the father
+of six children, and in 1777 he married Dorothea, daughter of Nathaniel
+W. Dandridge.
+
+After the expiration of his gubernatorial service he retired to his
+estate in Henry County. He was elected to the General Assembly for that
+County in 1780, and he continued to represent it until after the
+revolution. He took the ground of amnesty to the Tories and the
+resumption of commercial intercourse with Great Britain. In 1784, he
+introduced and urged the passage of a bill to promote inter-marriages
+with the Indians, which failed to pass from his being again elected
+governor on November 17, 1784, for the term of three years.
+
+He declined a re-election, and was appointed one of the deputies from
+Virginia to the Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia. The
+order of appointment being George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund
+Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason and George Wythe. He,
+however, was too poor to perform the duties of the office and was
+obliged to return to the practice of the law. He was sent as a member
+from Prince Edward to the convention to consider the Federal
+Constitution which had been framed at Philadelphia. The convention met
+at Richmond, June 2, 1788.
+
+It was composed of the most illustrious men that Virginia ever produced,
+and was probably the ablest body that ever convened in any country in
+any age. James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Edmund Pendleton,
+George Nicholas, George Mason, Jarvis, Grayson, and Henry, Lee, and
+Randolph were among the members. Henry vigorously opposed the
+ratification of the new constitution on the ground that it would
+establish a government of the people in place of a government of the
+States, and would create a consolidated government with omnipotent
+power, without check or balance, and lead to a great and mighty empire
+and an absolute despotism. The Federal party carried the ratification
+under the lead of Madison and Marshall by a majority of ten.
+
+In the ensuing General Assembly Henry opposed the election of Madison as
+one of the first senators under the new constitution, and secured that
+of Richard Henry Lee and Grayson to represent Virginia in the first
+Congress. He also drafted and had passed resolutions calling upon
+Congress to call a Constitutional Convention of the States to cure by
+amendments the many defects in the Federal Constitution which were
+indicated by the amendments proposed to it by Virginia. The Convention
+was never called, but ten of the amendments were adopted by Congress and
+ratified by the States.
+
+He declined a re-election to the General Assembly in 1791, and retired
+to private life. In November, 1791, he appeared before the Federal Court
+in Richmond, for the defendant in the case of the British debts. The
+question involved was the right of Virginia to confiscate, during the
+war, debts due by her citizens to subjects of Great Britain. With Henry
+was John Marshall, and in the argument Henry made the greatest legal
+effort of his life.
+
+In November, 1795, he was again elected Governor of Virginia, but
+declined on account of his age. He was offered the mission to Spain by
+Washington during his first term, and to France during his second--both
+of which positions he declined. Alarmed at the position taken by the
+Virginia resolutions of 1798, he became a candidate for, and was elected
+to the General Assembly from Charlotte County in 1799. But the Virginia
+Legislature was opposed to his views, and reiterated those set forth in
+the resolution of 1798.
+
+His health had been infirm for several years, and he died June 6, 1799.
+The General Assembly passed resolutions recording their love and
+veneration for his name and fame, and ordered a bust of him to be
+procured and set up in one of the niches of the hall of the House of
+Delegates. It is now in the capitol at Richmond.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE WASHINGTON
+
+(1732-1799)
+
+[Illustration: George Washington. [TN]]
+
+
+George Washington was born at Bridge's Creek, in Westmoreland County,
+Va., on February 22, 1732. The first of the family who settled in
+Virginia came from Northampton, but their ancestors are believed to have
+been from Lancashire, while the ancient stock of the family is traced to
+the De Wessyngtons of Durham. George Washington's father, Augustine, who
+died, after a sudden illness, in 1743, was twice married. At his death
+he left two surviving sons by the first marriage, and by the second,
+four sons (of whom George was the eldest) and a daughter. The mother of
+George Washington survived to see her son President. Augustine
+Washington left all his children in a state of comparative independence;
+to his eldest son by the first marriage he left an estate (afterward
+called Mount Vernon) of twenty-five hundred acres and shares in iron
+works situated in Virginia and Maryland; to the second, an estate in
+Westmoreland. Confiding in the prudence of his widow, he directed that
+the proceeds of all the property of her children should be at her
+disposal till they should respectively come of age; to George were left
+the lands and mansion occupied by his father at his decease; to each of
+the other sons, an estate of six or seven hundred acres; a suitable
+provision was made for the daughter.
+
+George Washington was indebted for all the education he received to one
+of the common schools of the province, in which little was taught beyond
+reading, writing, and accounts. He left it before he had completed his
+sixteenth year; the last two years of his attendance had been devoted to
+the study of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. He had learned to
+use logarithms. It is doubtful whether he ever received any instruction
+in the grammar of his own language; and although, when the French
+officers under Rochambeau were in America, he attempted to acquire their
+language, it appears to have been without success. From his thirteenth
+year he evinced a turn for mastering the forms of deeds, constructing
+diagrams, and preparing tabular statements. His juvenile manuscripts
+have been preserved; the handwriting is neat, but stiff. During the last
+summer he was at school, he surveyed the fields adjoining the
+school-house and the surrounding plantations, entering his measurements
+and calculations in a respectable field-book. He compiled about the same
+time, from various sources, "Rules of Behavior in Company and
+Conversation." Some selections in rhyme appear in his manuscripts, but
+the passages were evidently selected for the moral and religious
+sentiments they express, not from any taste for poetry. When a boy he
+was fond of forming his school-mates into companies, who paraded and
+fought mimic battles, in which he always commanded one of the parties.
+He cultivated with ardor all athletic exercises. His demeanor and
+conduct at school are said to have won the deference of the other boys,
+who were accustomed to make him the arbiter of their disputes.
+
+From the time of his leaving school till the latter part of 1753,
+Washington was unconsciously preparing himself for the great duties he
+had afterward to discharge. An attempt made to have him entered in the
+Royal Navy, in 1746, was frustrated by the interposition of his mother.
+The winter of 1748-49 he passed at Mount Vernon, then the seat of his
+brother Lawrence, in the study of mathematics and the exercise of
+practical surveying. George was introduced about this time to the family
+of Lord Fairfax, his brother having married the daughter of William
+Fairfax, a member of the Colonial Council, and a distant relative of
+that nobleman. The immense tracts of wild lands belonging to Lord
+Fairfax, in the valley of the Alleghany Mountains, had never been
+surveyed; he had formed a favorable estimate of the talents of young
+Washington, and intrusted the task to him. His first essay was on some
+lands situated on the south branch of the Potomac, seventy miles above
+its junction with the main branch. Although performed in an almost
+impenetrable country, while winter yet lingered in the valleys, by a
+youth who had only a month before completed his sixteenth year, it gave
+so much satisfaction that he soon after received a commission as public
+surveyor, an appointment which gave authority to his surveys, and
+enabled him to enter them in the county offices.
+
+The next three years were devoted without intermission, except in the
+winter months, to his profession. There were few surveyors in Virginia,
+and the demand for their services was consequently great, and their
+remuneration ample. Washington spent a considerable portion of these
+three years among the Alleghanies. The exposures and hardships of the
+wilderness could be endured only for a few weeks together, and he
+recruited his strength by surveying, at intervals, tracts and farms in
+the settled districts. Even at that early age his regular habits enabled
+him to acquire some property; and his probity and business talent
+obtained for him the confidence of the leading men of the colony.
+
+At the time he attained his nineteenth year the frontiers were
+threatened with Indian depredations and French encroachments. To meet
+this danger the province was divided into military districts, to each of
+which an adjutant-general with the rank of major was appointed. George
+Washington was commissioned to one of these districts, with a salary of
+£150 per annum. There were many provincial officers (his brother among
+the number) in Virginia, who had served in the expedition against
+Carthagena and in the West Indies. Under them he studied military
+exercises and tactics, entering with alacrity and zeal into the duties
+of his office. These pursuits were varied by a voyage to Barbadoes, and
+a residence of some months in that colony, in company with his brother
+Lawrence, who was sent there by his physicians to seek relief from a
+pulmonary complaint. Fragments of the journal kept by George Washington
+on this excursion have been preserved; they evince an interest in a wide
+range of subjects, and habits of minute observation. At sea the log-book
+was daily copied, and the application of his favorite mathematics to
+navigation studied; in the island, the soil, agricultural products,
+modes of culture, fruits, commerce, military force, fortifications,
+manners of the inhabitants, municipal regulations and government, all
+were noted in this journal. Lawrence Washington died in July, 1752,
+leaving a wife and infant daughter, and upon George, although the
+youngest executor, devolved the whole management of the property, in
+which he had a residuary interest. The affairs of the estate were
+extensive and complicated, and engrossed much of his time and thoughts
+for several months. His public duties were not, however, neglected. Soon
+after the arrival of Governor Dinwiddie the number of military divisions
+was reduced to four and the northern division allotted to Washington. It
+included several counties, which he had visited at stated intervals, to
+train and instruct the military officers, inspect the men, arms, and
+accoutrements, and establish a uniform system of manoeuvres and
+discipline.
+
+In 1753 the French in Canada pushed troops across the lakes, and at the
+same time bodies of armed men ascended from New Orleans to form a
+junction with them, and establish themselves on the upper waters of the
+Ohio. Governor Dinwiddie resolved to send a commissioner to confer with
+the French officer in command, and inquire by what authority he occupied
+a territory claimed by the British. This charge required a man of
+discretion, accustomed to travel in the woods, and familiar with Indian
+manners. Washington was selected, notwithstanding his youth, as
+possessed of these requisites. He set out from Williamsburg on October
+31, 1753, and returned on January 16, 1754. He discovered that a
+permanent settlement was contemplated by the French within the British
+territory, and notwithstanding the vigilance of the garrison, he
+contrived to bring back with him a plan of their fort on a branch of
+French Creek, fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and an accurate
+description of its form, size, construction, cannon, and barracks.
+
+In March, 1754, the military establishment of the colony was increased
+to six companies. Colonel Fry, an Englishman of scientific acquirements
+and gentlemanly manners, was placed at the head of them, and Washington
+was appointed second in command. His first campaign was a trying but
+useful school to him. He was pushed forward, with three small companies,
+to occupy the outposts of the Ohio, in front of a superior French force,
+and unsupported by his commanding officer. Relying upon his own
+resources and the friendship of the Indians, Washington pushed boldly
+on. On May 27th he encountered and defeated a detachment of the French
+army under M. De Jumonville, who fell in the action. Soon after Colonel
+Fry died suddenly, and the chief command devolved upon Washington.
+Innis, the commander of the North Carolina troops, was, it is true,
+placed over his head, but the new commander never took the field. An
+ill-timed parsimony had occasioned disgust among the soldiers, but
+Washington remained unshaken. Anticipating that a strong detachment
+would be sent against him from Fort Duquesne as soon as Jumonville's
+defeat was known there, he intrenched himself on the Great Meadows. The
+advance of the French in force obliged him to retreat, but this
+operation he performed in a manner that elicited a vote of thanks from
+the House of Burgesses. In 1755 Colonel Washington acceded to the
+request of General Braddock to take part in the campaign as one of his
+military family, retaining his former rank. When privately consulted by
+Braddock, "I urged him," wrote Washington, "in the warmest terms I was
+able, to push forward, if he even did it with a small but chosen band,
+with such artillery and light stores as were necessary, leaving the
+heavy artillery and baggage to follow with the rear division by slow and
+easy marches." This advice prevailed. Washington was, however, attacked
+by a violent fever, in consequence of which he was only able to rejoin
+the army on the evening before the battle of the Monongahela. In that
+fatal affair he exposed himself with the most reckless bravery, and when
+the soldiers were finally put to rout, hastened to the rear division to
+order up horses and wagons for the wounded. The panic-stricken army
+dispersed on all sides, and Washington retired to Mount Vernon, which
+had now, by the death of his brother's daughter without issue, become
+his own property. His bravery was universally admitted, and it was known
+that latterly his prudent counsels had been disregarded.
+
+In the autumn of the same year he was appointed to reorganize the
+provincial troops. He retained the command of them till the close of the
+campaign of 1758. The tardiness and irresolution of provincial
+assemblies and governors compelled him to act during much of this time
+upon the defensive; but to the necessity hence imposed upon him of
+projecting a chain of defensive forts for the Ohio frontier, he was
+indebted for that mastery of this kind of war, which afterward availed
+him so much. Till 1758 the Virginia troops remained on the footing of
+militia; and Washington having had ample opportunities to convince
+himself of the utter worthlessness of a militia in time of war, in the
+beginning of that year prevailed upon the Government to organize them on
+the same footing as the royal forces. At the same time that Washington's
+experience was extending, his sentiments of allegiance were weakened by
+the reluctance with which the claims of the provincial officers were
+admitted, and the unreserved preference uniformly given to the officers
+of the regular army. At the close of 1758 he resigned his commission and
+retired into private life.
+
+On January 6, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a young widow with
+two children. "Mr. Custis," says Mr. Sparke, "had left large landed
+estates, and £45,000 sterling in money. One-third of this property she
+held in her own right; the other two-thirds being equally divided
+between her two children." Washington had a considerable fortune of his
+own at the time of his marriage, consisting of the estate at Mount
+Vernon, and large tracts of land which he had selected during his
+surveying expeditions and obtained grants of at different times. He now
+devoted himself to the management of this extensive property, and to the
+guardianship of Mrs. Washington's children, and till the commencement of
+1763 was, in appearance at least, principally occupied with these
+private matters. He found time, however, for public civil duties. He had
+been elected a member of the House of Burgesses before he resigned his
+commission, and although there were commonly two, and sometimes three
+sessions in every year, he was punctual in his attendance from beginning
+to end of each. During the period of his service in the Legislature he
+frequently attended on such theatrical exhibitions as were then
+presented in America, and lived on terms of intimacy with the most
+eminent men of Virginia. At Mount Vernon he practised on a large scale
+the hospitality for which the Southern planters have ever been
+distinguished. His chief diversion in the country was the chase. He
+exported the produce of his estates to London, Liverpool, and Bristol,
+and imported everything required for his property, and domestic
+establishment. His industry was equal to his enterprise; his day-books,
+ledgers and letter-books were all kept by himself and he drew up his own
+contracts and deeds. In the House of Burgesses he seldom spoke, but
+nothing escaped his notice, and his opinion was eagerly sought and
+followed. He assumed trusts at the solicitation of friends, and was much
+in request as an arbitrator. He was, probably without being himself
+aware of it, establishing a wide and strong influence, which no person
+suspected till the time arrived for exercising it.
+
+On March 4, 1773, Lord Dunmore prorogued the intractable House of
+Burgesses. Washington had been a close observer of every previous
+movement in his country, though it was not in his nature to play the
+agitator. He had expressed his disapprobation of the Stamp Act in
+unqualified terms. The non-importation agreement, drawn up by George
+Mason in 1769, was presented to the members of the dissolved House of
+Burgesses by Washington. In 1773 he supported the resolutions
+instituting a committee of correspondence and recommending the
+legislatures of the other colonies to do the same. He represented
+Fairfax County in the Convention which met at Williamsburg, in August,
+1774, and was appointed by it one of the six Virginian delegates to the
+first General Congress. On his return from Congress he was virtually
+placed in command of the Virginian Independent Companies. In the spring
+of 1775 he devised a plan for the more complete military organization of
+Virginia; and on June 15th of that year, he was elected
+commander-in-chief of the continental army by Congress.
+
+[Illustration: The surrender of Cornwallis to Washington.]
+
+The portion of Washington's life which we have hitherto been passing in
+review, may be considered as his probationary period--the time during
+which he was training himself for the great business of his life. His
+subsequent career naturally subdivides itself into two periods--that of
+his military command and that of his presidency. In the former we have
+Washington the soldier; in the latter, Washington the statesman. His
+avocations from 1748 to 1775 were as good a school as can well be
+conceived for acquiring the accomplishments of either character. His
+early intimacy and connection with the Fairfax family had taught him to
+look on society with the eyes of the class which takes a part in
+government. His familiarity with applied mathematics and his experience
+as a surveyor on the wild frontier lands, had made him master of that
+most important branch of knowledge for a commander--the topography of
+the country. His experience as a parade officer, as a partisan on the
+frontier, and as the commander of considerable bodies of disciplined
+troops, had taught him the principles both of the war of detail and the
+war of large masses. On the other hand, his punctual habits of business,
+his familiarity with the details both of agriculture and commerce, and
+the experience he had acquired as trustee, arbitrator, and member of the
+House of Burgesses, were so many preparatory studies for the duties of a
+statesman. He commenced his great task of first liberating and then
+governing a nation, with all the advantages of this varied experience,
+in his forty-third year, an age at which the physical vigor is
+undiminished, and the intellect fully ripe. He persevered in it, with a
+brief interval of repose, for upward of twenty years, with almost
+uniform success, and with an exemption from the faults of great leaders
+unparalleled in history.
+
+Washington was elected commander-in-chief on June 15, 1775; he resigned
+his commission into the hands of the President of Congress on December
+23, 1783. His intermediate record as a general, and as the steadfast and
+undismayed leader of an apparently hopeless struggle, we pass over here.
+It is the entire history of the American Revolution.
+
+We must also pass briefly over the interval which separates the epoch of
+Washington the soldier from that of Washington the statesman--the few
+years which elapsed between the resignation of his command in 1783, and
+his election as first President of the United States, in February, 1789.
+It was for him no period of idleness. In addition to a liberal increase
+of hospitality at Mount Vernon, and indefatigable attention to the
+management of his large estates, he actively promoted in his own State,
+plans of internal navigation, acts for encouraging education, and plans
+for the civilization of the Indians. He also acted as delegate from
+Virginia to the Convention which framed the first constitution of the
+United States. We now turn to contemplate him as president.
+
+Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, which was then the seat of
+Congress, on April 16, 1789. His journey was a triumphal procession. He
+took the oath of office on April 30th, with religious services,
+processions, and other solemnities.
+
+The new president's first step was to request elaborate reports from the
+Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of War, and the
+Commissioners of the Treasury. The reports he read, and condensed with
+his own hand, particularly those of the Treasury board. The voluminous
+official correspondence in the public archives, from the time of the
+treaty of peace till the time he entered on the presidency, he read,
+abridged, and studied, with the view of fixing in his mind every
+important point that had been discussed, and the history of what had
+been done.
+
+His arrangements for the transaction of business and the reception of
+visitors were characterized by the same spirit of order which had marked
+him when a boy and when at the head of the army. Every Tuesday, between
+the hours of three and four, he was prepared to receive such persons as
+chose to call. Every Friday afternoon the rooms were open in like manner
+for visits to Mrs. Washington. He accepted no invitations to dinner, but
+invited to his own table foreign ministers, officers of the government,
+and others, in such numbers as his domestic establishment could
+accommodate. The rest of the week-days were devoted to business
+appointments. No visits were received on Sunday, or promiscuous company
+admitted; he attended church regularly, and the rest of that day was his
+own.
+
+The organization of the executive departments was decreed by act of
+Congress during the first session. They were the Departments of Foreign
+Affairs (afterward called the Department of State, and including both
+foreign and domestic affairs), of the Treasury, and of War. It devolved
+upon the president to select proper persons to fill the several offices.
+Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the
+Treasury; and Knox, Secretary of War. Randolph had the post of
+Attorney-General. Jay was made Chief-Justice. After making these
+appointments he undertook a tour through the Eastern States, and
+returned to be present at the opening of Congress, in January, 1790.
+
+In his opening speech he recommended to the attention of the Legislature
+a provision for the common defence; laws for naturalizing foreigners; a
+uniform system of currency, weights, and measures; the encouragement of
+agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; the promotion of science and
+literature; and an effective system for the support of the public
+credit. The last topic gave rise to protracted and vehement debates. At
+last Hamilton's plan for funding all the domestic debts was carried by a
+small majority in both Houses of Congress. The president suppressed his
+sentiments on the subject while it was under debate in Congress, but he
+approved the act for funding the public debt, and was from conviction a
+decided friend to the measure. It now became apparent to the most
+unreflecting that two great parties were in the process of formation,
+the one jealous of anything that might encroach upon democratic
+principles; the other distrustful of the power of institutions so simple
+as those of the United States to preserve tranquillity and the cohesion
+of the state. Jefferson was the head of the Democratic, Hamilton of what
+was afterward called the Federalist party. Washington endeavored to
+reconcile these ardent and incompatible spirits. His own views were more
+in accordance with those of Hamilton; but he knew Jefferson's value as a
+statesman, and he felt the importance of the president remaining
+independent of either party. The two secretaries, however, continued to
+diverge in their political course, and ultimately their differences
+settled into personal enmity.
+
+The president's term of office was drawing to a close, and an anxious
+wish began to prevail that he should allow himself to be elected for a
+second term. Jefferson, Hamilton, and Randolph--who did not exactly
+coincide with either--all shared in this anxiety, and each wrote a long
+letter to Washington, assigning reasons for his allowing himself to be
+re-elected. He yielded; and on March 4, 1793, he took the oath of office
+in the senate chamber.
+
+The first question that came before the cabinet after the re-election,
+rendered more decided the differences which already existed. The
+European parties, of which the court of England and the French republic
+were the representatives, were eager to draw the United States into the
+vortex of their struggle. The president and his cabinet were unanimous
+in their determination to preserve neutrality, but the aristocratic and
+democratic sections of the cabinet could not refrain from displaying
+their respective biases and their jealousy of each other. Foreign
+affairs were mingled with domestic politics, and the Democratic and
+Federalist parties became avowedly organized. Washington was for a time
+allowed to keep aloof from the contest--not for a long time. A
+circumstance insignificant in itself increased the bitterness of the
+contest out of doors. Democratic societies had been formed on the model
+of the Jacobin clubs of France. Washington regarded them with alarm, and
+the unmeasured expression of his sentiments on this head subjected him
+to a share in the attacks made upon the party accused of undue fondness
+for England and English institutions.
+
+Advices from the American minister in London representing that the
+British cabinet was disposed to settle the differences between the two
+countries amicably, Washington nominated Mr. Jay to the Senate as
+Envoy-extraordinary to the court of Great Britain. The nomination,
+though strenuously opposed by the Democratic party, was confirmed in the
+Senate by a majority of two to one. The treaty negotiated by Jay was
+received at the seat of government in March, 1795, soon after the
+session of Congress closed. The president summoned the Senate to meet in
+June to ratify it. The treaty was ratified. Before the treaty was signed
+by the president it was surreptitiously published. It was vehemently
+condemned, and public meetings against it were held to intimidate the
+executive. The president, nevertheless, signed the treaty on August
+18th. When Congress met in March, 1796, a resolution was carried by a
+large majority in the House of Representatives, requesting the president
+to lay before the house the instructions to Mr. Jay, the correspondence,
+and other documents relating to the negotiations. Washington declined to
+furnish the papers; a vehement debate ensued, but in the end the hostile
+majority yielded to the exigency of the case and united in passing laws
+for the fulfilment of the treaty.
+
+The two houses of Congress met again in December. Washington had
+published on September 15th his farewell address to the United States.
+He now delivered his last speech to Congress, and took occasion to urge
+upon that body the gradual increase of the navy, a provision for the
+encouragement of agriculture and manufactures, the establishment of a
+national university, and of a military academy. Little was done during
+the session; public attention was engrossed by the presidential
+election. Adams, the Federalist candidate, had the highest number of
+votes; Jefferson, the Democratic candidate (who was consequently
+declared vice-president), the next. Washington's commanding character
+and isolation from party, had preserved this degree of strength to the
+holders of his own political views. He was present as a spectator at
+the installation of his successor, and immediately afterward returned to
+Mount Vernon.
+
+He survived till December 14, 1799, but except when summoned in May,
+1798, to take the command of the provincial army, on the prospect of a
+war with France, did not again engage in public business.
+
+The character of Washington is one of simple and substantial greatness.
+His passions were vehement but concentrated, and thoroughly under
+control. An irresistible strength of will was combined with a singularly
+well-balanced mind, with much sagacity, much benevolence, much love of
+justice. Without possessing what may be called genius, Washington was
+endowed with a rare quickness of perception and soundness of judgment,
+and an eager desire of knowledge. His extremely methodical habits
+enabled him to find time for everything, and were linked with a talent
+for organization. During the War of Independence he was the defensive
+force of America; wanting him, it would almost appear as if the
+democratic mass must have resolved itself into its elements. To place
+Washington as a warrior on a footing with the Cæsars, Napoleons, and
+Wellingtons, would be absurd. He lost more battles than he gained. But
+he kept an army together and kept up resistance to the enemy, under more
+adverse circumstances than any other general ever did. His services as a
+statesman were similar in kind. He upheld the organization of the
+American state during the first eight years of its existence, amid the
+storms of Jacobinical controversy, and gave it time to consolidate. No
+other American but himself could have done this, for of all the American
+leaders he was the only one whom men felt differed from themselves. The
+rest were soldiers or civilians, Federalists or Democrats; but he was
+Washington. The awe and reverence felt for him were blended with
+affection for his kindly qualities, and except for a brief period toward
+the close of his second presidential term, there has been but one
+sentiment entertained toward him throughout the Union--that of
+reverential love. His was one of those rare natures which greatness
+follows without their striving for it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following extract is from a letter written by him to his adopted
+daughter, Nellie Custis, on the subject of love:[4]
+
+         [Footnote 4: Copied by kind permission of the publishers,
+         Messrs. Harper & Bros., from Benson Lossing's "Mary and Martha
+         Washington."]
+
+"Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore
+contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for
+like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with
+aliment it is rapid in progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may
+be stifled in its birth or much stunted in its growth. For example: a
+woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and
+accomplished, will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the
+heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and
+what is the consequence? The madness ceases and all is quiet again. Why?
+Not because there is any diminution in the charm of the lady, but
+because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows that love may, and
+therefore ought to be, under the guidance of reason, for although we
+cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard;
+and my motives for treating on this subject are to show you, while you
+remain Eleanor Parke Custis, spinster, and retain the resolution to love
+with moderation, the propriety of adhering to the latter resolution, at
+least until you have secured your game, or the way by which it may be
+accomplished.
+
+"When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm,
+propound these questions to it: Who is this invader? Have I a competent
+knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character; a man of sense? For, be
+assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool. What has been
+his walk in life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or drunkard? Is his
+fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I have been accustomed
+to live, and my sisters do live? and is he one to whom my friends can
+have no reasonable objection? If these interrogatories can be
+satisfactorily answered there will remain but one more to be asked;
+that, however, is an important one: Have I sufficient ground to conclude
+that his affections are engaged by me? Without this the heart of
+sensibility will struggle against a passion that is not
+reciprocated--delicacy, custom, or call it by what epithet you will,
+having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the
+_most indirect_ invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to
+render it permanent and valuable, and nothing short of good sense, and
+an easy, unaffected conduct can draw the line between prudery and
+coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say that it
+rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in
+celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others by
+encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to
+draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected.... Every
+blessing, among which a good husband when you want one, is bestowed on
+you by yours affectionately."
+
+
+
+
+JOHN ADAMS
+
+By EDWIN WILLIAMS
+
+(1735-1826)
+
+[Illustration: John Adams. [TN]]
+
+
+John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born on the
+19th of October (old style), 1735, in that part of the town of Braintree
+(near Boston), Massachusetts, which has since been incorporated by the
+name of Quincy. He was the fourth in descent from Henry Adams, who fled
+from persecution in Devonshire, England, and settled in Massachusetts
+about the year 1630. Another of the ancestors of Mr. Adams was John
+Alden, one of the Pilgrim founders of the Plymouth colony in 1620.
+Receiving his early education in his native town, John Adams, in 1751,
+was admitted a member of Harvard College, at Cambridge, where he
+graduated in regular course four years afterward. On leaving college he
+went to Worcester, for the purpose of studying law, and at the same time
+to support himself, according to the usage at that time in New England,
+by teaching in the grammar-school of that town. He studied law with
+James Putnam, a barrister of eminence, by whom he was afterward
+introduced to the acquaintance of Jeremy Gridley, then attorney-general
+of the province, who proposed him to the court for admission to the bar
+of Suffolk County, in 1758, and gave him access to his library, which
+was then one of the best in America.
+
+Mr. Adams commenced the practice of his profession in his native town,
+and by travelling the circuits with the court, became well known in that
+part of the country. In 1766, by the advice of Mr. Gridley, he removed
+to Boston, where he soon distinguished himself at the bar by his
+superior talents as counsel and advocate. At an earlier period of his
+life his thoughts had begun to turn on general politics, and the
+prospects of his country engaged his attention. Soon after leaving
+college he wrote a letter to a friend, dated at Worcester, October 12,
+1755, which evinces so remarkable a foresight that it is fortunate it
+has been preserved. We make the following extracts: "Soon after the
+Reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience'
+sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great
+seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me, if we can remove the
+turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest computation,
+will, in another century, become more numerous than England herself. The
+only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us.
+_Divide et impera_. Keep us in distinct colonies, and then some great
+men in each colony, desiring the monarchy of the whole, will destroy
+each other's influence, and keep the country in equilibrio. Be not
+surprised that I am turned politician; the whole town is immersed in
+politics. I sit and hear, and, after being led through a maze of sage
+observations, I sometimes retire and, by laying things together, form
+some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce of one of these
+reveries you have read above." Mr. Webster observes: "It is remarkable
+that the author of this prognostication should live to see fulfilled to
+the letter what could have seemed to others, at the time, but the
+extravagance of youthful fancy. His earliest political feelings were
+thus strongly American, and from this ardent attachment to his native
+soil he never departed."
+
+In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, daughter of Rev. William Smith, of
+Weymouth, and grand-daughter of Colonel Quincy, a lady of uncommon
+endowments and excellent education. He had previously imbibed a
+prejudice against the prevailing religious opinions of New England, and
+became attached to speculations hostile to those opinions. Nor were his
+views afterward changed. In his religious sentiments he accorded with
+Dr. Bancroft, a Unitarian minister of Worcester, of whose printed
+sermons he expressed his high approbation. In 1765 Mr. Adams published
+an essay on canon and feudal law, the object of which was to show the
+conspiracy between Church and State for the purpose of oppressing the
+people.
+
+In 1770 he was chosen a representative from the town of Boston, in the
+Legislature of Massachusetts. The same year he was one of the counsel
+who defended Captain Preston and the British soldiers who fired at his
+order upon the inhabitants of Boston. Captain Preston was acquitted, and
+Mr. Adams lost no favor with his fellow-citizens by engaging in this
+trial. As a member of the Legislature he opposed the royal governor,
+Hutchinson, in his measures, and also wrote against the British
+Government in the newspapers. In 1774 he was elected a member of the
+Massachusetts Council, and negatived by Governor Gage. In this and the
+next year he wrote on the Whig side, the pamphlets called "Nov Anglus,"
+in reply to essays, signed "Massachusitensis," in favor of the British
+Government, by Sewall, the attorney-general. The same year he was
+appointed a member of the Continental Congress, from Massachusetts, and
+in that body, which met at Philadelphia, he became one of the most
+efficient and able advocates of liberty. In the Congress which met in
+May, 1775, he again took his seat, having been reappointed as a
+delegate. In 1775 he seconded the nomination of Washington as
+commander-in-chief of the army, and in July, 1776, he was the adviser
+and great supporter of the Declaration of Independence. It was reported
+by a committee composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
+Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. During the same year
+he, with Dr. Franklin and Edward Rutledge, was deputed to treat with
+Lord Howe for the pacification of the colonies. He declined at this time
+the offer of the office of Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of
+Massachusetts.
+
+In December, 1777, Mr. Adams was appointed a commissioner to the court
+of France; and with the exception of one short interval, during which he
+aided in the framing of the Massachusetts State Constitution, he spent
+the following eleven years in diplomatic services abroad. He arranged
+the treaties of the United States with most foreign nations during that
+time, was associated with Franklin and Jay in signing the treaty of
+peace with England, and was our first English minister.
+
+The services of Mr. Adams in the cause of his country, at home and
+abroad, during the period to which we have referred, it is believed,
+were not excelled by those of any other of the patriots of the
+Revolution. In the language of one of his eulogists (Mr. J. E. Sprague,
+of Massachusetts), "Not a hundred men in the country could have been
+acquainted with any part of the labors of Mr. Adams--they appeared
+anonymously, or under assumed titles; they were concealed in the secret
+conclaves of Congress, or the more secret cabinets of princes. Such
+services are never known to the public; or, if known, only in history,
+when the actors of the day have passed from the stage, and the motives
+for longer concealment cease to exist. As we ascend the mount of
+history, and rise above the vapors of party prejudice, we shall all
+acknowledge that we owe our independence more to John Adams than to any
+other created being, and that he was the Great Leader of the American
+Revolution."
+
+When permission was given him to return from Europe, the Continental
+Congress adopted the following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress
+entertain a high sense of the services which Mr. Adams has rendered to
+the United States, in the execution of the various important trusts
+which they have from time to time committed to him; and that the thanks
+of Congress be presented to him for the patriotism, perseverance,
+integrity, and diligence with which he has ably and faithfully served
+his country." Such was the testimonial of his country, expressed through
+the national councils, at the termination of his revolutionary and
+diplomatic career.
+
+During the absence of Mr. Adams in Europe, the Constitution of the
+United States had been formed and adopted. He highly approved of its
+provisions, and on his return, when it was about to go into operation,
+he was selected by the friends of the Constitution to be placed on the
+ticket with Washington as a candidate for one of the two highest offices
+in the gift of the people. He was consequently elected vice-president,
+and on the assembling of the Senate he took his seat, as president of
+that body, at New York, in April, 1789. Having been re-elected to that
+office in 1792, he held it, and presided in the Senate with great
+dignity, during the entire period of the administration of Washington,
+whose confidence he enjoyed, and by whom he was consulted on important
+questions. In his valedictory address to the Senate he remarks: "It is a
+recollection of which nothing can ever deprive me, and it will be a
+source of comfort to me through the remainder of my life that, on the
+one hand, I have for eight years held the second situation under our
+Constitution, in perfect and uninterrupted harmony with the first,
+without envy in the one, or jealousy in the other, so, on the other
+hand, I have never had the smallest misunderstanding with any member of
+the Senate."
+
+In 1790 Mr. Adams wrote his celebrated "Discourses on Davila;" they were
+anonymously published at first, in the _Gazette of the United States_,
+of Philadelphia, in a series of numbers; they may be considered as a
+sequel to his "Defence of the American Constitutions." He was a decided
+friend and patron of literature and the arts, and while in Europe,
+having obtained much information on the subject of public institutions,
+he contributed largely to the advancement of establishments in his
+native State for the encouragement of arts, sciences, and letters.
+
+On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency of the
+United States, Mr. Adams was elected his successor, after a close and
+spirited contest with two rivals for that high office; Mr. Jefferson
+being supported by the Democratic or Republican party, while a portion
+of the Federal party preferred Mr. Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina,
+who was placed on the ticket with Mr. Adams. The result was the election
+of Mr. Adams as president, and in March, 1797, he entered upon his
+duties in that office. He came to the presidency in a stormy time. In
+the language of Colonel Knapp, "the French revolution had just reached
+its highest point of settled delirium, after some of the paroxysms of
+its fury had passed away. The people of the United States took sides,
+some approving, others deprecating, the course pursued by France. Mr.
+Adams wished to preserve a neutrality, but found this quite impossible.
+A navy was raised with surprising promptitude, to prevent insolence and
+to chastise aggression. It had the desired effect, and France was taught
+that the Americans were friends in peace, but were not fearful of war
+when it could not be averted. When the historian shall come to this page
+of our history, he will do justice to the sagacity, to the spirit, and
+to the integrity of Mr Adams, and will find that he had more reasons,
+and good ones, for his conduct, than his friends or enemies ever gave
+him."
+
+In his course of public policy, when war with France was expected, he
+was encouraged by addresses from all quarters, and by the approving
+voice of Washington. He, however, gave dissatisfaction to many of his
+own political party, in his final attempts to conciliate France, and in
+his removal of two members of his cabinet toward the close of his
+administration. Under these circumstances, notwithstanding Mr. Adams was
+the candidate of the Federal party for re-election as president, and
+received their faithful support, it is not strange that his opponents,
+with the advantage in their favor of the superior popularity of Mr.
+Jefferson, succeeded in defeating him. For this event, the
+correspondence of Mr. Adams shows that he was prepared, and he left the
+arduous duties of chief magistrate probably with less of disappointment
+than his enemies expected.
+
+Immediately after Mr. Jefferson had succeeded to the presidency, in
+1801, Mr. Adams retired to his estate at Quincy, in Massachusetts, and
+passed the remainder of his days in literary and scientific leisure,
+though occasionally addressing various communications to the public. He
+gave his support generally to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and
+the friendship between these distinguished men was revived by a
+correspondence, and continued for several years previous to their death.
+When the disputes with Great Britain eventuated in war, Mr. Adams avowed
+his approbation of that measure, and in 1815 he saw the second treaty of
+peace concluded with that nation, by a commission of which his son was
+at the head, as he had been himself in that commission which formed the
+treaty of 1783.
+
+In 1816 the Republican party in Massachusetts, which had once vehemently
+opposed him as president of the United States, paid him the compliment
+of placing his name at the head of their list of presidential electors.
+In 1820 he was chosen a member of the State Convention to revise the
+constitution of Massachusetts, which body unanimously solicited him to
+act as their president. This he declined on account of his age, but he
+was complimented by a vote of the convention acknowledging his great
+services, for a period of more than half a century, in the cause of his
+country and of mankind.
+
+The last years of the long life of Mr. Adams were peaceful and tranquil.
+His mansion was always the abode of elegant hospitality, and he was
+occasionally enlivened by visits from his distinguished son, whom, in
+1825, he had the singular felicity of seeing elevated to the office of
+President of the United States. At length, having lived to a good old
+age, he expired, surrounded by his affectionate relatives, on July 4,
+1826, the fiftieth anniversary of that independence which he had done so
+much to achieve. A short time before his death, being asked to suggest a
+toast for the customary celebration, he replied, "I will give
+you--Independence forever." Mr. Jefferson died on the same day. A
+similar coincidence occurred five years afterward, in the death of
+President Monroe, July 4, 1831.
+
+Mr. Adams was of middle stature and full person, and when elected
+president, was bald on the top of his head. His countenance beamed with
+intelligence, and moral as well as physical courage. His walk was firm
+and dignified to a late period of his life. His manner was slow and
+deliberate, unless he was excited, and when this happened he expressed
+himself with great energy. He was ever a man of purest morals, and is
+said to have been a firm believer in Christianity, not from habit and
+example, but from diligent investigation of its proofs.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS JEFFERSON[5]
+
+By HON. JOHN B. HENDERSON
+
+(1743-1826)
+
+         [Footnote 5: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Thomas Jefferson. [TN]]
+
+
+Thomas Jefferson was born April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, Albemarle County,
+Va. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a descendant of a Welsh family
+which came to Virginia before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. The
+father's income was derived from a large farm adjoining that of William
+Randolph, whose daughter, Jane, he married in 1738. Monticello, the
+future residence of his son Thomas, was a part of this farm. Peter
+Jefferson was a leader among the men of his day and received expressions
+of public confidence from the voters of his county. He died in 1759,
+having directed that Thomas should complete his education in William and
+Mary College at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony.
+
+Thomas entered the college and by assiduous application he soon built
+upon the learning acquired in the public and private schools of his
+county, an education quite liberal and advanced for that period.
+
+He was tall, and in youth somewhat awkward in manner. What he lacked,
+however, in personal grace was at once forgotten in the vivacity of his
+conversation, made doubly charming by the extent and variety of his
+learning. During his collegiate days he formed a close friendship with
+Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and others who afterward became
+distinguished in American history. He was always welcome in the house of
+Governor Fauquier, from whom he learned much of the social, political,
+and parliamentary life of the old world. It was here that he first met
+George Wythe, a gifted and talented young lawyer, who afterward became
+Chancellor of the State.
+
+After leaving college he entered upon the study of the law in the office
+of his friend Mr. Wythe, and with this and the management of his
+father's estate he found himself abundantly occupied.
+
+In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and for several years devoted
+himself to the practice of his profession. It is quite probable that, in
+consequence of his inability to speak and his utter incapacity for
+forensic controversy, his career at the bar would not have reached the
+highest distinction. What he lacked, however, in the power of speech,
+found ample compensation in the strength, beauty, and elegance of
+expression which he commanded with the pen. This extraordinary talent
+was destined soon to find abundant employment in defending the rights of
+the people against the oppressive acts of the mother-country. Patrick
+Henry had already argued the "Parsons' Cause" in December, 1763, and
+Jefferson himself, as a college student at Williamsburg, had listened to
+the impassioned speech of Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses
+against the Stamp Act of Parliament. But the fiery eloquence of his
+friend Henry only fanned a flame that already burned in the breast of
+Jefferson. Impulsive by nature, by education and training a democrat, he
+naturally espoused the cause of his countrymen. The peculiar condition
+of the colonies furnished the opportunity to Jefferson's wonderful
+faculty for writing. The orator could not be heard by all the people of
+the colonies; but the products of the pen could be carried to the most
+secluded hamlet. And truly in Jefferson's hands the pen was "mightier
+than the sword."
+
+The first year after opening his law office, at the age of twenty-five,
+he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses from Albemarle, his
+native county, and on taking his seat the following May, the controversy
+between the royal governor and the assembly at once began. Jefferson
+prepared the resolutions in reply to the executive speech; and on the
+third day of the session the passage of other resolutions, in the form
+of a bill of rights, caused the governor to dissolve the assembly.
+Jefferson was again elected to the House of Burgesses, and in 1774, was
+elected a delegate to the State convention.
+
+On account of illness he failed to reach the convention, but he prepared
+and forwarded to its president a draft of instructions which he hoped
+would be adopted for the guidance of those to be sent by the body as
+delegates to the General Congress of the colonies. For this paper,
+afterward published as "A Summary View of the Rights of British
+America," the name of Jefferson was inserted in a bill of attainder
+brought into the English Parliament.
+
+After a short detention in the House of Burgesses, in which he drafted
+the reply of Virginia to the "conciliatory proposition" of Lord North,
+he proceeded to Philadelphia as a delegate to the General Congress, in
+which he took his seat on June 21, 1775.
+
+When Jefferson entered the Congress, conditions existing between the
+mother country and the colonies had already reached the point of open
+rebellion. It is true that the taxes had all been repealed except the
+import tax on tea, but the repeals had been invariably accompanied with
+the assertion of an unlimited right to tax without the consent of the
+colonies. English troops had been quartered in Boston, and English
+war-ships occupied its harbor. The right of deportation to, and trial
+in, England for offences committed in America, was still claimed by both
+king and Parliament. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had now
+been fought, and Washington had already been commissioned as
+commander-in-chief of the colonial armies.
+
+In this condition of affairs Massachusetts and Virginia, in which had
+been most keenly felt the oppressive acts of the mother country, were
+quite ready for open and avowed rebellion. But in many of the other
+colonies the sense of loyalty and the ties of friendship were yet
+sufficiently strong to induce the hope of continued union.
+
+It was therefore not until June 7, 1776, that Virginia, through Richard
+Henry Lee, introduced into Congress at Philadelphia the resolutions for
+a final separation; and a few days thereafter a committee was appointed
+to prepare the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was placed at the
+head of this committee, his colleagues consisting of Adams, Franklin,
+Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The declaration was prepared by
+Jefferson, and when submitted to Dr. Franklin and John Adams for
+criticism, some verbal amendments suggested by them were made. It was
+then reported to Congress on June 28th, and after debate and other
+slight amendments by the body itself, it was adopted and signed on July
+4, 1776.
+
+Whatever the merits or demerits of the paper, it is essentially the work
+of Jefferson. It has been much criticised, both in its substance and its
+form. It is quite certain, however, that since its promulgation there
+has been, not only in the United States but abroad, a continually
+increasing tendency to accept and apply its principles in the practical
+affairs of government. As an eloquent arraignment of tyranny, a
+denunciation of oppression and an inspiration to resistance, it stands
+perhaps unequalled among the products of human intellect. As
+appropriately said by another, the paper is "consecrated in the
+affections of Americans and praise may seem as superfluous as censure
+would be unavailing."
+
+So soon as the colonies had become united in the cause of forcible
+resistance, Jefferson returned to his own State to commence perhaps the
+most useful and beneficent work of his life. He had again been elected
+to Congress, but with the prescience of the seer, he chose the seemingly
+less important place of representative to the Legislature of his State.
+He took his seat on October 7, 1776. On the 11th of the same month he
+asked leave to present a bill to establish courts of justice in the
+State of Virginia; on the next day, to authorize tenants _en tail_ to
+convey their estates in fee simple. This was immediately followed by
+other bills for the utter overthrow of primogeniture and the whole law
+of entails.
+
+His reformatory spirit did not stop with these radical measures. He
+found another danger in the conservatism and aristocratic tendencies of
+the established church of the State. In his judgment the whole body of
+law and custom inherited from England must be thoroughly exterminated,
+to the end that English influence might be driven from the land. In his
+judgment English institutions had been cunningly devised in the interest
+of monarchy. Their purpose, he believed, was to create and maintain
+distinctions in society, and to perpetuate and strengthen an
+aristocratic caste as the ally and support of the crown. So long as they
+existed there was constant danger of relapse from the high purposes of
+the rebellion. In Jefferson's regard, they were inconsistent with the
+principles of the revolution now proclaimed, and sooner or later would
+be found its open or secret enemies.
+
+For these reforms the old aristocracy of his State denounced him as a
+Jacobin, and the established church denounced him as an infidel.
+
+Jefferson continued to serve in the House of Delegates during the years
+1777 and 1778, and in addition to the measures already named, he secured
+laws to establish elementary and collegiate education in the State, and
+to prohibit the further importation of slaves into Virginia. He also
+sought to inaugurate a system of gradual emancipation; but slavery was
+already so thoroughly engrafted on the social system of the people, that
+even Jefferson, Wythe, and Mason could not dislodge it. Jefferson, in
+1821, referring to his failure in this regard, said: "it was found that
+the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it,
+even to this day; yet the day is not distant, when it must bear and
+adopt it, or worse will, follow. Nothing is more certainly written in
+the book of fate than that these people are to be free."
+
+On retiring from the Legislature he was elected governor of the State.
+The period of his service in this position was unfortunate for his fame.
+He was essentially a civilian, neither having, nor pretending to have,
+military skill or knowledge. The war had now been transferred to the
+Southern States. Cornwallis had overrun Georgia and South Carolina,
+defeated Gates at Camden, and was pushing north for the desolation of
+Virginia. The State had already become impoverished by its liberal
+contributions of money, men, and arms to the general cause, and was now
+powerless for its own defence. The hated Benedict Arnold was able to
+ascend the James River to Richmond, dispersing the Legislature and
+burning the town. Tarleton afterward penetrated as far as
+Charlottesville--Jefferson and the Legislature narrowly escaping
+capture. Jefferson felt keenly the situation, and at the expiration of
+his term retired to Monticello, humiliated and overwhelmed by unjust
+criticism and undeserved censure. His gloom and melancholy were made
+still more sad at this period, by the death of his wife, whom he had
+married in 1772. But the privilege of neither obscurity nor rest was
+reserved for him. The winter session of 1783 found him again in the
+General Congress abolishing the English system of coinage and providing
+for the government of the Northwestern territory, which had been ceded
+to the confederation by Virginia.
+
+In 1784 he was named as a minister plenipotentiary to Europe at large,
+to assist Adams and Franklin in the negotiation of commercial treaties.
+In 1785 he became minister to France in the place of Dr. Franklin, who
+had resigned; and in March, 1790, in pursuance of a previous acceptance,
+he entered the Cabinet of President Washington as Secretary of State.
+
+Already the germs of two great conflicting parties had been sown. The
+debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and still more
+manifestly the controversies in the State Conventions called to consider
+the adoption of the instrument, had developed the differences, which, in
+theory at least, have distinguished political parties ever since. The
+colonies had been chiefly settled by Englishmen. No people are more
+tenacious than they of preconceived opinions, or more averse to the
+abandonment of ancient forms and customs. A strong attachment to the
+institutions of England still remained with the people of the colonies.
+With many of them the whole object of the revolution was political
+separation from the mother country. They heartily desired independence
+and freedom, and they had willingly risked their lives to secure them.
+But the freedom they sought was the right, if they chose, to establish
+and perpetuate those cherished institutions of the mother-country for
+themselves. They would enjoy them still, and make them a lasting
+inheritance for their posterity, but free from the power and dominion of
+Europe.
+
+Such persons had revolted not against England, but against England's
+wrongful acts; not against the authority of law, but against the
+perversion of law. To them the Declaration of Independence was a
+splendid piece of rhetoric intended only to inflame the mind with a
+sense of injury, and to nerve the heart to determined resistance. Like
+the Marseillaise hymn, it was merely to be repeated on entering the
+battle. Like the bugle blast, it served only to stimulate the soul and
+shut out all other sounds while the contest lasted. Not so with
+Jefferson and his followers. The Declaration of Independence truly
+reflected their political sentiments. To them the revolution meant
+something more than mere separation. It looked to the total repudiation
+of the English system of government, and the substitution of the rule of
+the people. They admitted the inefficiency of the articles of
+confederation, and were willing to accept nationality in a modified
+form. But to them the Constitution as framed in 1787 was armed with the
+most dangerous powers. They accepted it merely as a choice of evils,
+trusting by strict construction and future amendment to give it
+eventually the form and mould of their own views.
+
+The President, in selecting his ministers, sought to compromise these
+antagonisms by giving the parties equal representation in his Cabinet.
+Between two such men, however, as Jefferson, his Secretary of State, and
+Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, there could be no
+permanent co-operation. So eager, indeed, was Jefferson to inaugurate
+the controversy, that he really began the battle of strict construction
+before his peculiar principles had been seriously invaded. Time has long
+since demonstrated that, in his opposition to Hamilton's financial
+measures, he was clearly wrong. The truth seems to be, that in this
+branch of politics, Jefferson was without knowledge or practical skill.
+
+In his discussions with the English minister touching violations of the
+late treaty of peace, and in the controversy with Spain in respect to
+the right of navigating the Mississippi River through her territory to
+the Gulf, Jefferson displayed his usual ability.
+
+The declaration of war by France, now a republic, against England,
+precipitated upon the Government of the United States a number of
+difficult and troublesome questions of international law. They were
+especially irritating because of the personal feelings involved in their
+discussion and settlement. A profound sense of gratitude to France for
+assistance in the late revolutionary struggle, was felt by all classes
+in America, while the Republicans were especially open and undisguised
+in their expressions of sympathy for the French people. And but for the
+imprudent conduct of the French minister, Genet, the supremacy of the
+Federal party might have been seriously jeopardized in the beginning of
+Washington's second term. The conduct of this functionary was so
+insolent and exacting as to excite disgust for himself, and to cool in a
+marked degree the zeal of the Republicans in their support of the new
+republic.
+
+While Jefferson's sympathy with France was perhaps too manifest, and
+while his personal conduct in the Cabinet touching this question was not
+altogether kind to the president, and in other respects liable to
+criticism, his correspondence with the French Government, when finally
+published, was found to have been based upon the highest principles of
+international right and dictated by a proper sense of the dignity and
+character of his own country.
+
+Jefferson's proud nature had for several years, chafed under the
+continued success of Federal measures. Washington had manifestly ignored
+his counsel in the Cabinet, and favored Hamilton in the administration
+of the Government. Jefferson was piqued and chagrined beyond further
+endurance. He hated Hamilton with an intensity due only to an open enemy
+of the country.
+
+In this state of mind, on December 31, 1793, he resigned from the
+Cabinet, and again sought the seclusion and quiet of his farm at
+Monticello. But his pen was never idle. He was untiring in the
+dissemination of his peculiar views of government. With emotions
+intensified by strong convictions of right his contributions to the
+political literature of the day were vigorous and peculiarly attractive.
+He continued to be the acknowledged leader of the Republican party, and
+was promptly named as its candidate for president in 1796, to succeed
+General Washington, who had declined a third term. Between him and John
+Adams, the candidate of the Federal party, the vote was very close,
+Adams receiving 71 electoral votes and Jefferson 68. Under the
+provisions of the Constitution as they existed at the time, Adams became
+President and Jefferson Vice-President.
+
+During Adams' term were passed the Alien and Sedition laws, as well as
+others, unnecessary and of doubtful constitutionality, which proved to
+be fatal and ruinous mistakes of the Federal party. Jefferson and
+Madison's threats of State repudiation against Federal legislation, as
+enunciated in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, furnished good
+arguments, of course, for the continued existence of a truly national
+party. But the seeds of decay had been sown. Adams was vain, impulsive,
+rash, and violent. Jefferson was far more deliberate, with larger views
+of statesmanship and a better knowledge of the people. He had abundant
+cunning and the ready adaptation of partisan skill.
+
+In a contest of four years between such leaders, it is not strange that
+when the election of 1800 came on, Jefferson should receive 73 electoral
+votes while Adams received but 65.
+
+Although Jefferson was elected over Adams, he was not yet elected over
+Aaron Burr, who had received an equal number of votes for president with
+himself. In reality no vote had been intended for Burr as President--the
+purpose being to elect Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President.
+
+Under the constitutional provision already referred to, the election was
+remitted to the House of Representatives. Finally, by the aid of
+Hamilton, who only hated Jefferson less than he hated Burr, the
+controversy was decided in favor of the former.
+
+The moment Jefferson became president his whole character seemed to be
+changed. Instead of the relentless partisan of the past, he became the
+apostle of benevolence and charity. His inaugural address, in that
+florid rhetoric of which he was master, enunciated principles of
+government to which no friend of human liberty could object. The spirit
+of conciliation breathed in every sentence. "Every difference of
+opinion," he said, "is not a difference of principle. We have called by
+different names brethren of the same principles. We are all
+Republicans--we are all Federalists.... Let us then, with courage and
+confidence, pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our
+attachment to our Union and representative government."
+
+The short-lived peace of Europe had re-established American commerce on
+the ocean, and general prosperity pervaded all departments of business.
+Indeed, the wise moderation of the president had brought the most
+agreeable disappointment to his enemies. Federalists were not removed
+from office for political reasons, and the country settled down into the
+conviction that Republican success after all, might prove to be a
+beneficent change.
+
+As already stated, the Northwest territory, extending from the Ohio to
+the Mississippi River, had formerly belonged to Virginia, and perhaps no
+public man of his day so well understood as did Jefferson, the
+importance and needs of that vast domain. Spain, as the owner of
+Louisiana, held supreme control of New Orleans and the lower
+Mississippi.
+
+While Secretary of State under Washington, Jefferson would have been
+content with the acquisition of the Island of New Orleans, and the free
+navigation of the Mississippi River. Circumstances had now changed. He
+was himself president. Spain had suddenly conveyed Louisiana to France,
+and Napoleon was meditating the abrogation of the peace of Amiens and
+the declaration of war against England. In such a war France could not
+well retain her distant possessions against the superior naval power of
+her old and grasping enemy. Napoleon had a property which in case of
+war, he was likely to lose. He had resolved on war, and for that purpose
+needed money, which, fortunately, the American Treasury could furnish at
+once.
+
+Instead of the Island of New Orleans the President's dream now embraced
+the whole of the Louisiana purchase, extending from the Mississippi
+River to the Pacific Ocean.
+
+Livingston, of New York, the associate of Jefferson, in 1776, on the
+Committee to frame the Declaration of Independence, was now Minister to
+France, but he was unfortunately embarrassed by his committal to the
+acquisition of New Orleans alone. Monroe's term, as Governor of
+Virginia, had just expired. He had formerly served the country most
+acceptably at the French court. He was the devoted friend, personally
+and politically, of Jefferson. They were both committed to the "strict
+construction" theory of the Constitution. This narrow view of the
+instrument, on which their party had come into power, absolutely forbade
+the acquisition of territory by purchase. But Louisiana was necessary
+not only to the growth, but to the maintenance of the Union. It mattered
+not that the professions of the Republican party had to be violated. The
+prize outweighed the virtue of party consistency. Jefferson himself was
+forced to admit the want of power, but having resolved on the act, he
+said: "The less that is said about any constitutional difficulty the
+better." Again he said: "It will be desirable for Congress to do what is
+necessary in silence."
+
+With these views he despatched Monroe to Paris. For obvious reasons
+written instructions were avoided; but it is quite certain that
+unlimited discretion to the Minister had resulted from a careful
+comparison of views.
+
+It was under these circumstances that in 1803 the vast domain known as
+"The Louisiana Purchase" was obtained by the United States for the
+paltry consideration of fifteen million dollars.
+
+This of itself added immensely to Jefferson's popularity. Internal
+taxation had been abolished. Rigid economy of administration had been
+introduced. The public debt was in the course of rapid extinction. The
+rigorous ceremonials of former administrations had given place to the
+simplest forms, and the temples of power had been made accessible to the
+humblest citizen. The country enjoyed great prosperity, and a spirit of
+contentment pervaded the land.
+
+Jefferson's second election, in 1804, was almost without opposition--his
+vote being 162 to 14 for C. C. Pinckney, the Federal candidate.
+
+The second term of the President was far less successful than the first.
+A political exigency in France had forced the sale of Louisiana, and its
+opportune purchase had given Jefferson unbounded popularity, and linked
+his name with the future greatness of his country. But the impending
+hostilities producing that exigency had now been declared. France and
+England were again in open war, and each, to wound the other, had
+recklessly trampled upon the rights of the United States. English orders
+in council blockaded the ports of France, and Napoleon's Berlin decrees
+equally closed those of England against neutral commerce. The right of
+search was claimed by both powers, and offensively exercised by England.
+Time had now brought its inevitable revenges. Jefferson was again
+confronted by conditions in which he manifested more or less of weakness
+and incapacity. In peace his statesmanship was always creditable, and at
+times, truly magnificent. In the presence of war he was too often
+vacillating and incompetent. The embargo on the commerce of his own
+country, which he suggested, was hardly less injurious than the wrongs
+of which he complained. The remedy was worse, if possible, than the
+disease.
+
+Aaron Burr, in contesting for the presidency in 1801, had forfeited the
+confidence of his own party, and for killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804,
+he had incurred the hatred of the Federalists, and lost the respect of
+all parties. In his desperation he had organized an expedition to
+proceed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a view, as was
+supposed, of invading Mexico, or segregating from the United States a
+portion of its territory. He was arrested for treason and brought to
+Richmond, where he was finally tried for a high misdemeanor in
+organizing forces against Spain within the United States. In this
+prosecution, as in the impeachment of Judge Chase of the Supreme Court,
+executive encouragement and aid were offensively open and notorious.
+
+When the embargo had almost ruined the commercial States of the Union,
+it was modified by a non-intercourse act with France and England, to
+take effect on March 4, 1809, the last day of Jefferson's term.
+
+At the close of his second term Jefferson permanently retired from
+office, and spent his remaining years at Monticello.
+
+By a singular coincidence both he and John Adams died on July 4, 1826,
+just fifty years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence.
+
+The brief facts already recited clearly indicate the character of the
+man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was
+without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and
+unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for
+self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the
+struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people
+against English tyranny took the form of religious enthusiasm. In France
+he witnessed the sufferings and misery of the down-trodden poor, whose
+wild vengeance he believed to be justified by the long ages of
+oppression and wrong under which they had groaned.
+
+He distrusted power and naturally sought to restrict its exercise.
+Hating monarchy, he feared to delegate large powers of government even
+in republican forms. Hating an aristocracy, he encouraged the masses to
+demand equality in civil, political, and social rights.
+
+His political inconsistencies resulted from the usual impossibility of
+reconciling theory and practice. When his opponents were in power, their
+purposes, he thought, were accomplished through violations of the
+constitution. An equally dangerous exercise of power by his friends
+failed to excite his alarm. Feeling conscious within himself of an
+honest purpose to subserve the good of the people and to perpetuate
+their liberties, he found ready justification for every act having, in
+his judgment, those ends in view.
+
+America has produced no man so dear to the masses of its people as
+Thomas Jefferson. He was an iconoclast, but the images broken by him
+were the idols of a past age, and no longer deserved the worship of a
+free people.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER HAMILTON
+
+(1757-1804)
+
+[Illustration: Alexander Hamilton. [TN]]
+
+
+The parentage of Alexander Hamilton is given by his son and biographer
+as of mingled Scottish and French ancestry--Scottish on the father's
+side, Huguenot on the mother's. Students of the doctrine of temperaments
+may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under the genial ray
+of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock with it many
+cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamilton; Scottish
+perseverance and integrity, French honor and susceptibility, tropical
+fervor. Be that as it may, Alexander Hamilton first saw the light in the
+West India island, St. Christopher, January 11, 1757. His father was a
+trader or captain, sailing between the islands of the archipelago, whose
+business brought him into relation with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy
+merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with New York, in whose
+counting-house the son was placed at the age of twelve. He was a boy of
+quick intellect, in advance of his years, and had already made much of
+limited opportunities of instruction, as we may learn from an
+exceedingly well-penned epistle, addressed thus early to a school-fellow
+who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy
+seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness,
+Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the
+grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune
+condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character,
+to exalt my station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I
+shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war." This may be regarded
+as a boyish rhapsody; but all boys are not given to such rhapsodies.
+
+The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room, and
+doubtless practised his pen in composition, for we hear of his writing
+an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a narrative
+which appears to have been published, since it attracted the attention
+of the governor. These evidences of talent determined his friends to
+send him to New York to complete his education. He came, landing at
+Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York by the
+correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become interested in his
+welfare in Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced to the school of
+Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed the society of the
+Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influential people of the colony. He
+studied early, and at the close of the year presented himself to Doctor
+Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request to be permitted to overleap
+some of the usual collegiate terms according to his qualifications. As
+this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College,
+now Columbia, in New York, with the special privileges he desired. In
+addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of
+Clossey. Colonel Troup, at this time his room-fellow, testifies to his
+earnest religious feeling, a very noticeable thing in a youth of his
+powers. He wrote verses freely--among them doggerel burlesques of the
+productions of the ministerial writers of the day.
+
+The Revolution was now fairly getting under way, and in the opening
+tumultuous scenes in New York, strong hands were wanted at the wheel.
+Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making
+his decision. He entered the field against the dashing young president
+of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's
+_Gazette_ to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after
+the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published
+a pamphlet in vindication of the measures of Congress, against the
+attacks of Seabury and Wilkins. The contest, however, was one which was
+not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative lawyers and
+divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the constitutional
+arguments of such young counsellors as Hamilton and Jay. The hard hands
+of the committee of mechanics were much more demonstrative. Myles
+Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic,
+and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party
+in their restrictive, non-importation measures proposed to dispense with
+the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into
+independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question,
+too.
+
+But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony,
+was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were
+drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for
+action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery;
+Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades, "Hearts of oak" they
+called themselves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the
+harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and one
+of Hamilton's company was killed. The Liberty Boys spread the alarm and
+gathered in a mob, threatening to attack the college and seize its
+president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton, who was no friend to riot, little as
+he was afraid of discussion or of force, interposed with a speech from
+the college steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half naked,
+took refuge on the shore, wandering over the island in the night to the
+old Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was the next day finally removed from
+America in his Majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor,
+Tryon, took refuge in the Asia shortly after.
+
+Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs, making
+choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some instruction
+from a British soldier, and by aid of the popular leader, McDougal,
+received from the convention the appointment of captain of the
+Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed his
+nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of
+genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and youth
+is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The young
+captain was engaged, not only in the gymnastics of drilling recruits,
+but he was reading, thinking, and working out problems in political
+economy for himself--and the future. Dr. Johnson said that he learned
+little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the foundation
+at least, of all his knowledge before twenty. "His military books of
+this period," says his son, "give an interesting exhibition of his train
+of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various general
+speculations and extracts from the ancients, chiefly relating to
+politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic,
+considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions which
+are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of population, and
+the principles on which depends the value of a circulating medium; and
+among his papers there remains a carefully digested outline of a plan
+for the political and commercial history of British America, compiled at
+this time." There is the germ in all this of the Secretary of the
+Treasury.
+
+The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the
+landing of Howe and his British troops, followed by the masterly retreat
+of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The subsequent
+American proceedings in the evacuation of the city, the passage from the
+island to Westchester, and the subsequent retreat before Cornwallis
+through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had little of glory, at
+least required their full share of military determination and endurance.
+Hamilton was active throughout the campaign. At White Plains and on the
+Raritan, at Trenton and Princeton, his artillery did good service. When
+he entered Morristown, his original company of a hundred was reduced by
+the accidents of war to twenty-five. Here, on March 1, 1777, leaving the
+line of the army, he became attached to the staff of Washington as his
+aid. This was the commencement of that half military, half civil
+relation which identified Hamilton in joint labors and councils with the
+Father of his Country.
+
+Hamilton became, in fact, the right-hand man of Washington, not only
+during the war, but throughout his subsequent political career, and no
+better proof than this can be had at once of the sagacity of Washington
+in selecting his instruments, and of the honor and worth of Hamilton in
+so long and so successfully maintaining this distinguished position. In
+the staff of the commander-in-chief, Hamilton, we are told, acquired the
+title, "The Little Lion." His spirit and courage were shown in numerous
+instances, particularly in the battle of Monmouth, where Lee exposed
+bravery to such violent hazards, an affair out of which grew a duel
+between that officer and Colonel John Laurens, one of Washington's aids,
+in which Hamilton was the second of his friend and associate. Nor was
+Hamilton's counsel less serviceable in interviews with the French
+officers, and those frequent negotiations with the different portions of
+the army, and with Congress, which were among the hardest necessities of
+Washington's campaigns.
+
+The relation of Hamilton to Washington, as a member of his military
+family, was suddenly brought to a termination at head-quarters on the
+Hudson, in February, 1781. The difference arose in a momentary
+forgetfulness of temper on the part of Washington. For some purpose of
+consultation he required the presence of Hamilton, who was detained from
+keeping the appointment on the instant, for it appears to have been a
+delay of but a few moments. Washington, however, was impatient, and
+meeting Hamilton at the head of the stairs, angrily exclaimed, "Colonel
+Hamilton, you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten
+minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect." Hamilton
+firmly replied, "I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you have
+thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." "Very well, sir," said
+Washington, "if it be your choice," or something to that effect, and the
+friends separated. Washington immediately opened the way for the
+Secretary's continuance at his post, but, without any feeling of
+asperity, the overture was declined. Hamilton, however, proffered his
+services and counsel. With no other man than Washington, indeed, could
+the subordinate relation have continued so long, and Hamilton had often
+thought of renouncing it; but he saw in Washington the man for the
+times, the great representative of a great cause, for which minor
+considerations must be sacrificed. Writing at this moment to Schuyler,
+he says, "The General is a very honest man; his competitors have slender
+abilities and less integrity. His popularity has often been essential to
+the safety of America, and is still of great importance to it. These
+considerations have influenced my past conduct respecting him, and will
+influence my future. I think it is necessary he should be supported."
+
+Hamilton was now desirous to resume active service in the line, and
+after some discussion as to rank, received the command of a New York
+battalion of light infantry, which he led right manfully at the siege of
+Yorktown. He was anxious to signalize himself at this crowning act of
+the war by some distinguished exercise of bravery, and when, at an
+advanced period of the approaches, a redoubt was to be stormed, he
+eagerly solicited the forlorn hope from Washington. Advancing to the
+charge with characteristic spirit, at the point of the bayonet, exposed
+to a heavy fire, he struggled through the ditch, and surmounting the
+defences, took the work in the most brilliant manner. He gallantly
+arrested the slaughter at the first moment, and thus placed his humanity
+upon a level with his bravery.
+
+The war being now brought to an end, Hamilton turned his attention to
+the law, and in a few months' ardent devotion--the devotion of Hamilton
+was always ardent--at Albany to the study with the aid of his friend,
+Colonel Troup, and the stimulus of his recent marriage, qualified
+himself thoroughly for the practice of the profession. He was admitted
+to the Supreme Court at its July term, 1782. About the same time, at the
+solicitation of Robert Morris, the financier of Congress, he accepted
+the appointment of receiver of the continental taxes in the State of New
+York, with the understanding that his exertions were to be employed in
+impressing upon the Legislature the wants and objects of the Government.
+In pursuance of this, he urged resolutions which were unanimously
+adopted in July, 1782, recommending the call of a convention for the
+purpose of revising and amending the Articles of Confederation. He was
+also elected by the Legislature of this year a member of Congress. He
+bore an active part in its debates, and was greatly employed in its
+important financial measures.
+
+On the final departure of the British from New York, in 1783, Hamilton
+became a resident of the city with his family, and devoted himself
+assiduously to the practice of his profession. He was constantly,
+however, looked to as a public man. We find him, in 1784, appealing to
+the public under the signature of Phocion, in favor of more liberal and
+enlightened views in regard to the loyalists of the late Revolution, and
+their rights of property. In 1786 he is a member of the State Assembly,
+and in September of the same year among the delegates of the five States
+which, at the instance of Virginia, met at Annapolis to confer on the
+commercial interests of the country; a too limited representation,
+indeed, to achieve the objects in view, but the precursor of the great
+Federal Convention at Philadelphia of the following year.
+
+We have seen Hamilton's early studies of the theoretical workings of
+government. His practical experience, in the army of Washington, of the
+imperfections of Congress and the defects of the old confederation, was
+not likely to let him forget the subject. Authority in government, rules
+in legislation, financial measures, taxes, loans, and a bank, were
+topics constantly before his mind. The Convention of 1787 gave him, at
+length, the wished-for opportunity to enter upon a full discussion of
+his plans in a cause and before an audience worthy of his powers.
+Washington was the presiding officer, Franklin was in attendance; it was
+a congregation of notables--Rufus King, Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman,
+William Livingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson,
+Luther Martin, James Madison, George Wythe, John Rutledge, and others as
+worthy. Much has been said of Hamilton's course in this Convention, and
+of his advocacy of monarchical views. It is true that a plan of
+government which he supported in a speech of length and eloquence,
+provided several features, as the life tenure of the President and
+senators, and the appointment of State officers by the General
+Government, which, in the interpretation of some minds, as Patrick Henry
+used to express it, "was an awful squinting toward monarchy;" but, on
+the other hand, it should be remembered that the Convention was a
+meeting for consultation, with closed doors, in a committee of the
+whole, in which perfect freedom in the interchange of views was
+desirable; that, in the view of our own day, other members displayed
+heresies quite as obnoxious, and that in the final resolves of the
+Constitution, Hamilton, with the others, yielded his prejudices, and
+became the firm defender of the instrument as it was adopted, and
+substantially now stands.
+
+Remember the age of Hamilton at this time--twenty-nine; a greater
+prodigy in the Convention at Philadelphia than the youth in the army of
+Washington. To no one probably are we more indebted for the Constitution
+than to Hamilton. The Convention which laid the instrument before the
+country for its adoption had scarcely adjourned, when, in company with
+Madison and Jay, he took up the pen in its explanation and defence, in
+the celebrated series of papers, "The Federalist," originally published
+in the New York _Daily Advertiser_. Hamilton began and closed the work.
+Of its eighty-five papers much the greater portion, it is believed, were
+written by him.
+
+The discussion of the financial and military powers, the executive and
+the judiciary, fell to his pen. In the New York Convention he was again
+the efficient advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. In a
+separate series of papers, signed Philo Publius, published in another
+journal, Hamilton, assisted by his friends, met various objections, the
+discussion of which would have marred the unity of "The Federalist,"
+which was thus left a classical commentary upon the Constitution.
+
+Having been thus instrumental in forming the Constitution, Hamilton was
+destined to be one of the most active agents of its powers. When the new
+government went into operation, under its provisions he was summoned by
+Washington, to the discharge of one of the most onerous duties of the
+department, in his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. He
+continued in office six years, marking his administration--for such it
+was in his province--by his report and measures for the funding of the
+public debt, the excise revenue system, which he was called upon to
+assert in arms during the insurrection of Western Pennsylvania, and the
+creation of a National Bank. His reports on these subjects, and on
+manufactures, in which he advocated protection, are among the most
+important contributions of their kind to our national archives. In
+allusion to the financial measures of Hamilton, and their success at the
+time in the welfare of the country, Daniel Webster, in a speech at New
+York, half a century afterward, exclaimed: "He smote the rock of the
+national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He
+touched the dead corpse of the public, and it sprung upon its feet."
+
+The measures of Hamilton, however, were not adopted without opposition.
+Jefferson was their persistent opponent; local interests and State
+pretensions arose to thwart the measures of Government, and gave birth
+to the party feuds of Federalism and its opponents. A growing element of
+disaffection was added to the political caldron in the relations with
+England and the disturbing influences of the principles of the French
+Revolution. Hamilton bore the brunt of much of this popular opposition,
+which came to a crisis in the discussions attending the British Treaty
+of Jay, in 1794, as he defended its provisions in the papers signed
+"Camillus," while it was before the country, and advocated its leading
+neutrality principles in "The Letters of Pacificus," published by him
+the previous year. When France had wearied out all indulgence by her
+aggressions on the high seas, and by her treatment of our ministers at
+Paris, and Washington was again called to the field in anticipation of
+an expected invasion, Hamilton was appointed second in command, and now
+employed himself in the organization of the army. On the death of
+Washington he became commander-in-chief. On the conclusion of a treaty
+with France the army disbanded.
+
+In the intervals of these public duties, Hamilton was actively employed
+in his profession in the higher courts of the State. The late Chancellor
+Kent afterward recalled his "clear, elegant, and fluent style and
+commanding manner. He never made any argument in court without
+displaying his habit of thinking and resorting at once to some
+well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically from
+his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded on
+established principles. His manners were gentle, affable, and kind. He
+appeared to be frank, liberal, and courteous in all his professional
+intercourse."
+
+The last important trial in which Hamilton was engaged, the case of the
+People against Harry Croswell, in the Supreme Court, a few months before
+his untimely death, is memorable also for his maintenance of the right
+of juries to determine the law as well as the fact in cases of libel.
+
+The party politics of the time had been broken up in the simplicity of
+their outline by the administration of John Adams. Aaron Burr was the
+most prominent intriguer in the field. He had attained the
+vice-presidency, and the choice hung for a while suspended between him
+and Jefferson for the presidency. Between the two, Hamilton, who had
+formed an unfavorable opinion of the character of Burr, preferred his
+old antagonist, Jefferson, and cast his influence accordingly. When Burr
+afterward sought the office of Governor of New York, in a contest with a
+member of his own Republican party, in which he relied upon the support
+of the Federalists, he was defeated by Hamilton, who made no secret of
+his opposition. Smarting under the failure of his intrigue, Burr
+determined to challenge the honest man who stood in his way to power. He
+had no ground of personal offence bringing Hamilton within any
+justifiable pretensions even of the lax code of the duellist. The
+expressions which he called upon him to avow or disavow, were vague, and
+were based upon the report of a person who specified neither time,
+place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay which was
+alleged--evidently a wanton provocation to a murderous duel. Burr
+demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have said,
+that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an
+indorsement of his character at the cost of the moral character of the
+indorser. Hamilton despised the manoeuvre, but perceiving that a meeting
+was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, contrary to his better
+judgment, that his usefulness would be destroyed in the public affairs
+of the times if he avoided the contest, fell into the fatal snare.
+
+He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and
+creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to bear
+in mind she had been to them the most devoted and best of mothers. On
+the night preceding the appointment he wrote a paper declaring his
+intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself before the
+world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his conduct upon
+his usefulness to his country. The next morning, July 11th, they met at
+Weehawken; the weapons were pistols, the distance ten paces. The duel
+was fought within a few feet of the shore, in a woodland scene beneath
+the cliff opposite the present inhabited portion of New York, at a spot
+now traversed or closely approached by the river road, but then readily
+accessible only by water. Hamilton fell at the first fire, mortally
+wounded, his pistol-shot striking at random a twig some seven feet above
+the head of his antagonist. Burr fled, a wanderer over the earth.
+Hamilton was carried across the river, supported by Pendleton and Dr.
+Hosack, to the house of his friend, Mr. Bayard, at Greenwich. He was
+there enabled to take farewell of his family, and receive the last
+consolations of religion from the hands of Bishop Moore. He died on the
+afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 1804.
+
+The reception of the fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the
+community. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted his
+countrymen to victory and a place among the nations--Hamilton, the
+counsellor of Washington, the consummate statesman of the Constitution,
+the reliance of the State, the hope of the future: visions such as these
+were contrasted in the popular mind with his wretched fall. We perhaps
+darken the shades of the picture, for time and proof have added to the
+greatness of Hamilton, and Burr waited not for death to exhibit the
+penury of his fame. But the men who knew the heart of Hamilton, who saw
+in him the bulwark of the State, his contemporaries, wept his fate with
+no common lamentation. New York gave her public honors to his grave.
+Gouverneur Morris, with strenuous words, delivered the funeral oration
+by the side of his bier, under the portico of old Trinity; and Mason,
+the pulpit orator of his time, thundered his strong sentences at the
+crime which had robbed the world of Hamilton.
+
+
+
+
+COUNT DE MIRABEAU[6]
+
+By CHARLES S. HATHAWAY
+
+(1749-1791)
+
+         [Footnote 6: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Mirabeau. [TN]]
+
+
+Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Count de Mirabeau, one of the most eminent
+among the great authors, orators, and statesmen of France, was born on
+March 9, 1749 on his father's estate at Bignon, near Nemours.
+
+The earliest of Mirabeau's ancestors of whom there is any notable
+record, was Jean Riquetti, a prominent merchant at Marseilles, who, in
+1570, bought the château and estate of Mirabeau, near Pertuis, from the
+well-known Provençal family of Barras and who, a few years later,
+acquired the title of Esquire.
+
+In 1685, one hundred and fifteen years after the purchase above
+mentioned, Honoré Riquetti, lineal descendant of the Marseilles
+merchant, obtained the title of Marquis de Mirabeau, and there was born
+to this marquis a son, Jean Antoine Riquetti, who achieved a worthy
+record as a soldier, but whose prominent place in history is due to the
+fact that he was the grandfather of the great Mirabeau.
+
+Victor Riquetti, son of this second Marquis de Mirabeau and father of
+the great, the Count de Mirabeau, was in his early manhood an
+indifferent soldier, but he afterward became distinguished as a writer
+and leader in French politics. His wife (the mother of Count de
+Mirabeau) was Marie Geneviève, daughter of M. de Vassan, a brigadier in
+the French army, she being, also, the widow of the Marquis de
+Saulyeboeuf. This union, entered into without a previous meeting between
+the principals to the contract, and at a time when the Marquis de
+Mirabeau was well started in his career as a politician, was not a happy
+one. The new husband was more loyal to politics than to his wife, so
+that, when their son, who was destined to achieve fame, was but thirteen
+years old, there was a separation between the parents by mutual consent.
+
+Thus, in outline, is indicated the ancestry of Mirabeau through a period
+of nearly two centuries, and, meagre as the showing is, it is evident
+that he was the scion of a long line of wealth and nobility, his
+paternal ancestors having served with credit as soldiers, while his
+father was eminent as a politician. There is a second group of facts
+which bear interestingly upon the career under discussion. Mirabeau the
+great was born at a time when more than two-thirds of France was in the
+hands of privileged classes--the king, the nobility, and the clergy--and
+at a time, too, when the structure founded upon years of feudalism and
+absolutism was about to be shaken to its base by the magic of popular
+public opinion.
+
+Under such conditions, at such a time, and from such stock, occurred the
+birth of Mirabeau the great; a coming into the world of a babe "scarce
+half made up;" a child with a head so large that it was a dire
+deformity, with one foot sadly twisted, and with a tongue that was tied;
+in brief, an infant ogre born with teeth. So great was the chagrin of
+the father that he made no effort to conceal his dislike for the
+misshapen child. Hence, when at three years of age the little one was
+left wretchedly pitted by a severe attack of small-pox, its fate was
+listed. It must not, could not, bear the name of Mirabeau.
+
+Accordingly, when the youngster was fourteen years old--after several
+years of instruction under the private tutorship of Lachabeaussière,
+_père_--he was entered under the fictitious name of "Pierre Buffière,"
+at a private military school in Paris. Here, strong of limb, body, and
+mind, industrious and aggressive, he remained for four years. Then his
+father placed him in the Berry regiment of cavalry, which regiment had
+been commanded, sixty-two years before, by his grandfather.
+
+This event marked the end of a boyhood which had been clouded by an
+almost entire absence of paternal favor, and wholly free from maternal
+care--the mother's absence having been secured by the father, by a
+_lettre de cachet_. In addition, that boyhood had been irritated and
+embittered by a continuous and exasperating development of his natural
+personal disfigurement. His enormous head grew less in harmony with his
+torso, his lips and nose became thick and heavy, great moles revealed
+themselves upon his cheeks, and in every way, physically, his growth was
+a perpetual disappointment.
+
+However, he was now (1767) the eighteen-year old "Pierre Buffière," a
+lieutenant of cavalry, conscious of his exceptional mental strength and
+somewhat vain thereof, and full of ambition and determination to win as
+he wished and in spite of all of his many obstacles. Unfortunately, but
+most naturally, considering his temperament, the first test of his will,
+his passion, and his determination, resulted in his victory. He won the
+affection of a young woman to whom his colonel had long been devoted,
+and the scandal resulting therefrom caused the father to obtain a
+_lettre de cachet_, by authority of which the indiscreet young man was
+placed in confinement in the Isle of Rhé. Immediately the prisoner began
+his first illustration of his ability to gain to his own purposes the
+ability and influence of others--one of his strongest and most useful
+characteristics. Within two months he had secured the esteem and
+confidence of his jailer, so that that official soon made a most
+favorable report, upon the strength of which Mirabeau was accepted as a
+volunteer to accompany the French expedition sent (in 1769) to conquer
+Corsica. So well did the young soldier conduct himself during this
+campaign, that he was not only promoted to a captaincy in the dragoons,
+but he effected a partial reconciliation with his father, returned to
+Provence, was permitted to assume his true name and title, and was
+presented at court. In June, 1772, he married, by his father's advice,
+Marie Émile de Covet, only daughter of the Marquis de Marignane. She
+came to him portionless, and he, impetuous, ambitious, and extravagant,
+became, during the next two years, deeply involved in debt. The marriage
+was a failure. Again the father utilized the _lettre de cachet_, and a
+second time was Mirabeau a prisoner (August 23, 1774), this time in the
+Château d'If, at Marseilles. Here it was that he wrote his first work of
+which we have any exact knowledge, its title being: "Essai sur le
+Despotisme."
+
+In the following year he was transferred from the Château d'If to the
+Castle of Joux, where he was less strictly confined. He had the freedom
+of the place and frequent opportunities for visiting the near-by town of
+Pontarlier. It was in this town that he first met Marie Thérèse, the
+Marchioness de Monnier, the young and attractive wife of an aged
+magistrate. A love affair was the result, and it culminated in August,
+1776, in an elopement, first to Switzerland and then to Amsterdam. For
+over nine months the fugitive pair lived together in the Dutch capital,
+Mirabeau, under the assumed name of St. Mathieu, earning a livelihood as
+a pamphleteer and by making translations for Holland publishers.
+Meanwhile the tribunal of Pontarlier had condemned both
+parties--Mirabeau to be beheaded and his companion (his "Sophie," as she
+is most widely known) to imprisonment for life. On May 14, 1777, they
+were arrested at Amsterdam, and Mirabeau was imprisoned by a _lettre de
+cachet_ in the Castle of Vincennes, while Sophie was surrendered to the
+Pontarlier authorities.
+
+For three and a half years thereafter Mirabeau was in confinement, a
+term which proved sufficient to temper his passion, and during which he
+wrote his well-known "Letters to Sophie," the "Erotica Biblion," and "My
+Conversion." He also wrote, during this time, his first worthy political
+production, the "Lettres de Cachet." He was released from this
+imprisonment on December 13, 1780, and at once sought out Sophie, to
+quarrel with and leave her, and so, fortunately, end the most
+disgraceful portion of his life.
+
+Mirabeau, now thirty-one years old, and, according to the times, most
+liberally experienced in the ways of the then turbulent world,
+undertook, as his first task, the removal of the sentence of death which
+still confronted him. Not only did he succeed in this, but, by his
+plausibility and eloquence, he shifted the entire cost of the
+proceedings to the shoulders of the complainant--the aged magistrate he
+had so grossly wronged. His next venture was an effort before the
+tribunal of Aix, to compel his wife to return to him. Here he failed, as
+also he failed in an effort to compromise a suit pending between his
+father and mother. Not only that, but by his pleadings his mother became
+forever alienated from him, and by reason of his bitter attacks upon the
+rulings of the court he was forced to leave Paris. Locating at
+Amsterdam, he began his lasting and respectable relations with Madame de
+Nehra, daughter of Zwier van Haren, a Dutch writer and politician. She
+was a woman of education and refinement, who exercised a valuable
+influence over his rapidly growing celebrity, bringing out his good
+qualities, subduing his undesirable characteristics, and encouraging all
+of his better ambitions. It was at her suggestion that he went to
+England, after a brief stay in Holland, while she repaired to Paris. His
+mission--which he accomplished--was to publish his "Considérations sur
+l'Ordre de Cincinnatus" and his "Doutes sur la Liberté de l'Escaut;"
+while her mission, also successful, was to establish peace between
+Mirabeau and the authorities at the French capital.
+
+During twenty years of the thirty-six years he had lived, Mirabeau had
+been, either through his father's intervention or by his own acts, a
+constant topic of consideration by the French authorities. On the other
+hand, by virtue of his writings, his declared enmity to all forms of
+tyranny and oppression, and his distaste for pretence, he had become a
+popular idol. He was, as Carlyle puts it, "a swallower of formulas," and
+it seems he had the ability to digest such food thus taken. Therefore,
+upon his return to Paris in April, 1785, he made a series of attacks
+upon agiotage, or stock jobbing, most effectively assaulting the
+Compagnie des Eaux and the Banque de St. Charles. While such efforts
+proved offensive to the government, it caused such an appreciation of
+his ability that he was sent, in June, 1786, on a secret mission to
+Berlin. He remained there for half a year, and during that time he
+secured the material for his notable work, "Histoire Secrète de la Cour
+de Berlin." Among other writings which he produced about this time were
+his "Moses Mendelssohn, ou la Réforme politique des Juifs," and his
+pamphlet "Dénonciation de l'Agiotage," aimed against the policy of
+Calonne. Again he was in danger of the _lettre de cachet_, and so he
+repaired to Brunswick, where he finished his work "De la Monarchie
+Prussienne," which was published in 1788.
+
+Up to 1789, Mirabeau had been a dramatic character, an individual
+revelation of theatric passion, a figure-piece single and alone; but the
+climax was at hand. The achievement of American independence had been an
+object-lesson most potent. Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette, could
+not check the storm, and for the first time in one hundred and
+seventy-three years, France was to have an assembly of the nation by its
+representatives. The "third estate" was aroused and the States-General
+was summoned. Mirabeau, having a deep-rooted desire to provide for
+France a government in accord with the wishes and intent of a majority
+of the people, and having been rejected by the noblesse of his own
+district, presented himself to the "third estate," as a candidate. He
+was elected both for Aix and for Marseilles, and he decided to sit for
+Aix. Naturally an enthusiast, he was present (May 4, 1789) at the
+opening of the States-General, but with excellent sagacity he entered
+that body as an independent. To the end of his life, twenty-three months
+later, he maintained that independence.
+
+[Illustration: The Third Estate takes refuge in the tennis court.]
+
+When, being shut out in the rain from the great hall of the Estates, the
+"third estate" established themselves in the adjacent tennis-court, and
+when, being ejected from there, they came together again and forced the
+king to recognize them as the representatives of the nation; through all
+these earlier and wiser stages of the great revolt, Mirabeau was the
+leader and director. But when, on June 5, 1789, a resolution was passed
+by the delegates declaring themselves--the people, the Commons of
+France--to be the National Assembly, he spoke and worked bravely and
+eloquently against abandoning the old order of things before formulating
+an exact and sufficient policy as its successor. He declared the action
+a hasty one, and finally avoided the issue in the only way possible, by
+absenting himself when the vote was taken. And yet, eight days later, at
+the close of the royal sitting, he bade the grand master of ceremonies:
+"Go and tell your master we are here by the power of the people, and
+that we are only to be driven out by that of the bayonet."
+
+He advised the Assembly against the publication of pompous
+proclamations, and classed the demonstration of the night of August 4th
+as a theoretical display of liberty wholly without practical value. He
+was opposed to mob-law, and in no sense was he dazzled by the fall of
+the Bastille. He pleaded in favor of the royal right to veto, and
+proclaimed that he was willing, even, to advocate a "restoration of the
+king's legitimate authority as the only means of saving France."
+
+He was a leader of magnificent power, enthusiastic in the advocacy and
+support of his convictions; a statesman who would not speak, write or
+do, in politics, anything not in accord with his estimate as to what was
+right. True, he was accused of treason for speaking in support of the
+king's right to proclaim war or peace, but three days thereafter he
+defended himself against the charge, and with overwhelming success. He
+was a leader who worked prodigiously. In addition to his duties as a
+member of the Assembly, he was also publisher and editor of a paper
+first called the _Journal des États-Généraux_, later the _Lettres à mes
+Constituants_, and at last the _Courrier de Provence_. As clerk of the
+Comité Diplomatique of the Assembly and because of his thorough
+knowledge of foreign affairs, he was the constant adviser of Montmorin,
+the foreign secretary. Thus, by his wise appreciation of the subject, he
+established harmony between the Assembly and Montmorin, and so prevented
+foreign intervention, at the same time maintaining the honor of France
+abroad. But this bulwark to the nation's safety was about to topple and
+fall, precipitated by its own decay. As in all things, Mirabeau had been
+colossal in his excesses, and like them, the punishment was great. He
+wished to live, but he did not fear death. Early in 1791 the structure
+began to weaken, and realizing that the time was at hand, Mirabeau
+carefully collected all of his writings, and after classifying them,
+forwarded them to his firm friend and companion, Sir Gilbert Elliott, in
+England. So far as he was able, he continued to contribute to the
+guidance and protection of his country. He was patient and fearless, his
+only regret taking the form of a pardonable conceit that, could he but
+live, the Revolution could be controlled and guided, that the awful
+Reign of Terror, so soon to follow, could be averted. The progress of
+his decline was without hindrance, in spite of all that science could
+devise. It is reported that, as he looked out from his sick-room, on the
+day of his death, on the brilliant spring-time sun, he said: "If he is
+not God, he is at least his cousin-german." Those were, it is said, his
+last spoken words, although some time later when unable to articulate,
+he feebly held a pen in his hand as he wrote the single word: "dormir."
+And so, on April 2, 1791, he died. Thus ended the life of a wondrous
+statesman; a singular career, of which Carlyle (in his "French
+Revolution") says: "Strange lot! Forty years of that smouldering with
+foul fire-damp and vapor enough; then victory over that;--and like a
+burning mountain, he blazes heaven high; and for twenty-three
+resplendent months pours out, in flame and molten fire-torrents, all
+that is in him, the Pharos and the Wondersign of an amazed Europe;--and
+then lies hollow, cold, forever."
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE
+
+(1758-1794)
+
+[Illustration: Robespierre. [TN]]
+
+
+Maximilien Isidore Robespierre, the leader of the most violent of those
+theorizers who overthrew the French monarchy, the exponent of all that
+deep-rooted hatred which the commoners of France, as the result of long
+centuries of oppression, harbored against their king, nobles, and
+clergy; Robespierre, who ruled the infant republic during her first bold
+defiance of united Europe, yet whose name has become, even among his
+countrymen, a symbol of horror, was born at Arras, in 1758. His father
+was an advocate in the supreme council of Artois, and, ruined by his
+dissipation, had left France long before the revolution. An orphan at
+the age of nine, and without fortune, Maximilien was indebted to the
+benevolent protection of the Bishop of Arras, M. de Conzié, for the
+situation of bursar of the College of Louis XIV. We are assured that
+from his infancy he manifested a cruel, reserved, and timid disposition,
+and an ardent love of liberty and independence. After having passed
+through his studies, and obtained the honor of being chosen by his
+fellow-students to address Louis XVI., upon the entrance of that prince
+into Paris, he returned to Arras, where, having become an advocate of
+the council of Artois, he composed strictures against the magistrates of
+that province. A daring enthusiast, in 1789 he was elected, on account
+of his revolutionary principles, by the third estate of Artois, to a
+seat in the Constituent Assembly. We shall not follow him in detail in
+that assembly: we shall simply remark, that he spoke much without
+obtaining any particular influence and evinced himself constantly the
+enthusiastic champion of the people. Robespierre, in all his harangues,
+appears to foresee events. The avowed enemy of royalty, we behold him on
+the side of republicanism, of which he ventured to alter the name on the
+day when the Assembly decreed the French government monarchical. We
+behold him again, after the arrest of the king at Varennes, resuming his
+projects for the destruction of that monarch, preparing the movements
+which took place at the Champ-de-Mars, on July 14, 16, 17, 1791, and
+attacking, on the 14th, in the Assembly, the principle of the
+inviolability of the sovereign, in the hope of having him arraigned; but
+at the end of the sitting, finding his opinion rejected, he began to
+tremble for his temerity, and required that they should not provoke the
+ruin of persons who had engaged in that affair.
+
+If Robespierre was unable to distinguish himself among the orators of
+the Constituent Assembly; if his principles appeared obnoxious to the
+innovators acting from sentiment in 1789; if they often drew upon him
+the indignation of his colleagues; they were the means of his acquiring
+among the Jacobins that reputation and favor which, daily increasing,
+rendered him at last the idol of the people and the ruler of the
+government. He was called "The Incorruptible." The day of the closing of
+the Assembly, the populace surrounded him on his coming out of the hall,
+put a crown of oak upon his head, placed him in a carriage, and, taking
+out the horses, dragged him to his house, exclaiming as they moved,
+"Behold the friend of the people, the great defender of Liberty!"
+Robespierre was fully sensible of the advantages which might result from
+his alliance with the Jacobins. He devoted himself entirely to the
+direction of a club bearing that name, and refused, in order to give up
+his whole time to the objects they had in view, the office of accuser in
+the criminal tribunal at Paris, to which he had been appointed. Until
+his election to a seat in the Convention, he was never seen personally
+to engage in those insurrections which produced the atrocious attack
+upon the king, nor in the horrible massacres which, in 1792, covered
+Paris with murder and blood, and the French name with eternal
+opprobrium. He refused even to preside at the tribunal of August 10th,
+because, as he said, "He had long since denounced and accused the
+conspirators, whom this tribunal was ordained to judge." But he had
+scarcely entered the Convention when he resolved to raise his faction
+upon the ruins of all the others, and his power upon the destruction of
+those factions which he might employ. To attain this end, he was seen at
+first to strengthen the ties by which he had already been united to
+Marat and Danton, and to avail himself particularly of the latter, in
+order to overthrow the Girondins, who, from the fifth session, had
+suspected his ambition, and accused him of aspiring to the dictatorship.
+It was during this struggle that Louvet pronounced against him that very
+eloquent harangue, which Madame Roland called the "Robespierreiad."
+Assisted by his brother and by Danton, Robespierre, in the sitting of
+November 5th, overpowered the Girondins, and went to the Jacobins to
+enjoy the fruits of his victory, where Merlin de Thionville declared him
+an eagle, and a barbarous reptile. From that moment he never ceased to
+promote the death of Louis XVI., with an asperity and a perseverance
+almost incredible. In short, until the fatal day of the martyrdom of
+that amiable and unfortunate prince, he continually importuned the
+tribune to pronounce upon him (according to the expression of one of his
+colleagues) _des vociférations de cannibale_, and the most atrocious
+prejudgments. It is almost superfluous to add, that he voted for his
+death on the day of the nominal appeal to the nation.
+
+Within any moderate limits, it would be impossible to give the details
+of this monstrous proceeding. Of all the disorders which had occurred
+during the stormy period which had seen him on the throne of France,
+Louis was accused. He was assigned counsel; and MM. Tronchet, Lamoignon,
+Malesherbes, and De Séze, with his approbation, undertook his defence.
+Their exertions, though creditable to themselves, were of no avail; and
+on January 16, 1793, after hearing them in his defence, and his solemn
+denial of the crimes laid to his charge, and after a sitting of nearly
+thirty-four hours, the punishment of death was awarded.
+
+Constant in his hatred of the Girondins, Robespierre attacked them with
+great vehemence until May 31st, when he obtained a complete triumph. His
+most dangerous enemies among the men of that faction were outlawed, and
+others arrested. The success of this day rendered him absolute ruler of
+the Convention, and founded that tyrannical empire which only terminated
+with his life.
+
+[Illustration: Robespierre's arrest.]
+
+Among the factions which had lent him their assistance, the Hebertistes
+were the first that separated from his cause. This faction aspired to
+sole dominion, but the good fortune or the address of Robespierre was
+able at once to oppose to it the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, and it
+sunk in March, 1794, under their united efforts. Danton, who had been
+particularly serviceable on this occasion, whose energy had been of such
+utility, who had aided him in sweeping away the other factions; Danton,
+in short, whom he ought to have considered as the instrument of his
+power, became a formidable enemy, after being for a length of time a
+most devoted friend and faithful ally. The two parties were at issue;
+one or the other must necessarily be overcome. The cunning of
+Robespierre triumphed over the inconsiderate ardor of his rival, whom he
+took pains to render unpopular by sending him to enrich himself in
+Belgium. A few days afterward he was accused, arrested, and conveyed to
+the scaffold with Desmoulins, La Croix, Fabre, and others. In the course
+of the same month (April, 1794) he delivered over to the Revolutionary
+Tribunal the remainder of the party of the Hebertistes, and that of the
+Cordeliers, whom he degraded by the name of Atheists, and from that
+moment to the period of his downfall he met no opposition. It was then
+that his language assumed a different tone. "I must be," "it is
+necessary," "I will," were his general expressions; and the Convention,
+as he himself called it, was only his _machine à décrets_. What is
+worthy of remark is, that France, groaning under the struggles of
+different parties, should applaud the conduct of Robespierre, from an
+idea that she would be less miserable under a single tyrant. His new
+plan of religion, ridiculous as it was, gained him some adherents; but
+it must be evident to every reflecting mind that Robespierre must have
+conceived himself at the head of the government, since he, whose sole
+object had hitherto been to destroy, attempted to rebuild. It is
+impossible to conjecture how long his power might have continued, had
+he spared his colleagues, and if he had not incited to resistance men
+who, until then, had blindly executed his orders, and who desired
+nothing more than to continue to serve and obey him; but in sacrificing
+the leaders of the Revolutionary Government, Robespierre sought a
+support in the moderate party. This policy ruined him; those whose
+destruction he had meditated occasioned his downfall. Danger, however,
+inspired him with courage. From June 10th, Ruamps and Bourdon de l'Oise,
+in particular, had expressed some distrust of the Committee of Public
+Safety, which produced a discussion in which Robespierre, speaking with
+an air of despotism, had the good fortune to silence them. This was the
+moment he should have chosen to overwhelm the party, which redoubled its
+intrigues for his destruction; and at whose head Tallien rendered
+himself remarkable. His friend, St. Just, advised him to strike the
+first blow. Robespierre had passed several days in retirement, occupied
+in projecting, at a moment when he ought to have acted. When he
+reappeared on the 26th, at the Convention, his partisans abandoned him;
+he in vain endeavored to regain the ground he had lost. Sensible of the
+danger which threatened him, he called together his most intimate
+friends on the night of the 26th. St. Just pressed him immediately to
+act. He hesitated for twenty-four hours, and this delay was the sentence
+of his death. The next day Billaud-Varennes removed the veil, and
+Robespierre having rushed to the tribune to reply to him, the cries of
+"Down with the tyrant!" drove him instantly from the assembly. A few
+minutes after a decree was passed for his arrest, and that of St. Just,
+Couthon, and Lebas. "The robbers triumph," he exclaimed, on turning to
+the side of the conquerors. He was afterward conducted to the
+Luxembourg, and in a little time removed from that palace and conveyed
+to the tribune which had delivered him up. He for some instants
+cherished the hopes of a triumph; the national guard, under the command
+of Henriot, assembled in his defence. But the Convention having put him
+out of the protection of the law, the Parisians abandoned him, and at
+three o'clock in the morning he found himself with his accomplices in
+the power of the officers of the Convention. At the moment he was about
+to be seized he discharged a pistol at his head, which only fractured
+his lower jaw; others say it was fired by Medal, one of the gendarmes,
+who had stepped forward to arrest him, and against whom he defended
+himself. He was immediately conducted to the Commune, from thence
+conveyed to the Conciergerie, and executed on the same day, July 28,
+1794.
+
+His last moments presented a terrific scene; his mouth full of blood,
+his eyes half closed, his head bound up with a bloody handkerchief, he
+was thrown into the same cell which had been successively inhabited by
+Hébert, Danton, and Chaumette. When he quitted the prison to meet his
+punishment, the proscribed persons obstructing the passage, the jailer
+cried out, "Make way for monsieur the incorruptible!" He was conveyed in
+a cart between Henriot and Couthon; the people halted before the house,
+two women danced before the wagon, and one of them exclaimed; "Your
+sufferings intoxicate us with joy! You will descend to hell, accompanied
+by the curses of all wives and mothers." The executioner, in order to
+dispatch him, rudely tore away the bandage from his wound. He uttered a
+cry of horror; his lower jaw separated itself from the upper. The blood
+again flowed, and his head exhibited a spectacle of the most frightful
+kind. He died at the age of thirty-six.
+
+Robespierre was not a monster; his life attests it; nor was he solely
+guilty of the atrocities which signalized his reign. By his downfall he
+was loaded with all those iniquities which, had he triumphed, he would
+have attributed to his opponents.
+
+
+
+
+JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI
+
+By HARRIET MARTINEAU
+
+(1746-1827)
+
+[Illustration: Jean Henri Pestalozzi. [TN]]
+
+
+Those of us who can look back forty years must well remember the fancy
+that society took, on a sudden, to interrogate children. It is an odd
+thing to recall now one of the strangest fashions of a period full of
+wild fashions. After a long term of insular seclusion, through the war,
+we welcomed all sorts of foreigners to our soil, and all manner of
+foreign notions to our minds. The grand discovery of the benefit of
+questioning children made great way in the country, and among some of
+the best-hearted people in it. Wherever one went, among the educated
+classes, one found the same thing going on. Children of all ages, but
+especially the younger, were undergoing cross-examination from morning
+till night. It was a terrible time for them. I have seen some fall into
+a habit of tears when asked a question which they could not answer. I
+have seen more fall into a habit of glib lying, under the teazing
+constraint. I have seen tempers ruined for life by the constant
+irritation, and most old people can probably say that they have seen
+promising intellects frittered away; minds above the average at the
+outset of life rendered incurably desultory, shallow, and conceited. If
+there are readers of Wordsworth who are puzzled at this day about the
+drift of his poem, called "Anecdote for Fathers, Showing how the
+Practice of Lying May be Taught," let them remember that it was written
+at a time when "the Pestalozzian system" was in vogue in England, and
+throughout Europe; and then they will see what a good lesson it yields.
+If, at this day, the image flits across our memories of some pale child,
+with a fretful brow, red eyes, and a constant disposition to get out of
+the room, or to hide behind the window curtains, when spoken to, we may
+refer that image back to the days of the "Pestalozzian system," as it
+was fashionably understood in this country.
+
+It was a cruel injustice to Pestalozzi to render him responsible for all
+this mischief. His mission was, not to craze children's brains and break
+their hearts, but the very contrary. We, in fact, gave his name to a
+mere reaction from a mistake of our own--to one kind of ignorance into
+which we fell in our escape from another.
+
+In our desire for popular education, early in the century, we had
+supposed the thing to be done was to put certain facts into the
+learner's mind--to lay them upon his memory, as it were. To quicken and
+spread the process, we set children who had learned a thing one minute
+to teach it to other children the next. This did not answer. We called
+it "the Lancasterian system," and supposed the nation would be educated
+in a trice. When we found, at the end of ten or twenty years, that boys
+and girls left school after sitting nine years on the benches, unable to
+do any good with book or pen, while they had lost their home-training in
+the workshop, the field, or the dairy, we were ready for a reaction; and
+to that reaction we most unjustly gave the name of "Pestalozzian
+system."
+
+The notion was that we had been all wrong in putting knowledge into
+children's heads; and that the right way was to get ideas out of them.
+Henceforth we were to develop faculties, and not impose knowledge. It
+was a great day for us when the conception was formed, and began to
+spread. Without it, education would never have advanced even as far as
+it has. But we blundered over it sadly at first; and among our mistakes,
+it was not the least that we christened our follies after Pestalozzi.
+Every great step in social progress is taken in the name of some
+representative man. It is the business of those who come after to
+absolve those representatives from the disrepute of mistakes which were
+none of theirs; and we may hope that Pestalozzi's memory has long been
+clear from the charge of torturing on the rack of cross-examination the
+generation of children whom he loved so well. What it was that he did
+propose is best seen by looking at his life; for, if he was not a very
+practical man in the sense of wisely conducted affairs, he was still
+less of a theorist. He knew very well what he meant and what he wanted;
+but he had no compact system to propose, grounded on any new theory of
+the human faculties. The foremost man in the educational revolution of
+modern times, he obeyed his instincts, and left it for incompetent
+followers to make a scheme of doctrine out of what he said and did.
+
+What were those instincts? And how did he use them?
+
+We first see him as a very peculiar little boy, whose best friend was
+his mother's maid, Barbara. His name is Italian, but he was a Swiss. His
+ancestors had been citizens of Milan; but one of them, becoming
+Protestant at the time of the Reformation, had to seek a Protestant
+country to live in, and went to Zurich. The father of this little John
+Henry was a physician. He died so early that he left a very bare
+provision for his widow and their only son; and, aware of the prudence
+that their circumstances would require, he recommended them, on his
+death-bed, to the care of the trusty maid Barbara, who fully justified
+the confidence. She carried them through with an appearance of
+respectability on the smallest means, and nourished the pride of narrow
+circumstances in the boy, in striving to avoid the opposite fault of
+meanness. She told him that no Pestalozzi had ever eaten the bread of
+dependence, and that his mother's self-denial raised him above the
+degradation suffered by many another orphan in Zurich. These lessons and
+Barbara's own character, account for much of the passionate advocacy of
+the claims and the independence of the poor, and of the respect for
+their virtue, which were the chief features of the whole life of the
+man. From six years old, when his father died, he looked upon all
+orphans with an interest compounded of fellow-feeling and of lofty pity
+for their inferiority in independence. His great, but as yet
+unconscious, desire was to help the whole class to independence.
+
+It does not appear why he devoted himself, as he grew up, to the study
+of languages. Probably he had no choice as to the course of his
+training; but we find him, so early as the age of eighteen, leaving that
+study and preparing himself with great zeal for the pulpit. His deeply
+religious nature might well indicate this career; but he early failed in
+it and gave it up. His first attempt to preach ended in mortification,
+and it is not difficult to perceive why. His education must have been
+defective, for, to the end of his long life, he spoke a jargon of German
+or French, sometimes mixing the two; a kind of language which none but
+his intimates could comprehend. His articulation was defective; his
+countenance was so ugly as to be forbidding; and, during the latter part
+of his life at least, his personal habits were worse than slovenly. The
+failure in the pulpit is not wonderful; nor yet that in the law, which
+he tried next. He turned again to his first pursuit, and published some
+philological writings. While eager about a new method of teaching Latin,
+he one day took up Rousseau's "Émile," and the book determined the whole
+course of his life.
+
+Insisting that the pursuit of learning was the most unnatural of human
+occupations, he not only gave it up, but burned all his papers; not only
+his notes, but manuscripts on Swiss law and Swiss history. He would live
+henceforth as a son of the soil. He sold his small patrimony to buy a
+bit of land to farm; married the daughter of a merchant of Zurich, and
+began domestic life at two and twenty. His wife's connection gave him an
+interest in a cotton manufactory; and he became well acquainted with two
+classes of laborers at once. The discovery of their intellectual
+degradation shocked him. Both the farm-laborers and the spinners were so
+inferior to the poor of his imagination, that he was at once stimulated
+and dismayed. He was thirty when he set about the sort of work which
+made him the world's benefactor. He collected about fifty poor and
+desolate children on his little estate, lived with them in a state of
+hardship, taught them to work, and to think, and to read, and made
+friends of them. In the absence of other assistants, he adopted the plan
+of setting them to teach one another; a feature of his method which
+recommended it where the Lancasterian system existed. Having no skill,
+and no prudence in the management of affairs, he was soon ruined, and
+the establishment was broken up.
+
+This was the occasion of his giving us the book which made his name
+famous all over Europe. To explain his views, and to get immediate means
+of support, he wrote "Leonard and Gertrude," which might soon after be
+seen on the tables of all benevolent and literary persons in all
+countries. Its disclosure of continental peasant life was perhaps the
+first charm to us; but it also changed the character of educational
+effort in England as elsewhere. Perhaps this popularity gave the good
+man honor in his own country.
+
+After the Revolutionary War in Switzerland, the Canton of Unterwalden
+was overrun with wretched children who seemed to belong to nobody. They
+prowled about the burned hamlets, and infested town and country like
+little wolves. The government asked Pestalozzi to take charge of some of
+them, and offered him some little aid. It was a singular spectacle when
+this uncouth man, then in the vigor of his years (it was in 1798),
+entered the ruins of a ravaged convent, with his mob of one hundred and
+fifty outcast children. He was all alone with them; and some of them
+were sickly and stunted; many were fretful; and not a few ferocious, or
+malicious, or impudent, or full of suspicion and falsehood. He lived and
+labored among them, nursed them, taught them, and soon began to open
+their minds and gain their hearts. In a little while their avidity for
+knowledge astonished him. The facts of the case indicate that he had an
+aptitude for communicating with children's minds that amounted to
+genius. Our mistake, twenty years later, was in supposing that the
+virtue lay in that part of the method which could be imitated.
+Pestalozzi, conversing with young creatures who had never supposed that
+anybody cared for them, surprised them by his interest in what they felt
+and thought. His questions roused their faculties, and sent a glow
+through their feelings; and their improvement transcended all precedent.
+Reports of his conversation and his achievements set others to work; and
+there was such an interrogation of children as was never dreamed of
+before.
+
+One question which Pestalozzi asked of this set of pupils is memorable.
+They had seen Altdorf in flames. About those blackened ruins there were
+again desolate children, living as they could. Pestalozzi sounded the
+minds of his pupils as to doing something in the case. When they eagerly
+desired to take in twenty among them, Pestalozzi asked them whether they
+could bear the consequences. They must work harder even than now; they
+must live yet more barely; they might have to share their dinners and
+their clothes with strangers whom they might not like. He would not
+allow a rash decision. He made them fully understand what they were
+undertaking, and put off the settlement of the question. Still, the
+pupils said, "Let them come!"
+
+The ravage of the war swept away this institution; but Pestalozzi could
+never again be overlooked. His special function was recognized at home
+and abroad. His books were translated into many languages; and the
+emperors and kings of Europe were eager to apply his wisdom to the
+education of their people. He was summoned to Paris to join a
+consultation on the interests of Switzerland, ordered by Napoleon. But
+he made his escape from Paris at the first possible moment; he did not
+want imperial patronage which interfered with his work at home; but he
+would have nothing to do with politics. He desired to live with children
+and the poor, to open their minds, and make them good and happy.
+
+It seemed as if he had attained his utmost wishes when the town of
+Yverdun offered him its castle and grounds for a school, with perfect
+freedom as to the management. For a few years the promise of educational
+advancement was truly splendid. Some of Pestalozzi's own pupils became
+able and devoted assistants; and other young men of the highest
+qualifications devoted themselves as apostles of his mission. Here and
+there over Europe establishments arose where boys, and sometimes girls,
+were trained at once in industry and intellectual progress. Those who
+were in the gardens, or the harvest field, or the dairy at one time of
+the day, were studying languages, mathematics, or music at other hours.
+And where this direct imitation of the Swiss establishments was not
+attempted, there was a visible improvement in methods of instruction. We
+learned to see that books and education, books and teaching, are not the
+same thing. Oral instruction came into use elsewhere than at mothers'
+knees; and amid some gross abuses, "the Pestalozzian system" began to
+work great good.
+
+There is almost always some dreary chapter in the history of these
+representative men. In Pestalozzi's there were several; but the
+dreariest of all was the last.
+
+There never was a movement which depended more entirely for success on
+the personal qualifications of its agents. We need not look further than
+the next street, or the next house, to see how one person differs from
+another in the faculty of genuine intercourse with children's minds. The
+smallness of the number of the well-endowed with this power, is the best
+reason for the large use of books in schools; and Pestalozzi's genius
+for companionship with inferior minds caused a too exclusive recourse to
+oral instruction. Thus, when assistants came upon the scene, there was
+diversity, disagreement, disappointment, and no little disorder. We need
+not go into the painful story of warring tempers and incompatible
+interests. The institution declined for some years, and then was broken
+up--the government of the Canton warning the manager of the concern, who
+acted in Pestalozzi's name, to leave the country.
+
+[Illustration: Pestalozzi, the children's friend.]
+
+It needs no explanation that Pestalozzi was in some respects weak. The
+failure of all his establishments and his inability to keep out of debt
+show this. His faculties of imagination and sympathy overpowered the
+rest of his mind. He early seized a great truth--that of the claim of
+every human being to the full development of his faculties, whatever
+they may be; and the concentration of his strongest powers on this great
+truth made him a social reformer of a high order. He was not a
+philosopher; he was not a man of good sense, or temper, or practical
+ability, generally speaking; though sense, temper, and ability appeared
+to be all transcendent in the particular direction taken by his
+genius. Among his inferiors--and particularly friendless children--he
+was a prophet and apostle; among men he was a child, and sometimes a
+perverse one.
+
+He died at the age of eighty-one, preserving, in the midst of great
+pain, his enthusiasm for justice, his special love for children and the
+poor, and his strong religious sentiment. Two days before his death he
+spoke long and nobly, while taking leave of his family and his
+enterprises. His country, and we hope the world, has remembered his good
+offices to society, and forgiven his foibles.
+
+
+
+
+GEORGES CUVIER
+
+By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
+
+(1769-1832)
+
+[Illustration: Cuvier. [TN]]
+
+
+Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier was born at Montbéliard, a
+place of manufacturing industry about forty miles from Besançon, now
+within the French dominions, then a little principality pertaining to
+the Duke of Wurtemberg. Young Cuvier was remarkable for his intelligence
+and precocity; and an incident in his boyish days indicated the bent of
+his genius, and the sphere of knowledge and discovery in which as a man
+he was destined to excel. He found one day, among his father's books,
+Buffon's work on natural history, and it suggested the idea of copying
+and coloring the plates, after he had carefully studied the text. The
+contents formed his chief reading for many years. The relatives of
+Cuvier were poor. His father was a pensioned officer in a Swiss regiment
+in the service of France. His mother was an affectionate, godly, wise
+woman. To her early lessons in Latin, geography, and drawing, and to her
+communications of religion, he always acknowledged himself much
+indebted. He went to the public gymnasium at the age of ten, and
+remained there for four years, bearing off prizes for learning and
+athletics. Through the patronage of a Wurtemberg princess he was sent
+to the university of Stuttgart, where he pursued a course of scientific
+study, particularly in the division relating to natural history. There
+he acquitted himself with distinction, not only in that special
+department, but also in the most sacred branch of learning. "The young
+Cuvier," said his examiners, "has shown just notions of Christianity
+well adapted to his years," and "considerable skill" in reading the
+Greek Testament.
+
+Circumstances compelled him in early life to do something toward earning
+a livelihood, and in 1794 he became tutor in a French Protestant family
+living in the castle of Fiquainville, near Fécamp. In that little Norman
+fishing-town he found much to gratify his curiosity; and he might often
+be seen scouring the country after birds, butterflies, and other
+insects; or prying into nooks and corners on the shore, after shell-fish
+and other marine productions; while the treasures of the boundless sea
+inspired wonder, with a longing to explore its depths and to become
+acquainted with the forms of life hidden under its waters.
+
+He appears to have continued in the family of Count d'Hericy for nearly
+seven years. He was introduced to the _savants_ of Paris by his
+researches, and accepted an invitation to remove thither in 1795. He
+reached the French metropolis just after the horrors of the Revolution.
+Papers written by him already on his favorite subject had brought him
+into notice; and he found congenial employment in the Jardin des
+Plantes--the home of his after-studies and the sphere of his scientific
+exploits. There he worked and lectured, and obtained the office of
+assistant to the aged professor of comparative anatomy. In the year of
+his appointment, he made a mark in the study which he rendered so
+famous, by a memoir on the Megalonyx, a fossil animal known by a few of
+its bones, and which, contrary to received opinion, he boldly proved to
+have been a gigantic sloth. This was the first of those able comparisons
+of the fossil with the present world which revolutionized geology,
+extended comparative anatomy, and absolutely created the science of
+palæontology. He was also appointed to a professorship of natural
+philosophy in the College of France; then he rose, step by step, under
+the favor and patronage of Napoleon, who made him an inspector-general
+of schools; secretary to the French Institute; councillor of the new
+Imperial University, and organizer of reformed colleges in Italy,
+Holland, and Germany, after the vast extension of the empire. Even at
+Rome he was thus employed in 1813; and though a Protestant, he there won
+the good opinion of the authorities. The conquest and banishment of the
+great ruler of France did not spoil the fortunes of Cuvier; for, after
+the restoration of Louis XVIII., he was confirmed by that monarch in the
+office of state councillor, to which he had been appointed by the
+emperor, and in 1819 he was made a baron of France.
+
+Just before this he visited England, and was received with the highest
+honors. Another visit followed in 1830. An amusing circumstance occurred
+on one of these occasions, indicative of his wide-spread fame amid the
+lower as well as the upper classes of society. When in London, owing to
+the absence of his valet, he sent for a barber to shave him. When the
+operation was finished he offered payment. "I am too much honored,"
+replied the Gascon--for such the operator happened to be, "by having
+shaved the greatest man of the age, to accept any recompense." M. Cuvier
+allowed him the honor to the full extent, and engaged him to perform the
+function repeatedly, for which, at length, he was willing to pocket
+payment.
+
+Cuvier's life must have been most laborious. The same year in which he
+was made baron, he became president of the Committee of the Interior;
+and the numerous and various affairs which there passed under his
+review, and required his examination, were perfectly wonderful; together
+with his scientific employments, they seem more than any mortal man
+could accomplish. But by economy of time and distribution of labor,
+concentration of thought, retentiveness of memory, and a profound
+knowledge of principles in every department, he acquitted himself in a
+manner which secured universal admiration.
+
+Charles X., of France, and the King of Wurtemberg, vied with each other
+in the honors they conferred on Cuvier; and on the accession of Louis
+Philippe to the French throne the new sovereign continued the favors
+shown by his predecessors, and in 1832 made the baron a French peer. But
+his end was now drawing nigh. "Gentlemen," he said one day to his
+hearers, in opening a new course of lectures, "these will be the objects
+of our future investigations, if time, health, and strength shall be
+given to me to continue and finish them with you." But an overwrought
+brain the very next day produced paralysis, and the distinguished
+statesman and philosopher died at the age of sixty-three, on May 13,
+1832.
+
+Down to the time of Cuvier, the classification of animal life had been
+most imperfect and unsatisfactory. The basis adopted by Ray was open to
+criticism. Comparative anatomy, rising into importance during the
+eighteenth century, continued through that period in a state of infancy.
+Linnæus and Buffon rendered valuable service; but all former students in
+this branch of science were surpassed by Cuvier. A curious anecdote is
+recorded of the ignorance of natural objects which continued even after
+the opening of the present century. When the committee of the French
+Academy were employed in preparing the well-known Academy dictionary,
+Cuvier came one day into the room where they were holding a session.
+"Glad to see you, M. Cuvier," said one of the forty; "we have just
+finished a definition which we think quite satisfactory, but on which we
+should like to have your opinion. We have been defining the word 'crab,'
+and explained it thus: 'Crab, a small red fish, which walks backward.'"
+"Perfect, gentlemen," said Cuvier; "only, if you will give me leave, I
+will make one small observation in natural history. The crab is not a
+fish, it is not red, and it does not walk backward. With these
+exceptions your definition is excellent."
+
+Cuvier was the first to give a really philosophical view of the animal
+world in reference to the plan on which each animal is constructed.
+There are, he says, four such plans--four forms on which animals appear
+to have been modelled, and of which the ulterior divisions, with
+whatever titles naturalists have decorated them, are only very slight
+modifications, founded on the development or addition of some parts
+which do not produce any essential change in the plan. These four great
+branches of the animal world are the _vertebrata_, _mollusca_,
+_articulata_, and _radiata_.
+
+Comparative anatomy found in Cuvier a student who appreciated its
+importance and revived its efficiency and honors. He saw more distinctly
+than anyone before, that large classes of animals, when carefully
+examined, are but modifications of a common type; that, for example,
+there is after all a strong resemblance, when their skeletons are looked
+at, between a man and a bird, and also a complete analogy between the
+human skull and the head of a fish. It was in the pursuit after such
+analogies that Cuvier was led into the track where he found the basis of
+his new anatomical classifications.
+
+For his wonderful volumes on fossil animals, Cuvier had made some
+preparation by an essay, presented in 1810 to the Academy, on the
+geology of the basin of Paris, a district singularly rich in fossil
+remains. Montmartre and its vicinity, covered with buildings and crowded
+with people, would not strike many observers as a promising field for
+scientific exploration; but it is the peculiarity of genius to read
+instruction where others can find only a blank, or a record of
+commonplace character. Cuvier discovered in the geological construction
+and the fossil remains of the Paris basin, elements for the solution of
+the most critical scientific questions, relative not only to that
+locality, but to the globe at large. Long before, he had begun to
+treasure up facts, the collocation of which ultimately constituted his
+marvellous additions to human knowledge. In 1800 he finds a few teeth,
+in following years a few bones; and after many years' patience and skill
+he ascertains and demonstrates the existence and place of a number of
+tapir-like animals which he classed as _Lophiodon Paleotherium_ and
+_Anoplotherium_, formerly abounding on the banks of the ponds which have
+left their mud and marl in the tertiary strata of the Paris basin. His
+anticipations seemed like prophecies, based, as they were, on a tooth or
+a bone; but subsequent discoveries enabled him to verify them all, so
+that they became parts of scientific and general knowledge. The effect
+of these discoveries on the scientific world was prodigious.
+
+"The great work of Cuvier," says Lord Brougham, "stands among those rare
+monuments of human genius and labor, of which each department of
+exertion can scarcely ever furnish more than one, eminent therefore
+above all the other efforts made in the same kind. In the stricter
+sciences, the 'Principia' of Newton, and in later times its continuation
+and extension in La Place's 'Mécanique Céleste;' in intellectual
+philosophy, Locke's celebrated work; in oratory, Demosthenes; in poetry,
+Homer, leave all competitors behind by the common consent of mankind;
+and Cuvier's researches in fossil osteology will probably be reckoned to
+prefer an equal claim to distinction among the works on comparative
+anatomy."
+
+"If," says Cuvier, "you have but the extremity of a bone well preserved,
+you may, by attention, consideration, and the aid of resources which
+analogy furnishes to skill, determine all the rest as well as if you had
+the entire skeleton submitted to you."
+
+The great scientific value of the work lies in its comparative anatomy,
+creating as it were (as we have said) the science of palæontology at a
+leap; but there are in it also sundry other philosophical deductions in
+geology, such as the following: that in the strata called primitive
+there are no remains of life or organized existence;--that all organized
+existences were not created at the same time, but at different times,
+probably very remote from each other, vegetables before animals, the
+mollusca and fishes before reptiles, and the latter before the
+mammalia;--that the transition limestone exhibits remains of the lowest
+forms of existence; and the chalk and clay conceal the remains of
+fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds, beings of a former order of things,
+which have now disappeared;--that among fossil remains no vestige
+appears of man or his works; that the fossil remains in the more recent
+strata are those which approach nearest to the present type of the
+corresponding living species; and that these strata show the former
+prevalence of fresh water as well as sea-water.
+
+The extraordinary sagacity of Cuvier, coupled with his extensive
+knowledge, qualified him for the execution of this herculean task. His
+power of geological classification sprang out of his zoölogical skill,
+and he was a great pioneer in previously unexplored fields of research,
+where relations between the organic and inorganic changes of the earth
+were revealed to the eye of the philosopher. "His guiding ideas had been
+formed, his facts had been studied, by the assistance of all the
+sciences which could be made to bear upon them. In his geological labors
+he seems to see some beautiful temple, not only firm and fair in itself,
+but decorated with sculptures and painting, and rich in all that art and
+labor, memory and imagination, can contribute to its beauty."
+
+These remarks occur in connection with Whewell's sketch of the
+contributions to science made by Cuvier: "I may observe, that he is
+allowed by all to have established on an indestructible basis many of
+the most important generalizations which zoölogy now contains; and the
+principal defect which his critics have pointed out has been that he did
+not generalize still more widely and boldly. It appears, therefore, that
+he cannot but be placed among the great discoverers in the studies which
+he pursued; and this being the case, those who look with pleasure on the
+tendency of the thoughts of the greatest men to an intelligence far
+higher than their own, must be gratified to find that he was an example
+of this tendency, and that the acknowledgment of a creative purpose, as
+well as a creative power, not only entered into his belief, but made an
+indispensable and prominent part of his philosophy."
+
+"Beauty, richness, abundance," says Cuvier, "have been the ways of the
+Creator, no less than simplicity. We conceive nature to be simply a
+production of the Almighty, regulated by a wisdom the laws of which can
+only be discovered by observation."
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT[7]
+
+By LOUIS AGASSIZ
+
+(1769-1859)
+
+         [Footnote 7: Written at the time of the death of Baron Von
+         Humboldt, and reprinted, by permission, from "Littell's Living
+         Age."]
+
+[Illustration: Humboldt. [TN]]
+
+
+Humboldt--Alexander Von Humboldt, as he always called himself, though he
+was christened with the names of Frederick Heinrich Alexander--was born
+in 1769, on September 14th, in that memorable year which gave to the
+world those philosophers, warriors, and statesmen who have changed the
+face of science and the condition of affairs in our century. It was in
+that year that Cuvier also and Schiller were born; and among the
+warriors and statesmen, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and Canning
+are children of 1769, and it is certainly a year of which we can say
+that its children have revolutionized the world. Of the early life of
+Humboldt I know nothing, and I find no records except that in his tenth
+year he lost his father, who had been a major in the army during the
+seven years' war, and afterward a chamberlain to the King of Prussia.
+But his mother took excellent care of him, and watched over his early
+education. The influence she had upon his life is evident from the fact
+that, notwithstanding his yearning for the sight of foreign lands, he
+did not begin to make active preparations for his travels during her
+lifetime. In the winter of 1787-1788 he was sent to the University of
+Frankfort on the Oder, to study finances. He was to be a statesman; he
+was to enter high offices, for which there was a fair chance, owing to
+his noble birth and the patronage he could expect at court. He remained,
+however, but a short time there.
+
+Not finding these studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence in
+the university we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate
+friendship with Wildenow, then professor of botany, and who at that time
+possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the first
+branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial attention. The
+next year he went to Göttingen--being then a youth of twenty years; and
+here he studied natural history with Blumenbach, and thus had an
+opportunity of seeing the progress zoölogy was making in anticipation of
+the great movement by which Cuvier placed zoölogy on a new foundation.
+
+For it is an unquestionable fact that in first presenting a
+classification of the animal kingdom based upon a knowledge of its
+structure, Blumenbach in a measure anticipated Cuvier; though it is
+only by an exaggeration of what Blumenbach did that an unfair writer of
+later times has attempted to deprive Cuvier of the glory of having
+accomplished this object upon the broadest possible basis. From
+Göttingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of studying geology, and
+in particular the basaltic formations of the Seven Mountains. At Mayence
+he became acquainted with George Forster, who proposed to accompany him
+on a journey to England. You may imagine what impression the
+conversation of that active, impetuous and powerful man had upon the
+youthful Humboldt. They went to Belgium and Holland, and thence to
+England, where Forster introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks. Thus the
+companions of Captain Cook in his first and second voyages round the
+world, who were already venerable in years and eminent promoters of
+physical science not yet established in the popular favor, were the
+early guides of Humboldt in his aspirations for scientific distinction.
+Yet Humboldt had a worldly career to accomplish. He was to be a
+statesman, and this required that he should go to the Academy of
+Commerce at Hamburg. He remained there five months, but could endure it
+no longer, and he begged so hard that his mother allowed him to go to
+Freyberg and study geology with Werner, with a view of obtaining a
+situation in the Administration of Mines. See what combinations of
+circumstances prepare him for his great career, as no other young man
+ever was prepared. At Freyberg he received the private instruction of
+Werner, the founder of modern geology, and he had as his fellow-student
+no less a man than Leopold Von Buch, then a youth, to whom, at a later
+period, Humboldt himself dedicated one of his works, inscribing it "to
+the greatest geologist," as he was till the day of his recent death.
+From Freyberg he made frequent excursions into the Hartz and
+Fichtelgeberg and surrounding regions, and these excursions ended in the
+publication of a small work upon the subterranean flora of Freyberg
+("Flora Subterranea Fribergensis"), in which he described especially
+those cryptogamous plants, or singular low and imperfect formations
+which occur in the deep mines. But here ends his period of pupilage. In
+1792 he was appointed an officer of the mines (Oberbergmeister). He went
+to Beyreuth as director of the operations in those mines belonging to
+the Frankish provinces of Prussia. Yet he was always wandering in every
+direction, seeking for information and new subjects of study. He visited
+Vienna, and there heard of the discoveries of Galvani, with which he
+made himself familiar; went to Italy and Switzerland, where he became
+acquainted with the then celebrated Professors Jurine and Pictet, and
+with the illustrious Scarpa. He also went to Jena, formed an intimate
+acquaintance with Schiller and Goethe, and also with Loder, with whom he
+studied anatomy. From that time he began to make investigations of his
+own, and these investigations were in a line which he has never
+approached since, being experiments in physiology. He turned his
+attention to the newly-discovered power by which he tested the activity
+of organic substances; and it is plain, from his manner of treating the
+subject, that he leaned to the idea that the chemical process going on
+in the living body of animals furnished a clew to the phenomena of life,
+if it was not life itself. This may be inferred from the title of the
+book published in 1797--"Ueber die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, mit
+Vermuthungen über den chemischen Process des Lebens, in Thieren und
+Pflanzen."
+
+In these explanations of the phenomena we have the sources of the first
+impulses in a direction which has been so beneficial in advancing the
+true explanation of the secondary phenomena of life; but which, at the
+same time, in its exaggeration as it prevails now has degenerated into
+the materialism of modern investigators.
+
+In that period of all-embracing activity, he began to study astronomy.
+His attention was called to it by Baron Von Zach, who was a prominent
+astronomer of the time, and who at that time was actively engaged upon
+astronomical investigations in Germany. He showed Humboldt to what
+extent astronomy would be useful to him, in his travels, in determining
+the position of places, the altitude of mountains, etc.
+
+So prepared, Humboldt now broods over his plans of foreign travel. He
+has published his work on the muscular and nervous fibre at the age of
+twenty-eight. He has lost his mother; and his mind is now inflamed with
+an ungovernable passion for the sight of foreign and especially tropical
+lands. He goes to Paris to make preparation by securing the best
+astronomical, meteorological and surveying instruments. Evidently he
+does not care where he shall go, for on a proposition of Lord Bristol to
+visit Egypt he agrees to it. The war prevents the execution of this
+plan, and he enters into negotiations to accompany the projected
+expedition of Captain Baudin to Australia; but when Bonaparte, bent on
+the conquest of Egypt, started with a scientific expedition, Humboldt
+wishes to join it. He expects to be one of the scientific party, and to
+reach Egypt by way of Barbary.
+
+But all these plans failing, he goes to Spain with the view of exploring
+that country, and finding perhaps some means of joining the French
+expedition in Egypt from Spain. While in Madrid he is so well received
+at the court--a young nobleman so well instructed has access
+everywhere--and he receives such encouragement from persons in high
+positions, that he turns his thoughts to an exploration of the Spanish
+provinces of America. He receives permission not only to visit them, but
+instructions are given to the officers of the colonies to receive him
+everywhere and give him all facilities, to permit him to transport his
+instruments, to make astronomical and other observations, and to collect
+whatever he chooses; and all that only in consequence of the good
+impression he has made when he appeared there, with no other
+recommendation than that of a friend who happened to be at that time
+Danish minister to the court of Madrid. But with these facilities
+offered to him, he sails in June, 1799, from Corunna, whence he reaches
+Teneriffe, makes short explorations of that island, ascending the peak,
+and sailing straightway to America, where he lands in Cumana in the
+month of July, and employs the first year and a half in the exploration
+of the basin of the Orinoco and its connection with the Amazon. This was
+a journey of itself, and completed a work of scientific importance,
+establishing the fact that the two rivers were connected by an
+uninterrupted course of water. He established for the first time the
+fact that there was an extensive low plain, connected by water, which
+circled the high table-land of Guiana. It was an important discovery in
+physical geography, because it changed the ideas about water-courses and
+about the distributions of mountains and plains in a manner which has
+had the most extensive influence upon the progress of physical
+geography. It may well be said that after this exploration of the
+Orinoco, physical geography begins to appear as a part of science. From
+Cumana he makes a short excursion to Havana, and hearing there of the
+probable arrival of Baudin on the west coast of America, starts with the
+intention of crossing at Panama. He arrives at Carthagena, but was
+prevented by the advance of the season from crossing the Isthmus, and
+changed his determination from want of precise information respecting
+Baudin's locality. He determines to ascend the Magdalena River and visit
+Santa Fé de Bogota, where, for several months, he explores the
+construction of the mountains, and collects plants and animals; and, in
+connection with his friend, Bonpland, who accompanied him from Paris, he
+makes those immense botanical collections, which were afterward
+published by Bonpland himself, and by Kunth after Bonpland had
+determined on an expedition to South America. In the beginning of 1802
+he reaches Quito, where, during four months, he turns his attention to
+everything worth investigating, ascends the Chimborazo, to a height to
+which no human foot had reached, anywhere; and, having completed this
+survey and repeatedly crossed the Andes, he descends the southern slope
+of the continent to the shore of the Pacific at Truxillo, and following
+the arid coast of Peru, he visits finally Lima.
+
+I will pass lightly over all the details of his journey, for they are
+only incidents in that laborious exploration of the country which is
+best appreciated by a consideration of the works which were published in
+consequence of that immense accumulation of materials gathered during
+those explorations. From Lima, or rather from Callao, he sails in 1802
+for Guayaquil and Acapulco, and reaches Mexico in 1803, where he makes
+as extensive explorations as he had made in Venezuela and the Andes, and
+after a stay of about a year, and having put all his collections and
+manuscripts in order, revisits Cuba for a short time, comes to the
+United States, makes a hurried excursion to Philadelphia and Washington,
+where he is welcomed by Jefferson, and finally returns with his faithful
+companion Bonpland to France, accompanied by a young Spanish nobleman,
+Don Carlo de Montufar, who had shared his travels since his visits to
+Quito.
+
+At thirty-six years of age Humboldt is again in Europe with collections
+made in foreign lands, such as had never been brought together before.
+But here we meet with a singular circumstance. The German nobleman, the
+friend of the Prussian and Spanish courts, chooses Paris for his
+residence, and remains there twenty-two years to work out the result of
+his scientific labor; for since his return, with the exception of short
+journeys to Italy, England and Germany, sometimes accompanying the King
+of Prussia, sometimes alone, or accompanied by scientific friends, he is
+entirely occupied in scientific labors and studies. So passes the time
+to the year 1827, and no doubt he was induced to make this choice of a
+residence by the extraordinary concourse of distinguished men in all
+branches of science with whom he thought he could best discuss the
+results of his own observations. I shall presently have something to say
+about the works he completed during that most laborious period of his
+life. I will only add now, that in 1827 he returned to Berlin
+permanently, having been urged of late by the King of Prussia again and
+again to return to his native land. And there he delivered a series of
+lectures preparatory to the publication of "Cosmos;" for in substance,
+even in form and arrangement, these lectures, of which the papers of the
+day gave short accounts, are a sort of prologue to the "Cosmos," and a
+preparation for its publication. In 1829, when he was sixty years of
+age, he undertakes another great journey. He accepts the invitation of
+the Emperor Nicholas to visit the Ural Mountains, with a view of
+examining the gold mines, and localities where platina and diamonds had
+been found, to determine their geological relation. He accomplished the
+journey with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose, who published the result of
+their mineralogical and geological survey, in a work of which he is the
+sole author; while Humboldt published under the title of "Asiatic
+Fragments of Geology and Climatology," his observations of the physical
+and geographical features made during that journey. But he had hardly
+returned to Berlin when in consequence of the revolution of 1830, he was
+sent by the King of Prussia as extraordinary ambassador to France, to
+honor the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne. Humboldt had long
+been a personal friend of the Orleans family, and he was selected
+ambassador on that occasion on account of these personal relations. From
+1830 to 1848 he lived alternately in Berlin and in Paris, spending
+nearly half the time in Paris and half the time in Berlin, with
+occasional visits to England and Denmark; publishing the results of his
+investigations in Asia, making original investigations upon various
+things and especially pressing the establishment of observatories, and
+connected magnetic observations all over the globe, for which he
+obtained the co-operation of the Russian government and that of the
+government of England; and at that time those observations in Australia
+and in the Russian empire to the borders of China, were established
+which have led to such important results in our knowledge of terrestrial
+magnetism. Since 1848 he has lived uninterruptedly in Berlin, where he
+published on the anniversary of his eightieth year a new edition of
+those charming first flowers of his pen; his "Views of Nature," the
+first edition of which was published in Germany in 1808. This third
+edition appeared with a series of new and remodelled annotations and
+explanations; and that book in which he first presented his views of
+nature, in which he drew those vivid pictures of the physiognomy of
+plants and of their geographical distribution is now revived and brought
+to the present state of science.
+
+The "Views of Nature" is a work which Humboldt has always cherished, and
+to which in his "Cosmos" he refers more frequently than to any other
+work. It is no doubt because there he has expressed his deepest
+thoughts, his most impressive views, and even foreshadowed those
+intimate convictions which he never expressed, but which he desired to
+record in such a manner that those that can read between the lines might
+find them there; and certainly there we find them. His aspiration has
+been to present to the world a picture of the physical world from which
+he would exclude everything that relates to the turmoil of human
+society, and to the ambitions of individual men. A life so full, so
+rich, is worth explaining in every respect, and it is really instructive
+to see with what devotion he pursues his work. As long as he is a
+student he is really a student and learns faithfully, and learns
+everything he can reach. And he continues so for twenty-three years. He
+is not one of those who is impatient to show that he has something in
+him, and with premature impatience utters his ideas, so that they become
+insuperable barriers to his independent progress in later life. Slowly
+and confident of his sure progress, he advances, and while he learns he
+studies also independently of those who teach him. He makes his
+experiments, and to make them with more independence he seeks for an
+official position. During five years he is a business man, in a station
+which gives him leisure. He is superintendent of the mines, but the
+superintendent of the mines who can do much as he pleases; and while he
+is thus officially engaged journeying and superintending, he prepares
+himself for his independent researches. And yet it will be seen he is
+thirty years of age before he enters upon his American travels--those
+travels which will be said to have been the greatest undertaking ever
+carried to a successful issue, if judged by the results; they have as
+completely changed the basis of physical science as the revolution which
+took place in France about the same time has changed the social
+condition of that land. Having returned from these travels to Paris,
+there begins in his life a period of concentrated critical studies. He
+works his materials, and he works them with an ardor and devotion which
+are untiring; and he is not anxious to appear to have done it all
+himself. Oltmann is called to his aid to revise his astronomical
+observations, and his barometrical measurements by which he has
+determined the geographical position of seven hundred different points
+and the altitude of more than four hundred and fifty of them.
+
+The large collection of plants which Bonpland had begun to illustrate,
+but of which his desire of seeing the tropics again has prevented the
+completion he intrusts to Kunth. He has also brought home animals of
+different classes, and distributes them among the most eminent
+zoölogists of the day.
+
+To Cuvier he intrusts the investigation of that remarkable batrachian,
+the Aæolotel, the mode of development of which is still unknown, but
+which remains in its adult state in a condition similar to that of the
+tadpole of the frog during the earlier period of its life. Latreille
+describes the insects, and Valenciennes the shells and the fishes; but
+yet to show that he might have done the work himself, he publishes a
+memoir on the anatomical structure of the organs of breathing in the
+animals he has preserved, and another upon the tropical monkeys of
+America, and another upon the electric properties of the electric eel.
+But he was chiefly occupied with investigations in physical geography
+and climatology. The first work upon that subject is a dissertation on
+the geographical distribution of plants, published in 1817. Many
+botanist travellers had observed that in different parts of the world
+there are plants not found in others, and that there is a certain
+arrangement in that distribution; but Humboldt was the first to see that
+this distribution is connected with the temperature of the air as well
+as with the altitudes of the surface on which they grow, and he
+systematized his researches into a general exposition of the laws by
+which the distribution of plants is regulated. Connected with this
+subject he made those extensive investigations into the mean temperature
+of a large number of places on the surface of the globe, which led to
+the drawing of those isothermal lines so important in their influence in
+shaping physical geography, and giving accuracy to the mode of
+representing natural phenomena. Before Humboldt we had no graphic
+representation of complex natural phenomena which made them easily
+comprehensible, even to minds of moderate cultivation. He has done that
+in a way which has circulated information more extensively, and brought
+it to the apprehension more clearly than it could have been done by any
+other means.
+
+It is not too much to say that this mode of representing natural
+phenomena has made it possible to introduce in our most elementary works
+the broad generalizations derived from the investigations of Humboldt in
+South America; and that every child in our schools has his mind fed from
+the labors of Humboldt's brain, wherever geography is no longer taught
+in the old routine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Humboldt was born near the court. He was brought up in connection with
+courtiers and men in high positions of life. He was no doubt imbued with
+the prejudices of his caste. He was a nobleman of high descent. And yet
+the friend of kings was the bosom friend of Arago, and he was the man
+who could, after his return from America, refuse the highest position at
+the court of Berlin, that of the secretaryship of public instruction,
+preferring to live in a modest way in Paris, in the society of all those
+illustrious men, who then made Paris the centre of intellectual culture.
+It was there where he became one of that Société d'Arceuil, composed of
+all the great men of the day, to which the paper on "Isothermal Lines"
+was presented, and by which it was printed, as all papers presented to
+it were, for private distribution. But from his intimate relations,
+especially to the court of Prussia, some insinuations have been made as
+to the character of Humboldt. They are as unjust as they are severe in
+expression. He was never a flatterer of those in power. He has shown it
+by taking a prominent position, in 1848, at the head of those who
+accompanied the victims of the revolution of that year to their last
+place of rest. But while he expressed his independence in such a manner,
+he had the kindliest feeling for all parties. He could not offend, even
+by an expression, those with whom he had been associated in early life;
+and I have no doubt that it is to that kindliness of feeling we must
+ascribe his somewhat indiscriminate patronage of aspirants in science,
+as well as men who were truly devoted to its highest aims. He may be
+said to have been, especially in his latter years, the friend of every
+cultivated man, wishing to lose no opportunity to do all the good of
+which he was capable; for he had a degree of benevolence and generosity
+which was unbounded. I can well say that there is not a man engaged in
+scientific investigations in Europe, who has not received at his hands
+marked tokens of his favor, and who is not under deep obligations to
+him. May I be permitted to tell a circumstance which is personal to me
+in that respect, and which shows what he was capable of doing while he
+was forbidden an opportunity of telling it. I was only twenty-four years
+of age when in Paris, whither I had gone with means given me by a
+friend; but was at last about to resign my studies from want of ability
+to meet my expenses. Professor Mitscherlich was then on a visit to
+Paris, and I had seen him in the morning, when he asked me what was the
+cause of my depressed feelings; and I told him that I had to go for I
+had nothing left. The next morning as I was seated at breakfast in front
+of the yard of the hotel where I lived, I saw the servant of Humboldt
+approach. He handed me a note, saying there was no answer and
+disappeared. I opened the note, and I see it now before me as distinctly
+as if I held the paper in my hand. It said:--
+
+"My friend, I hear that you intend leaving Paris in consequence of some
+embarrassments. That shall not be. I wish you to remain here as long as
+the object for which you came is not accomplished. I enclose you a check
+of £50. It is a loan which you may repay when you can."
+
+Some years afterward, when I could have repaid him, I wrote, asking for
+the privilege of remaining forever in his debt, knowing that this
+request would be more consonant to his feelings than the recovery of the
+money, and I am now in his debt. What he has done for me, I know he has
+done for many others; in silence and unknown to the world. I wish I
+could go on to state something of his character, his conversational
+powers, etc., but I feel that I am not in a condition to speak of them.
+I would only say that his habits were very peculiar. He was an early
+riser, and yet he was seen at late hours in the salons in different
+parts of Paris. From the year 1830 to 1848, while in Paris, he had been
+charged by the King of Prussia to send reports upon the condition of
+things there. He had before prepared for the King of Prussia a report on
+the political condition of the Spanish colonies in America, which no
+doubt had its influence afterward upon the recognition of the
+independence of those colonies. The importance of such reports to the
+government of Prussia may be inferred from a perusal of his political
+and statistical essays upon Mexico and Cuba. It is a circumstance worth
+noticing, that above all great powers, Prussia has more distinguished,
+scientific, and literary men among her diplomatists than any other
+state. And so was Humboldt actually a diplomatist in Paris, though he
+was placed in that position, not from choice, but in consequence of the
+benevolence of the king, who wanted to give him an opportunity of being
+in Paris as often and as long as he chose.
+
+But from that time there were two men in him--the diplomatist, living in
+the Hôtel des Princes, and the naturalist who roomed in the Rue de la
+Harpe, in a modest apartment in the second story; where his scientific
+friends had access to him every day before seven. After that he was
+frequently seen working in the library of the Institute, until the time
+when the grand seigneur made his appearance at the court or in the
+salons of Paris.
+
+The influence he has exerted upon the progress of science is
+incalculable. I need only allude to the fact that the "Cosmos," bringing
+every branch of natural science down to the comprehension of every class
+of students, has been translated into the language of every civilized
+nation of the world, and gone through several editions. With him ends a
+great period in the history of science, a period to which Cuvier,
+Laplace, Arago, Gay-Lussac and De Candolle, and Robert Brown belonged.
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL O'CONNELL[8]
+
+By JUSTIN MCCARTHY
+
+(1775-1847)
+
+         [Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: O'Connell. [TN]]
+
+
+Daniel O'Connell, undoubtedly one of the greatest Irishmen that ever
+lived, and according to Mr. Lecky perhaps the greatest political
+agitator that the modern world has known, was born August 6, 1775, in
+the county of Kerry, in Ireland. His parents were of good family, but
+comparatively poor, his father being a second son. Later on, Daniel was
+adopted by an uncle, through whom he came in for the property of
+Darrynane, made famous by his name. He was sent when a boy--the fact is
+worth noticing--to the first school kept openly by a Catholic priest
+since the establishment of the penal laws. Afterward he became a student
+in France--in St. Omer and in Douay, until the outbreak of the French
+Revolution made it unsafe for him to remain longer in France--or at all
+events until his family believed that it would not be safe for him to
+remain there any longer. The excesses of the Revolution greatly shocked
+and horrified the young O'Connell, and indeed the effect of that early
+shock was felt by him all through his career. He became impressed with
+an almost morbid detestation of all forms of blood-shedding; and for a
+while after his return to Ireland he firmly believed himself to be a
+Conservative in politics. But the system of administration which
+prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland under Conservative governments
+soon convinced him that he could have nothing to do with Conservatism,
+and he very soon became--what he ever after continued to be--a Liberal
+as regarded Imperial policy, and indeed something more than a
+Liberal--what we should now call a Radical. He studied for the bar, and
+was, to all appearance, little inclined for anything but law and field
+sports. He was a keen sportsman, and, like another distinguished
+Irishman, "all his life long he loved rivers, and poets who sang of
+rivers." He made rapid way in his profession, and soon became one of the
+foremost advocates in Ireland. He was a safe, shrewd, keen lawyer as
+well as a great advocate--the two parts do not always go together. He
+was a master of the art of cross-examination and he was a magnificent
+speaker--his speeches were aflame with humor, and pathos, and passion.
+His voice was one of immense power and sweetness and variety of tone.
+Mr. Disraeli in one of his books, when praising to the highest the
+superb voice of the great Sir Robert Peel, says that he had never heard
+its superior "except indeed in the thrilling tones of O'Connell." The
+Irish advocate had the advantage, too, of a commanding presence. He was
+tall and moulded in almost herculean form, and he had eyes which were
+often compared with those of Robert Burns--the light of genius was in
+them. There is a full-length picture of him in the Reform Club, London,
+which enables one to understand how stately and imposing his presence
+must have been.
+
+The career of O'Connell would appear to have been easily marked out for
+him. He was the foremost advocate in Ireland; he was making a large
+income; he had inherited a considerable property--what was there for him
+but to go on and prosper; make money, hunt, shoot, fish, and be happy.
+He could not indeed obtain any of the honors or dignities of his
+profession. He could not even be a king's counsel, and wear a silk gown.
+His religion cut him off from all such marks of distinction--for he was
+a member of the Catholic Church. But no penal laws prevented him from
+addressing juries and winning verdicts and attracting popular admiration
+and making money. He was very happily married--a genuine love-match, it
+would seem to have been, and the love lasted. Moreover he was strongly
+and almost unreasonably opposed to all manner of agitation that bordered
+on rebellion or even on sedition. He was positively unjust, he was
+utterly unreasonable, in his estimate of the rebellion of 1798 and
+Robert Emmet's abortive effort in 1803. He never did full justice even
+to the brave men who were concerned in these movements. He had an
+absolute detestation for all manner of secret societies. He knew too
+well that they only ended in betrayal by some traitor who had contrived
+to be admitted to their ranks. Under such conditions and with such views
+what was there to induce the successful and prosperous advocate who
+loved peace and who hated social disturbance, to mix himself up with
+political affairs at a time when national politics meant for a patriotic
+Irishman only social exclusion, danger, poverty, and even ruin?
+
+O'Connell could not help himself. He had to walk, as Carlyle says of a
+very different man, "his own wild road whither that led him."
+O'Connell's wild road--the road that he had to walk, led him to the
+leadership of two great national movements.
+
+To understand what O'Connell fought against we must, of course,
+understand O'Connell's time. It is not easy for an American reader to
+understand it without some thought and without the endeavor to grasp the
+reality of a state of things quite outside his own living experience.
+When O'Connell began his career in politics the Act of Union had but
+lately been passed. That Act of Union deprived Ireland of the more or
+less independent Parliament which she had had for generations and even
+for centuries. It was indeed a Parliament "more or less"
+independent--less, perhaps, much rather than more. Still there had been
+always a recognition of Irish nationality in the existence of any form
+of Irish Parliament. The troubles between England and her American
+colonies--between England and France--had led to the concession of what
+we now know as Grattan's Parliament--the nearest form of Home Rule
+Ireland had ever enjoyed since her conquest by the descendants of the
+great Norman kings. But it was a Parliament of Protestants--no Catholic,
+in a nation of which five-sixths were Catholics, could sit in the
+National Parliament or even give a vote for a member of that National
+Parliament. Grattan's Parliament was exclusively Protestant; but yet,
+with all its imperfections, so nationalist was it in spirit that it was
+willing, under Grattan's inspiration, to enable Roman Catholics to vote
+for the election of members of the Irish House of Commons. But Grattan
+and his friends were anxious to go much farther. They demanded a
+complete political equality for the Roman Catholics. A society was
+formed for the purpose of conducting the agitation. Its leaders were
+almost all Protestants--many of them were Protestants from Ulster. The
+stupid bigotry of George the Third bluntly refused Catholic
+Emancipation; and the Society of United Irishmen became a rebellious
+organization. The rebellion of 1798 broke out and was crushed after
+terrible bloodshed. Then, when Ireland was wholly at the mercy of
+England, Pitt brought in his proposal for an Act of Union. After much
+resistance from all that was patriotic in Ireland and all that was
+sympathetic in England, the Act of Union was carried--by fraud and force
+and bribery and purchase. It has to be remembered with satisfaction that
+some of the noblest Englishmen of the time were as strenuously opposed
+to such a measure as Grattan himself. Pitt had made liberal promises
+about Catholic Emancipation while he was striving to carry the Act of
+Union, but when the Act was passed he dropped all talk about Catholic
+Emancipation, and pleaded as his excuse that the king would not listen
+to any further proposals on the subject. O'Connell's first political
+speech was made in January, 1800, at a meeting of Catholics held in
+Dublin to protest against the Act of Union.
+
+Something else had to be done, however, before it could be possible in
+Ireland to encounter the Act of Union with anything like a successful
+constitutional agitation. The right had to be obtained for a Catholic to
+sit in Parliament. The Catholic Association had been formed for the
+purpose, and O'Connell became its recognized leader, and, more than
+that, the recognized leader of the Irish people. Meanwhile there were
+constant efforts made in Parliament for the emancipation of the
+Catholics. Sir Robert Peel, who had begun his career as Chief Secretary
+to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had become Secretary of State for the
+Home Department--and it may be well to mention to American readers that
+the Irish Secretaryship is really a subordinate part of the Home Office.
+Peel, as Home Secretary, was necessarily kept in constant touch with
+everything going on in Ireland. He was greatly impressed by some of the
+debates in the House of Commons. He was especially impressed by an
+observation which Lord Brougham, then Mr. Brougham, made in a speech
+supporting Catholic Emancipation, to the effect that not one of those
+who spoke against emancipation had ventured even to suggest that things
+could remain as they then were. Something will have to be done, Peel
+said to himself. What is the something to be? The new king, George the
+Fourth, in whose succession to the throne O'Connell and Thomas Moore and
+the Irish people generally had had so much hope, was doggedly opposed to
+the political relief of the Catholics.
+
+Accident helped to bring about a settlement of the question. A sudden
+vacancy occurred in the Parliamentary representation of the County of
+Clare, owing to the fact that the former representative had accepted
+office in the government, and had therefore to offer himself for
+re-election. The leaders of the Catholic Association determined on the
+bold policy of putting forward a candidate to contest the seat.
+O'Connell, of course, was recognized by everyone as the man to fight the
+battle. He willingly accepted the responsibility. Even moderate men,
+partly sympathetic, shook their heads when they heard of this
+determination. "O'Connell will end his life on the gallows" was the
+confident prediction of some who passed among their neighbors for
+sensible persons. The Viceroy of Ireland predicted that O'Connell would
+take care to maintain good order in Clare during the election.
+O'Connell's opponent predicted that O'Connell would not dare to come to
+Clare in person; that he would not run the risk of confronting his
+enemies. O'Connell ran the risk--he was not a man likely to be afraid of
+risks. He went to Clare. The enthusiasm was wild, but the order was
+perfect. O'Connell, the excluded Catholic, was elected by a majority of
+more than two to one. The result set Peel thinking. What he thought we
+have in his own words. Was it possible to take no account of "that
+political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and
+fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had
+inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and the energy of a
+freeman?" No, it was not possible. Peel soon made up his mind.
+
+O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons later on,
+but not until after Peel and Wellington had crammed emancipation down
+the king's throat and compelled him to accept it. Wellington seems to
+have reasoned much in this way: "I know nothing about the question--Peel
+knows all about it; Peel thinks it will be for the good of the king and
+the country to pass Catholic Emancipation; the king, I am sure, does not
+know any more about the matter than I do, and I am prepared to go with
+Peel, and the king must come with us. Peel thinks there must be civil
+war if we don't pass Catholic Emancipation, and I have had too much of
+war in my time--and I don't propose to stand a civil war--not if I know
+it." The king had, of course, to give way in the end, and Catholic
+Emancipation was passed. It was passed rather ungraciously. It was
+accompanied by a quite superfluous measure suppressing the Catholic
+Association, which had in fact already dissolved itself, its work being
+done, and invalidating the election of O'Connell. Perhaps, without these
+sops to religious bigotry, an act for the emancipation of the Catholics
+could not then have been carried through the Houses of Parliament.
+O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons and
+claimed a right to take his seat. He was called upon to swear the old
+oaths--what we may fairly call the anti-Catholic oaths. Of course he
+refused. A new writ was ordered for Clare, and O'Connell was
+triumphantly returned. The struggle was over.
+
+The remainder of O'Connell's life was devoted mainly to the cause of
+Repeal of the Union--in other words, the cause of Home Rule. He
+organized the great system of monster meetings--vast out-of-door
+gatherings, which he swayed as he pleased by the magic of his eloquence,
+his humor, his passion, and the charm of his wonderful voice. No doubt
+he sometimes used very strong language; no doubt some of the younger men
+fully believed that he meant rebellion--that he had rebellion up his
+sleeve if his demands were not conceded. The meetings were always held
+on the Sunday; were indeed, regarded as, in a certain sense, religious
+celebrations. The meeting of October 8, 1843, was to be held on the
+historic ground of Clontarf, and it was expected to be the greatest of
+all the assemblages, although some of them had drawn together a crowd of
+nearly a quarter of a million of men. The Government issued a
+proclamation prohibiting the meeting, and O'Connell bowed to the
+prohibition. He sent messengers in every direction countermanding the
+assembling of men, in order to prevent any chance of that disorder and
+bloodshed which he had always shrunk from and abhorred. He and some of
+his friends, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy among the rest, were put on their
+trial on a charge of sedition. Most of them were found guilty and
+sentenced to fine and imprisonment. They were confined in Richmond
+Prison, Dublin. Their incarceration did not last long, and indeed, was
+what might be called "internment" rather than actual imprisonment. A
+majority of the law lords in the House of Peers, the final tribunal,
+annulled the sentences on the ground that the jury had been unfairly
+chosen--was packed, in fact. O'Connell and his colleagues were set free
+after a few months; but the leader never recovered his former ascendency
+over the political movement of Ireland. He was growing old; he had been
+reckless of his great physical resources, he had been unsparing of his
+strength; and undoubtedly, the younger men in the agitation fell away
+from him when he had made it clear that he never meant, under any
+conditions, to lead them into revolution. A number of his young and
+brilliant followers set up a party of their own--the Young Ireland
+Confederation--which after his death drifted into a generous, but
+hopeless, rebellion. The Young Ireland movement, however, quickened and
+established a national literature which had an immense effect on
+subsequent political history in Ireland. The Irish famine of 1846 and
+1847 was a terrible blow to O'Connell in his rapidly weakening health.
+His last speech in the House of Commons was an appeal for a generous
+help to Ireland, and a prediction, which proved only too true, that if
+generous help were not given, one-fourth of Ireland's population must
+perish by starvation. His physicians ordered him to the Continent, and
+he passionately longed to reach Rome and die under the shadow of the
+Vatican. He had during some of his years led a wild life, and he had
+killed a man in a duel--a duel which was literally forced upon him, but
+for which he always felt deeply penitent. His ultimate longing had come
+to be a quiet death in the papal city. He was not graced so far. He died
+in Genoa on May 15, 1847.
+
+As a politician O'Connell was absolutely consistent. He was in favor of
+liberty for Ireland, but he was in favor of liberty for every other
+country. His definition of liberty was practical and not merely
+declamatory. He was in favor of equal rights for all men before the law;
+he was in favor of a free press, a free vote, and as nearly as possible
+a manhood suffrage. He was in many ways far in advance of the English
+liberals of his day. When the question of slavery in the West Indian
+colonies was under discussion in Parliament, he went farther for
+abolition than even the professed philanthropists and emancipationists,
+the Clarksons and the Buxtons, were inclined to go. He was almost
+fanatically opposed to the advocates of the slave system in the United
+States, and he refused to receive any help in money from them to carry
+on his Repeal agitation. He declined to endure any political dictation
+from the Vatican, although he was a most devoted Roman Catholic. He
+would take, he said, without question his religion from Rome, but not
+his politics. There was no great cause of freedom upheld all through the
+world in his time, but he clung to it and cleaved to it. The writer of
+this article once talked to Mr. Gladstone about O'Connell, well knowing
+that in early life Mr. Gladstone had been a great admirer of O'Connell's
+abilities. Mr. Gladstone told many anecdotes of O'Connell's personal
+energy in pursuit of any purpose which he believed to be just, and in
+illustration of his wonderful mastery over even a thoroughly hostile
+audience. When asked what he believed to be O'Connell's principal
+characteristic, Mr. Gladstone paused for a while and thought the
+question out, and then gravely and deliberately answered: "I should
+think his greatest characteristic was a passion of philanthropy." A
+passion of philanthropy! Is it possible to have a nobler epitaph
+pronounced on one than that--and pronounced by such a man? No man in our
+modern history was ever so bitterly and savagely denounced in England as
+O'Connell. No words were too rough for him. He was commonly called in
+English newspapers the "Big Beggarman." He was accused every day, of
+making a fortune out of the contributions of a half-starving people. The
+truth was that all and much more than all the money raised by the Irish
+people, was spent on the agitation for repeal of the Union. The truth
+was that O'Connell gave up his splendid practice at the bar, for the
+sake of advocating the Irish national cause. The truth was that he spent
+his own money and reduced his own property to all but pauperism, for the
+sake of advancing the same cause. The truth was that he died poor,
+leaving his children poor. But he had his reward. A man whom Mr.
+Gladstone could describe as possessed above all other things by a
+passion of philanthropy, may leave his memory safely in the charge of
+those whose best interests he honestly strove to serve.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+SIMON BOLIVAR[9]
+
+By HON. JOHN P. ST. JOHN
+
+(1783-1830)
+
+         [Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Bolivar. [TN]]
+
+
+So far as the world knew, the birth of Simon Bolivar at Caracas,
+Venezuela, on July 24, 1783, was of no greater importance than that of
+any other child. Perhaps but one person entertained the slightest
+thought that he would ever be the hero of many battles and the liberator
+of his countrymen; and that person was his mother. A mother, as a rule,
+always in her imagination anticipates a brilliant future for her boy. If
+Bolivar's mother was not an exception to this rule, surely her highest
+anticipations were fully realized in the wonderful career of her son.
+
+His father, Juan Vincente Bolivar y Ponte, and his mother, Maria
+Concepcion Palacios y Sojo, were descendants of noble families in
+Venezuela. Nothing unusual occurred in his school-boy days to
+distinguish him from others of his age and rank. He was attentive to his
+studies, warm-hearted, generous, and always a favorite among his
+associates. When he had made sufficient advancement in his studies at
+home, and had arrived at the proper age, he was sent to Madrid, where he
+remained several years, during which time he completed his education.
+
+Bolivar was now a full-grown man, and as a source of needed recreation
+after years of hard study, he spent some time in visiting places of
+special interest in the south of Europe. On his journey he stopped for a
+time at the French capital, where he witnessed the closing scenes of the
+French revolution. This was the hour of Napoleon's greatest glory. He
+was the acknowledged military hero of the age. All France bowed at his
+feet. Is it not probable that here was where Bolivar caught the
+inspiration that led him to make an effort to be to his own country,
+what Napoleon was to France? From Paris Bolivar returned to Madrid,
+where, in 1801, he married the daughter of Don N. Toro, uncle of the
+Marquis of Toro, in Caracas. He soon sailed with his young bride for his
+native country, but it was only a little while until she fell a victim
+to yellow fever. The sudden and unexpected death of his young wife, to
+whom he was intensely devoted, so shattered his health and frustrated
+his plans, that he wended his way back to Europe, where he remained
+until 1809, when he returned through the United States to his own
+country. His remembrance of the closing scenes of the French revolution,
+and the realization as he passed through the United States of the
+blessings of her free institutions, no doubt account in some measure for
+the fact that, as soon as he reached Venezuela, he joined the movement
+then crystallizing into an aggressive warfare for independence, and a
+larger degree of freedom for his own countrymen.
+
+In 1810 he received a colonel's commission from the revolutionary junta,
+and was associated with Luis Lopez Mendez in a mission to the court of
+Great Britain, which was rendered fruitless by England announcing her
+position in relation to the troubles in Venezuela as one of strict
+neutrality. On July 5, 1811, Venezuela formally declared her
+independence from the mother-country. This brought on a clash of arms at
+once.
+
+The Spanish troops under Monteverde, owing to a lack of concert of
+action on the part of the "patriots," forced Bolivar, with his little
+band of volunteers, to abandon the important post of Puerto Cabello, and
+flee to Curaçao, which was reached in safety, while Monteverde at the
+head of the Spanish troops gained control of Venezuela.
+
+Chafing under defeat, Bolivar, in September, 1812, repaired to
+Carthagena, where a commission was given him to make war upon the
+Spanish troops along the Magdalena River. Although his army numbered but
+500 men, he succeeded in driving the enemy, not only from the country
+along the Magdalena River, but entered Venezuela, and forced his way
+westward to the important towns of Merida and Truxillo, where the people
+gladly welcomed him and rallied to his support. Encouraged by his
+success, and embittered by the brutalities of the enemy, as he pressed
+forward he issued his noted proclamation of "War to the death."
+
+He soon routed Monteverde's army at Lastoguanes, forcing him to take
+refuge in Puerto Cabello, while Bolivar pushed forward, entering Caracas
+in triumph August 4, 1813. But the tide of battle soon turned. The
+Royalists concentrated all their available force, and a number of bloody
+battles ensued, and finally Bolivar's men, inferior in numbers, were
+badly defeated near Cura. The fall of Caracas soon followed, and before
+the close of the year 1814 the Royalists were again in full possession
+of Venezuela. Though defeated, Bolivar was not dismayed. He had great
+faith in the righteousness of his cause, and his consciousness of this
+fact seemed to give him that courage which never knows defeat.
+
+He next went to Tunja, where the revolutionary congress was in session,
+and notwithstanding the misfortunes of war and the bitter opposition of
+a few personal enemies, his enthusiastic reception showed that he still
+retained the confidence and respect of the people. He was soon given
+command of an expedition against Santa Fé de Bogota, where Don
+Cundinamarca had refused official recognition of the new union of the
+provinces, which, without any conflict of arms, was crowned with success
+by the surrender of the rebellious leaders. For this service Bolivar
+received the special thanks of Congress. The Royalists having captured
+Santa Martha, Bolivar was ordered to retake it, but failed in his
+attempt.
+
+In May, 1814, he resigned his commission, and went to Kingston, Jamaica,
+where an attempt was made to assassinate him, which resulted, by a
+mistake, in the murder of another. Later on he went to Aux Cayes, in
+Hayti, where President Petion assisted him in organizing an expedition
+which, though it succeeded in reaching the main-land in May, 1816,
+eventually failed. But Bolivar's past experience had taught him not to
+go wild over a victory, nor be discouraged by a defeat, so he returned
+to Aux Cayes, where he secured reinforcements, and in December landed
+his troops, first at Marguerite, and then at Barcelona. At this point a
+provisional government was formed and all the available military force
+was promptly organized, and placed in readiness to resist the invasion
+of Morillo, who was at the head of a strong, well-disciplined army of
+Royalists. The opposing forces met on February 16, 1817, and a desperate
+battle, lasting three days, ensued, resulting in a complete rout of the
+Royalists, who, while retreating in great disorder, were assailed with
+such impetuosity by small bands of patriots, as to make their overthrow
+complete.
+
+Being now the undisputed commander-in-chief, Bolivar seemed
+irresistible. Victory after victory crowned his efforts, until he
+established his head-quarters at Angostura, on the Orinoco. From this
+point, after a thorough reorganization of his forces, he pressed forward
+over the Cordilleras, and effected a junction with the army headed by
+General Santander, commander of the Republican forces in New Granada.
+The armies thus united proved to be invincible. The entire march was
+characterized by a succession of victories, ending in a complete
+overthrow of the enemy on August 7, 1819, at Bojaca, which gave him full
+possession, not only of Bogota, but of all New Granada. This brilliant
+achievement attracted the attention of the civilized world then, and as
+we read about it now, it forcibly reminds us, in its conception, the
+skill and rapidity of its execution, and its results, of the wonderful
+march of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea. Taking advantage of the great
+prestige his marvellous victories had given him with the people, he
+procured the passage of a fundamental law, December 17, 1819, uniting
+Venezuela and New Granada under one government, to be known as the
+Republic of Colombia, of which Bolivar was made president.
+
+Bolivar was now at the head of the grandest army he had ever commanded.
+The Royalists, under Morillo, having been beaten at several points,
+induced Bolivar, at Truxillo on November 20, 1820, to consent to an
+armistice for six months, which he did; no doubt with the hope that
+meantime a treaty of peace might be effected and the war thus brought to
+an end.
+
+Subsequent events, however, gave strong reasons to believe that the
+armistice was a mere ruse to gain time while Morillo could be recalled
+and General Torre placed in command. Bolivar, no doubt incensed by this
+apparent trick, determined, upon the expiration of the armistice, to
+strike a blow that would not soon be forgotten; which he did at
+Carabolo, by attacking and completely routing General Torre's command,
+compelling the fleeing fragments to seek shelter in Puerto Cabello,
+where two years after they surrendered to Paez. This practically closed
+the war in Venezuela. On August 30, 1821, the constitution of Colombia
+was adopted amid great rejoicing, with Bolivar as president and
+Santander as vice-president. But there was more work to do, and no one
+could do it so well as Bolivar. He determined that nowhere should the
+Royalists have a foothold in the whole country. He attacked them at
+Pichincha, in Ecuador, and after a desperate struggle they were forced
+to retreat in disorder, while victorious Bolivar with his enthusiastic
+followers triumphantly entered Quito, June 22, 1822. Next Lima was
+taken, but owing to the dissensions among the Republican factions in
+Peru, Bolivar was compelled to abandon the city, which was again
+occupied by the Royalists, while he withdrew to Truxillo.
+
+Having thoroughly reorganized his forces, and gotten everything in good
+condition for an aggressive warfare, he again assaulted the Royalists
+with unrelenting vigor, driving them before him, and finally
+administering a crushing defeat on the plains of Junin, August 6th;
+after which he returned to Lima, leaving Sucre, who had already
+displayed great military skill and bravery, to complete the work. This
+he did, by gaining a great victory at Ayacucho, which completely
+dispersed the Royalists, reducing their possessions in Peru to the
+Castles of Callao, which Rodil, after a little over a year's successful
+resistance, was compelled to surrender.
+
+Upper Peru having detached itself from Buenos Ayres, was organized as a
+separate state under the name of Bolivia, in honor of the man who had
+accomplished so much for its freedom, and who by the first Congress of
+the new republic, which convened in August, 1825, was made perpetual
+Protector, and requested to prepare for it a constitution.
+
+The country having been freed from armed resistance on the part of the
+Royalists, it next became Bolivar's duty to provide laws for the proper
+government of the people. Time proved this to be a more difficult task
+than meeting an open enemy on the field of battle. Many local leaders
+had been developed during the struggle for independence, among whom no
+little ill feeling was aroused by their scramble for recognition. Then
+there were some who were jealous of Bolivar's great popularity and
+influence with the people. They were busy in trying to turn public
+opinion against him by telling the people that he would use his power to
+add to, rather than lighten, their burdens. This feeling was intensified
+when he presented his plan of government for Bolivia to Congress on May
+25, 1826, accompanied by an address in which he doubted the wisdom of
+extending the right of franchise indiscriminately to the people, and
+showed clearly his preference for a centralization of power, by
+proposing a president for life clothed with supreme executive powers,
+including the right to name his successor. It was charged by his enemies
+that this would be a monarchy in fact, and a republic only in name.
+
+Meantime Paez, military commander in Venezuela, refused to recognize the
+constituted authorities, and assumed an attitude of open rebellion. But
+the presence in a short time of Bolivar, his old commander, followed by
+a personal interview and a decree of general amnesty, resulted in a
+complete restoration of peace and loyal adherence to the government.
+Bolivar and Santander having been re-elected to the respective offices
+of president and vice-president, Bolivar, before the time fixed by law
+for him to take the oath of office, resigned the presidency of the
+republic, with a view to retiring into private life, and thus refuting
+the charges made against him by personal enemies, that he was simply
+working in his own interest, and for his own personal aggrandizement.
+
+But in response to Santander's earnest appeal, and a resolution of
+Congress urging him to resume his position as president, Bolivar went to
+Bogota, and there took upon himself the oath of office.
+
+He soon issued three decrees: One granting general amnesty, another
+calling a national convention at Ocana, and a third for the
+establishment of constitutional order throughout Colombia. All eyes were
+now turned to the national convention at Ocana, which was to assemble in
+March, 1828. This was made the more important by the fact that it was to
+determine whether Bolivar's plan for a strong centralized government,
+backed up by ample military force, or a government controlled more
+directly by the great body of the people, should prevail. The events of
+the past year had served rather to strengthen Bolivar's position, and
+the action of the convention seems to have crystallized it into law, for
+a decree soon followed, dated August 27, 1828, giving to Bolivar supreme
+power over Colombia, which he continued to exercise until his death,
+which occurred at San Pedro, on December 17, 1830.
+
+Thus closes the life of one of the most remarkable characters the world
+has ever known. He possessed the intrepid courage and dash of a Sherman,
+the unrelenting firmness of a Grant, and the tenderness of a Lincoln.
+Local revolts against lawful authority always yielded to his personal
+presence and counsel. We fail to find in his history a single act of
+cruelty recorded against him. His proclamation of "War to the death,"
+was a military necessity. The Royalists had shown no mercy to his
+soldiers. They had refused to treat them as prisoners of war. They had
+fired upon his flag of truce. They gave no quarter to revolutionists,
+but put them to death wherever found. And there was but one alternative
+left, and that was, unpleasant as it must have been to a man of such
+kindly nature, to meet such brutalities by a threat of retaliation in
+kind. The proclamation was not prompted by a spirit of cruelty, but
+rather by a love for humanity. It had the effect which he no doubt
+intended it should, and that was to secure the same treatment for his
+soldiers when captured, that the civilized world acknowledged due to
+prisoners of war. He was in no sense mercenary. He expended nine-tenths
+of his fortune for his country's freedom, and when voted a million
+dollars by Congress he promptly declined it. He was always magnanimous,
+even to his bitterest enemies. He died comparatively poor. His remains
+sleep at Caracas, the place of his birth. His soul is with God.
+Monuments have been erected to his memory, one at Caracas and another at
+Lima. But his life-work has erected a monument in the hearts of his
+countrymen that will never perish. He sowed the seed for the harvest of
+a better government and higher civilization for all Spanish America. The
+influence of his example is not confined to his own country, but is felt
+throughout the civilized world. To-day, among the brightest and best of
+the world's good and great men, may justly be placed the name of Simon
+Bolivar.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+JEAN FRANÇOIS CHAMPOLLION[10]
+
+By GEORG EBERS
+
+(1790-1832)
+
+         [Footnote 10: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: The pyramids of Gyzeh. [TN]]
+
+
+The deciphering of hieroglyphics is one of the greatest achievements of
+the human race in this century. Jean François Champollion was the man
+who accomplished this great feat. He is surnamed "_le jeune_," the
+younger, to distinguish him from his elder brother, Champollion Figeac,
+whose life was one of paternal devotion and the most unselfish sacrifice
+for his younger brother. Both were born in Figeac, in the south of
+France, François on December 23, 1790. He made his home, however, in the
+beautiful little town of Grenoble, situated on the hills near the valley
+of the Isère. It was to this place that Champollion Figeac, who was here
+engaged as director of the town library, and later on as professor of
+Greek at the university, drew his twelve years younger brother François,
+who, at the age of nine, went to live with his elder brother, filled
+with the proudest hopes for the future, and grateful for the care and
+devotion bestowed upon him.
+
+At that time, naturally, all eyes were turned toward Egypt, where the
+First Consul, Bonaparte, had led the army of the Republic, accompanied
+by a host of celebrated men of science. The newly opened world of
+monuments on the banks of the Nile excited the greatest interest in
+everybody; but for few did it have as strong an attraction as for
+Champollion Figeac, who had occupied himself long previously with the
+study of the history and language of the ancient Egyptians. Furthermore,
+he and his brother François came, so to say, into indirect contact with
+the great expedition. For the famous mathematician Fourier, who had gone
+out with it, became afterward prefect of Grenoble, and one of Figeac's
+warmest and most intimate friends.
+
+François, who, at the age of twelve, was already fully master of the
+classic languages, had, surrounded by the rich collection of books
+placed in his brother's care, drifted into a territory which is not
+embraced in the usual high-school curriculum, viz., the Oriental
+languages. While still at school, and during his leisure hours, he
+mastered with wonderful energy, aided as it was by an almost phenomenal
+power for acquiring knowledge, the Hebrew and most other Semitic
+languages, as also Sanscrit and Persian. As, however, Egypt had the
+greatest attraction for him, he also studied the Coptic dialect, the
+language of the Egyptians during the early centuries after Christ, which
+was written in Greek letters with some few others added. Withal, the
+remarkable youth was cheerful and companionable, finding time even to
+practise his poetic gifts; nor did his physical development suffer
+through the severe exertion of his mind. His portrait, in the Louvre in
+Paris, represents him in manhood with bronzed skin, easily allowing him
+to be recognized as a native of the South of France. His nose is
+slightly bent, his forehead lofty, his hair black and of great
+abundance. The dark eyes, shaded by heavy brows, express
+serenity--earnest and profound sincerity--while his well-formed mouth
+gives evidence of winning manners and the friendliness of his nature.
+
+At the age of seventeen he submitted his first work, a geography of
+ancient Egypt, to the Academy of Grenoble, which, notwithstanding his
+extreme youth, conferred upon him the degree of associate. Soon after he
+followed a course of lectures at the Oriental College of Paris. With
+youthful zeal he availed himself of the numerous educational advantages
+at his disposal in this great city, and gained even then the notice of
+the most prominent men of his profession. After two years' time, not
+quite twenty years of age, he was called to a position at the University
+of Grenoble.
+
+When Napoleon rested in this town on his way from Elba to Paris, in
+1815, he appointed the elder Champollion as his private secretary.
+
+The close relationship into which this position brought Figeac to the
+emperor, and his republican ideas after Napoleon's downfall--which ideas
+were shared by his brother François--were circumstances which, in later
+years, became great obstacles to their further advancement. They were
+looked upon as characters dangerous to the state, and were deprived of
+their positions, while the Institute of France even withheld from
+François its protection.
+
+The brothers were banished to their old homestead, Figeac, where they
+found leisure in abundance to complete several unfinished works; and
+when in 1818, through the influence of the Duke of Decazes, their
+banishment was pronounced at an end, François had completed his great
+work, "L'Égypte sous les Pharaons."
+
+This work, of the utmost importance at the time, in the preparation of
+which the Coptic sources were freely drawn upon, won François his lost
+chair at the Grenoble University. After he had secured this post he was
+encouraged to found a home of his own. Rose Blanc was the bride-elect,
+with whom he was united in a most happy marriage until his death.
+
+Since many years François had occupied himself with the monument which
+gave promise to the possibility of deciphering hieroglyphics.
+
+During the French expedition, as it happened, the talisman was found
+which was to become the key to disclose the mystery of the language and
+the written signs of the Ancient Egyptians--the tablet or the key of
+Rosetta, a stone-plate made of black granite. Three inscriptions,
+written in different signs, covered the originally rectangular surface
+of the tablet. The uppermost one, considerably injured, showed the
+hieroglyphics, which were familiar through the obelisks and other
+Egyptian monuments; the second inscription was obscure; while the third
+and lowest inscription, which had suffered but little injury, consisted
+of Greek letters clear to every philologist. It proclaimed that the
+tablet contained a decree of the Egyptian priesthood, in honor of the
+fifth king of the house of the Ptolemies, and that this was written in
+the holy language, in that of the people of Egypt, and in Greek, on the
+same tablet. Here was, therefore, a somewhat extensive text in two of
+the three modes of writing of the Egyptians of which Clemens of
+Alexandria makes mention, with a Greek translation of the same. The
+fortunes of war brought this extraordinary monument into the hands of
+the English. It was placed in the British Museum, and care was taken
+that copies of the three inscriptions should reach the various
+Egyptologists, among them Champollion.
+
+The demotic inscription--that is to say, the text in the writing of the
+people, was one of the most inviting to decipher, because the signs
+composing it seemed to be letters representing sound. This was
+sedulously attempted by several scientists, and with the best results by
+the great French Orientalist, De Sacy, and by the Swede, Akerblad. But
+though the former by a mechanical method recognized correctly the
+meaning of several groups, and though Akerblad had even ascertained most
+of the signs of the demotic alphabet, still they were both incapable of
+discerning the elements of which the demotic writing is composed.
+
+The great English physician and naturalist, Thomas Young, who also
+occupied himself with the three various texts, made better progress.
+Taking advantage and making use of the parts that had been revealed to
+him by demotic and hieroglyphic text, he succeeded, in a mechanical way,
+and by intelligent comparisons in deciphering the names Ptolemaios and
+Berenike, and in recognizing even the hieroglyphic signs for numbers.
+Still the true nature of the Egyptian writing was not revealed to him
+either. In their particulars his ascertainments are untrue, for in the
+names he had in no way discovered the alphabetic signs of which they
+were composed.
+
+As to the remainder of the inscription he thought that it consisted of
+such drawn signs or forms with symbolical significance as might be found
+interpreted in the "Hieroglyphica of Horapollon."
+
+That those groups of hieroglyphics surrounded by a frame (cartouche) are
+the names of kings, had been contended long before by the Dane Zoëge,
+Barthélemy, and others. The framed hieroglyphics on the tablet of
+Rosetta could, as the Greek text taught, signify but the name of
+Ptolemaios. Champollion also had originally held the same erroneous
+opinion as Young and his predecessors. Though he succeeded in defining
+several groups of characters of the people's writing, like Akerblad, by
+comparison, he, even as late as 1821, in his essay on hieroglyphics,
+entitled "De l'Écriture hiératique des Anciens Égyptiens," declares them
+to be symbolical signs and figures.
+
+But he knew of Young's successful comparisons with Greek names; and when
+Mr. Bankes brought a small obelisk to England from the island of Philæ,
+on which the framed group of hieroglyphics were bound to contain the
+names of Ptolemaios and Cleopatra, because a Greek inscription at the
+foot of the obelisk mentioned these royal names, a firm starting-point
+was created by Champollion, from which he was to succeed in removing the
+mass of obstacles which had stood in the way of all previous
+explorations and researches.
+
+He made his basis the supposition that the framed names were constructed
+of alphabetic signs. The name Ptolemaios was known through the tablet of
+Rosetta. If the second name on Bankes's obelisk were Cleopatra, a
+comparison of the two names should confirm this. The first letter in the
+name Ptolemaios being a "p" it should occur as fifth letter in
+Cleopatra. And this was actually the case. The third letter in
+Ptolemaios, the "o," was found again as the fourth one in Cleopatra. The
+fourth sign in Ptolemaios, "l," a lion, occurred correctly as the second
+one in Cleopatra. By further comparison every sign was correctly found,
+and when Champollion had deciphered a group of signs which he took to be
+Alexander, and again found every letter in its right place, he could
+assure himself that hieroglyphics also were based on the phonetic
+system.
+
+He soon, with the aid of the letters discovered in the above-mentioned
+groups, deciphered other well-known names of kings, and in this way
+acquired a knowledge of the whole hieroglyphic alphabet. But the many
+hundred forms and signs, of which the holy scriptures of the Egyptians
+are composed, could not well be of an altogether alphabetic nature, and
+a further study of the subject brought the explorer to the conclusion
+that ideographs were interspersed among the alphabetical signs in order
+to make the alphabetic words more comprehensive. For instance, after a
+masculine proper name the picture of a man was drawn, and after every
+word connected with the motion of walking, the picture of two pacing
+legs. Besides this, he found that some sounds could be represented by
+different hieroglyphics. With this the most important elements of
+hieroglyphics were disclosed, and it was all accomplished in one year,
+from 1821-22. When François, after a period of extraordinary mental
+exertion, appeared before his brother one morning with all the proofs in
+his hands, calling to him, "_Je tiens l'affaire; vois!_" (I have found
+it; look here!) he fell to the floor fainting, worn out by the immense
+exertions of the last few months.
+
+It required some time for him to recover his health; but Figeac read, on
+September 17, 1822, his brother's pamphlet at the Academy in Paris. It
+appeared under the name of "Lettre à M. Dacier," and contained the
+details of his discovery.
+
+That day decided Champollion's future career. As early as the year
+following he published his new work, "Précis du système hiéroglyphique,"
+after which Louis Philippe of Orleans had the discovery officially
+announced before the Oriental Association, and Louis XVIII. made it his
+royal duty to lighten Champollion's future work.
+
+The "Précis" embraces the foregoing results of his discovery, and
+considering the short space of time in which all this was accomplished,
+it appears marvellous that François could thus early determine the most
+important elements of the hieroglyphic system in their minute details so
+correctly. In 1824 the king sent him to Italy, where he profited
+principally by the splendid collection of Egyptian antiquities in Turin.
+In 1826 Charles X. appointed him director of the Egyptian Museum in the
+Louvre, which Champollion founded by purchasing at Liverno the
+celebrated "Salt Collection."
+
+Soon after his return to France the king sent him on a mission to Egypt,
+where he remained from August, 1828, till the end of 1829. The Italian
+Rosellini joined him on the Nile.
+
+His "Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de la Nubie" render his observations
+and impressions and describe his life and adventures in Egypt, in a most
+entertaining and instructive style. The many and various inscriptions,
+copied there by him, are all quoted in his great work on monuments,
+entitled, "Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie," and in his posthumous
+work, "Notices descriptives conformes aux manuscrits autographes rédigés
+sur les lieux."
+
+Soon after his return to Paris (in March, 1830), by which time his
+health had commenced to fail, he was elected a Member of the Academy,
+and in March, 1831, was appointed professor at the "College de France."
+The solidity and instructiveness of his lectures brought the most
+celebrated leaders in science to hear him, but there were destined to be
+but few of the lectures, as he all too soon felt himself too weak to
+continue them. On March 4, 1832, at his old homestead Figeac, a stroke
+of apoplexy ended his active life of achievement.
+
+His great discovery was at first vigorously attacked. Erring minds
+declaring the system of the great Frenchman to be wrong, and submitting
+others of their own, as the Russian Klaproth and the German Seyffarth,
+disturbed Champollion's peace; still more bitterly, however, was he
+pursued by the envy and hatred of his political opponents.
+
+Even when the laurel already decorated his brow, they saw to it that the
+thorns were not wanting in the wreath. Especially in England various
+efforts were made to have, not him, but Thomas Young, recognized as the
+discoverer of the science of deciphering hieroglyphics. But though Young
+had succeeded previously to Champollion in deciphering some hieroglyphic
+names in a mechanical way, yet the genial Englishman mistook, during the
+whole course of his activity, the real character of hieroglyphic
+writing. To Champollion, on the other hand, it was left to recognize
+their nature and construction, so that science must acknowledge him to
+be the discoverer of the true nature of the system of hieroglyphical
+writing.
+
+Shortly before his death it was vouchsafed him to proclaim to his loyal
+brother, "_Voici ma carte pour la postérité_," pointing to the
+manuscript of his "Egyptian Grammar," of which the last chapter was
+still missing. It contains the germs from which all similar works have
+sprung, which since have perfected and enlarged that of Champollion; it
+showed the path in which all subsequent grammarians were to walk. The
+results of Young's discoveries remain without influence upon the
+progress of the science, and have found a place long since among old
+relics.
+
+François Champollion's work is the seed, which even at the present day
+brings forth the richest fruits. When he died, at the age of forty-two,
+he left the world not only his "Egyptian Grammar," but also pioneer
+works in other branches of his science.
+
+His "Panthéon Égyptien" (1823-25) dealt with Egyptian mythology; his
+excellent knowledge of Coptic is clearly seen in many of his works; and
+his "Egyptian Dictionary of Hieroglyphics" (1841-44) is, bearing in mind
+the time when it was written, a work of marvellous accomplishment.
+
+This dictionary, with several other works and manuscripts of his
+literary estate, which the French Government had purchased for the sum
+of fifty thousand francs, were faithfully and lovingly edited and
+published after his death by his elder brother, Figeac. These posthumous
+works bear witness not only to the overwhelming industry of this great
+worker and explorer, but also to the loving unselfishness of his
+brother, who sacrificed a great part of his time and activity in editing
+and arranging the manuscripts of the departed. The "Grammar," the
+"Monuments," the "Dictionary," were all published by Figeac. At "Père
+Lachaise" Cemetery, in Paris, a weather-beaten obelisk and a broken
+stone tablet indicate the spot where the remains of François Champollion
+rest.
+
+A monument which was erected in his honor at his native town, Figeac,
+bears the well-chosen inscription which so frequently occurs among the
+titles of the Pharaohs in hieroglyphics, "'_anch zete_," i.e.,
+"everlasting." A beautiful sentence, which Chateaubriand addressed to
+the faithful brother and co-worker of the great searcher, is also
+inscribed on the statue of François Champollion, le jeune. It reads:
+"Ses admirables travaux auront la durée des monuments qu'il nous a fait
+connaître." (His admirable works will last as long as the monuments
+which he has taught us to understand.)
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ANDREW JACKSON[11]
+
+By COLONEL THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
+
+(1767-1845)
+
+         [Footnote 11: Reprinted from Harper's Magazine by permission.
+         Copyright, 1884, by Harper & Bros.]
+
+[Illustration: Andrew Jackson. [TN]]
+
+
+Dr. Von Holst, the most philosophic of historians, when he passes from
+the period of John Quincy Adams to that of his successor, is reluctantly
+compelled to leave the realm of pure history for that of biography, and
+to entitle a chapter "The Reign of Andrew Jackson." This change of
+treatment could, indeed, hardly be helped. Under Adams all was
+impersonal, methodical, a government of laws and not of men. With an
+individuality quite as strong as that of Jackson--as the whole nation
+learned ere his life ended--it had yet been the training of his earlier
+career to suppress himself, and be simply a perfect official. His policy
+aided the vast progress of the nation, but won no credit by the process.
+Men saw with wonder the westward march of an expanding people, but
+forgot to notice the sedate, passionless, orderly administration that
+held the door open and kept the peace for all. In studying the time of
+Adams, we think of the nation; in observing that of Jackson, we think of
+Jackson himself. In him we see the first popular favorite of a nation
+now well out of leading-strings, and particularly bent on going alone.
+By so much as he differed from Adams, by so much the people liked him
+better. His conquests had been those of war, always more dazzling than
+those of peace; his temperament was of fire, always more attractive than
+one of marble. He was helped by what he had done, and by what he had not
+done. Even his absence of diplomatic training was almost counted for a
+virtue, because all this training was necessarily European, and the
+demand had ripened for a purely American product.
+
+It had been quite essential to the self-respect of the new republic, at
+the outset, that it should have at its head men who had coped with
+European statesmen on their own soil and not been discomfited. This was
+the case with each of the early successors of Washington, and in view of
+his manifest superiority this advantage was not needed. Perhaps it was
+in a different way a sign of self-respect that the new republic should
+at last turn from this tradition, and take boldly from the ranks a
+strong and ill-trained leader, to whom all European precedent--and,
+indeed, all other precedent, counted for nothing. In Jackson, moreover,
+there first appeared upon our national stage the since familiar figure
+of the self-made man. Other presidents had sprung from a modest origin,
+but nobody had made an especial point of it. Nobody had urged Washington
+for office because he had been a surveyor's lad; nobody had voted for
+Adams because stately old ladies designated him as "that cobbler's son."
+But when Jackson came into office the people had just had almost a
+surfeit of regular training in their chief magistrates. There was a
+certain zest in the thought of a change, and the nation certainly had
+it.
+
+It must be remembered that Jackson was in many ways far above the
+successive modern imitators who have posed in his image. He was narrow,
+ignorant, violent, unreasonable; he punished his enemies and rewarded
+his friends. But he was, on the other hand--and his worst opponents
+hardly denied it--chaste, honest, truthful, and sincere. It was not
+commonly charged upon him that he enriched himself at the public
+expense, or that he deliberately invented falsehoods. And as he was for
+a time more bitterly hated than anyone who ever occupied his high
+office, we may be very sure that these things would have been charged
+had it been possible. In this respect the contrast was enormous between
+Jackson and his imitators, and it explains his prolonged influence. He
+never was found out or exposed before the world, because there was
+nothing to detect or unveil; his merits and demerits were as visible as
+his long, narrow, firmly set features, or as the old military stock that
+encircled his neck. There he was, always fully revealed; everybody could
+see him; the people might take him or leave him--and they never left
+him.
+
+Moreover, there was, after the eight years of Monroe and the four years
+of Adams, an immense popular demand for something piquant and even
+amusing, and this quality they always had from Jackson. There was
+nothing in the least melodramatic about him; he never posed or
+attitudinized--it would have required too much patience; but he was
+always piquant. There was formerly a good deal of discussion as to who
+wrote the once famous "Jack Downing's" letters, but we might almost say
+that they wrote themselves. Nobody was ever less of a humorist than
+Andrew Jackson, and it was therefore the more essential that he should
+be the cause of humor in others. It was simply inevitable that during
+his progresses through the country there should be some amusing shadow
+evoked, some Yankee parody of the man, such as came from two or three
+quarters under the name of Jack Downing. The various records of Monroe's
+famous tours are as tame as the speeches which these expeditions brought
+forth, and John Quincy Adams never made any popular demonstrations to
+chronicle; but wherever Jackson went there went the other Jack, the
+crude first-fruits of what is now known through the world as "American
+humor." Jack Downing was Mark Twain and Hosea Biglow and Artemus Ward in
+one. The impetuous President enraged many and delighted many, but it is
+something to know that under him a serious people first found that it
+knew how to laugh.
+
+The very extreme, the perfectly needless extreme, of political
+foreboding that marked the advent of Jackson furnished a background of
+lurid solemnity for all this light comedy. Samuel Breck records in his
+diary that he conversed with Daniel Webster in Philadelphia, March 24,
+1827, upon the prospects of the government. "Sir," said Mr. Webster, "if
+General Jackson is elected, the government of our country will be
+overthrown; the judiciary will be destroyed; Mr. Justice Johnson will be
+made Chief-Justice in the room of Mr. Marshall, who must soon retire,
+and then in half an hour Mr. Joseph Washington and Mr. Justice Story
+will resign. A majority will be left with Mr. Johnson, and every
+constitutional decision hitherto made will be reversed." As a matter of
+fact, none of these results followed. Mr. Justice Johnson never became
+Chief-Justice; Mr. Marshall retained that office till his death in 1835;
+Story and Washington also died in office; the judiciary was not
+overthrown, nor the government destroyed. But the very ecstasy of these
+fears stimulated the excitement of the public mind. No matter how
+extravagant the supporters of Jackson might be, they could hardly go
+farther in that direction than did the Websters in the other.
+
+But it was not the fault of the Jackson party if anybody went beyond
+them in exaggeration. An English traveller, William E. Alexander, going
+in a stage-coach from Baltimore to Washington in 1831, records the
+exuberant conversation of six editors, with whom he was shut up for
+hours. "The gentlemen of the press," he says, "talked of 'going the
+whole hog' for one another, of being 'up to the hub' (nave) for General
+Jackson, 'who was all brimstone but the head, and that was aqua-fortis,'
+and swore if anyone abused him he ought to be 'set straddle on an
+iceberg, and shot through with a streak of lightning.'" Somewhere
+between the dignified despair of Daniel Webster, and the adulatory slang
+of these gentry we must look for the actual truth about Jackson's
+administration. The fears of the statesman were not wholly groundless,
+for it is always hard to count in advance upon the tendency of high
+office to make men more reasonable. The enthusiasm of the editors had a
+certain foundation; at any rate it was a part of their profession to
+like stirring times, and they had now the promise of them. After four
+years of Adams, preceded by eight years of Monroe, any party of editors
+in America, assembled in a stage-coach, would have showered epithets of
+endearment on the man who gave such promise in the way of lively items.
+No acute journalist could help seeing that a man had a career before him
+who was called "Old Hickory" by three-quarters of the nation, and who
+made "Hurrah for Jackson!" a cry so potent that it had the force of a
+popular decree.
+
+There was, indeed, unbounded room for popular enthusiasm in the review
+of Jackson's early career. Born in such obscurity that it is doubtful to
+this day whether he was born in South Carolina, as he himself claimed,
+or on the North Carolina side of the line, as Mr. Parton thinks, he had
+a childhood of poverty and ignorance. He was taken prisoner as a mere
+boy during the Revolution, and could never forget that he had been
+wounded by a British officer whose boots he had refused to brush.
+Afterward, in a frontier community, he was successively farmer,
+shopkeeper, law-student, lawyer, district attorney, judge, and
+Congressman, being first Representative from Tennessee, and then
+Senator, and all before the age of thirty-one. In Congress Albert
+Gallatin describes him "as a tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with
+long locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, and a queue down his
+back tied in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners and deportment
+those of a backwoodsman." He remained, however, but a year or two in all
+at Philadelphia--then the seat of national government--and afterward
+became a planter in Tennessee, fought duels, subdued Tecumseh and the
+Creek Indians, winning finally the great opportunity of his life by
+being made a Major-General in the United States army on May 31, 1814. He
+now had his old captors, the British, with whom to deal, and entered
+into the work with a relish. By way of preliminary he took Pensacola,
+without any definite authority, from the Spaniards, to whom it belonged,
+and the English whom they harbored; and then turned, without orders,
+without support, and without supplies, to undertake the defence of New
+Orleans.
+
+Important as was this city, and plain as it was that the British
+threatened it, the national authorities had done nothing to defend it.
+The impression prevailed at Washington that it must already have been
+taken, but that the President would not let it be known. The _Washington
+Republican_ of January 17, 1815, said, "That Mr. Madison will find it
+convenient and will finally determine to abandon the State of Louisiana
+we have not a doubt." A New York newspaper of January 30th, quoted in
+Mr. Andrew Stevenson's eulogy on Jackson, said, "It is a general opinion
+here that the city of New Orleans must fall." Apparently but one thing
+averted its fall--the energy and will of Andrew Jackson. On his own
+responsibility he declared martial law, impressed soldiers, seized
+powder and supplies, built fortifications of cotton bales, if nothing
+else came to hand. When the news of the battle of New Orleans came to
+the seat of government it was almost too bewildering for belief. The
+British veterans of the Peninsular War, whose march wherever they had
+landed had heretofore seemed a holiday parade, were repulsed in a
+manner so astounding that their loss was more than two thousand, while
+that of the Americans was but thirteen. By a single stroke the national
+self-respect was restored; and Henry Clay, at Paris, said "Now I can go
+to England without mortification."
+
+All these things must be taken into account in estimating what Dr. Von
+Holst calls "the reign of Andrew Jackson." After this climax of military
+success he was for a time employed on frontier service, again went to
+Florida to fight Englishmen and Spaniards, practically conquering that
+region in a few months, but this time with an overwhelming force.
+Already his impetuosity had proved to have a troublesome side to it; he
+had violated neutral territory, had hung two Indians without
+justification, and had put to death, with no authority, two Englishmen,
+Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These irregularities did not harm him in the
+judgment of his admirers; they seemed in the line of his character and
+helped more than they hurt him. In the winter of 1823-24 he was again
+chosen a Senator from Tennessee. Thenceforth he was in the field as a
+candidate for the Presidency, with two things to aid him--his own
+immense popularity and a friend. This friend was one William B. Lewis, a
+man in whom all the skilful arts of the modern wire-puller seemed to be
+born full-grown.
+
+There was at that time (1824) no real division in parties. The
+Federalists had been effectually put down, and every man who aspired to
+office claimed to be Democratic-Republican. Nominations were irregularly
+made, sometimes by a Congressional caucus, sometimes by State
+legislatures. Tennessee, and afterward Pennsylvania, nominated Jackson.
+When it came to the vote, he proved to be by all odds the popular
+candidate. Professor W. G. Sumner, counting up the votes of the people,
+finds 155,800 votes for Jackson, 105,300 for Adams, 44,200 for Crawford,
+46,000 for Clay. Even with this strong popular vote before it, the House
+of Representatives, balloting by States, elected on the first trial John
+Quincy Adams. Seldom in our history has the cup of power come so near to
+the lips of a candidate and been dashed away again. Yet nothing is surer
+in a republic than a certain swing of the pendulum afterward, in favor
+of any candidate to whom a special injustice has been done, and in the
+case of a popular favorite like Jackson, this might have been foreseen
+to be irresistible. His election four years later was almost a foregone
+conclusion, but, as if to make it wholly sure, there came up the rumor
+of a "corrupt bargain" between the successful candidate and Mr. Clay,
+whose forces had indeed joined with those of Mr. Adams to make a
+majority. For General Jackson there could be nothing more fortunate. The
+mere ghost of a corrupt bargain is worth many thousand votes to the
+lucky man who conjures up the ghost.
+
+When it came the turn of the Adams party to be defeated, in 1828, they
+attributed this result partly to the depravity of the human heart,
+partly to the tricks of Jackson, and partly to the unfortunate
+temperament of Mr. Adams. The day after a candidate is beaten everybody
+knows why it was, and says it was just what anyone might have foreseen.
+Ezekiel Webster, writing from New Hampshire, laid the result chiefly on
+the candidate, whom everybody disliked, and who would persist in
+leaving his bitter opponents in office. The people, he said, "always
+supported his cause from a cold sense of duty, and not from any liking
+of the man. We soon satisfy ourselves," he added, "that we have
+discharged our duty to the cause of any man when we do not entertain for
+him one personal kind feeling, nor cannot, unless we disembowel
+ourselves, like a trussed turkey, of all that is human within us." There
+is, indeed, no doubt that Mr. Adams helped on his own defeat, both by
+his defects and by what would now be considered his virtues. The
+trouble, however, lay further back. Ezekiel Webster thought that "if
+there had been at the head of affairs a man of popular character like
+Mr. Clay, or any man whom we were not compelled by our natures,
+instinct, and fixed fate to dislike, the result would have been
+different." But we can now see that all this would really have made no
+difference at all. Had Mr. Adams been personally the most attractive of
+men, instead of being a conscientious iceberg, the same result would
+have followed, the people would have felt that Jackson's turn had come,
+and the demand for the "old ticket" would have been irresistible.
+
+Accordingly, the next election, that of 1828, was easily settled.
+Jackson had 178 electoral votes; Adams but 83--more than two to one.
+Adams had not an electoral vote south of the Potomac or west of the
+Alleghanies, though Daniel Webster, writing to Jeremiah Mason, had
+predicted that he would carry six Western and Southern States. In
+Georgia no Adams ticket was even nominated, he being there unpopular for
+one of his best acts--the protection of the Cherokees. On the other
+hand, but one Jackson elector was chosen from New England, and he by
+less than two hundred majority.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the day of his inauguration the president was received in Washington
+with an ardor that might have turned a more modest head. On the day when
+the new administration began (March 4, 1829), Daniel Webster wrote to
+his sister-in-law, with whom he had left his children that winter:
+"To-day we have had the inauguration. A monstrous crowd of people is in
+the city. I never saw anything like it before. Persons have come five
+hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that
+the country is rescued from some frightful danger." It is difficult now
+to see what this peril was supposed to be; but we know that the charges
+of monarchical tendency made against John Adams had been renewed against
+his son--a renewal that seems absurd in case of a man so scrupulously
+republican that he would not use a seal ring, and so unambitious that he
+always sighed after the quieter walks of literature. Equally absurd was
+the charge of extravagance against a man who kept the White House in
+better order than his predecessors on less than half the
+appropriation--an economy wholly counterbalanced in some minds by the
+fact that he had put in a billiard-table. But however all this may have
+been, the fact is certain that no president had yet entered the White
+House amid such choruses of delight; nor did it happen again until
+Jackson's pupil, Van Buren, yielded, amid equal popular enthusiasm, to
+another military hero, Harrison.
+
+For the social life of Washington the President had one advantage which
+was altogether unexpected, and seemed difficult of explanation by
+anything in his earlier career. He had at his command the most courteous
+and agreeable manners. Even before the election of Adams, Daniel Webster
+had written to his brother: "General Jackson's manners are better than
+those of any of the candidates. He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife
+is for him decidedly." And long after, when the president was to pass in
+review before those who were perhaps his most implacable opponents, the
+ladies of Boston, we have the testimony of the late Josiah Quincy, in
+his "Figures from the Past," that the personal bearing of this obnoxious
+official was most unwillingly approved. Mr. Quincy was detailed by
+Governor Lincoln, on whose military staff he was, to attend President
+Jackson everywhere when visiting Boston in 1833; and this narrator
+testifies that, with every prejudice against Jackson, he found him
+essentially "a knightly personage--prejudiced, narrow, mistaken on many
+points, it might be, but vigorously a gentleman in his high sense of
+honor, and in the natural, straightforward courtesies which are easily
+distinguished from the veneer of policy." Sitting erect on his horse, a
+thin, stiff type of military strength, he carried with him in the
+streets a bearing of such dignity that staid old Bostonians, who had
+refused even to look upon him from their windows, would finally be
+coaxed into taking one peep, and would then hurriedly bring forward
+their little daughters to wave their handkerchiefs. He wrought, Mr.
+Quincy declares, "a mysterious charm upon old and young;" showed,
+although in feeble health, a great consideration for others; and was in
+private a really agreeable companion. It appears from these
+reminiscences that the president was not merely the cause of wit in
+others, but now and then appreciated it himself, and that he used to
+listen with delight to the reading of the "Jack Downing" letters,
+laughing heartily sometimes, and declaring: "The Vice-President must
+have written that. Depend upon it Jack Downing is only Van Buren in
+masquerade." It is a curious fact that the satirist is already the
+better remembered of the two, although Van Buren was in his day so
+powerful as to preside over the official patronage of the nation and to
+be called the "Little Magician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two acts with which the administration of President Jackson will be
+longest identified are his dealings with South Carolina in respect to
+nullification, and his long warfare with the United States Bank. The
+first brought the New England States back to him, and the second took
+them away again. He perhaps won rather more applause than he merited by
+the one act, and more condemnation than was just for the other. Let us
+first consider the matter of nullification. When various Southern
+States--Georgia at first, not South Carolina, taking the lead--had
+quarrelled with the tariff of 1828, and openly threatened to set it
+aside, they evidently hoped for the co-operation of the President; or at
+least for that silent acquiescence he had shown when Georgia had been
+almost equally turbulent on the Indian question and he would not
+interfere, as his predecessor had done, to protect the treaty rights of
+the Indian tribes. The whole South was therefore startled when he gave,
+at a banquet on Jefferson's birthday (April 13, 1830), a toast that now
+seems commonplace--"The Federal Union; it must be preserved." But this
+was not all; when the time came he took vigorous, if not altogether
+consistent, steps to preserve it.
+
+When, in November, 1832, South Carolina for the first time officially
+voted that certain tariff acts were null and void in that State, the
+gauntlet of defiance was fairly thrown down, and Jackson took it up. He
+sent General Scott to take command at Charleston, with troops near by,
+and two gunboats at hand; he issued a dignified proclamation, written by
+Livingston (December 10, 1832), which pronounced the act of South
+Carolina contradictory to the Constitution, unauthorized by it, and
+destructive of its aims. So far so good; but unfortunately the president
+had, the week before (December 4, 1832), sent a tariff message to
+Congress, of which John Quincy Adams wrote, "It goes far to dissolve the
+Union into its original elements, and is in substance a complete
+surrender into the hands of the nullifiers of South Carolina." Then came
+Mr. Clay's compromise tariff of 1833, following in part the line
+indicated by this message, and achieving, as Mr. Calhoun said, a victory
+for nullification, leaving the matter a drawn game at any rate.
+
+The action of Jackson thus accompanied settled nothing; it was like
+valiantly ordering a burglar out of your house with a pistol, and adding
+a suggestion that he will find a portion of the family silver on the
+hall-table, ready packed for his use, as he goes out.
+
+Nevertheless, the burglar was gone for the moment, and the president had
+the credit of it. He had already been re-elected by an overwhelming
+majority in November, 1832, receiving 219 electoral votes, and Clay 49,
+while Floyd had the 11 votes of South Carolina (which still chose
+electors by its Legislature--a practice now abandoned), and Wirt the 7
+of Vermont. Van Buren was chosen vice-president, being nominated in
+place of Calhoun by the Democratic National Convention, which now for
+the first time came into operation. The president was now at his
+high-water mark of popularity--always a dangerous time for a public man.
+His vehement nature accepted his re-election as a proof that he was
+right in everything, and he grew more self-confident than ever. More
+imperiously than ever, he ordered about friends and opponents, and his
+friends repaid it by guiding his affairs, unconsciously to himself.
+Meantime he was encountering another enemy of greater power, because
+more silent, than Southern nullification, and he was drifting on to his
+final contest with the United States Bank.
+
+Sydney Smith says that every Englishman feels himself able, without
+instruction, to drive a pony-chaise, conduct a small farm, and edit a
+newspaper. The average American assumes, in addition to all this, that
+he is competent to manage a bank. President Jackson claimed for himself
+in this respect no more than his fellows; the difference was in strength
+of will and in possession of power. A man so ignorant that a member of
+his own family, according to Mr. Trist, used to say that the general did
+not believe the world was round, might easily convince himself that he
+knew all about banking. As he had, besides all this, very keen
+observation and great intuitive judgment of character, he was probably
+right in his point of attack. There is little doubt that the Bank of the
+United States, under Nicholas Biddle, concentrated in itself an enormous
+power; and it spent in four years, by confession of its directors,
+$58,000 in what they called self-defence "against politicians." When on
+July 10, 1832, General Jackson, in a message supposed to have been
+inspired by Amos Kendall, vetoed the bill renewing the charter of the
+bank, he performed an act of courage, taking counsel with his instincts.
+But when in the year following he performed the act known as the
+"Removal of the Deposits," or, in other words, caused the public money
+to be no longer deposited in the National Bank and its twenty-five
+branches, but in a variety of State banks instead, then he took counsel
+of his ignorance.
+
+The consequence, immediate or remote, was an immense galvanizing into
+existence of State banks, and ultimately a vast increase of paper money.
+The Sub-Treasury system had not then been thought of; there was no
+proper place of deposit for the public funds; their possession was a
+direct stimulus to speculation; and the president's cure was worse than
+the disease. All the vast inflation of 1835 and 1836 and the business
+collapse of 1837 were due to the fact not merely that Andrew Jackson
+brought all his violent and persistent will to bear against the United
+States Bank, but that when he got the power into his own hands he did
+not know what to do with it. Not one of his biographers--hardly even a
+bigoted admirer, so far as I know--now claims that his course in this
+respect was anything but a mistake. "No monster bank," says Professor W.
+G. Sumner, "under the most malicious management, could have produced as
+much havoc, either political or financial, as this system produced while
+it lasted." If the bank was, as is now generally admitted, a dangerous
+institution, Jackson was in the right to resist it; he was right even in
+disregarding the enormous flood of petitions that poured in to its
+support. But to oppose a dangerous bank does not necessarily make one an
+expert in banking. The utmost that can be said in favor of his action is
+that the calamitous results showed the great power of the institution he
+overthrew, and that if he had let it alone the final result might have
+been as bad.
+
+Two new States were added to the Union in President Jackson's
+time--Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837). The population of the United
+States in 1830 had risen to nearly thirteen millions (12,866,020). There
+was no foreign war during his administration, although one with France
+was barely averted; and no domestic contest except with the Florida
+Indians--a contest in which these combatants held their ground so well,
+under the half-breed chief Osceola, that he himself was only captured by
+the violation of a flag of truce, and that even to this day, as the
+Indian Commissioners tell us, some three hundred of the tribe remain in
+Florida. The war being equally carried on against fugitive slaves called
+Maroons, who had intermarried with the Indians, did something to prepare
+the public mind for a new agitation which was to remould American
+political parties, and to modify the Constitution of the nation.
+
+It must be remembered that the very air began to be filled in Jackson's
+time with rumors of insurrections and uprisings in different parts of
+the world. The French revolution of the Three Days had roused all the
+American people to sympathy, and called forth especial enthusiasm in
+such cities as Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston. The Polish
+revolution had excited universal interest, and John Randolph had said
+"The Greeks are at your doors." All these things were being discussed at
+every dinner-table, and the debates in Virginia as to the necessity of
+restricting the growing intelligence of the slaves had added to the
+agitation. In the session of 1829-30 a bill had passed the Virginia
+Assembly by one majority, and had failed in the Senate, prohibiting
+slaves being taught to read or write; and the next year it had passed
+almost unanimously. There had been, about the same time, alarms of
+insurrection in North Carolina, so that a party of slaves were attacked
+and killed by the inhabitants of Newbern; alarms in Maryland, so that
+fifty blacks had been imprisoned on the Eastern Shore; alarms in
+Louisiana, so that reinforcements of troops had been ordered to Baton
+Rouge; and a traveller had written even from Richmond, Va., on February
+12th, that there were constant fears of insurrections, and special
+patrols. Then came the insurrection of Nat Turner in Virginia--an
+uprising described minutely by myself elsewhere; the remarkable
+inflammatory pamphlet called "Walker's Appeal," by a Northern colored
+man--a piece of writing surpassed in lurid power by nothing in the
+literature of the French Revolution; and more potent than either or both
+of these, the appearance of the first number of the _Liberator_, in
+Boston. When Garrison wrote, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I
+will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard,"
+Andrew Jackson for once met a will firmer than his own, because more
+steadfast and moved by a loftier purpose. Thenceforth, for nearly half a
+century, the history of the nation was the history of the great
+anti-slavery contest.
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL WEBSTER
+
+By REV. DR. TWEEDIE
+
+(1782-1852)
+
+[Illustration: Daniel Webster. [TN]]
+
+
+Daniel Webster, the American statesman, was born in the town of
+Salisbury, in the county of Merrimack, New Hampshire, America, on
+January 18, 1782. His mother, a woman of deep piety, was his first
+teacher; his father was a man of singular but quiet energy, and the
+training of the youthful statesman was well fitted to prepare him, at
+least in some respects, for the work which it fell to his lot to
+perform. From his mother's lips were first received the vital truths of
+the Bible; and the first copy of that book ever owned by Webster was her
+gift. Long subsequent to this period, and in the full blaze of his
+fame, he could say that he had never been able to recollect the time
+when he could not read the Bible, and supposed that his first
+schoolmistress began to teach him when he was three or four years of
+age. His first school-house was built of logs, and stood about half a
+mile from his father's house, not very far from the beautiful Merrimack.
+All was then humble enough with this great American statesman. He
+attended school only during the winter months, and assisted his father
+in the business of his farm and his mill as soon as he had strength for
+doing so. He was, however, the brightest boy at school; and when the
+tempting reward of a knife was promised to the scholar who committed to
+memory the greatest number of verses from the Bible, Daniel came with
+whole chapters, which the master could not find time to hear him repeat
+in full. The boy secured the knife, and his delighted teacher
+subsequently told the father of that child that "he would do God's work
+injustice" if gifts so promising were not nurtured at college.
+
+But that consummation was not to be very soon realized. For some time
+Daniel had to assist his father at a saw-mill; but so resolute was he in
+acquiring knowledge and training the mind while toiling with the body,
+that the operations at the mill were systematically interspersed with
+studies well fitted to form and to brace the embryo patriot for his
+great life-work. The saw took about ten minutes to cleave a log, and
+young Webster, after setting the mill in motion, learned to fill up
+these ten minutes with reading. As a patriot, a statesman, an orator,
+and a scholar, he became famous, and was called the greatest
+intellectual character of his country; and we see where he laid the
+foundation of his greatness--by persistent and invincible ardor even in
+early boyhood. That magnanimous kindliness and tenderness of heart,
+which entered so largely into his character, was fostered amid such
+scenes; and of all the men whose memories we are fain to embalm, he
+ranks among the least indebted to casualty, and the most to
+indefatigable earnestness, for the position to which he eventually rose.
+Amid the forest wilds of America his perseverance laid the foundation of
+power, of learning, of fame, and of goodness.
+
+A simple incident which happened about this period decided his
+life-pursuit. He discovered a copy of the "Constitution of the United
+States," as drawn up by some of her ablest statesmen. It was printed
+upon a cotton handkerchief which he purchased in a country store with
+what was then his all, and which amounted to twenty-five cents. He was
+about eight years of age when that took place, and learned then, for
+the first time, either that there were United States, or that they had a
+Constitution.
+
+From this date, or about the year 1790, his path through life was
+decided, not formally, but really, not by any avowal, but by a fostered
+predilection. Meanwhile other influences were at work. The father of
+this New Hampshire boy was strict in his religious opinions and
+observances, and the son had to conform, sometimes with a grudge at the
+restraint, but with effects of a vitally beneficial nature to the future
+patriot. His father then kept a place of entertainment, where teamsters
+halted to bait, and the attractions of the place were increased by the
+fact that young Webster often regaled those visitors by his readings.
+The Psalms of David were his favorite, and there, when only about seven
+years of age, he first imparted that pleasure by his oratory which he
+afterward carried up to the highest level which an American citizen can
+reach. To that humble abode Webster once returned in his declining
+years, and with streaming eyes descanted on the various events of the
+home of his youth.
+
+The school which he attended during the winter months was about three
+miles from his father's house, and he had often to travel thither
+through deep snow. At the age of fourteen he attended a somewhat more
+advanced academy for a few months, and his first effort at public
+speaking there was a failure. He burst into tears; his antipathy to
+public declamation appeared insurmountable, and neither frowns nor
+smiles could overcome the reluctance. It was overcome, for when young
+Webster felt the power which was in him, he boldly employed it. At
+first, however, he was a failure as a public speaker. With all this, he
+went forward in the acquisition of knowledge and the bracing of his
+mind; and in his fifteenth year he once undertook to repeat five hundred
+lines of Virgil, if his teacher would consent to listen.
+
+About this time the elder Webster disclosed to his son his purpose to
+send him to college. The talents of the boy and the counsels of friends
+pointed out that as a proper path, and that son himself will describe
+the effects of his father's information. "I could not speak," he says.
+"How could my father, I thought, with so large a family, and in such
+narrow circumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for me, and
+I laid my head on his shoulder and wept." That boy, however, had further
+difficulties to surmount. He had to leave one of his schools to assist
+his father in the hay harvest; he had, moreover, the hindrance of a
+slender and sickly constitution; but the Bible, side by side with some
+standard authors, had now become his English classics, while Cicero,
+Virgil, Horace, Demosthenes, and others, were his manuals in ancient
+literature. It was knowledge pursued under unusual difficulties, but, in
+spite of all, acquired to an unusual extent. So indomitable and
+persistent was the boy that in a few months he mastered the difficulties
+of the Greek tongue, and finally graduated at Dartmouth when he was
+eighteen years of age. Incidents are recorded which show that during his
+residence at college he was determined to hold the first place or none.
+
+It was at Dartmouth that Webster's patriotism first flashed forth with
+true American ardor, a harbinger to his whole future career. He had now
+mastered his boyish aversion to oratory, and on July 4, 1800, the
+twenty-fourth anniversary of American Independence, he delivered an
+oration full of patriotic sentiment, manifesting the decided bent of his
+mind, and deserving a place, in the opinion of some, among the works
+which he subsequently published. He was then only eighteen years of age.
+
+To increase the straitened funds of the family, Daniel Webster for some
+time kept a school at Freyburg, in Maine. His income there, eked out by
+other means, which were the wages of indomitable industry, enabled him
+to send his brother, Ezekiel, to college--the grand object which he had
+in view in becoming a schoolmaster. He was, however, all the while
+prosecuting his studies in law, and in the year 1805 entered on the
+duties of a legal practitioner at Boston. His familiar title in the
+country where he resided was "All eyes," and he used them with singular
+advantage. In Boston, at Portsmouth, and elsewhere, he continued these
+pursuits, and he thus early adopted some of the maxims which guided him
+through life. "There are evils greater than poverty;" "What bread you
+eat, let it be the bread of independence;" "Live on no man's favor;"
+"Pursue your profession;" "Make yourself useful to the world.... You
+will have nothing to fear." Such were his convictions, and he embodied
+them in deeds. One instance of his generosity is recorded at this
+period. His father had become embarrassed; the devoted son hastened to
+liquidate his father's debt, and he did it with a decision like that
+which signalized him all his days. He resided as a lawyer at Portsmouth
+for about nine years.
+
+It was in the year 1812 that Webster was first elected a member of
+Congress, and he reached that elevation by his masterly ability in the
+affairs of his profession. By persistent patience first, and then by
+resistless power, he took up the foremost position in the sphere in
+which he moved. He appeared in the majesty of intellectual grandeur,
+like one who was all might and soul, and poured forth the stores of an
+opulent mind in a manner which was entirely his own. His words had both
+weight and fire; and the contrast is now great between the boy who broke
+down and wept at his first declamation, and the man, bending opponents
+to his will by his energy and indomitable zeal. The laurel of victory,
+it has been fondly said, was proffered to him by all, and bound his brow
+for one exploit till he went forth to another. In his thirtieth year he
+entered the field of politics, like one who had made up his mind to be
+decided, firm, and straightforward; and such was the serenity of this
+great soul, amid wild commotions, that the enthusiast mistook it for
+apathy, the fierce for lukewarmness. It was the great calm of profound
+conviction, borne up by a thorough reliance on the right--the right as
+to time, as to degree, and as to resources for the battle of life. From
+the day on which he threw himself into the political arena, he belonged
+to the United States, and not to his native county alone. Crowds soon
+gathered round one who had mastered so many difficulties, and taken his
+place among the kingly men who rule the spirits whom they are born first
+to subdue, and then to bind to themselves by the spell of genius.
+
+It is well known that this man, so humble in his origin, yet so masterly
+in his mind, passed through all the gradations of rank that are open to
+an American citizen, up to the right hand of the highest. We have seen
+when he entered Congress. In 1841 he became Secretary of State, and from
+that period bore the place in American politics which would be readily
+conceded, in this ardent country, to one who was deemed and called "the
+master mind of the world." In his love of freedom, Webster has been
+likened to Washington, or expressly called his equal in regard to
+patriotism and true greatness. It is not wonderful, therefore, that this
+patriot's friends proposed him as President of the United States. He
+failed, and felt the failure, but soothed his disappointment by the
+conviction that no man "could take away from him what he had done for
+his country." Those who loved and admired him thought that the word
+president would have dimmed the lustre of the name of Daniel Webster;
+and they add, in regard to his disappointment, "if we must sorrow that
+what men expected can never come to pass, let us not weep for him but
+for our country." Others, however, were of opinion that Webster was
+"rejected and lost"; while those who look deeper at the causes of events
+may see, in that disappointment, the needful antidote administered by
+the Supreme Wisdom to ward off the danger of too universal a success.
+This gifted and ambitious man was suffered to take an active part in the
+government of one of the greatest of the nations. By his bold and manly
+grasp of American interests, he did much to weld the different States
+more closely into one. He negotiated, on the part of his country, some
+of the most important treaties which promote the peace and the amity of
+nations, for example, what is called the Ashburton treaty with Great
+Britain; and it would have seemed too much for one mortal, successful as
+Webster had already been, to be lifted to an official level with
+princes. That was denied him; his empire was not countries--it was
+minds. He was to be trained for a nobler exaltation than a throne.
+
+Little has yet been said regarding Webster as an orator. It was mainly
+in that respect, however, that he surpassed his fellows, and mainly by
+that means was he enabled to ascend to the high position which he held
+so long. The versatility of his powers was very great, and the mode in
+which he sometimes employed them was not a little remarkable. He had, on
+one occasion, spent several hours with his colleagues in adjusting some
+important questions involving the interests of kingdoms; and on
+returning home he sportively sallied forth and purchased some eggs, on
+the principle of seeing how extremes meet, in regard to occupation as
+well as in other respects. But there were serious things mixed with his
+jests; and as an orator, Webster stands in the first rank, if not
+foremost, in the New World. When it was known that he was to speak, the
+excitement sometimes amounted to a furor, and a hundred dollars have
+been paid for a ticket of admission to hear him. Meanwhile the avenues
+that led to his arena were blocked up by the crowds pressing for
+admittance; and when he did appear, it was to rouse, to agitate, and
+convulse. He felt what he said in his inmost soul, and his words were
+winged with fire, even while they were massively powerful, and connected
+with a logic which tolerated no breaks in the chain.
+
+Webster reached the allotted term of mortal existence, and in his
+seventy-first year passed away alike from the frowns and the applause
+of mortals. On the morning of Sabbath, October 24, 1852, he was summoned
+away. Though much enfeebled, his mind was calm, and he died with the
+confidence of a little child, reposing on the mercy of his God as
+revealed in the Saviour. Among his last utterances was this, "Heavenly
+Father, forgive my sins, and welcome me to thyself through Christ
+Jesus." His very last words were, "I still live," and his loving,
+weeping friends took them up as a prediction of that immortality on
+which he was about to enter. Through life he had hallowed the Sabbath,
+and he died upon it. The autumn was his favorite season, and he passed
+away amid its mellow glories, after affectionately and solemnly taking
+leave of his weeping wife, children, kindred, and friends, down to the
+humblest members of his household. His death, it is supposed, was
+hastened by injuries received by the breaking down of his carriage; but
+it did not find him unprepared. Long years before he had erected his own
+tomb; and there, on a plain marble slab over the door, the visitor reads
+the simple inscription--DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+Some ten thousand friends, countrymen, and lovers, helped to lay him
+there, and one of the orations pronounced in connection with his
+departure was thus touchingly closed: "The clasped hands--the dying
+prayers--oh, my fellow-citizens, this is a consummation over which tears
+of pious sympathy will be shed, after the glories of the forum and the
+senate are forgotten."
+
+The following letter to a friend on the choice of a profession, written
+by Webster when only twenty years of age, is reprinted from "The Life of
+Daniel Webster" by George Ticknor Curtis, through the courtesy of D.
+Appleton & Co., the publishers, and with the permission of the widow and
+heirs of the author.
+
+"What shall I do? Shall I say, 'Yes, gentlemen,' and sit down here to
+spend my days in a kind of a comfortable privacy, or shall I relinquish
+these prospects, and enter into a profession, where my feelings will be
+constantly harrowed by objects either of dishonesty or misfortune, where
+my living must be squeezed from penury (for rich folks seldom go to
+law), and my moral principle continually be at hazard? I agree with you
+that the law is well calculated to draw forth the powers of the mind,
+but what are its effects on the heart? Are they equally propitious? Does
+it inspire benevolence, and awake tenderness; or does it, by a frequent
+repetition of wretched objects, blunt sensibility, and stifle the still
+small voice of mercy?
+
+"The talent with which Heaven has intrusted me is small, very small, yet
+I feel responsible for the use of it, and am not willing to pervert it
+to purposes reproachful and unjust; nor to hide it, like the slothful
+servant, in a napkin.
+
+"Now, I will enumerate the inducements that draw me toward the law:
+First, and principally, it is my father's wish. He does not dictate, it
+is true, but how much short of dictation is the mere wish of a parent,
+whose labors of life are wasted on favors to his children? Even the
+delicacy with which the wish is expressed gives it more effect than it
+would have in the form of a command. Secondly, my friends generally wish
+it. They are urgent and pressing. My father even offers me--I will
+sometime tell you what--and Mr. Thompson offers my tuition gratis, and
+to relinquish his stand to me.
+
+"On the whole, I imagine I shall make one more trial in the ensuing
+autumn. If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify me against
+its temptations. To the winds I dismiss those light hopes of eminence
+which ambition inspired, and vanity fostered. To be 'honest, to be
+capable, to be faithful' to my client and my conscience, I earnestly
+hope will be my first endeavor. I believe you, my worthy boy, when you
+tell me what are your intentions. I have long known and long loved the
+honesty of your heart. But let us not rely too much on ourselves; let us
+look to some less fallible guide to direct us among the temptations that
+surround us."
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD[12]
+
+By HON. CHARLES E. FITCH
+
+(1801-1872)
+
+         [Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: William Henry Seward. [TN]]
+
+
+William Henry Seward, the American statesman, was born in Florida,
+Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, in the same
+State, October 10, 1872. Precocious in his studies, he pursued his
+preliminary education in his native village, and, at the age of fifteen,
+entered, as a sophomore, Union College, then under the presidency of
+Eliphalet Nott, between whom and his pupil a life-long friendship,
+illustrated by mutual confidence and counsel, was early established.
+Seward's college course, especially brilliant in rhetoric and the
+classics, was interrupted in his senior year by a residence of six
+months, as a teacher, in Georgia, where previous impressions against
+African slavery were confirmed by observation of its workings. Returning
+to college, he was graduated with high honors in 1820, the subject of
+his Commencement oration being "The Integrity of the American Union."
+
+He was admitted to the bar at Utica, in October, 1822, and in January,
+1823, settled at Auburn as a partner of Judge Elijah Miller, whose
+daughter he married in October, 1824. Although certain features of the
+law--its technicalities and uncertainties--were repugnant to him, he was
+soon in the full tide of professional success, and, in the opening of
+the circuit courts to equity jurisprudence, found much that was in
+harmony with his sense of justice. He was also, from the first,
+interested in politics, for which he had decided genius. He came upon
+the stage in the closing days of "The Era of Good Feeling," under
+President Monroe, when parties were again dividing upon the issues that
+have mainly obtained throughout the constitutional era. He approved the
+principles of Hamilton, although his boyish training had been in the
+Jeffersonian school. Enunciating his views with precision and felicity
+of diction, his voice and pen were in constant request, and he rapidly
+rose to distinction until, in 1834, he was the acknowledged leader in
+the State of the Whig party and its candidate for governor.
+
+Meanwhile he had supported De Witt Clinton, the champion of internal
+improvements, and in 1824 drafted, for the Republican Convention of his
+county a trenchant address, detailing the history and criticising the
+aims of the "Albany Regency," which inspired the hostility to that
+famous clique that compassed its overthrow fourteen years later. Among
+his notable utterances of this period were an address on Grecian
+independence, at Auburn, in 1827; a Fourth-of-July oration, at Syracuse,
+in 1831, in which Calhoun's dogma of secession was denounced, and an
+eulogy on La Fayette, at Auburn, in 1834. In 1828 he presided over the
+Young Men's Convention, at Utica, in behalf of the renomination of
+President Adams, and declined a congressional nomination. In 1830 he was
+elected by the Anti-Masons to the State Senate, and was re-elected in
+1832. He had a prominent and an influential part in the deliberations of
+that body, although its youngest member, and in the political minority,
+whose addresses to the people he wrote at the close of each session. His
+most notable speeches were those for the common-school and canal
+systems, the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the amelioration of
+prison discipline, and the reform of the militia law, and against
+corporate monopolies, increasing judicial salaries, Governor Marcy's
+loan law, and the removal of the deposits by President Jackson. The
+Senate was then a constituent portion of the Court of Errors, the
+tribunal of last resort, and Seward delivered many opinions which
+materially enhanced his legal reputation. In one instance he carried,
+with substantial unanimity, the court with him, against the views of the
+presiding judge, the eminent Chancellor Walworth. In 1833 he made a
+rapid tour of Europe, embodying his reflections in letters to the Albany
+_Evening Journal_, then edited by Thurlow Weed, between whom and Seward
+there was, for fifty years, an intimate and unbroken attachment, unique
+in political annals.
+
+In 1838 he was again the Whig candidate for governor, and defeated
+Governor Marcy, his former rival, his victory being the precursor of the
+national Whig triumph in 1840, in which year he was re-elected. He was
+inaugurated, January 1, 1839, his message to the Legislature embracing,
+with a masterly exposition of Whig policies, certain suggestions of his
+own concerning immigration, education, and eleemosynary institutions
+that revealed the catholic spirit and the philosophical habit which,
+despite his party fealty, he consistently exhibited. This message
+outlined the conduct of the administration that succeeded--enlightened
+in its scope, liberal to all classes, distinctly loyal to the Union, yet
+jealously guarding against any infringement of the rights of the State.
+It widened educational privileges, urged the prosecution of the public
+works, including the enlargement of the Erie Canal, granted franchises
+to railways, removed imprisonment for debt and the remaining guarantees
+of slavery from the statute-books, composed the anti-rent troubles and
+executed the laws within the insurrectionary section, perfected the
+banking system, and proposed jury trials for fugitive slaves and a
+constitutional amendment abolishing the property qualification for the
+colored suffrage.
+
+Governor Seward's regard for the dignity of the State was displayed by
+his refusal to discharge from custody, without trial, one Alexander
+McLeod, a citizen of Canada, held for the burning of the steamer
+Caroline, in New York waters, although the demand of the British
+government, to that effect, was supplemented by the request of
+Presidents Harrison and Tyler. His abhorrence of slavery was accentuated
+in his denial of the application of the Governor of Virginia for the
+rendition of seamen charged with the abduction of a slave, upon the
+ground that the offence, if defined as a crime in Virginia, was not so
+in New York, and he did not hesitate to add that his feelings coincided
+with his conception of his constitutional prerogative. When a Democratic
+Assembly subsequently passed resolutions disapproving his action, he
+declined to transmit them to the Virginia authorities, and he also
+failed to respond to a similar requisition from South Carolina. His
+proposition for the employment of Roman Catholic teachers in the common
+schools showed his independence of partisan behest and popular clamor.
+
+Leaving office in 1843, he passed the next six years in professional
+labors, varied by occasional addresses of a literary or patriotic cast,
+and by many Whig speeches in the campaigns of 1844 and 1848. To his
+practice in the State courts was united that in patent cases, which not
+only brought him a lucrative clientage, but largely increased his
+acquaintance with public men at Washington. His gubernatorial service
+had given him national fame, and he was, although not in public life,
+esteemed as one of the national leaders of his party. In the courts he
+commanded respect for the clearness and strength of his arguments, but,
+even there, he was at his best when his heart inspired his speech with
+fervor, as in his pleas for Van Zandt and others charged with harboring
+fugitive slaves. The defence of Greeley, in the Cooper libel suit, and
+of the Michigan rioters, may be cited as instances of his persuasiveness
+before juries, but that in the case of William Freeman is celebrated
+both for its own quality and the intrepidity of its author. Gladstone
+has characterized it as the greatest forensic effort in the English
+language, not excluding the masterpieces of Erskine. It is a plea for
+the life of a brutalized negro who butchered a whole family under
+circumstances of peculiar atrocity. The deed was without excuse or
+palliation, save in the insanity of the perpetrator, of which Seward
+became convinced, and volunteered as counsel amid the surprise,
+imprecations, and threats of the Auburn community, where the case was at
+issue. The moment was a supreme one for him, but he did not hesitate.
+Without reward, or the hope of reward, even in the gratitude of the
+insensate wretch for whom he risked professional standing and public
+favor, he worked as indefatigably as though the weightiest honors and
+emoluments depended thereon, from the impanelling of the jury to the
+failure of executive clemency; but Freeman's death in prison and the
+autopsy that disclosed the morbid condition of his brain fully
+vindicated Seward's analysis and exalted him in public regard.
+
+On March 4, 1849, coincident with the accession of General Taylor to the
+presidency, Seward entered the United States Senate, having been chosen
+thereto by a large majority of the Legislature of New York. When he took
+his seat, the Whig party was already divided upon the slavery question,
+and Seward, by virtue of his previous utterances and his skill as a
+politician, became the exponent of the free-soil element, as also the
+representative of the administration, an unprecedented trust to be
+confided to a senator in his first term. He thus found himself in
+opposition to Webster and Clay, and especially to the "Omnibus" bill of
+the latter, a measure intended to reconcile conflicting claims
+concerning the admission of new States, the status of slavery in the
+Territories, and the protection to be accorded it in the free States. On
+March 11, 1850, he made a speech, generally pronounced to be his ablest,
+as it is certainly his most noteworthy deliverance, in which he declared
+that there is a law higher than the Constitution, whose authority may be
+invoked in legislation for the national domain. The death of General
+Taylor brought him into collision with President Fillmore, who hailed
+from New York, and was largely indebted for his vice-presidential
+nomination to Seward's kindly offices. Fillmore urged the adoption of
+the compromise scheme and signed the separate bills therefor as they
+successively passed Congress, thereby incurring censure at the North,
+while Seward retained his ascendency with the anti-slavery masses
+throughout the country, as well as with the Whigs of New York.
+
+He was re-elected to the Senate in 1855 by a combination of Whigs and
+Anti-Nebraska Americans, and on October 12th, of that year, at Albany,
+formally announced his adhesion to the new Republican party. In the
+Senate he easily ranked as one of its most polished and effective
+speakers who, while resolutely maintaining his own convictions,
+scrupulously preserved the amenities of debate. He especially
+distinguished himself by his earnest, yet unavailing, resistance to the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Among his popular addresses of
+conspicuous merit are those on "The Elements of Empire in America," at
+Union College, 1843; "Daniel O'Connell," at New York, 1847; "John Quincy
+Adams," before the New York Legislature, 1848; "The Destiny of America,"
+at Columbus, O., and "The True Basis of American Independence," at New
+York, 1853; "The Development of the American People," at Yale College
+1854, and "The Irrepressible Conflict"--_i.e._, between freedom and
+slavery--at Rochester, N. Y., 1858. He made an extended tour in Europe,
+Egypt, and Palestine, in 1859.
+
+The Republicans met in National Convention at Chicago, in 1860, flushed
+with anticipated success. Northern opposition to the extension of
+slavery had combined, and the Democracy was being resolved into
+antagonistic factions. Seward's nomination for the presidency seemed
+assured. He was the foremost statesman in his party. He had crystallized
+its ideas, interpreted its creed, and marshalled its forces. He had an
+enthusiastic following who believed that the occasion had met the man;
+but there were others who objected that his very superiority would
+provoke assault against him, which might hurt the cause for which he
+stood. They reasoned against his availability, and their argument
+prevailed. He led on the first two ballots in the convention, but, on
+the third, Abraham Lincoln, then comparatively unknown, became the
+Republican standard-bearer. Seward met this reverse tranquilly, rebuked
+certain manifestations of disaffection, proffered the candidate his
+hearty support, and, in a series of remarkably able and eloquent
+speeches, extending from Massachusetts to Kansas, contributed materially
+to his election.
+
+Seward accepted the portfolio of State in Lincoln's cabinet and
+immediately assumed the gravest responsibilities. American relations
+with foreign governments during the Civil War were uniformly serious and
+sometimes perilous. The duties of the Secretary of State were exacting
+and delicate. Seward, by his tact and discretion, as well as his courage
+and wisdom, kept peace with the world, without debasing the honor or
+forfeiting the rights of the republic. One of the most intricate issues
+arose in the first year of the war. It is known as the Trent case. Mason
+and Slidell, Confederate envoys to England and France respectively, were
+forcibly taken by an American naval commander from a British vessel and
+lodged in Fort Warren. The American public was exultant over the capture
+and protested vigorously against their release; but Seward had to decide
+officially the question of their surrender to the British Government,
+and, when the demand was duly made, he yielded to it, basing his
+conclusion, with admirable adroitness, not only upon international
+comity, but also upon American precedents. The president, at first
+disposed to take the contrary view, conceded the force of Seward's
+argument, the people acquiesced, and a war with England was avoided.
+Seward's state papers and despatches are models of style, and by their
+frankness of statement and hopefulness of tone did much to sustain the
+Union cause abroad. In accord with Lincoln in holding that the paramount
+task of the Government was to subdue rebellion against it and
+discouraging precipitate movements for the abolition of slavery, he was
+also in accord with the president in the policy of emancipation, as
+ultimately formulated, and, on January 1, 1863, attested the
+proclamation which has made the name of Lincoln immortal. He proclaimed
+the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, by which
+slavery was abolished, December 18, 1865, and of the Fourteenth,
+conferring suffrage and civil rights upon the freedmen, July 26, 1868.
+On February 3, 1865, he attended, with the president, the so-called
+Peace Conference, in Hampton Roads, with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and
+Campbell, the Confederate commissioners. The conference was fruitless,
+owing to the inflexible determination of the president not to entertain
+any proposals that did not involve the complete restoration of the
+national authority as a condition precedent.
+
+Lincoln began his second term March 4, 1865, Seward remaining in the
+cabinet. On April 5th, Seward was badly injured by being thrown from his
+carriage. Nine days thereafter Lincoln visited him in his sick chamber.
+It was their last meeting. On the same evening Lincoln was assassinated,
+and the murder of Seward was attempted. He was stabbed in several places
+in the head and throat, and for several days his life was despaired of,
+but he slowly recovered, and in June resumed his desk in the State
+Department, President Johnson having urged him to retain it. He
+continued in office throughout Johnson's administration, favoring the
+reconstruction policy of his chief, without, however, incurring the
+active hostility of his Republican friends. Distinctive events of his
+second term were his maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, in the refusal
+to recognize the French empire in Mexico, and the purchase of Alaska,
+which was in consonance with views long entertained by him as to the
+propriety of the expansion of the territory of the United States upon
+the continent of North America. In the best sense of the term he was an
+advocate of "Manifest Destiny," and was proud of the acquisition of the
+Russian territory at the Far North. A treaty which he negotiated for the
+cession of the Danish West India islands of St. Thomas and St. John
+failed of ratification by the Senate.
+
+He retired to private life March 4, 1869, and within the next three
+years visited Alaska and Mexico, and made a journey around the world,
+being everywhere received with official welcome and popular acclaim. The
+last few months of his life were passed at his home, where he dictated
+the story of his travels and began his "Autobiography," which, even in
+its unfinished state, is a charming narrative.
+
+Seward achieved greatness as an executive, a legislator, and a
+diplomatist; was one of the most accomplished writers of his time, and
+was second only to Lincoln, among civilians, in conserving American
+nationality and enlarging American liberties. There is a statue to his
+memory in Madison Square, New York, and, on November 15, 1888, another
+was unveiled in front of the Auburn homestead, William M. Evarts
+delivering the oration. Charles Francis Adams also paid his tribute, in
+an address at the Capitol, in Albany, 1873, upon invitation of the New
+York Legislature. Seward published a volume on the "Life and Public
+Services of John Quincy Adams," 1849. His "Essays, Speeches, and
+Extracts from his Diplomatic Correspondence," etc., edited by George E.
+Baker, with a memoir, embrace five volumes. His adopted daughter
+published his "Travels Around the World," 1873, and his "Autobiography,"
+to 1834, has been supplemented by a "Memoir" by his son, Frederick W.
+Seward, with extracts from his letters and selections from his "Table
+Talk."
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN[13]
+
+By TERENCE VINCENT POWDERLY
+
+(1809-1865)
+
+         [Footnote 13: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: A house. [TN]]
+
+
+Born in obscurity and poverty, with health and a good disposition as a
+heritage from nature, and with Christian parents as teachers and guides,
+Abraham Lincoln--sixteenth president of the United States--entered upon
+life's journey through toil and vicissitude to fame and immortality.
+
+Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the president, was born in Union, Pa.,
+and in 1759 removed with his parents to a point near Harrisonburg, Va.
+John Hanks and Squire Boone, father of Daniel Boone, were neighbors of
+the Lincolns at Union; the former took up his residence at Harrisonburg,
+Va., and Squire Boone removed to Holman's Ford, on the Yadkin River, in
+North Carolina. When he was twenty-one years old, Abraham Lincoln went
+to North Carolina to visit his old neighbors, the Boones, and while
+there met and married Mary Shipley. He built a log cabin on the banks of
+the Yadkin and lived there several years. Here it was that Thomas
+Lincoln, father of the president, was born. Shortly after his birth his
+parents, in 1778, removed to Kentucky and settled near Elizabethtown, in
+Hardin County. In 1784, when Thomas was but six years old, his father
+was killed by the Indians. There were no schools in that neighborhood,
+and Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood without receiving an education.
+Joseph Hanks, son of John Hanks, removed to Kentucky about the time that
+Abraham Lincoln moved there from North Carolina. His daughter, Nancy
+Hanks, who was born and educated in Virginia, grew up a playmate of
+Thomas Lincoln, and in 1806 became his wife. Thomas Lincoln selected a
+farm near Hodgensville, now the county seat of Larue County, Ky., built
+a log cabin containing but one room, in which, on February 12, 1809,
+Abraham Lincoln, the future president, was born. A poor farmer, with no
+education and no capital other than his labor, Thomas Lincoln found
+little to encourage his stay in Kentucky. The institution of slavery,
+which lived on the toil of the black man, threw a dark shadow across the
+path of the "poor white" who could claim no title to property in human
+flesh and sinew, and in 1817 he removed from Kentucky to Spencer County,
+Ind., and settled in the forest at Pigeon Creek, near the town of
+Gentryville. On October 5, 1818, Mrs. Lincoln died and was laid to rest
+at the foot of a tree on the farm which her husband had hewed out of the
+forest with his axe.
+
+Eighteen months after the death of his wife, Mr. Lincoln married Mrs.
+Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow who had been a neighbor of his in
+Kentucky. To his stepmother Abraham became very much attached, and he
+always entertained the greatest respect and affection for her. His
+education was very simple, his school days few, and his books fewer
+still. Before leaving Kentucky he learned to read while listening to his
+mother as she gave lessons to his father. In 1814, a Catholic priest,
+Zachariah Riney, who travelled through the country, opened a school in
+an untenanted cabin at Hodgensville, and for a few weeks gave
+instructions to the youth of the neighborhood. Abraham attended this
+school during its brief existence. In 1822 Azel Dorsey was employed as
+teacher at Pigeon Creek, Ind., and during his short stay Abraham Lincoln
+was his most attentive pupil. Two years after, Abraham went to school
+for several months, and in 1824 his school days came to an end. His time
+at school did not exceed twelve months altogether. In the meantime he
+had read Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress,"
+Æsop's "Fables," The Bible, and Weems's "Life of Washington." In 1824
+his father, in need of his assistance as a bread-winner, began to
+instruct him in the carpenter trade. In 1825 he was employed at $6 a
+month to manage a ferry across the Ohio River at Gentry's Landing, near
+the mouth of Anderson Creek. His wages were paid to his father. The
+first money he earned for himself came in the shape of two half-dollars
+paid to him by two gentlemen whose trunks he transferred from the shore
+to a passing steamer. In 1828 Mr. Gentry engaged him to go to New
+Orleans on a flat-boat with a load of produce. In 1830 John Hanks, who
+had removed from Kentucky to Illinois, wrote to Thomas Lincoln, urging
+him to move to that State. Acting on the advice, Mr. Lincoln removed to
+Illinois and settled at a point some ten miles west of Decatur. Abraham
+Lincoln drove the ox team which hauled the household effects of the
+family, and wearing a coon-skin cap, jean jacket, and a pair of buckskin
+trousers, he entered the State poor, friendless, and unknown. Thirty
+years later he left Illinois the foremost man in the nation, and known
+to all the world. He assisted his father in clearing fifteen acres of
+land, and split the rails with which to build the fence. Although of
+age, he had no money, and having but a scant supply of clothing, made a
+bargain with Nancy Miller to make him a pair of trousers. For each yard
+of cloth required he split four hundred fence-rails, and as he was over
+six feet in height it took fourteen hundred rails to pay for his
+trousers. On April 19, 1831, he went to New Orleans with a flat-boat
+load of pigs, corn, pork, and beef; the pigs refusing to walk, Lincoln
+carried them aboard in his arms. John Hanks and Lincoln's half-brother,
+John Johnston, accompanied him on the trip. While in New Orleans he
+first saw men and women sold as slaves, and as every instinct of his
+nature revolted at the spectacle, he said to John Hanks: "If ever I get
+a chance to hit that institution, I'll hit it hard." Returning from New
+Orleans, he went to New Salem to clerk in the store of Denton Offut.
+While waiting for a shipment of goods he acted as clerk on a local
+election board, and thus filled his first political position. During his
+stay in New Salem he was frequently called on to exercise his great
+strength in quelling disturbances, and inspired the turbulent element of
+the place with a wholesome respect for his powers of muscular
+persuasion. He was not quarrelsome, never engaged in contention, but
+never hesitated to take his own part or that of another who might need a
+helping hand. He subscribed for the Louisville _Journal_, and generously
+read its contents aloud to those who gathered in the store. During the
+Black Hawk war he enlisted as private in a company which was raised in
+the neighborhood, and was at once elected captain. In a short time the
+company was mustered out, and he re-enlisted in an "Independent Spy
+Battalion" which continued in service until the end of the war. On
+returning to New Salem he announced himself an independent candidate for
+the Legislature, and at a meeting held during the canvass made his first
+political speech in these words: "Fellow-citizens: I presume you know
+who I am; I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many
+friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics can be
+briefly stated. I am in favor of the internal improvement system, and a
+high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political
+principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the
+same."
+
+In the winter of 1832 he became a partner of a man named Berry, in the
+purchase and management of a store. They had no money, but gave their
+notes. Berry became dissipated, lost interest in the business, and the
+firm failed. In 1833 President Jackson appointed Lincoln postmaster of
+New Salem; he remained postmaster until 1836. While holding the office
+Lincoln voluntarily established the "free delivery" system in New Salem
+by carrying the letters around in his hat. He began the study of law,
+and was soon after appointed deputy surveyor. The note he gave on going
+into partnership with Berry had been sold to a man who wanted his money,
+and in the fall of 1834 the sheriff levied on and sold his instruments
+to satisfy the debt. In that year he was elected to the Legislature, and
+borrowed the money with which to purchase a suit of clothes to go to the
+State capital at Vandalia. He was re-elected to the Legislature in 1836,
+and during the canvass declared his principles as follows:
+
+"I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in
+bearing its burdens; consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the
+right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, _by no means excluding
+females_."
+
+A few years later, when questioned concerning that utterance, he said:
+
+"All questions of social and moral reform find lodgement first with
+enlightened souls, who stamp them with their approval. In God's own time
+they will be organized into law, and thus woven into the fabric of our
+institutions."
+
+[Illustration: A. Lincoln.]
+
+In 1836 he met Stephen A. Douglas for the first time, at the State
+capital. In 1837 he was admitted to the bar, in 1838 re-elected to the
+Legislature, and again in 1840. The capital had been removed from
+Vandalia to Springfield, and in partnership with John T. Stuart he began
+the practice of law in that city in 1839. On November 4, 1842, he was
+married to Mary Todd, daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd. In the
+presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844 he canvassed the State as a
+presidential elector on the whig ticket; and in both campaigns was
+pitted, in joint debate, against Stephen A. Douglas. In 1846 he was
+elected to the thirtieth Congress, and was the only whig representative
+in that body from Illinois. On January 12, 1848, he made his first
+speech in Congress, on a resolution which he offered calling on the
+president to provide a statement relating to the war with Mexico. On
+January 16, 1849, he introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the
+District of Columbia and to compensate the owners of the liberated
+slaves. He declined a re-election to Congress, and in 1849 was an
+unsuccessful candidate for United States senator. In 1850 he refused to
+accept the appointment as Governor of Oregon, tendered him by President
+Fillmore. For a few years he gave no attention to political matters, but
+the introduction in Congress of the bill to admit Nebraska and Kansas to
+the Union, and the agitation for the repeal of the "Missouri
+Compromise," aroused his interest, and in a short time he became the
+leader of a new party in the State. All who opposed the repeal of that
+compromise, of whatever party, were known as "Anti-Nebraska" in the
+beginning, but gradually they began to call themselves "Republicans,"
+and as such they carried most of the "Free State" elections of 1854.
+Senator Douglas, in defending his course on the "Nebraska Bill," made
+speeches through Illinois. On October 1, 1854, Lincoln, in reply to one
+of these speeches, in speaking of slavery said:
+
+"I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just
+influence in the world; it enables the enemies of free institutions to
+taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our
+sincerity; is at war with the vital principles of civic liberty;
+contrary to the Declaration of Independence; and maintains that there is
+no right principle of action but self-interest.... No man is good enough
+to govern another man without the other's consent.... I object to the
+Nebraska Bill because it assumes there can be moral right in the
+enslaving of one man by another."
+
+He was a candidate for United States Senator in 1855, but his withdrawal
+from the contest gave the election to Mr. Trumbull. In 1856 he received
+one hundred and ten votes for vice-president at the first Republican
+national contention, and canvassed the State as one of the presidential
+electors. During this canvass he said:
+
+"Sometimes when I am speaking I feel that the time is soon coming when
+the sun shall shine and the rain fall on no man who shall go forth to
+unrequited toil.... How it will come about, when it will come, I cannot
+tell; but that time will surely come."
+
+The Supreme Court of the United States, on March 6, 1857, committed
+itself to the perpetuation of slavery in the "Dred Scott" decision, and
+that act, together with the question of admitting Kansas to the Union as
+a slave or free State, furnished the argument for the legislative
+campaign of 1858, in which Lincoln was a candidate for United States
+senator against Stephen A. Douglas. In his speech accepting the
+nomination he, in referring to the agitation for the abolition of
+slavery, said:
+
+"In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached
+and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe
+this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
+not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to
+fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided."
+
+On May 16, 1860, the second Republican national convention met in
+Chicago, and on the third ballot nominated Lincoln for the presidency
+over William H. Seward, who was at that time the idol of the radical
+element of the party. Not many who listened to the clergyman who
+delivered the prayer at the opening of the convention, gave serious
+thought to these prophetic words as they fell from his lips:
+
+"We entreat Thee that at some future, but no distant, day the evil which
+now invests the body politic shall not only have been arrested in its
+progress, but wholly eradicated from the system."
+
+The Northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas; the slave-holding,
+Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge, and a Constitutional
+Union party nominated John Bell. The Electoral College gave Lincoln 180
+votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12. In his inaugural
+address Lincoln said:
+
+"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have
+no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
+
+Although his inaugural breathed peace and conciliation in every line, it
+had no effect on the hot-headed advocates of secession. The war began
+with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and ended with
+his death. On April 15th, he issued his first call for troops, and
+during his administration the total number called for was 2,759,049.
+With the exception of Russia, the foreign powers exhibited evidences of
+hostility to the Union, and when urged to retaliation Lincoln said: "One
+war at a time, if you please, gentlemen." On May 20, 1862, he signed the
+Homestead Law, a boon of inestimable value to settlers on land. On
+January 1, 1863, he issued the "Emancipation Proclamation" which stamped
+the seal of eternal truth on the Declaration of Independence. On
+November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, he, in
+concluding a speech which should be committed to memory by every citizen
+of the nation, said:
+
+"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
+before us.... That we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have
+died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of
+freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the
+people shall not perish from the earth."
+
+On June 8, 1864, he was renominated by the Republican national
+convention, General McClellan was nominated by the Democrats, and at the
+election Lincoln received 212 of the 233 electoral votes cast. In
+concluding his inaugural address, March 4, 1865, he said:
+
+"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His
+aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to
+ask God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other
+men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged.... Fondly do
+we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may
+speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the
+wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
+toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
+shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three
+thousand years ago, so, still, it must be said, that the judgments of
+the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none,
+with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see
+the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's
+wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his
+widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
+and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
+
+On the evening of April 14, 1865, while seated in a box at Ford's
+Theatre, witnessing the play, "Our American Cousin," he was shot by an
+actor, J. Wilkes Booth, and at twenty-two minutes past seven on the
+morning of the 15th his life ended. His body was embalmed and taken, in
+funeral procession, from Washington through Baltimore, Harrisburg,
+Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago to
+Springfield, and was buried on May 4th at Oak Ridge Cemetery. On October
+15, 1874, his remains were taken up and placed in a tomb beneath a
+magnificent and elegantly designed monument consisting of a statue of
+the martyred president and an obelisk of imposing appearance.
+
+No pen can do justice to the character of Lincoln, for the world will
+never know of the trials, embarrassments, and misgivings which beset him
+from his infancy in the backwoods to his tomb in Springfield. During his
+administration he never knew a moment free from anxiety. Each day he
+faced a new problem, and finding no precedent to guide him in its
+solution, he acted in accordance with his own good common sense, and
+proved equal to every emergency. Frequently misunderstood by the nation
+and her foremost men, he removed all doubts by the touch of the
+statesman when the time was ripe. To fully estimate the statesman we
+must know the man, and as years go by the full nobility of his private
+character will be disclosed to the world in all its simple grandeur. His
+was "a spirit of the greatest size and divinest metal" which no
+temptation could allure from the course of right. His administration was
+the most trying that could fall to the lot of man, no other furnished so
+many opportunities to amass wealth through speculation and intrigue, but
+greed and avarice were strangers to his nature, and no stain rests upon
+his memory. He was slow to arrive at conclusions, but when deliberation
+gave birth to conviction he unfalteringly strove for the right. His
+education was practical, not theoretical, and was acquired in the school
+of nature and among men rather than among books. The basis of his life
+was earnestness. No rhetorical display marked his speech, but his
+oratory fastened the attention, appealed to reason and carried
+conviction to the hearts of his listeners. He valued public opinion, for
+he said:
+
+"With public sentiment nothing can fail; without public sentiment
+nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes
+deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions."
+
+He opposed the extension of slavery rather than its abolition; but as he
+divined the real sentiments of its advocates he realized that enduring
+peace would not bless the nation while the institution lived, a menace
+to free labor and industrial prosperity. He professed no religion, for
+his great heart throbbed in sympathy with all humanity, and he would not
+be separated from even the humblest among men by the artificial barriers
+of creed. He believed in the gospel of liberty and would guarantee it to
+all men through constitutional enactment. When he became president he
+found slavery intrenched behind the bulwarks of constitutional law and
+judicial decision; he found a united South, resolute in her
+determination to perpetuate slavery in the nation; a vacillating North,
+divided in its sentiment on the great question of property in man. He
+found the nation in the throes of civil war, and died in the triumphal
+hour of his country's deliverance, with the sceptre of slavery
+shattered, her fetters broken and in rust, and her power crumbled to
+ashes.
+
+Public criticism never annoyed him, and he was not averse to taking
+counsel from the poorest among men. It was love of country, not selfish
+ambition, which turned his attention to public life, and toward the end
+of his administration he was rewarded by public confidence and a respect
+for his honesty and singleness of aim toward the good of the nation. He
+had a great relish for story-telling and used his fund of anecdote to
+good advantage in illustrating points in conversation.
+
+His administration stands the guide-post of the centuries, set by the
+Eternal as the dividing line between the serfdom of the past and the
+freedom of the future. His monument stands the altar of a nation's fame,
+and his name will live to guide the world to enfranchisement.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+HORACE GREELEY[14]
+
+By NOAH BROOKS
+
+(1811-1872)
+
+         [Footnote 14: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Horace Greeley. [TN]]
+
+
+Horace Greeley was one of the few persons whose manhood fulfilled the
+precocious promise of his youth. He could read before he could speak
+plainly, and at the age of six he had declared that his purpose in life
+was to be a printer. At eleven he tried to be apprenticed at the village
+printing-office and was unsuccessful; at the age of fourteen he was
+taken on as an apprentice in the office of the _Northern Spectator_, at
+East Poultney, Vt.
+
+His family were of Scotch-Irish origin, but had lived in the northern
+part of New Hampshire for several generations. Horace was born in
+Amherst, N. H., February 3, 1811. So quick of apprehension was he, and
+so active was his intellect, that the commonest of common-school
+education was for him sufficient. His schooling was only that which he
+could obtain during three or four months in winter; for at other seasons
+of the year he labored in the field with his father and brothers; and
+when he went to be an apprentice for five years in the printing-office,
+he was paid a very slender pittance, the greater part of which he gave
+to his father, whose income was probably next to nothing.
+
+In June, 1830, the newspaper office in which young Greeley was learning
+his trade became insolvent, and Greeley, then in his twentieth year, was
+released from his indentures. He tramped from office to office as a
+journeyman printer, and his father having removed to the then "new
+country of western Pennsylvania," the youngster, with ten dollars in his
+pocket, walking part way and part way earning his passage on a tug-boat,
+entered the city of New York, August 18, 1831. For days he sought in
+vain for employment among the printing-offices of the metropolis. He was
+gawky, poorly clad, and doubtless presented a very grotesque appearance
+to the cityfied people to whom he vainly applied for employment. Finally
+he effected an entrance into one of the printing-offices of the city,
+and, much to the surprise of those who sneered at his ungainly and
+unpromising figure, he straightway proved himself to be a competent,
+careful, and skilful printer. For fourteen months or more, he picked up
+odd jobs in the offices of the newspapers, always making friends and
+always managing to save a little money.
+
+Finally, at the beginning of 1833, in partnership with Francis V. Story,
+a printer, he established a penny paper called _The Morning Post_. This
+venture failed, but Greeley and Story saved from the wreck two-thirds of
+their capital, which was $150, all told, and still had on hand their
+type and materials. They now became master job-printers and made small
+contracts with persons who had newspaper printing to give out. In his
+New England boyhood Greeley had occasionally contributed to the columns
+of the newspapers on which he worked, and now he resumed that
+employment. He wrote for several of the feeble newspapers of the time,
+and on the death of his partner, Francis Story, he associated himself
+with Jonas Winchester. The firm prospered, and in 1834 was strong enough
+to establish a weekly literary newspaper called _The New Yorker_. The
+first number of this paper appeared on March 22, 1834, and it sold one
+hundred copies; for the three months next succeeding this was the
+average of its weekly circulation. The paper gradually increased in
+popularity, and the name of its Editor-in-Chief, Horace Greeley, was now
+known and respected. He furnished editorials also to the _Daily Whig_
+and to other journals, and was selected by William H. Seward and Thurlow
+Weed for the editorship of a campaign paper called _The Jeffersonian_,
+published in Albany. This was a Whig newspaper printed weekly, and the
+audacity, aggressiveness, and ability with which it was edited commanded
+the respect of its readers. _The Jeffersonian_ was finally suspended in
+the spring of 1839, and during the presidential canvass of the following
+year, Greeley, foreseeing the activity of the campaign, seized upon the
+opportunity to establish a new campaign paper called _The Log Cabin_.
+This journal at once achieved the extraordinary circulation of twenty
+thousand copies for its first edition. It succeeded beyond the most
+sanguine expectations of its founders, H. Greeley & Company, and in a
+few weeks the circulation ran up to sixty thousand, eighty thousand, and
+even ninety thousand copies, a newspaper circulation in those days
+absolutely unprecedented. _The Log Cabin_ was characterized by the
+homely wit, the unsparing logic, and the terseness and vigor of
+expression which were always Horace Greeley's most marked traits as a
+journalist.
+
+After the campaign of 1840 _The Log Cabin_ became a family political
+paper, and on April 10, 1841, its name was supplanted by that of _The
+New York Tribune_. Its home was at 30 Ann Street, and Horace Greeley,
+its editor, promised that it should be "worthy of the hearty approval of
+the virtuous and refined, and a welcome visitant to family firesides."
+
+As an editor Mr. Greeley was eccentric, and his marked personal traits
+were perceptible in his management of his newspaper. He was severely
+temperate, although opposed to prohibition as impracticable; he was in
+favor of a high protective tariff, opposed to slavery, predisposed to
+vegetarian diet, and at times manifested a proclivity to the doctrines
+of Fourier and Prudhomme.
+
+In his management of _The Tribune_ Mr. Greeley made a wide acquaintance
+with the newspaper men, politicians, and the statesmen of the time.
+Among those associated with him in the management of his paper was
+Henry J. Raymond, who afterward became the founder of _The New York
+Times_. Those who rendered service to _The Tribune_ were George William
+Curtis, Charles A. Dana, Margaret Fuller, Bayard Taylor, and others who
+subsequently achieved renown. Mr. Greeley himself has said that of his
+first issue of five thousand copies of the paper, nearly all "were with
+difficulty given away." _The Tribune_ was first sold at one cent a copy;
+in a month's time it reached a circulation of three thousand, and a
+month later it had reached the extraordinary circulation of eleven and
+twelve thousand. _The New Yorker_ and _The Log Cabin_ had all along been
+managed as weekly issues from the same office; but in September of the
+first year of the establishment of _The Tribune_ these were merged in
+what was now _The New York Weekly Tribune_, which at once leaped to a
+large circulation and became a great force throughout the country,
+especially in the rural districts.
+
+In 1842 Mr. Greeley began to print in his paper one column daily of
+matter on Fourierite topics, written by Albert Brisbane, and
+occasionally these theories were defended in his editorial columns, and
+he thereby gained a certain amount of obloquy from which he did not
+readily recover. The paper had the reputation of being not only
+extremely radical in its political views, but also committed to many of
+the "isms" of the times. It paid much attention to the spirit-rappings
+of the Fox sisters, of Rochester, and investigated the curious phenomena
+with fearless open-mindedness. _The Tribune_ prospered, though not
+greatly, and it was evident that Mr. Greeley's business management was
+never very successful; and it may be said that his greatest success as
+the editor of a prosperous and profitable newspaper was always achieved
+by the co-operation of wiser managers than himself. His personal
+appearance was peculiar, and he very soon became a well-known figure in
+the public life of New York. He usually wore a broad-brimmed, soft white
+hat and a light-colored overcoat, and his appearance, although always
+spotlessly neat, was characterized by a certain disorderliness which
+instantly attracted attention. He had a shrill, high-keyed voice; he was
+irascible in temper, and was never the "philosopher" which those who
+least knew him credited him with being. In an angry letter published in
+his own newspaper he referred to the editor of _The Daily Times_ as
+"that little villain, Raymond;" and replying to an offensive charge
+against him by _The Evening Post_, he began with, "You lie, villain,
+wilfully, wickedly, basely lie." Other passages at arms like these
+occasionally enlivened, if they did not disfigure, the editorial columns
+of _The Tribune_, over which Greeley exercised a personal censorship
+which, in later years, he found it necessary to relax. He was sincerely
+and ardently devoted to the cause of Protection, to the interests of the
+farmer and the laboring man, to sound money, and to all the ennobling
+and refining activities of social life. In spite of a careless personal
+manner, and a voice not at all agreeable to the ear, he became a popular
+and greatly sought public speaker. As a lecturer in the lyceums of towns
+and villages, then greatly in vogue, he was always an acceptable and
+greatly admired figure.
+
+In 1848 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives to
+fill a vacancy for three months. With great vigor he charged upon
+several of the most prominent abuses of the time, and selecting the
+practice of paying mileage to Congressmen, he assaulted that with a
+vehemence which ultimately destroyed it. As a member of Congress he also
+introduced the first bill to give free homesteads to actual settlers on
+the public lands. He was a candidate in 1861 for United States Senator,
+but was defeated by Ira Harris, of Albany. In 1864 he was one of the
+Republican Presidential Electors, and in 1870 was nominated for Congress
+in a hopelessly Democratic district, and was defeated. He had always
+been an intense opponent of human slavery, and in 1848 his hostility to
+the war with Mexico was doubtless inspired by his dread of the extension
+of the slave system. He was an enthusiastic supporter of John C.
+Fremont, who was nominated for President by the Republicans in 1856; and
+he made his newspaper so dreaded and feared by the opposition that he
+was indicted in Virginia for circulating incendiary documents through
+its columns. During these years he was an incessant and untiring worker,
+and produced for the columns of his own and other newspapers a
+prodigious amount of matter. He had heretofore labored in politics in
+conjunction with William H. Seward, Governor, and afterward United
+States Senator. In 1854 the separation between Greeley, Seward, and
+Thurlow Weed became established, and Mr. Seward's friends prevented the
+election of Mr. Greeley as a delegate to the Republican Convention which
+nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Greeley, however, obtained a seat as
+delegate in the Convention as a representative from the State of Oregon,
+and in that capacity he, more than any other man, doubtless turned the
+tide against Mr. Seward and in favor of Abraham Lincoln, who was
+nominated by the Convention.
+
+At the breaking out of the Civil War Mr. Greeley manifested great
+trepidation and reluctance to face the issue. He even advised in _The
+Tribune_ that the "Erring Sisters" be allowed to depart in peace; but
+later he rallied manfully to the cause of the defence of the Union, and
+his newspaper rang with impassioned appeals for the freedom of the
+slaves held in bondage in the South. He incessantly urged a more
+vigorous prosecution of the war, and called upon President Lincoln to
+take every possible measure for the emancipation of the Southern
+bondmen.
+
+In 1864, being convinced that the cause of the rebellion was gradually
+weakening, he urged upon the President the policy of negotiating with
+the leaders of the Confederate government for a surrender of their
+warlike policy, on conditions to be arrived at by commissioners from
+both sides. This proposition excited much indignation throughout the
+country, and when, in answer to repeated demands from Mr. Greeley,
+President Lincoln authorized him to undertake such a conference at
+Niagara Falls, the people generally applauded the wisdom of the
+President, as well as the disappointment of Mr. Greeley, when the
+conference came to naught.
+
+After the final surrender at Appomattox and the capture of the
+Confederate President, Mr. Greeley visited Richmond and signed the bail
+bond of Jefferson Davis. This action raised a storm of public censure,
+and he was for a time overwhelmed by the wrath and indignation of those
+who had been formerly associated with him in political affairs. He
+defended himself with great vigor, and fearlessly assailed those who
+stigmatized him as a sympathizer with the fallen rebel chieftain. He was
+not friendly to the nomination of General Grant in 1868, and disapproved
+of many of the schemes that marked his administration. Returning from a
+visit through the Southern States in the early years of President
+Grant's term, he brought to his newspaper some vigorous and outspoken
+denunciations of the "carpet-bag" governments of the formerly rebel
+States, and denunciations of the "scalawags" who, he said, "were the
+pests of the reconstructed States of the South." These and similar
+outgivings attracted the attention of a large element of the Republican
+party, and he was nominated for the Presidency, against General Grant,
+in 1872. Mr. Greeley's canvass was one of great picturesqueness and
+industry. He made a series of speeches extending over a tour from New
+England to the West, and returning to New York, which were marked by a
+most wonderful originality, freshness, and brilliance; but nothing could
+avail to stem the tide of prejudice which rose against him and in favor
+of General Grant. He had been nominated by the so-called Liberal
+Republicans and by the Democrats, but he failed to carry any one of the
+Northern States, and of the other States he carried only Georgia,
+Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. He was assailed
+during this canvass in the bitterest terms by those who regarded him as
+a turncoat and a traitor, and undoubtedly the vituperation and abuse
+showered upon him had the effect of disheartening him and destroying the
+zest with which he had theretofore undertaken the multifarious duties of
+life. He returned to New York from an exhausting campaign, depressed in
+spirit and weary in body and in mind. The death of his devoted wife
+added to his sorrows, and on November 29, 1872, only a few weeks after
+the Presidential election, he died at Pleasantville, N. Y., of mental
+and nervous prostration. His body lay in state in the City Hall, and his
+funeral was attended by the notables of the land--President Grant, who
+had just been re-elected by the people, being numbered among those who
+mourned at his bier.
+
+In addition to his editorial labors Mr. Greeley was the author of a
+number of works, among which were "Hints toward Reforms," "Glances at
+Europe," "History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension," "Overland
+Journey to San Francisco," "The American Conflict," and "Recollections
+of a Busy Life." He was also the founder of "The Whig Almanac," a manual
+of politics, which in later years became known as "The Tribune Almanac,"
+and survived his demise.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS AGASSIZ[15]
+
+By ASA GRAY
+
+(1807-1873)
+
+         [Footnote 15: Written in 1886, on the publication of "Louis
+         Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence." Reprinted, by permission
+         of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from "The Scientific Papers
+         of Asa Gray."]
+
+[Illustration: Louis Agassiz. [TN]]
+
+
+There is no need to give an abstract of the contents of these
+fascinating volumes, for everybody is reading them. Most are probably
+wishing for more personal details, especially of the American life; but
+the editorial work is so deftly and delicately done, and "the story of
+an intellectual life marked by rare coherence and unity" is so well
+arranged to tell itself and make its impression, that we may thankfully
+accept what has been given us, though the desired "fulness of personal
+narrative" be wanting.
+
+Twelve years have passed since Agassiz was taken from us. Yet to some of
+us it seems not very long ago that the already celebrated Swiss
+naturalist came over, in the bloom of his manly beauty, to charm us with
+his winning ways, and inspire us with his overflowing enthusiasm, as he
+entered upon the American half of that career which has been so
+beneficial to the interests of natural science. There are not many left
+of those who attended those first Lowell Lectures in the autumn of
+1846--perhaps all the more taking for the broken English in which they
+were delivered--and who shared in the delight with which, in a
+supplementary lecture, he more fluently addressed his audience in his
+mother-tongue.
+
+In these earliest lectures he sounded the note of which his last public
+utterance was the dying cadence. For, as this biography rightly
+intimates, his scientific life was singularly entire and homogeneous--if
+not uninfluenced, yet quite unchanged, by the transitions which have
+marked the period. In a small circle of naturalists, almost the first
+that was assembled to greet him on his coming to this country, and of
+which the writer is the sole survivor, when Agassiz was inquired of as
+to his conception of "species," he sententiously replied: "A species is
+a thought of the Creator." To this thoroughly theistic conception he
+joined the scientific deduction which he had already been led to draw,
+that the animal species of each geological age, or even stratum, were
+different from those preceding and following, and also unconnected by
+natural derivation. And his very last published works reiterated his
+steadfast conviction that "there is no evidence of a direct descent of
+later from earlier species in the geological succession of animals."
+Indeed, so far as we know, he would not even admit that such "thoughts
+of the Creator" as these might have been actualized in the natural
+course of events. If he had accepted such a view, and if he had himself
+apprehended and developed in his own way the now well-nigh assured
+significance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the
+history of the doctrine of development would have been different from
+what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been
+prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting
+what he felt to be--at least for the present--a losing battle. It is
+possible that the "whirligig of time" may still "bring in his revenges,"
+but not very probable.
+
+Much to his credit, it may be said that a good share of Agassiz's
+invincible aversion to evolution may be traced to the spirit in which
+it was taken up by his early associate, Vogt, and, indeed, by most of
+the German school then and since, which justly offended both his
+scientific and his religious sense. Agassiz always "thought nobly of
+the soul," and could in no way approve either materialistic or
+agnostic opinions. The idealistic turn of his mind was doubtless
+confirmed in his student days at Munich, whither he and his friend
+Braun resorted after one session at Heidelberg, and where both
+devotedly attended the lectures of Schelling--then in his later
+glory--and of Oken, whose "Natur-Philosophie" was then in the
+ascendant. Although fascinated and inspired by Oken's _à priori_
+biology (built upon morphological ideas which had not yet been
+established, but had, in part, been rightly divined) the two young
+naturalists were not carried away by it, probably because they were
+such keen and conscientious observers, and were kept in close
+communion with work-a-day nature. As Agassiz intimates, they had to
+resist "the temptation to impose one's own ideas upon nature, to
+explain her mysteries by brilliant theories rather than by patient
+study of the facts as we find them," and that "overbearing confidence
+in the abstract conceptions of the human mind as applied to the study
+of nature; although, indeed," he adds, "the young naturalist of that
+day who did not share in some degree the intellectual stimulus given
+to scientific pursuits by physio-philosophy would have missed a part
+of his training." That training was not lost upon Agassiz. Although
+the adage in his last published article, "A physical fact is as sacred
+as a moral principle," was well lived up to, yet ideal prepossessions
+often had much to do with his marshalling of the facts.
+
+Another professor at Munich, from whom Agassiz learned much, and had
+nothing to unlearn, was the anatomist and physiologist Döllinger. He
+published little, but he seems to have been the founder of modern
+embryological investigation, and to have initiated his two famous
+pupils, first Von Baer, and then Agassiz, into at least the rudiments of
+the doctrine of the correspondence between the stages of the development
+of the individual animal with that of its rank in the scale of being,
+and the succession in geological time of the forms and types to which
+the species belongs: a principle very fertile for scientific zoölogy in
+the hands of both these naturalists, and one of the foundations of that
+theory of evolution which the former, we believe, partially accepted,
+and the other wholly rejected.
+
+The botanical professor, the genial Von Martius, should also be
+mentioned here. He found Agassiz a student, barely of age; he directly
+made him an author, and an authority, in the subject of his
+predilection. Dr. Spix, the zoölogical companion of Martius in Brazilian
+exploration, died in 1826; the fishes of the collection were left
+untouched. Martius recognized the genius of Agassiz, and offered him,
+and indeed pressed him, to undertake their elaboration. Agassiz brought
+out the first part of the quarto volume on the "Fishes of the Brazilian
+Expedition of Spix and Martius" before he took his degree of doctor of
+philosophy, and completed it before he proceeded to that of doctor in
+medicine, in 1830. The work opened his way to fame, but brought no
+money. Still, as Martius defrayed all the expenses, the net result
+compared quite favorably with that of later publications. Moreover, out
+of it possibly issued his own voyage to Brazil in later years, under
+auspices such as his early patron never dreamed of.
+
+This early work also made him known to Cuvier; so that, when he went to
+Paris, a year afterward, to continue his medical and scientific
+studies--the one, as he deemed, from necessity, the other from
+choice--he was received as a fellow-savant; yet at first with a certain
+reserve, probably no more than was natural in view of the relative age
+and position of the two men; but Agassiz, writing to his sister, says:
+"This extreme but formal politeness chills you instead of putting you at
+your ease; it lacks cordiality, and, to tell the truth, I would gladly
+go away if I were not held fast by the wealth of material of which I can
+avail myself." But only a month later he writes--this time to his
+uncle--that, while he was anxious lest he "might not be allowed to
+examine, and still less to describe, the fossil fishes and their
+skeletons in the Museum, ... knowing that Cuvier intended to write a
+work on this subject," and might naturally wish to reserve the materials
+for his own use; and when the young naturalist, as he showed his own
+sketches and notes to the veteran, was faintly venturing to hope that,
+on seeing his work so far advanced, he might perhaps be invited to share
+in a joint publication, Cuvier relieved his anxiety and more than
+fulfilled his half-formed desires.
+
+"He desired his secretary to bring him a certain portfolio of drawings.
+He showed me the contents: they were drawings of fossil fishes, and
+notes which he had taken in the British Museum and elsewhere. After
+looking it through with me, he said he had seen with satisfaction the
+manner in which I had treated this subject; that I had, indeed,
+anticipated him, since he had intended at some future time to do the
+same thing; but that as I had given it so much attention, and had done
+my work so well, he had decided to renounce his project, and to place at
+my disposition all the materials he had collected and all the
+preliminary notes he had taken."
+
+Within three months Cuvier fell under a stroke of paralysis, and shortly
+died. The day before the attack he had said to Agassiz, "Be careful, and
+remember that work kills." We doubt if it often kills naturalists,
+unless when, like Cuvier, they also become statesmen.
+
+But to live and work, the naturalist must be fed. It was a perplexing
+problem how possibly to remain a while longer in Paris, which was
+essential to the carrying on of his work, and to find the means of
+supplying his very simple wants. And here the most charming letters in
+these volumes are, first, the one from his mother, full of tender
+thoughtfulness, and making the first suggestion about Neuchâtel and its
+museum, as a place where the aspiring naturalist might secure something
+more substantial than "brilliant hopes" to live upon; next, that from
+Agassiz to his father, who begs to be told as much as he can be supposed
+to understand of the nature of this work upon fossil fishes, which
+called for so much time, labor, and expense; and, almost immediately,
+Agassiz's letter to his parents, telling them that Humboldt had, quite
+spontaneously and unexpectedly, relieved his present anxieties by a
+credit of a thousand francs, to be increased, if necessary. Humboldt had
+shown a friendly interest in him from the first, and had undertaken to
+negotiate with Cotta, the publisher, in his behalf; but, becoming uneasy
+by the delay, and feeling that "a man so laborious, so gifted, and so
+deserving of affection ... should not be left in a position where lack
+of serenity disturbs his power of work," he delicately pressed the
+acceptance of this aid as a confidential transaction between two friends
+of unequal age.
+
+Indeed, the relations between the "two friends," one at that time
+sixty-three, and the other twenty-five, were very beautiful, and so
+continued, as the correspondence shows. Humboldt's letters (we wish
+there were more of them) are particularly delightful, are full of wit
+and wisdom, of almost paternal solicitude, and of excellent counsel. He
+enjoins upon Agassiz to finish what he has in hand before taking up new
+tasks (this is in 1837), not to spread his intellect over too many
+subjects at once, nor to go on enlarging the works he had undertaken; he
+predicts the pecuniary difficulties in which expansion would be sure to
+land him, bewails the glacier investigations, and closes with "a touch
+of fun, in order that my letter may seem a little less like preaching. A
+thousand affectionate remembrances. No more ice, not much of
+echinoderms, plenty of fish, recall of ambassadors _in partibus_, and
+great severity toward booksellers, an infernal race, two or three of
+which have been killed under me."
+
+The ambassadors _in partibus_ were the artists Agassiz employed and sent
+to England or elsewhere to draw fossil fishes for him in various
+museums, at a cost which Humboldt knew would be embarrassing. The ice,
+which he would have no more of, refers to the glacier researches upon
+which Agassiz was entering with ardor, laying one of the solid
+foundations of his fame. Curiously enough, both Humboldt and Von Buch,
+with all their interest in Agassiz, were quite unable to comprehend the
+importance of an inquiry which was directly in their line, and, indeed,
+they scorned it; while the young naturalist, without training in physics
+or geology, but with the insight of genius, at once developed the whole
+idea of the glacial period, with its wonderful consequences, upon his
+first inspection of the phenomena shown him by Charpentier in the valley
+of the Rhône.
+
+It is well that Humboldt's advice was not heeded in this regard.
+Nevertheless he was a wise counsellor. He saw the danger into which his
+young friend's enthusiasm and boundless appetite for work was likely to
+lead him. For Agassiz it might be said, with a variation of the
+well-known adage, that there was nothing he touched that he did not
+aggrandize. Everything he laid hold of grew larger under his hand--grew
+into a mountain threatening to overwhelm him, and would have overwhelmed
+anyone whose powers were not proportionate to his aspirations.
+Established at Neuchâtel, and giving himself with ardor to the duties of
+his professorship, it was surely enough if he could do the author's
+share in the production of his great works on the fossil and the
+fresh-water fishes, without assuming the responsibilities and cares of
+publication as well, and even of a lithographic establishment which he
+set up mainly for his own use. But he carried _pari passu_, or nearly
+so, his work on fossil mollusca--a quarto volume with nearly a hundred
+plates--his monographs of echinoderms, living and fossil, his
+investigations of the embryological development of fishes, and that
+laborious work, the "Nomenclator Zoologicus," with the "Bibliographia,"
+later published in England by the Ray Society. Moreover, of scattered
+papers, those of the Royal Society's Catalogue, which antedate his
+arrival in this country, are more than threescore and ten. He had help,
+indeed; but the more he had, the more he enlarged and diversified his
+tasks; Humboldt's sound advice about his zoölogical undertakings being
+no more heeded than his fulminations against the glacial theory.
+
+In the midst of all this, Agassiz turned his glance upon the glaciers,
+and the "local phenomenon" became at once a cosmic one. So far a happy
+divination; but he seems to have believed quite to the last that, not
+only the temperate zones, but whole intertropical continents--at least
+the American--had been sheeted with ice. The narrative in the first
+volume will give the general reader a vivid but insufficient conception
+of the stupendous work upon which he so brilliantly labored for nearly a
+decade of years.
+
+_Coelum, non animum, mutant_ who come with such a spirit to a wider and,
+scientifically, less developed continent. First as visitor, soon as
+denizen, and at length as citizen of the American republic, Agassiz rose
+with every occasion to larger and more various activities. What with the
+Lowell Institute, the college in Charleston, S. C., and Cornell
+University, in addition to Harvard, he may be said to have held three or
+four professorships at once, none of them sinecures. He had not been two
+months in the country before a staff of assistants was gathered around
+him, and a marine zoölogical laboratory was in operation. The rude shed
+on the shore, and the small wooden building at Cambridge, developed
+under his hand into the Museum of Zoölogy--if not as we see it now, yet
+into one of the foremost collections. Who can say what it would have
+been if his plans and ideas had obtained full recognition, and
+"expenditure" had seemed to the trustees, as it seemed to him, "the best
+investment;" or if efficient filial aid, not then to be dreamed of, had
+not given solid realization to the high paternal aspirations? In like
+manner grew large under his hand the Brazilian exploration, so
+generously provided for by a Boston citizen and fostered by an
+enlightened emperor; and on a similar scale was planned, and partly
+carried out, the "Contributions to the Natural History of the United
+States," as the imperial quarto work was modestly entitled, which was
+to be published "at the rate of one volume a year, each volume to
+contain about three hundred pages and twenty plates," with simple
+reliance upon a popular subscription; and so, indeed, of everything
+which this large-minded man undertook.
+
+While Agassiz thus was a magnanimous man, in the literal as well as the
+accepted meaning of the word, he was also, as we have seen, a truly
+fortunate one. Honorable assistance came to him at critical moments,
+such as the delicate gift from Humboldt at Paris, which perhaps saved
+him to science; such as the Wollaston prize from the Geological Society
+in 1834, when he was struggling for the means of carrying on the "Fossil
+Fishes." The remainder of the deficit of this undertaking he was able to
+make up from his earliest earnings in America. For the rest, we all know
+how almost everything he desired--and he wanted nothing except for
+science--was cheerfully supplied to his hand by admiring givers. Those
+who knew the man during the twenty-seven years of his American life, can
+quite understand the contagious enthusiasm and confidence which he
+evoked. The impression will in some degree be transmitted by these
+pleasant and timely volumes, which should make the leading lines of the
+life of Agassiz clear to the newer generation, and deepen them in the
+memory of an older one.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DARWIN
+
+Extracts from "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," by ARCH. GEIKIE,
+LL.D., F.R.S.
+
+(1809-1882)
+
+[Illustration: Charles Darwin. [TN]]
+
+
+By the universal consent of mankind, the name of Charles Darwin was,
+even during his lifetime, among those of the few great leaders who stand
+forth for all time as the creative spirits who have founded and
+legislated for the realm of science. It is too soon to estimate with
+precision the full value and effect of his work. The din of controversy
+that rose around him has hardly yet died down, and the influence of the
+doctrines he propounded is extending into so many remote departments of
+human inquiry, that a generation or two may require to pass away before
+his true place in the history of thought can be definitely fixed. But
+the judgment of his contemporaries as to his proud pre-eminence is not
+likely ever to be called in question. He is enrolled among Dii majorum
+gentium, and there he will remain to the end of the ages. When he was
+laid beside the illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey, there arose far
+and wide a lamentation as of personal bereavement. Thousands of mourners
+who had never seen him, who knew only his writings, and judged of the
+gentleness and courtesy of his nature from these, and from such hearsay
+reports as passed outward from the privacy of his country home, grieved
+as for the loss of a friend. It is remarkable that probably no
+scientific man of his day was personally less familiar to the mass of
+his fellow-countrymen. He seemed to shun all the usual modes of contact
+with them. His weak health, domestic habits, and absorbing work kept him
+in the seclusion of his own quiet home. His face was seldom to be seen
+at the meetings of scientific societies, or at those gatherings where
+the discoveries of science are expounded to more popular audiences. He
+shrank from public controversy, although no man was ever more vigorously
+attacked and more completely misrepresented. Nevertheless, when he died
+the affectionate regret that followed him to the grave, came not alone
+from his own personal friends, but from thousands of sympathetic
+mourners in all parts of the world, who had never seen or known him. Men
+had ample material for judging of his work, and in the end had given
+judgment with general acclaim. Of the man himself, however, they could
+know but little, yet enough of his character shone forth in his work to
+indicate its tenderness and goodness. Men instinctively felt him to be
+in every way one of the great ones of the earth, whose removal from the
+living world leaves mankind poorer in moral worth as well as in
+intellect.
+
+Charles Darwin came of a family which from the beginning of the
+sixteenth century had been settled on the northern borders of
+Lincolnshire. Several of his ancestors had been men of literary taste
+and scientific culture, the most noted of them being his grandfather,
+Erasmus Darwin, the poet and philosopher. His father was a medical man
+in large practice at Shrewsbury, and his mother a daughter of Josiah
+Wedgwood, of Etruria. Some interesting reminiscences are given of the
+father, who must have been a man of uncommon strength of character. He
+left a large fortune, and thus provided for the career his son was
+destined to fulfil. Of his own early life and later years, Darwin has
+left a slight but most interesting sketch in an autobiographical
+fragment, written late in life for his children, and without any idea of
+its ever being published. Shortly before his mother's death, in 1817, he
+was sent, when eight years old, to a day-school in his native town. But
+even in the period of childhood he had chosen the favorite occupation of
+his life: "My taste for natural history," he says, "and more especially
+for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of
+plants, and collected all sorts of things--shells, seals, franks, coins,
+and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a
+systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me,
+and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters and brothers ever had this
+taste."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some of the incidents of his Cambridge life which he records are full of
+interest in their bearing on his future career. Foremost among them
+stands the friendship which he formed with Professor Henslow, whose
+lectures on botany he attended. He joined in the class excursions and
+found them delightful. But still more profitable to him were the long
+and almost daily walks which he enjoyed with his teacher, during the
+latter half of his time at Cambridge. Henslow's wide range of
+acquirement, modesty, unselfishness, courtesy, gentleness, and piety,
+fascinated him and exerted on him an influence which, more than anything
+else, tended to shape his whole future life. The love of travel which
+had been kindled by his boyish reading, now took a deeper hold of him as
+he read Humboldt's "Personal Narrative" and Herschel's "Introduction to
+the Study of Natural Philosophy." He determined to visit Teneriffe, and
+even went so far as to inquire about ships. But his desire was soon to
+be gratified in a far other and more comprehensive voyage. At the close
+of his college life he was fortunate enough, through Henslow's good
+offices, to accompany Sedgwick in a geological excursion in North Wales.
+There can be little doubt that this short trip sufficed to efface the
+dislike of geology which he had conceived at Edinburgh, and to show him
+how much it was in his own power to increase the sum of geological
+knowledge. To use his own phrase, he began to "work like a tiger" at
+geology.
+
+But he now had reached the main turning-point of his career. On
+returning home from his ramble with Sedgwick he found a letter from
+Henslow, telling him that Captain Fitz-Roy, who was about to start on
+the memorable voyage of the Beagle, was willing to give up part of his
+own cabin to any competent young man who would volunteer to go with him,
+without pay, as a naturalist. The post was offered to Darwin and, after
+some natural objections on the part of his father, accepted.
+
+The Beagle weighed anchor from Plymouth on December 27, 1831, and
+returned on October 2, 1836.
+
+On his return to England, Darwin at once took his place among the
+acknowledged men of science of his country. For a time his health
+continued to be such as to allow him to get through a large amount of
+work. The next two years, which in his own opinion were the most active
+of his life, were spent, partly at Cambridge, and partly in London, in
+the preparation of his "Journal of Researches," of the zoölogical and
+geological results of the voyage, and of various papers for the
+Geological and Zoölogical Societies. So keen was his geological zeal
+that, almost against his better judgment, he was prevailed upon to
+undertake the duties of honorary secretary of the Geological Society, an
+office which he continued to hold for three years. And at each period of
+enforced holiday, for his health had already begun to give way, he
+occupied himself with geological work in the field. In the Midlands he
+watched the operations of earthworms, and began those inquiries which
+formed the subject of his last research, and of the volume on "Vegetable
+Mould" which he published not long before his death. In the Highlands he
+studied the famous Parallel Roads of Glen Roy; and his work there,
+though in after-years he acknowledged it to be "a great failure," he
+felt at the time to have been "one of the most difficult and instructive
+tasks" he had ever undertaken.
+
+In the beginning of 1839 Darwin married his cousin, daughter of Josiah
+Wedgwood, and grand-daughter of the founder of the Etruria Works, and
+took a house in London. But the entries of ill-health in his diary grow
+more frequent. For a time he and his wife went into society, and took
+their share of the scientific life and work of the metropolis. But he
+was compelled gradually to withdraw from this kind of existence, which
+suited neither of them, and eventually they determined to live in the
+country. Accordingly, he purchased a house and grounds at Down, in a
+sequestered part of Kent, some twenty miles from London, and moved
+thither in the autumn of 1842. In that quiet home he passed the
+remaining forty years of his life. It was there that his children were
+born and grew up around him; that he carried on the researches and
+worked out the generalizations that have changed the whole realm of
+science; that he received his friends and the strangers who came from
+every country to see him; and it was there that, after a long and
+laborious life, full of ardor and work to the last, he died, at the age
+of seventy-three, on April 19, 1882.
+
+The story of his life at Down is almost wholly coincident with the
+history of the development of his views on evolution, and the growth and
+appearance of the successive volumes which he gave to the world. For the
+first four years his geological tastes continued in the ascendant.
+During that interval there appeared three remarkable works, his volume
+on "Coral Islands," that on "Volcanic Islands," and his "Geological
+Observations on South America."
+
+After working up the geological results of the long voyage in the
+Beagle, he set himself with great determination to more purely
+geological details. While on the coast of Chili he had found a curious
+new cirripede, to understand the structure of which he had to examine
+and dissect many of the common forms. The memoir, which was originally
+designed to describe only his new type, gradually expanded into an
+elaborate monograph on the Cirripedes (barnacles) as a whole group. For
+eight years he continued this self-imposed task, getting at last so
+weary of it as to feel at times as if the labor had been in some sense
+wasted which he had spent over it; and this suspicion seems to have
+remained with him in maturer years. But when at last the two bulky
+volumes, of more than one thousand pages of text, with forty detailed
+plates, made their appearance, they were hailed as an admirable
+contribution to the knowledge of a comparatively little known department
+of the animal kingdom. In the interests of science, perhaps, their chief
+value is to be recognized, not so much in their own high merit, as in
+the practical training which their preparation gave the author in
+anatomical detail and classification. He spoke of it himself afterward
+as a valuable discipline, and Professor Huxley truly affirms that the
+influence of this discipline was visible in everything which he
+afterward wrote.
+
+It was after Darwin had got rid of his herculean labors over the
+"Cirripede" book, that he began to settle down seriously to the great
+work of his life--the investigation of the origin of the species, of
+plants and animals. Briefly, it may be stated here that he seems to have
+been first led to ponder over the question of the transmutation of
+species, by facts that had come under his notice during the South
+American part of the voyage in the Beagle--such as the discovery of the
+fossil remains of huge animals akin to, but yet very distinct from, the
+living armadillos of the same regions; the manner in which closely
+allied animals were found to replace one another, as he followed them
+over the continent; and the remarkable character of the flora and fauna
+of the Galapagos Archipelago. "It was evident," he says, "that such
+facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the
+supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject
+haunted me." His first note-book for the accumulation of facts bearing
+on the question was opened in July, 1837, and from that date he
+continued to gather them "on a wholesale scale, more especially with
+respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by
+conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive
+reading."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He now set to work upon that epitome of his observations and deductions
+which appeared in November, 1859, as the immortal "Origin of Species."
+
+Those who are old enough to remember the publication of this work,
+cannot but marvel at the change, which, since that day, not yet thirty
+years ago, has come alike upon the non-scientific and the scientific
+part of the community in their estimation of it. Professor Huxley has
+furnished to the biography a graphic chapter on the reception of the
+book, and in his vigorous and witty style recalls the furious and
+fatuous objections that were urged against it. A much longer chapter
+will be required to describe the change which the advent of the "Origin
+of Species" has wrought in every department of science, and not of
+science only, but of philosophy. The principle of evolution, so early
+broached and so long discredited, has now at last been proclaimed and
+accepted as the guiding idea in the investigation of nature.
+
+One of the most marvellous aspects of Darwin's work was the way in which
+he seemed always to throw a new light upon every department of inquiry
+into which the course of his researches led him to look. The specialists
+who, in their own narrow domains, had been toiling for years, patiently
+gathering facts and timidly drawing inferences from them, were
+astonished to find that one who, in their eyes, was a kind of outsider,
+could point out to them the plain meaning of things which, though
+entirely familiar to them, they had never adequately understood. The
+central idea of the "Origin of Species" is an example of this in the
+biological sciences. The chapter on the imperfection of the geological
+record is another.
+
+After the publication of the "Origin" Darwin gave to the world, during a
+succession of years, a series of volumes in which some of his
+observations and conclusions were worked out in fuller detail. His books
+on the fertilization of orchids, on the movements and habits of climbing
+plants, on the variation of animals and plants under domestication, on
+the effects of cross-and self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom, on
+the different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, were
+mainly based on his own quiet work in the greenhouse and garden at Down.
+His volumes on the descent of man and on the expression of the emotions
+in man and animals, completed his contributions to the biological
+argument. His last volume, published the year before his death, treated
+of the formation of vegetable mould and the habits of earthworms, and
+the preparation of it enabled him to revive some of the geological
+enthusiasm which so marked the earlier years of his life.
+
+Such, in briefest outline, was the work accomplished by Charles Darwin.
+The admirable biography prepared by his son enables us to follow its
+progress from the beginning to its close. But higher even than the
+intellect which achieved the work, was the moral character which shone
+through it all.
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS
+
+(1797-1877)
+
+[Illustration: Louis Adolphe Thiers. [TN]]
+
+
+Louis Adolphe Thiers, French historian, politician, and patriot, was
+born at Marseilles on April 16, 1797. His father, who seems to have
+belonged to a family in decayed circumstances, was a locksmith. Through
+the influence of his mother, who was a Chenier, he received a good
+education, first at the _Lycée_ in his native city, and subsequently
+(1815) at Aix, whither he was sent to study law. At Aix he made the
+acquaintance of Mignet, cultivated literature rather than the law, and
+won a prize for a dissertation on Vauvenargues. Called to the bar at the
+age of twenty-three, he set off for Paris in the company of Mignet. His
+prospects did not seem brilliant, and his almost ludicrously squat
+figure and plain face were not recommendations to Parisian society. His
+industry and belief in himself were, however, unbounded, and an
+introduction to Lafitte, of the _Constitutionnel_, then the leading
+organ of the French liberals, gave him the chance of showing his
+capacity as a public writer. His articles in the _Constitutionnel_,
+chiefly on political and literary subjects, gained him the entry into
+the most influential salons of the opposition. At this time he made the
+acquaintance of Talleyrand, Casimir Périer, the Comte de Flahault, and
+Baron Louis, the financier. Meanwhile he was rapidly--indeed too
+rapidly--preparing his "Histoire de la Révolution Française." The first
+two volumes--there were ten in all--appeared in 1823. This work,
+although it has been demonstrated to be very untrustworthy and
+inaccurate, more especially in its estimates of persons, gave its author
+a prominent place among French politicians and men of letters. About
+this time, too, the gift by his admirer, Cotta, the German publisher, of
+a share in the _Constitutionnel_ raised him to comparative affluence. In
+January, 1830, he, along with Armand Carrel, Mignet, and other friends,
+started the _National_, and in its columns waged relentless war on the
+Polignac administration. The ministry met the opposition it had provoked
+by the Ordonnances of July. Among the other repressive measures that
+were taken was the sending of a commissary of police to the office of
+the _National_, interdicting its publication. Its conductors, with
+Thiers at their head, defied the ministry, and the result was the
+revolution which drove Charles X. into exile.
+
+Thiers now entered on an active career as a politician. He was elected
+deputy for the town of Aix, and was appointed secretary-general to the
+minister of finance. His first appearance in the Chamber of Deputies
+gave no promise of his subsequent distinction. His diminutive person,
+his small face, encumbered with a pair of huge spectacles, and his whole
+exterior presenting something of the ludicrous, the new deputy, full of
+the impassioned eloquence of the revolutionary orators, attempted to
+impart the thrilling emotions affected by Mirabeau. The attempt provoked
+derision; but soon subsiding into the oratory natural to him--simple,
+easy, rapid, anecdotic--he became one of the most formidable of
+parliamentary speakers. Almost from the moment of his entrance into
+public life he and Guizot stood forth in opposition to each other as the
+champions of radicalism and conservatism, respectively. But he was a
+stanch monarchist, and for a time a favorite with Louis Philippe. In
+1832 he accepted the post of minister of the interior under Soult,
+exchanging it subsequently for the ministry of commerce and public
+affairs, and that in turn for the foreign office. He was universally
+regarded as a stronger man than any of his chiefs during this period;
+but his public and private actions alike were always marked by a certain
+fussy quarrelsomeness which prevented him from being ever accounted a
+statesman of the first rank. The spirited foreign policy, calculated
+above all things to precipitate a quarrel between France and Great
+Britain, of which for many years he was the chief advocate, is now
+allowed to have been a great, and might have been a fatal, mistake. In
+1836 he became president of the council, but in August of the same year
+he resigned office, and became the leader of the opposition. In 1840 he
+was again summoned to office as president of the council and foreign
+minister. In a few months he was a terror to the peace of Europe. He
+refused Lord Palmerston's invitation to enter into an alliance with
+Britain, Austria, and Prussia for the preservation of the integrity of
+the Ottoman empire, from a sympathy with the principles which dictated
+the first Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria, and a desire to
+accomplish by diplomacy with Mehemet Ali what Bonaparte had endeavored
+to effect by force of arms--the supremacy of France in these regions. He
+talked menacingly of setting aside the treaties of 1815, and of
+extending the French frontier to the Rhine, and is said to have actually
+spent £8,000,000 on military and naval demonstrations. Then followed the
+seizure of the Society Islands, and a well-founded protest by the
+British government against the ill-treatment by the French of Mr.
+Pritchard, their consul at Tahiti. In consequence of this Thiers was
+forced to resign office, and retire into private life. He now returned
+to the study of French history. The first volume of his "Histoire du
+Consulat et de l'Empire" appeared in 1845; it was not completed till
+1860. This, the most ambitious of all Thiers's literary enterprises,
+must be considered a large rather than a great work. It is a monument to
+its author's industry in reading, and rises here and there to rhetorical
+brilliance. But that it is inaccurate and unfair has been admitted even
+by French critics. Thiers greatly overrated Napoleon, and probably to
+his own hurt.
+
+Thiers was not one of the promoters of the revolution which in 1848
+drove Louis Philippe from the throne. On the contrary, he would, as
+prime minister summoned at the eleventh hour, have prevented it if he
+could. He accepted its consequences in the form of the Republic. He
+voted for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon as its president. This
+action brought him much vituperation and ridicule from former political
+friends. But whatever may have been the motive that inspired it, it
+certainly did not help him at the time of the coup-d'état of 1851; he
+was arrested, imprisoned in Mazas, and banished. Next year, however, he
+was allowed to return from Switzerland to France. For eight years he was
+occupied with his "History of the Consulate and Empire." He re-entered
+the Chamber in 1863, having been elected liberal deputy for the
+Department of the Seine in opposition to the imperialist candidate. Till
+the fall of the Second Empire he was regarded as the ablest and most
+formidable of its more moderate and parliamentary opponents. His
+speeches in the years between 1863 and 1870 were filled with taunts of
+the Empire on account of the loss of prestige which had marked its
+history, and these must not be left out of account when blame has to be
+apportioned among the authors of the war of 1870, although he opposed it
+when declared by the Ollivier ministry, and predicted defeat.
+
+The collapse of the Second Empire, however, enabled Thiers to play the
+greatest of all his parts, that of "liberator of the territory." He
+declined, after Sedan, to become a member of the Government of National
+Defence; but he voluntarily undertook diplomatic journeys to Great
+Britain, Russia, Austria, and Italy, on behalf of France--a self-imposed
+mission in which he was unsuccessful, but by which he obtained the
+gratitude of his countrymen. He was largely instrumental in securing for
+his country that armistice which permitted the holding of a national
+assembly with a view to the negotiation of a peace. Twenty
+constituencies chose him as their deputy. Electing to sit for Paris, he
+was made head of the provisional government. He had great difficulty in
+persuading the colleagues of the Assembly, and his countrymen generally,
+to agree to peace on terms that were practically dictated by Germany.
+But he succeeded; peace was voted March 1, 1871. No sooner had he
+accomplished this task than he was face to face with the sanguinary
+madness of the Commune. But this difficulty also he set himself to
+surmount with characteristic energy, and succeeded. When the seat of
+government was once more removed from Versailles to Paris, Thiers was
+formally elected (August 30) President of the French Republic. He held
+office only till 1873, but during this brief period he was probably of
+greater service to his country than at any previous time in his life. He
+was mainly instrumental in securing the withdrawal of the Germans from
+France and the payment of the war indemnity, and in placing both the
+army and the civil service on a more satisfactory footing. But in course
+of time the gratitude of the country exhausted itself, and Thiers, who
+was old-fashioned in many of his opinions, and as opinionative as he was
+old-fashioned, did not make any new friends. He was specially detested
+by the Extreme Left, whose chief, Gambetta, he styled a _fou furieux_.
+As a result, a coalition of Reactionaries and Radicals was formed
+expressly, as it seemed, to harass him, and even in the beginning of
+1872 he tendered his resignation. It was not accepted; and his opponents
+for a time suspended their intrigues. They were revived, however, in
+1873, and resolved themselves into a resolute effort to limit the powers
+of the president. This Thiers stoutly resisted. He made an appeal to the
+country, but this course did not increase the strength of his following.
+Finally, what he interpreted as a vote of no confidence was carried (May
+24) by a majority of sixteen. He resigned, and his place was taken by
+Marshal MacMahon. He lived four years longer, and never ceased to take
+an interest in politics. In 1877 he took an active part in bringing
+about the fall of the ministry presided over by the Duc de Broglie. He
+now leaned to the side of the Left, and was reconciled to Gambetta, and
+he might once again have played a prominent part in politics had he not
+died of apoplexy on September 3, 1877, at St. Germain en Laye. He has
+not left behind him the memory either of a very great statesman, or of a
+very great historian. But he was a man of indomitable courage, and his
+patriotism, if narrow and marred with Chauvinism, was deep and genuine.
+He was, perhaps, the most successful of the large class of
+journalist-politicians that France has produced, and that he was at
+least a personal power in literature was evidenced by the great
+influence which he wielded in the Academy, of which he became a member
+in 1834.
+
+
+
+
+LÉON GAMBETTA
+
+(1838-1882)
+
+[Illustration: Léon Gambetta. [TN]]
+
+
+Léon Michel Gambetta was born at Cahors on April 3, 1838. His father was
+a tradesman dealing in crockery; his mother's maiden name was Massabie.
+Léon's grandfather was a Genoese, who emigrated to France at the
+beginning of this century; and as his name signifies, in the dialect of
+Genoa, a liquid measure of two quarts capacity, it has been supposed
+that it was conferred upon one of his forefathers as a sobriquet. Léon
+Gambetta's grandfather was a poor man of no education, and his only
+son, Léon's father, thought he had done very well for himself when he
+set up a shop with the small dowry brought him by his wife, Mlle.
+Massabie. The mother of Léon died while he was a child, and he was
+indebted for his early teaching to his maternal aunt and to her brother,
+a priest, who held a small benefice in a village near Cahors. It was at
+first intended that Léon should follow his father's trade; but, as he
+was a boy very apt at learning and fond of books, his uncle and aunt
+decided that it would be better to put him at the seminary, with a view
+to his ultimately taking holy orders. Léon's father does not seem to
+have much liked this scheme, for he had no second son who could succeed
+to his business; but he had a great love for his bright-witted boy, and
+having conceived a high respect for his talents, yielded to the pleasing
+idea that he would some day become an ornament to the Church. This
+belief may be explained by the fact that Léon was, as a child, ardently
+religious. When twelve years old he wrote an ode dedicated to his
+"patron, St. Léon, and to all the popes called Léon," and this
+composition was printed in the Catholic journal of the diocese. In
+after-years some of his political enemies tried to get hold of a copy,
+but failed, and published a spurious one which they gave out for his.
+
+The career of Léon Gambetta must continue to exercise over young
+advocates and journalists the same kind of fascination as that of
+Napoleon I. does over young officers; and, indeed, the fact that
+Bonaparte and Gambetta were both of Italian origin, and came to sudden
+and great power while they were very young, was often quoted to draw a
+parallel between the two. But there is this difference between Bonaparte
+and Gambetta, that whereas the latter made his mark in life later by
+some three or four years than the former, brilliant destinies were
+prophesied for him by others besides his relations, when he was still a
+child. While Bonaparte was a pupil at the school of Brienne, his masters
+predicted that he would make a poor officer, because he had no aptitude
+for mathematics; when Gambetta was at the seminary, his tutors foretold
+that he would make a great figure in life, "but never," they regretfully
+added, "as a churchman." The boy began well, but he had evidently no
+vocation for the strict discipline of the Church; he was too
+disputatious, not meek enough about taking blows without returning them,
+and in short, too headstrong. Anticipating the judgment which M. Grévy
+passed upon him when he was thirty-three years old, his ecclesiastical
+masters reported of him that he was _un esprit rebelle, turbulent_, and
+they advised his removal to another school.
+
+Young Gambetta was accordingly sent to the _lycée_--that is, the lay
+public school--of Cahors, and here he immediately won golden opinions
+by his cleverness, his industry, and the happy vivacity of his
+character. One of the half-yearly bulletins of the _lycée_, which has
+been preserved in his family, records that he was "passionate without
+being vindictive, and proud without arrogance." In time he became the
+best Latin scholar at the school, and the most proficient in French
+composition. When he was in his sixteenth year, however, an accident,
+which destroyed his left eye, quelled for a time the exuberance of his
+character and suddenly gave a new direction to his studies. Fearing lest
+he should lose his sight altogether, he set himself to learn the
+alphabet for the blind, in order that he might read in books with raised
+letters; he also applied himself to the study of music and the violin.
+During a whole year he was forbidden to open a book.
+
+From Cahors Gambetta went to Paris to study law, and he quickly drew the
+attention of the Imperial police upon himself by acting as ringleader in
+those demonstrations which the students of the Latin Quarter were
+accustomed to make in time of public excitement. Peaceful demonstrations
+they always were, because the police would stand nothing like rioting,
+but it was something to march at the head of a procession carrying
+wreaths to the tomb of a Republican, or to lead cabals for hissing off
+the stage of the Théâtre Français or the Odéon pieces by unpopular
+writers, like M. Edmond About (for in those days M. About was a
+Bonapartist).
+
+Gambetta's first public speech was delivered in 1861, in defence of the
+Marquis Le Guillois, a nobleman of facetious humor, who edited a comic
+newspaper called _Le Hanneton_. He was seized with unexpected
+nervousness as he began, but before he had stammered out a dozen
+sentences he was stopped by the presiding judge, who told him mildly
+that no big words were required in a cause which only involved a fine of
+100 francs--"all the less so," added he, "as your client is acquitted."
+
+Gambetta used to say after this that it took him years to recover from
+the effect of the judge's quiet snub. Like many other young men of
+talent, he had gone into court expecting to carry everything before him,
+and had found that the art of forensic pleading is not to be acquired
+without practice. He did practise most diligently, and the
+speeches--some thirty in all--which he delivered in unimportant cases
+during the next seven years, were conspicuous for their avoidance of
+rhetorical flourish. Adolphe Crémieux had cautioned him that the secret
+of oratory lies in mastering the subject of one's discourse. "Don't try
+gymnastic feats until you have a firm platform to spring from"--a maxim
+which a conceited young man, impatient of results, might have despised,
+but which commended itself to an ambitious man who felt that, although a
+chance comes to all, it is an important point to be prepared for the
+chance when it does come. A plutocrat once asked Horace Vernet to "do
+him a little thing in pencil" for his album. Vernet did the little thing
+and asked 1,000 francs for it. "But it only took you five minutes to
+draw," exclaimed the man of wealth. "Yes, but it took me thirty years to
+learn to do it in five minutes," replied Vernet. And so Gambetta, when
+someone remarked that he was very lucky in having conquered renown by a
+single speech, broke out impetuously, "I was years preparing that
+speech--twenty times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had
+it here (touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his
+breast) as if it would break my heart."
+
+The speech in question was delivered on November 17, 1868, before the
+notorious Judge Delesvaux (who has been called the Jeffreys of the
+Second Empire), in defence of Louis Charles Delescluze, editor of the
+_Réveil_. The _Réveil_ had started a subscription for erecting a
+monument to the memory of the Representative Baudin, who was killed at
+the _coup-d'état_ of 1851, and the Government unwisely instituted a
+prosecution against the editor. It was late in the afternoon when the
+case was called on after a number of others, but the sixth chamber was
+crowded with journalists and barristers, as it always was on Fridays,
+when Delesvaux--a man with hawk-like features and a flaming
+complexion--would sit "tearing up newspaper articles with beak and
+talons," as Émile de Girardin said of him. Just before Gambetta rose,
+Delesvaux observed, "I suppose you have not much to say; so it will
+hardly be worth while to have the gas lighted." "Never mind the gas,
+sir, I will throw light enough on this affair," answered Gambetta; and
+it was amid the laughter produced by this joke that he began. His genius
+found vent that day, and he spoke from first to last without a halt.
+Reviewing his client's case, he brought Napoleon III. himself to book,
+and recalled the circumstances under which Baudin had died, "defending
+that Republican Constitution which President Louis Bonaparte, in
+contempt of his oath, had violated." At this, Judge Delesvaux half rose
+in his seat and endeavored to stop the speaker, but a positive roar from
+the whole crowd in court forced him to sit down. It was a sign of the
+approaching political earthquake that Delesvaux should have sat down in
+that way, for he was a man of great resolution; but he must have felt
+then as if the earth were trembling under him. So Gambetta continued to
+speak, denouncing with unimaginable energy the tyrannies and turpitudes
+of the reign which had confiscated all the liberties of France, till at
+last he concluded with this magnificent peroration, which was rendered
+most solemn by the increasing darkness of the court and the intense
+attentive silence of the audience: "In every country but this you see
+the people commemorate as a holiday the date which brought the reigning
+dynasty to the throne. You alone are ashamed of the day which gave you a
+blood-stained crown--the December 2d when Baudin died! Well, that day
+which you reject, we Republicans will keep holy. It shall be the day of
+mourning for our martyrs and the festival of our hopes!"
+
+When Gambetta left the court after this, it was felt by all who had
+heard him that he was the coming man of the Republican party; and next
+day opposition journals of every shade of opinion, from one end of
+France to the other, acclaimed him as a future leader.
+
+Within the next two years the Republican party made such rapid strides
+that to regain his prestige the French emperor felt that a glorious war
+was necessary. The leader of the moderate reformers, M. Ollivier, was
+won over, and was forced upon Prussia. Gambetta and the Republicans felt
+that they had every cause for fear when matters had taken this turn.
+Relying upon Marshal Leboeuf's assurances that "everything was ready,"
+they saw the prospect of a short sensational campaign like that against
+Austria in 1859, to be followed by some high-handed stroke of home
+policy that would sweep most of them into prison or exile. Gambetta
+could not refrain from bitterly upbraiding Ollivier. "You will find that
+you have been fooled in all this," he said; "for when the war is over
+you will be thrown aside like a squeezed orange." "I think my fate will
+be a happier one than yours, unless you mend your manners," answered
+Ollivier dryly. Three weeks after this, however, everything was changed.
+The imperial armies had been beaten at Woerth and Forbach; the Ollivier
+cabinet had fallen amid popular execration (hardly deserved); and
+Gambetta, forced by circumstances into a position of great influence,
+received a private visit from Madame Bazaine, who prayed him to agitate
+that her husband might be appointed as the commander-in-chief of the
+armies. Gambetta was too sincerely patriotic to feel any partisan
+satisfaction at the reverse which Napoleon III.'s armies had suffered;
+and in stirring up the Republicans in the Chamber and in the press to
+clamor for the appointment of Bazaine, he believed he was urging the
+claims of a competent soldier who was being kept from the chief command
+solely by dynastic jealousies. He was to learn, a couple of months
+later, how much he had been mistaken in his estimate of Bazaine's
+talents and rectitude of purpose; and, indeed, Bazaine's conduct toward
+Gambetta and the Republicans from first to last was the more
+inexplicable, as it was unquestionably owing to their agitation that he
+was placed in the high position which he had coveted.
+
+During the three weeks between Forbach and Sedan, Gambetta had to take
+rather exciting precautions to insure his own safety. He was aware that
+the Empress-Regent's advisers were urging her to have the leaders of the
+opposition arrested, and he felt pretty certain that this course would
+be adopted if the news of a victory arrived. He used to sleep in a
+different house every night, and never ventured abroad unattended or
+without firearms. His position was one of great difficulty, for agents
+of the Internationale made overtures to him with a view to promote an
+insurrection in Paris, and he forfeited the confidence of these fanatics
+by declining to abet their plans. Gambetta was so little desirous of
+establishing a republic by revolution that, even when the tidings
+arrived on the night of September 3d of the emperor's surrender at
+Sedan, his chief concern was as to how he could get the deposition of
+Napoleon III. and the Empress-Regent effected by lawful methods. He
+hastened to M. Thiers's house, and asked him whether he would accept the
+presidency of a provisional government? Thiers, sitting up in bed, said
+he was willing, provided that this office was conferred upon him by the
+Corps Législatif.
+
+Accordingly, Gambetta spent all the morning of Sunday, September 4th,
+whipping up members of the majority, and trying to persuade them to go
+down to the Palais Bourbon and elect a new government. But he found most
+of these gentlemen anxious to get off to the different railway stations
+as soon as possible in cabs. Going to the Chamber himself toward one
+o'clock, he was carried through the doors by the surging mob which
+invaded the palace, and in half an hour he shouted himself quite hoarse
+in adjuring the crowds from the tribune to let the Assembly deliberate
+in peace. But while he was literally croaking in his attempts to make
+the people hear reason, news was brought to him that M. Blanqui and some
+other adventurous spirits, taking time by the forelock, had repaired to
+the Hôtel de Ville, and were setting up a government of their own. Upon
+this, Gambetta precipitately left the palace, jumped into a victoria,
+and drove to the Hôtel de Ville, amid a mob of several thousands of
+persons who escorted him, cheering all the way. Before five o'clock the
+deputies for Paris, with the exception of M. Thiers, had constituted
+themselves into a government, which, at the suggestion of M. Rochefort,
+took the name of Government of the National Defence; and M. Gambetta
+received the appointment of Minister of the Interior. It may be remarked
+in passing that on the day after these events, Judge Delesvaux, fearing,
+perhaps needlessly, that some of the triumphant Republicans whom he had
+so often punished would wreak vengeance upon him, committed suicide. On
+the other hand, Gambetta's client in the Baudin affair--L. C.
+Delescluze--came to him on the morning of September 5th, and reproached
+him with much asperity for not having caused the empress to be arrested.
+"We want no rose-water Republicans to rule us," said this honest, but
+gloomy, zealot, who was shot a few months later during the extermination
+of the Commune.
+
+The siege of Paris brought M. Gambetta to the most romantic part of his
+career. The National Defence Government had delegated two of their
+members, MM. Crémieux and Glaiz-Bizoin, to go to Tours and govern the
+provinces; but being both elderly men of weak health, they were hardly
+up to their work; and early in October M. Gambetta was ordered by his
+colleagues to join them. He had to leave Paris in a balloon, and in
+going over the German lines nearly met with misadventure, through the
+balloon sinking till it came within range of some marksmen's rifles. He
+reached Tours in safety, however, and set to work at once with
+marvellous activity to organize resistance against the invasion. He was
+ably seconded by M. de Freycinet, and between them these two did all
+that was humanly possible to perform; but from the first their task was
+one of formidable difficulty, and all chances of repelling the Germans
+from French soil vanished after the shameful capitulation of Bazaine at
+Metz.
+
+Nevertheless, all who saw M. Gambetta during his proconsulate at Tours
+will remember with what a splendid energy he worked, how sincerely
+hopeful he was, and--this must not be forgotten--how uniformly generous
+and genial. Invested with despotic powers, he never once abused them to
+molest an opponent.
+
+[Illustration: The enrollment of volunteers, 1870.]
+
+In his public harangues, both at Tours and Bordeaux (whither the
+Provisional Government repaired in December, being driven southward by
+the German advance), he somehow always managed to electrify his hearers.
+He spoke from balconies, railway carriages, curb-stones; wherever he
+went the people demanded a speech of him, and his words never failed to
+cheer, while they conquered for him a wide popularity. Indeed, Gambetta
+so deluded himself while diffusing hope and combativeness into
+others, that when, after a five months' siege, Paris capitulated, he
+still persisted in thinking that resistance was possible, and rather
+than take any part in the national surrender he gave in his resignation.
+He was by that time fairly worn out, and had to go to St. Sebastian to
+recruit his health. It was alleged that he went there so as to avoid
+taking any side in the civil war between the Parliament of Versailles
+and the Commune; but after the Communist Government had been at work a
+fortnight, and when the impracticability of its aims was fully
+disclosed, he took care to let it be known that he was on the side of
+the National Assembly.
+
+M. Thiers did not understand Gambetta as Gambetta understood him, or he
+would not have resigned in 1873, saying that the Republicans were making
+his work too difficult. When Marshal MacMahon succeeded to the
+Presidency it looked as if the Republic were doomed, and nothing but M.
+Gambetta's wonderful suppleness and tact during the sessions of 1874-75
+could have saved it. He had to keep himself in the background, to use an
+Italian astuteness in explaining away the blunders of his followers; and
+when this would not do he had to use violent language, which should
+frighten timid doctrinaire Orleanists with prospects of popular risings
+in which he would take the lead. His greatest triumphs were earned when,
+by dint of superhuman coaxing in the lobbies, he got the Republic
+proclaimed as the Government of France (in 1875, on M. Wallon's motion)
+by a majority of one vote; and again when, at the first election for
+life senators, he concluded a treaty with the Legitimists, and by giving
+them a dozen seats, secured fifty for the Republicans and ousted the
+Orleanists altogether.
+
+From this time the Republic was founded with at least temporary
+security, and although a coalition of all the reactionary parties
+rallied against it in 1877, when M. Jules Simon's ministry was
+dismissed, and when the Duc de Broglie was induced to try to destroy the
+new form of government by Cæsarist methods, yet there was never any real
+danger that the Republic would succumb. From the day when M. Thiers
+died, M. Gambetta stood guarding it like a sentinel. Just before the
+general election of 1877, an emissary was sent to him from the De
+Broglie-Fourtou Ministry, requesting him for his own sake not to make a
+speech against Marshal MacMahon. He laughed when he heard that he would
+be prosecuted if he made the speech. He was twirling a cigarette, and
+laid down a copy of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in which he had been
+reading an essay on Mr. Gladstone's speeches about the Irish Church.
+"Tell the Prime Minister," he said, "that I will speak from a pedestal
+if I can, but if not, from a housetop. In one way or another, my voice
+shall reach further than his, and so long as I have a drop of blood to
+shed the Republic shall not fall." M. Gambetta was sentenced to four
+months' imprisonment for the speech in which he said that Marshal
+MacMahon would have to yield to the popular will or resign, but before
+he could be put into jail the De Broglie cabinet had ceased to exist.
+Marshal MacMahon's resignation in 1879 was the obviously natural
+consequence of the complete victory which the Republicans gained in
+1877; but it was greatly to M. Gambetta's credit that he quietly
+tolerated during fifteen months the presidency of the gallant soldier
+who had never been his friend. When urged to agitate for the marshal's
+overthrow, he always said, "It will do the Republic good if its first
+president serves his term of office quietly to the end."
+
+Had Gambetta lived till 1885 he would probably have been the next
+president of the Republic he had established and preserved; but it was
+not to be. His work was done. He died December 31, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+BENJAMIN DISRAELI[16]
+
+By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD
+
+(1804-1881)
+
+         [Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Benjamin Disraeli. [TN]]
+
+
+Since the days of Richelieu, there has been no such picturesque figure
+in the history of civilization as that of Benjamin Disraeli.
+
+Although his father, Isaac Disraeli, was in much more than easy
+circumstances and had made a literary reputation, he was under the
+social disadvantage that was the portion of a Jew, and his mother, Maria
+Basevi, was of the same despised race.
+
+Their son was born in London, December 21, 1804, and his birth was
+attended by the usual Jewish ceremonies in the Spanish synagogue. When
+he was thirteen years old his father formally withdrew from the Jewish
+congregation, and the children were baptized into the Christian faith,
+Benjamin's godfather being Sharon Turner. The boy was early seen to have
+rare talents, and he was already an immense reader in his father's vast
+library. It was decided to give him an exact education and send him to
+one of the large schools, where he should have the advantage of
+discipline and the opportunity of desirable friendships; but the
+prejudice against his birth was an obstacle--life would have been made
+impossible by the indelicacy and cruelty of the high-born and Christian
+lads. He was finally sent to a school where he found himself the
+superior of his masters; even there he was taunted with his birth; and
+he was taken home to work with his father and with tutors, where,
+conscious of his powers and full of lively ambition, he studied twelve
+hours a day, and made himself the master of a vast and varied
+information. At seventeen he entered a solicitor's office, and while
+working there for three years, entered at Lincoln's Inn, he evinced an
+ability that promised him great eminence. It was not, however,
+precisely the sort of eminence that he desired, the strifes and
+achievements of political life being more to his taste.
+
+He had the qualities which fitted him for that life, the "taking arts"
+and accomplishments; he was a fine linguist; he had a wonderfully
+well-stored memory, great self-confidence, self-respect, and assurance;
+his manners were easy, and he had all social graces and refinements; his
+face was singularly handsome, and remarkable through its pallor, the
+depth of its black eyes, and delicacy of its chiselled features framed
+in night-dark curls; he was a master of the art of self-defence, a hard
+and fine rider, and he was equipped with wit, sarcasm, poetical
+perception, keen reason, unbounded ambition, and undaunted courage.
+
+He dressed in his early years in a manner that has been described as
+extraordinary, but which was the manner of the young men of the period,
+of D'Orsay and of Bulwer, at the time when Tennyson called the latter a
+band-box. Later his dress was more negligent, although always neat and
+fine.
+
+He was on pleasant terms with the distinguished people whom he met at
+his father's table, and was everywhere sought in society, when, at
+twenty, he began his career by the publication of "Vivian Grey," a
+novel, unlike anything that had been written, bristling with point and
+sally, and full of daring portraiture, and which made him immediately
+famous.
+
+His health, however, now gave way, a trouble in his head making it
+necessary to suspend work; and after a tour of Europe he remained for
+two or three years at Bradenham, near High Wycombe, his father's
+country-house, happy in the companionship of his father and mother, and
+his thoroughly congenial sister Sarah; passionately fond of country
+life, and during the time producing a novel, "The Young Duke," and three
+shorter works, "Popanilla," "The Infernal Marriage," and "Ixion in
+Heaven," gay and brilliant satires, sparkling with epigram and with
+beauty, and destined to live with the English language and English
+history.
+
+In company with Mr. Meredith, to whom his sister was promised in
+marriage, he journeyed for the next two years through the south of
+Europe and the East. Spain was among the first of his objective points,
+in the proud memory of his descent from the Spanish nobles who, driven
+out of Spain in the fifteenth century, went over to Venice, and changed
+the name belonging to the House of Dara to that of D'Israeli, the sons
+of Israel--a cognomen never borne by any other family--and remained
+there for two hundred years, going to England only when, Venice falling
+into decay, it was necessary to go where they could live in safety. He
+wrote the account of his travels to his sister in a series of
+affectionate and light-hearted letters, which charmingly betray his own
+personality, and which are full of the most vivid pictures of Malta,
+Corfu, Albania, the Plains of Troy, Turkey--which was kind to his race
+when a cruel and unreasoning world showed it only malignant hate, and
+which he regarded with the gratitude that never forsakes a Jew; Cyprus,
+the advantage of whose possession he early recognized; Egypt, whose
+destinies were afterward in his hand; and Jerusalem, the holy city of
+his people, his impressions of which "Tancred" afterward embodied,
+together with a foreshadowing of much of his policy in the East. The
+journey made him acquainted with the theatre of his intentions, and with
+the prepossessions which it gave or fostered, doubtless had a great
+influence upon his life and action. The close of the journey was
+darkened by the death of his companion, for whom his sister mourned as
+long as she lived.
+
+After his return home he wrote a new novel, "Contarini Fleming," a
+wonderful and poetical study of temperament, which Milman pronounced the
+equal of "Childe Harold," which Goethe and Heine and Beckford, the
+author of "Vathek," praised with delighted warmth. The "Wondrous Tale of
+Alroy," also, published a little later, with "The Rise of Iskander,"
+Beckford found stirring and full of intensity and charm.
+
+In 1832 Disraeli offered himself as an independent candidate for the
+borough of High Wycombe. The Government of course defeated him; and not
+until after several hot contests during the next few years, did he gain
+his end, taking his seat, then at the age of thirty-three, in Queen
+Victoria's first Parliament. The character of the struggle at these
+elections may be inferred from O'Connell's declaration in one of them,
+that in all probability this "Disraeli was the heir-at-law of the
+blasphemous thief that died on the cross." Disraeli challenged
+O'Connell's son, who failed to accept the challenge. But Disraeli never
+cherished a grudge; and only three weeks after he entered Parliament he
+risked his seat there by a pointed statement of the misgovernment of
+Ireland. Neither did O'Connell bear malice, and he said of one of
+Disraeli's speeches, somewhat later, that "it was all excellent except
+the peroration, and that was matchless." Not only in O'Connell's case
+was this impossibility in Disraeli's nature of doing anything ignoble
+shown; he secured, when in power, a life-pension to the widow and
+children of the artist Leech, who had for half a lifetime showered him
+with the cruel ridicule of the caricaturist; and he offered the Grand
+Cross of the Bath, and a life-income suitable to the maintenance of its
+dignity, to Carlyle, who had pursued him now with contempt and now with
+malignity. In the intervals of the electoral contests a series of
+letters to _The Times_, filled with biting sarcasm, under the signature
+of "Runnymede;" a novel--"Henrietta Temple;" a "Vindication of the
+British Constitution," dedicated to Lord Lyndhurst; a contrasting
+presentation of the characters of Byron and Shelley, in the form of
+romance, under the title of "Venetia," sufficiently occupied Disraeli's
+time. He was, meanwhile, in the vortex of gay social life, a member of
+the Carlton Club, the friend of Count D'Orsay, Lady Blessington, Mrs.
+Norton, Lady Dufferin, Bulwer, Tom Moore, Lady Morgan, of Lyndhurst, of
+the public men and of the men of fashion, and he was courted by princes
+and pretty women. He had come to Parliament prepared as few or none
+before him, with coolness, courage, wit, and eloquence, and with a
+far-seeing sagacity that enabled him to make the most of something like
+the gift of prophecy. But he was handicapped with the fact of his race,
+with his debts, which, although he was not personally extravagant or at
+all self-indulgent, had become heavy, with the absence of a constituency
+or a popular cause; and having no landed property, nor belonging even
+remotely to any great family, he was looked upon both by Whig and Tory
+as more or less of an adventurer.
+
+Like almost all young men, his first preferences and professions were
+for reform. But brought face to face with responsibility he modified his
+opinions; and the great power and place that he ultimately won, were won
+through the originality, the thought, the force, and the independence
+that dared act without reference to his own advantage, and the splendid
+courage that was undismayed by any odds. Although he could have acquired
+office in the earlier years by withholding open expression of his
+opinions, he preferred his freedom; and although always in want of
+money, he never made a penny by means of the place or the power that he
+won, or even through the legitimate opportunities which these offered.
+
+His first speech in Parliament was attended by peculiar circumstances. A
+number of the ruder members of the opposition were determined that he
+should not be heard, and they drowned every sentence in derisive cheers
+and mocking yells. Disraeli bore it with dignity, but as it was
+impossible to proceed in the noisy and barbarous din, he closed by
+saying that he had begun several times many things, and had succeeded at
+last; and then in a tone that resounded even above the clamor, for he
+had at all times a sonorous and impressive voice, he cried, "I will sit
+down now. But the time will come when you will hear me!" Of this speech
+Peel said it was anything but failure; and Sir John Campbell, the
+Attorney-General, assured him that there was a lively desire in the
+opposing party to hear him, but they were hindered by a coterie over
+whom they had no control. In describing the scene, in a letter to his
+sister that night, with great frankness, as disastrous, Disraeli signed
+himself, "Yours in very good spirits." When he spoke, a week afterward,
+he commanded the attention of the House.
+
+Disraeli had always declared that no government should have his support
+which did not seek to improve the condition of the poor; and as he
+looked at the British constitution and social construction, he believed
+that the Conservatives were the best able to accomplish this end.
+Because he was a Jew he was none the less an Englishman, and he had the
+true interests of the United Kingdom at heart. He held that the strength
+of England lay in the land, and he supported the corn laws from stern
+principle. "It will be an exception to the principles which seem
+hitherto to have ruled society," he exclaimed, "if you can maintain the
+success at which you aim, without the possession of that permanence and
+stability which the territorial principle alone can afford. Although you
+may for a moment flourish after their destruction, although your ports
+may be filled with shipping, your factories smoke on every plain, and
+your forges flame in every city, I see no reason why you should form an
+exception to that which the page of history has mournfully recorded,
+that you should not fade like Tyrian dye, and moulder like the Venetian
+palaces."
+
+He was already, in 1839, to a certain extent, a power in Parliament,
+launching the shafts of his sarcasm alike at the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer or an Under Secretary; and in this year he published his
+tragedy of "Count Alarcos," and married Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, the wealthy
+widow of his friend and colleague, several years his senior, but through
+thirty years his invaluable friend and _confidante_. In dedicating
+"Sybil" to her, he said, "I would inscribe this work to one whose noble
+spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathize with the
+suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often encouraged and whose taste
+and judgment have ever guided its pages, the most severe of critics, but
+a perfect wife." Her devotion to him was illustrated by her behavior one
+night when, on the eve of an exciting session, she drove with him to
+Palace Yard, and her hand being crushed in the carriage-door, she gave
+no sign, lest it should disturb his train of thought and lessen his
+power in the approaching debate, and endured her agony without blenching
+till he had left her. He rewarded such devotion in kind, his happiest
+hours were those spent in her society, and perhaps the proudest moment
+of his life was that when, the Queen having offered him a peerage, he
+declined it for himself but accepted it for his wife, and made her
+Viscountess Beaconsfield in her own right.
+
+Immediately upon their marriage Mr. Disraeli travelled with his wife for
+a couple of months on the continent; and returning to London he received
+the congratulations of Peel, Wellington, and others, and began to
+entertain the party chiefs; he dined privately with Louis Philippe in
+Paris, shook hands with the King of Hanover in London, and in every way
+took his social and personal position firmly. In Parliament he crossed
+swords with Palmerston, refused his support to Peel's Coercion Bill in
+relation to Ireland, characterizing it as one of those measures which to
+introduce was degrading, and to oppose disgraceful; later he maintained
+that as revolution was the only remedy for the wrongs of Ireland, and as
+her connection with England prevented revolution, therefore it was the
+duty of England to effect by policy what revolution would effect by
+force, and as he had defended the Chartist petition, so in turn, when
+the Eastern Question came up, he defended Turkey; in all this making it
+supremely plain that he never was the one to truckle to rank or
+authority. He was the head of the small party of Young Englanders; he
+was feared and respected by both the larger parties; and the Commons,
+whose assemblage he had scornfully proclaimed a thing of past history,
+if they did not choose, had presently to accept him for their leader.
+
+Henry Hope, entertaining a number of their friends at Deepdene, urged
+Disraeli to treat the questions of common interest in a literary form,
+and the powerful works--rather treatises than novels--"Coningsby" and
+"Sybil," appeared; and these were followed by "Tancred," in which the
+curious reader will find much of Disraeli's Eastern policy indicated.
+These three books the author regarded as a trilogy upon English
+politics, principles, and possibilities.
+
+As a debater, then and always, Disraeli was keen, ready, and
+unanswerable; as a satirist, swift, subtle, and finished. His epigrams
+were among the "jewels that on the stretched forefinger of all time
+sparkle forever." It was he that said "Destiny is our will, and our will
+is nature." At another time he said, "The critics--they are those who
+have failed in literature and in art." When Prince Napoleon was slain
+he exclaimed, "A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our
+generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a
+great European dynasty." Every one remembers the startling sentence in
+which he condemned Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy of 1868: "We have
+legalized confiscation; we have consecrated sacrilege; we have condoned
+treason." And his power of picturesque mockery appears in a speech made,
+in 1872, immediately before the downfall of the Gladstone ministry: "As
+I sat opposite the Treasury bench the ministers reminded me of those
+marine landscapes not unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold
+a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid
+crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional
+earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea." His
+attacks on Peel have been pronounced to be among the most remarkable
+speeches in the annals of the British Legislature. In 1849, at which
+period also he wrote the biography of his father and the memoir of his
+friend Lord George Bentinck, he was the recognized leader of the
+Conservatives. When Peel was overthrown, Disraeli, who had overthrown
+him, after a brief period, succeeded to his place.
+
+It was not with cordiality that the Conservatives submitted to
+Disraeli's direction. He had carried himself in relation to them with an
+unsurpassed independence. He was of a people whom they held in contempt,
+and whose admission to Parliament he had enforced. In his speeches he
+had spared none of them. He had no friend at court, and he was still
+very young. But there was no help for it--he was master of the
+situation, and master of them. He was now thrice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer; and for a quarter of a century he led the opposition in the
+House of Commons, except in the brief intervals when he was identified
+with the Government. In leading the opposition he was never an
+obstructionist; and he lent his aid to every generous measure, such as
+the reduction of the hours of labor, the protection of factory children,
+the improvement of the homes of the poor, the extension of the suffrage.
+He refused English interference on the side of the South during the
+Civil War in the United States of America; he hindered disastrous
+hostilities with France at the time of Louis Napoleon's _coup-d'état_;
+he would have prevented the Crimean War had it been possible; and he
+would not allow retaliation in kind for the Sepoy atrocities. He did the
+most and the best with his opportunities. His policy was always to
+develop and sustain English character. "There is no country," he said in
+a remarkable warning to the House, "at the present moment that exists
+under the same circumstances and under the same conditions as the people
+of this realm. You have an ancient, powerful, and richly endowed Church,
+and perfect religious liberty. You have unbroken order and complete
+freedom. You have landed estates as large as the Romans, combined with a
+commercial enterprise such as Carthage and Venice united never equalled.
+And you must remember that this peculiar country, with these strong
+contrasts, is not governed by force. It is governed by a most singular
+series of traditionary influences, which generation after generation
+cherishes and preserves, because it knows that they embalm custom and
+represent law. And with this you have created the greatest empire of
+modern times. You have amassed a capital of fabulous amount. You have
+devised and sustained a system of credit still more marvellous, and you
+have established a scheme so vast and complicated of labor and industry
+that the history of the world affords no parallel to it. And these
+mighty creations are out of all proportion to the essential and
+indigenous elements and resources of the country. If you destroy that
+state of society, remember this: _England cannot begin again._"
+
+In religion Disraeli accepted Christianity fully--but as a completion of
+the Hebrew revelation. He coupled in thought and word "the sacred
+heights of Sinai and of Calvary." He was proud of his great people, and
+never hesitated to declare his pride. "All the north of Europe worship a
+Jew," he said, "and all the south of Europe worship a Jew's mother." In
+spite of the fact that he was an Asiatic by nature, he despised what he
+called the pagan ceremonies of the ritualists, and distrusted what he
+felt to be the atheistic tendency of science.
+
+Shortly after his father's death, Mr. Disraeli had purchased with his
+paternal inheritance the manor of Hughenden, near Bradenham, in whose
+park his wife erected a monument to his father; and there, in the
+intervals of public business, he found quiet and enjoyment with his
+peacocks and swans and owls, his gardening, his tenantry. His books
+brought him in great sums of money; a friend, Mrs. Brydges Willyams, of
+Torquay, after twelve years of romantic intimacy with him and his wife,
+bequeathed him a fortune, and lies buried by the side of himself and
+Lady Beaconsfield at Hughenden. His circumstances were easy, his fame
+was assured, and when he went down to Parliament for the first time
+after he became Prime Minister, the crowds outside cheered him to the
+echo, the crowds within took up the acclaim, and the House that once had
+silenced him with derisive mockery, hailed with wild welcome this man
+who, without money, without birth, without support, had made himself, by
+force of will, courage, genius, loyalty, and truth, the ruler of the
+British Empire.
+
+While he was again in opposition Mr. Disraeli took occasion to write
+"Lothair," a precise portraiture of the British aristocracy and a clear
+presentation of its relation to the Church, the spirit of revolution,
+the intrigues of the ultramontanes, the simplicity of true religion;
+every page splendid with wit and with picturesque charm. During another
+period of enforced leisure he wrote "Endymion," in which there are some
+slight autobiographical features.
+
+Succeeded by Mr. Gladstone as prime minister, a half-dozen years later
+Disraeli was again at the helm. The Eastern question was then one of
+passionate interest; and when Russia was dictating terms of peace with
+the Ottoman, Mr. Disraeli insisted on their revision at a Conference of
+all the Powers, held at Berlin, which he attended in person, and where
+he obliged Russia to yield, and won a great diplomatic victory.[17] He
+returned to London, said Mr. Froude, "in a blaze of glory, bearing
+peace with honor." He was made Earl of Beaconsfield, and given the
+Garter; and before he went into retirement again, after the nation had
+revived its interest in imperialism, he had acquired the mastery of the
+Suez Canal, and he had annexed Cyprus, and, by giving the queen the
+additional title of Empress of India, this child of the Orient had made
+of Great Britain an Oriental empire. He had ruled the country for six
+consecutive years when he next went into retirement. He died shortly
+afterward, from the effect of a severe cold, aggravating an attack of
+gout, on April 19, 1881.
+
+         [Footnote 17: In the painting of the Berlin Conference by
+         Werner, Prince Gortschakoff is seated at the left with his hand
+         on Disraeli's arm. Prince Bismarck in the foreground is shaking
+         hands with Count Schuvaloff, while Count Andrassy stands beside
+         them. Lord Russell is seated a little farther to the right;
+         behind him on the other side of the table is Lord Salisbury.
+         The figure on the extreme right is Mehemet Ali.]
+
+In public or in private Disraeli never did a dishonorable action. He
+never attacked the weak or the defenceless, but singled out the proudest
+adversary. He never held malice. His impulses were always the most
+generous, his ideas and his purposes of the largest. He desired in all
+things the good of his country, and he sought it by what seemed to him,
+whether or not he was mistaken, the surest and loftiest ways.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
+
+By JUSTIN MCCARTHY
+
+(Born 1809)
+
+[Illustration: Axes. [TN]]
+
+
+William Ewart Gladstone, statesman, orator, and author, was born in
+Rodney Street, Liverpool, on December 29, 1809. He is the fourth son of
+Sir John Gladstone (1764-1851), a well-known, and it might almost be
+said a famous, Liverpool merchant, who sat for some years in Parliament,
+and was a devoted friend and supporter of George Canning. Mr. Gladstone
+is of Scotch descent, on both sides, and has declared more than once in
+a public speech that the blood that runs in his veins is exclusively
+Scottish. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. He
+became a student at Oxford in 1829, and graduated as a double
+first-class, in 1831. He had distinguished himself greatly as a speaker
+in the Oxford Union Debating Society, and had before that time written
+much in the _Eton Miscellany_, which indeed he helped to found. He
+appears to have begun his career as a strong opponent of all advanced
+measures of political reform. In the Oxford Union he proposed a vote of
+censure on the government of Lord Grey for introducing the great Reform
+Bill which was carried in 1832, and on the Duke of Wellington, because
+of his having yielded to the claims for Catholic emancipation. He also
+opposed a motion in favor of immediate emancipation of the slaves in the
+West Indian islands. He soon became known as a young man of promise, who
+would be able to render good service to the Conservative party in the
+great struggle which seemed likely to be forced upon them--a struggle,
+as many thought, for their very existence. It was a time of intense
+political emotion. Passion and panic alike prevailed. The first great
+"leap in the dark" had been taken; the Reform Bill was carried, the
+sceptre of power had passed away from the aristocracy and the privileged
+ranks to the middle and lower middle classes. The Conservative party
+were looking eagerly out for young men of promise to stiffen their ranks
+in the new parliament, the first elected under the Reform Bill, the
+first which the middle class had their due share in creating; the first
+in which such cities as Manchester and Liverpool and Birmingham were
+allowed to have representation.
+
+Mr. Gladstone was invited to contest the burgh of Newark in the
+Conservative interest, and he had the support of the great Newcastle
+family. He stood for Newark, and he was elected. He delivered his maiden
+speech on a subject connected with the great movement for the
+emancipation of the West Indian slaves; but he seems to have confined
+himself mainly to a defence of the manner in which his father's estates
+were managed, the course of the debate having brought out some charge
+against the management of the elder Gladstone's possessions in one of
+the West Indian islands. The new orator appears to have made a decided
+impression on the House of Commons. His manner, his voice, his diction,
+his fluency were alike the subject of praise. Mr. Gladstone evidently
+continued to impress the House of Commons with a sense of his great
+parliamentary capacity. We get at this fact rather obliquely; for we do
+not hear of his creating any great sensation in debate; and to this day
+some very old members of the House insist that for a long time he was
+generally regarded as merely a fluent speaker, who talked like one
+reading from a book. But on the other hand, we find that he is described
+by Macaulay, in 1839, as "the rising hope" of the "stern and unbending
+Tories," and the whole tone of Macaulay's essay--a criticism of
+Gladstone's first serious attempt at authorship, his book on the
+relations between church and state--shows that the critic treats the
+author as a young man of undoubted mark and position in the House of
+Commons.
+
+[Illustration: Hawarden Castle, the home of Gladstone.]
+
+In December, 1834, Sir Robert Peel appointed Gladstone to the office of
+a Junior Lord of the Treasury. In the next year Peel, who was quick to
+appreciate the great abilities and the sound commercial knowledge of his
+new recruit, gave to him the more important post of Under-secretary for
+the Colonies. Gladstone looked up to Peel with intense admiration. There
+was much to draw the two men together. Knowledge of finance, thorough
+understanding and firm grasp of the principles on which a nation's
+business must be conducted--perhaps, it may be added, a common origin in
+the middle class--these points of resemblance might well have become
+points of attraction. But there were other and still higher sympathies
+to bring them close. The elder and the younger man were alike earnest,
+profoundly earnest; filled with conscience in every movement of their
+political and private lives; a good deal too earnest and serious,
+perhaps, for most of the parliamentary colleagues by whom they were
+surrounded. Mr. Gladstone always remained devoted to Peel, and knew him
+perhaps more thoroughly and intimately than any other man was privileged
+to do. Peel went out of office very soon after he had made Mr. Gladstone
+Under-secretary for the Colonies. Lord John Russell had brought forward
+a series of motions on the ominous subject of the Irish Church, and Peel
+was defeated and resigned. It is almost needless to say that Gladstone
+went with him. Peel came back again in office in 1841, on the fall of
+the Melbourne administration, and Mr. Gladstone became Vice-president of
+the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, and was at the same time
+sworn in a member of the Privy Council. In 1843 he became President of
+the Board of Trade. Early in 1845 he resigned his office because he
+could not approve of the policy of the government with regard to the
+Maynooth grant.
+
+The great struggle on the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was
+now coming on. It would be impossible that a man with Mr. Gladstone's
+turn of mind and early training could have continued a protectionist,
+when once he applied his intellect and his experience to a practical
+examination of the subject. Once again he went with his leader. Peel saw
+that there was nothing for it but to accept the principles of the Free
+Trade party, who had been bearing the fiery cross of their peaceful and
+noble agitation all through the country, and were gathering adherents
+wherever they went.
+
+It is a somewhat curious fact that Mr. Gladstone was not in the House of
+Commons during the eventful session when the great battle of free trade
+was fought and won. In thorough sympathy with Peel, he had joined the
+government again as Colonial Secretary. Knowing that he could no longer
+be in political sympathy with the Duke of Newcastle, whose influence had
+obtained for him the representation of Newark, he had given up his seat,
+and did not come into Parliament again until the struggle was over. At
+the general elections in 1847, Mr. Gladstone, still accepted as a Tory,
+was chosen one of the representatives for the University of Oxford.
+
+Up to the time of the abolition of the Corn Laws, or at least of the
+movement which led to their abolition, Mr. Gladstone had been a Tory of
+a rather old-fashioned school. The corn-law agitation probably first set
+him thinking over the possible defects of the social and legislative
+system, and showed him the necessity for reform at least in one
+direction. The interests of religion itself at one time seemed to him to
+be bound up with the principles of the Tory party; and no doubt there
+was a period of his career when the principle of protection would have
+seemed to him as sacred as any other part of the creed. With a mind like
+his, inquiry once started, must go on. There was always something
+impetuous in the workings of his intellect, as well as the rush of his
+sympathy. He startled Europe, and indeed the whole civilized world, by
+the terrible and only too truthful description which he gave, in 1851,
+of the condition of the prisons of Naples under the king who was known
+by the nickname of "Bomba," and the cruelties which were inflicted on
+political prisoners in particular. Again and again, in Mr. Gladstone's
+public life we shall see him carried away by the same generous and
+passionate emotion on behalf of the victims of despotic cruelty in any
+part of the world. Burke himself could not be more sympathetic, more
+earnest, or more strong.
+
+By the death of Sir Robert Peel, in 1850, Mr. Gladstone had lost a
+trusted leader, and a dear friend. But the loss of his leader had
+brought Gladstone himself more directly to the front. It was not till
+after Peel's death that he compelled the House of Commons and the
+country to recognize in him a supreme master of parliamentary debate.
+The first really great speech made by Mr. Gladstone in Parliament--the
+first speech which would fairly challenge comparison with any of the
+finest speeches of a past day--was made in the debate on Mr. Disraeli's
+budget in the winter of 1852, the first session of the new Parliament.
+Mr. Disraeli knew well that his government was doomed to fall. He knew
+that it could not survive that debate. It was always one of Mr.
+Disraeli's peculiarities that he could fight most brilliantly when he
+knew that his cause was already lost. That which would have disheartened
+and disarmed other men, seemed only to animate him with all Macbeth's
+wild courage of despair. Never did his gift of satire, of invective, and
+of epithet show to more splendid effect than in the speech with which he
+closed his part of the debate, and mercilessly assailed his opponents.
+Mr. Disraeli sat down at two o'clock in the morning, and then Mr.
+Gladstone rose to reply to him. Most men in the House, even on the
+opposition side, were filled with the belief that it would be impossible
+to make any real impression on the House after such a speech as that of
+Mr. Disraeli. Long before Mr. Gladstone had concluded, everyone admitted
+that the effect of Mr. Disraeli's speech had been outdone and outshone.
+From that hour Mr. Gladstone was recognized as one of the great historic
+orators of the English Parliament--a man to rank with Bolingbroke and
+Chatham and Pitt and Fox. With that speech began the long parliamentary
+duel between these two great masters of debate, Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
+Disraeli, which was carried on for four and twenty years.
+
+On the fall of the short-lived Tory administration, Lord Aberdeen came
+into office. He formed the famous Coalition Ministry. Lord Palmerston
+took what most people would have thought the uncongenial office of Home
+Secretary. Lord John Russell became Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Mr.
+Gladstone, who with others of the "Peelites," as they were called, had
+joined the new administration, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. His
+speech on the introduction of his first budget was waited for with great
+expectation, but it distanced all expectation. It occupied several hours
+in delivery, but none of those who listened to it would have wished it
+to be shortened by a sentence. It may be questioned whether even the
+younger Pitt, with all his magic of voice, and style, and phrase, could
+lend such charm to each successive budget as Mr. Gladstone was able to
+do. A budget speech from Mr. Gladstone came to be expected with the
+same kind of keen, artistic longing as waits the first performance of a
+new opera by some great composer. A budget speech by Mr. Gladstone was a
+triumph in the realm of the fine arts.
+
+The Crimean War broke up the Coalition Ministry; but the year 1859 saw
+Lord Palmerston back again in office, and Mr. Gladstone in his old place
+as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The budget of 1860 was remarkable, as it
+contained the provisions for the reduction of the wine duties and the
+whole simplified system of taxation intended to apply to the commercial
+treaty which Mr. Cobden had succeeded in persuading the Emperor of the
+French to accept. Mr. Gladstone also introduced a provision for the
+abolition of the duty on paper--a duty which was simply a tax upon
+reading, a tax upon popular education. The House of Lords struck out
+this clause; a somewhat impassioned popular agitation followed; and in
+the next session the Lords passed the measure for the repeal of the duty
+without offering any further opposition. The death of Lord Palmerston,
+in 1865, called Lord Russell to the position of prime-minister, and made
+Mr. Gladstone leader of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's mind had
+long been turning in the direction of an extension, or rather expansion,
+of the suffrage. It was assumed by everyone that Lord Russell and Mr.
+Gladstone being now at the head of affairs, a reform bill would be sure
+to come. It did come; a very moderate and cautious bill, enlarging the
+area of the franchise in boroughs and counties. The Conservative party
+opposed it, and were supported in their opposition by a considerable
+section of the Liberals, who thought the measure was going too far on
+the road to universal suffrage and the rule of the democracy. The bill
+was defeated, and the Liberal statesman went out of office (1866). Mr.
+Gladstone had carried his point, however, for when Mr. Disraeli came
+into office he saw that a reform bill was inevitable, and he prepared
+his party, or most of them, for the course which would have to be taken.
+In the very next session Mr. Disraeli introduced a reform bill of his
+own, which was enlarged and expanded until it became practically a
+measure of household suffrage for cities and boroughs.
+
+Somewhere about this time the attention of Mr. Gladstone began to be
+attracted to the condition of Ireland. The distressed and distracted
+state of Ireland, the unceasing popular agitation and discontent, the
+Fenian insurrection, brought under England's very eyes by the schemes
+for an attack on Chester Castle--all these evidences of malady in
+Ireland's system led Mr. Gladstone to the conviction that the time had
+come when statesmanship must seek through Parliament for some process of
+remedy. Mr. Gladstone came after a while to the conclusion that the
+Protestant State Church in Ireland must be disestablished and
+disendowed, that the Irish land tenure system must be reformed, and that
+better provision must be made for the higher education of the Catholics
+of Ireland. He made short work with the Irish State Church. He defeated
+the government on a series of resolutions foreshadowing his policy; the
+government appealed to the country, the Liberals returned to power, and
+Mr. Gladstone became prime minister (1868). In his first session of
+government he disestablished and disendowed the State Church in Ireland.
+In the next session he passed a measure which for the first time
+recognized the right of the Irish tenant to the value of the
+improvements he had himself made at his own cost and labor. Never
+probably was there such a period of energetic reform in almost every
+direction as that which set in when Mr. Gladstone became prime-minister.
+For the first time in English history a system of national education was
+established. The Ballot Act was passed for the protection of voters. The
+system of purchase in the army was abolished by something, it must be
+owned, a little in the nature of a _coup-d'état_. Then Mr. Gladstone
+introduced a measure to improve the condition of university education in
+Ireland. This bill was intended almost altogether for the benefit of
+Irish Catholics; but it did not go far enough to satisfy the demands of
+the Catholics, and in some of its provisions was declared incompatible
+with the principles of their Church. The Catholic members of the House
+of Commons voted against it, and with that help the Conservatives were
+able to throw out the bill (1873). Mr. Gladstone tendered his
+resignation of office. But Mr. Disraeli declined just then to take any
+responsibility, and Mr. Gladstone had to remain at the head of affairs.
+The great wave of reforming energy had, however, subsided in the
+country. The period of reaction had come. The by-elections began to tell
+against the Liberals. Mr. Gladstone suddenly dissolved Parliament and
+appealed to the country, and the answer to his appeal was the election
+of a Conservative majority. Mr. Disraeli came back to power, and Mr.
+Gladstone retired from the leadership of the House of Commons (1874).
+
+For a while Mr. Gladstone occupied himself in literary and historical
+studies, and he published essays and pamphlets. But even in his literary
+career Mr. Gladstone would appear to have always kept glancing at the
+House of Commons, as Charles V. in his monastery kept his eyes on the
+world of politics outside. The atrocious conduct of the Turkish
+officials in Bulgaria aroused his generous anger, and he flung down his
+books and rushed out from his study to preach a crusade against the
+Ottoman power in Europe. The waters rose and lifted him, whether he
+would or no, into power. The Parliament which had gone on from the
+spring of 1874 was dissolved in the spring of 1880, and the Liberals
+came in with an overwhelming majority. The period of reaction had gone,
+and the period of action was come again. Mr. Gladstone had to become
+prime-minister once more. His name was, to adopt the phraseology of
+continental politics, the only name that had come out of the voting
+urns.
+
+[Illustration: Gladstone's first home rule bill.]
+
+It was an unpropitious hour at which to return to office. There were
+troubles in Egypt; there was impending war in the Soudan and in South
+Africa. There was something very like an agrarian revolution going on in
+Ireland; and the Home Rule party in the House of Commons was under new,
+resolute, and uncompromising leadership. Mr. Gladstone succeeded,
+nevertheless, in carrying what might be called a vast scheme of
+parliamentary reform, a scheme which established something very near to
+universal suffrage, arranged the constituencies into proportionate
+divisions, extinguished several small boroughs, leaving their electors
+to vote in their county division, and in general completed the work
+begun in 1832, and carried further in 1867. It is to the credit of the
+Conservative party that after a while they co-operated cordially with
+Mr. Gladstone in his reforming work of 1885. This was a triumph for Mr.
+Gladstone of an entirely satisfactory character; but he had sore trials
+to counterbalance it. He found himself drawn into a series of wars in
+North and South Africa; and he, whose generous sympathy had of late been
+so much given to Ireland, and who had introduced and carried another
+land bill for Ireland, found that in endeavoring to pass the measures of
+coercion, which the authorities in Dublin Castle deemed advisable, he
+had to encounter the fiercest opposition from the Irish members of
+Parliament and the vast bulk of the Irish population. That time must
+have been, for a man of Mr. Gladstone's nature, a time of darkness and
+of pain. Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were assassinated in
+Dublin; General Gordon perished at Khartoum. In the end the Irish
+members coalesced with the Conservatives in a vote on a clause in the
+budget, and Mr. Gladstone's government was defeated. Lord Salisbury came
+back into office, but not just then into power. He was in a most
+precarious position, depending on the course which might be taken by the
+Irish members. He was out of office in a few months, and then the
+general elections came on. These elections were to give the first
+opportunity to the newly made voters under Mr. Gladstone's latest reform
+act; and these voters sent him back into office and apparently into
+power once again. The use Mr. Gladstone made of office and of power
+astonished his enemies, and startled and shocked not a few of his
+friends. His government had had, in the years between 1881 and 1884, to
+fight a fierce battle against the policy of obstruction organized by Mr.
+Parnell, the leader of the Home Rule party. The obstruction was
+organized to prevent or delay the passing of coercion measures, and to
+force the attention of the British public to the claims of Ireland. The
+struggles that were carried on will be always memorable in the history
+of Parliament. The fiercest passions were aroused on both sides, and at
+one time Ireland seemed to have come to regard Mr. Gladstone as her
+worst enemy. Many a statesman in his place might have allowed himself to
+be governed by a feeling of disappointment and resentment. But when the
+elections under the new and extended Reform Bill were held, and the
+Irish Nationalist party came back 87 members out of the whole Irish
+representation of 103, Mr. Gladstone made up his mind that the voice of
+the Irish people was in favor of Home Rule, and he resolved to stake
+power and popularity on an acceptance of their demand. In March, 1886,
+he brought in a measure to give a statutory Parliament to Ireland. A
+sudden and serious split took place in his party; some of his most
+influential colleagues declared against him; the bill was rejected on
+the second reading, and Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country, only to
+be defeated at the general elections.
+
+Opinion is still divided--may be divided forever--as to the wisdom of
+his policy; but no impartial man can deny him the credit of his
+sacrifice and the sincerity of his intentions. Then the Conservative
+party came back into office, and with the help of Liberals who had
+declined to follow Mr. Gladstone, came back with a powerful majority,
+Mr. Gladstone leading the opposition. At the general election of 1892,
+his party, including both sections of Irish Nationalists, secured a
+majority of above forty over the combined Conservatives and Liberal
+Unionists. Under his leadership a home-rule bill for Ireland was passed
+by the Commons in spite of the most bitter opposition. It was rejected
+almost unanimously by the House of Lords; and for a time it seemed
+probable that the Liberals would attack the very existence of that body.
+Perhaps this was Mr. Gladstone's intention for he introduced several
+popular radical bills. But time was beginning to tell upon the Grand Old
+Man; he was now eighty-four years old, and he felt himself unequal to
+the gigantic struggle. He resigned his offices and retired into private
+life in March, 1894.
+
+Mr. Gladstone will find his fame as a statesman and an orator. We have
+taken little account here of his contributions to literature; his
+Homeric studies, his various essays in political and literary, in
+ecclesiastical, and even theological, criticism. For another man these
+in themselves would have made a not inconsiderable reputation; but to
+the world they are interesting chiefly as illustrating a marvellous
+mental activity stretching itself out in every direction; unresting in
+the best sense of the word; incapable of settling down into even
+momentary idleness. "Repos ailleurs" seems to have been the motto of Mr.
+Gladstone's career--let rest come elsewhere--this is the world of
+activity and of labor. His work as a statesman has been almost unique;
+probably there is no other English minister who leaves behind him so
+long and so successful a record of practical legislation; and, as we
+have seen, some of the best legislation accomplished by his political
+opponents was initiated by him, was his own work taken out of his hands.
+As a parliamentary debater he never had a superior--it is doubtful
+whether he ever had an equal--in the whole of the political history of
+the British Empire. There have been, even in our time, orators who now
+and then shot their arrows higher; but so ready, so skilful, and so
+unerring an archer as he, taken all around, never drew bow on modern
+parliamentary battle-ground. Nature had given him an exquisite voice,
+sweet, powerful, easily penetrating, capable of filling without effort
+any public building however large, vibrating to every emotion. The
+incessant training of the House of Commons turned nature's gifts to
+their fullest account. He was almost too fluent; his eloquence sometimes
+carried him away on its impassioned tide; but his listeners were seldom
+inclined to find fault with this magnificent exuberance. We should be
+inclined to rank him as one of the greatest orators, and the very
+greatest debater, of the House of Commons.
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE VON BISMARCK[18]
+
+By PRINCE OUTISKY
+
+(1815-1898)
+
+         [Footnote 18: This sketch was written by Prince Outisky in
+         1885. The Emperor William I. died in March, 1888, and his son a
+         few months later. The views of the young Emperor William II.,
+         thus advanced to the throne, did not at all coincide with those
+         of Bismarck, and he retired into private life in 1890. Four
+         years later a somewhat ostentatious reconciliation took place
+         between him and the emperor; but Bismarck did not return to
+         power, his great age perhaps incapacitating him for active
+         work.
+
+         As regards his early life, he was born at Schönhausen, April 1,
+         1815, educated at Göttingen, Berlin, and Griefswald, and at
+         first entered the army. He became a member of the General Diet
+         in 1847, was successively ambassador to Austria, Russia, and
+         France, and in 1862 became Minister of the King's House and
+         Foreign Affairs in Prussia. He was created a count in 1865; and
+         in 1871, having achieved his great aim in the coronation of his
+         king as Emperor of United Germany at Versailles, he became
+         Chancellor of the Empire and Prince von Bismarck-Schönhausen.]
+
+[Illustration: Bismarck. [TN]]
+
+
+The "aureole of unpopularity" which encircled Bismarck's brow during
+four short years of inaugural premiership has, to all appearance,
+vanished under the influence of unbroken success, making room throughout
+the world for a confiding deference to his capacity and forethought,
+that every year seems to intensify. It is he, in the belief of most
+governments, who has preserved to them what never was more indispensable
+for their very existence--peace in Europe. With supreme adroitness, he
+avoids entanglements for himself and his country, bears many an affront
+patiently before retorting, keeps up the appearance of a good
+understanding after its substance has long passed away, but, when fairly
+engaged in diplomatic contention, lays out his field in a manner that
+insures success. People agree, therefore, that it is best to take him as
+he is. And it is in the nature of man when he has once accorded that
+favor to a fellow-creature, to "take him as he is," that he ends by
+liking him. Thus Bismarck, of all living men the most unlikely to
+succeed in the race after a world-wide popularity, is probably at this
+moment the best-liked man in either hemisphere.
+
+His own countrymen have shown a decided indisposition to admit him among
+their household gods. To them he was, from the commencement of his
+political career, the very embodiment of what had gradually become the
+most objectionable type of Teuton existence--the unmitigated squireen or
+Junker, with his poverty and arrogance, with his hunger and thirst
+after position and good living, with his hatred for the upstart liberal
+burgher class. "Away with the cities! I hope I may yet live to see them
+levelled to the ground." Is there not a ring of many centuries of social
+strife, so laboriously kept down by the reigning dynasty, in these
+stupendous words, which were pronounced by Bismarck in 1847, when among
+the leaders of the conservatives in the first embryo parliament of the
+Prussian monarchy? And if uncongenial to the generation of Prussians
+among whom he had grown up, how infinitely greater was the dislike
+against him of South Germans, more gifted, as a rule, by nature, to whom
+the name of Prussian is synonymous of all that is strait-laced and
+overweening and unnatural and--generally inconvenient.
+
+Little of that sentiment remains among the Germans of the present day.
+Such strangers as have had the opportunity of observing the attitude of
+the nation during the late celebration of his seventieth birthday, agree
+in declaring them to have been spontaneous, enthusiastic, and at times
+almost aggressive. Some tell us, to be sure, that the farther from
+Berlin the more gushing has been the ecstasy. The electors of Professor
+Virchow and of Herr Löwe, in whose electoral districts a torchlight
+procession on the eve of Bismarck's birthday had to elbow its way
+through immense crowds, must have kept at home. The municipality of
+Berlin, a model body of civic administrators, sent a birthday letter to
+their "honorary citizen," but abstained, with proper self-respect, from
+tendering their congratulations through a deputation. No Berlin citizen
+of any importance had a hand in the management of the procession. Yet,
+if thousands kept aloof, tens of thousands shared the national
+enthusiasm--students of universities chiefly, but older men too, even in
+distrustful, radical Berlin. And as for South Germany, where the gospel
+of protection seems, perhaps, to be more firmly believed in than any
+other, we read of trains to Berlin taken by storm, banquets,
+processions, chorus-singing--of real, heartfelt, rapturous
+effervescence.
+
+There cannot be a shadow of doubt that, to numberless non-Prussians at
+any rate, the new era of German unity has brought a symbol of greatness
+not before known, and that they worship in Bismarck the hero who has
+given them a country to love, who has delivered them from the pettiness
+and self-satisfaction of Philistinism.
+
+Now, if this be so--if, indeed, the countries of the world at large, and
+Germany in particular, acknowledge him almost affectionately as the
+leading statesman of the day, would it not be an interesting study to
+examine the degree of merit due to him personally, the character of the
+present administration, and what lasting good or lasting evil may be
+expected from this new phase of European politics? The subject, through
+its weight and its bulk alike, excludes full treatment within the limits
+of an essay. Nevertheless, since it intertwines itself with nearly every
+other question of moment, a few remarks by an outsider may be
+acceptable.
+
+[Illustration: Proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles.]
+
+None but the incorrigibly childish can be inclined to ascribe to good
+luck a prosperous career extending over near twenty-three years, spent
+under the fiercest glare of the world's sunshine. No minister of any
+age was more bitterly assailed or opposed, even at the court of which he
+is now the acknowledged major domus in the manner of the Pepins and
+other Thum-Meiers of the Frankish monarchy. The king's brother, Prince
+Charles, detested the innovator whose opinions on the necessity of
+Austria being removed from membership in a remodelled German
+confederation, had for years leaked out from the despatch-boxes of the
+Foreign Office. Even the Junkers, whose dauntless leader he had been
+before and after the revolutionary events of 1848, shrank instinctively
+from a man who could not be credited with veneration for the Holy
+Alliance. It is remembered in Berlin that, on the nomination of one of
+them, well at court, a diplomatist of some standing, to the post of
+under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, the new member of the
+government confessed to his friends that he accepted the post _in spite_
+of Bismarck's "foreign" policy, and only in consideration of his
+contempt for parliamentarism. The queen, on the other hand, brought up
+in principles of constitutional government, and strongly attached to the
+English alliance, viewed with horror the bold pugilist who was daily
+assailing, not the persons only of the people's representatives, but
+some of the very foundations of every parliamentary edifice. Yet fiercer
+was the animosity shown him on every occasion by the Princess Royal of
+England, whose father had early taught her that a throne, to be safe,
+requires absolute solidity of institutions and agreement with the
+people, and who seriously trembled for the preservation of her
+children's future. Her husband expressed himself forcibly on a public
+occasion against some reactionary measures of the government. As the
+court, so were the liberal parties, so the people in general. When a
+fanatic, of the name of Kohn, attempted Bismarck's life in May, 1866,
+there were few persons who did not regret his failure. It may be said
+with truth that, for years, two men only understood a portion at least
+of his political views, and shared them. One was King William. Isolated
+as Herr von Bismarck was, he learned to rely implicitly on his
+sovereign's faithfulness, and has had no reason to regret his trust; for
+the king, though greatly his inferior in intellect, and far from unblest
+with legitimist predilections, was as firmly convinced as his minister
+that the confederation of German states, and Prussia herself, might be
+swept away unless placed upon a new footing, in one of those tornadoes
+which used periodically to blow across the continent of Europe. Thus,
+the new departure was as much his own programme as Bismarck's, and
+although he started (in 1861) with a hankering after "moral" rather than
+material conquests, he gradually understood the necessity for war, and
+has of a certainty "taken kindly," as the saying is, to material
+conquests of no inconsiderable magnitude.
+
+None, even among Bismarck's modern sycophants, would pretend that their
+hero was the inventor of German unity. Passionately, though not
+over-wisely, had that ideal been striven after and suffered for by the
+best patriots in various parts of Fatherland, their vision becoming hazy
+just as often as they attempted to combine two opposite claims, that of
+a national texture, and that of a headship of Austria, which is
+non-German in a majority of its subjects, and alien in nearly all its
+interests. The Frankfort Parliament of 1848 marks the transition to a
+clear insight, inasmuch as its final performance, the constitution of
+1849, placed the new crown on the King of Prussia's head. When offered,
+it was haughtily declined under the applause of Bismarck and his
+friends. The king refused because its origin lay in a popular assembly;
+in Bismarck's eyes its chief defect was that Prussia would be dictated
+to by the minor states. It was not until later, in 1851, when appointed
+Prussian ambassador to the Germanic Diet, chiefly because of his defence
+of the Treaty of Olmütz, which placed Prussia at the mercy of Austria,
+that he recognized the central point to be the necessity of thrusting
+Austria out of the confederation. It is proved now that he was sagacious
+enough also to perceive that such a wrench would not lead to a permanent
+estrangement, but that Austria, removed once and for all from her
+incubus-like and dog-in-the-manger position within the federate body,
+would become, in her own interest and that of European peace, New
+Germany's permanent ally.
+
+These, then, became the two purposes of his active life ever since the
+day when, at the age of thirty-six, he obtained a share of the
+responsibility in the management of affairs as ambassador in Frankfort;
+first, to transfer _Austria to a position in the East_, and then to
+bestow upon the Fatherland _political unity under Prussia, the royal
+prerogative in the latter remaining uncurtailed_, so far as
+circumstances would allow. Thirty-four years have now elapsed. His
+opponents, in his own country or out of it, are at liberty to reiterate
+that he was born under a lucky star; that he merely took up the thread
+of German unification where the Frankfort Parliament of 1849 had let it
+drop; that anybody could have utilized such mighty armaments as those of
+Prussia with the same effect; that, given total disregard of principle
+or moral obligations, the result, in the hands of any political
+gamester, must have been what it was. There is something to be set
+against each of these assertions. For it was not the goddess of Fortune
+which pursued Bismarck in the ungainly shape of his former friend, that
+spiteful Prince Gortschakoff. The Frankfort assembly had left the
+Austrian riddle unsolved, and apparently insoluble. There was no hand in
+the country firm or skilful enough, no brain sufficiently hard or
+enlightened as to the needs of the day--not the king's, not Count
+Arnim's, nor certainly that of any other known to his contemporaries.
+And finally, when a public man so deftly gauges the mental capacities or
+extent of power of his antagonists--such as Count Beust, or Napoleon, or
+Earl Russell--that he knows exactly how far he can step with safety;
+then such a "gamester," however terrible the risks to which he may have
+exposed his country, is a great man. Complete unity of aims throughout,
+power given to carry them out, a wonderful absence of very serious
+mistakes, and finally a life sufficiently prolonged to admit of
+retrospection; in each of these respects the career of Bismarck
+resembles that of Mr. Disraeli.
+
+The oft-told story of his diplomatic adventures at Frankfort, at Vienna,
+at Petersburg, and at Paris, and still more of his rulership in Prussia
+since 1862, and in Germany since 1866, has been uniform under two
+aspects. First, as already mentioned, in the stern continuity of his
+purposes. And secondly, in the mistaken view entertained regarding him
+at each successive period of his public life. Passing under review the
+whole career of this political phenomenon, you naturally pause before
+its strangest and its most humorous feature, viz., that, although living
+under the closest inspection, he was misunderstood year after year. Who
+would, consequently, deny the possibility at least, of Bismarck's being
+so misunderstood, by friend and foe, at this present moment?
+
+While those despatches were written by him from Frankfort which
+Poschinger's researches have now exhumed, their writer was thought, by
+his partisans just as much as by his enemies, to be occupied solely with
+strengthening the "solidarity of conservative interests" and the
+supremacy of Austria, or with spinning the rope of steel which was to
+strangle all parliaments in Germany. And yet we know positively at
+present that, with increasing vigor day by day, did he warn his
+government against the scarcely concealed intention of Austria to
+"_avilir la Prusse d'abord et puis l'anéantir_" (Prince Schwartzenberg's
+famous saying in 1851); we observe with surprise how quickly legitimist
+leanings disappear behind his own country's interests; we stand aghast
+at the iron sway obtained by so young a man over the self-conceit of a
+vacillating, yet dogmatic and wilful, king (Frederick William IV.). It
+was he whose advice, given in direct opposition to Bunsen's, led to the
+refusal by Prussia of the Western alliance during the Crimean war. But
+he did not give this advice, as German liberals then believed, out of
+subservience to the autocrat of the North, whose assistance his party
+humbly solicited in order to exterminate liberalism. He persistently
+gave it to thwart Austria and to preserve Prussia (then in no brilliant
+military condition) from having to bear the brunt of Muscovite wrath,
+which he cunningly judged to be of more lasting importance in the coming
+struggles than the friendship of Western Europe. At a time when European
+politicians considered that he was the mouthpiece of schemers for a
+Russo-French alliance in his repeated and successful endeavors to gain
+Napoleon's good-will, he was adroitly sounding the French emperor's mind
+and character. He soon convinced himself that it was shallow and
+fantastic, and he built upon this conviction one of the most hazardous
+designs which ever originated in a brain observant of realities--that
+identical design which eventually led Prussia, some years later, first
+to Schleswig and then to Sadowa, with the "arbiter of Europe," as
+Napoleon was then called, stolidly looking on! And what is one to say of
+the four years of parliamentary conflicts (1862 to 1866), during which
+no one doubted but that his object in life and his _raison d'être_
+consisted in a reinstatement of the Prussian king on the absolute throne
+of his ancestors--a reaction from all that was progressive to the
+grossest abuses of despotism? All this time he was fighting a desperate
+battle against backstairs influences, which with true instinct were
+deprecating and counteracting his schemes of aggrandizement and national
+reorganization. It is clear, on looking back to that period which has
+left such indelible marks on the judgment of many well-meaning liberals,
+that his exaggerated tone of aggressive defence in the Prussian Landtag,
+the furious onslaught of his harangues, were intended to silence the
+tongues at court which denounced him as a demagogue and a radical.
+Paradoxical as it may sound, one may safely assert that nothing more
+effectually helped King William in his later foreign policy, than the
+opinion pervading all Europe in 1864 and 1866, that, having lost all
+hold upon the minds of his people, weakened and crippled in every sense
+of the word by Bismarckian folly, his Majesty could never strike a blow.
+
+There was peace and concord in Germany between 1866 and 1877. Without
+becoming a liberal, and while opposing every attempt to outstep certain
+limits, Bismarck created and rather enjoyed an alliance with the
+majority formed in his favor by the national liberals and a moderate
+section of the conservatives. The German Empire, proclaimed by the
+German sovereigns at Versailles in January, 1871, was of his creation;
+and while established upon somewhat novel principles of federation by a
+parliamentary statute, it looked to outsiders like a home for progress
+and liberty. There were dangers lurking, it is true, beneath many a
+provision of the new constitution, such as the absence of an upper
+house, and the substitution in its stead of delegates from the separate
+governments, acting in each case according to instructions received,
+authorized to speak whenever they chose before the Reichstag, but
+deliberating separately and secretly both upon bills to propose, and
+upon replies to give to resolutions of the Reichstag. In fact, this
+Bundesrath, or federal council, represents the governing element under
+the emperor, with functions both administrative and legislative. By an
+artificial method of counting, Prussia, although she would command
+three-fifths of all the voters by virtue of her population, has less
+than one-third. Thus the possibility of an imbroglio between the
+governments is ever present, as well as that of a hasty vote in the
+popular assembly.
+
+[Illustration: Bismarck before Paris.]
+
+It will never, probably, be quite understood why Prince Bismarck broke
+loose from a political alliance which, it would seem, had given no
+trouble whatever. In foreign affairs the house, in its immense majority,
+abstained from even the faintest attempt at interference. As for
+patronage, it has been said that no appointment was ever solicited for
+anyone by a member of the liberal party. From ministerial down to menial
+posts no claim was raised, no request preferred. If the section of
+moderate conservatives above mentioned has furnished a few ambassadors
+like Prince Hohenlohe, Count Münster, Baron Keudell, and Count Stolberg,
+that was by the chief's free will. Why, then, it has been asked, a
+change so absolute as the one the world has witnessed, from the saying
+of the chancellor in 1877, that his ideal was to have high financial
+duties on half a dozen objects and free trade on all others, to one of
+the most comprehensive tariffs in the world two years later? His own and
+his friends' explanations are lamentably deficient--"growing anæmia and
+impoverishment of the country," "drowning of native industry by foreign
+manufacturers," "corn imported cheaper than produced," and what not. The
+present writer, looking from afar, has always thought two motives to
+have been paramount in the chancellor's mind when he separated from the
+liberals and became, not a convinced, but a thorough-going
+protectionist. It is not said that these were his only motives.
+Chess-players know that each important move affects not only the
+figures primarily attacked, but changes the whole texture of the play.
+
+First, then, and foremost, fresh sources of income were wanted to make
+the finances of the empire independent from the several exchequers of
+the states bound by statute to make up for any deficiency _pro rata
+parte_ of their population. Two or three objects would have provided the
+needful, viz., spirits and beetroot sugar, and (with due caution)
+tobacco; or an "imperial" income tax, changing according to each year's
+necessities; or both systems combined. Tobacco, it is true, was tried,
+and the attempt failed. Spirits would bear almost any taxation, but the
+chancellor does not choose to tread upon the tender toe of the great
+owners of land who are potato-growers, and consequently distillers on a
+large scale. And another important class of agriculturists, the beetroot
+growers and sugar-producers, were not to be trifled with either. But how
+about direct taxation, the manly sacrifice of free peoples, the plummet
+by which to sound the enlightenment of a nation? The chancellor
+instinctively felt, I believe, that there he would be going beyond his
+depth; that under such a _régime_ the free will of citizens must have
+the fullest swing; the "prerogative" would suffer, if not immediately,
+yet as a necessary sequence. And so he deliberately abandoned free trade
+and espoused indirect taxation and protection.
+
+Success, let free traders say what they please on the subject, success
+has accompanied Bismarck's genius on this novel field, as well as on the
+older fields where all mankind acknowledges his superiority. For the
+coffers of the empire are filling. A motley majority in the Reichstag
+not only accepts, but improves upon his protectionist demands. He has
+become the demigod of the bloated manufacturing, mining, and landlord
+interests throughout the country. He is now about to win the last of the
+great industries, and the one which withstood his blandishments the
+longest, viz., the trans-oceanic carrying trade. He is credited with
+having improved the state of certain trades, even by such as know
+perfectly well that, like the former depression, the present improvement
+in those has been universal. The whole country is becoming
+protectionist. All young men, even in Hamburg and Bremen, believe in
+protection as "the thing." The Prussian landlord, whose soul was steeped
+in free trade so long as Prussia was a grain-exporting country,
+cherishes protectionist convictions now that she must largely import
+cereals. The bureaucrat who had never sworn by other economic lawgivers
+than Adam Smith and his followers, now accepts Professor Adolphus
+Wagner's ever-changing sophisms. And as for the south and the west of
+Germany, why, they adore the man who had fulfilled that dream of
+protection in which they, as disciples of Friedrich List, had grown up.
+It is true that all large cities, even there, are protesting against the
+lately imposed and quite lately increased duties upon cereals; but then,
+"can any good thing come out of" large cities? Compared to the
+difficulties that impede the action of the free trade party in Germany,
+Mr. Bright's and Mr. Cobden's up-hill work sinks into insignificance.
+
+Nothing, to a beginner in the study of Bismarck's character, would
+appear so utterly puzzling as his demeanor toward the communists,
+socialists, or, as they call themselves in Germany, Social Democrats.
+One of his most trusted secretaries is an old ally and correspondent of
+Herr Karl Marx, the high-priest of communism, who, toward the end of his
+London career, rode the whirlwind and directed the storm of German
+socialism. Bismarck himself confesses to having received in private
+audience Lassalle, one certainly of the most capable men of modern
+Germany, and to whom as its first author, a retrospective inquiry would
+trace back the present formidable, closely ruled organization of
+socialist operatives of Germany. The first minister of the Prussian
+crown was closeted once--people say more than once, but that does not
+matter--with the ablest subverter of the modern fabric of society. He
+found him "mighty pleasant to talk to." He liked his predilection for a
+powerful supreme authority overawing the organized masses, though
+"whether he did so in the interest of a dynasty of Lassalles or of
+Hohenzollern's" seemed to Herr von Bismarck an open question. After
+Lassalle's tragical death in 1864, we observe how the Prussian
+government, while watching with Argus-eyes every excess of speech among
+liberals, allowed his first successors, Schweizer and others, a vulgar
+set of demagogues, such license of bloody harangue as has of late years
+got Louise Michel into trouble in republican France. Then we hear of
+nothing as between Bismarck and the socialists for some years--the years
+I have described above as years of peace and concord in Germany--till
+suddenly, on the occasion of two attempts made in 1878, by Hödel and by
+Nobiling against the emperor's life, he came down upon that sect as with
+a sledge-hammer. His famous anti-socialist bill was at first rejected.
+It passed into law only after a dissolution, the electors having in
+their affectionate pity for the wounded emperor unequivocally given
+their verdict in favor of suppression. It has since been reaccepted
+three times by an unwilling house, and with exertions of the same man
+who had fostered and protected the beginnings of socialism, and who had
+the watchword given out at the last general elections in 1884, that "His
+Serene Highness the Chancellor would prefer the sight of ten
+Social-Democrats to that of one Liberal (Deutsch-Freisinige.)"
+
+Now, what is the clew to this comedy of errors? No mere waywardness or
+perversity of character, but some powerful bias and a first-cousinship
+in principle must account for one of the strangest anomalies in modern
+history. Perhaps the following consideration will render both the "bias"
+and the "first-cousinship" at least intelligible. Prince Bismarck is a
+good hater. Now, if he has any one antipathy stronger than another, and
+that through life, it is that against the burgher class, the reverse of
+aristocrats, the born liberals, townsmen mostly yet not exclusively--the
+"bourgeois," as the French call them (although, if I err not, the exact
+counterpart to the "bourgeois" species is not found on German soil), a
+law-abiding set, independent of government, paying their taxes, and
+thoroughly happy. When they, through their representatives, bade him
+defiance in 1862 to 1865, and thwarted his measures of coercion, his
+inmost soul cried, _Acheronta movebo!_ He sent for Lassalle, he paid his
+successors' debts, and generally assisted the sect. So much for the
+"bias." And now for the "first-cousinship." No student of history will
+deny that despotism, whenever it has arisen, or been preserved in highly
+civilized communities, will extend more of a fatherly care to the masses
+than liberalism. This cannot be otherwise; for liberalism sets itself to
+educate the masses to self-responsibility, and each individual to thrift
+and self-reliance. The sight of an able-bodied beggar is, to a genuine
+liberal, a source of anger first, and only on further contemplation, of
+pity. He will exert all his energies to remove every obstacle from out
+of the way of his poorer brethren; he will preach wise economy, and
+facilitate it by personal sacrifices and legislative inducements; but he
+will not tempt the government of his country to act as a second
+providence for the operative classes. Quite the reverse is Bismarck's
+opinion. According to him, the state should exercise "practical
+Christianity." With Titanic resolution to drive out Satan through
+Beelzebub, he does not shrink from acknowledging and proclaiming the
+"right of labor." There is probably nothing left to say after your lips
+have spoken these unholy, blood-stained words. If there was, he would be
+the man to say it rather than allow himself to be outbid by mob-leaders
+of the socialistic feather. _Droit au travail_, forsooth! The phrase has
+cost thousands their lives in the Parisian carnage of June, 1848. In the
+mouth of Karl Marx and other outspoken champions of his cause, it means
+absorption by the state of all the _sources_ of labor, such as land and
+factories, because by such absorption only can the state insure work for
+the unemployed. In the mouth of Bismarck it means a lesser thing, of
+course, in extent, but not in its essence. As chief minister of Prussia
+he has ably brought about the purchase of nearly all lines of railway
+within that monarchy. As chancellor of the empire he has tried his very
+best to obtain a monopoly on tobacco. All accident insurance companies
+have already been ruined and their place taken, so far as accidents to
+factory-hands, etc., are concerned, by an imperial office. His mighty
+hand is stretched out already to suppress and absorb all other
+insurances. The kingdom of the Incas, in ancient Peru, as described in
+Prescott's volumes, has probably not done more work for its subjects
+than Bismarck's ideal of a German empire would do for its inhabitants.
+With every species of occupation or enterprise managed directly by
+government, why should the ruler of an empire, or of a socialist
+republic, hesitate about proclaiming a right to labor? A critic might
+object that its proclamation by Bismarck, in 1884, was premature,
+inasmuch as he had failed in carrying his Monopoly bill, and could not
+be certain of success regarding other state encroachments. Granted. But
+a "first-cousinship" between his views on social reform and those of
+Messrs. Bebel and Liebknecht, is an actuality of modern Germany, and
+should be seen to by those who desire this central power of Europe to
+remain exempt from a social revolution. Cursory as this review of
+Bismarck's past life and present policy has of necessity been, some
+indulgent reader may perhaps bestow upon me--besides his thanks for
+having withstood the temptation to quote the pithy, and at times
+impassioned, utterances of the wittiest man in power of the present
+day--just enough of his confidence to believe that I have suppressed no
+trait of importance.
+
+However, since there is one thing more important still than a great man,
+namely his country, let us not dismiss the interesting subject of this
+retrospect without inquiring what that country has gained and what lost
+through his agency. Germany possesses a federation, not constructed
+after any existing pattern, not made to please any theory, not the
+object of anybody's very passionate admiration, but accepted in order to
+alter as little as possible the accustomed territorial and political
+arrangements. In one sense it has no army, for the Prussian and the
+Bavarian armies, although the empire bears the cost, still exist. In one
+sense it possesses not the indirect taxation, for the individual states
+do the collecting of custom-house duties, etc. In one sense it has
+scarcely any organ of administration, for the whole internal government,
+the schools, courts of law, and police, all belong to the single states;
+and foreign affairs, the navy, the post-office, and railways in Alsace,
+are the only fields of imperial direct administration. Yet, what it has
+is valuable enough. The empire rules the army and can legislate over and
+control a prodigious amount of national subjects. Its foreign policy is
+one. The military command is one. Certain specified sources of revenue
+are the empire's. Patriotic aspirations are fulfilled. The individual
+sovereigns in Germany possess a guarantee of their status, the operative
+classes an opportunity for organization and improvement on a large
+scale. Monarchical feeling has gained in depth, both generally and with
+personal reference to the emperor and to the crown prince, both
+"representative men" in the best sense of the word, and the crown
+prince, the most lovable man of his day.
+
+Another salutary constitutional reform--not of Bismarck's making, for he
+gave his consent unwillingly and not without first having marred its
+beauty, but yet an effect of his great deeds--is the Prussian "Kreis"
+and "Provinzial-Ordnung," first introduced in 1874. No more logical
+deduction was possible than this commencement of decentralization within
+the Prussian monarchy. Before that date provincial diets had existed for
+fifty years, and a kind of assembly had also managed certain affairs for
+the Kreis, an administrative unit smaller than an English county, and
+averaging about one hundred thousand inhabitants. In the same proportion
+as German unity made progress, it was believed that self-government
+ought to become more extensively introduced, and the "tendency of the
+blood toward the head" or capital, be obviated. The example of home rule
+presented by the "Kreis" and the provinces of Prussia since this reform,
+is not assuredly of a nature to frighten weak nerves. But much money is
+now usefully spent within and by the provinces independently of any
+decree from a central authority; and as regards willingness to work on
+provincial and (so to say) county boards, it is said to be beyond all
+praise. An English public man of high standing assured me, some years
+ago, that these Prussian beginnings of home rule had attracted the
+serious notice of Mr. Gladstone. I do not wonder at it.
+
+Another permanent good for which Germany seems indebted to Bismarck, and
+the last I will mention, is of quite modern date--I mean his colonial
+policy. Individual Germans have, at all times and in immense numbers,
+found their way across the sea. On the Baltic and North Sea coast,
+German ports, though few in number, yet command a very large trade.
+Next to the English, German traders form the most numerous community in
+every place, however remote, where business of any kind can be
+transacted. But to convert the inland Philistines--that vast majority of
+Germans who have never sniffed sea-air--into enthusiasts for a colonial
+empire required all Bismarck's ability and prestige. No doubt he
+descried in the movement a chance for a diversion of the public mind
+from obnoxious topics. It was useful to him to produce an impression as
+if the export trade, stagnating as it must under the baneful effects of
+modern protection, could rally under the influence of colonial
+enterprise. These considerations would not, however, suffice to explain
+his long-considered, cautious proceedings in this matter. To comprehend
+his motives fully, it will be necessary to admit that his prescient mind
+would consider the time, apparently not very far distant, when what are
+now styled Great Powers will be dwindling fast by the side of such
+gigantic empires as seem intent upon dividing the earth's surface
+between them, like England with her colonial possessions, and Russia.
+The effect upon this country, its foreign policy, and the very character
+of its inhabitants, would be alike cramping, unless a way for expansion
+was opened for each. When the political schemes of a considerable man
+are subjects of speculation, it is wiser to guess at something exalted
+if you wish to come near the truth. So probably in this case. No doubt
+he, too, has foreseen the reaction which, at no very remote period of
+German history, will gain a mastery over people's minds, when failures
+and disappointments begin to crowd around each of the present equatorial
+enterprises. But he believes in his countrymen's capacity to overcome
+failure and disappointment without recourse to costly warlike
+expeditions, for which Germany is unfitted by her institution of
+universal and short military service.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES STEWART PARNELL
+
+By THOMAS DAVIDSON
+
+(1846-1891)
+
+
+Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish politician, was born at Avondale, in
+County Wicklow, June 28, 1846. His father belonged to an old Cheshire
+family, which purchased an estate in Ireland under Charles II., and from
+which had sprung Thomas Parnell, the poet, and Sir Henry Brooke Parnell,
+created Baron Congleton in 1841. His great-grandfather was that Sir John
+Parnell who was long Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, and an active
+supporter of Grattan in his struggle against the Union; his grandfather,
+William Parnell, sat for County Wicklow, and published in 1819 a foolish
+political novel, anything but Irish in sentiment; his mother, Delia
+Tudor Stewart, was daughter of Admiral Charles Stewart, of the United
+States Navy. He was educated at Yeovil and elsewhere in England under
+private masters, and was for some time a member of Magdalene College,
+Cambridge, but took no degree. In 1874 he became High Sheriff of County
+Wicklow; next year he contested County Dublin without success, but in
+April, 1875, was returned as an avowed Home Ruler for County Meath.
+
+He attached himself to Joseph Biggar, the member for Cavan, who was the
+first to discover the value of deliberate obstruction in parliamentary
+tactics, and during 1877 and 1878 he gained great popularity in Ireland
+by his audacity in the use of the new engine. There were many scenes of
+violence and excitement, and the new horror of all-night sittings became
+familiar to the House of Commons. Throughout the struggle Parnell showed
+equal audacity and coolness, and acquired a masterly knowledge of
+parliamentary forms. Mr. Butt, the Irish leader, disapproved of this
+development of the _active_ or obstructive policy, but his influence
+quickly gave way before Parnell's, and in May, 1879, he died. The year
+before, Parnell had been elected president of the English Home Rule
+Association. He now threw himself with energy into agrarian agitation,
+gave it its watchword: "Keep a firm grip of your homesteads," at
+Westport in June, and in October was elected president of the Irish
+National Land League, which had been founded by Michael Davitt.
+
+Mr. Parnell next visited the United States to raise funds for the cause,
+was allowed, like Lafayette and Kossuth, to address Congress itself, and
+carried home £70,000. At the general election of 1880 he was returned
+for the counties of Meath and Mayo and for the city of Cork, and chose
+to sit for the last. He was now formally elected chairman of the Irish
+parliamentary party by twenty-three votes over eighteen for Mr. Shaw.
+Meantime the agrarian agitation grew, and in a speech at Ennis,
+September 19, 1880, he formulated the method of boycotting as an engine
+for punishing an unpopular individual. Mr. Gladstone's government now
+came to the conclusion that the objects of the Land League were contrary
+to the law, and in December put Parnell and several other members of the
+executive on trial, but the jury finally failed to agree. Next session
+the government brought in a Coercion Bill, which Mr. Parnell opposed
+vigorously. In the course of the struggle he was ejected from the House,
+after a stormy scene, together with thirty-four of his followers,
+February 3, 1881. Mr. Gladstone next carried his famous Land Bill, but
+this Parnell refused to accept as a final settlement until the result of
+certain test cases before the new Land Court was seen. On October 13th,
+Mr. Gladstone sent him to Kilmainham Jail, and there he lay till
+released on May 2, 1882, after some private negotiations with the
+government conducted through the medium of Captain O'Shea. Mr. Forster
+resigned the Irish secretaryship in consequence of the release, and next
+followed the terrible tragedy of Phoenix Park, of which Parnell, in his
+place in the House of Commons, expressed his detestation.
+
+[Illustration: Parnell testifying against the "Times."]
+
+The Crimes Act was now hurried through Parliament in spite of the
+strenuous opposition of the Irish party. Already the Land League had
+been proclaimed as an illegal association after the issue of the "No
+Rent" manifesto, but early in 1884 the Nationalists succeeded in
+reviving it under the name of the National League, and Mr. Parnell was
+elected its president. The year before the sum of £35,000, mostly raised
+in America, had been presented to him by his admirers. After an
+unsuccessful attempt to make terms with the Conservatives, in the course
+of which he had a famous interview with Lord Carnarvon, the viceroy,
+Parnell flung his vote--now eighty-six strong since the lowering of the
+franchise--into the Liberal scale and so brought about the fall of the
+short-lived first Salisbury government. Mr. Parnell nominated the
+greater number of Nationalist candidates for the Irish constituencies,
+and the firm hand with which he controlled his party was seen in the
+promptitude with which he crushed a revolt of Healy and Biggar against
+his nomination of Captain O'Shea for Galway.
+
+Mr. Gladstone's views on the question of Home Rule had by this time
+undergone a complete change, and accordingly he introduced a Home Rule
+Bill which was defeated owing to the defection of a large number of
+Liberal members headed by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The
+consequent appeal to the country (July, 1886) gave Lord Salisbury a
+Unionist majority of over a hundred votes, and threw Parnell into a
+close alliance with Mr. Gladstone and the portion of the Liberal party
+that adhered to him. It was at this period that the _Times_ newspaper
+published its series of articles entitled "Parnellism and Crime"--a
+tremendous indictment against the chief Nationalist leaders, the most
+startling point in which was a series of letters published in
+fac-simile, one, signed by Parnell, expressing approval of Mr. Burke's
+murder. After an elaborate trial (extending to one hundred and
+twenty-eight days), the most sensational event in which was the
+breakdown under cross-examination, and the flight and suicide at Madrid,
+of Pigott, the wretched Irishman who had imposed upon the _Times_ with
+forgeries, Mr. Parnell was formally cleared of the charge of having been
+personally guilty of organizing outrages, but his party were declared to
+have been guilty of incitements to intimidation, out of which had grown
+crimes which they had failed to denounce. Parnell now began an action
+against the _Times_, which was quickly compromised by a payment of
+£5,000.
+
+The "uncrowned king" of Ireland had now reached the summit of his
+power--the height of the wave was marked by the presentation of the
+freedom of Edinburgh, July 30, 1889, and the banquet given him on his
+forty-fourth birthday. But his fall in public esteem was quickly to
+follow. A few months later his frequent mysterious absences from his
+parliamentary duties were explained by his appearance, or rather his
+non-appearance, as co-respondent in a divorce case brought by Captain
+O'Shea against his wife. After formal evidence was given by the
+petitioner, the usual decree was granted with costs against Parnell
+(November 17, 1890).
+
+The Gladstonian party in England now demanded his retirement from the
+leadership of the cause, and Mr. Gladstone informed the Irish members
+that they must make their choice between Parnell and himself. They met
+and reappointed him their chairman, expecting, as the majority explained
+later, that after this recognition of his past services he would
+voluntarily retire, at least for a time. But they had not calculated
+upon the characteristic obstinacy of his nature, and quickly found that
+their leader had no mind to efface himself. After some days of
+profitless and heated wrangling, the majority ended the discussion by
+leaving the room and electing Justin McCarthy as their chairman.
+Parnell, with the shattered remnants of his party, now carried the
+warfare into Ireland, where his condemnation by the Irish bishops and
+the emphatic defeat of his nominees for North Kilkenny and North Sligo
+showed that a large number of his fellow-countrymen shared the judgment
+of his conduct pronounced by Mr. Gladstone and the party in England. The
+career of the man who had forced the issue of Irish Home Rule upon the
+English people, and made it the great question of the day, was drawing
+rapidly to its close. He died October 6, 1891.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM McKINLEY
+
+By ROSSITER JOHNSON
+
+(1843-1901)
+
+[Illustration: William McKinley. From a copyrighted photograph by
+Courtney, Canton, O.]
+
+
+With all the opportunities that our great Republic offers to native
+ability and energy for attaining the highest civic prizes without
+extraneous assistance or arbitrary distinction, we have produced no more
+perfect example of a happy result than the career of William McKinley.
+European critics who are unwilling to see anything good in democracy are
+fond of repeating certain disparaging assertions concerning American
+life, activities, and government. They represent us as virtually a
+plutocracy; but Mr. McKinley never was rich, and never was under the
+slightest suspicion of using his great office to acquire wealth. They
+say we are rude and vulgar; but Mr. McKinley was as courteous and as
+gentle as the most fastidious could wish. They say we are ignorant of
+all but the most sordid affairs; but he was thoroughly educated, and
+probably there are not half a dozen statesmen in Europe who know as much
+of his country as he knew of theirs. They point with a sneer at the
+divorce laws of some of our States, and infer therefrom the direst
+things with regard to our domestic life; but Mr. McKinley's devotion to
+his wife and his home was known and admired of all. Moreover, there is
+not a sovereign in Europe, though some of them command vast armies, that
+ever has been within reach of an enemy's guns; but William McKinley
+carried a musket in the great Civil War, won promotion by merit, and
+participated in hotter battles than Europe has seen since Waterloo.
+
+This man came of Scottish ancestry, the earliest records of the family
+dating from 1547. The crest of the clan was a mailed hand holding an
+olive branch, and the motto was "Not too much." William (father of the
+President) was born in Mercer County, Penn., in 1807, and two years
+later the family removed to Columbiana County, O., where in 1829 he
+married Nancy Campbell. Nine children were born of this union, of whom
+William, Jr., was the seventh.
+
+The future President was born in Niles, Trumbull County, O., January 29,
+1843. His grandfather and his father were iron manufacturers. His father
+was a Whig and a Protectionist. The family were Methodists.
+
+William McKinley, Jr., was sent to the public school in Niles till 1852,
+when his father removed to Poland, where he studied at the seminary. He
+is said to have excelled in mathematics and languages, but was specially
+noted for his activity and ability in the debating club. Here he was
+prepared for college, and in 1860 he entered the junior class at
+Meadville, Penn. But the boy had worked too hard and steadily, and in a
+little while he was obliged to give up his studies and seek a change. He
+taught for a time in a public school, and then became a clerk in the
+Poland post-office. And here came the turning-point in his life.
+
+The irrepressible conflict, foretold by our poets and dreaded by our
+statesmen, broke out in the spring of 1861. The great Civil War, which
+lasted four years and cost four hundred lives for every day of its
+duration, appealed to the young manhood of the country as nothing else
+ever had; and while it sent many to the grave, and changed all the
+scheme of life for others, it opened for still others such careers as
+without it would have been impossible.
+
+William McKinley, Jr., then eighteen years of age, was one of the first
+in his town to enlist for the defence of the Republic. He became a
+private in the Twenty-third Ohio infantry, and in this he was
+exceedingly fortunate, as it was one of the best regiments in the
+service and numbered among its officers several who became famous.
+William S. Rosecrans was the Colonel, Stanley Matthews the
+Lieutenant-Colonel, and Rutherford B. Hayes the Major. In the four years
+of its service that regiment mustered, first and last, 2,095 men; it
+marched hundreds of miles, and was in nineteen battles, and 169 of its
+men were killed.
+
+Young McKinley was one of the model soldiers of the regiment. General
+Hayes said: "We soon found that in business and executive ability he was
+of unusual and surpassing capacity for a boy of his age. When battles
+were to be fought, or a service was to be performed in warlike things,
+he always took his place." McKinley said in after years that he looked
+back with pleasure upon the fourteen months that he carried a musket in
+the ranks, for they taught him many things. The regiment was sent into
+West Virginia, and its first engagement was at Carnifex Ferry. In the
+summer of 1862 it was ordered to Washington, and a few days after its
+arrival it joined the Army of the Potomac, which was then moving
+northward to head off the Army of Northern Virginia, which was bent upon
+an invasion of the Northern States. The crash of arms came at South
+Mountain (September 14th) and Antietam (September 17th). At South
+Mountain the regiment made three successful charges, and lost heavily.
+Antietam was the bloodiest day of the war, more than 2,000 men on each
+side were killed on the field, and the Twenty-third Ohio was in the
+hottest of the fight, holding its position from morning till evening
+unrelieved. Private McKinley, meanwhile, had been made Commissary
+Sergeant, and his place was with the supplies in the rear. He pressed a
+few stragglers into his service and got ready a dinner for the regiment,
+with hot coffee, and loaded it into two wagons. With these he drove upon
+the field, under fire. The enemy's shot struck down the mules of one
+wagon, but with the other he reached his comrades on the firing-line,
+who gave a great shout of welcome when they saw him. He walked along the
+line, and fed every man with his own hand. There is no record that such
+a thing ever was done before or since. For this service he was made a
+second lieutenant, and in the following February he was promoted to
+first lieutenant. The regiment was a part of the force that headed off
+Morgan in his raid into Ohio, fought him at Buffington's Ford, and
+finally captured him. After that it took part in a series of battles in
+the mountains and in the Shenandoah Valley. At Cloyd's Mountain, after a
+wonderful march through ravines and dense woods, they burst into the
+enemy's camp, McKinley leading his company, which was the first to leap
+over the fortifications and silence the guns.
+
+At Winchester, in July, 1864, General Crook's army of 6,000 men was
+attacked by Early's of 20,000 and compelled to retreat. A West Virginia
+regiment failed to fall back with the rest, and Lieutenant McKinley was
+ordered to bring it off. Major Hastings says: "None of us expected to
+see him again as we watched him push his horse through the open fields.
+Once he was completely enveloped in the smoke of an exploding shell." He
+brought off the regiment and led it to its place in the marching column.
+And a little later he found opportunity to perform another peculiar
+service. As they continued their retreat down the valley, they came upon
+four guns, with caissons, that had been abandoned. Lieutenant McKinley
+asked for permission to bring them off, and received it, though his
+superior officers would not order the tired men to undertake the task.
+"I think the Twenty-third will do it," said the young lieutenant, and
+when he called for volunteers every man in his company came forward and
+the guns were saved. The next day he was promoted to captain.
+
+He again distinguished himself in the battles of Berryville, Fisher's
+Hill, and Opequan. He was now on General Crook's staff, and at the
+bloody battle of the Opequan occurred an incident that showed the young
+officer capable of becoming a successful commander. He was sent with an
+order to General Duval to move his brigade to a position on the right of
+the Sixth Corps. The General asked, "By what route?" and the Captain
+suggested, "I would move up this creek." The General, ignorant of the
+ground, refused to move without definite orders. "Then," said McKinley,
+who knew that there was urgent need of the movement, "by command of
+General Crook, I order you to move your command up this ravine to a
+position on the right of the army." The movement was made at once, and
+proved successful. McKinley was also in the fierce fight at Cedar Creek,
+and afterward served on Hancock's staff. In March, 1865, he received
+from President Lincoln a commission as Major by brevet for gallant
+services.
+
+With so much of manly character developed at the age of twenty-two, and
+so much experience in the greatest conflict of modern times, he turned
+to the study of law--first in an office, and then in the Albany Law
+School--and was admitted to the Bar in 1867. He settled in Canton, which
+was thenceforth his home, and there in 1871 he married Miss Ida Saxton,
+who was cashier in her father's bank. Their devotion for thirty years,
+and the tenderness and constancy with which he watched over her in the
+latter years when she was an invalid, form a chapter that never can be
+mentioned without touching the hearts of their countrymen.
+
+Mr. McKinley made his first political speech in 1867, and in 1869, as a
+Republican, was elected prosecuting attorney for Stark County. In 1875
+he made effective speeches for honest money and the resumption of specie
+payments, and in 1876 he was elected to Congress by a large majority. He
+was re-elected six times, but in 1890 was defeated by the gerrymandering
+of his district. In 1891 he was nominated for Governor of Ohio, and was
+elected by a plurality of 21,500. He was re-elected in 1893 by a
+plurality of more than 80,000.
+
+In Congress he had been a prominent debater on many important questions,
+but he was chiefly conspicuous as an advocate of protection, and, as
+Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, he was largely the author
+of the tariff bill of 1890 which bears his name. It was slow work
+getting the bill through Congress, and it did not become a law till
+October. The most amazing misrepresentations of it were set afloat, and
+it had not time to vindicate itself before the Congressional elections
+came on in November, when the party that had carried it through was
+overwhelmingly defeated.
+
+During these years Mr. McKinley was almost constantly in the field as a
+political speaker, and he became known as one of the most popular and
+effective that our country has produced. It is computed that he
+addressed a larger number of men, from the platform, than any other man
+that ever lived.
+
+He was a delegate to several national conventions of his party, and in
+1888, and again in 1892, there was a strong movement to give him the
+presidential nomination; but he decisively suppressed it each time--on
+the first occasion because he had gone there as a friend and supporter
+of John Sherman, and on the second because he declared that President
+Harrison was entitled to a renomination. In 1896 he was unanimously
+nominated on the first ballot. One circumstance that pointed him out as
+the logical candidate was the fact that his tariff bill had been
+replaced by one that proved a complete failure. The most exciting
+question in the canvass was that of free coinage of silver. Mr. McKinley
+was on a platform that declared for the gold standard, and his opponent,
+William J. Bryan, was on one that declared for free and unlimited
+coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Mr. McKinley was
+elected by a plurality in the popular vote of more than 600,000, and in
+the electoral college by 271 to 176. In 1900 he was renominated, and his
+opponent as before was Mr. Bryan, the issues being the same. This time
+Mr. McKinley had a plurality in the popular vote of more than 800,000,
+and in the electoral college had 292 to 155.
+
+In the canvass of 1896 Mr. McKinley announced that he would make no
+electioneering tour. But the people were determined to hear him, and
+they went to Canton in large delegations and excursions from all parts
+of the country. From his doorstep he made more than three hundred
+addresses, speaking thus to three-quarters of a million persons. There
+was scarcely any repetition, yet every speech was an admirable specimen
+of argument and oratory.
+
+Immediately after his first inauguration he called a special session of
+Congress to revise the tariff, and the new bill was put through in time
+to have a fair chance to vindicate itself before new elections occurred.
+The other notable event in the first year of his administration was the
+treaty for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, which he signed in June,
+but which was not confirmed by the Senate till a year later. In 1898
+occurred the most important event in American affairs since the Civil
+War--the war with Spain. This arose from the intolerable condition of
+things in Cuba, where the Spanish authorities, endeavoring to suppress
+the last of many insurrections, had resorted to the most cruel measures,
+which entailed horrible suffering upon the women and children, and the
+feeling was intensified by the blowing up of the battleship Maine in the
+harbor of Havana, February 15, 1898. President McKinley did his utmost
+to prevent actual war; and when he saw that to be inevitable, he delayed
+it as long as possible and pushed on the preparations for it with all
+practicable speed. On April 11th he sent to Congress a message on the
+subject, and on the 20th he signed a joint resolution declaring that the
+people of Cuba ought to be free and independent, and demanding that the
+Government of Spain relinquish its authority over that island.
+Diplomatic relations were broken off at once, and a state of war was
+declared. Ten days later an American fleet commanded by Commodore George
+Dewey entered the harbor of Manila, destroyed a Spanish fleet, and
+silenced the shore batteries, without losing a vessel or a man. On July
+3d another American fleet destroyed another Spanish fleet that had run
+out of the harbor of Santiago, Cuba, and was trying to escape westward.
+In this action, again, the Americans lost not a single vessel, and but
+one man. Two days earlier than this the American land forces that had
+been approaching the defences of Santiago on the east advanced to the
+final assault, and after bloody fighting at San Juan Hill and El Caney
+they were victorious. The invasion and capture of the island of Porto
+Rico, soon afterward, ended the war in the West Indies. In August the
+American land forces that had been sent to the Philippines captured the
+city of Manila and its garrison. Peace soon followed, and by the treaty
+signed in Paris, December 10th, Spain relinquished her sovereignty over
+Cuba and ceded to the United States Porto Rico and the Philippines,
+receiving $20,000,000 as an indemnity for her expenditures in the
+last-named islands.
+
+[Illustration: _From Harper's Magazine Copyright, 1897, by Harper &
+Brothers._
+
+President Mckinley taking the oath of office.]
+
+President McKinley travelled extensively during his term of office,
+spoke many times in nearly every State, and was probably more generally
+beloved by the people than any of his predecessors. He visited the
+Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, in September, 1901, and on the 5th
+delivered a notable speech, which was admired and commented upon all
+over the world. The next day, when he was holding a reception in the
+Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds, he was treacherously shot by
+an anarchist and wounded so that, in spite of the immediate services of
+the most skilful surgeons, he died on the 14th. His amiable and
+dignified character was conspicuous to the last. When he saw the crowd
+about to kill the assassin on the spot, he exclaimed: "Let no one hurt
+him!" To the surgeons he said: "I wish you to do whatever in your
+judgment is best." When his last hour came he was heard softly chanting
+his favorite hymns--"Nearer, my God, to Thee" and "Abide with me," and
+his last words were, "It is God's way--His will be done. Good-by
+all--good-by!" Thus passed away this wonderful man, this model American,
+worthy of a place in history beside Washington and Lincoln. He had
+fought like a hero--he had wrought like a genius--he had lived like a
+patriot--he died like a philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+GROVER CLEVELAND[19]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(Born 1837)
+
+         [Footnote 19: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Grover Cleveland. [TN]]
+
+
+The history of our country discovers so many instances of men who have
+risen from humble beginnings to posts of honor and influence by their
+own energy, industry, and steadiness of purpose, that a fresh
+illustration, while always sure of sympathy, no longer causes surprise.
+But one element of interest always remains: the variety of character
+which makes each new arrival at the goal an illustration of human
+capacity different from all that have preceded it. As no two men are
+alike, and as the conditions of life are infinitely various, the outcome
+of character and disposition, as affected by circumstances, will also be
+infinitely varied; and the discovery that every human experience puts
+the possibilities of life in a new light, makes, perhaps, the greatest
+charm of biography.
+
+The life of Grover Cleveland is one that has appealed by its lessons to
+a large body of his countrymen, without distinction of party, for the
+plain reason that he is not removed from the mass of men by the
+profession of extraordinary faculties. He has no genius, unless we
+accept Goethe's dictum that genius is only the capacity for hard work;
+he has no ornamental accomplishments; in social intercourse he does not
+shine by wit, nor charm by humor, and we have too often to regret that
+tact seems to have been wanting among his natal gifts. In these respects
+he is himself one of the "plain people" in whom he seems always to be
+interested, and whose welfare he has always in view; and as the plain
+people, fortunately, make up the bulk of the world, the example of one
+of our own number rising, unaided by friends or fortune, to so high a
+position, has in it a great encouragement. In spite of political
+differences, which, after all, are largely fostered by politicians for
+their own advantage, the people at large are quick to recognize the
+sterling qualities of honesty, industry, and plain-dealing, and it is by
+these qualities that Mr. Cleveland's career has been determined.
+
+Although we Americans have--rather ostentatiously, it must be
+confessed--declared our indifference to ancestry; that
+
+  "Our boast is not, that we deduce our birth
+   From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;"
+
+yet we all have an innate conviction that there is something pleasant in
+knowing that we come of good stock; and indeed it would be strange if we
+valued that recommendation little for ourselves, as human beings, which
+we prize so much in the animals that serve us. And so, although it has
+been left for others to make the discovery, the fact is not without
+interest that the American branch of the family to which the president
+belongs, runs back to 1635, when Moses Cleaveland came to Massachusetts
+from Ipswich, in Suffolk County, England. The spelling Cleaveland is
+still retained by some of the collateral branches of the family on this
+side the water, but the form Cleveland was in common use in England, and
+it was so that John Cleveland, the Royalist poet, wrote the name. It may
+be said, in passing, that it would not be without interest to discover,
+if possible, if there were any connection between the family of John
+Cleveland and that of Grover Cleveland's English ancestors, for the
+resemblance between the characters of the two men is striking, and as
+honorable as it is striking. As we read John Cleveland's appeals to
+Cromwell for freedom and immunity after the death of the king, to whose
+cause the poet had so devotedly adhered until that cause was hopelessly
+lost, we seem to hear the prophecy of that boldness, that honesty
+fearless of consequences, that refusal to withdraw or apologize for
+sentiments honestly held and openly maintained, which are so
+characteristic of one who may easily be an offshoot of that vigorous
+stem.
+
+The President's grandfather, William Cleveland, was a watchmaker doing
+business at Westfield, Mass., but on his marriage with Margaret Falley,
+of Norwich, Conn., he went there to live, and it was there that his son,
+Richard Falley Cleveland, was born. According to the old system, it was
+decided by his family to make a clergyman of Richard Cleveland, and
+accordingly after making his terms at Yale College, and studying
+divinity at Princeton, he entered the ministry; and having made some
+preliminary trials, was finally settled in charge of the Presbyterian
+Church in the village of Caldwell, Essex County, N. J., and in this
+place his son, Stephen Grover Cleveland, was born, March 18, 1837. The
+name of Stephen Grover was given out of respect to the memory of a
+clergyman, Stephen Grover, who preceded his father in the charge of his
+new parish. When the boy was only four years of age, Richard Cleveland
+accepted a call to what was then almost the frontier-settlement of
+Fayetteville, Onondaga County, N. Y. Here the Cleveland family remained
+for eleven years making the most of life, and winning from the meagre
+salary of $600 earned by the father, a harvest of cheerful content, of
+homely comfort, and of unselfish mutual affection that might well be
+envied by many whose means are far greater. The children were blessed in
+their parents, and the parents were rewarded by the love and devotion of
+their children. Later in life, on the day of his election to the
+governorship of New York, in a letter to his elder brother, the Rev.
+William N. Cleveland, Grover Cleveland showed where his heart was, for
+his first words express a quiet regret that his mother's recent death
+had made it impossible to make her the recipient of his deepest
+feelings, of his hopes and fears on this important event in his life;
+and at the close of the letter he again recurs to the theme as if the
+memory of his mother were a part and parcel of his life.
+
+In 1851, Richard Cleveland, with his wife and nine children, left
+Fayetteville, for Clinton, Oneida County, N. Y., where he was to act as
+the agent for the American Home Missionary Society, with a salary of
+$1,000 a year. But of more importance than this modest increase of pay,
+was the opportunity the new place offered for giving his children a
+better education than they had been able to get at Fayetteville. Grover
+did not leave Fayetteville with the rest of the family, because he had
+engaged himself for a year with the keeper of a grocery store in the
+village, where he was to receive the sum of $50 for the first year and
+$100 for the second. At the end of the first year, however, his father,
+ambitious for his boy's education, sent for him and placed him at the
+Academy in Clinton, where he was to be fitted to enter Hamilton College
+in due time. But this larger opportunity he was not to enjoy. His father
+received a call to take charge of a church at Holland Patent, a village
+near Utica, N. Y., and the whole family left their home in Clinton for
+this place; but only three weeks after their arrival the father died,
+October 1, 1853, and the wife, with so many of the children as still
+remained at home, were left to support life as their scanty means
+enabled them. The mother, evidently a woman of much force of character,
+remained on the rock where the waves of changing fortune last flung her,
+and by her own efforts and the willing hands of her children, kept the
+family together until, her loving duty done by all that remained to her,
+she died in 1882, living happily long enough to see the beginning of her
+high hope for her son Grover, fulfilled in his honorable career as Mayor
+of Buffalo.
+
+Grover Cleveland was now to exchange for a short time the quiet life of
+a country village for the more stirring experience of life in a great
+city. His brother William, after leaving Hamilton College, had obtained
+employment as an instructor in the Institution for the Blind in New York
+City, where he was the principal of the male teachers. After the death
+of his father, he secured for his brother Grover the place of
+book-keeper and assistant to the superintendent of the asylum. The boy
+came to his new place, not only with the good character given him by his
+brother, then as now a man much respected by his associates, but with
+the good word of all with whom he had been connected, whether as
+school-boy or as work-boy.
+
+Grover Cleveland left New York in the autumn of 1854, at the end of his
+year's engagement at the Institution for the Blind. He returned to his
+mother's home for a brief visit, and then, with the hope of making a
+beginning in the profession of the law, which he for some time intended
+to take up, he visited some of the towns where his family was known,
+Syracuse and Utica, in the hope of finding employment; but as no opening
+presented itself, he determined to visit Cleveland, a town named for one
+of his family. He stopped on his way at Buffalo, to visit an uncle,
+Lewis F. Allen, a well-known farmer, who published each year a
+compilation made by himself: "The American Short-Horn Herd-Book."
+Pleased with his young relative, Mr. Allen persuaded him to remain in
+Buffalo and assist him in his work; and thus it happened that Grover
+Cleveland found himself planted in a city with which in time his
+fortunes and his fame were to become closely associated; while, on the
+other hand, the results of that connection to the city itself were to be
+far-reaching and of great importance.
+
+By the recommendation of his uncle he obtained a place as office-boy in
+the office of Bowen & Rogers, one of the principal firms of lawyers in
+Western New York. It was thus that he began his legal studies, reading
+hard in all his odd moments; and in his spare time after office-hours
+assisting his uncle, with whom at first he lived, in the compilation of
+the "Herd-Book." Mr. Parker tells us that the first appearance in print
+of Grover Cleveland's name is in the "Herd-Book" for 1861, in which Mr.
+Allen expresses his acknowledgment of "the kindness, industry, and
+ability of his young friend and kinsman, in correcting and arranging the
+pedigrees for publication." Prompt to seize every opportunity for
+increasing his knowledge of the world about him, and feeling, perhaps,
+that his uncle's farm in the outskirts of Buffalo was too much like the
+village he had left, he took rooms with an old schoolmate from
+Fayetteville in the old Southern Hotel in Buffalo, at that time a resort
+for drovers and farmers, where his knowledge of their business, obtained
+in his uncle's employ, brought him into closer acquaintance with at
+least one division of the "plain people" than could have been gained
+without that experience.
+
+[Illustration: The ceremony at Grover Cleveland's marriage.]
+
+Grover Cleveland was admitted to the bar in 1859. He did not at first
+begin the practice of the law on his own account, but remained for four
+years longer with his teachers, until he had gained the position of
+chief clerk. In 1858, on coming of age, he cast his first vote, giving
+it to the Democratic party; but not content with the mere performance of
+this part of the citizen's duty, "he took his place at the polls and
+throughout the day distributed ballots by the side of the veterans of
+his party." "This habit," says Mr. Parker, "he kept up until his
+election as governor. He was never a partisan, but he believed in
+working for his party, and he not only worked for it at the polls,
+but he always marched in the procession whenever a great Democratic
+demonstration was made."
+
+On January 1, 1863, Mr. Cleveland began his first independent work as a
+lawyer, and on leaving the office of the firm that had been his teachers
+and associates, he accepted the office of assistant district attorney of
+Erie County, to which he had been appointed. For this he give up a
+salary of $1,000, and took one of $600, but he did this because he saw
+that the training and experience of such an office would be worth more
+to him than money. It was while he held this office that he was drafted
+into the army, and being convinced that he was more useful in his office
+than he could be as a soldier, he sent a substitute, borrowing the money
+for the bounty from his superior, the district attorney. This money,
+says Mr. Parker, he was not able to pay back until the close of his term
+as assistant district attorney, and until the war itself was over. Two
+of his brothers entered the army in 1861, and served through the war.
+
+From this time Mr. Cleveland's rise was rapid, and made by great
+strides, each new position the result of the satisfactory way in which
+he had filled the one previously held. He was indeed defeated in his
+first contest, that for district attorney of Erie County. In 1870 he
+accepted the nomination of his party for the office of sheriff of Erie
+County. It was not usual for lawyers to accept this office, and Mr.
+Cleveland did not take it until after much deliberation and consultation
+with his party friends. He was finally moved to accept the nomination
+for the practical reasons that the place would give him leisure for
+much-needed study in his profession, and that it would also enable him
+to lay up a little money. He held the office for the full term, and
+returned to the practice of the law in 1874, becoming a member of the
+firm of Bass, Cleveland, & Bissell. Mr. Bass was the opponent who had
+defeated him in the contest for district attorney, and Mr. Bissell is
+now the Postmaster-General in the cabinet of his former law-partner.
+
+In 1881, Mr. Cleveland was nominated for the office of Mayor of Buffalo,
+and was elected by a majority of thirty-five hundred, the largest which
+had ever been given in Buffalo for that office. It was a time of great
+excitement, for the government of the city had fallen into very bad
+hands, and in the election of Mr. Cleveland party lines were disregarded
+to an unusual degree. His fearless and energetic administration of this
+office; his resolute refusal to give any support to those fictions of
+politicians and office-holders by which the citizens in all our great
+municipalities are robbed of their rights and their money; his obstinate
+vetoing of one proposed law after another by which these people hoped to
+gain their ends--vetoes for which he always gave his reasons in the
+plainest words, meant to be understood by the plainest people--his
+determination, in short, to be true to his principle declared on taking
+office, that the affairs of government were to be managed as a man would
+manage his private business--all this fixed the eyes of the people upon
+him as a man to be intrusted with still graver responsibilities.
+
+In 1882, Mr. Cleveland was nominated for the high position of Governor
+of New York, in opposition to Charles J. Folger, a man of high
+character, formerly chief justice of the Court of Appeals, and at the
+time of the contest, secretary of the treasury under President Arthur.
+For reasons into which we cannot enter here, but which, though purely
+political, gave good cause for public discontent, Mr. Folger's
+nomination roused the determined opposition of many of his own party,
+and this defection, added to the united enthusiasm of the Democracy,
+insured Mr. Cleveland's election by one hundred and ninety-two thousand
+eight hundred and fifty-four votes more than were cast for Mr. Folger.
+
+Mr. Cleveland administered the office of governor in such a way as
+greatly to strengthen the admiration of his party, especially of the
+better portion of it, in spite of the fact that partisan advantages were
+often lost by Mr. Cleveland's independent and patriotic action. Nor can
+it be doubted that his election to the presidency, which followed, was
+the fruit of the experience the people had had of his character while in
+the governor's chair. That campaign was one of the most interesting, and
+we may say, one of the most valuable morally, that has been waged in our
+day in this country. So far as mere votes were concerned, it was not
+such a victory as that for the governorship, but in its political
+meaning, and its influence on the course of our history, it was of the
+first importance.
+
+At the close of his first term of office as president, Mr. Cleveland was
+again nominated, but was defeated by his opponent, Mr. Harrison; yet
+when the time for choosing a successor to Mr. Harrison came round, Mr.
+Cleveland was again nominated, and was elected, defeating Mr. Harrison
+in his turn. The vote on this last occasion was so overwhelmingly in
+favor of the Democratic party as to have amounted virtually to a
+political revolution; but the limitation and character of this sketch do
+not permit us to go into a discussion of it. Our purpose has been to
+show the elements of character that have gone to make the truly
+extraordinary success that has marked Mr. Cleveland's political life.
+That success has not been due to genius, nor to social or personal
+advantages. It has been due to nobler causes; it is the result of
+sterling and well-tried honesty, of hard and unremitting labor applied
+to the understanding of every question coming before him for decision,
+and of a resolute independence; his fixed belief that
+
+  "Because right is right to follow right
+   Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence."
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8, by Various
+
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+<html lang="en">
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+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg e-Book of Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 4. Editor: Charles F. Horne.</title>
+
+
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
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+body {font-size: 1em; text-align: justify; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;}
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+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+              than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26424]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN, FAMOUS WOMEN, VOL. 4 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="tn">Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling
+has been maintained.</p>
+
+<a id="img001" name="img001"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img001.jpg" width="600" height="347" alt="" title="">
+<p>The Berlin Conference.</p></div>
+
+<h1>GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN</h1>
+
+<p class="noindent center italic">A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY</p>
+
+<p class="center noindent">Vol. IV.</p>
+
+<a id="img002" name="img002"></a>
+<div class="p2 figcenter">
+<img src="images/img002.jpg" width="400" height="481" alt="Frontpage." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p class="p4 noindent center"><span class="smaller">Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS</span><br>
+<span class="smcap">edited by Charles F. Horne</span></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center noindent smaller"><span class="smcap">New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher</span><br>
+Copyright, 1894, by <span class="smcap">Selmar Hess</span>.</p>
+
+<a id="toc" name="toc"></a>
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pageiii" name="pageiii"></a>(p. iii)</span> CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.</h2>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li>SUBJECT
+<span class="ralign85">AUTHOR</span> <span class="ralign95">PAGE</span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ul>
+<li>JOHN ADAMS,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Edwin Williams,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page251">251</a></span></li>
+
+<li>Letter from Adams to a friend on the "Destiny of America,"
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page252">252</a></span></li>
+
+<li>LOUIS AGASSIZ,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Asa Gray,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page350">350</a></span></li>
+
+<li>PRINCE VON BISMARCK,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Prince Outisky,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page385">385</a></span></li>
+
+<li>SIMON BOLIVAR,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Hon. John P. St. John,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page306">306</a></span></li>
+
+<li>EDMUND BURKE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Dr. Heinrich Geffcken,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page226">226</a></span></li>
+
+<li>JEAN FRANÇOIS CHAMPOLLION,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Georg Ebers,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page311">311</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GROVER CLEVELAND,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Clarence Cook,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page403">403</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GEORGES CUVIER,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">John Stoughton, D.D.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page287">287</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CHARLES DARWIN,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Arch. Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page355">355</a></span></li>
+
+<li>BENJAMIN DISRAELI,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Harriet Prescott Spofford,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page370">370</a></span></li>
+
+<li>BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page231">231</a></span></li>
+
+<li>LÉON GAMBETTA,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page363">363</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Justin McCarthy,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page377">377</a></span></li>
+
+<li>HORACE GREELEY,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Noah Brooks,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page345">345</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ALEXANDER HAMILTON,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page265">265</a></span></li>
+
+<li>PATRICK HENRY,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">General Bradley T. Johnson,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page236">236</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Louis Agassiz,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page292">292</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ANDREW JACKSON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Thomas Wentworth Higginson,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page317">317</a></span></li>
+
+<li>THOMAS JEFFERSON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Hon. John B. Henderson,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page256">256</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Terence Vincent Powderly,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page338">338</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM MCKINLEY,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Rossiter Johnson,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page398">398</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MARIA THERESA,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Anna C. Brackett,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page221">221</a></span></li>
+
+<li>COUNT DE MIRABEAU,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Charles S. Hathaway,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page273">273</a></span></li>
+
+<li>ISAAC NEWTON,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">John Stoughton, D.D.,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page211">211</a></span></li>
+
+<li>DANIEL O'CONNELL,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Justin McCarthy,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page300">300</a></span></li>
+
+<li>CHARLES STEWART PARNELL,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Thomas Davidson,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page395">395</a></span></li>
+
+<li>JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Harriet Martineau,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page282">282</a></span></li>
+
+<li>PETER THE GREAT,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page215">215</a></span></li>
+
+<li>MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page278">278</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Hon. Charles E. Fitch,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page332">332</a></span></li>
+
+<li>LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page360">360</a></span></li>
+
+<li>GEORGE WASHINGTON,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page242">242</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="italic">Letter from Washington to his adopted daughter
+on the subject of "Love,"</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page250">250</a></span></li>
+
+<li>DANIEL WEBSTER,
+<span class="ralign85 italic">Rev. Dr. Tweedy,</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page326">326</a></span></li>
+
+<li><span class="italic">Letter from Webster to his friend Brigham on
+the "Choice of a Profession,"</span>
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page331">331</a></span></li>
+
+<li>WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND,
+<span class="ralign95"><a href="#page205">205</a></span></li>
+</ul>
+
+<h2><span class="pagenum"><a id="pagev" name="pagev"></a>(p. v)</span> LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p class="center noindent">VOLUME IV.</p>
+<p class="p2 noindent center">PHOTOGRAVURES</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" summary="Illustration list">
+<colgroup>
+    <col width="60%">
+    <col width="30%">
+    <col width="10%">
+</colgroup>
+<tr>
+<td>ILLUSTRATION</td>
+<td class="right">ARTIST</td>
+<td class="right">To face<br>page<td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td colspan="3">&nbsp;</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE BERLIN CONFERENCE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Anton von Werner</td>
+<td class="italic right"><a href="#img001">Frontispiece</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE THIRD ESTATE TAKES REFUGE IN THE TENNIS
+      COURT,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Étienne Lucien Mélingue</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img020">276</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>PESTALOZZI, THE CHILDREN'S FRIEND,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Konrad Grob</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img024">286</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE ENROLLMENT OF VOLUNTEERS, 1870,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Alfred Paul de Richemont</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img040">368</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>BISMARCK BEFORE PARIS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Ludwig Braun</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img047">390</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p class="p2 noindent center">WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" summary="Illustration list">
+<colgroup>
+    <col width="60%">
+    <col width="30%">
+    <col width="10%">
+</colgroup>
+
+<tr>
+<td>COUNCIL OF WAR AFTER THE LANDING OF WILLIAM OF
+    ORANGE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">H. G. Glindoni</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img004">208</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>NEWTON ANALYZING THE RAY OF LIGHT,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Loudan</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img006">212</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE LIFE OF PETER THE GREAT SAVED AT THE FOOT
+    OF THE ALTAR,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Steuben</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img008">216</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>BURKE, JOHNSON, AND THEIR FRIENDS,</td>
+<td class="italic right">James E. Doyle</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img011">228</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS TO WASHINGTON,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Armand Dumaresq</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img015">246</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>ROBESPIERRE'S ARREST,</td>
+<td class="italic right">François Flameng</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img022">280</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>A. LINCOLN,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img034">340</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>HAWARDEN CASTLE, THE HOME OF GLADSTONE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">G. Montbard</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img043">378</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>GLADSTONE'S FIRST HOME RULE BILL,</td>
+<td>&nbsp;</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img044">382</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>PROCLAMATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE AT VERSAILLES,</td>
+<td class="italic right">Anton von Werner</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img046">386</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>PARNELL TESTIFYING AGAINST THE "TIMES,"</td>
+<td class="italic right">Walter Wilson</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img048">396</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>PRESIDENT MCKINLEY TAKING THE OATH OF OFFICE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">A. de Thulstrup</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img050">402</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td>THE CEREMONY AT GROVER CLEVELAND'S MARRIAGE,</td>
+<td class="italic right">A. de Thulstrup</td>
+<td class="right"><a href="#img052">406</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page205" name="page205"></a>(p. 205)</span> WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND<br>
+(1650-1702)</h3>
+
+<a id="img003" name="img003"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img003.jpg" width="250" height="364" alt="William III." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>William, Prince of Orange, the third king of England of that name,
+born November 14, 1650, was the posthumous son of William II., Prince
+of Orange, and Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I. of England. The
+fortunes of his childhood did not promise that greatness which he
+attained. His father had been thought to entertain designs hostile to
+the liberties of the United Provinces, and the suspicions of the
+father produced distrust of the son. When Cromwell dictated terms of
+peace to the Dutch in 1654, one of the articles insisted on the
+perpetual exclusion of the Prince of Orange from all the great offices
+formerly held by his family; and this sentence of exclusion was
+confirmed, so far as Holland was concerned, thirteen years after, by
+the enactment of the Perpetual Edict, by which the office of
+Stadtholder of Holland was forever abolished. The restoration of the
+Stuarts, however, was so far favorable to the interests of the House
+of Orange, as to induce the princess-royal to petition, on her son's
+behalf, that he might be invested with the offices and dignities
+possessed by his ancestors. The provinces of Zealand, Friesland, and
+Guelderland warmly espoused her cause: even the States of Holland
+engaged to watch over his education, "that he might be rendered
+capable of filling the posts held by his forefathers." They formally
+adopted him as "a child of the state," and surrounded him with such
+persons as were thought likely to educate him in a manner suited to
+his station in a free government.</p>
+
+<p>A storm broke upon Holland just as William was ripening into manhood;
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page206" name="page206"></a>(p. 206)</span> and discord at home threatened to aggravate the misfortunes
+of the country. The House of Orange had again become popular; and a
+loud cry was raised for the instant abolition of the Perpetual Edict,
+and for installing the young prince in all the offices enjoyed by his
+ancestors. The Republican party, headed by the De Witts, prevented
+this; but they were forced to yield to his being chosen
+captain-general and high-admiral. Many persons hoped that William's
+military rank and prospects would incline his uncle Charles II. to
+make common cause with the friends of liberty and independence; but
+the English monarch was the pensioner of the French king, and France
+and England jointly declared war against the States, April 7, 1672.
+The Dutch made large preparations; but new troops could not suddenly
+acquire discipline and experience. The enemy meditated, and had nearly
+effected, the entire conquest of the country; the populace became
+desperate; a total change of government was demanded; the De Witts
+were brutally massacred, and William was invested with the full powers
+of stadtholder. His fitness for this high office was soon demonstrated
+by the vigor and the wisdom of his measures. Maestricht was strongly
+garrisoned; the prince of Orange, with a large army, advanced to the
+banks of the Issel; the Dutch fleet cruised off the mouth of the
+Thames, to prevent the naval forces of England and France from
+joining. The following year, 1763, Louis XIV. took Maestricht; while
+the Prince of Orange, not having forces sufficient to oppose the
+French army, employed himself in retaking other towns from the enemy.
+New alliances were formed; and the prince's masterly conduct not only
+stopped the progress of the French, but forced them to evacuate the
+province of Utrecht. In 1674 the English Parliament compelled Charles
+II. to make peace with Holland. The Dutch signed separate treaties
+with the Bishop of Munster and the Elector of Cologne. The gallantry
+of the prince had so endeared him to the States of Holland, that the
+offices of stadtholder and captain-general were declared hereditary in
+his male descendants. Meanwhile he continued to display both courage
+and conduct in various military operations against the French. The
+battle of Seneffe was desperately fought. After sunset, the conflict
+was continued by the light of the moon; and darkness, rather than the
+exhaustion of the combatants, put an end to the contest, and left the
+victory undecided. The veteran Prince of Condé gave a candid and
+generous testimonial to the merit of his young antagonist: "The Prince
+of Orange," said he, "has in every point acted like an old captain,
+except in venturing his life too much like a young soldier."</p>
+
+<p>In 1675 the sovereignty of Guelderland and of the county of Zutphen
+was offered to William, with the title of duke, which was asserted to
+have been formerly vested in his family. Those who entertained a bad
+opinion of him, and attributed whatever looked like greatness in his
+character to ambition rather than patriotism, insinuated that he was
+himself the main-spring of this manifest intrigue. He had at least
+prudence enough to deliberate on the offer, and to submit it to the
+judgment of the States of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht. They viewed
+with jealousy the aristocratic dignity, and he wisely refused it. This
+forbearance was rewarded by the province of Utrecht, which adopted the
+precedent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page207" name="page207"></a>(p. 207)</span> of Holland, in voting the stadtholdership
+hereditary in the heirs-male of his body.</p>
+
+<p>The campaign of 1675 passed without any memorable event in the Low
+Countries. In the following year hopes of peace were held out from the
+meeting of a congress at Nimeguen; but the articles of peace were to
+be determined rather by the events of the campaign than by the
+deliberations of the negotiators. The French took Condé and several
+other places; the Prince of Orange, bent on retaliation, sat down
+before Maestricht, the siege of which he urged impetuously; but the
+masterly movements of the enemy, and a scarcity of forage, frustrated
+his plans. Aire had already been taken; the Duke of Orleans had made
+himself master of Bouchain; Marshal Schomberg, to whom Louis had
+intrusted his army on retiring to Versailles, was on the advance; and
+it was found expedient to raise the siege of Maestricht. It was now
+predicted that the war in Flanders would be unfortunate in its issue;
+but the Prince of Orange, influenced by the mixed motives of honor,
+ambition, and animosity, kept the Dutch Republic steady to the cause
+of its allies, and refused to negotiate a separate peace with France.
+In October, 1677, he came to England, and was graciously received by
+the king, his uncle. His marriage with Mary, eldest daughter of the
+Duke of York, was the object of his visit. That event gave general
+satisfaction at the time; the consequences which arose from it were
+unsuspected by the most far-sighted. At first the king was disinclined
+to the match, then neutral; and at last favorable, in the hope of
+engaging William to fall in with his designs, and listen to the
+separate proposals of the French monarch. The prince, on his part, was
+pleased with the prospect, because he expected that the King of
+England would, at length, find himself obliged to declare against
+Louis, and because he imagined that the English nation would be more
+strongly engaged in his interest, and would adopt his views with
+respect to the war. In this he was disappointed, though the Parliament
+was determined on forcing the king to renounce his alliance with
+Louis. But the States had gained no advantage commensurate with the
+expense and danger of the contest in which they were engaged, and were
+inclined to conclude a separate treaty. Mutual discontent among the
+allies led to the dissolution of the confederacy, and a peace
+advantageous to France was concluded at Nimeguen in 1678; but causes
+of animosity still subsisted. The Prince of Orange, independent of
+political enmity, had now personal grounds of complaint against Louis,
+who deeply resented the zeal with which William had espoused the
+liberties of Europe and resisted his aggressions. He could neither
+bend so haughty a spirit to concessions, nor warp his integrity even
+by the suggestions of his dominant passion, ambition. But it was in
+the power of the French monarch to punish this obstinacy, and by
+oppressing the inhabitants of the principality of Orange, to take a
+mean revenge on an innocent people for the imputed offences of their
+sovereign. In addition to other injuries, when the Duchy of Luxembourg
+was invaded by the French troops, the commanding officer had orders to
+expose to sale all the lands, furniture, and effects of the Prince of
+Orange, although they had been conferred on him by a formal decree of
+the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page208" name="page208"></a>(p. 208)</span> States of the country. Whether to preserve the
+appearance of justice, or merely as an insult, Louis summoned the
+Prince to appear before his Privy Council in 1682, by the title of
+<span class="italic">Messire Guillaume Comte de Nassau</span>, living at The Hague in Holland.
+In the emergency occasioned by the probability of the Dutch frontier
+being attacked in 1683, the Prince of Orange exerted all his influence
+to procure an augmentation of the troops of the republic; but he had
+the mortification to experience an obstinate resistance in several of
+the States, especially in that of Holland, headed by the city of
+Amsterdam. His coolness and steadiness, qualities invaluable in a
+statesman, at length prevailed, and he was enabled to carry his
+measures with a high hand.</p>
+
+<p>The accession of James II. to the throne of Great Britain, in 1685,
+was hailed as an opportunity for drawing closer both the personal
+friendship and the political alliance between the stadtholder of the
+one country and the king of the other; but a totally different result
+took place. The headstrong violence of James brought about a coalition
+of parties to resist him; and many of the English nobility and gentry
+concurred in an application to the Prince of Orange for assistance. At
+this crisis, William acted with such circumspection as befitted his
+calculating character. The nation was looking forward to the prince
+and princess as its only resource against tyranny, civil and
+ecclesiastical. Were the presumptive heir to concur in the offensive
+measures, he must partake with the king of the popular hatred. Even
+the continental alliances, which William was setting his whole soul to
+establish and improve, would become objects of suspicion to the
+English, and Parliament might refuse to furnish the necessary funds.
+Thus by one course he might risk the loss of a succession which was
+awaiting him; by an opposite conduct, he might profit by the king's
+indiscretion, and even forestall the time when the throne was to be
+his in the course of nature. The birth of a son and heir, in June,
+1688, seemed to turn the scale in favor of James; but the affections
+of his people were not to be recovered; it was even asserted that the
+child was supposititious. This event, therefore, confirmed William's
+previous choice of the side which he was to take; and his measures
+were well and promptly concerted. A declaration was dispersed
+throughout Great Britain, setting forth the grievances of the kingdom,
+and announcing the immediate introduction of an armed force from
+abroad, for the purpose of procuring the convocation of a free
+parliament. In a short time, full four hundred transports were hired;
+the army rapidly fell down the rivers and canals from Nimeguen; the
+artillery, arms, stores, and horses were embarked; and, on October 21,
+1668, the prince set sail from Helvoetsluys, with a fleet of near five
+hundred vessels, and an army of more than fourteen thousand men. He
+was compelled to put back by a storm; but, on a second attempt, he had
+a prosperous voyage, while the king's fleet was wind-bound. He arrived
+at Torbay on November 4th, and disembarked on the 5th, the anniversary
+of the gunpowder treason. The remembrance of Monmouth's ill-fated
+rebellion prevented the western people from joining him; but at length
+several persons of consideration took up the cause, and an association
+was formed for its support. At this <span class="pagenum"><a id="page209" name="page209"></a>(p. 209)</span> last hour James
+expressed his readiness to make concessions; but it was too late, they
+were looked on only as tokens of fear; the confidence of the people in
+the king's sincerity was gone forever. But, how much soever his
+conduct deserved censure, his distresses entitled him to pity. One
+daughter was the wife of his opponent; the other threw herself into
+the hands of the insurgents. In the agony of his heart the father
+exclaimed, "God help me! my own children have forsaken me!" He sent
+the queen and infant prince to France. Public affairs were in the
+utmost confusion, and seemed likely to remain so while he stayed in
+the island. After many of those perplexing adventures and narrow
+escapes which generally befall dethroned royalty, he at length
+succeeded in embarking for the continent.</p>
+
+<a id="img004" name="img004"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img004.jpg" width="500" height="351" alt="" title="">
+<p>Council of war after the landing of William of Orange.</p></div>
+
+<p>The prince issued circular letters for the election of members to a
+convention, which met January 22, 1689. It appeared at once that the
+House of Commons, agreeably to the prevailing sentiments both of the
+nation and of those in present authority, was chiefly chosen from
+among the Whig party. The throne was declared vacant by the following
+vote: "That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
+constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between
+king and people; and having, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked
+persons, violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out of
+the kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is
+thereby vacant." By the national consent, the vacancy was supplied by
+his daughter Mary and her husband William jointly.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince of Orange lost no time in apprising the States-General of
+his accession to the British throne. He assured them of his
+persevering endeavors to promote the well-being of his native country,
+which he was so far from abandoning, that he intended to retain his
+high offices in it. War with France was renewed early in 1689 by the
+States, supported by the house of Austria and some of the German
+princes; nor was it difficult for William to procure the concurrence
+of the English Parliament, when the object was the humiliation of
+France and her arbitrary sovereign. In the spring of 1689, James
+landed in Ireland with a French force, and was received by the
+Catholics with marks of strong attachment. Marshal Schomberg was sent
+to oppose him, but was able to effect little during the campaign of
+that year. William, in the meantime, had been successful in
+suppressing a Jacobite insurrection in Scotland, and embarked for
+Ireland with a reinforcement in the summer of 1690. He immediately
+marched against James, who was strongly posted on the River Boyne.
+Schomberg passed the river in person, and put himself at the head of a
+corps of French Protestants. Pointing to the enemy, he said,
+"Gentlemen, behold your persecutors!" With these words he advanced to
+the attack, but was killed by a random shot from the French regiments.
+The death of this general was near proving fatal to the English army;
+but William retrieved the fortune of the day, and totally dispersed
+the opposite force. In this engagement the Irish lost 1,500 men, and
+the English about one-third of that number.</p>
+
+<p>Disturbances again took place among the Jacobites in the Scotch
+Highlands. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page210" name="page210"></a>(p. 210)</span> A simultaneous insurrection was planned in both
+kingdoms, while a descent from the French coast was to have divided
+the attention of the friends of government; but the defeat of the
+French fleet near Cape La Hogue, in 1692, frustrated this combined
+attempt, and relieved the nation from the dread of civil war. In 1691
+the king had placed himself at the head of the Grand Alliance against
+France, of which he had been the prime mover; he was, therefore,
+absent on the continent during the dangers to which his new kingdom
+was exposed. His repeated losses in the following campaigns rather
+impaired than enhanced his military renown, though they increased his
+already high reputation for personal courage. The death of Queen Mary,
+which took place early in 1695, proved a severe calamity, both to the
+king and the nation. She had been a vigilant guardian of her husband's
+interests, which were constantly exposed to hazard by the conflicts of
+party and by the disadvantages under which he labored as a foreigner.
+In 1696 a congress was opened at Ryswick, to negotiate a general
+peace; and William did not interpose any obstacles. In the following
+year the treaty was concluded.</p>
+
+<p>The King of Spain's death led to the last event of great importance in
+William's reign. The powers of Europe had arranged plans to prevent
+the accumulation of the Spanish possessions in the houses of Bourbon
+and Austria; but the French king violated all his solemn pledges, by
+accepting the deceased monarch's will in favor of his own grandson,
+the Duke of Anjou. In consequence of this breach of faith,
+preparations were made by England and Holland for a renewal of war
+with France; but a fall from his horse prevented William from further
+pursuing his military career, and the glory of reducing Louis XIV.
+within the bounds of his own kingdom was left to be earned by the
+generals of Queen Anne. The king was nearly recovered from the
+lameness consequent on his fall, when fever supervened; and he died
+March 8, 1702, in the fifty-second year of his age and thirteenth of
+his reign.</p>
+
+<p>The character of King William has been drawn with all the exaggeration
+of panegyric and obloquy by opposing partisans. His native country
+owes him a lasting debt of gratitude, as the second founder of its
+liberty and independence; and his adopted country is bound to uphold
+his memory, as its champion and deliverer from civil and religious
+thraldom. In short, the attachment of the English nation to
+constitutional rights and liberal government may be measured by its
+adherence to the principles established at the Revolution of 1688 and
+its just estimate of that sovereign and those statesmen who placed the
+liberties of Great Britain on a solid and lasting foundation.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page211" name="page211"></a>(p. 211)</span> ISAAC NEWTON<br>
+By <span class="smcap">John Stoughton, D.D.</span><br>
+(1642-1727)</h3>
+
+<a id="img005" name="img005"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img005.jpg" width="250" height="256" alt="Isaac Newton." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>As a literary philosopher, Bacon surpasses Newton; as an experimental
+philosopher, Newton surpasses Bacon. Newton's works contain nothing in
+point of style and illustration comparable to Bacon's essays; Bacon's
+works contain nothing in point of scientific discovery and
+mathematical calculation comparable to Newton's "Optics" and
+"Principia."</p>
+
+<p>Newton has been the great glory of the Royal Society; and the Royal
+Society is justly proud of its most illustrious ornament. He joined it
+in January, 1674, when he was excused the ordinary payment of a
+shilling a week, "on account of his low circumstances as he
+represented." In 1703 he was elected to the presidential chair, which
+he continued to occupy until his death, in 1727. Characteristic
+mementoes of him are preserved among the Royal Society's treasures.
+There is a solar dial made by the boy Isaac, when, instead of studying
+his grammar and learning Virgil and Horace, he was busy making
+windmills and water-clocks. We fancy we see him going along the road
+to Grantham on a market day with the old servant whom his mother sent
+to take care of him, and then stopping by the wayside to watch the
+motions of a water-wheel, reflecting upon the mechanical principles
+involved in the simplest contrivances. It is pleasant, with our
+knowledge of what he afterward became, to sit down on the green bank
+by the river side, and to speculate upon the ignorance of the old
+servant who accompanied him, and of the farmers they saluted by the
+way, as to the illustrious destiny which awaited the widow's son who
+lived in the manor house of Woolsthorpe. The reflecting telescope,
+preserved along with the dial, was made by Newton in his thirtieth
+year, and reminds us of the deep mathematical studies he was then
+pursuing at Cambridge. The autograph MS. of the "Principia," also in
+the possession of the Royal Society, gives increased vividness to the
+picture of this extraordinary person in his study, solving mysterious
+problems, and suggesting others still more mysterious; and then the
+lock of silvery hair adds the last touch to fancy's picture&mdash;like a
+stroke of the pencil which, when a portrait is nearly complete, gives
+life and expression to the whole.</p>
+
+<p>Newton was portly but not tall, his silvery locks were abundant
+without any <span class="pagenum"><a id="page212" name="page212"></a>(p. 212)</span> baldness, and his eyes were sparkling and
+piercing, though perhaps they failed to indicate the profound genius
+which through them looked into the secrets of the universe. Wonderful
+humility blended with his intellectual greatness. To other men he
+seemed a spirit of higher rank, having almost superhuman faculties of
+mental vision, wont to soar into regions which the vulture's eye hath
+never seen; to himself he was but a boy playing with the shells on the
+seashore, while the ocean lay undiscovered before him. Others were
+taken up with what Newton accomplished, Newton was taken up with what
+remained to be done. So it is ever with the highest genius; the
+broader the range of view, the wider the horizon of mystery. He who
+understands more than others is conscious beyond others of what still
+remains to be understood.</p>
+
+<p>Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on December 25,
+1642, one year after the death of Galileo, and just as England was
+being plunged into the confusion and miseries of civil war. Strange to
+say, as a lad, at first he was inattentive to study; but being struck
+a severe blow by a school-fellow, he strangely retaliated by
+determining to get above him in the class, which he accomplished, and
+ere long became head of the school. His play hours were employed in
+mechanical contrivances, and a windmill in the course of erection on
+the Grantham road was an object of intense curiosity and a source of
+immense instruction. He soon had a windmill of his own, at the top of
+the house in which he lived. He had also a water-clock in his bedroom,
+and a mechanical carriage in the parlor, in which he could wheel
+himself. Paper kites and paper lanterns were his favorite toys. In the
+yard of the house he traced on a wall the movements of the sun by
+means of fixed pins; the contrivance received the name of "Isaac's
+dial," and was a standard of time to the country people in the
+neighborhood.</p>
+
+<a id="img006" name="img006"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img006.jpg" width="400" height="525" alt="" title="">
+<p>Newton analysing the ray of light.</p></div>
+
+<p>He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, June 5, 1660, just as England
+was astir with restoration festivities, and he soon devoted himself to
+mathematical studies. Euclid he took in at a glance, and afterward
+proceeded to master Descartes's geometry. Isaac Barrow, then Lucasian
+Professor of Mathematics, became his friend and tutor; and the pupil
+repaid the master's kind attention by services rendered to him in
+connection with his optical lectures. In 1669, Newton succeeded Barrow
+in his professorship. He rose to eminence in the university, and in
+1688 was chosen its representative in the Convention parliament. In
+1695 he was appointed Warden of the Mint, and was promoted to the
+Mastership in 1699. After his appointment to a government office he
+left Cambridge to reside in London, and occupied for a time a house in
+Jermyn Street. From 1710 till two years before his death he lived
+close to Leicester Square. Next door to Orange Street Chapel there
+stands an old house which has seen a good many changes, and is
+identified as the abode of Sir Isaac, who had been knighted by Queen
+Anne in 1705. We visited it many years ago. The part of the house most
+intimately associated with his name is the little observatory perched
+on the roof. We were permitted to ascend into that spot, to see it
+desecrated by its present use, for there we found a shoemaker busy at
+his toil. A glass cupola <span class="pagenum"><a id="page213" name="page213"></a>(p. 213)</span> probably crowned the observatory
+in Newton's time, and evidently there was a window in each of the four
+walls. So here he looked out on the London of nearly a century and a
+half ago, hardly less crowded and smoky about the neighborhood than
+now. Overhead, where Newton turned his eyes with most interest, we
+know it was just the same; the same beautiful stars shining out on a
+cold winter's night, the same planets sailing along the same blue
+ocean, the same moon throwing its light over the same old city. What
+observations, keen and searching, what calculations, intricate and
+profound, what speculations, far-reaching and sublime, must there have
+been, when one of the most gifted of mortals from that spot looked out
+upon the heavens, and in thought went forth on voyages of discovery
+into the distant regions of the universe! At the calm, still hour of
+midnight, Sirius watching over the city of sleepers, Jupiter carrying
+his brilliant lamp along his ancient pathway, every one of the
+luminaries in the place appointed by Him who calleth them all by their
+names&mdash;there stood the thoughtful man, with his reflecting telescope,
+occupied with thoughts which we common mortals in vain endeavor to
+conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>The first department in the field which Newton explored with
+characteristic success was the study of optics. Philosophers were busy
+with inquiries into the nature of light. It had been long believed
+that every colored ray is equally refracted when passing through a
+lens. Newton determined to analyze the prismatic hues. He made a hole
+in a window-shutter, and darkening the room, let in a portion of
+light, which he passed through a prism. The <span class="italic">white</span> sunbeam formed a
+circular image on the opposite wall, but the <span class="italic">prismatic colors</span> formed
+an image five times as long as it was broad. He was curious to know
+how this came to pass. Satisfied that the length of the image in the
+latter case did not arise from any irregularity in his glass, or from
+any differences in the incidence of light from different parts of the
+sun's disk, or from any curvature in the direction of the rays, he
+concluded, after thorough reflection, that light is not <span class="italic">homogeneous</span>,
+but that it consists of rays of diverse refrangibility. The red hue he
+saw was less refracted than the orange, the orange less refracted than
+the yellow, and the violet more than any of the rest. These important
+conclusions he applied in the construction of the first reflecting
+telescope ever used in the survey of the heavens, and an instrument is
+preserved in Trinity College Library bearing the inscription,
+"Invented by Sir Isaac Newton, and made with his own hands, 1671."</p>
+
+<p>At the request of the Royal Society, he published in the
+"Transactions" an account of his optical discoveries, and proved that
+white light is a compound of seven prismatic colors.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody is familiar with the story of Newton's watching the apple
+fall from the tree. The tradition is fondly cherished on the spot
+where the philosopher is said to have been struck by the fact. The
+<span class="italic">law</span> by which the apple falls, not the <span class="italic">reason</span> which underlies the
+law, formed the subject of Newton's reflections, and led to the
+grandest of modern discoveries. The unknown cause of the apple's
+descent is the unknown cause of the planet's motion. That was the
+truth, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page214" name="page214"></a>(p. 214)</span> simple and grand, which he brought to light and
+inculcated on the world. He undertook long calculations which he
+expected would prove this theory, but they failed to give the desired
+result. He consequently for a time desisted from the inquiry and
+turned his attention to other subjects. The error in Newton's first
+calculation arose from his taking the radius of the earth according to
+the received notion that a degree measured sixty miles, whereas Picard
+had determined it to be sixty-nine and a half miles. This was
+mentioned at a meeting of the Royal Society in 1682, at which Newton
+was present. "It immediately struck him that the value of the earth's
+radius was the erroneous element in his first calculation. With a
+feverish interest in this result, little imagined by those present, he
+hurried home, resumed his calculation with the new value, and having
+proceeded some way in it, was so overpowered by nervous agitation at
+its anticipated result, that he was unable to go on, and requested a
+friend to finish it for him, when it came out, <span class="italic">exactly establishing
+the inverse square</span> as the true measure of the moon's gravitation, and
+thus furnishing the key to the whole system." Hence proceeded Newton's
+immortal work, the "Principia."</p>
+
+<p>The sublimest conclusion which Newton drew from his cautious and
+successful investigations of the laws of nature is put, with his
+characteristic humility, in the form of a query: "These things being
+rightly described, does it not appear from the phenomena that there is
+a Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who, in
+infinite space (as it were in His sensory), sees the things themselves
+intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly
+by their immediate presence to Himself?"</p>
+
+<p>Newton spent his last days in Kensington. "I was, Sunday night," says
+his nephew, "March 7, 1725, at Kensington, with Sir Isaac Newton in
+his lodgings, just after he was come out of a fit of the gout, which
+he had in both of his feet for the first time, in the eighty-third
+year of his age. He was better after it, and had his health clearer
+and memory stronger than I had known them for some years." A year
+later the same diarist says: "April 15, 1726. I passed the whole day
+with Sir Isaac Newton, at his lodgings, Orbell's Buildings,
+Kensington, which was the last time I saw him." The house was lately
+in existence, situated in what is called Bullingham Place, retaining,
+when we visited it, a mansion-like aspect, with a large garden and
+tall trees. There he died, March 20, 1727, having on the previous day
+been able to read the newspaper and to hold a long conversation with
+Dr. Mead.</p>
+
+<p>His body was laid in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and then buried
+in Westminster Abbey.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page215" name="page215"></a>(p. 215)</span> PETER THE GREAT<br>
+(1672-1725)</h3>
+
+<a id="img007" name="img007"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img007.jpg" width="250" height="287" alt="Peter the Great." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>At the close of the sixteenth century, the dominions of Russia, or
+Muscovy, as it was then more generally called, were far thrown back
+from the more civilized nations of southern Europe, by the
+intervention of Lithuania, Livonia, and other provinces now
+incorporated in the Russian empire, but then belonging either to
+Sweden or Poland. The Czar of Muscovy, therefore, possessed no
+political weight in the affairs of Europe, and little intercourse
+existed between the court of Moscow and the more polished potentates
+whom it affected to despise as barbarians, even for some time after
+the accession of the reigning dynasty, the house of Romanoff, in 1613,
+and the establishment of a more regular government than had previously
+been known. We only read occasionally of embassies being sent to
+Moscow, in general for the purpose of arranging commercial relations.
+From this state of insignificance, Peter, the first Emperor of Russia,
+raised his country, by introducing into it the arts of peace, by
+establishing a well-organized and disciplined army in the place of a
+lawless body of tumultuous mutineers, by creating a navy, where scarce
+a merchant vessel existed before, and, as the natural result of these
+changes, by important conquests on both the Asiatic and European
+frontiers of his hereditary dominions. For these services his
+countrymen bestowed on him, yet living, the title of Great; and it is
+well deserved, whether we look to the magnitude of those services, the
+difficulty of carrying into effect his benevolent designs, which
+included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the
+grasp of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to
+conceive such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset
+them. It will not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners
+were coarse and boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and
+revolting to a polished taste; if that claim be questionable, it is
+because he who aspired to be the reformer of others was unable to
+control the violence of his own passions.</p>
+
+<p>The Czar Alexis, Peter's father, was actuated by somewhat of the
+spirit which so distinguished the son. He endeavored to introduce the
+European discipline <span class="pagenum"><a id="page216" name="page216"></a>(p. 216)</span> into his armies; he had it much at heart
+to turn the attention of the Russians to maritime pursuits; and he
+added the fine provinces of Plescow and Smolensko to his paternal
+dominions. At the death of Alexis, in 1677, Peter was but five years
+old. His eldest brother Theodore succeeded to the throne. Theodore
+died after a reign of five years, and named Peter his successor,
+passing over the second brother, Ivan, who was weak-minded. Their
+ambitious sister, Sophia, stirred the strelitzi, or native militia, to
+revolt in favor of Ivan, and Peter and his mother had to take refuge
+in the Troitski convent. This retreat being discovered, they were
+driven for protection to the church altar itself, where the religion
+or superstition of the wild soldiery saved the intended victims. We
+pass in silence over the remaining intrigues and insurrections which
+troubled the young czar's minority. It was not until the close of the
+year 1689, in the eighteenth year of his age, that he finally shook
+off the trammels of his ambitious sister, and assumed in reality, as
+well as in name, the direction of the state. How he had been qualified
+for this task by education does not clearly appear; but even setting
+aside the stories which attribute to his sister the detestable design
+of leading him into all sorts of excess, and especially drunkenness,
+with the hope of ruining both his constitution and intellect, it is
+probable that no pains whatever had been taken to form his intellect
+or manners for the station which he was to occupy. One of the few
+anecdotes told of his early life is, that being struck by the
+appearance of a boat on the river Yausa, which runs through Moscow,
+and noticing it to be of different construction from the flat-bottomed
+vessels commonly in use, he was led to inquire into the method of
+navigating it. It had been built for the Czar Alexis by a Dutchman,
+who was still in Moscow. He was immediately sent for; he rigged and
+repaired the boat, and under his guidance the young prince learned how
+to sail her, and soon grew passionately fond of his new amusement. He
+had five small vessels built at Plescow, on the lake Peipus; and not
+satisfied with this fresh-water navigation, hired a ship at Archangel,
+in which he made a voyage to the coast of Lapland. In these
+expeditions his love of sailing was nourished into a passion which
+lasted through life. He prided himself upon his practical skill as a
+seaman; and both at this time and afterward exposed himself and his
+friends to no small hazard by his rashness in following this favorite
+pursuit.</p>
+
+<a id="img008" name="img008"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img008.jpg" width="500" height="363" alt="" title="">
+<p>The life of Peter the Great saved at the foot of the
+altar.</p></div>
+
+<p>The first serious object of Peter's attention was to reform the army.
+In this he was materially assisted by a Swiss gentleman named Lefort;
+at whose suggestion he raised a company of fifty men, who were clothed
+and disciplined in the European manner, the Russian army at that time
+being little better than a tribe of Tartars. As soon as the little
+corps was formed, Peter caused himself to be enrolled in it as a
+private soldier. It is a remarkable trait in the character of the man,
+that he thought no condescension degrading which forwarded any of his
+ends. In the army he entered himself in the lowest rank, and performed
+successively the duties of every other; in the navy he went still
+further, for he insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest
+cabin-boy, rising step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an
+able seaman. Nor was this done merely <span class="pagenum"><a id="page217" name="page217"></a>(p. 217)</span> for the sake of
+singularity; he had resolved that every officer of the sea or land
+service should enter in the lowest rank of his profession, that he
+might obtain a practical knowledge of every task or man&oelig;uvre which
+it was his duty to see properly executed; and he felt that his
+nobility might scarcely be brought to submit to what in their eyes
+would be a degradation, except by the personal example of the czar
+himself. Meanwhile he had not been negligent of the other arm of war;
+for a number of Dutch and Venetian workmen were employed in building
+gunboats and small ships of war at Voronitz, on the river Don,
+intended to secure the command of the Sea of Azof, and to assist in
+capturing the strong town of Azof, then held by the Turks. The
+possession of this place was of great importance, from its situation
+at the mouth of the Don, commanding access to the Mediterranean Sea.
+His first military attempts were accordingly directed against it, and
+he succeeded in taking it in 1696.</p>
+
+<p>In the spring of the ensuing year, the empire being tranquil and the
+young czar's authority apparently established on a safe footing, he
+determined to travel into foreign countries, to view with his own
+eyes, and become personally and practically familiar with the arts and
+institutions of refined nations. There was a grotesqueness in his
+manner of executing this design, which has tended, more probably than
+even its real merit, to make it one of the common-places of history.
+Every child knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of
+Saardam in Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have
+been affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in
+the earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers
+of the dock-yard, and in all points of outward manners and appearance,
+put himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their
+daily bread. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter's mind
+always to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here, perhaps,
+pushed beyond reasonable bounds. And his abode and occupations in
+Holland formed only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he
+sent sixty young Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building
+and navigation, and especially the construction and management of
+galleys moved by oars, which were so much used by the Venetian
+republic. Others he sent into Holland, with similar instructions;
+others into Germany, to study the art of war, and make themselves well
+acquainted with the discipline and tactics of the German troops. So
+that while his personal labor at Saardam may have been stimulated in
+part by affectation of singularity, in part, perhaps, by a love of
+bodily exertion common in men of his busy and ardent temper, it would
+be unjust not to give him credit for higher motives; such as the
+desire to become thoroughly acquainted with the art of ship-building,
+which he thought so important, and to set a good example of diligence
+to those whom he had sent out on a similar voyage of education.</p>
+
+<p>Peter remained nine months in Holland, the greatest part of which he
+spent in the dock-yard of Saardam. He displayed unwearied zeal in
+seeking out and endeavoring to comprehend everything of interest in
+science and art, especially in visiting manufactories. In January,
+1698, he sailed for London in an English <span class="pagenum"><a id="page218" name="page218"></a>(p. 218)</span> man-of-war, sent
+out expressly to bring him over. His chief object was to perfect
+himself in the higher branches of ship-building. With this view he
+occupied Mr. Evelyn's house, adjoining the dock-yard of Deptford; and
+there remain in that gentleman's journal some curious notices of the
+manners of the czar and his household, which were of the least refined
+description. During his stay he showed the same earnestness in
+inquiring into all things connected with the maritime and commercial
+greatness of the country, as before in Holland; and he took away
+nearly five hundred persons in his suite, consisting of naval
+captains, pilots, gunners, surgeons, and workmen in various trades,
+especially those connected with the naval service. In England, without
+assuming his rank, he ceased to wear the attire and adopt the habits
+of a common workman; and he had frequent intercourse with William
+III., who is said to have conceived a strong liking for him,
+notwithstanding the uncouthness of his manners. Kneller painted a
+portrait of him for the king, which is said to have been a good
+likeness.</p>
+
+<p>He left London in April, 1698, and proceeded to Vienna, principally to
+inspect the Austrian troops, then esteemed among the best in Europe.
+He had intended to visit Italy; but his return was hastened by the
+tidings of a dangerous insurrection having broken out, which, though
+suppressed, seemed to render a longer absence from the seat of
+government inexpedient. The insurgents were chiefly composed of the
+Russian soldiery, abetted by a large party who thought everything
+Russian good, and hated and dreaded the czar's innovating temper. Of
+those who had taken up arms, many were slain in battle; the rest, with
+many persons of more rank and consequence, suspected of being
+implicated in the revolt, were retained in prison until the czar
+himself should decide their fate. Numerous stories of his extravagant
+cruelties on this occasion have been told, which may safely be passed
+over as unworthy of credit. It is certain, however, that considerable
+severity was shown. This insurrection led to the complete remodelling
+of the Russian army, on the same plan which had already been partially
+adopted.</p>
+
+<p>During the year 1699 the czar was chiefly occupied by civil reforms.
+According to his own account, as published in his journal, he
+regulated the press, caused translations to be published of various
+treatises on military and mechanical science and history; he founded a
+school for the navy; others for the study of the Latin, German, and
+other languages; he encouraged his subjects to cultivate foreign
+trade, which before they had absolutely been forbidden to do under
+pain of death; he altered the Russian calendar, in which the year
+began on September 1st, to agree in that point with the practice of
+other nations; he broke through the Oriental custom of not suffering
+women to mix in general society; and he paid sedulous attention to the
+improvement of his navy on the river Don. We have the testimony of Mr.
+Deane, an English ship-builder, that the czar had turned his manual
+labors to good account, who states in a letter to England, that "the
+czar has set up a ship of sixty guns, where he is both foreman and
+masterbuilder; and, not to flatter him, I'll assure your lordship it
+will be the best ship <span class="pagenum"><a id="page219" name="page219"></a>(p. 219)</span> among them, and it is all from his own
+draught: how he framed her together, and how he made the moulds, and
+in so short a time as he did, is really wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>He introduced an improved breed of sheep from Saxony and Silesia;
+despatched engineers to survey the different provinces of his
+extensive empire; sent persons skilled in metallurgy to the various
+districts in which mines were to be found; established manufactories
+of arms, tools, stuffs; and encouraged foreigners skilled in the
+useful arts to settle in Russia, and enrich it by the produce of their
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>We cannot trace the progress of that protracted contest between Sweden
+and Russia, in which the short-lived greatness of Sweden was broken:
+we can only state the causes of the war and the important results to
+which it led. Peter's principal motive for engaging in it was his
+leading wish to make Russia a maritime and commercial nation. To this
+end it was necessary that she should be possessed of ports, of which,
+however, she had none but Archangel and Azof, both most inconveniently
+situated, as well in respect of the Russian empire itself, as of the
+chief commercial nations of Europe. On the waters of the Baltic Russia
+did not possess a foot of coast. Both sides of the Baltic, both sides
+of the Gulf of Finland, the country between the head of that gulf and
+the Lake Ladoga, including both sides of the River Neva, and the
+western side of Lake Ladoga itself, and the northern end of Lake
+Peipus, belonged to Sweden. In the year 1700, Charles XII. being but
+eighteen years of age, Denmark, Poland, and Russia, which had all of
+them suffered from the ambition of Sweden, formed a league to repair
+their losses, presuming on the weakness usually inherent in a
+minority. The object of Russia was the restoration of the provinces of
+Ingria, Carelia, and Wiborg, the country round the head of the Gulf of
+Finland, which formerly had belonged to her; that of Poland, was the
+recovery of Livonia and Esthonia, the greater part of which had been
+ceded by her to Charles XI. of Sweden. Denmark was to obtain Holstein
+and Sleswick. But Denmark and Poland very soon withdrew, and left
+Russia to encounter Sweden single-handed. To this she was entirely
+unequal; her army, the bulk of it undisciplined, and even the
+disciplined part unpractised in the field, was no match for the
+veteran troops of Sweden, the terror of Germany. In the battle of
+Narva, a town on the river which runs out of the Peipus Lake, fought
+November 30, 1700, 9,000 Swedes defeated signally near forty thousand
+Russians, strongly intrenched and with a numerous artillery. Had
+Charles prosecuted his success with vigor, he might probably have
+delayed for many years the rise of Russia; but whether from contempt
+or mistake he devoted his whole attention to the war in Poland, and
+left the czar at liberty to recruit and discipline his army, and
+improve the resources of his kingdom. In these labors he was most
+diligent. His troops, practised in frequent skirmishes with the Swedes
+quartered in Ingria and Livonia, rapidly improved, and on the
+celebrated field of Pultowa broke forever the power of Charles XII.
+This decisive action did not take place until July 8, 1709. The
+interval was occupied by a series of small, but important additions to
+the Russian territory. In 1701-2, great <span class="pagenum"><a id="page220" name="page220"></a>(p. 220)</span> part of Livonia and
+Ingria were subdued, including the banks of the Neva, where on May 27,
+1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. It was not till 1710
+that the conquest of Courland, with the remainder of Livonia,
+including the important harbors of Riga and Revel, gave to Russia that
+free navigation of the Baltic Sea which Peter had longed for as the
+greatest benefit which he could confer upon his country.</p>
+
+<p>After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued
+for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on
+spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but
+hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning by the battle of
+the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not
+mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times
+that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catherine, first the
+mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner
+and successor of Peter on the throne of Russia. By her coolness and
+prudence, while the czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and
+self-reproach, was laboring under nervous convulsions, to which he was
+liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the vizier in
+command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed
+life, liberty, and honor, but were obliged to resign Azof, to give up
+the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that
+name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been very
+bitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of
+government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to
+breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by
+prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland.
+Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and
+of the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to
+Russia by the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion the
+senate or state assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title
+of Emperor of all the Russias, with the adjunct of Great, and Father
+of his Country.</p>
+
+<p>If our sketch of the latter years of Peter's life appears meagre and
+unsatisfactory, it is to be recollected that the history of that life
+is the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense
+within our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all
+that we are competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the
+exertions of Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to
+consolidate and improve the internal condition of the empire, by
+watching over the changes which he had already made, than to effect
+farther conquests, or new revolutions in policy or manners. He died
+February 8, 1725, leaving no surviving male issue. Some time before he
+had caused the Empress Catherine to be solemnly crowned and associated
+with him on the throne, and to her he left the charge of fostering
+those schemes of civilization which he had originated.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page221" name="page221"></a>(p. 221)</span> MARIA THERESA<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href="#footnote1" title="Go to footnote 1"><span class="smaller">[1]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Anna C. Brackett</span><br>
+(1717-1780)</h3>
+
+<a id="img009" name="img009"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img009.jpg" width="250" height="312" alt="Maria Theresa." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, was born May 13, 1717, daughter
+of Charles VI. of the house of Hapsburg&mdash;ruling Austria for more than
+four hundred years&mdash;and of Elizabeth of Brunswick. From her father she
+inherited the "deadly Hapsburg tenacity," and from her mother much
+good sense and capacity for managing affairs, all of which stood her
+in good stead. She was especially fortunate in three things: that she
+lived in the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia, for thus she had
+given to her a chance to know of what stuff she was made; that she did
+not marry him, as was proposed by the great Eugene; and that she did
+not live to see the beautiful head of her daughter, Marie Antoinette,
+fall under the guillotine. Though the court of Charles VI. rivalled in
+ceremonial observance that of Spain, the little archduchess was reared
+in almost Spartan simplicity of dress and food. From Jesuit text-books
+she learned her history and geography, and she spoke several
+languages, none of which, however, could she ever write or spell quite
+correctly. But chiefly she was taught the pre-eminent dignity and
+power of the Hapsburgs, and the necessary indivisibility of the
+Austrian state. She learned to hunt, to shoot, and to dance, and at
+suppers of state she and her little sister were sometimes allowed to
+present to their stately mother her gloves and fan when the emperor
+rose. She had an aversion to business and great diffidence of her own
+capacity, and though the emperor took her to the council of state at
+the time of the Polish election, when she was only sixteen, he yet
+failed to give her any real knowledge of the commonest forms of
+business. In this austere court, never seeing a smile on her father's
+face, she grew up, "the prettiest little maiden in the world," to a
+radiant woman, heir-expectant to the throne by virtue of the Pragmatic
+Sanction, an order of state by means of which the Emperor Charles VI.
+had undertaken to settle the Austrian succession.</p>
+
+<p>At nineteen she was "beautiful to soul and eye," tall and slight, with
+brilliant complexion, sparkling gray eyes, and a profusion of golden
+wavy hair. She had an aquiline nose,&mdash;strange to say for a Hapsburg,
+an exceedingly lovely mouth,&mdash;and very beautiful hands and arms. Her
+voice was sharp but musical, and her <span class="pagenum"><a id="page222" name="page222"></a>(p. 222)</span> quick speech and
+animated gestures betrayed an ardent and impetuous nature, though she
+never lost her high and dignified bearing. Her anger was easily
+roused, but never lasted long, especially when a fault had been
+committed against herself, and when she knew that she had been too
+angry she tried to atone by overflowing kindness. She needed only to
+be convinced that a thing was wrong, to give it up. Whatever she did
+she did with her whole heart, and gratitude was one of her strongest
+characteristics. Withal she kept a constant and steadfast soul, and
+her nature was delicate and refined; she was a worthy sister of
+Isabella of Castile. At nineteen, largely through her own persistence,
+she escaped being made a sacrifice to the political needs of Austria
+in being given to the heir of Philip V. of Spain, and married the man
+of her choice, Francis Stephen, the grandson of that Duke of Lorraine
+who, in 1683, together with John Sobieski, King of Poland, had saved
+Vienna from the Turks. Her husband was of comely person and suave
+manners, kind-hearted, though not strong nor brilliant. To him she
+bore five sons and eleven daughters. She was looking forward to the
+birth of her eldest son, when, at the age of twenty-three, October 20,
+1740, she was proclaimed by the heralds Sovereign Archduchess of
+Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, for her father lay dead in
+Vienna, and all the cares and anxieties of government had fallen upon
+her shoulders. Austria was not one nation, but composed of many
+differing and scattered peoples jealous of their ancient rights, among
+whom there could be no sense of unity, and in his many disastrous wars
+her father had lost several of its possessions. There was the
+depression of defeat and mismanagement among the state-counsellors,
+there were only $65,000 in the treasury, and an army of but 68,000
+soldiers. The powers that had given in their adhesion to the Pragmatic
+Sanction were tardily and but half acknowledging her succession, and
+from France she could get nothing but dissimulation and uncertainty.
+On November 1st the young royal wife was joyfully and peacefully
+creating her husband Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece,
+and co-regent, and conferring upon him the Bohemian electoral vote. In
+less than six weeks from that day the Elector of Bavaria had laid
+formal claim to her throne, Frederick of Prussia had marched his
+troops into Silesia, one of her finest provinces, calling it his own,
+and the war of the Austrian Succession was on for seven long years;
+for the high, heroic heart would not yield one inch, and the sovereign
+ruler of Austria had met with fine Hapsburg scorn the insulting
+proposition of the King of Prussia that he would gladly support her
+right to the throne of her ancestors, provided she would resign to his
+obliging majesty the whole of Silesia.</p>
+
+<p>The aged counsellors who took it upon themselves to dictate to the
+young and inexperienced ruler soon found out their mistake. The little
+girl who had displayed an aversion for business was now a woman with
+talent for its details, only eager for instruction in order to make up
+her own mind. The army must be increased and improved, and the people
+aroused to enthusiasm, if Frederick was to be checked. And it was not
+Frederick alone that was to be feared, for a great coalition of
+European powers was formed against her, and she had but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page223" name="page223"></a>(p. 223)</span>
+England and Saxony to depend on for help, while the enemy was already
+within her dominions. March 13, 1741, her son Joseph was born, and by
+September 11th the young mother was in Hungary to urge its people to
+come to the aid of the threatened country in its extremity. In deep
+mourning and still pale and delicate, holding the little archduke in
+her arms, her appeal to the Hungarian nobles roused them to lofty
+enthusiasm and gained their unswerving devotion. She never forgot
+this, and when she lay dying, spoke of them with grateful affection.
+The war went on with varying fortunes, but she kept heart and hope,
+though by the end of 1741 the powers were plotting the partition of
+Austria as a probable event. By 1743 the luck had changed; the
+Austrian army had redeemed itself, and Maria Theresa was fancying that
+she should be able to conquer Prussia. It was about this time that she
+began greatly to rely on Kaunitz, who afterward became Prime Minister,
+and who shaped for all the after-years of her reign the policy of her
+rule. The old ministers left her by her father were not able to meet
+the new difficulties, and the sovereign was often in great anxiety
+amid conflicting and hesitating counsels, for it was nothing less than
+the very existence of the country that was at stake. She was
+thirty-one years old when the war came to an end by the peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle, the particulars of which were entrusted to Kaunitz
+while he was ambassador at London. By that treaty Maria Theresa gained
+the final guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, though she had to cede
+two of her Italian duchies to the Spanish Bourbons, and Glatz and the
+much-desired Silesia to the "bad neighbor," as she always called
+Frederick. She was twenty-eight when she had the pleasure of seeing
+her husband elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, gaining as his
+wife the title of empress, and being thus often spoken of as the
+empress-queen.</p>
+
+<p>The war was over, but she knew full well that it was only for a short
+time, and she spent the eight years of restless peace that followed,
+in the most unremitting efforts to enable her country to endure the
+next attack. She had proved that she could create heroes out of common
+men; she was now to extort praise even from Frederick of Prussia for
+"accomplishing designs worthy of a great man." A military academy was
+created at Vienna; order and economy were brought into the treasury
+and the army; she established camps of instruction and went herself to
+visit them, recompensing brave officers, calling forth abilities and
+emulation. The Department of Justice was disjoined from that of the
+Police, a superior court was established, and the direction of the
+finances given to a special council, reporting every week to the
+empress. She often consulted men who were not in office upon matters
+of policy, and thus got many valuable suggestions. Meantime Kaunitz
+was ambassador at Paris, and had been bending all his efforts to
+secure a French alliance, which seemed to him of so much importance
+that he even induced his royal mistress to write to the Pompadour with
+a view to securing the influence of Louis XV. in the impending war.
+This was not the only time that Maria Theresa sacrificed the woman in
+her to the ruler, for though above all breath of scandal, and
+devotedly attached to husband and children, she never forgot that she
+was Austria, and must maintain <span class="pagenum"><a id="page224" name="page224"></a>(p. 224)</span> her inheritance. Then came on
+the Seven Years' War, in which she had as allies almost all Europe,
+though at its close she had to give up the last hope of ever regaining
+Silesia, which was as dear to her as Calais to Mary of England,
+Frederick agreeing to vote for Joseph as successor to his father as
+emperor. It was in this war, after the victory of Kolin, that she
+founded the military order of Maria Theresa, the beautiful cross of
+which is still the highest and most coveted Austrian decoration. At
+the end of the war she was forty-six years old, and it was only two
+years after, August 18, 1765, that she herself made the shroud for her
+husband, and put on the mourning which was to last for fifteen years.
+Ever after that she spent in seclusion the whole month of August and
+the 18th of every other month, thus breaking the routine of her busy
+days. I give in brief the account of one of these: Rising at five or
+six, according to the season, prayer, dressing, hearing mass,
+breakfast, work till nine on petitions and reports, a second mass, a
+visit to her children, more work till dinner at one, and again work.
+This she was apt to do in a sentinel-guarded arbor to which she would
+go from the palace, carrying despatches and papers in a tray slung by
+a cord round her neck. Vespers at six, an evening card-party, supper,
+a walk at eight, and then sleep. After the death of Francis she made
+her son Joseph joint-ruler, but soon found herself obliged to limit
+his authority to the care of the army. At fifty the small-pox greatly
+marred her beauty, though she was now at the age when the constant
+beauty of soul of her life shone fair on the lofty face. When she was
+fifty-three she bade good-by to the little fifteen-years-old Marie
+Antoinette, going, as she hoped, to assure the alliance of France,
+never to see her again. To her for the rest of Maria Theresa's life,
+as to the other married daughters, went a courier every three weeks
+with letters, which have been preserved, and may still be read for
+knowledge of the mother and empress. At fifty-five Maria Theresa
+became a party to the partition of Poland, and because this
+transaction is regarded as a blot upon her character, I give in full
+the words which she sent to Kaunitz when she returned to him the
+signed agreement. She was then fifty-five years old, and keen memories
+of 1741 and of her young life must have stirred the trembling pen as
+she wrote on it: "<span class="italic">Placet</span>, because so many great and learned men wish
+it; but when I have been long dead, people will see what must come
+from the violation of everything that until now has been deemed holy
+and right." And then on a slip of paper sent with the document stood
+these words: "When all my countries were attacked, and I no longer
+knew where I might go quietly to lie in, I stood stiff on my good
+right and the help of God. But in this affair, when not only clear
+justice cries to Heaven against us, but also all fairness and
+common-sense condemn us, I must confess that all the days of my life I
+have never felt so troubled, and I am ashamed to show myself before
+the people. Let the prince consider what an example we give to the
+world, when, for a miserable slice of Poland or of Moldavia and
+Wallachia, we risk the loss of our honor and reputation. I feel that I
+am alone, and no longer in health and strength; and therefore,
+although not without my greatest sorrow I allow matters to take their
+own course."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page225" name="page225"></a>(p. 225)</span> The heaviest burdens and greatest trials of her life were now
+over. The fruit of her careful plans was beginning to be reaped in
+prosperity, and a long period of tranquillity had come. She turned all
+her attention to reforms: academies were established, among others one
+for the education of the Magyar noble youth in Vienna, that these
+might become the more surely incorporated with the Austrian system.
+The public schools were reconstituted, the monasteries reformed, and
+no longer allowed to furnish asylums for criminals. Priests were
+forbidden to be present at the making of wills, and the Inquisition
+was suppressed. Through most convincing efforts on the part of
+Kaunitz, the Jesuits had been finally expelled from the country.
+Agriculture, trade, and commerce were encouraged, though by the advice
+of England the navy was given up. Inoculation for the small-pox was
+introduced, and a hospital for its treatment, as well as a home for
+veteran soldiers, built in Vienna. When she was sixty, the war of the
+Bavarian Succession was happily ended, in opposition to the will of
+Joseph, by her most untiring efforts. Servitude and the torture had
+been abolished; the taxes, on a better basis, were bringing in large
+returns; a standing army had been created, the monarchy lifted and
+strengthened, and the court and the people stood together against
+oppression from the aristocracy. Austria had been carried from the
+Middle Ages into modern times, and was no longer a conglomeration but
+a nation.</p>
+
+<p>Maria Theresa had reached the age of sixty-three when the brave
+religious spirit, over which flattery had had no power, was waiting in
+pain and anguish but not in fear the hour of its release. The generous
+and open hand could no longer give; the heart so keenly sensitive to
+criticism was to dread it no more; the eyes that, as she had written
+to Marie Antoinette, had shed so many relieving tears were nevermore
+to need that relief. "You are all so timid," she said, "I am not
+afraid of death. I only pray to God to give me strength to the end."
+She did not forget Poland, she gratefully remembered Hungary, and
+then, with the cry, "To Thee! I am coming!" she sank back dead, in the
+arms of the son whom, as a little baby, she had held up in her brave
+arms to plead for the loyalty of the Hungarian nobles. The high
+imperial heart had ceased to beat, the house of Hapsburg had come to
+an end, and Joseph II., of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, was the
+sovereign ruler of Austria.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig001" name="sig001"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig001.jpg" width="300" height="36" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page226" name="page226"></a>(p. 226)</span> EDMUND BURKE<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href="#footnote2" title="Go to footnote 2"><span class="smaller">[2]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Dr. Heinrich Geffcken</span><br>
+(1730-1797)</h3>
+
+<a id="img010" name="img010"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img010.jpg" width="250" height="278" alt="Edmund Burke." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Edmund Burke, the great British politician, and one of the greatest
+political philosophers that ever lived, was born at Dublin, January 1,
+1730, as son of a petty attorney. Conformably to the wishes of his
+father, he began to study law in London, but found it so little
+attractive that, encouraged by eminent men, particularly by Johnson,
+he turned to literary pursuits. His first work, "Vindication of
+Natural Society" (1756), which at once won him fame, is a keen satire
+on Bolingbroke, showing that the attacks of that writer upon revealed
+religion might as well be turned against all social and political
+institutions. His reputation was still enhanced by the "Philosophical
+Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful"
+(1757); and at the same time he showed, by publishing "Dodd's Annual
+Register," that he was equally gifted for politics. As a preliminary
+for practical activity in that domain, he became private secretary of
+Gerard Hamilton, the lieutenant-general's assistant for Ireland, but
+soon found that his chief's smart mediocrity only wanted to turn to
+advantage the secretary's scantily rewarded talent. He returned to
+London (1764), and at once entered upon the political career in which
+he was to play so eminent a part.</p>
+
+<p>The Grenville ministry was dismissed and replaced by an administration
+of rather heterogeneous elements, under Lord Rockingham, not a great
+statesman, but combining unblemished character and solid gifts with
+rank and wealth. Burke became his private secretary and influential
+adviser, being at the same time elected a member for Wendover. Matters
+then were in a very critical state: while discontent was fast rising
+in America and commerce trembling for its colonial trade, two parties
+were fiercely opposed in Parliament. Pitt deemed it treason against
+the Constitution and to the colonies to tax America without its
+consent. Grenville declared it treason to crown and legislature to
+abandon that right. Burke, though in principle more inclining to Pitt,
+advised a middle course by redressing the grievances of the colonies,
+while maintaining the dignity of the crown. The government proposed
+(January, 1766) to repeal Grenville's Stamp Act, but to guard the
+constitutional rights of the mother-country by a "Declaratory
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page227" name="page227"></a>(p. 227)</span> Act." In the debate on these bills Burke made his maiden
+speech, which called forth universal admiration; a friend wrote to
+him, "You have made us hear a new eloquence." The bills passed, but
+the ministry, mined by both parties, soon afterward was obliged to
+resign. Burke summed up its activity in an excellent pamphlet, "A
+Short Account of a Late Short Administration," and now entered into
+opposition against Lord Chatham's ministry, which he called "a
+tessellated pavement without cement." On the other hand, he
+victoriously refuted the attacks of the Grenvilles against Rockingham,
+in his "Observations on the Present State of the Nation," exhibiting
+the emptiness of his opponents' declamations on the declining wealth
+of the country, and proving that its resources were fast increasing.</p>
+
+<p>Burke rises still higher in the "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present
+Discontents" (1770), a powerful plea for the British Constitution in
+its development from 1688, and exhibiting the full maturity of his
+talent. He denies that the prevailing discontents are due to some
+factious libellers exciting the people, who have no interest in
+disorder, but are only roused by the impatience of suffering. The
+discontents were real, and their cause was a perversion of the true
+principles on which the Constitution rested. As hitherto, business had
+gone alternately through the hands of Whigs and Tories, the opposition
+controlling the government; but now a court faction had sprung up
+called "the king's friends," a double cabinet, acting as irresponsible
+wire-pullers behind the scenes. These men deriving, like Janissaries,
+a kind of freedom from the very condition of their servitude, were
+sitting in secondary, but efficient, departments of office and in the
+household of the royal family, so as to occupy the avenues to the
+throne and to forward or frustrate the execution of any measure
+according to their own interests; they endeavored to separate the
+crown from the administration, and to divide the latter within itself.
+To this cabal it was owing that British policy was brought into
+derision in those foreign countries which, a while ago, trembled at
+the power of England's arms. Above all, they tried to pervert the
+principles of Parliament by raising divisions among the people, by
+influencing the elections, by separating representatives from their
+constituents, and by undermining the control of the legislature over
+the executive. They maintained that all political connections were in
+their nature factious; but free commonwealths were ever made by
+parties, <span class="italic">i.e.</span>, bodies of men united for promoting by their joint
+endeavors the national interest upon great leading principles in which
+they were agreed; government by parties was the very soul of
+representative institutions; it had raised England to her present
+power and protected the liberty of the people; while the cant,
+"measures not men," had always been the pretext for getting loose from
+every honorable engagement.</p>
+
+<p>Burke finds the remedy in restoring the Constitution to its original
+principles; all patriots must form a firm combination against the
+cabal; a just connection between representatives and constituents must
+be re-established; Parliament ought not to meddle with the privileges
+of the executive, but exercise real control upon the acting powers of
+the state, and if necessary, not be afraid to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page228" name="page228"></a>(p. 228)</span> resort to
+impeachment, "that great guardian of the purity of the Constitution;"
+finally, if all means fail, there must be an interposition of the body
+of the people itself&mdash;"an unpleasant remedy but legal, when it is
+evident that nothing else can hold the Constitution to its true
+principles."</p>
+
+<p>He at the same time displayed a prominent activity in Parliament,
+where soon all internal questions gave way to the great contest with
+America. In 1771 he had accepted the place of an agent for New York,
+had become intimately acquainted with Franklin, and won a deep insight
+into American affairs. Of the six duties imposed by Townshend's
+Revenue Act (1767) five had been repealed, the tea duty alone
+remained. December 18, 1773, the cargo of an East Indian tea-ship was
+thrown into the sea at Boston, and the first armed conflict ensued.
+Court and government were resolved to put down this rebellion; Burke,
+on the contrary, supported in his great speech "On American Taxation"
+Rose-Fuller's motion (April, 1774) for suppressing the last duty.
+England had no right to tax the colonies, nor had she ever pretended
+to do so before Grenville's Stamp Act; that, as well as the most
+important duties of the Revenue Act, had been repealed; the tea-duty
+was slight and it produced short of nothing, the cost of collection
+devouring it to the bone; for the Americans refused to buy imported
+tea, and they were right to do so; having inherited English principles
+they resisted for the same reason for which Hampden had resisted the
+payment of the trifling ship-money, because the principle on which it
+was demanded would have made him a slave. It would be a signal folly
+to maintain the shadow of a duty and to risk the loss of an empire
+merely because the preamble of the Revenue Act said it was expedient
+that a revenue should be raised in his majesty's dominions in America.</p>
+
+<a id="img011" name="img011"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img011.jpg" width="500" height="356" alt="" title="">
+<p>Burke, Johnson and their friends.</p></div>
+
+<p>The blindness of the majority turned away from those wise counsels.
+Parliament was dissolved. Burke, elected for Bristol, forthwith
+introduced thirteen resolutions, which he defended in his celebrated
+speech for "Conciliation with the Colonies" (March 22, 1775). As he
+had told his constituents his aim was to reconcile British superiority
+with American liberty, he proposed to remove the ground of the
+difference in order to restore the former confidence of the colonies
+in the mother-country. "Fighting is not the best way of gaining a
+people of more than two millions, in which the fierce spirit of
+liberty is probably stronger than in any other country, and that
+liberty is founded upon English principles." Now, a fundamental point
+of our Constitution is that the people have power of "granting their
+own money;" the colonial assemblies have uncontested competence to
+raise taxes, and have frequently granted them for imperial purposes;
+sometimes so liberally that, in 1743, the Commons resolved to
+reimburse the expense; no method for procuring a representation in
+Parliament of the colonies has hitherto been advised, consequently no
+revenue by imposition has been raised before the Stamp Act; we
+therefore ought to acknowledge that only the general assemblies can
+grant "aids to his Majesty." To enforce the reverse principle is not
+only unjust, but impossible, "when three thousand miles of ocean lie
+between us and them. Seas roll and months pass between the order and
+the execution. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page229" name="page229"></a>(p. 229)</span> We may impoverish the colonies and cripple
+our own most important trade, but it is preposterous to make them
+unserviceable, in order to keep them obedient." The motions were
+rejected; three years afterward, when it was too late, Burke's
+opponent, Lord North, proposed a similar plan.</p>
+
+<p>In 1780 Burke introduced his bill for "Economical reform in support of
+several petitions to correct the gross abuses in the management of
+public expenditure before laying fresh burdens upon the people." His
+speech derives a particular interest from its defining the difference
+of timely and gradual reformation from hasty and harsh, making clear
+work. The former was an amicable and temperate arrangement with a
+friend in power, leaving room for growth; the latter was imposing
+terms upon a conquered enemy under a state of inflammation. In 1782
+Lord North was obliged to resign, and Rockingham became again premier,
+Burke paymaster-general of the army. He now carried his economical
+reform, abolishing sinecures, suppressing useless expenses, and
+cutting down salaries, among which was his own.</p>
+
+<p>After Rockingham's death and the overthrow of the short Shelburne
+administration, Burke turned his activity to the misgovernment of
+India; his speeches in support of Fox's East-India Bill (December 1,
+1783), and on the Nabob of Arcot's debts (February 15, 1783), show
+that he had thoroughly mastered that intricate subject. He violently
+denounced the oppression exercised by the company, a prelude to his
+campaign against Warren Hastings, which he continued for eight years.
+His speech justifying the impeachment of the governor-general, said
+Erskine, "irresistibly carried away its brilliant audience by a
+superhuman eloquence."</p>
+
+<p>Burke in this contest was, as always, animated by the purest motives,
+but his passion went too far in comparing Hastings to Verres, and did
+not sufficiently allow for the difficult circumstances in which his
+adversary was placed. Without the latter's unscrupulous energy, India
+would have been lost. Hastings finally was acquitted, but Burke's
+attacks nevertheless had the effect of uncovering and redressing the
+prevailing abuses.</p>
+
+<p>The last period of Burke's life is filled up by his great struggle
+against the French revolution. Already in 1769 he had prophetically
+asserted that the derangement of French finances must infallibly lead
+to a violent convulsion, the influence of which upon France and even
+Europe could be scarcely divined; now he directed the attention of the
+House (February 4, 1790) to the dangers of the revolution, by which
+the French had shown themselves "the ablest architects of ruin,"
+pulling down all their domestic institutions, making "a digest of
+anarchy" called "the rights of men," and establishing a ferocious,
+tyrannical, and atheistical democracy. It might be said that they had
+done service to England, a rival, by reducing their country to
+impotence and expunging it out of the system of Europe; but, by the
+vicinity of the two countries, their present distemper might prove
+more contagious than the gilded tyranny of Louis XIV. had been, and
+"much as it would afflict him, he would abandon his best friends and
+join with his worst enemies to oppose all violent exertions of the
+spirit of innovation, which <span class="pagenum"><a id="page230" name="page230"></a>(p. 230)</span> by tearing to pieces the
+contexture of the state prevented all real reformation;" the last
+passage alluding to the apology of Fox, hitherto his closest friend,
+for French proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>These ideas Burke more fully developed in his famous "Reflections on
+the Revolution in France" (1790); liberals maintained that by this
+work he had deserted the cause of liberty; conservatives asserted that
+he had become the stoutest champion of order combined with rational
+freedom. It must be acknowledged that Burke erred by judging the state
+of France before the revolution too favorably; if he justly
+appreciated the pernicious influence of Rousseau, "that great
+professor and hero of vanity," he ought to have discerned that a
+nation, the higher classes of which were undermined by materialism and
+unbelief, while the masses lived in deep misery, was incapable of a
+temperate reform; the follies and terrors of the revolution were the
+children of the sins of the "ancien régime." But how amply has history
+confirmed his judgment on the revolution itself! While Fox admired the
+constitution of 1791 as "the most astonishing and glorious edifice of
+liberty that ever was erected," Burke foresaid that this
+constitutional king would be torn from his throne by the mob, that the
+wildest anarchy would put France in confusion, and that after its
+exhaustion an unlimited military despotism would be established.</p>
+
+<p>This work, which produced a European sensation, receives its true
+light by Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" (1791). His
+former friends having sided with Fox, he refuted the reproach of
+having abandoned his principles by an elaborate comparison of the
+English revolution of 1688 with that of France. His later writings,
+among which the "Thoughts on French Affairs" (1791) and "Thoughts on a
+Regicide Peace" (1796) are the principal, were directed against the
+foreign influence of the revolutionary system, "France being no more a
+state but a faction, which must be destroyed or will destroy Europe."
+Here again Burke was wrong; if France was a revolutionary crater, the
+safest way was to let it burn out in itself, while the insane
+aggression of continental powers only confirmed the reign of terror.
+Burke would go to war for the idea of prescriptive right; Pitt
+declined to fight for the French monarchy, and would make war only for
+the defence of English interests.</p>
+
+<p>Although Burke had the satisfaction of gaining the majority for his
+views, he retired from Parliament in 1794; a pension which he obtained
+he defended in the "Letter to a Noble Lord," a dignified plea, "pro
+domo." One of his last works was "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity"
+(1795). In a time when political economy was still in a state of
+infancy, he held the most enlightened opinions on all questions
+relating to it; his doctrines on prices, wages, rent, etc., are still
+worth reading. Above all, he opposes indiscreet government tampering
+with the trade of provisions. "Once habituated to get cheap bread, the
+people will never be satisfied to get it otherwise, and on the first
+scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them."</p>
+
+<p>Burke died July 8, 1797. His was a character of unblemished purity,
+manly uprightness, and perfect disinterestedness. He was a
+conservative of the truest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page231" name="page231"></a>(p. 231)</span> and best kind, but in his later
+years went too far in supporting existing institutions merely because
+they existed. Lacking practical accommodation to circumstances, he
+would probably not have been a great minister; neither was he a
+consummate parliamentary tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands
+in the first ranks of statesmen and orators. Lord Brougham goes too
+far in calling his speeches spoken dissertations; they were carefully
+prepared set speeches. In them, as in his writings, we admire the most
+varied information, philosophical acuteness, penetrating sagacity,
+curious felicity of expression, and an eloquence embracing the full
+range and depth of the subject. Fox avowed that he had learned more
+from Burke than from all other men and authors, and for the same
+reason his works will remain a mine of political wisdom. The only
+drawback is that in his eagerness he sometimes overstated his case,
+and, embittered by the struggles of his later years, occasionally
+condescended to expressions bordering upon scurrility.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig002" name="sig002"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig002.jpg" width="200" height="55" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h3>BENJAMIN FRANKLIN<br>
+(1706-1790)</h3>
+
+<a id="img012" name="img012"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img012.jpg" width="250" height="278" alt="Benjamin Franklin." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Though eminent qualities are generally necessary to the acquisition of
+permanent fame, the life of Franklin affords signal proof that
+moderate talents, judiciously directed, when aided by industry and
+perseverance, will enable a man to render signal services to his
+country and his kind, and give him a claim to the homage of posterity.
+He was the fifteenth child of a tallow-chandler in Boston, where he
+was born January 17, 1706. His father at first intended to educate him
+for the church, but finding that the expense was likely to exceed his
+means, he took the boy home after he had acquired little more than the
+elements of learning, to assist him in his own trade. The boy greatly
+disliked the nature of the employment, and was very anxious to become
+a sailor. Fortunately for him his friends controlled his inclinations;
+instead of going to sea he was apprenticed to his eldest brother,
+James, who was a printer. Franklin records in his Memoirs that though
+he had only at this time entered his twelfth year he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page232" name="page232"></a>(p. 232)</span> paid so
+much attention to his business that he soon became proficient in all
+its details, and, by the quickness with which he executed his work,
+obtained a little leisure, which he devoted to study. His studious
+habits were noticed by a gentleman named Adams, who had a large
+collection of books, which he placed at the disposal of Franklin;
+among these were some volumes of poetry, which fired his emulation,
+and he began to compose little pieces in verse. Two of these were
+printed by his brother and sold as street-ballads, but they were, as
+he informs us, wretched doggerel, and the ridicule thrown on them by
+his father deterred him from similar attempts. But though he laid
+aside poetry, he did not abandon his ambition to become a good English
+writer; he studied the art of composition with great labor, being
+rewarded by the consciousness of improvement.</p>
+
+<p>Franklin's self-denial and power of control over his appetites were
+not less remarkable than his industry. Having, at the age of sixteen,
+read a work which recommended vegetable diet, he determined to adopt
+the system, and undertook to provide for himself upon his brother's
+allowing him one-half of the ordinary expenses of board. On this
+pittance he not only supported himself, but contrived, by great
+abstemiousness, to save a portion of it, which he devoted to the
+purchase of books. He soon had an opportunity of testing his literary
+progress; in 1720 his brother commenced the publication of a
+newspaper, the second which had appeared in America, called the <span class="italic">New
+England Courant</span>. This paper, at a time when periodicals were rare,
+attracted most of the literary men of Boston to the house of the
+proprietor; their conversation, and particularly their remarks on the
+authorship of the various articles contributed to the paper, revived
+Franklin's literary ambition; he sent some communications to the
+journal in a feigned hand; they were inserted, and he tells us that
+"he had the exquisite pleasure to find that they met with approbation,
+and that, in the various conjectures respecting the author, no one was
+mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country for
+talents and genius." He was thus encouraged to reveal his secret to
+his brother, but he did not obtain the respect and fraternal
+indulgence which he had anticipated. James Franklin was a man of
+violent temper; he treated Benjamin with great harshness, and often
+proceeded to the extremity of blows.</p>
+
+<p>An article which appeared in the <span class="italic">Courant</span> having given offence to the
+authorities, James was thrown into prison for a month, and the
+management of the paper devolved on Benjamin. He conducted it with
+great spirit, but with questionable prudence, for he made it the
+vehicle of sharp attacks on the principal persons in the colony. This
+gave such offence that when James was liberated from prison, an
+arbitrary order was issued that he should no longer print the paper
+called the <span class="italic">New England Courant</span>. To evade this order it was arranged
+that Benjamin's indentures should be cancelled in order that the paper
+might be published in his name, but at the same time a secret contract
+was made between the parties, by which James was entitled to his
+brother's services during the unexpired period of apprenticeship. A
+fresh quarrel, however, soon arose, and Benjamin separated from his
+brother, taking what he has confessed to be an unfair <span class="pagenum"><a id="page233" name="page233"></a>(p. 233)</span>
+advantage of the circumstance that the contract could not be safely
+brought forward.</p>
+
+<p>The circumstance produced an unfavorable impression on the minds of
+the printers in Boston, and Franklin, finding it impossible to obtain
+employment in his native town, resolved to seek it in New York. Aware
+that his father would be opposed to this measure, he was compelled to
+sell his books to raise money for defraying the expenses of his
+journey. America was at this time very thinly inhabited; there were no
+public conveyances on the roads, the inns were few, and their
+accommodations miserable; but Franklin had accustomed himself to hard
+fare, and he did not allow the inconvenience he endured to interfere
+with his enjoyment of new scenery. On reaching New York he found that
+the printers there had no occasion for his services, and he continued
+his journey to Philadelphia. Having obtained employment in that city
+from a printer named Keimer, Franklin continued to devote his leisure
+hours to literature. The respectability of his appearance and the
+superior tone of his conversation began soon to be remarked; they led
+to his being introduced to several eminent men, and particularly to
+Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, who frequently
+invited him to his table. Keith urged Franklin to commence business on
+his own account, and when the young man had ineffectually applied for
+assistance to his father in Boston, he advised him to go to London and
+form a connection with some of the great publishing houses, promising
+him letters of credit and recommendation. Franklin sailed for London,
+but the promised letters were never sent; and he found himself, on his
+arrival in England, thrown entirely on his own resources.</p>
+
+<p>Having soon obtained employment, he exhibited to his fellow-workmen an
+edifying example of industry and temperance, by which many of them
+profited. He also published a little work of a sceptical tendency,
+which procured him introductions to some eminent men, but which he
+afterward lamented as one of the greatest errors of his life. After
+remaining about eighteen months in England, he returned to
+Philadelphia as a clerk to Mr. Denham, and on the death of that
+gentleman went back once more to his old employer, Keimer. About this
+time he established a debating society, or club of persons of his own
+age, for the discussion of subjects connected with morals, politics,
+and natural philosophy. These discussions gradually assumed political
+importance, and had a great effect in stimulating the public mind
+during the War of Independence.</p>
+
+<p>Having quarrelled with Keimer, Franklin entered into partnership with
+a young man named Meredith, and commenced publishing a paper in
+opposition to one which had been started by his former employer.
+Meredith proving negligent of business, Franklin was enabled by his
+friends to dissolve the partnership, and to take the entire business
+into his own hands. His steady adherence to habits of industry and
+economy had brought him comparative wealth; and he now married Miss
+Read, whom he had met on his first arrival in Philadelphia.</p>
+
+<p>In 1732 Franklin began the publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac,"
+which soon became celebrated for its important lessons of practical
+morality. These <span class="pagenum"><a id="page234" name="page234"></a>(p. 234)</span> were subsequently collected in a little
+volume, and are still highly esteemed both in England and America. His
+high character for probity and intelligence induced the citizens of
+Philadelphia to intrust him with the management of public affairs; he
+was appointed clerk of the general assembly, postmaster, and alderman,
+and was put by the governor into the commission of the peace. All the
+hours he could spare from business he now devoted to objects of local
+utility, and the city of Philadelphia is indebted to him for some of
+its finest buildings and best institutions. As his wealth increased he
+obtained leisure to devote himself to the study of philosophy, and to
+take a leading part in political life.</p>
+
+<p>We shall first look at his philosophical labors, by which his name
+first became known abroad. His attention was drawn to the subject of
+electricity in 1746, by some experiments exhibited by Dr. Spence, who
+had come to Boston from Scotland. These isolated experiments were made
+with no regard to system, and led to no results. A glass tube, and
+some other apparatus that had been sent to Franklin by a friend in
+London, enabled him to repeat and verify these experiments. He soon
+began to devise new forms of investigation for himself, and at length
+made the great discovery, which may be said to be the foundation of
+electrical science, that there is a positive and negative state of
+electricity. By this fact he explained the phenomenon of the Leyden
+phial, which at that time excited great attention in Europe, and had
+foiled the sagacity of its principal philosophers. In the course of
+his investigations he was led to suspect the identity of lightning and
+the electric fluid; and he resolved to test this happy conjecture by a
+direct experiment. His apparatus was simply a paper-kite with a key
+attached to the tail. Having raised the kite during a thunder-storm,
+he watched the result with great anxiety; after an interval of painful
+suspense, he saw the filaments of the string exhibit by their motion
+signs of electrical action; he drew in the kite, and, presenting his
+knuckles to the key, received a strong spark, which of course decided
+the success of the experiment. Repeated sparks were drawn from the
+key, a phial was charged, a shock given, and the identity of lightning
+with the electric fluid demonstrated beyond all possibility of doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Franklin had from time to time transmitted accounts of his electrical
+experiments to his friend, Mr. Collinson, in England, in order that
+they should be laid before the Council of the Royal Society; but, as
+they were not published in the "Transactions" of that learned body,
+Collinson gave copies of the communications to Cave, for insertion in
+the <span class="italic">Gentleman's Magazine</span>. Cave resolved to publish them in a
+separate form, and the work, soon after its appearance, became
+generally recognized as the text-book of electrical science. It was
+translated into French, German, and Latin; the author's experiments
+were repeated, and verified by the leading philosophers of France,
+Germany, and even Russia; the Royal Society atoned for its former
+tardiness by a hearty recognition of their value, and Franklin was
+elected a member of their body without solicitation or expense. The
+universities of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Oxford subsequently
+conferred upon him the honorary title of Doctor of Laws.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page235" name="page235"></a>(p. 235)</span> We must pass more briefly over Franklin's political career.
+In 1753 he was appointed Deputy Postmaster of the American colonies.
+The post-office, which had previously supplied no revenue to the
+Government, became very productive under his management, and yielded
+three times as much as the post-office in Ireland. Nor was this the
+only service he rendered to the Government. At the time of Braddock's
+unfortunate expedition against the French and Indians, he provided
+conveyances for the troops and stores at his own risk; he took a
+leading part in obtaining a militia bill, and he proposed a plan for
+the union of the several colonies in a common system of defence
+against the Indians. These measures greatly increased his influence
+and popularity.</p>
+
+<p>Pennsylvania was at this period a proprietary government, and the
+proprietary body claimed exemption from taxation. In consequence of
+the disputes to which these claims gave rise, he was sent to England
+by the General Assembly, as agent for the provinces. He performed his
+duties with such zeal and ability, that he was appointed agent for the
+provinces of Massachusetts, Georgia, and Maryland; and, on his return
+to America in 1762, received not only the thanks of the House of
+Assembly, but a grant of £5,000. Previous to his return he made a
+short visit to the continent, and was everywhere received with great
+honor, especially at the court of Louis XV.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1764, the American colonies, alarmed at the system of
+taxation with which they were menaced by the British, resolved that
+Franklin should be sent to England, no longer as an agent, but as the
+general representative of the States. In this character he arrived in
+London about forty years after his first appearance in that city as a
+distressed mechanic. His own mind was strongly impressed by the
+contrast; he went to the printing-office where he had worked,
+introduced himself to the men employed there, and joined in a little
+festival in honor of printing. He officially presented to Mr.
+Grenville a petition against the Stamp Act, but finding that the
+minister was not deterred from his purpose, he zealously exerted
+himself to organize an opposition to the measure. When it was proposed
+to repeal the bill in the following year, Franklin was examined before
+the House of Commons; the effect of his evidence was decisive, and the
+Stamp Act was repealed.</p>
+
+<p>The quarrel with the colonies, however, grew more and more bitter; and
+while Franklin's words were always of peace, he championed the
+American cause with power and dignity. Attempts were made to win him
+over to the side of the Government, by offers of high honors and
+liberal emoluments; but threats and promises were alike unavailing to
+divert him from his course. He lingered in England, hoping that some
+turn in public affairs would avert the fatal necessity of war; but
+when the petition of the American Congress was rejected, and Lord
+Chatham's plan of reconciliation outvoted, he resolved to return home
+and share the fortunes of his countrymen. His departure was hastened
+by the intelligence that the ministers intended to arrest him on a
+charge of fomenting rebellion in the colonies; he narrowly escaped
+this danger, and on landing in America, he was elected a member of
+Congress.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page236" name="page236"></a>(p. 236)</span> Soon after the declaration of independence was issued, Dr.
+Franklin was sent as ambassador to France, to solicit aid for the
+infant republic. On his first arrival, in 1776, he was not officially
+received; but when the intelligence of the English losses had given
+courage to the French court, negotiations were formally commenced, and
+on February 7, 1778, he had the honor of signing the first treaty
+between the United States and a foreign power. He remained at the
+French court as ambassador until the end of the war, when, as an
+American plenipotentiary, he signed the treaty of Paris, by which
+Great Britain recognized the independence of the United States. At the
+close of the negotiations (November, 1782), he was anxious to be
+recalled; but his diplomatic services were too highly valued to be
+spared, and he remained at Paris three years longer, during which
+period he negotiated treaties with Sweden and with Prussia. His
+residence in France was cheered by the enthusiasm with which he was
+regarded by all classes, particularly persons of literature and
+science; his departure from that city was lamented as a general loss
+to society.</p>
+
+<p>Honors of every kind awaited him on his return to his native land; he
+was appointed President of the State of Pennsylvania, and a member of
+the Federal Convention, by which the American Constitution was framed.
+But old age, and a painful disease, to which he had been long subject,
+compelled him to retire into the bosom of his family. Notwithstanding
+his sufferings, he preserved his affections and faculties unimpaired
+to the last, and died tranquilly, April 17, 1790. The American
+Congress, and the National Assembly of France, both went into mourning
+on receiving the intelligence of his death.</p>
+
+<p>Franklin's powers were useful rather than brilliant; his philosophical
+discoveries were the result of patience and perseverance; with a
+warmer imagination he would probably have been misled by speculative
+theory, like so many of his contemporaries. His industry and his
+temperance were the sources of his early success, and they nurtured in
+him that spirit of independence which was the leading characteristic
+of his private and public career.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>PATRICK HENRY<a id="footnotetag3" name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3" title="Go to footnote 3"><span class="smaller">[3]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">General Bradley T. Johnson</span><br>
+(1736-1799)</h3>
+
+<a id="img013" name="img013"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img013.jpg" width="250" height="312" alt="Patrick Henry." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died
+in Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799. He was the son of Colonel
+John Henry, of Mount Brilliant, a Scotchman by birth, who was the
+nephew of Dr. William Robertson, the historian. Henry received only
+the limited education accessible in the rural locality in which he was
+born, consisting of the rudiments of an English training and
+absolutely no acquaintance with the classics. His early youth was
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page237" name="page237"></a>(p. 237)</span> spent on the plantation, occupied with the amusements of his
+age and his epoch; fishing and hunting gave him acquaintance with the
+fields, the streams, and the forests, and the observation of nature,
+her changes, her forces, and her moods. The habits thus formed evolved
+in part the great power of introspection and analysis of the feelings
+of men which afterward gave him such control of them.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of fifteen he was placed in a country store as assistant
+salesman, or clerk. After a year's experience, his father purchased a
+small stock of goods for him, and set him up on his own account in
+partnership with his brother William.</p>
+
+<p>This adventure came to grief in a year, and then Henry, at the age of
+eighteen, married Miss Shelton, the daughter of a neighboring farmer.</p>
+
+<p>The young couple were settled on a farm by the joint efforts of their
+parents, where they endeavored to win a subsistence with the
+assistance of two or three servants. In two years he sold out and
+invested in another mercantile undertaking. In a few years this ended
+in bankruptcy, leaving him without a dollar and with a wife and an
+increasing family to support. He was devoted to music, dancing, and
+amusement, and was incapable of continuous physical or intellectual
+labor. He had devoted himself to desultory reading of the best kind,
+and made himself acquainted with the history of England, of Greece,
+and of Rome. He therefore undertook to win a support by the profession
+and the practice of the law, and after a brief pretence of
+preparation, by the generosity of the bar at that period, was admitted
+to practice. The vigor of his intellect, his powerful logic, and his
+acute analysis induced the examining committee to sign his
+certificate.</p>
+
+<p>That committee consisted of Mr. Lyons, then the leader of the
+Provincial bar, afterward president-judge of the Supreme Court of
+Appeals of Virginia; Mr. John Lewis, an eminent lawyer, and John
+Randolph, afterward knighted and as Sir John Randolph, the king's
+Attorney General for Virginia. Henry was twenty-four when admitted to
+the bar, and for three years did nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Under the law of Virginia the people, without regard to religious
+belief, were bound to pay a tax of so many pounds of tobacco per poll
+for the support of the clergy. The parson of each parish was entitled
+to sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. When the price of
+tobacco was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When
+short crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly
+of the colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their
+poll-tax in tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16<span class="italic">s.</span> and
+8<span class="italic">d.</span> per hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was
+paid in currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to
+50<span class="italic">s.</span> per hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries
+instead of 16<span class="italic">s.</span> 8<span class="italic">d.</span> per <span class="pagenum"><a id="page238" name="page238"></a>(p. 238)</span> hundred. The King in council
+declared the Commutation Act void, and the parsons brought suit for
+their salaries. The defendants pleaded the Commutation Act in defence;
+to this plea the plaintiffs demurred; and the court, as it was bound
+to do, gave judgment for the plaintiff on the demurrer. The only
+question then left was the <span class="italic">quantum</span> of damages, to be assessed by a
+jury. The case selected for a test was the case of the Rev. James
+Maury against the sheriff of Hanover County and his sureties. It was
+set for trial at the December term of the County Court of Hanover,
+1763. Henry was retained for the defendant, and made an argument so
+forcible, so conclusive, and so eloquent that it has made his fame as
+"the greatest orator who ever lived," as Mr. Jefferson wrote of him.
+He took the ground that allegiance and protection in government are
+reciprocal, that the King of Great Britain had failed to protect the
+people of Virginia in their rights as Englishmen, and that therefore
+they owed no allegiance to him and he had no right to declare laws
+made by them void, therefore his nullification of the Commutation Act
+was void and of no effect. The jury found for the plaintiff with one
+penny damages, and thus ended the attempt to rely upon the power of
+the king to set aside laws made by Virginia for her own government.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first announcement in America of the radical revolutionary
+doctrine that government is a matter of compact with the people, and
+when the former breaks the agreement, the latter are absolved from
+obedience to it.</p>
+
+<p>The next year Henry removed to Louisa County and was employed by
+Dandridge in the contested election case of Dandridge <span class="italic">v.</span> Littlepage
+before the House of Burgesses for a seat in that body. When the Stamp
+Act passed in 1765, Mr. William Johnson, member of the House of
+Burgesses for Louisa County, resigned his place to make way for Henry,
+who was elected to fill the vacancy.</p>
+
+<p>This body consisted of some of the ablest and most illustrious
+Americans who ever lived. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Richard
+Bland, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee were all
+members, and Henry at the first session won a place in the front rank
+among them. In May, 1765, he introduced a series of resolutions,
+reiterating and enlarging the propositions of the parson's case, and
+declaring that the people of Virginia are entitled to all the rights
+of British subjects, and that they alone, through their General
+Assembly, "have the sole right and power to lay taxes and impositions
+on this colony," and that any attempt by any other authority "has a
+manifest tendency to destroy British as well as American freedom."
+They were opposed by the old members, but the eloquent logic of Henry,
+backed by Johnston, a member from Fairfax, carried them by a close
+vote, the last one by a majority of one.</p>
+
+<p>In this debate, Henry in a passion of eloquence exclaimed, "Cæsar had
+his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George III.&mdash;--"
+"Treason," cried the Speaker and the House&mdash;--"may profit by their
+example. If this be treason, make the most of it."</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the House in a panic, reconsidered, rejected, and
+expunged <span class="pagenum"><a id="page239" name="page239"></a>(p. 239)</span> from the <span class="italic">Journal</span> the last resolution, which
+asserted the sole right of taxation in Virginia, and denied it to
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Henry continued a member of the House of Burgesses from Louisa County
+until the close of the Revolution. He led Virginia in resistance to
+the tax on tea, and in organizing armed resistance to the Mother
+Country by all the colonies. He was among the first of the Americans
+who understood that liberty could only be preserved by defending it by
+force.</p>
+
+<p>He was sent as a deputy from Virginia to the first Continental
+Congress, which met at Philadelphia in September, 1774. He at once
+took a commanding influence in that body, and on its adjournment in
+October, returned home.</p>
+
+<p>In March, 1776, he attended the Convention of Virginia held in
+Richmond. Here he moved that "this colony be immediately put in a
+state of defence, and that a committee be appointed to prepare a plan
+for embodying, assigning, and disciplining such a number of men as may
+be sufficient for that purpose." Bland, Harrison, Pendleton, and
+Nicholas, all vigorously opposed these resolutions as leading
+inevitably and logically to revolution and separation; but Henry, in a
+storm of patriotic, eloquent enthusiasm, carried everything, uttering
+those deathless sentences, "Our brethren are already in the field! Why
+stand we here idle. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they
+have?</p>
+
+<p>"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
+chains and slavery?</p>
+
+<p>"Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but
+as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"</p>
+
+<p>The resolutions were carried and Henry made chairman of the committee
+to organize the colony. He proceeded with great vigor to form
+companies of cavalry or infantry in every county. On April 20, 1775,
+Lord Dunmore, the royal governor, seized the powder of the colony and
+placed it on the armed schooner Magdalene. The country rose at once.
+Henry, as captain, marched the independent company of Hanover on
+Williamsburgh, to compel the governor to pay for or restore the
+powder. Five thousand armed men were marching from the counties to
+reinforce him, when Lord Dunmore, through the intercession of Peyton
+Randolph, paid Henry for the powder and induced the volunteers from
+Hanover, Frederick, Berkeley, and other counties to return to their
+homes. As soon as they had returned, Dunmore issued a proclamation
+denouncing Henry and his comrades as traitors and rebels.</p>
+
+<p>Henry was elected by the Virginia Convention one of the deputies to
+the second Continental Congress. He was also elected colonel of the
+first Virginia Regiment, and "commander-in-chief of all the forces
+raised and to be raised for the defence of the colony." Lord Dunmore
+having erected a fortification south of Norfolk, at Great Bridge,
+Colonel Woodford, with the second Virginia Regiment, was sent by the
+Committee of Safety to drive him away, which he did promptly and well.
+Henry claimed the right to command this expedition himself, but his
+claim was not admitted by the committee, and his authority was
+disclaimed by Colonel Woodford. Henry insisted upon having <span class="pagenum"><a id="page240" name="page240"></a>(p. 240)</span>
+the question of rank between them decided, and the committee decided
+in favor of Colonel Henry. Yet when brigadiers were selected by
+Congress to command the troops of Virginia in the Continental Army,
+Andrew Lewis was made brigadier, Henry colonel of the first regiment.
+He promptly refused the Continental commission, and resigned the one
+held in the service of Virginia. Henry's conduct was justified in the
+opinion of his contemporaries and of posterity. He had led the colony
+at the risk of life and fortune, he had organized and led the first
+movement of troops against the royal authority, he had been appointed
+commander-in-chief and colonel of the First Regiment, and then had
+been superseded in command by another, without excuse or
+justification. He was thus driven out of the military service by petty
+intrigues and small jealousies of smaller men, and the country
+deprived of his great abilities in the military field.</p>
+
+<p>On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed their deputies in
+Congress "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,"
+and on June 29th adopted a form of State government and elected Mr.
+Henry governor. During the winter of 1776-77 was the darkest period of
+the revolution, and it has been charged that it was proposed to create
+him dictator; but his friends have always denied this, and it seems
+with truth, for he was re-elected governor, May 30th, 1777. He was a
+firm supporter of General Washington through all the trials of that
+period, and firmly stood by him against the intrigue in the army to
+supersede him with Gates. He was again elected governor in the spring
+of 1778, and the next year declined a re-election because in his
+opinion he was ineligible. His wife, Miss Shelton, died in 1775,
+leaving him the father of six children, and in 1777 he married
+Dorothea, daughter of Nathaniel W. Dandridge.</p>
+
+<p>After the expiration of his gubernatorial service he retired to his
+estate in Henry County. He was elected to the General Assembly for
+that County in 1780, and he continued to represent it until after the
+revolution. He took the ground of amnesty to the Tories and the
+resumption of commercial intercourse with Great Britain. In 1784, he
+introduced and urged the passage of a bill to promote inter-marriages
+with the Indians, which failed to pass from his being again elected
+governor on November 17, 1784, for the term of three years.</p>
+
+<p>He declined a re-election, and was appointed one of the deputies from
+Virginia to the Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia. The
+order of appointment being George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund
+Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason and George Wythe.
+He, however, was too poor to perform the duties of the office and was
+obliged to return to the practice of the law. He was sent as a member
+from Prince Edward to the convention to consider the Federal
+Constitution which had been framed at Philadelphia. The convention met
+at Richmond, June 2, 1788.</p>
+
+<p>It was composed of the most illustrious men that Virginia ever
+produced, and was probably the ablest body that ever convened in any
+country in any age. James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Edmund
+Pendleton, George Nicholas, George Mason, Jarvis, Grayson, and Henry,
+Lee, and Randolph were among the members. Henry vigorously opposed the
+ratification of the new constitution <span class="pagenum"><a id="page241" name="page241"></a>(p. 241)</span> on the ground that it
+would establish a government of the people in place of a government of
+the States, and would create a consolidated government with omnipotent
+power, without check or balance, and lead to a great and mighty empire
+and an absolute despotism. The Federal party carried the ratification
+under the lead of Madison and Marshall by a majority of ten.</p>
+
+<p>In the ensuing General Assembly Henry opposed the election of Madison
+as one of the first senators under the new constitution, and secured
+that of Richard Henry Lee and Grayson to represent Virginia in the
+first Congress. He also drafted and had passed resolutions calling
+upon Congress to call a Constitutional Convention of the States to
+cure by amendments the many defects in the Federal Constitution which
+were indicated by the amendments proposed to it by Virginia. The
+Convention was never called, but ten of the amendments were adopted by
+Congress and ratified by the States.</p>
+
+<p>He declined a re-election to the General Assembly in 1791, and retired
+to private life. In November, 1791, he appeared before the Federal
+Court in Richmond, for the defendant in the case of the British debts.
+The question involved was the right of Virginia to confiscate, during
+the war, debts due by her citizens to subjects of Great Britain. With
+Henry was John Marshall, and in the argument Henry made the greatest
+legal effort of his life.</p>
+
+<p>In November, 1795, he was again elected Governor of Virginia, but
+declined on account of his age. He was offered the mission to Spain by
+Washington during his first term, and to France during his
+second&mdash;both of which positions he declined. Alarmed at the position
+taken by the Virginia resolutions of 1798, he became a candidate for,
+and was elected to the General Assembly from Charlotte County in 1799.
+But the Virginia Legislature was opposed to his views, and reiterated
+those set forth in the resolution of 1798.</p>
+
+<p>His health had been infirm for several years, and he died June 6,
+1799. The General Assembly passed resolutions recording their love and
+veneration for his name and fame, and ordered a bust of him to be
+procured and set up in one of the niches of the hall of the House of
+Delegates. It is now in the capitol at Richmond.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig003" name="sig003"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig003.jpg" width="200" height="78" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page242" name="page242"></a>(p. 242)</span> GEORGE WASHINGTON<br>
+(1732-1799)</h3>
+
+<a id="img014" name="img014"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img014.jpg" width="300" height="312" alt="George Washington." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>George Washington was born at Bridge's Creek, in Westmoreland County,
+Va., on February 22, 1732. The first of the family who settled in
+Virginia came from Northampton, but their ancestors are believed to
+have been from Lancashire, while the ancient stock of the family is
+traced to the De Wessyngtons of Durham. George Washington's father,
+Augustine, who died, after a sudden illness, in 1743, was twice
+married. At his death he left two surviving sons by the first
+marriage, and by the second, four sons (of whom George was the eldest)
+and a daughter. The mother of George Washington survived to see her
+son President. Augustine Washington left all his children in a state
+of comparative independence; to his eldest son by the first marriage
+he left an estate (afterward called Mount Vernon) of twenty-five
+hundred acres and shares in iron works situated in Virginia and
+Maryland; to the second, an estate in Westmoreland. Confiding in the
+prudence of his widow, he directed that the proceeds of all the
+property of her children should be at her disposal till they should
+respectively come of age; to George were left the lands and mansion
+occupied by his father at his decease; to each of the other sons, an
+estate of six or seven hundred acres; a suitable provision was made
+for the daughter.</p>
+
+<p>George Washington was indebted for all the education he received to
+one of the common schools of the province, in which little was taught
+beyond reading, writing, and accounts. He left it before he had
+completed his sixteenth year; the last two years of his attendance had
+been devoted to the study of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. He
+had learned to use logarithms. It is doubtful whether he ever received
+any instruction in the grammar of his own language; and although, when
+the French officers under Rochambeau were in America, he attempted to
+acquire their language, it appears to have been without success. From
+his thirteenth year he evinced a turn for mastering the forms of
+deeds, constructing diagrams, and preparing tabular statements. His
+juvenile manuscripts have been preserved; the handwriting is neat, but
+stiff. During the last <span class="pagenum"><a id="page243" name="page243"></a>(p. 243)</span> summer he was at school, he surveyed
+the fields adjoining the school-house and the surrounding plantations,
+entering his measurements and calculations in a respectable
+field-book. He compiled about the same time, from various sources,
+"Rules of Behavior in Company and Conversation." Some selections in
+rhyme appear in his manuscripts, but the passages were evidently
+selected for the moral and religious sentiments they express, not from
+any taste for poetry. When a boy he was fond of forming his
+school-mates into companies, who paraded and fought mimic battles, in
+which he always commanded one of the parties. He cultivated with ardor
+all athletic exercises. His demeanor and conduct at school are said to
+have won the deference of the other boys, who were accustomed to make
+him the arbiter of their disputes.</p>
+
+<p>From the time of his leaving school till the latter part of 1753,
+Washington was unconsciously preparing himself for the great duties he
+had afterward to discharge. An attempt made to have him entered in the
+Royal Navy, in 1746, was frustrated by the interposition of his
+mother. The winter of 1748-49 he passed at Mount Vernon, then the seat
+of his brother Lawrence, in the study of mathematics and the exercise
+of practical surveying. George was introduced about this time to the
+family of Lord Fairfax, his brother having married the daughter of
+William Fairfax, a member of the Colonial Council, and a distant
+relative of that nobleman. The immense tracts of wild lands belonging
+to Lord Fairfax, in the valley of the Alleghany Mountains, had never
+been surveyed; he had formed a favorable estimate of the talents of
+young Washington, and intrusted the task to him. His first essay was
+on some lands situated on the south branch of the Potomac, seventy
+miles above its junction with the main branch. Although performed in
+an almost impenetrable country, while winter yet lingered in the
+valleys, by a youth who had only a month before completed his
+sixteenth year, it gave so much satisfaction that he soon after
+received a commission as public surveyor, an appointment which gave
+authority to his surveys, and enabled him to enter them in the county
+offices.</p>
+
+<p>The next three years were devoted without intermission, except in the
+winter months, to his profession. There were few surveyors in
+Virginia, and the demand for their services was consequently great,
+and their remuneration ample. Washington spent a considerable portion
+of these three years among the Alleghanies. The exposures and
+hardships of the wilderness could be endured only for a few weeks
+together, and he recruited his strength by surveying, at intervals,
+tracts and farms in the settled districts. Even at that early age his
+regular habits enabled him to acquire some property; and his probity
+and business talent obtained for him the confidence of the leading men
+of the colony.</p>
+
+<p>At the time he attained his nineteenth year the frontiers were
+threatened with Indian depredations and French encroachments. To meet
+this danger the province was divided into military districts, to each
+of which an adjutant-general with the rank of major was appointed.
+George Washington was commissioned to one of these districts, with a
+salary of £150 per annum. There were many provincial officers (his
+brother among the number) in Virginia, who had served in the
+expedition <span class="pagenum"><a id="page244" name="page244"></a>(p. 244)</span> against Carthagena and in the West Indies. Under
+them he studied military exercises and tactics, entering with alacrity
+and zeal into the duties of his office. These pursuits were varied by
+a voyage to Barbadoes, and a residence of some months in that colony,
+in company with his brother Lawrence, who was sent there by his
+physicians to seek relief from a pulmonary complaint. Fragments of the
+journal kept by George Washington on this excursion have been
+preserved; they evince an interest in a wide range of subjects, and
+habits of minute observation. At sea the log-book was daily copied,
+and the application of his favorite mathematics to navigation studied;
+in the island, the soil, agricultural products, modes of culture,
+fruits, commerce, military force, fortifications, manners of the
+inhabitants, municipal regulations and government, all were noted in
+this journal. Lawrence Washington died in July, 1752, leaving a wife
+and infant daughter, and upon George, although the youngest executor,
+devolved the whole management of the property, in which he had a
+residuary interest. The affairs of the estate were extensive and
+complicated, and engrossed much of his time and thoughts for several
+months. His public duties were not, however, neglected. Soon after the
+arrival of Governor Dinwiddie the number of military divisions was
+reduced to four and the northern division allotted to Washington. It
+included several counties, which he had visited at stated intervals,
+to train and instruct the military officers, inspect the men, arms,
+and accoutrements, and establish a uniform system of man&oelig;uvres and
+discipline.</p>
+
+<p>In 1753 the French in Canada pushed troops across the lakes, and at
+the same time bodies of armed men ascended from New Orleans to form a
+junction with them, and establish themselves on the upper waters of
+the Ohio. Governor Dinwiddie resolved to send a commissioner to confer
+with the French officer in command, and inquire by what authority he
+occupied a territory claimed by the British. This charge required a
+man of discretion, accustomed to travel in the woods, and familiar
+with Indian manners. Washington was selected, notwithstanding his
+youth, as possessed of these requisites. He set out from Williamsburg
+on October 31, 1753, and returned on January 16, 1754. He discovered
+that a permanent settlement was contemplated by the French within the
+British territory, and notwithstanding the vigilance of the garrison,
+he contrived to bring back with him a plan of their fort on a branch
+of French Creek, fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and an accurate
+description of its form, size, construction, cannon, and barracks.</p>
+
+<p>In March, 1754, the military establishment of the colony was increased
+to six companies. Colonel Fry, an Englishman of scientific
+acquirements and gentlemanly manners, was placed at the head of them,
+and Washington was appointed second in command. His first campaign was
+a trying but useful school to him. He was pushed forward, with three
+small companies, to occupy the outposts of the Ohio, in front of a
+superior French force, and unsupported by his commanding officer.
+Relying upon his own resources and the friendship of the Indians,
+Washington pushed boldly on. On May 27th he encountered and defeated a
+detachment of the French army under M. De Jumonville, who fell in the
+action. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page245" name="page245"></a>(p. 245)</span> Soon after Colonel Fry died suddenly, and the chief
+command devolved upon Washington. Innis, the commander of the North
+Carolina troops, was, it is true, placed over his head, but the new
+commander never took the field. An ill-timed parsimony had occasioned
+disgust among the soldiers, but Washington remained unshaken.
+Anticipating that a strong detachment would be sent against him from
+Fort Duquesne as soon as Jumonville's defeat was known there, he
+intrenched himself on the Great Meadows. The advance of the French in
+force obliged him to retreat, but this operation he performed in a
+manner that elicited a vote of thanks from the House of Burgesses. In
+1755 Colonel Washington acceded to the request of General Braddock to
+take part in the campaign as one of his military family, retaining his
+former rank. When privately consulted by Braddock, "I urged him,"
+wrote Washington, "in the warmest terms I was able, to push forward,
+if he even did it with a small but chosen band, with such artillery
+and light stores as were necessary, leaving the heavy artillery and
+baggage to follow with the rear division by slow and easy marches."
+This advice prevailed. Washington was, however, attacked by a violent
+fever, in consequence of which he was only able to rejoin the army on
+the evening before the battle of the Monongahela. In that fatal affair
+he exposed himself with the most reckless bravery, and when the
+soldiers were finally put to rout, hastened to the rear division to
+order up horses and wagons for the wounded. The panic-stricken army
+dispersed on all sides, and Washington retired to Mount Vernon, which
+had now, by the death of his brother's daughter without issue, become
+his own property. His bravery was universally admitted, and it was
+known that latterly his prudent counsels had been disregarded.</p>
+
+<p>In the autumn of the same year he was appointed to reorganize the
+provincial troops. He retained the command of them till the close of
+the campaign of 1758. The tardiness and irresolution of provincial
+assemblies and governors compelled him to act during much of this time
+upon the defensive; but to the necessity hence imposed upon him of
+projecting a chain of defensive forts for the Ohio frontier, he was
+indebted for that mastery of this kind of war, which afterward availed
+him so much. Till 1758 the Virginia troops remained on the footing of
+militia; and Washington having had ample opportunities to convince
+himself of the utter worthlessness of a militia in time of war, in the
+beginning of that year prevailed upon the Government to organize them
+on the same footing as the royal forces. At the same time that
+Washington's experience was extending, his sentiments of allegiance
+were weakened by the reluctance with which the claims of the
+provincial officers were admitted, and the unreserved preference
+uniformly given to the officers of the regular army. At the close of
+1758 he resigned his commission and retired into private life.</p>
+
+<p>On January 6, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a young widow with
+two children. "Mr. Custis," says Mr. Sparke, "had left large landed
+estates, and £45,000 sterling in money. One-third of this property she
+held in her own right; the other two-thirds being equally divided
+between her two children." Washington had a considerable fortune of
+his own at the time of his marriage, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page246" name="page246"></a>(p. 246)</span> consisting of the
+estate at Mount Vernon, and large tracts of land which he had selected
+during his surveying expeditions and obtained grants of at different
+times. He now devoted himself to the management of this extensive
+property, and to the guardianship of Mrs. Washington's children, and
+till the commencement of 1763 was, in appearance at least, principally
+occupied with these private matters. He found time, however, for
+public civil duties. He had been elected a member of the House of
+Burgesses before he resigned his commission, and although there were
+commonly two, and sometimes three sessions in every year, he was
+punctual in his attendance from beginning to end of each. During the
+period of his service in the Legislature he frequently attended on
+such theatrical exhibitions as were then presented in America, and
+lived on terms of intimacy with the most eminent men of Virginia. At
+Mount Vernon he practised on a large scale the hospitality for which
+the Southern planters have ever been distinguished. His chief
+diversion in the country was the chase. He exported the produce of his
+estates to London, Liverpool, and Bristol, and imported everything
+required for his property, and domestic establishment. His industry
+was equal to his enterprise; his day-books, ledgers and letter-books
+were all kept by himself and he drew up his own contracts and deeds.
+In the House of Burgesses he seldom spoke, but nothing escaped his
+notice, and his opinion was eagerly sought and followed. He assumed
+trusts at the solicitation of friends, and was much in request as an
+arbitrator. He was, probably without being himself aware of it,
+establishing a wide and strong influence, which no person suspected
+till the time arrived for exercising it.</p>
+
+<p>On March 4, 1773, Lord Dunmore prorogued the intractable House of
+Burgesses. Washington had been a close observer of every previous
+movement in his country, though it was not in his nature to play the
+agitator. He had expressed his disapprobation of the Stamp Act in
+unqualified terms. The non-importation agreement, drawn up by George
+Mason in 1769, was presented to the members of the dissolved House of
+Burgesses by Washington. In 1773 he supported the resolutions
+instituting a committee of correspondence and recommending the
+legislatures of the other colonies to do the same. He represented
+Fairfax County in the Convention which met at Williamsburg, in August,
+1774, and was appointed by it one of the six Virginian delegates to
+the first General Congress. On his return from Congress he was
+virtually placed in command of the Virginian Independent Companies. In
+the spring of 1775 he devised a plan for the more complete military
+organization of Virginia; and on June 15th of that year, he was
+elected commander-in-chief of the continental army by Congress.</p>
+
+<a id="img015" name="img015"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img015.jpg" width="600" height="377" alt="" title="">
+<p>The surrender of Cornwallis to Washington.</p></div>
+
+<p>The portion of Washington's life which we have hitherto been passing
+in review, may be considered as his probationary period&mdash;the time
+during which he was training himself for the great business of his
+life. His subsequent career naturally subdivides itself into two
+periods&mdash;that of his military command and that of his presidency. In
+the former we have Washington the soldier; in the latter, Washington
+the statesman. His avocations from 1748 to 1775 were as <span class="pagenum"><a id="page247" name="page247"></a>(p. 247)</span>
+good a school as can well be conceived for acquiring the
+accomplishments of either character. His early intimacy and connection
+with the Fairfax family had taught him to look on society with the
+eyes of the class which takes a part in government. His familiarity
+with applied mathematics and his experience as a surveyor on the wild
+frontier lands, had made him master of that most important branch of
+knowledge for a commander&mdash;the topography of the country. His
+experience as a parade officer, as a partisan on the frontier, and as
+the commander of considerable bodies of disciplined troops, had taught
+him the principles both of the war of detail and the war of large
+masses. On the other hand, his punctual habits of business, his
+familiarity with the details both of agriculture and commerce, and the
+experience he had acquired as trustee, arbitrator, and member of the
+House of Burgesses, were so many preparatory studies for the duties of
+a statesman. He commenced his great task of first liberating and then
+governing a nation, with all the advantages of this varied experience,
+in his forty-third year, an age at which the physical vigor is
+undiminished, and the intellect fully ripe. He persevered in it, with
+a brief interval of repose, for upward of twenty years, with almost
+uniform success, and with an exemption from the faults of great
+leaders unparalleled in history.</p>
+
+<p>Washington was elected commander-in-chief on June 15, 1775; he
+resigned his commission into the hands of the President of Congress on
+December 23, 1783. His intermediate record as a general, and as the
+steadfast and undismayed leader of an apparently hopeless struggle, we
+pass over here. It is the entire history of the American Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>We must also pass briefly over the interval which separates the epoch
+of Washington the soldier from that of Washington the statesman&mdash;the
+few years which elapsed between the resignation of his command in
+1783, and his election as first President of the United States, in
+February, 1789. It was for him no period of idleness. In addition to a
+liberal increase of hospitality at Mount Vernon, and indefatigable
+attention to the management of his large estates, he actively promoted
+in his own State, plans of internal navigation, acts for encouraging
+education, and plans for the civilization of the Indians. He also
+acted as delegate from Virginia to the Convention which framed the
+first constitution of the United States. We now turn to contemplate
+him as president.</p>
+
+<p>Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, which was then the seat of
+Congress, on April 16, 1789. His journey was a triumphal procession.
+He took the oath of office on April 30th, with religious services,
+processions, and other solemnities.</p>
+
+<p>The new president's first step was to request elaborate reports from
+the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of War, and the
+Commissioners of the Treasury. The reports he read, and condensed with
+his own hand, particularly those of the Treasury board. The voluminous
+official correspondence in the public archives, from the time of the
+treaty of peace till the time he entered on the presidency, he read,
+abridged, and studied, with the view of fixing in his mind every
+important point that had been discussed, and the history of what had
+been done.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page248" name="page248"></a>(p. 248)</span> His arrangements for the transaction of business and the
+reception of visitors were characterized by the same spirit of order
+which had marked him when a boy and when at the head of the army.
+Every Tuesday, between the hours of three and four, he was prepared to
+receive such persons as chose to call. Every Friday afternoon the
+rooms were open in like manner for visits to Mrs. Washington. He
+accepted no invitations to dinner, but invited to his own table
+foreign ministers, officers of the government, and others, in such
+numbers as his domestic establishment could accommodate. The rest of
+the week-days were devoted to business appointments. No visits were
+received on Sunday, or promiscuous company admitted; he attended
+church regularly, and the rest of that day was his own.</p>
+
+<p>The organization of the executive departments was decreed by act of
+Congress during the first session. They were the Departments of
+Foreign Affairs (afterward called the Department of State, and
+including both foreign and domestic affairs), of the Treasury, and of
+War. It devolved upon the president to select proper persons to fill
+the several offices. Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State;
+Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; and Knox, Secretary of War.
+Randolph had the post of Attorney-General. Jay was made Chief-Justice.
+After making these appointments he undertook a tour through the
+Eastern States, and returned to be present at the opening of Congress,
+in January, 1790.</p>
+
+<p>In his opening speech he recommended to the attention of the
+Legislature a provision for the common defence; laws for naturalizing
+foreigners; a uniform system of currency, weights, and measures; the
+encouragement of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; the
+promotion of science and literature; and an effective system for the
+support of the public credit. The last topic gave rise to protracted
+and vehement debates. At last Hamilton's plan for funding all the
+domestic debts was carried by a small majority in both Houses of
+Congress. The president suppressed his sentiments on the subject while
+it was under debate in Congress, but he approved the act for funding
+the public debt, and was from conviction a decided friend to the
+measure. It now became apparent to the most unreflecting that two
+great parties were in the process of formation, the one jealous of
+anything that might encroach upon democratic principles; the other
+distrustful of the power of institutions so simple as those of the
+United States to preserve tranquillity and the cohesion of the state.
+Jefferson was the head of the Democratic, Hamilton of what was
+afterward called the Federalist party. Washington endeavored to
+reconcile these ardent and incompatible spirits. His own views were
+more in accordance with those of Hamilton; but he knew Jefferson's
+value as a statesman, and he felt the importance of the president
+remaining independent of either party. The two secretaries, however,
+continued to diverge in their political course, and ultimately their
+differences settled into personal enmity.</p>
+
+<p>The president's term of office was drawing to a close, and an anxious
+wish began to prevail that he should allow himself to be elected for a
+second term. Jefferson, Hamilton, and Randolph&mdash;who did not exactly
+coincide with either&mdash;all shared in this anxiety, and each wrote a
+long letter to Washington, assigning <span class="pagenum"><a id="page249" name="page249"></a>(p. 249)</span> reasons for his
+allowing himself to be re-elected. He yielded; and on March 4, 1793,
+he took the oath of office in the senate chamber.</p>
+
+<p>The first question that came before the cabinet after the re-election,
+rendered more decided the differences which already existed. The
+European parties, of which the court of England and the French
+republic were the representatives, were eager to draw the United
+States into the vortex of their struggle. The president and his
+cabinet were unanimous in their determination to preserve neutrality,
+but the aristocratic and democratic sections of the cabinet could not
+refrain from displaying their respective biases and their jealousy of
+each other. Foreign affairs were mingled with domestic politics, and
+the Democratic and Federalist parties became avowedly organized.
+Washington was for a time allowed to keep aloof from the contest&mdash;not
+for a long time. A circumstance insignificant in itself increased the
+bitterness of the contest out of doors. Democratic societies had been
+formed on the model of the Jacobin clubs of France. Washington
+regarded them with alarm, and the unmeasured expression of his
+sentiments on this head subjected him to a share in the attacks made
+upon the party accused of undue fondness for England and English
+institutions.</p>
+
+<p>Advices from the American minister in London representing that the
+British cabinet was disposed to settle the differences between the two
+countries amicably, Washington nominated Mr. Jay to the Senate as
+Envoy-extraordinary to the court of Great Britain. The nomination,
+though strenuously opposed by the Democratic party, was confirmed in
+the Senate by a majority of two to one. The treaty negotiated by Jay
+was received at the seat of government in March, 1795, soon after the
+session of Congress closed. The president summoned the Senate to meet
+in June to ratify it. The treaty was ratified. Before the treaty was
+signed by the president it was surreptitiously published. It was
+vehemently condemned, and public meetings against it were held to
+intimidate the executive. The president, nevertheless, signed the
+treaty on August 18th. When Congress met in March, 1796, a resolution
+was carried by a large majority in the House of Representatives,
+requesting the president to lay before the house the instructions to
+Mr. Jay, the correspondence, and other documents relating to the
+negotiations. Washington declined to furnish the papers; a vehement
+debate ensued, but in the end the hostile majority yielded to the
+exigency of the case and united in passing laws for the fulfilment of
+the treaty.</p>
+
+<p>The two houses of Congress met again in December. Washington had
+published on September 15th his farewell address to the United States.
+He now delivered his last speech to Congress, and took occasion to
+urge upon that body the gradual increase of the navy, a provision for
+the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures, the establishment
+of a national university, and of a military academy. Little was done
+during the session; public attention was engrossed by the presidential
+election. Adams, the Federalist candidate, had the highest number of
+votes; Jefferson, the Democratic candidate (who was consequently
+declared vice-president), the next. Washington's commanding character
+and isolation from party, had preserved this degree of strength to the
+holders of his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page250" name="page250"></a>(p. 250)</span> own political views. He was present as a
+spectator at the installation of his successor, and immediately
+afterward returned to Mount Vernon.</p>
+
+<p>He survived till December 14, 1799, but except when summoned in May,
+1798, to take the command of the provincial army, on the prospect of a
+war with France, did not again engage in public business.</p>
+
+<p>The character of Washington is one of simple and substantial
+greatness. His passions were vehement but concentrated, and thoroughly
+under control. An irresistible strength of will was combined with a
+singularly well-balanced mind, with much sagacity, much benevolence,
+much love of justice. Without possessing what may be called genius,
+Washington was endowed with a rare quickness of perception and
+soundness of judgment, and an eager desire of knowledge. His extremely
+methodical habits enabled him to find time for everything, and were
+linked with a talent for organization. During the War of Independence
+he was the defensive force of America; wanting him, it would almost
+appear as if the democratic mass must have resolved itself into its
+elements. To place Washington as a warrior on a footing with the
+Cæsars, Napoleons, and Wellingtons, would be absurd. He lost more
+battles than he gained. But he kept an army together and kept up
+resistance to the enemy, under more adverse circumstances than any
+other general ever did. His services as a statesman were similar in
+kind. He upheld the organization of the American state during the
+first eight years of its existence, amid the storms of Jacobinical
+controversy, and gave it time to consolidate. No other American but
+himself could have done this, for of all the American leaders he was
+the only one whom men felt differed from themselves. The rest were
+soldiers or civilians, Federalists or Democrats; but he was
+Washington. The awe and reverence felt for him were blended with
+affection for his kindly qualities, and except for a brief period
+toward the close of his second presidential term, there has been but
+one sentiment entertained toward him throughout the Union&mdash;that of
+reverential love. His was one of those rare natures which greatness
+follows without their striving for it.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>The following extract is from a letter written by him to his adopted
+daughter, Nellie Custis, on the subject of love:<a id="footnotetag4" name="footnotetag4"></a><a href="#footnote4" title="Go to footnote 4"><span class="smaller">[4]</span></a></p>
+
+<p>"Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore
+contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for
+like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with
+aliment it is rapid in progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may
+be stifled in its birth or much stunted in its growth. For example: a
+woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and
+accomplished, will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn
+the heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her
+marry, and what is the consequence? The madness ceases and all is
+quiet again. Why? Not because there is any diminution in the charm of
+the lady, but because there <span class="pagenum"><a id="page251" name="page251"></a>(p. 251)</span> is an end of hope. Hence it
+follows that love may, and therefore ought to be, under the guidance
+of reason, for although we cannot avoid first impressions, we may
+assuredly place them under guard; and my motives for treating on this
+subject are to show you, while you remain Eleanor Parke Custis,
+spinster, and retain the resolution to love with moderation, the
+propriety of adhering to the latter resolution, at least until you
+have secured your game, or the way by which it may be accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>"When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm,
+propound these questions to it: Who is this invader? Have I a
+competent knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character; a man of
+sense? For, be assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a
+fool. What has been his walk in life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift,
+or drunkard? Is his fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I
+have been accustomed to live, and my sisters do live? and is he one to
+whom my friends can have no reasonable objection? If these
+interrogatories can be satisfactorily answered there will remain but
+one more to be asked; that, however, is an important one: Have I
+sufficient ground to conclude that his affections are engaged by me?
+Without this the heart of sensibility will struggle against a passion
+that is not reciprocated&mdash;delicacy, custom, or call it by what epithet
+you will, having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration,
+without the <span class="italic">most indirect</span> invitation of yours, must proceed from the
+man, to render it permanent and valuable, and nothing short of good
+sense, and an easy, unaffected conduct can draw the line between
+prudery and coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say
+that it rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette
+dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others
+by encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose
+than to draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected....
+Every blessing, among which a good husband when you want one, is
+bestowed on you by yours affectionately."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>JOHN ADAMS<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Edwin Williams</span><br>
+(1735-1826)</h3>
+
+<a id="img016" name="img016"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img016.jpg" width="250" height="326" alt="John Adams." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born on the
+19th of October (old style), 1735, in that part of the town of
+Braintree (near Boston), Massachusetts, which has since been
+incorporated by the name of Quincy. He was the fourth in descent from
+Henry Adams, who fled from persecution in Devonshire, England, and
+settled in Massachusetts about the year 1630. Another of the ancestors
+of Mr. Adams was John Alden, one of the Pilgrim founders of the
+Plymouth <span class="pagenum"><a id="page252" name="page252"></a>(p. 252)</span> colony in 1620. Receiving his early education in
+his native town, John Adams, in 1751, was admitted a member of Harvard
+College, at Cambridge, where he graduated in regular course four years
+afterward. On leaving college he went to Worcester, for the purpose of
+studying law, and at the same time to support himself, according to
+the usage at that time in New England, by teaching in the
+grammar-school of that town. He studied law with James Putnam, a
+barrister of eminence, by whom he was afterward introduced to the
+acquaintance of Jeremy Gridley, then attorney-general of the province,
+who proposed him to the court for admission to the bar of Suffolk
+County, in 1758, and gave him access to his library, which was then
+one of the best in America.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Adams commenced the practice of his profession in his native town,
+and by travelling the circuits with the court, became well known in
+that part of the country. In 1766, by the advice of Mr. Gridley, he
+removed to Boston, where he soon distinguished himself at the bar by
+his superior talents as counsel and advocate. At an earlier period of
+his life his thoughts had begun to turn on general politics, and the
+prospects of his country engaged his attention. Soon after leaving
+college he wrote a letter to a friend, dated at Worcester, October 12,
+1755, which evinces so remarkable a foresight that it is fortunate it
+has been preserved. We make the following extracts: "Soon after the
+Reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience'
+sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great
+seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me, if we can remove
+the turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest
+computation, will, in another century, become more numerous than
+England herself. The only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves
+is to disunite us. <span class="italic">Divide et impera</span>. Keep us in distinct colonies,
+and then some great men in each colony, desiring the monarchy of the
+whole, will destroy each other's influence, and keep the country in
+equilibrio. Be not surprised that I am turned politician; the whole
+town is immersed in politics. I sit and hear, and, after being led
+through a maze of sage observations, I sometimes retire and, by laying
+things together, form some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce
+of one of these reveries you have read above." Mr. Webster observes:
+"It is remarkable that the author of this prognostication should live
+to see fulfilled to the letter what could have seemed to others, at
+the time, but the extravagance of youthful fancy. His earliest
+political feelings were thus <span class="pagenum"><a id="page253" name="page253"></a>(p. 253)</span> strongly American, and from
+this ardent attachment to his native soil he never departed."</p>
+
+<p>In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, daughter of Rev. William Smith, of
+Weymouth, and grand-daughter of Colonel Quincy, a lady of uncommon
+endowments and excellent education. He had previously imbibed a
+prejudice against the prevailing religious opinions of New England,
+and became attached to speculations hostile to those opinions. Nor
+were his views afterward changed. In his religious sentiments he
+accorded with Dr. Bancroft, a Unitarian minister of Worcester, of
+whose printed sermons he expressed his high approbation. In 1765 Mr.
+Adams published an essay on canon and feudal law, the object of which
+was to show the conspiracy between Church and State for the purpose of
+oppressing the people.</p>
+
+<p>In 1770 he was chosen a representative from the town of Boston, in the
+Legislature of Massachusetts. The same year he was one of the counsel
+who defended Captain Preston and the British soldiers who fired at his
+order upon the inhabitants of Boston. Captain Preston was acquitted,
+and Mr. Adams lost no favor with his fellow-citizens by engaging in
+this trial. As a member of the Legislature he opposed the royal
+governor, Hutchinson, in his measures, and also wrote against the
+British Government in the newspapers. In 1774 he was elected a member
+of the Massachusetts Council, and negatived by Governor Gage. In this
+and the next year he wrote on the Whig side, the pamphlets called "Nov
+Anglus," in reply to essays, signed "Massachusitensis," in favor of
+the British Government, by Sewall, the attorney-general. The same year
+he was appointed a member of the Continental Congress, from
+Massachusetts, and in that body, which met at Philadelphia, he became
+one of the most efficient and able advocates of liberty. In the
+Congress which met in May, 1775, he again took his seat, having been
+reappointed as a delegate. In 1775 he seconded the nomination of
+Washington as commander-in-chief of the army, and in July, 1776, he
+was the adviser and great supporter of the Declaration of
+Independence. It was reported by a committee composed of Thomas
+Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R.
+Livingston. During the same year he, with Dr. Franklin and Edward
+Rutledge, was deputed to treat with Lord Howe for the pacification of
+the colonies. He declined at this time the offer of the office of
+Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts.</p>
+
+<p>In December, 1777, Mr. Adams was appointed a commissioner to the court
+of France; and with the exception of one short interval, during which
+he aided in the framing of the Massachusetts State Constitution, he
+spent the following eleven years in diplomatic services abroad. He
+arranged the treaties of the United States with most foreign nations
+during that time, was associated with Franklin and Jay in signing the
+treaty of peace with England, and was our first English minister.</p>
+
+<p>The services of Mr. Adams in the cause of his country, at home and
+abroad, during the period to which we have referred, it is believed,
+were not excelled by those of any other of the patriots of the
+Revolution. In the language of one of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page254" name="page254"></a>(p. 254)</span> his eulogists (Mr. J.
+E. Sprague, of Massachusetts), "Not a hundred men in the country could
+have been acquainted with any part of the labors of Mr. Adams&mdash;they
+appeared anonymously, or under assumed titles; they were concealed in
+the secret conclaves of Congress, or the more secret cabinets of
+princes. Such services are never known to the public; or, if known,
+only in history, when the actors of the day have passed from the
+stage, and the motives for longer concealment cease to exist. As we
+ascend the mount of history, and rise above the vapors of party
+prejudice, we shall all acknowledge that we owe our independence more
+to John Adams than to any other created being, and that he was the
+Great Leader of the American Revolution."</p>
+
+<p>When permission was given him to return from Europe, the Continental
+Congress adopted the following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress
+entertain a high sense of the services which Mr. Adams has rendered to
+the United States, in the execution of the various important trusts
+which they have from time to time committed to him; and that the
+thanks of Congress be presented to him for the patriotism,
+perseverance, integrity, and diligence with which he has ably and
+faithfully served his country." Such was the testimonial of his
+country, expressed through the national councils, at the termination
+of his revolutionary and diplomatic career.</p>
+
+<p>During the absence of Mr. Adams in Europe, the Constitution of the
+United States had been formed and adopted. He highly approved of its
+provisions, and on his return, when it was about to go into operation,
+he was selected by the friends of the Constitution to be placed on the
+ticket with Washington as a candidate for one of the two highest
+offices in the gift of the people. He was consequently elected
+vice-president, and on the assembling of the Senate he took his seat,
+as president of that body, at New York, in April, 1789. Having been
+re-elected to that office in 1792, he held it, and presided in the
+Senate with great dignity, during the entire period of the
+administration of Washington, whose confidence he enjoyed, and by whom
+he was consulted on important questions. In his valedictory address to
+the Senate he remarks: "It is a recollection of which nothing can ever
+deprive me, and it will be a source of comfort to me through the
+remainder of my life that, on the one hand, I have for eight years
+held the second situation under our Constitution, in perfect and
+uninterrupted harmony with the first, without envy in the one, or
+jealousy in the other, so, on the other hand, I have never had the
+smallest misunderstanding with any member of the Senate."</p>
+
+<p>In 1790 Mr. Adams wrote his celebrated "Discourses on Davila;" they
+were anonymously published at first, in the <span class="italic">Gazette of the United
+States</span>, of Philadelphia, in a series of numbers; they may be
+considered as a sequel to his "Defence of the American Constitutions."
+He was a decided friend and patron of literature and the arts, and
+while in Europe, having obtained much information on the subject of
+public institutions, he contributed largely to the advancement of
+establishments in his native State for the encouragement of arts,
+sciences, and letters.</p>
+
+<p>On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency of the
+United <span class="pagenum"><a id="page255" name="page255"></a>(p. 255)</span> States, Mr. Adams was elected his successor, after a
+close and spirited contest with two rivals for that high office; Mr.
+Jefferson being supported by the Democratic or Republican party, while
+a portion of the Federal party preferred Mr. Thomas Pinckney, of South
+Carolina, who was placed on the ticket with Mr. Adams. The result was
+the election of Mr. Adams as president, and in March, 1797, he entered
+upon his duties in that office. He came to the presidency in a stormy
+time. In the language of Colonel Knapp, "the French revolution had
+just reached its highest point of settled delirium, after some of the
+paroxysms of its fury had passed away. The people of the United States
+took sides, some approving, others deprecating, the course pursued by
+France. Mr. Adams wished to preserve a neutrality, but found this
+quite impossible. A navy was raised with surprising promptitude, to
+prevent insolence and to chastise aggression. It had the desired
+effect, and France was taught that the Americans were friends in
+peace, but were not fearful of war when it could not be averted. When
+the historian shall come to this page of our history, he will do
+justice to the sagacity, to the spirit, and to the integrity of Mr
+Adams, and will find that he had more reasons, and good ones, for his
+conduct, than his friends or enemies ever gave him."</p>
+
+<p>In his course of public policy, when war with France was expected, he
+was encouraged by addresses from all quarters, and by the approving
+voice of Washington. He, however, gave dissatisfaction to many of his
+own political party, in his final attempts to conciliate France, and
+in his removal of two members of his cabinet toward the close of his
+administration. Under these circumstances, notwithstanding Mr. Adams
+was the candidate of the Federal party for re-election as president,
+and received their faithful support, it is not strange that his
+opponents, with the advantage in their favor of the superior
+popularity of Mr. Jefferson, succeeded in defeating him. For this
+event, the correspondence of Mr. Adams shows that he was prepared, and
+he left the arduous duties of chief magistrate probably with less of
+disappointment than his enemies expected.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after Mr. Jefferson had succeeded to the presidency, in
+1801, Mr. Adams retired to his estate at Quincy, in Massachusetts, and
+passed the remainder of his days in literary and scientific leisure,
+though occasionally addressing various communications to the public.
+He gave his support generally to the administration of Mr. Jefferson,
+and the friendship between these distinguished men was revived by a
+correspondence, and continued for several years previous to their
+death. When the disputes with Great Britain eventuated in war, Mr.
+Adams avowed his approbation of that measure, and in 1815 he saw the
+second treaty of peace concluded with that nation, by a commission of
+which his son was at the head, as he had been himself in that
+commission which formed the treaty of 1783.</p>
+
+<p>In 1816 the Republican party in Massachusetts, which had once
+vehemently opposed him as president of the United States, paid him the
+compliment of placing his name at the head of their list of
+presidential electors. In 1820 he was chosen a member of the State
+Convention to revise the constitution of Massachusetts, which body
+unanimously solicited him to act as their president. This he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page256" name="page256"></a>(p. 256)</span>
+declined on account of his age, but he was complimented by a vote of
+the convention acknowledging his great services, for a period of more
+than half a century, in the cause of his country and of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The last years of the long life of Mr. Adams were peaceful and
+tranquil. His mansion was always the abode of elegant hospitality, and
+he was occasionally enlivened by visits from his distinguished son,
+whom, in 1825, he had the singular felicity of seeing elevated to the
+office of President of the United States. At length, having lived to a
+good old age, he expired, surrounded by his affectionate relatives, on
+July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of that independence which he
+had done so much to achieve. A short time before his death, being
+asked to suggest a toast for the customary celebration, he replied, "I
+will give you&mdash;Independence forever." Mr. Jefferson died on the same
+day. A similar coincidence occurred five years afterward, in the death
+of President Monroe, July 4, 1831.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Adams was of middle stature and full person, and when elected
+president, was bald on the top of his head. His countenance beamed
+with intelligence, and moral as well as physical courage. His walk was
+firm and dignified to a late period of his life. His manner was slow
+and deliberate, unless he was excited, and when this happened he
+expressed himself with great energy. He was ever a man of purest
+morals, and is said to have been a firm believer in Christianity, not
+from habit and example, but from diligent investigation of its proofs.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>THOMAS JEFFERSON<a id="footnotetag5" name="footnotetag5"></a><a href="#footnote5" title="Go to footnote 5"><span class="smaller">[5]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Hon. John B. Henderson</span><br>
+(1743-1826)</h3>
+
+<a id="img017" name="img017"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img017.jpg" width="200" height="274" alt="Thomas Jefferson." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Thomas Jefferson was born April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, Albemarle
+County, Va. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a descendant of a Welsh
+family which came to Virginia before the Pilgrims landed in
+Massachusetts. The father's income was derived from a large farm
+adjoining that of William Randolph, whose daughter, Jane, he married
+in 1738. Monticello, the future residence of his son Thomas, was a
+part of this farm. Peter Jefferson was a leader among the men of his
+day and received expressions of public confidence from the voters of
+his county. He died in 1759, having directed that Thomas should
+complete his education in William and Mary College at Williamsburg,
+then the capital of the colony.</p>
+
+<p>Thomas entered the college and by assiduous application he soon built
+upon the learning acquired in the public and private schools of his
+county, an education quite liberal and advanced for that period.</p>
+
+<p>He was tall, and in youth somewhat awkward in manner. What he lacked,
+however, in personal grace was at once forgotten in the vivacity of
+his conversation, made doubly charming by the extent and variety of
+his learning. During his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page257" name="page257"></a>(p. 257)</span> collegiate days he formed a close
+friendship with Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and others who afterward
+became distinguished in American history. He was always welcome in the
+house of Governor Fauquier, from whom he learned much of the social,
+political, and parliamentary life of the old world. It was here that
+he first met George Wythe, a gifted and talented young lawyer, who
+afterward became Chancellor of the State.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving college he entered upon the study of the law in the
+office of his friend Mr. Wythe, and with this and the management of
+his father's estate he found himself abundantly occupied.</p>
+
+<p>In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and for several years devoted
+himself to the practice of his profession. It is quite probable that,
+in consequence of his inability to speak and his utter incapacity for
+forensic controversy, his career at the bar would not have reached the
+highest distinction. What he lacked, however, in the power of speech,
+found ample compensation in the strength, beauty, and elegance of
+expression which he commanded with the pen. This extraordinary talent
+was destined soon to find abundant employment in defending the rights
+of the people against the oppressive acts of the mother-country.
+Patrick Henry had already argued the "Parsons' Cause" in December,
+1763, and Jefferson himself, as a college student at Williamsburg, had
+listened to the impassioned speech of Henry in the Virginia House of
+Burgesses against the Stamp Act of Parliament. But the fiery eloquence
+of his friend Henry only fanned a flame that already burned in the
+breast of Jefferson. Impulsive by nature, by education and training a
+democrat, he naturally espoused the cause of his countrymen. The
+peculiar condition of the colonies furnished the opportunity to
+Jefferson's wonderful faculty for writing. The orator could not be
+heard by all the people of the colonies; but the products of the pen
+could be carried to the most secluded hamlet. And truly in Jefferson's
+hands the pen was "mightier than the sword."</p>
+
+<p>The first year after opening his law office, at the age of
+twenty-five, he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses from
+Albemarle, his native county, and on taking his seat the following
+May, the controversy between the royal governor and the assembly at
+once began. Jefferson prepared the resolutions in reply to the
+executive speech; and on the third day of the session the passage of
+other resolutions, in the form of a bill of rights, caused the
+governor to dissolve the assembly. Jefferson was again elected to the
+House of Burgesses, and in 1774, was elected a delegate to the State
+convention.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page258" name="page258"></a>(p. 258)</span> On account of illness he failed to reach the convention, but
+he prepared and forwarded to its president a draft of instructions
+which he hoped would be adopted for the guidance of those to be sent
+by the body as delegates to the General Congress of the colonies. For
+this paper, afterward published as "A Summary View of the Rights of
+British America," the name of Jefferson was inserted in a bill of
+attainder brought into the English Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>After a short detention in the House of Burgesses, in which he drafted
+the reply of Virginia to the "conciliatory proposition" of Lord North,
+he proceeded to Philadelphia as a delegate to the General Congress, in
+which he took his seat on June 21, 1775.</p>
+
+<p>When Jefferson entered the Congress, conditions existing between the
+mother country and the colonies had already reached the point of open
+rebellion. It is true that the taxes had all been repealed except the
+import tax on tea, but the repeals had been invariably accompanied
+with the assertion of an unlimited right to tax without the consent of
+the colonies. English troops had been quartered in Boston, and English
+war-ships occupied its harbor. The right of deportation to, and trial
+in, England for offences committed in America, was still claimed by
+both king and Parliament. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had
+now been fought, and Washington had already been commissioned as
+commander-in-chief of the colonial armies.</p>
+
+<p>In this condition of affairs Massachusetts and Virginia, in which had
+been most keenly felt the oppressive acts of the mother country, were
+quite ready for open and avowed rebellion. But in many of the other
+colonies the sense of loyalty and the ties of friendship were yet
+sufficiently strong to induce the hope of continued union.</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore not until June 7, 1776, that Virginia, through
+Richard Henry Lee, introduced into Congress at Philadelphia the
+resolutions for a final separation; and a few days thereafter a
+committee was appointed to prepare the Declaration of Independence.
+Jefferson was placed at the head of this committee, his colleagues
+consisting of Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R.
+Livingston. The declaration was prepared by Jefferson, and when
+submitted to Dr. Franklin and John Adams for criticism, some verbal
+amendments suggested by them were made. It was then reported to
+Congress on June 28th, and after debate and other slight amendments by
+the body itself, it was adopted and signed on July 4, 1776.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the merits or demerits of the paper, it is essentially the
+work of Jefferson. It has been much criticised, both in its substance
+and its form. It is quite certain, however, that since its
+promulgation there has been, not only in the United States but abroad,
+a continually increasing tendency to accept and apply its principles
+in the practical affairs of government. As an eloquent arraignment of
+tyranny, a denunciation of oppression and an inspiration to
+resistance, it stands perhaps unequalled among the products of human
+intellect. As appropriately said by another, the paper is "consecrated
+in the affections of Americans and praise may seem as superfluous as
+censure would be unavailing."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page259" name="page259"></a>(p. 259)</span> So soon as the colonies had become united in the cause of
+forcible resistance, Jefferson returned to his own State to commence
+perhaps the most useful and beneficent work of his life. He had again
+been elected to Congress, but with the prescience of the seer, he
+chose the seemingly less important place of representative to the
+Legislature of his State. He took his seat on October 7, 1776. On the
+11th of the same month he asked leave to present a bill to establish
+courts of justice in the State of Virginia; on the next day, to
+authorize tenants <span class="italic">en tail</span> to convey their estates in fee simple.
+This was immediately followed by other bills for the utter overthrow
+of primogeniture and the whole law of entails.</p>
+
+<p>His reformatory spirit did not stop with these radical measures. He
+found another danger in the conservatism and aristocratic tendencies
+of the established church of the State. In his judgment the whole body
+of law and custom inherited from England must be thoroughly
+exterminated, to the end that English influence might be driven from
+the land. In his judgment English institutions had been cunningly
+devised in the interest of monarchy. Their purpose, he believed, was
+to create and maintain distinctions in society, and to perpetuate and
+strengthen an aristocratic caste as the ally and support of the crown.
+So long as they existed there was constant danger of relapse from the
+high purposes of the rebellion. In Jefferson's regard, they were
+inconsistent with the principles of the revolution now proclaimed, and
+sooner or later would be found its open or secret enemies.</p>
+
+<p>For these reforms the old aristocracy of his State denounced him as a
+Jacobin, and the established church denounced him as an infidel.</p>
+
+<p>Jefferson continued to serve in the House of Delegates during the
+years 1777 and 1778, and in addition to the measures already named, he
+secured laws to establish elementary and collegiate education in the
+State, and to prohibit the further importation of slaves into
+Virginia. He also sought to inaugurate a system of gradual
+emancipation; but slavery was already so thoroughly engrafted on the
+social system of the people, that even Jefferson, Wythe, and Mason
+could not dislodge it. Jefferson, in 1821, referring to his failure in
+this regard, said: "it was found that the public mind would not yet
+bear the proposition, nor will it bear it, even to this day; yet the
+day is not distant, when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will,
+follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than
+that these people are to be free."</p>
+
+<p>On retiring from the Legislature he was elected governor of the State.
+The period of his service in this position was unfortunate for his
+fame. He was essentially a civilian, neither having, nor pretending to
+have, military skill or knowledge. The war had now been transferred to
+the Southern States. Cornwallis had overrun Georgia and South
+Carolina, defeated Gates at Camden, and was pushing north for the
+desolation of Virginia. The State had already become impoverished by
+its liberal contributions of money, men, and arms to the general
+cause, and was now powerless for its own defence. The hated Benedict
+Arnold was able to ascend the James River to Richmond, dispersing the
+Legislature <span class="pagenum"><a id="page260" name="page260"></a>(p. 260)</span> and burning the town. Tarleton afterward
+penetrated as far as Charlottesville&mdash;Jefferson and the Legislature
+narrowly escaping capture. Jefferson felt keenly the situation, and at
+the expiration of his term retired to Monticello, humiliated and
+overwhelmed by unjust criticism and undeserved censure. His gloom and
+melancholy were made still more sad at this period, by the death of
+his wife, whom he had married in 1772. But the privilege of neither
+obscurity nor rest was reserved for him. The winter session of 1783
+found him again in the General Congress abolishing the English system
+of coinage and providing for the government of the Northwestern
+territory, which had been ceded to the confederation by Virginia.</p>
+
+<p>In 1784 he was named as a minister plenipotentiary to Europe at large,
+to assist Adams and Franklin in the negotiation of commercial
+treaties. In 1785 he became minister to France in the place of Dr.
+Franklin, who had resigned; and in March, 1790, in pursuance of a
+previous acceptance, he entered the Cabinet of President Washington as
+Secretary of State.</p>
+
+<p>Already the germs of two great conflicting parties had been sown. The
+debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and still more
+manifestly the controversies in the State Conventions called to
+consider the adoption of the instrument, had developed the
+differences, which, in theory at least, have distinguished political
+parties ever since. The colonies had been chiefly settled by
+Englishmen. No people are more tenacious than they of preconceived
+opinions, or more averse to the abandonment of ancient forms and
+customs. A strong attachment to the institutions of England still
+remained with the people of the colonies. With many of them the whole
+object of the revolution was political separation from the mother
+country. They heartily desired independence and freedom, and they had
+willingly risked their lives to secure them. But the freedom they
+sought was the right, if they chose, to establish and perpetuate those
+cherished institutions of the mother-country for themselves. They
+would enjoy them still, and make them a lasting inheritance for their
+posterity, but free from the power and dominion of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Such persons had revolted not against England, but against England's
+wrongful acts; not against the authority of law, but against the
+perversion of law. To them the Declaration of Independence was a
+splendid piece of rhetoric intended only to inflame the mind with a
+sense of injury, and to nerve the heart to determined resistance. Like
+the Marseillaise hymn, it was merely to be repeated on entering the
+battle. Like the bugle blast, it served only to stimulate the soul and
+shut out all other sounds while the contest lasted. Not so with
+Jefferson and his followers. The Declaration of Independence truly
+reflected their political sentiments. To them the revolution meant
+something more than mere separation. It looked to the total
+repudiation of the English system of government, and the substitution
+of the rule of the people. They admitted the inefficiency of the
+articles of confederation, and were willing to accept nationality in a
+modified form. But to them the Constitution as framed in 1787 was
+armed with the most dangerous powers. They accepted it merely as a
+choice of evils, trusting <span class="pagenum"><a id="page261" name="page261"></a>(p. 261)</span> by strict construction and future
+amendment to give it eventually the form and mould of their own views.</p>
+
+<p>The President, in selecting his ministers, sought to compromise these
+antagonisms by giving the parties equal representation in his Cabinet.
+Between two such men, however, as Jefferson, his Secretary of State,
+and Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, there could be
+no permanent co-operation. So eager, indeed, was Jefferson to
+inaugurate the controversy, that he really began the battle of strict
+construction before his peculiar principles had been seriously
+invaded. Time has long since demonstrated that, in his opposition to
+Hamilton's financial measures, he was clearly wrong. The truth seems
+to be, that in this branch of politics, Jefferson was without
+knowledge or practical skill.</p>
+
+<p>In his discussions with the English minister touching violations of
+the late treaty of peace, and in the controversy with Spain in respect
+to the right of navigating the Mississippi River through her territory
+to the Gulf, Jefferson displayed his usual ability.</p>
+
+<p>The declaration of war by France, now a republic, against England,
+precipitated upon the Government of the United States a number of
+difficult and troublesome questions of international law. They were
+especially irritating because of the personal feelings involved in
+their discussion and settlement. A profound sense of gratitude to
+France for assistance in the late revolutionary struggle, was felt by
+all classes in America, while the Republicans were especially open and
+undisguised in their expressions of sympathy for the French people.
+And but for the imprudent conduct of the French minister, Genet, the
+supremacy of the Federal party might have been seriously jeopardized
+in the beginning of Washington's second term. The conduct of this
+functionary was so insolent and exacting as to excite disgust for
+himself, and to cool in a marked degree the zeal of the Republicans in
+their support of the new republic.</p>
+
+<p>While Jefferson's sympathy with France was perhaps too manifest, and
+while his personal conduct in the Cabinet touching this question was
+not altogether kind to the president, and in other respects liable to
+criticism, his correspondence with the French Government, when finally
+published, was found to have been based upon the highest principles of
+international right and dictated by a proper sense of the dignity and
+character of his own country.</p>
+
+<p>Jefferson's proud nature had for several years, chafed under the
+continued success of Federal measures. Washington had manifestly
+ignored his counsel in the Cabinet, and favored Hamilton in the
+administration of the Government. Jefferson was piqued and chagrined
+beyond further endurance. He hated Hamilton with an intensity due only
+to an open enemy of the country.</p>
+
+<p>In this state of mind, on December 31, 1793, he resigned from the
+Cabinet, and again sought the seclusion and quiet of his farm at
+Monticello. But his pen was never idle. He was untiring in the
+dissemination of his peculiar views of government. With emotions
+intensified by strong convictions of right his contributions to the
+political literature of the day were vigorous and peculiarly
+attractive. He continued to be the acknowledged leader of the
+Republican party, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page262" name="page262"></a>(p. 262)</span> and was promptly named as its candidate
+for president in 1796, to succeed General Washington, who had declined
+a third term. Between him and John Adams, the candidate of the Federal
+party, the vote was very close, Adams receiving 71 electoral votes and
+Jefferson 68. Under the provisions of the Constitution as they existed
+at the time, Adams became President and Jefferson Vice-President.</p>
+
+<p>During Adams' term were passed the Alien and Sedition laws, as well as
+others, unnecessary and of doubtful constitutionality, which proved to
+be fatal and ruinous mistakes of the Federal party. Jefferson and
+Madison's threats of State repudiation against Federal legislation, as
+enunciated in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, furnished good
+arguments, of course, for the continued existence of a truly national
+party. But the seeds of decay had been sown. Adams was vain,
+impulsive, rash, and violent. Jefferson was far more deliberate, with
+larger views of statesmanship and a better knowledge of the people. He
+had abundant cunning and the ready adaptation of partisan skill.</p>
+
+<p>In a contest of four years between such leaders, it is not strange
+that when the election of 1800 came on, Jefferson should receive 73
+electoral votes while Adams received but 65.</p>
+
+<p>Although Jefferson was elected over Adams, he was not yet elected over
+Aaron Burr, who had received an equal number of votes for president
+with himself. In reality no vote had been intended for Burr as
+President&mdash;the purpose being to elect Jefferson President and Burr
+Vice-President.</p>
+
+<p>Under the constitutional provision already referred to, the election
+was remitted to the House of Representatives. Finally, by the aid of
+Hamilton, who only hated Jefferson less than he hated Burr, the
+controversy was decided in favor of the former.</p>
+
+<p>The moment Jefferson became president his whole character seemed to be
+changed. Instead of the relentless partisan of the past, he became the
+apostle of benevolence and charity. His inaugural address, in that
+florid rhetoric of which he was master, enunciated principles of
+government to which no friend of human liberty could object. The
+spirit of conciliation breathed in every sentence. "Every difference
+of opinion," he said, "is not a difference of principle. We have
+called by different names brethren of the same principles. We are all
+Republicans&mdash;we are all Federalists.... Let us then, with courage and
+confidence, pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our
+attachment to our Union and representative government."</p>
+
+<p>The short-lived peace of Europe had re-established American commerce
+on the ocean, and general prosperity pervaded all departments of
+business. Indeed, the wise moderation of the president had brought the
+most agreeable disappointment to his enemies. Federalists were not
+removed from office for political reasons, and the country settled
+down into the conviction that Republican success after all, might
+prove to be a beneficent change.</p>
+
+<p>As already stated, the Northwest territory, extending from the Ohio to
+the Mississippi River, had formerly belonged to Virginia, and perhaps
+no public man of his day so well understood as did Jefferson, the
+importance and needs of that <span class="pagenum"><a id="page263" name="page263"></a>(p. 263)</span> vast domain. Spain, as the
+owner of Louisiana, held supreme control of New Orleans and the lower
+Mississippi.</p>
+
+<p>While Secretary of State under Washington, Jefferson would have been
+content with the acquisition of the Island of New Orleans, and the
+free navigation of the Mississippi River. Circumstances had now
+changed. He was himself president. Spain had suddenly conveyed
+Louisiana to France, and Napoleon was meditating the abrogation of the
+peace of Amiens and the declaration of war against England. In such a
+war France could not well retain her distant possessions against the
+superior naval power of her old and grasping enemy. Napoleon had a
+property which in case of war, he was likely to lose. He had resolved
+on war, and for that purpose needed money, which, fortunately, the
+American Treasury could furnish at once.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of the Island of New Orleans the President's dream now
+embraced the whole of the Louisiana purchase, extending from the
+Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Livingston, of New York, the associate of Jefferson, in 1776, on the
+Committee to frame the Declaration of Independence, was now Minister
+to France, but he was unfortunately embarrassed by his committal to
+the acquisition of New Orleans alone. Monroe's term, as Governor of
+Virginia, had just expired. He had formerly served the country most
+acceptably at the French court. He was the devoted friend, personally
+and politically, of Jefferson. They were both committed to the "strict
+construction" theory of the Constitution. This narrow view of the
+instrument, on which their party had come into power, absolutely
+forbade the acquisition of territory by purchase. But Louisiana was
+necessary not only to the growth, but to the maintenance of the Union.
+It mattered not that the professions of the Republican party had to be
+violated. The prize outweighed the virtue of party consistency.
+Jefferson himself was forced to admit the want of power, but having
+resolved on the act, he said: "The less that is said about any
+constitutional difficulty the better." Again he said: "It will be
+desirable for Congress to do what is necessary in silence."</p>
+
+<p>With these views he despatched Monroe to Paris. For obvious reasons
+written instructions were avoided; but it is quite certain that
+unlimited discretion to the Minister had resulted from a careful
+comparison of views.</p>
+
+<p>It was under these circumstances that in 1803 the vast domain known as
+"The Louisiana Purchase" was obtained by the United States for the
+paltry consideration of fifteen million dollars.</p>
+
+<p>This of itself added immensely to Jefferson's popularity. Internal
+taxation had been abolished. Rigid economy of administration had been
+introduced. The public debt was in the course of rapid extinction. The
+rigorous ceremonials of former administrations had given place to the
+simplest forms, and the temples of power had been made accessible to
+the humblest citizen. The country enjoyed great prosperity, and a
+spirit of contentment pervaded the land.</p>
+
+<p>Jefferson's second election, in 1804, was almost without
+opposition&mdash;his vote being 162 to 14 for C. C. Pinckney, the Federal
+candidate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page264" name="page264"></a>(p. 264)</span> The second term of the President was far less successful than
+the first. A political exigency in France had forced the sale of
+Louisiana, and its opportune purchase had given Jefferson unbounded
+popularity, and linked his name with the future greatness of his
+country. But the impending hostilities producing that exigency had now
+been declared. France and England were again in open war, and each, to
+wound the other, had recklessly trampled upon the rights of the United
+States. English orders in council blockaded the ports of France, and
+Napoleon's Berlin decrees equally closed those of England against
+neutral commerce. The right of search was claimed by both powers, and
+offensively exercised by England. Time had now brought its inevitable
+revenges. Jefferson was again confronted by conditions in which he
+manifested more or less of weakness and incapacity. In peace his
+statesmanship was always creditable, and at times, truly magnificent.
+In the presence of war he was too often vacillating and incompetent.
+The embargo on the commerce of his own country, which he suggested,
+was hardly less injurious than the wrongs of which he complained. The
+remedy was worse, if possible, than the disease.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron Burr, in contesting for the presidency in 1801, had forfeited
+the confidence of his own party, and for killing Hamilton in a duel in
+1804, he had incurred the hatred of the Federalists, and lost the
+respect of all parties. In his desperation he had organized an
+expedition to proceed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a
+view, as was supposed, of invading Mexico, or segregating from the
+United States a portion of its territory. He was arrested for treason
+and brought to Richmond, where he was finally tried for a high
+misdemeanor in organizing forces against Spain within the United
+States. In this prosecution, as in the impeachment of Judge Chase of
+the Supreme Court, executive encouragement and aid were offensively
+open and notorious.</p>
+
+<p>When the embargo had almost ruined the commercial States of the Union,
+it was modified by a non-intercourse act with France and England, to
+take effect on March 4, 1809, the last day of Jefferson's term.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of his second term Jefferson permanently retired from
+office, and spent his remaining years at Monticello.</p>
+
+<p>By a singular coincidence both he and John Adams died on July 4, 1826,
+just fifty years after they had signed the Declaration of
+Independence.</p>
+
+<p>The brief facts already recited clearly indicate the character of the
+man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was
+without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and
+unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for
+self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the
+struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people
+against English tyranny took the form of religious enthusiasm. In
+France he witnessed the sufferings and misery of the down-trodden
+poor, whose wild vengeance he believed to be justified by the long
+ages of oppression and wrong under which they had groaned.</p>
+
+<p>He distrusted power and naturally sought to restrict its exercise.
+Hating monarchy, he feared to delegate large powers of government even
+in republican <span class="pagenum"><a id="page265" name="page265"></a>(p. 265)</span> forms. Hating an aristocracy, he encouraged
+the masses to demand equality in civil, political, and social rights.</p>
+
+<p>His political inconsistencies resulted from the usual impossibility of
+reconciling theory and practice. When his opponents were in power,
+their purposes, he thought, were accomplished through violations of
+the constitution. An equally dangerous exercise of power by his
+friends failed to excite his alarm. Feeling conscious within himself
+of an honest purpose to subserve the good of the people and to
+perpetuate their liberties, he found ready justification for every act
+having, in his judgment, those ends in view.</p>
+
+<p>America has produced no man so dear to the masses of its people as
+Thomas Jefferson. He was an iconoclast, but the images broken by him
+were the idols of a past age, and no longer deserved the worship of a
+free people.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig004" name="sig004"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig004.jpg" width="250" height="41" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h3>ALEXANDER HAMILTON<br>
+(1757-1804)</h3>
+
+<a id="img018" name="img018"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img018.jpg" width="250" height="302" alt="Alexander Hamilton." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The parentage of Alexander Hamilton is given by his son and biographer
+as of mingled Scottish and French ancestry&mdash;Scottish on the father's
+side, Huguenot on the mother's. Students of the doctrine of
+temperaments may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under
+the genial ray of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock
+with it many cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamilton;
+Scottish perseverance and integrity, French honor and susceptibility,
+tropical fervor. Be that as it may, Alexander Hamilton first saw the
+light in the West India island, St. Christopher, January 11, 1757. His
+father was a trader or captain, sailing between the islands of the
+archipelago, whose business brought him into relation with Nicholas
+Cruger, a wealthy merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with
+New York, in whose counting-house the son was placed at the age of
+twelve. He was a boy of quick intellect, in advance of his years, and
+had already made much of limited opportunities of instruction, as we
+may learn from an exceedingly well-penned epistle, addressed thus
+early to a school-fellow who had found his way to New York. In this
+remarkable letter, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page266" name="page266"></a>(p. 266)</span> the boy seems to have written with
+prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he says, "my
+ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a
+clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would
+willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my
+station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I shall
+conclude by saying, I wish there was a war." This may be regarded as a
+boyish rhapsody; but all boys are not given to such rhapsodies.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room,
+and doubtless practised his pen in composition, for we hear of his
+writing an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a
+narrative which appears to have been published, since it attracted the
+attention of the governor. These evidences of talent determined his
+friends to send him to New York to complete his education. He came,
+landing at Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York
+by the correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become
+interested in his welfare in Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced
+to the school of Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed
+the society of the Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influential
+people of the colony. He studied early, and at the close of the year
+presented himself to Doctor Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request
+to be permitted to overleap some of the usual collegiate terms
+according to his qualifications. As this was contrary to the usage of
+the place, he entered King's College, now Columbia, in New York, with
+the special privileges he desired. In addition to the usual studies,
+he attended the anatomical course of Clossey. Colonel Troup, at this
+time his room-fellow, testifies to his earnest religious feeling, a
+very noticeable thing in a youth of his powers. He wrote verses
+freely&mdash;among them doggerel burlesques of the productions of the
+ministerial writers of the day.</p>
+
+<p>The Revolution was now fairly getting under way, and in the opening
+tumultuous scenes in New York, strong hands were wanted at the wheel.
+Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making
+his decision. He entered the field against the dashing young president
+of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in
+Holt's <span class="italic">Gazette</span> to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this
+time, after the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he
+also published a pamphlet in vindication of the measures of Congress,
+against the attacks of Seabury and Wilkins. The contest, however, was
+one which was not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative
+lawyers and divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the
+constitutional arguments of such young counsellors as Hamilton and
+Jay. The hard hands of the committee of mechanics were much more
+demonstrative. Myles Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very
+naturally suspected the logic, and laughed at the novel measures of
+the day by which the popular party in their restrictive,
+non-importation measures proposed to dispense with the wisdom of Lords
+and Commons, and starve themselves into independence. It is well
+sometimes to look at that side of the question, too.</p>
+
+<p>But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the
+colony, was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page267" name="page267"></a>(p. 267)</span> not to stop the affair which had commenced.
+Volunteers were drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were
+getting ready for action. There were certain cannon to be removed from
+the Battery; Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades,
+"Hearts of oak" they called themselves; a boat approached from the
+man-of-war Asia, in the harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was
+returned from the ship, and one of Hamilton's company was killed. The
+Liberty Boys spread the alarm and gathered in a mob, threatening to
+attack the college and seize its president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton,
+who was no friend to riot, little as he was afraid of discussion or of
+force, interposed with a speech from the college steps, while the
+president, roused from his bed, half naked, took refuge on the shore,
+wandering over the island in the night to the old Stuyvesant mansion,
+whence he was the next day finally removed from America in his
+Majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor, Tryon, took
+refuge in the Asia shortly after.</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs,
+making choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some
+instruction from a British soldier, and by aid of the popular leader,
+McDougal, received from the convention the appointment of captain of
+the Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed
+his nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of
+genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and
+youth is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The
+young captain was engaged, not only in the gymnastics of drilling
+recruits, but he was reading, thinking, and working out problems in
+political economy for himself&mdash;and the future. Dr. Johnson said that
+he learned little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the
+foundation at least, of all his knowledge before twenty. "His military
+books of this period," says his son, "give an interesting exhibition
+of his train of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various
+general speculations and extracts from the ancients, chiefly relating
+to politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic,
+considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions
+which are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of
+population, and the principles on which depends the value of a
+circulating medium; and among his papers there remains a carefully
+digested outline of a plan for the political and commercial history of
+British America, compiled at this time." There is the germ in all this
+of the Secretary of the Treasury.</p>
+
+<p>The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the
+landing of Howe and his British troops, followed by the masterly
+retreat of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The
+subsequent American proceedings in the evacuation of the city, the
+passage from the island to Westchester, and the subsequent retreat
+before Cornwallis through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had
+little of glory, at least required their full share of military
+determination and endurance. Hamilton was active throughout the
+campaign. At White Plains and on the Raritan, at Trenton and
+Princeton, his artillery did good service. When he entered Morristown,
+his original company of a hundred was reduced <span class="pagenum"><a id="page268" name="page268"></a>(p. 268)</span> by the
+accidents of war to twenty-five. Here, on March 1, 1777, leaving the
+line of the army, he became attached to the staff of Washington as his
+aid. This was the commencement of that half military, half civil
+relation which identified Hamilton in joint labors and councils with
+the Father of his Country.</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton became, in fact, the right-hand man of Washington, not only
+during the war, but throughout his subsequent political career, and no
+better proof than this can be had at once of the sagacity of
+Washington in selecting his instruments, and of the honor and worth of
+Hamilton in so long and so successfully maintaining this distinguished
+position. In the staff of the commander-in-chief, Hamilton, we are
+told, acquired the title, "The Little Lion." His spirit and courage
+were shown in numerous instances, particularly in the battle of
+Monmouth, where Lee exposed bravery to such violent hazards, an affair
+out of which grew a duel between that officer and Colonel John
+Laurens, one of Washington's aids, in which Hamilton was the second of
+his friend and associate. Nor was Hamilton's counsel less serviceable
+in interviews with the French officers, and those frequent
+negotiations with the different portions of the army, and with
+Congress, which were among the hardest necessities of Washington's
+campaigns.</p>
+
+<p>The relation of Hamilton to Washington, as a member of his military
+family, was suddenly brought to a termination at head-quarters on the
+Hudson, in February, 1781. The difference arose in a momentary
+forgetfulness of temper on the part of Washington. For some purpose of
+consultation he required the presence of Hamilton, who was detained
+from keeping the appointment on the instant, for it appears to have
+been a delay of but a few moments. Washington, however, was impatient,
+and meeting Hamilton at the head of the stairs, angrily exclaimed,
+"Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs
+these ten minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with
+disrespect." Hamilton firmly replied, "I am not conscious of it, sir;
+but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." "Very
+well, sir," said Washington, "if it be your choice," or something to
+that effect, and the friends separated. Washington immediately opened
+the way for the Secretary's continuance at his post, but, without any
+feeling of asperity, the overture was declined. Hamilton, however,
+proffered his services and counsel. With no other man than Washington,
+indeed, could the subordinate relation have continued so long, and
+Hamilton had often thought of renouncing it; but he saw in Washington
+the man for the times, the great representative of a great cause, for
+which minor considerations must be sacrificed. Writing at this moment
+to Schuyler, he says, "The General is a very honest man; his
+competitors have slender abilities and less integrity. His popularity
+has often been essential to the safety of America, and is still of
+great importance to it. These considerations have influenced my past
+conduct respecting him, and will influence my future. I think it is
+necessary he should be supported."</p>
+
+<p>Hamilton was now desirous to resume active service in the line, and
+after some discussion as to rank, received the command of a New York
+battalion of light infantry, which he led right manfully at the siege
+of Yorktown. He was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page269" name="page269"></a>(p. 269)</span> anxious to signalize himself at this
+crowning act of the war by some distinguished exercise of bravery, and
+when, at an advanced period of the approaches, a redoubt was to be
+stormed, he eagerly solicited the forlorn hope from Washington.
+Advancing to the charge with characteristic spirit, at the point of
+the bayonet, exposed to a heavy fire, he struggled through the ditch,
+and surmounting the defences, took the work in the most brilliant
+manner. He gallantly arrested the slaughter at the first moment, and
+thus placed his humanity upon a level with his bravery.</p>
+
+<p>The war being now brought to an end, Hamilton turned his attention to
+the law, and in a few months' ardent devotion&mdash;the devotion of
+Hamilton was always ardent&mdash;at Albany to the study with the aid of his
+friend, Colonel Troup, and the stimulus of his recent marriage,
+qualified himself thoroughly for the practice of the profession. He
+was admitted to the Supreme Court at its July term, 1782. About the
+same time, at the solicitation of Robert Morris, the financier of
+Congress, he accepted the appointment of receiver of the continental
+taxes in the State of New York, with the understanding that his
+exertions were to be employed in impressing upon the Legislature the
+wants and objects of the Government. In pursuance of this, he urged
+resolutions which were unanimously adopted in July, 1782, recommending
+the call of a convention for the purpose of revising and amending the
+Articles of Confederation. He was also elected by the Legislature of
+this year a member of Congress. He bore an active part in its debates,
+and was greatly employed in its important financial measures.</p>
+
+<p>On the final departure of the British from New York, in 1783, Hamilton
+became a resident of the city with his family, and devoted himself
+assiduously to the practice of his profession. He was constantly,
+however, looked to as a public man. We find him, in 1784, appealing to
+the public under the signature of Phocion, in favor of more liberal
+and enlightened views in regard to the loyalists of the late
+Revolution, and their rights of property. In 1786 he is a member of
+the State Assembly, and in September of the same year among the
+delegates of the five States which, at the instance of Virginia, met
+at Annapolis to confer on the commercial interests of the country; a
+too limited representation, indeed, to achieve the objects in view,
+but the precursor of the great Federal Convention at Philadelphia of
+the following year.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen Hamilton's early studies of the theoretical workings of
+government. His practical experience, in the army of Washington, of
+the imperfections of Congress and the defects of the old
+confederation, was not likely to let him forget the subject. Authority
+in government, rules in legislation, financial measures, taxes, loans,
+and a bank, were topics constantly before his mind. The Convention of
+1787 gave him, at length, the wished-for opportunity to enter upon a
+full discussion of his plans in a cause and before an audience worthy
+of his powers. Washington was the presiding officer, Franklin was in
+attendance; it was a congregation of notables&mdash;Rufus King, Oliver
+Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, William Livingston, Robert Morris,
+Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson, Luther Martin, James Madison,
+George Wythe, John Rutledge, and others as worthy. Much <span class="pagenum"><a id="page270" name="page270"></a>(p. 270)</span> has
+been said of Hamilton's course in this Convention, and of his advocacy
+of monarchical views. It is true that a plan of government which he
+supported in a speech of length and eloquence, provided several
+features, as the life tenure of the President and senators, and the
+appointment of State officers by the General Government, which, in the
+interpretation of some minds, as Patrick Henry used to express it,
+"was an awful squinting toward monarchy;" but, on the other hand, it
+should be remembered that the Convention was a meeting for
+consultation, with closed doors, in a committee of the whole, in which
+perfect freedom in the interchange of views was desirable; that, in
+the view of our own day, other members displayed heresies quite as
+obnoxious, and that in the final resolves of the Constitution,
+Hamilton, with the others, yielded his prejudices, and became the firm
+defender of the instrument as it was adopted, and substantially now
+stands.</p>
+
+<p>Remember the age of Hamilton at this time&mdash;twenty-nine; a greater
+prodigy in the Convention at Philadelphia than the youth in the army
+of Washington. To no one probably are we more indebted for the
+Constitution than to Hamilton. The Convention which laid the
+instrument before the country for its adoption had scarcely adjourned,
+when, in company with Madison and Jay, he took up the pen in its
+explanation and defence, in the celebrated series of papers, "The
+Federalist," originally published in the New York <span class="italic">Daily Advertiser</span>.
+Hamilton began and closed the work. Of its eighty-five papers much the
+greater portion, it is believed, were written by him.</p>
+
+<p>The discussion of the financial and military powers, the executive and
+the judiciary, fell to his pen. In the New York Convention he was
+again the efficient advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. In a
+separate series of papers, signed Philo Publius, published in another
+journal, Hamilton, assisted by his friends, met various objections,
+the discussion of which would have marred the unity of "The
+Federalist," which was thus left a classical commentary upon the
+Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>Having been thus instrumental in forming the Constitution, Hamilton
+was destined to be one of the most active agents of its powers. When
+the new government went into operation, under its provisions he was
+summoned by Washington, to the discharge of one of the most onerous
+duties of the department, in his appointment as Secretary of the
+Treasury. He continued in office six years, marking his
+administration&mdash;for such it was in his province&mdash;by his report and
+measures for the funding of the public debt, the excise revenue
+system, which he was called upon to assert in arms during the
+insurrection of Western Pennsylvania, and the creation of a National
+Bank. His reports on these subjects, and on manufactures, in which he
+advocated protection, are among the most important contributions of
+their kind to our national archives. In allusion to the financial
+measures of Hamilton, and their success at the time in the welfare of
+the country, Daniel Webster, in a speech at New York, half a century
+afterward, exclaimed: "He smote the rock of the national resources,
+and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead
+corpse of the public, and it sprung upon its feet."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page271" name="page271"></a>(p. 271)</span> The measures of Hamilton, however, were not adopted without
+opposition. Jefferson was their persistent opponent; local interests
+and State pretensions arose to thwart the measures of Government, and
+gave birth to the party feuds of Federalism and its opponents. A
+growing element of disaffection was added to the political caldron in
+the relations with England and the disturbing influences of the
+principles of the French Revolution. Hamilton bore the brunt of much
+of this popular opposition, which came to a crisis in the discussions
+attending the British Treaty of Jay, in 1794, as he defended its
+provisions in the papers signed "Camillus," while it was before the
+country, and advocated its leading neutrality principles in "The
+Letters of Pacificus," published by him the previous year. When France
+had wearied out all indulgence by her aggressions on the high seas,
+and by her treatment of our ministers at Paris, and Washington was
+again called to the field in anticipation of an expected invasion,
+Hamilton was appointed second in command, and now employed himself in
+the organization of the army. On the death of Washington he became
+commander-in-chief. On the conclusion of a treaty with France the army
+disbanded.</p>
+
+<p>In the intervals of these public duties, Hamilton was actively
+employed in his profession in the higher courts of the State. The late
+Chancellor Kent afterward recalled his "clear, elegant, and fluent
+style and commanding manner. He never made any argument in court
+without displaying his habit of thinking and resorting at once to some
+well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically
+from his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded
+on established principles. His manners were gentle, affable, and kind.
+He appeared to be frank, liberal, and courteous in all his
+professional intercourse."</p>
+
+<p>The last important trial in which Hamilton was engaged, the case of
+the People against Harry Croswell, in the Supreme Court, a few months
+before his untimely death, is memorable also for his maintenance of
+the right of juries to determine the law as well as the fact in cases
+of libel.</p>
+
+<p>The party politics of the time had been broken up in the simplicity of
+their outline by the administration of John Adams. Aaron Burr was the
+most prominent intriguer in the field. He had attained the
+vice-presidency, and the choice hung for a while suspended between him
+and Jefferson for the presidency. Between the two, Hamilton, who had
+formed an unfavorable opinion of the character of Burr, preferred his
+old antagonist, Jefferson, and cast his influence accordingly. When
+Burr afterward sought the office of Governor of New York, in a contest
+with a member of his own Republican party, in which he relied upon the
+support of the Federalists, he was defeated by Hamilton, who made no
+secret of his opposition. Smarting under the failure of his intrigue,
+Burr determined to challenge the honest man who stood in his way to
+power. He had no ground of personal offence bringing Hamilton within
+any justifiable pretensions even of the lax code of the duellist. The
+expressions which he called upon him to avow or disavow, were vague,
+and were based upon the report of a person who specified neither time,
+place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay <span class="pagenum"><a id="page272" name="page272"></a>(p. 272)</span> which
+was alleged&mdash;evidently a wanton provocation to a murderous duel. Burr
+demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have
+said, that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an
+indorsement of his character at the cost of the moral character of the
+indorser. Hamilton despised the man&oelig;uvre, but perceiving that a
+meeting was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, contrary to
+his better judgment, that his usefulness would be destroyed in the
+public affairs of the times if he avoided the contest, fell into the
+fatal snare.</p>
+
+<p>He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and
+creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to
+bear in mind she had been to them the most devoted and best of
+mothers. On the night preceding the appointment he wrote a paper
+declaring his intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself
+before the world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his
+conduct upon his usefulness to his country. The next morning, July
+11th, they met at Weehawken; the weapons were pistols, the distance
+ten paces. The duel was fought within a few feet of the shore, in a
+woodland scene beneath the cliff opposite the present inhabited
+portion of New York, at a spot now traversed or closely approached by
+the river road, but then readily accessible only by water. Hamilton
+fell at the first fire, mortally wounded, his pistol-shot striking at
+random a twig some seven feet above the head of his antagonist. Burr
+fled, a wanderer over the earth. Hamilton was carried across the
+river, supported by Pendleton and Dr. Hosack, to the house of his
+friend, Mr. Bayard, at Greenwich. He was there enabled to take
+farewell of his family, and receive the last consolations of religion
+from the hands of Bishop Moore. He died on the afternoon of Thursday,
+July 12, 1804.</p>
+
+<p>The reception of the fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the
+community. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted
+his countrymen to victory and a place among the nations&mdash;Hamilton, the
+counsellor of Washington, the consummate statesman of the
+Constitution, the reliance of the State, the hope of the future:
+visions such as these were contrasted in the popular mind with his
+wretched fall. We perhaps darken the shades of the picture, for time
+and proof have added to the greatness of Hamilton, and Burr waited not
+for death to exhibit the penury of his fame. But the men who knew the
+heart of Hamilton, who saw in him the bulwark of the State, his
+contemporaries, wept his fate with no common lamentation. New York
+gave her public honors to his grave. Gouverneur Morris, with strenuous
+words, delivered the funeral oration by the side of his bier, under
+the portico of old Trinity; and Mason, the pulpit orator of his time,
+thundered his strong sentences at the crime which had robbed the world
+of Hamilton.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page273" name="page273"></a>(p. 273)</span> COUNT DE MIRABEAU<a id="footnotetag6" name="footnotetag6"></a><a href="#footnote6" title="Go to footnote 6"><span class="smaller">[6]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Charles S. Hathaway</span><br>
+(1749-1791)</h3>
+
+<a id="img019" name="img019"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img019.jpg" width="250" height="316" alt="Mirabeau." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, Count de Mirabeau, one of the most eminent
+among the great authors, orators, and statesmen of France, was born on
+March 9, 1749 on his father's estate at Bignon, near Nemours.</p>
+
+<p>The earliest of Mirabeau's ancestors of whom there is any notable
+record, was Jean Riquetti, a prominent merchant at Marseilles, who, in
+1570, bought the château and estate of Mirabeau, near Pertuis, from
+the well-known Provençal family of Barras and who, a few years later,
+acquired the title of Esquire.</p>
+
+<p>In 1685, one hundred and fifteen years after the purchase above
+mentioned, Honoré Riquetti, lineal descendant of the Marseilles
+merchant, obtained the title of Marquis de Mirabeau, and there was
+born to this marquis a son, Jean Antoine Riquetti, who achieved a
+worthy record as a soldier, but whose prominent place in history is
+due to the fact that he was the grandfather of the great Mirabeau.</p>
+
+<p>Victor Riquetti, son of this second Marquis de Mirabeau and father of
+the great, the Count de Mirabeau, was in his early manhood an
+indifferent soldier, but he afterward became distinguished as a writer
+and leader in French politics. His wife (the mother of Count de
+Mirabeau) was Marie Geneviève, daughter of M. de Vassan, a brigadier
+in the French army, she being, also, the widow of the Marquis de
+Saulyeb&oelig;uf. This union, entered into without a previous meeting
+between the principals to the contract, and at a time when the Marquis
+de Mirabeau was well started in his career as a politician, was not a
+happy one. The new husband was more loyal to politics than to his
+wife, so that, when their son, who was destined to achieve fame, was
+but thirteen years old, there was a separation between the parents by
+mutual consent.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in outline, is indicated the ancestry of Mirabeau through a
+period of nearly two centuries, and, meagre as the showing is, it is
+evident that he was the scion of a long line of wealth and nobility,
+his paternal ancestors having served with credit as soldiers, while
+his father was eminent as a politician. There is a second group of
+facts which bear interestingly upon the career under discussion.
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page274" name="page274"></a>(p. 274)</span> Mirabeau the great was born at a time when more than
+two-thirds of France was in the hands of privileged classes&mdash;the king,
+the nobility, and the clergy&mdash;and at a time, too, when the structure
+founded upon years of feudalism and absolutism was about to be shaken
+to its base by the magic of popular public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Under such conditions, at such a time, and from such stock, occurred
+the birth of Mirabeau the great; a coming into the world of a babe
+"scarce half made up;" a child with a head so large that it was a dire
+deformity, with one foot sadly twisted, and with a tongue that was
+tied; in brief, an infant ogre born with teeth. So great was the
+chagrin of the father that he made no effort to conceal his dislike
+for the misshapen child. Hence, when at three years of age the little
+one was left wretchedly pitted by a severe attack of small-pox, its
+fate was listed. It must not, could not, bear the name of Mirabeau.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, when the youngster was fourteen years old&mdash;after several
+years of instruction under the private tutorship of Lachabeaussière,
+<span class="italic">père</span>&mdash;he was entered under the fictitious name of "Pierre Buffière,"
+at a private military school in Paris. Here, strong of limb, body, and
+mind, industrious and aggressive, he remained for four years. Then his
+father placed him in the Berry regiment of cavalry, which regiment had
+been commanded, sixty-two years before, by his grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>This event marked the end of a boyhood which had been clouded by an
+almost entire absence of paternal favor, and wholly free from maternal
+care&mdash;the mother's absence having been secured by the father, by a
+<span class="italic">lettre de cachet</span>. In addition, that boyhood had been irritated and
+embittered by a continuous and exasperating development of his natural
+personal disfigurement. His enormous head grew less in harmony with
+his torso, his lips and nose became thick and heavy, great moles
+revealed themselves upon his cheeks, and in every way, physically, his
+growth was a perpetual disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>However, he was now (1767) the eighteen-year old "Pierre Buffière," a
+lieutenant of cavalry, conscious of his exceptional mental strength
+and somewhat vain thereof, and full of ambition and determination to
+win as he wished and in spite of all of his many obstacles.
+Unfortunately, but most naturally, considering his temperament, the
+first test of his will, his passion, and his determination, resulted
+in his victory. He won the affection of a young woman to whom his
+colonel had long been devoted, and the scandal resulting therefrom
+caused the father to obtain a <span class="italic">lettre de cachet</span>, by authority of
+which the indiscreet young man was placed in confinement in the Isle
+of Rhé. Immediately the prisoner began his first illustration of his
+ability to gain to his own purposes the ability and influence of
+others&mdash;one of his strongest and most useful characteristics. Within
+two months he had secured the esteem and confidence of his jailer, so
+that that official soon made a most favorable report, upon the
+strength of which Mirabeau was accepted as a volunteer to accompany
+the French expedition sent (in 1769) to conquer Corsica. So well did
+the young soldier conduct himself during this campaign, that he was
+not only promoted to a captaincy in the dragoons, but he effected a
+partial reconciliation with his father, returned to Provence, was
+permitted <span class="pagenum"><a id="page275" name="page275"></a>(p. 275)</span> to assume his true name and title, and was
+presented at court. In June, 1772, he married, by his father's advice,
+Marie Émile de Covet, only daughter of the Marquis de Marignane. She
+came to him portionless, and he, impetuous, ambitious, and
+extravagant, became, during the next two years, deeply involved in
+debt. The marriage was a failure. Again the father utilized the
+<span class="italic">lettre de cachet</span>, and a second time was Mirabeau a prisoner (August
+23, 1774), this time in the Château d'If, at Marseilles. Here it was
+that he wrote his first work of which we have any exact knowledge, its
+title being: "Essai sur le Despotisme."</p>
+
+<p>In the following year he was transferred from the Château d'If to the
+Castle of Joux, where he was less strictly confined. He had the
+freedom of the place and frequent opportunities for visiting the
+near-by town of Pontarlier. It was in this town that he first met
+Marie Thérèse, the Marchioness de Monnier, the young and attractive
+wife of an aged magistrate. A love affair was the result, and it
+culminated in August, 1776, in an elopement, first to Switzerland and
+then to Amsterdam. For over nine months the fugitive pair lived
+together in the Dutch capital, Mirabeau, under the assumed name of St.
+Mathieu, earning a livelihood as a pamphleteer and by making
+translations for Holland publishers. Meanwhile the tribunal of
+Pontarlier had condemned both parties&mdash;Mirabeau to be beheaded and his
+companion (his "Sophie," as she is most widely known) to imprisonment
+for life. On May 14, 1777, they were arrested at Amsterdam, and
+Mirabeau was imprisoned by a <span class="italic">lettre de cachet</span> in the Castle of
+Vincennes, while Sophie was surrendered to the Pontarlier authorities.</p>
+
+<p>For three and a half years thereafter Mirabeau was in confinement, a
+term which proved sufficient to temper his passion, and during which
+he wrote his well-known "Letters to Sophie," the "Erotica Biblion,"
+and "My Conversion." He also wrote, during this time, his first worthy
+political production, the "Lettres de Cachet." He was released from
+this imprisonment on December 13, 1780, and at once sought out Sophie,
+to quarrel with and leave her, and so, fortunately, end the most
+disgraceful portion of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Mirabeau, now thirty-one years old, and, according to the times, most
+liberally experienced in the ways of the then turbulent world,
+undertook, as his first task, the removal of the sentence of death
+which still confronted him. Not only did he succeed in this, but, by
+his plausibility and eloquence, he shifted the entire cost of the
+proceedings to the shoulders of the complainant&mdash;the aged magistrate
+he had so grossly wronged. His next venture was an effort before the
+tribunal of Aix, to compel his wife to return to him. Here he failed,
+as also he failed in an effort to compromise a suit pending between
+his father and mother. Not only that, but by his pleadings his mother
+became forever alienated from him, and by reason of his bitter attacks
+upon the rulings of the court he was forced to leave Paris. Locating
+at Amsterdam, he began his lasting and respectable relations with
+Madame de Nehra, daughter of Zwier van Haren, a Dutch writer and
+politician. She was a woman of education and refinement, who exercised
+a valuable influence over his rapidly growing celebrity, bringing out
+his good qualities, subduing his undesirable characteristics, and
+encouraging all <span class="pagenum"><a id="page276" name="page276"></a>(p. 276)</span> of his better ambitions. It was at her
+suggestion that he went to England, after a brief stay in Holland,
+while she repaired to Paris. His mission&mdash;which he accomplished&mdash;was
+to publish his "Considérations sur l'Ordre de Cincinnatus" and his
+"Doutes sur la Liberté de l'Escaut;" while her mission, also
+successful, was to establish peace between Mirabeau and the
+authorities at the French capital.</p>
+
+<p>During twenty years of the thirty-six years he had lived, Mirabeau had
+been, either through his father's intervention or by his own acts, a
+constant topic of consideration by the French authorities. On the
+other hand, by virtue of his writings, his declared enmity to all
+forms of tyranny and oppression, and his distaste for pretence, he had
+become a popular idol. He was, as Carlyle puts it, "a swallower of
+formulas," and it seems he had the ability to digest such food thus
+taken. Therefore, upon his return to Paris in April, 1785, he made a
+series of attacks upon agiotage, or stock jobbing, most effectively
+assaulting the Compagnie des Eaux and the Banque de St. Charles. While
+such efforts proved offensive to the government, it caused such an
+appreciation of his ability that he was sent, in June, 1786, on a
+secret mission to Berlin. He remained there for half a year, and
+during that time he secured the material for his notable work,
+"Histoire Secrète de la Cour de Berlin." Among other writings which he
+produced about this time were his "Moses Mendelssohn, ou la Réforme
+politique des Juifs," and his pamphlet "Dénonciation de l'Agiotage,"
+aimed against the policy of Calonne. Again he was in danger of the
+<span class="italic">lettre de cachet</span>, and so he repaired to Brunswick, where he finished
+his work "De la Monarchie Prussienne," which was published in 1788.</p>
+
+<p>Up to 1789, Mirabeau had been a dramatic character, an individual
+revelation of theatric passion, a figure-piece single and alone; but
+the climax was at hand. The achievement of American independence had
+been an object-lesson most potent. Louis and his queen, Marie
+Antoinette, could not check the storm, and for the first time in one
+hundred and seventy-three years, France was to have an assembly of the
+nation by its representatives. The "third estate" was aroused and the
+States-General was summoned. Mirabeau, having a deep-rooted desire to
+provide for France a government in accord with the wishes and intent
+of a majority of the people, and having been rejected by the noblesse
+of his own district, presented himself to the "third estate," as a
+candidate. He was elected both for Aix and for Marseilles, and he
+decided to sit for Aix. Naturally an enthusiast, he was present (May
+4, 1789) at the opening of the States-General, but with excellent
+sagacity he entered that body as an independent. To the end of his
+life, twenty-three months later, he maintained that independence.</p>
+
+<a id="img020" name="img020"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img020.jpg" width="600" height="402" alt="" title="">
+<p>The Third Estate takes refuge in the tennis
+      court</p></div>
+
+<p>When, being shut out in the rain from the great hall of the Estates,
+the "third estate" established themselves in the adjacent
+tennis-court, and when, being ejected from there, they came together
+again and forced the king to recognize them as the representatives of
+the nation; through all these earlier and wiser stages of the great
+revolt, Mirabeau was the leader and director. But when, on June 5,
+1789, a resolution was passed by the delegates declaring
+themselves&mdash;the people, the Commons of France&mdash;to be the National
+Assembly, he spoke and worked bravely <span class="pagenum"><a id="page277" name="page277"></a>(p. 277)</span> and eloquently
+against abandoning the old order of things before formulating an exact
+and sufficient policy as its successor. He declared the action a hasty
+one, and finally avoided the issue in the only way possible, by
+absenting himself when the vote was taken. And yet, eight days later,
+at the close of the royal sitting, he bade the grand master of
+ceremonies: "Go and tell your master we are here by the power of the
+people, and that we are only to be driven out by that of the bayonet."</p>
+
+<p>He advised the Assembly against the publication of pompous
+proclamations, and classed the demonstration of the night of August
+4th as a theoretical display of liberty wholly without practical
+value. He was opposed to mob-law, and in no sense was he dazzled by
+the fall of the Bastille. He pleaded in favor of the royal right to
+veto, and proclaimed that he was willing, even, to advocate a
+"restoration of the king's legitimate authority as the only means of
+saving France."</p>
+
+<p>He was a leader of magnificent power, enthusiastic in the advocacy and
+support of his convictions; a statesman who would not speak, write or
+do, in politics, anything not in accord with his estimate as to what
+was right. True, he was accused of treason for speaking in support of
+the king's right to proclaim war or peace, but three days thereafter
+he defended himself against the charge, and with overwhelming success.
+He was a leader who worked prodigiously. In addition to his duties as
+a member of the Assembly, he was also publisher and editor of a paper
+first called the <span class="italic">Journal des États-Généraux</span>, later the <span class="italic">Lettres à
+mes Constituants</span>, and at last the <span class="italic">Courrier de Provence</span>. As clerk of
+the Comité Diplomatique of the Assembly and because of his thorough
+knowledge of foreign affairs, he was the constant adviser of
+Montmorin, the foreign secretary. Thus, by his wise appreciation of
+the subject, he established harmony between the Assembly and
+Montmorin, and so prevented foreign intervention, at the same time
+maintaining the honor of France abroad. But this bulwark to the
+nation's safety was about to topple and fall, precipitated by its own
+decay. As in all things, Mirabeau had been colossal in his excesses,
+and like them, the punishment was great. He wished to live, but he did
+not fear death. Early in 1791 the structure began to weaken, and
+realizing that the time was at hand, Mirabeau carefully collected all
+of his writings, and after classifying them, forwarded them to his
+firm friend and companion, Sir Gilbert Elliott, in England. So far as
+he was able, he continued to contribute to the guidance and protection
+of his country. He was patient and fearless, his only regret taking
+the form of a pardonable conceit that, could he but live, the
+Revolution could be controlled and guided, that the awful Reign of
+Terror, so soon to follow, could be averted. The progress of his
+decline was without hindrance, in spite of all that science could
+devise. It is reported that, as he looked out from his sick-room, on
+the day of his death, on the brilliant spring-time sun, he said: "If
+he is not God, he is at least his cousin-german." Those were, it is
+said, his last spoken words, although some time later when unable to
+articulate, he feebly held a pen in his hand as he wrote the single
+word: "dormir." And so, on April 2, 1791, he <span class="pagenum"><a id="page278" name="page278"></a>(p. 278)</span> died. Thus
+ended the life of a wondrous statesman; a singular career, of which
+Carlyle (in his "French Revolution") says: "Strange lot! Forty years
+of that smouldering with foul fire-damp and vapor enough; then victory
+over that;&mdash;and like a burning mountain, he blazes heaven high; and
+for twenty-three resplendent months pours out, in flame and molten
+fire-torrents, all that is in him, the Pharos and the Wondersign of an
+amazed Europe;&mdash;and then lies hollow, cold, forever."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig005" name="sig005"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig005.jpg" width="250" height="65" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE<br>
+(1758-1794)</h3>
+
+<a id="img021" name="img021"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img021.jpg" width="250" height="307" alt="Robespierre." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Maximilien Isidore Robespierre, the leader of the most violent of
+those theorizers who overthrew the French monarchy, the exponent of
+all that deep-rooted hatred which the commoners of France, as the
+result of long centuries of oppression, harbored against their king,
+nobles, and clergy; Robespierre, who ruled the infant republic during
+her first bold defiance of united Europe, yet whose name has become,
+even among his countrymen, a symbol of horror, was born at Arras, in
+1758. His father was an advocate in the supreme council of Artois,
+and, ruined by his dissipation, had left France long before the
+revolution. An orphan at the age of nine, and without fortune,
+Maximilien was indebted to the benevolent protection of the Bishop of
+Arras, M. de Conzié, for the situation of bursar of the College of
+Louis XIV. We are assured that from his infancy he manifested a cruel,
+reserved, and timid disposition, and an ardent love of liberty and
+independence. After having passed through his studies, and obtained
+the honor of being chosen by his fellow-students to address Louis
+XVI., upon the entrance of that prince into Paris, he returned to
+Arras, where, having become an advocate of the council of Artois, he
+composed strictures against the magistrates of that province. A daring
+enthusiast, in 1789 he was elected, on account of his revolutionary
+principles, by the third estate of Artois, to a seat in the
+Constituent Assembly. We shall not follow him in detail in that
+assembly: we shall simply remark, that he spoke much without obtaining
+any particular influence <span class="pagenum"><a id="page279" name="page279"></a>(p. 279)</span> and evinced himself constantly the
+enthusiastic champion of the people. Robespierre, in all his
+harangues, appears to foresee events. The avowed enemy of royalty, we
+behold him on the side of republicanism, of which he ventured to alter
+the name on the day when the Assembly decreed the French government
+monarchical. We behold him again, after the arrest of the king at
+Varennes, resuming his projects for the destruction of that monarch,
+preparing the movements which took place at the Champ-de-Mars, on July
+14, 16, 17, 1791, and attacking, on the 14th, in the Assembly, the
+principle of the inviolability of the sovereign, in the hope of having
+him arraigned; but at the end of the sitting, finding his opinion
+rejected, he began to tremble for his temerity, and required that they
+should not provoke the ruin of persons who had engaged in that affair.</p>
+
+<p>If Robespierre was unable to distinguish himself among the orators of
+the Constituent Assembly; if his principles appeared obnoxious to the
+innovators acting from sentiment in 1789; if they often drew upon him
+the indignation of his colleagues; they were the means of his
+acquiring among the Jacobins that reputation and favor which, daily
+increasing, rendered him at last the idol of the people and the ruler
+of the government. He was called "The Incorruptible." The day of the
+closing of the Assembly, the populace surrounded him on his coming out
+of the hall, put a crown of oak upon his head, placed him in a
+carriage, and, taking out the horses, dragged him to his house,
+exclaiming as they moved, "Behold the friend of the people, the great
+defender of Liberty!" Robespierre was fully sensible of the advantages
+which might result from his alliance with the Jacobins. He devoted
+himself entirely to the direction of a club bearing that name, and
+refused, in order to give up his whole time to the objects they had in
+view, the office of accuser in the criminal tribunal at Paris, to
+which he had been appointed. Until his election to a seat in the
+Convention, he was never seen personally to engage in those
+insurrections which produced the atrocious attack upon the king, nor
+in the horrible massacres which, in 1792, covered Paris with murder
+and blood, and the French name with eternal opprobrium. He refused
+even to preside at the tribunal of August 10th, because, as he said,
+"He had long since denounced and accused the conspirators, whom this
+tribunal was ordained to judge." But he had scarcely entered the
+Convention when he resolved to raise his faction upon the ruins of all
+the others, and his power upon the destruction of those factions which
+he might employ. To attain this end, he was seen at first to
+strengthen the ties by which he had already been united to Marat and
+Danton, and to avail himself particularly of the latter, in order to
+overthrow the Girondins, who, from the fifth session, had suspected
+his ambition, and accused him of aspiring to the dictatorship. It was
+during this struggle that Louvet pronounced against him that very
+eloquent harangue, which Madame Roland called the "Robespierreiad."
+Assisted by his brother and by Danton, Robespierre, in the sitting of
+November 5th, overpowered the Girondins, and went to the Jacobins to
+enjoy the fruits of his victory, where Merlin de Thionville declared
+him an eagle, and a barbarous reptile. From that moment he never
+ceased to promote the death of Louis XVI., with an asperity and a
+perseverance almost incredible. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page280" name="page280"></a>(p. 280)</span> In short, until the fatal
+day of the martyrdom of that amiable and unfortunate prince, he
+continually importuned the tribune to pronounce upon him (according to
+the expression of one of his colleagues) <span class="italic">des vociférations de
+cannibale</span>, and the most atrocious prejudgments. It is almost
+superfluous to add, that he voted for his death on the day of the
+nominal appeal to the nation.</p>
+
+<p>Within any moderate limits, it would be impossible to give the details
+of this monstrous proceeding. Of all the disorders which had occurred
+during the stormy period which had seen him on the throne of France,
+Louis was accused. He was assigned counsel; and MM. Tronchet,
+Lamoignon, Malesherbes, and De Séze, with his approbation, undertook
+his defence. Their exertions, though creditable to themselves, were of
+no avail; and on January 16, 1793, after hearing them in his defence,
+and his solemn denial of the crimes laid to his charge, and after a
+sitting of nearly thirty-four hours, the punishment of death was
+awarded.</p>
+
+<p>Constant in his hatred of the Girondins, Robespierre attacked them
+with great vehemence until May 31st, when he obtained a complete
+triumph. His most dangerous enemies among the men of that faction were
+outlawed, and others arrested. The success of this day rendered him
+absolute ruler of the Convention, and founded that tyrannical empire
+which only terminated with his life.</p>
+
+<a id="img022" name="img022"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img022.jpg" width="500" height="366" alt="" title="">
+<p>Robespierre's arrest.</p></div>
+
+<p>Among the factions which had lent him their assistance, the
+Hebertistes were the first that separated from his cause. This faction
+aspired to sole dominion, but the good fortune or the address of
+Robespierre was able at once to oppose to it the Jacobins and the
+Cordeliers, and it sunk in March, 1794, under their united efforts.
+Danton, who had been particularly serviceable on this occasion, whose
+energy had been of such utility, who had aided him in sweeping away
+the other factions; Danton, in short, whom he ought to have considered
+as the instrument of his power, became a formidable enemy, after being
+for a length of time a most devoted friend and faithful ally. The two
+parties were at issue; one or the other must necessarily be overcome.
+The cunning of Robespierre triumphed over the inconsiderate ardor of
+his rival, whom he took pains to render unpopular by sending him to
+enrich himself in Belgium. A few days afterward he was accused,
+arrested, and conveyed to the scaffold with Desmoulins, La Croix,
+Fabre, and others. In the course of the same month (April, 1794) he
+delivered over to the Revolutionary Tribunal the remainder of the
+party of the Hebertistes, and that of the Cordeliers, whom he degraded
+by the name of Atheists, and from that moment to the period of his
+downfall he met no opposition. It was then that his language assumed a
+different tone. "I must be," "it is necessary," "I will," were his
+general expressions; and the Convention, as he himself called it, was
+only his <span class="italic">machine à décrets</span>. What is worthy of remark is, that
+France, groaning under the struggles of different parties, should
+applaud the conduct of Robespierre, from an idea that she would be
+less miserable under a single tyrant. His new plan of religion,
+ridiculous as it was, gained him some adherents; but it must be
+evident to every reflecting mind that Robespierre must have conceived
+himself at the head of the government, since he, whose sole object had
+hitherto been to destroy, attempted to rebuild. It is impossible to
+conjecture how long his power might <span class="pagenum"><a id="page281" name="page281"></a>(p. 281)</span> have continued, had he
+spared his colleagues, and if he had not incited to resistance men
+who, until then, had blindly executed his orders, and who desired
+nothing more than to continue to serve and obey him; but in
+sacrificing the leaders of the Revolutionary Government, Robespierre
+sought a support in the moderate party. This policy ruined him; those
+whose destruction he had meditated occasioned his downfall. Danger,
+however, inspired him with courage. From June 10th, Ruamps and Bourdon
+de l'Oise, in particular, had expressed some distrust of the Committee
+of Public Safety, which produced a discussion in which Robespierre,
+speaking with an air of despotism, had the good fortune to silence
+them. This was the moment he should have chosen to overwhelm the
+party, which redoubled its intrigues for his destruction; and at whose
+head Tallien rendered himself remarkable. His friend, St. Just,
+advised him to strike the first blow. Robespierre had passed several
+days in retirement, occupied in projecting, at a moment when he ought
+to have acted. When he reappeared on the 26th, at the Convention, his
+partisans abandoned him; he in vain endeavored to regain the ground he
+had lost. Sensible of the danger which threatened him, he called
+together his most intimate friends on the night of the 26th. St. Just
+pressed him immediately to act. He hesitated for twenty-four hours,
+and this delay was the sentence of his death. The next day
+Billaud-Varennes removed the veil, and Robespierre having rushed to
+the tribune to reply to him, the cries of "Down with the tyrant!"
+drove him instantly from the assembly. A few minutes after a decree
+was passed for his arrest, and that of St. Just, Couthon, and Lebas.
+"The robbers triumph," he exclaimed, on turning to the side of the
+conquerors. He was afterward conducted to the Luxembourg, and in a
+little time removed from that palace and conveyed to the tribune which
+had delivered him up. He for some instants cherished the hopes of a
+triumph; the national guard, under the command of Henriot, assembled
+in his defence. But the Convention having put him out of the
+protection of the law, the Parisians abandoned him, and at three
+o'clock in the morning he found himself with his accomplices in the
+power of the officers of the Convention. At the moment he was about to
+be seized he discharged a pistol at his head, which only fractured his
+lower jaw; others say it was fired by Medal, one of the gendarmes, who
+had stepped forward to arrest him, and against whom he defended
+himself. He was immediately conducted to the Commune, from thence
+conveyed to the Conciergerie, and executed on the same day, July 28,
+1794.</p>
+
+<p>His last moments presented a terrific scene; his mouth full of blood,
+his eyes half closed, his head bound up with a bloody handkerchief, he
+was thrown into the same cell which had been successively inhabited by
+Hébert, Danton, and Chaumette. When he quitted the prison to meet his
+punishment, the proscribed persons obstructing the passage, the jailer
+cried out, "Make way for monsieur the incorruptible!" He was conveyed
+in a cart between Henriot and Couthon; the people halted before the
+house, two women danced before the wagon, and one of them exclaimed;
+"Your sufferings intoxicate us with joy! You will descend to hell,
+accompanied by the curses of all wives and mothers." The executioner,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page282" name="page282"></a>(p. 282)</span> in order to dispatch him, rudely tore away the bandage from
+his wound. He uttered a cry of horror; his lower jaw separated itself
+from the upper. The blood again flowed, and his head exhibited a
+spectacle of the most frightful kind. He died at the age of
+thirty-six.</p>
+
+<p>Robespierre was not a monster; his life attests it; nor was he solely
+guilty of the atrocities which signalized his reign. By his downfall
+he was loaded with all those iniquities which, had he triumphed, he
+would have attributed to his opponents.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Harriet Martineau</span><br>
+(1746-1827)</h3>
+
+<a id="img023" name="img023"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img023.jpg" width="250" height="298" alt="Jean Henri Pestalozzi." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Those of us who can look back forty years must well remember the fancy
+that society took, on a sudden, to interrogate children. It is an odd
+thing to recall now one of the strangest fashions of a period full of
+wild fashions. After a long term of insular seclusion, through the
+war, we welcomed all sorts of foreigners to our soil, and all manner
+of foreign notions to our minds. The grand discovery of the benefit of
+questioning children made great way in the country, and among some of
+the best-hearted people in it. Wherever one went, among the educated
+classes, one found the same thing going on. Children of all ages, but
+especially the younger, were undergoing cross-examination from morning
+till night. It was a terrible time for them. I have seen some fall
+into a habit of tears when asked a question which they could not
+answer. I have seen more fall into a habit of glib lying, under the
+teazing constraint. I have seen tempers ruined for life by the
+constant irritation, and most old people can probably say that they
+have seen promising intellects frittered away; minds above the average
+at the outset of life rendered incurably desultory, shallow, and
+conceited. If there are readers of Wordsworth who are puzzled at this
+day about the drift of his poem, called "Anecdote for Fathers, Showing
+how the Practice of Lying May be Taught," <span class="pagenum"><a id="page283" name="page283"></a>(p. 283)</span> let them remember
+that it was written at a time when "the Pestalozzian system" was in
+vogue in England, and throughout Europe; and then they will see what a
+good lesson it yields. If, at this day, the image flits across our
+memories of some pale child, with a fretful brow, red eyes, and a
+constant disposition to get out of the room, or to hide behind the
+window curtains, when spoken to, we may refer that image back to the
+days of the "Pestalozzian system," as it was fashionably understood in
+this country.</p>
+
+<p>It was a cruel injustice to Pestalozzi to render him responsible for
+all this mischief. His mission was, not to craze children's brains and
+break their hearts, but the very contrary. We, in fact, gave his name
+to a mere reaction from a mistake of our own&mdash;to one kind of ignorance
+into which we fell in our escape from another.</p>
+
+<p>In our desire for popular education, early in the century, we had
+supposed the thing to be done was to put certain facts into the
+learner's mind&mdash;to lay them upon his memory, as it were. To quicken
+and spread the process, we set children who had learned a thing one
+minute to teach it to other children the next. This did not answer. We
+called it "the Lancasterian system," and supposed the nation would be
+educated in a trice. When we found, at the end of ten or twenty years,
+that boys and girls left school after sitting nine years on the
+benches, unable to do any good with book or pen, while they had lost
+their home-training in the workshop, the field, or the dairy, we were
+ready for a reaction; and to that reaction we most unjustly gave the
+name of "Pestalozzian system."</p>
+
+<p>The notion was that we had been all wrong in putting knowledge into
+children's heads; and that the right way was to get ideas out of them.
+Henceforth we were to develop faculties, and not impose knowledge. It
+was a great day for us when the conception was formed, and began to
+spread. Without it, education would never have advanced even as far as
+it has. But we blundered over it sadly at first; and among our
+mistakes, it was not the least that we christened our follies after
+Pestalozzi. Every great step in social progress is taken in the name
+of some representative man. It is the business of those who come after
+to absolve those representatives from the disrepute of mistakes which
+were none of theirs; and we may hope that Pestalozzi's memory has long
+been clear from the charge of torturing on the rack of
+cross-examination the generation of children whom he loved so well.
+What it was that he did propose is best seen by looking at his life;
+for, if he was not a very practical man in the sense of wisely
+conducted affairs, he was still less of a theorist. He knew very well
+what he meant and what he wanted; but he had no compact system to
+propose, grounded on any new theory of the human faculties. The
+foremost man in the educational revolution of modern times, he obeyed
+his instincts, and left it for incompetent followers to make a scheme
+of doctrine out of what he said and did.</p>
+
+<p>What were those instincts? And how did he use them?</p>
+
+<p>We first see him as a very peculiar little boy, whose best friend was
+his mother's maid, Barbara. His name is Italian, but he was a Swiss.
+His ancestors had been citizens of Milan; but one of them, becoming
+Protestant at the time of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page284" name="page284"></a>(p. 284)</span> Reformation, had to seek a
+Protestant country to live in, and went to Zurich. The father of this
+little John Henry was a physician. He died so early that he left a
+very bare provision for his widow and their only son; and, aware of
+the prudence that their circumstances would require, he recommended
+them, on his death-bed, to the care of the trusty maid Barbara, who
+fully justified the confidence. She carried them through with an
+appearance of respectability on the smallest means, and nourished the
+pride of narrow circumstances in the boy, in striving to avoid the
+opposite fault of meanness. She told him that no Pestalozzi had ever
+eaten the bread of dependence, and that his mother's self-denial
+raised him above the degradation suffered by many another orphan in
+Zurich. These lessons and Barbara's own character, account for much of
+the passionate advocacy of the claims and the independence of the
+poor, and of the respect for their virtue, which were the chief
+features of the whole life of the man. From six years old, when his
+father died, he looked upon all orphans with an interest compounded of
+fellow-feeling and of lofty pity for their inferiority in
+independence. His great, but as yet unconscious, desire was to help
+the whole class to independence.</p>
+
+<p>It does not appear why he devoted himself, as he grew up, to the study
+of languages. Probably he had no choice as to the course of his
+training; but we find him, so early as the age of eighteen, leaving
+that study and preparing himself with great zeal for the pulpit. His
+deeply religious nature might well indicate this career; but he early
+failed in it and gave it up. His first attempt to preach ended in
+mortification, and it is not difficult to perceive why. His education
+must have been defective, for, to the end of his long life, he spoke a
+jargon of German or French, sometimes mixing the two; a kind of
+language which none but his intimates could comprehend. His
+articulation was defective; his countenance was so ugly as to be
+forbidding; and, during the latter part of his life at least, his
+personal habits were worse than slovenly. The failure in the pulpit is
+not wonderful; nor yet that in the law, which he tried next. He turned
+again to his first pursuit, and published some philological writings.
+While eager about a new method of teaching Latin, he one day took up
+Rousseau's "Émile," and the book determined the whole course of his
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Insisting that the pursuit of learning was the most unnatural of human
+occupations, he not only gave it up, but burned all his papers; not
+only his notes, but manuscripts on Swiss law and Swiss history. He
+would live henceforth as a son of the soil. He sold his small
+patrimony to buy a bit of land to farm; married the daughter of a
+merchant of Zurich, and began domestic life at two and twenty. His
+wife's connection gave him an interest in a cotton manufactory; and he
+became well acquainted with two classes of laborers at once. The
+discovery of their intellectual degradation shocked him. Both the
+farm-laborers and the spinners were so inferior to the poor of his
+imagination, that he was at once stimulated and dismayed. He was
+thirty when he set about the sort of work which made him the world's
+benefactor. He collected about fifty poor and desolate children on his
+little estate, lived with them in a state of hardship, taught them
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page285" name="page285"></a>(p. 285)</span> to work, and to think, and to read, and made friends of
+them. In the absence of other assistants, he adopted the plan of
+setting them to teach one another; a feature of his method which
+recommended it where the Lancasterian system existed. Having no skill,
+and no prudence in the management of affairs, he was soon ruined, and
+the establishment was broken up.</p>
+
+<p>This was the occasion of his giving us the book which made his name
+famous all over Europe. To explain his views, and to get immediate
+means of support, he wrote "Leonard and Gertrude," which might soon
+after be seen on the tables of all benevolent and literary persons in
+all countries. Its disclosure of continental peasant life was perhaps
+the first charm to us; but it also changed the character of
+educational effort in England as elsewhere. Perhaps this popularity
+gave the good man honor in his own country.</p>
+
+<p>After the Revolutionary War in Switzerland, the Canton of Unterwalden
+was overrun with wretched children who seemed to belong to nobody.
+They prowled about the burned hamlets, and infested town and country
+like little wolves. The government asked Pestalozzi to take charge of
+some of them, and offered him some little aid. It was a singular
+spectacle when this uncouth man, then in the vigor of his years (it
+was in 1798), entered the ruins of a ravaged convent, with his mob of
+one hundred and fifty outcast children. He was all alone with them;
+and some of them were sickly and stunted; many were fretful; and not a
+few ferocious, or malicious, or impudent, or full of suspicion and
+falsehood. He lived and labored among them, nursed them, taught them,
+and soon began to open their minds and gain their hearts. In a little
+while their avidity for knowledge astonished him. The facts of the
+case indicate that he had an aptitude for communicating with
+children's minds that amounted to genius. Our mistake, twenty years
+later, was in supposing that the virtue lay in that part of the method
+which could be imitated. Pestalozzi, conversing with young creatures
+who had never supposed that anybody cared for them, surprised them by
+his interest in what they felt and thought. His questions roused their
+faculties, and sent a glow through their feelings; and their
+improvement transcended all precedent. Reports of his conversation and
+his achievements set others to work; and there was such an
+interrogation of children as was never dreamed of before.</p>
+
+<p>One question which Pestalozzi asked of this set of pupils is
+memorable. They had seen Altdorf in flames. About those blackened
+ruins there were again desolate children, living as they could.
+Pestalozzi sounded the minds of his pupils as to doing something in
+the case. When they eagerly desired to take in twenty among them,
+Pestalozzi asked them whether they could bear the consequences. They
+must work harder even than now; they must live yet more barely; they
+might have to share their dinners and their clothes with strangers
+whom they might not like. He would not allow a rash decision. He made
+them fully understand what they were undertaking, and put off the
+settlement of the question. Still, the pupils said, "Let them come!"</p>
+
+<p>The ravage of the war swept away this institution; but Pestalozzi
+could never again be overlooked. His special function was recognized
+at home and abroad. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page286" name="page286"></a>(p. 286)</span> His books were translated into many
+languages; and the emperors and kings of Europe were eager to apply
+his wisdom to the education of their people. He was summoned to Paris
+to join a consultation on the interests of Switzerland, ordered by
+Napoleon. But he made his escape from Paris at the first possible
+moment; he did not want imperial patronage which interfered with his
+work at home; but he would have nothing to do with politics. He
+desired to live with children and the poor, to open their minds, and
+make them good and happy.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if he had attained his utmost wishes when the town of
+Yverdun offered him its castle and grounds for a school, with perfect
+freedom as to the management. For a few years the promise of
+educational advancement was truly splendid. Some of Pestalozzi's own
+pupils became able and devoted assistants; and other young men of the
+highest qualifications devoted themselves as apostles of his mission.
+Here and there over Europe establishments arose where boys, and
+sometimes girls, were trained at once in industry and intellectual
+progress. Those who were in the gardens, or the harvest field, or the
+dairy at one time of the day, were studying languages, mathematics, or
+music at other hours. And where this direct imitation of the Swiss
+establishments was not attempted, there was a visible improvement in
+methods of instruction. We learned to see that books and education,
+books and teaching, are not the same thing. Oral instruction came into
+use elsewhere than at mothers' knees; and amid some gross abuses, "the
+Pestalozzian system" began to work great good.</p>
+
+<p>There is almost always some dreary chapter in the history of these
+representative men. In Pestalozzi's there were several; but the
+dreariest of all was the last.</p>
+
+<p>There never was a movement which depended more entirely for success on
+the personal qualifications of its agents. We need not look further
+than the next street, or the next house, to see how one person differs
+from another in the faculty of genuine intercourse with children's
+minds. The smallness of the number of the well-endowed with this
+power, is the best reason for the large use of books in schools; and
+Pestalozzi's genius for companionship with inferior minds caused a too
+exclusive recourse to oral instruction. Thus, when assistants came
+upon the scene, there was diversity, disagreement, disappointment, and
+no little disorder. We need not go into the painful story of warring
+tempers and incompatible interests. The institution declined for some
+years, and then was broken up&mdash;the government of the Canton warning
+the manager of the concern, who acted in Pestalozzi's name, to leave
+the country.</p>
+
+<a id="img024" name="img024"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img024.jpg" width="500" height="390" alt="" title="">
+<p>Pestalozzi, the children's friend.</p></div>
+
+<p>It needs no explanation that Pestalozzi was in some respects weak. The
+failure of all his establishments and his inability to keep out of
+debt show this. His faculties of imagination and sympathy overpowered
+the rest of his mind. He early seized a great truth&mdash;that of the claim
+of every human being to the full development of his faculties,
+whatever they may be; and the concentration of his strongest powers on
+this great truth made him a social reformer of a high order. He was
+not a philosopher; he was not a man of good sense, or temper, or
+practical ability, generally speaking; though sense, temper, and
+ability appeared <span class="pagenum"><a id="page287" name="page287"></a>(p. 287)</span> to be all transcendent in the particular
+direction taken by his genius. Among his inferiors&mdash;and particularly
+friendless children&mdash;he was a prophet and apostle; among men he was a
+child, and sometimes a perverse one.</p>
+
+<p>He died at the age of eighty-one, preserving, in the midst of great
+pain, his enthusiasm for justice, his special love for children and
+the poor, and his strong religious sentiment. Two days before his
+death he spoke long and nobly, while taking leave of his family and
+his enterprises. His country, and we hope the world, has remembered
+his good offices to society, and forgiven his foibles.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>GEORGES CUVIER<br>
+By <span class="smcap">John Stoughton, D.D</span>.<br>
+(1769-1832)</h3>
+
+<a id="img025" name="img025"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img025.jpg" width="250" height="275" alt="Cuvier." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier was born at Montbéliard, a
+place of manufacturing industry about forty miles from Besançon, now
+within the French dominions, then a little principality pertaining to
+the Duke of Wurtemberg. Young Cuvier was remarkable for his
+intelligence and precocity; and an incident in his boyish days
+indicated the bent of his genius, and the sphere of knowledge and
+discovery in which as a man he was destined to excel. He found one
+day, among his father's books, Buffon's work on natural history, and
+it suggested the idea of copying and coloring the plates, after he had
+carefully studied the text. The contents formed his chief reading for
+many years. The relatives of Cuvier were poor. His father was a
+pensioned officer in a Swiss regiment in the service of France. His
+mother was an affectionate, godly, wise woman. To her early lessons in
+Latin, geography, and drawing, and to her communications of religion,
+he always acknowledged himself much indebted. He went to the public
+gymnasium at the age of ten, and remained there for four years,
+bearing off prizes for learning and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page288" name="page288"></a>(p. 288)</span> athletics. Through the
+patronage of a Wurtemberg princess he was sent to the university of
+Stuttgart, where he pursued a course of scientific study, particularly
+in the division relating to natural history. There he acquitted
+himself with distinction, not only in that special department, but
+also in the most sacred branch of learning. "The young Cuvier," said
+his examiners, "has shown just notions of Christianity well adapted to
+his years," and "considerable skill" in reading the Greek Testament.</p>
+
+<p>Circumstances compelled him in early life to do something toward
+earning a livelihood, and in 1794 he became tutor in a French
+Protestant family living in the castle of Fiquainville, near Fécamp.
+In that little Norman fishing-town he found much to gratify his
+curiosity; and he might often be seen scouring the country after
+birds, butterflies, and other insects; or prying into nooks and
+corners on the shore, after shell-fish and other marine productions;
+while the treasures of the boundless sea inspired wonder, with a
+longing to explore its depths and to become acquainted with the forms
+of life hidden under its waters.</p>
+
+<p>He appears to have continued in the family of Count d'Hericy for
+nearly seven years. He was introduced to the <span class="italic">savants</span> of Paris by his
+researches, and accepted an invitation to remove thither in 1795. He
+reached the French metropolis just after the horrors of the
+Revolution. Papers written by him already on his favorite subject had
+brought him into notice; and he found congenial employment in the
+Jardin des Plantes&mdash;the home of his after-studies and the sphere of
+his scientific exploits. There he worked and lectured, and obtained
+the office of assistant to the aged professor of comparative anatomy.
+In the year of his appointment, he made a mark in the study which he
+rendered so famous, by a memoir on the Megalonyx, a fossil animal
+known by a few of its bones, and which, contrary to received opinion,
+he boldly proved to have been a gigantic sloth. This was the first of
+those able comparisons of the fossil with the present world which
+revolutionized geology, extended comparative anatomy, and absolutely
+created the science of palæontology. He was also appointed to a
+professorship of natural philosophy in the College of France; then he
+rose, step by step, under the favor and patronage of Napoleon, who
+made him an inspector-general of schools; secretary to the French
+Institute; councillor of the new Imperial University, and organizer of
+reformed colleges in Italy, Holland, and Germany, after the vast
+extension of the empire. Even at Rome he was thus employed in 1813;
+and though a Protestant, he there won the good opinion of the
+authorities. The conquest and banishment of the great ruler of France
+did not spoil the fortunes of Cuvier; for, after the restoration of
+Louis XVIII., he was confirmed by that monarch in the office of state
+councillor, to which he had been appointed by the emperor, and in 1819
+he was made a baron of France.</p>
+
+<p>Just before this he visited England, and was received with the highest
+honors. Another visit followed in 1830. An amusing circumstance
+occurred on one of these occasions, indicative of his wide-spread fame
+amid the lower as well as the upper classes of society. When in
+London, owing to the absence of his valet, he sent for a barber to
+shave him. When the operation was finished he offered <span class="pagenum"><a id="page289" name="page289"></a>(p. 289)</span>
+payment. "I am too much honored," replied the Gascon&mdash;for such the
+operator happened to be, "by having shaved the greatest man of the
+age, to accept any recompense." M. Cuvier allowed him the honor to the
+full extent, and engaged him to perform the function repeatedly, for
+which, at length, he was willing to pocket payment.</p>
+
+<p>Cuvier's life must have been most laborious. The same year in which he
+was made baron, he became president of the Committee of the Interior;
+and the numerous and various affairs which there passed under his
+review, and required his examination, were perfectly wonderful;
+together with his scientific employments, they seem more than any
+mortal man could accomplish. But by economy of time and distribution
+of labor, concentration of thought, retentiveness of memory, and a
+profound knowledge of principles in every department, he acquitted
+himself in a manner which secured universal admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Charles X., of France, and the King of Wurtemberg, vied with each
+other in the honors they conferred on Cuvier; and on the accession of
+Louis Philippe to the French throne the new sovereign continued the
+favors shown by his predecessors, and in 1832 made the baron a French
+peer. But his end was now drawing nigh. "Gentlemen," he said one day
+to his hearers, in opening a new course of lectures, "these will be
+the objects of our future investigations, if time, health, and
+strength shall be given to me to continue and finish them with you."
+But an overwrought brain the very next day produced paralysis, and the
+distinguished statesman and philosopher died at the age of
+sixty-three, on May 13, 1832.</p>
+
+<p>Down to the time of Cuvier, the classification of animal life had been
+most imperfect and unsatisfactory. The basis adopted by Ray was open
+to criticism. Comparative anatomy, rising into importance during the
+eighteenth century, continued through that period in a state of
+infancy. Linnæus and Buffon rendered valuable service; but all former
+students in this branch of science were surpassed by Cuvier. A curious
+anecdote is recorded of the ignorance of natural objects which
+continued even after the opening of the present century. When the
+committee of the French Academy were employed in preparing the
+well-known Academy dictionary, Cuvier came one day into the room where
+they were holding a session. "Glad to see you, M. Cuvier," said one of
+the forty; "we have just finished a definition which we think quite
+satisfactory, but on which we should like to have your opinion. We
+have been defining the word 'crab,' and explained it thus: 'Crab, a
+small red fish, which walks backward.'" "Perfect, gentlemen," said
+Cuvier; "only, if you will give me leave, I will make one small
+observation in natural history. The crab is not a fish, it is not red,
+and it does not walk backward. With these exceptions your definition
+is excellent."</p>
+
+<p>Cuvier was the first to give a really philosophical view of the animal
+world in reference to the plan on which each animal is constructed.
+There are, he says, four such plans&mdash;four forms on which animals
+appear to have been modelled, and of which the ulterior divisions,
+with whatever titles naturalists have decorated them, are only very
+slight modifications, founded on the development or addition of some
+parts which do not produce any essential change in the plan. These
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page290" name="page290"></a>(p. 290)</span> four great branches of the animal world are the
+<span class="italic">vertebrata</span>, <span class="italic">mollusca</span>, <span class="italic">articulata</span>, and <span class="italic">radiata</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Comparative anatomy found in Cuvier a student who appreciated its
+importance and revived its efficiency and honors. He saw more
+distinctly than anyone before, that large classes of animals, when
+carefully examined, are but modifications of a common type; that, for
+example, there is after all a strong resemblance, when their skeletons
+are looked at, between a man and a bird, and also a complete analogy
+between the human skull and the head of a fish. It was in the pursuit
+after such analogies that Cuvier was led into the track where he found
+the basis of his new anatomical classifications.</p>
+
+<p>For his wonderful volumes on fossil animals, Cuvier had made some
+preparation by an essay, presented in 1810 to the Academy, on the
+geology of the basin of Paris, a district singularly rich in fossil
+remains. Montmartre and its vicinity, covered with buildings and
+crowded with people, would not strike many observers as a promising
+field for scientific exploration; but it is the peculiarity of genius
+to read instruction where others can find only a blank, or a record of
+commonplace character. Cuvier discovered in the geological
+construction and the fossil remains of the Paris basin, elements for
+the solution of the most critical scientific questions, relative not
+only to that locality, but to the globe at large. Long before, he had
+begun to treasure up facts, the collocation of which ultimately
+constituted his marvellous additions to human knowledge. In 1800 he
+finds a few teeth, in following years a few bones; and after many
+years' patience and skill he ascertains and demonstrates the existence
+and place of a number of tapir-like animals which he classed as
+<span class="italic">Lophiodon Paleotherium</span> and <span class="italic">Anoplotherium</span>, formerly abounding on
+the banks of the ponds which have left their mud and marl in the
+tertiary strata of the Paris basin. His anticipations seemed like
+prophecies, based, as they were, on a tooth or a bone; but subsequent
+discoveries enabled him to verify them all, so that they became parts
+of scientific and general knowledge. The effect of these discoveries
+on the scientific world was prodigious.</p>
+
+<p>"The great work of Cuvier," says Lord Brougham, "stands among those
+rare monuments of human genius and labor, of which each department of
+exertion can scarcely ever furnish more than one, eminent therefore
+above all the other efforts made in the same kind. In the stricter
+sciences, the 'Principia' of Newton, and in later times its
+continuation and extension in La Place's 'Mécanique Céleste;' in
+intellectual philosophy, Locke's celebrated work; in oratory,
+Demosthenes; in poetry, Homer, leave all competitors behind by the
+common consent of mankind; and Cuvier's researches in fossil osteology
+will probably be reckoned to prefer an equal claim to distinction
+among the works on comparative anatomy."</p>
+
+<p>"If," says Cuvier, "you have but the extremity of a bone well
+preserved, you may, by attention, consideration, and the aid of
+resources which analogy furnishes to skill, determine all the rest as
+well as if you had the entire skeleton submitted to you."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page291" name="page291"></a>(p. 291)</span> The great scientific value of the work lies in its
+comparative anatomy, creating as it were (as we have said) the science
+of palæontology at a leap; but there are in it also sundry other
+philosophical deductions in geology, such as the following: that in
+the strata called primitive there are no remains of life or organized
+existence;&mdash;that all organized existences were not created at the same
+time, but at different times, probably very remote from each other,
+vegetables before animals, the mollusca and fishes before reptiles,
+and the latter before the mammalia;&mdash;that the transition limestone
+exhibits remains of the lowest forms of existence; and the chalk and
+clay conceal the remains of fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds, beings
+of a former order of things, which have now disappeared;&mdash;that among
+fossil remains no vestige appears of man or his works; that the fossil
+remains in the more recent strata are those which approach nearest to
+the present type of the corresponding living species; and that these
+strata show the former prevalence of fresh water as well as sea-water.</p>
+
+<p>The extraordinary sagacity of Cuvier, coupled with his extensive
+knowledge, qualified him for the execution of this herculean task. His
+power of geological classification sprang out of his zoölogical skill,
+and he was a great pioneer in previously unexplored fields of
+research, where relations between the organic and inorganic changes of
+the earth were revealed to the eye of the philosopher. "His guiding
+ideas had been formed, his facts had been studied, by the assistance
+of all the sciences which could be made to bear upon them. In his
+geological labors he seems to see some beautiful temple, not only firm
+and fair in itself, but decorated with sculptures and painting, and
+rich in all that art and labor, memory and imagination, can contribute
+to its beauty."</p>
+
+<p>These remarks occur in connection with Whewell's sketch of the
+contributions to science made by Cuvier: "I may observe, that he is
+allowed by all to have established on an indestructible basis many of
+the most important generalizations which zoölogy now contains; and the
+principal defect which his critics have pointed out has been that he
+did not generalize still more widely and boldly. It appears,
+therefore, that he cannot but be placed among the great discoverers in
+the studies which he pursued; and this being the case, those who look
+with pleasure on the tendency of the thoughts of the greatest men to
+an intelligence far higher than their own, must be gratified to find
+that he was an example of this tendency, and that the acknowledgment
+of a creative purpose, as well as a creative power, not only entered
+into his belief, but made an indispensable and prominent part of his
+philosophy."</p>
+
+<p>"Beauty, richness, abundance," says Cuvier, "have been the ways of the
+Creator, no less than simplicity. We conceive nature to be simply a
+production of the Almighty, regulated by a wisdom the laws of which
+can only be discovered by observation."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page292" name="page292"></a>(p. 292)</span> ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT<a id="footnotetag7" name="footnotetag7"></a><a href="#footnote7" title="Go to footnote 7"><span class="smaller">[7]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Louis Agassiz</span><br>
+(1769-1859)</h3>
+
+<a id="img026" name="img026"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img026.jpg" width="250" height="284" alt="Humboldt." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Humboldt&mdash;Alexander Von Humboldt, as he always called himself, though
+he was christened with the names of Frederick Heinrich Alexander&mdash;was
+born in 1769, on September 14th, in that memorable year which gave to
+the world those philosophers, warriors, and statesmen who have changed
+the face of science and the condition of affairs in our century. It
+was in that year that Cuvier also and Schiller were born; and among
+the warriors and statesmen, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and
+Canning are children of 1769, and it is certainly a year of which we
+can say that its children have revolutionized the world. Of the early
+life of Humboldt I know nothing, and I find no records except that in
+his tenth year he lost his father, who had been a major in the army
+during the seven years' war, and afterward a chamberlain to the King
+of Prussia. But his mother took excellent care of him, and watched
+over his early education. The influence she had upon his life is
+evident from the fact that, notwithstanding his yearning for the sight
+of foreign lands, he did not begin to make active preparations for his
+travels during her lifetime. In the winter of 1787-1788 he was sent to
+the University of Frankfort on the Oder, to study finances. He was to
+be a statesman; he was to enter high offices, for which there was a
+fair chance, owing to his noble birth and the patronage he could
+expect at court. He remained, however, but a short time there.</p>
+
+<p>Not finding these studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence
+in the university we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate
+friendship with Wildenow, then professor of botany, and who at that
+time possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the
+first branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial
+attention. The next year he went to Göttingen&mdash;being then a youth of
+twenty years; and here he studied natural history with Blumenbach, and
+thus had an opportunity of seeing the progress zoölogy was making in
+anticipation of the great movement by which Cuvier placed zoölogy on a
+new foundation.</p>
+
+<p>For it is an unquestionable fact that in first presenting a
+classification of the animal kingdom based upon a knowledge of its
+structure, Blumenbach in a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page293" name="page293"></a>(p. 293)</span> measure anticipated Cuvier;
+though it is only by an exaggeration of what Blumenbach did that an
+unfair writer of later times has attempted to deprive Cuvier of the
+glory of having accomplished this object upon the broadest possible
+basis. From Göttingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of
+studying geology, and in particular the basaltic formations of the
+Seven Mountains. At Mayence he became acquainted with George Forster,
+who proposed to accompany him on a journey to England. You may imagine
+what impression the conversation of that active, impetuous and
+powerful man had upon the youthful Humboldt. They went to Belgium and
+Holland, and thence to England, where Forster introduced him to Sir
+Joseph Banks. Thus the companions of Captain Cook in his first and
+second voyages round the world, who were already venerable in years
+and eminent promoters of physical science not yet established in the
+popular favor, were the early guides of Humboldt in his aspirations
+for scientific distinction. Yet Humboldt had a worldly career to
+accomplish. He was to be a statesman, and this required that he should
+go to the Academy of Commerce at Hamburg. He remained there five
+months, but could endure it no longer, and he begged so hard that his
+mother allowed him to go to Freyberg and study geology with Werner,
+with a view of obtaining a situation in the Administration of Mines.
+See what combinations of circumstances prepare him for his great
+career, as no other young man ever was prepared. At Freyberg he
+received the private instruction of Werner, the founder of modern
+geology, and he had as his fellow-student no less a man than Leopold
+Von Buch, then a youth, to whom, at a later period, Humboldt himself
+dedicated one of his works, inscribing it "to the greatest geologist,"
+as he was till the day of his recent death. From Freyberg he made
+frequent excursions into the Hartz and Fichtelgeberg and surrounding
+regions, and these excursions ended in the publication of a small work
+upon the subterranean flora of Freyberg ("Flora Subterranea
+Fribergensis"), in which he described especially those cryptogamous
+plants, or singular low and imperfect formations which occur in the
+deep mines. But here ends his period of pupilage. In 1792 he was
+appointed an officer of the mines (Oberbergmeister). He went to
+Beyreuth as director of the operations in those mines belonging to the
+Frankish provinces of Prussia. Yet he was always wandering in every
+direction, seeking for information and new subjects of study. He
+visited Vienna, and there heard of the discoveries of Galvani, with
+which he made himself familiar; went to Italy and Switzerland, where
+he became acquainted with the then celebrated Professors Jurine and
+Pictet, and with the illustrious Scarpa. He also went to Jena, formed
+an intimate acquaintance with Schiller and Goethe, and also with
+Loder, with whom he studied anatomy. From that time he began to make
+investigations of his own, and these investigations were in a line
+which he has never approached since, being experiments in physiology.
+He turned his attention to the newly-discovered power by which he
+tested the activity of organic substances; and it is plain, from his
+manner of treating the subject, that he leaned to the idea that the
+chemical process going on in the living body of animals furnished a
+clew to the phenomena of life, if it was not life itself. This may
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page294" name="page294"></a>(p. 294)</span> be inferred from the title of the book published in
+1797&mdash;"Ueber die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, mit Vermuthungen
+über den chemischen Process des Lebens, in Thieren und Pflanzen."</p>
+
+<p>In these explanations of the phenomena we have the sources of the
+first impulses in a direction which has been so beneficial in
+advancing the true explanation of the secondary phenomena of life; but
+which, at the same time, in its exaggeration as it prevails now has
+degenerated into the materialism of modern investigators.</p>
+
+<p>In that period of all-embracing activity, he began to study astronomy.
+His attention was called to it by Baron Von Zach, who was a prominent
+astronomer of the time, and who at that time was actively engaged upon
+astronomical investigations in Germany. He showed Humboldt to what
+extent astronomy would be useful to him, in his travels, in
+determining the position of places, the altitude of mountains, etc.</p>
+
+<p>So prepared, Humboldt now broods over his plans of foreign travel. He
+has published his work on the muscular and nervous fibre at the age of
+twenty-eight. He has lost his mother; and his mind is now inflamed
+with an ungovernable passion for the sight of foreign and especially
+tropical lands. He goes to Paris to make preparation by securing the
+best astronomical, meteorological and surveying instruments. Evidently
+he does not care where he shall go, for on a proposition of Lord
+Bristol to visit Egypt he agrees to it. The war prevents the execution
+of this plan, and he enters into negotiations to accompany the
+projected expedition of Captain Baudin to Australia; but when
+Bonaparte, bent on the conquest of Egypt, started with a scientific
+expedition, Humboldt wishes to join it. He expects to be one of the
+scientific party, and to reach Egypt by way of Barbary.</p>
+
+<p>But all these plans failing, he goes to Spain with the view of
+exploring that country, and finding perhaps some means of joining the
+French expedition in Egypt from Spain. While in Madrid he is so well
+received at the court&mdash;a young nobleman so well instructed has access
+everywhere&mdash;and he receives such encouragement from persons in high
+positions, that he turns his thoughts to an exploration of the Spanish
+provinces of America. He receives permission not only to visit them,
+but instructions are given to the officers of the colonies to receive
+him everywhere and give him all facilities, to permit him to transport
+his instruments, to make astronomical and other observations, and to
+collect whatever he chooses; and all that only in consequence of the
+good impression he has made when he appeared there, with no other
+recommendation than that of a friend who happened to be at that time
+Danish minister to the court of Madrid. But with these facilities
+offered to him, he sails in June, 1799, from Corunna, whence he
+reaches Teneriffe, makes short explorations of that island, ascending
+the peak, and sailing straightway to America, where he lands in Cumana
+in the month of July, and employs the first year and a half in the
+exploration of the basin of the Orinoco and its connection with the
+Amazon. This was a journey of itself, and completed a work of
+scientific importance, establishing the fact that the two <span class="pagenum"><a id="page295" name="page295"></a>(p. 295)</span>
+rivers were connected by an uninterrupted course of water. He
+established for the first time the fact that there was an extensive
+low plain, connected by water, which circled the high table-land of
+Guiana. It was an important discovery in physical geography, because
+it changed the ideas about water-courses and about the distributions
+of mountains and plains in a manner which has had the most extensive
+influence upon the progress of physical geography. It may well be said
+that after this exploration of the Orinoco, physical geography begins
+to appear as a part of science. From Cumana he makes a short excursion
+to Havana, and hearing there of the probable arrival of Baudin on the
+west coast of America, starts with the intention of crossing at
+Panama. He arrives at Carthagena, but was prevented by the advance of
+the season from crossing the Isthmus, and changed his determination
+from want of precise information respecting Baudin's locality. He
+determines to ascend the Magdalena River and visit Santa Fé de Bogota,
+where, for several months, he explores the construction of the
+mountains, and collects plants and animals; and, in connection with
+his friend, Bonpland, who accompanied him from Paris, he makes those
+immense botanical collections, which were afterward published by
+Bonpland himself, and by Kunth after Bonpland had determined on an
+expedition to South America. In the beginning of 1802 he reaches
+Quito, where, during four months, he turns his attention to everything
+worth investigating, ascends the Chimborazo, to a height to which no
+human foot had reached, anywhere; and, having completed this survey
+and repeatedly crossed the Andes, he descends the southern slope of
+the continent to the shore of the Pacific at Truxillo, and following
+the arid coast of Peru, he visits finally Lima.</p>
+
+<p>I will pass lightly over all the details of his journey, for they are
+only incidents in that laborious exploration of the country which is
+best appreciated by a consideration of the works which were published
+in consequence of that immense accumulation of materials gathered
+during those explorations. From Lima, or rather from Callao, he sails
+in 1802 for Guayaquil and Acapulco, and reaches Mexico in 1803, where
+he makes as extensive explorations as he had made in Venezuela and the
+Andes, and after a stay of about a year, and having put all his
+collections and manuscripts in order, revisits Cuba for a short time,
+comes to the United States, makes a hurried excursion to Philadelphia
+and Washington, where he is welcomed by Jefferson, and finally returns
+with his faithful companion Bonpland to France, accompanied by a young
+Spanish nobleman, Don Carlo de Montufar, who had shared his travels
+since his visits to Quito.</p>
+
+<p>At thirty-six years of age Humboldt is again in Europe with
+collections made in foreign lands, such as had never been brought
+together before. But here we meet with a singular circumstance. The
+German nobleman, the friend of the Prussian and Spanish courts,
+chooses Paris for his residence, and remains there twenty-two years to
+work out the result of his scientific labor; for since his return,
+with the exception of short journeys to Italy, England and Germany,
+sometimes accompanying the King of Prussia, sometimes alone, or
+accompanied by scientific friends, he is entirely occupied in
+scientific labors and studies. So <span class="pagenum"><a id="page296" name="page296"></a>(p. 296)</span> passes the time to the
+year 1827, and no doubt he was induced to make this choice of a
+residence by the extraordinary concourse of distinguished men in all
+branches of science with whom he thought he could best discuss the
+results of his own observations. I shall presently have something to
+say about the works he completed during that most laborious period of
+his life. I will only add now, that in 1827 he returned to Berlin
+permanently, having been urged of late by the King of Prussia again
+and again to return to his native land. And there he delivered a
+series of lectures preparatory to the publication of "Cosmos;" for in
+substance, even in form and arrangement, these lectures, of which the
+papers of the day gave short accounts, are a sort of prologue to the
+"Cosmos," and a preparation for its publication. In 1829, when he was
+sixty years of age, he undertakes another great journey. He accepts
+the invitation of the Emperor Nicholas to visit the Ural Mountains,
+with a view of examining the gold mines, and localities where platina
+and diamonds had been found, to determine their geological relation.
+He accomplished the journey with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose, who
+published the result of their mineralogical and geological survey, in
+a work of which he is the sole author; while Humboldt published under
+the title of "Asiatic Fragments of Geology and Climatology," his
+observations of the physical and geographical features made during
+that journey. But he had hardly returned to Berlin when in consequence
+of the revolution of 1830, he was sent by the King of Prussia as
+extraordinary ambassador to France, to honor the elevation of Louis
+Philippe to the throne. Humboldt had long been a personal friend of
+the Orleans family, and he was selected ambassador on that occasion on
+account of these personal relations. From 1830 to 1848 he lived
+alternately in Berlin and in Paris, spending nearly half the time in
+Paris and half the time in Berlin, with occasional visits to England
+and Denmark; publishing the results of his investigations in Asia,
+making original investigations upon various things and especially
+pressing the establishment of observatories, and connected magnetic
+observations all over the globe, for which he obtained the
+co-operation of the Russian government and that of the government of
+England; and at that time those observations in Australia and in the
+Russian empire to the borders of China, were established which have
+led to such important results in our knowledge of terrestrial
+magnetism. Since 1848 he has lived uninterruptedly in Berlin, where he
+published on the anniversary of his eightieth year a new edition of
+those charming first flowers of his pen; his "Views of Nature," the
+first edition of which was published in Germany in 1808. This third
+edition appeared with a series of new and remodelled annotations and
+explanations; and that book in which he first presented his views of
+nature, in which he drew those vivid pictures of the physiognomy of
+plants and of their geographical distribution is now revived and
+brought to the present state of science.</p>
+
+<p>The "Views of Nature" is a work which Humboldt has always cherished,
+and to which in his "Cosmos" he refers more frequently than to any
+other work. It is no doubt because there he has expressed his deepest
+thoughts, his most impressive views, and even foreshadowed those
+intimate convictions which he never <span class="pagenum"><a id="page297" name="page297"></a>(p. 297)</span> expressed, but which he
+desired to record in such a manner that those that can read between
+the lines might find them there; and certainly there we find them. His
+aspiration has been to present to the world a picture of the physical
+world from which he would exclude everything that relates to the
+turmoil of human society, and to the ambitions of individual men. A
+life so full, so rich, is worth explaining in every respect, and it is
+really instructive to see with what devotion he pursues his work. As
+long as he is a student he is really a student and learns faithfully,
+and learns everything he can reach. And he continues so for
+twenty-three years. He is not one of those who is impatient to show
+that he has something in him, and with premature impatience utters his
+ideas, so that they become insuperable barriers to his independent
+progress in later life. Slowly and confident of his sure progress, he
+advances, and while he learns he studies also independently of those
+who teach him. He makes his experiments, and to make them with more
+independence he seeks for an official position. During five years he
+is a business man, in a station which gives him leisure. He is
+superintendent of the mines, but the superintendent of the mines who
+can do much as he pleases; and while he is thus officially engaged
+journeying and superintending, he prepares himself for his independent
+researches. And yet it will be seen he is thirty years of age before
+he enters upon his American travels&mdash;those travels which will be said
+to have been the greatest undertaking ever carried to a successful
+issue, if judged by the results; they have as completely changed the
+basis of physical science as the revolution which took place in France
+about the same time has changed the social condition of that land.
+Having returned from these travels to Paris, there begins in his life
+a period of concentrated critical studies. He works his materials, and
+he works them with an ardor and devotion which are untiring; and he is
+not anxious to appear to have done it all himself. Oltmann is called
+to his aid to revise his astronomical observations, and his
+barometrical measurements by which he has determined the geographical
+position of seven hundred different points and the altitude of more
+than four hundred and fifty of them.</p>
+
+<p>The large collection of plants which Bonpland had begun to illustrate,
+but of which his desire of seeing the tropics again has prevented the
+completion he intrusts to Kunth. He has also brought home animals of
+different classes, and distributes them among the most eminent
+zoölogists of the day.</p>
+
+<p>To Cuvier he intrusts the investigation of that remarkable batrachian,
+the Aæolotel, the mode of development of which is still unknown, but
+which remains in its adult state in a condition similar to that of the
+tadpole of the frog during the earlier period of its life. Latreille
+describes the insects, and Valenciennes the shells and the fishes; but
+yet to show that he might have done the work himself, he publishes a
+memoir on the anatomical structure of the organs of breathing in the
+animals he has preserved, and another upon the tropical monkeys of
+America, and another upon the electric properties of the electric eel.
+But he was chiefly occupied with investigations in physical geography
+and climatology. The first work upon that subject is a dissertation on
+the geographical distribution <span class="pagenum"><a id="page298" name="page298"></a>(p. 298)</span> of plants, published in 1817.
+Many botanist travellers had observed that in different parts of the
+world there are plants not found in others, and that there is a
+certain arrangement in that distribution; but Humboldt was the first
+to see that this distribution is connected with the temperature of the
+air as well as with the altitudes of the surface on which they grow,
+and he systematized his researches into a general exposition of the
+laws by which the distribution of plants is regulated. Connected with
+this subject he made those extensive investigations into the mean
+temperature of a large number of places on the surface of the globe,
+which led to the drawing of those isothermal lines so important in
+their influence in shaping physical geography, and giving accuracy to
+the mode of representing natural phenomena. Before Humboldt we had no
+graphic representation of complex natural phenomena which made them
+easily comprehensible, even to minds of moderate cultivation. He has
+done that in a way which has circulated information more extensively,
+and brought it to the apprehension more clearly than it could have
+been done by any other means.</p>
+
+<p>It is not too much to say that this mode of representing natural
+phenomena has made it possible to introduce in our most elementary
+works the broad generalizations derived from the investigations of
+Humboldt in South America; and that every child in our schools has his
+mind fed from the labors of Humboldt's brain, wherever geography is no
+longer taught in the old routine.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>Humboldt was born near the court. He was brought up in connection with
+courtiers and men in high positions of life. He was no doubt imbued
+with the prejudices of his caste. He was a nobleman of high descent.
+And yet the friend of kings was the bosom friend of Arago, and he was
+the man who could, after his return from America, refuse the highest
+position at the court of Berlin, that of the secretaryship of public
+instruction, preferring to live in a modest way in Paris, in the
+society of all those illustrious men, who then made Paris the centre
+of intellectual culture. It was there where he became one of that
+Société d'Arceuil, composed of all the great men of the day, to which
+the paper on "Isothermal Lines" was presented, and by which it was
+printed, as all papers presented to it were, for private distribution.
+But from his intimate relations, especially to the court of Prussia,
+some insinuations have been made as to the character of Humboldt. They
+are as unjust as they are severe in expression. He was never a
+flatterer of those in power. He has shown it by taking a prominent
+position, in 1848, at the head of those who accompanied the victims of
+the revolution of that year to their last place of rest. But while he
+expressed his independence in such a manner, he had the kindliest
+feeling for all parties. He could not offend, even by an expression,
+those with whom he had been associated in early life; and I have no
+doubt that it is to that kindliness of feeling we must ascribe his
+somewhat indiscriminate patronage of aspirants in science, as well as
+men who were truly devoted to its highest aims. He may be said to have
+been, especially in his latter years, the friend of every cultivated
+man, wishing to lose <span class="pagenum"><a id="page299" name="page299"></a>(p. 299)</span> no opportunity to do all the good of
+which he was capable; for he had a degree of benevolence and
+generosity which was unbounded. I can well say that there is not a man
+engaged in scientific investigations in Europe, who has not received
+at his hands marked tokens of his favor, and who is not under deep
+obligations to him. May I be permitted to tell a circumstance which is
+personal to me in that respect, and which shows what he was capable of
+doing while he was forbidden an opportunity of telling it. I was only
+twenty-four years of age when in Paris, whither I had gone with means
+given me by a friend; but was at last about to resign my studies from
+want of ability to meet my expenses. Professor Mitscherlich was then
+on a visit to Paris, and I had seen him in the morning, when he asked
+me what was the cause of my depressed feelings; and I told him that I
+had to go for I had nothing left. The next morning as I was seated at
+breakfast in front of the yard of the hotel where I lived, I saw the
+servant of Humboldt approach. He handed me a note, saying there was no
+answer and disappeared. I opened the note, and I see it now before me
+as distinctly as if I held the paper in my hand. It said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, I hear that you intend leaving Paris in consequence of
+some embarrassments. That shall not be. I wish you to remain here as
+long as the object for which you came is not accomplished. I enclose
+you a check of £50. It is a loan which you may repay when you can."</p>
+
+<p>Some years afterward, when I could have repaid him, I wrote, asking
+for the privilege of remaining forever in his debt, knowing that this
+request would be more consonant to his feelings than the recovery of
+the money, and I am now in his debt. What he has done for me, I know
+he has done for many others; in silence and unknown to the world. I
+wish I could go on to state something of his character, his
+conversational powers, etc., but I feel that I am not in a condition
+to speak of them. I would only say that his habits were very peculiar.
+He was an early riser, and yet he was seen at late hours in the salons
+in different parts of Paris. From the year 1830 to 1848, while in
+Paris, he had been charged by the King of Prussia to send reports upon
+the condition of things there. He had before prepared for the King of
+Prussia a report on the political condition of the Spanish colonies in
+America, which no doubt had its influence afterward upon the
+recognition of the independence of those colonies. The importance of
+such reports to the government of Prussia may be inferred from a
+perusal of his political and statistical essays upon Mexico and Cuba.
+It is a circumstance worth noticing, that above all great powers,
+Prussia has more distinguished, scientific, and literary men among her
+diplomatists than any other state. And so was Humboldt actually a
+diplomatist in Paris, though he was placed in that position, not from
+choice, but in consequence of the benevolence of the king, who wanted
+to give him an opportunity of being in Paris as often and as long as
+he chose.</p>
+
+<p>But from that time there were two men in him&mdash;the diplomatist, living
+in the Hôtel des Princes, and the naturalist who roomed in the Rue de
+la Harpe, in a modest apartment in the second story; where his
+scientific friends had access to him every day before seven. After
+that he was frequently seen working <span class="pagenum"><a id="page300" name="page300"></a>(p. 300)</span> in the library of the
+Institute, until the time when the grand seigneur made his appearance
+at the court or in the salons of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The influence he has exerted upon the progress of science is
+incalculable. I need only allude to the fact that the "Cosmos,"
+bringing every branch of natural science down to the comprehension of
+every class of students, has been translated into the language of
+every civilized nation of the world, and gone through several
+editions. With him ends a great period in the history of science, a
+period to which Cuvier, Laplace, Arago, Gay-Lussac and De Candolle,
+and Robert Brown belonged.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>DANIEL O'CONNELL<a id="footnotetag8" name="footnotetag8"></a><a href="#footnote8" title="Go to footnote 8"><span class="smaller">[8]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Justin McCarthy</span><br>
+(1775-1847)</h3>
+
+<a id="img027" name="img027"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img027.jpg" width="250" height="305" alt="O'Connell." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Daniel O'Connell, undoubtedly one of the greatest Irishmen that ever
+lived, and according to Mr. Lecky perhaps the greatest political
+agitator that the modern world has known, was born August 6, 1775, in
+the county of Kerry, in Ireland. His parents were of good family, but
+comparatively poor, his father being a second son. Later on, Daniel
+was adopted by an uncle, through whom he came in for the property of
+Darrynane, made famous by his name. He was sent when a boy&mdash;the fact
+is worth noticing&mdash;to the first school kept openly by a Catholic
+priest since the establishment of the penal laws. Afterward he became
+a student in France&mdash;in St. Omer and in Douay, until the outbreak of
+the French Revolution made it unsafe for him to remain longer in
+France&mdash;or at all events until his family believed that it would not
+be safe for him to remain there any longer. The excesses of the
+Revolution greatly shocked and horrified the young O'Connell, and
+indeed the effect of that early shock was felt by him all through his
+career. He became impressed with an almost morbid detestation of all
+forms of blood-shedding; and for a while after his return to Ireland
+he firmly believed himself to be a Conservative in politics. But the
+system of administration which prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland
+under Conservative governments soon convinced him that he could have
+nothing to do with Conservatism, and he very soon became&mdash;what
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page301" name="page301"></a>(p. 301)</span> he ever after continued to be&mdash;a Liberal as regarded Imperial
+policy, and indeed something more than a Liberal&mdash;what we should now
+call a Radical. He studied for the bar, and was, to all appearance,
+little inclined for anything but law and field sports. He was a keen
+sportsman, and, like another distinguished Irishman, "all his life
+long he loved rivers, and poets who sang of rivers." He made rapid way
+in his profession, and soon became one of the foremost advocates in
+Ireland. He was a safe, shrewd, keen lawyer as well as a great
+advocate&mdash;the two parts do not always go together. He was a master of
+the art of cross-examination and he was a magnificent speaker&mdash;his
+speeches were aflame with humor, and pathos, and passion. His voice
+was one of immense power and sweetness and variety of tone. Mr.
+Disraeli in one of his books, when praising to the highest the superb
+voice of the great Sir Robert Peel, says that he had never heard its
+superior "except indeed in the thrilling tones of O'Connell." The
+Irish advocate had the advantage, too, of a commanding presence. He
+was tall and moulded in almost herculean form, and he had eyes which
+were often compared with those of Robert Burns&mdash;the light of genius
+was in them. There is a full-length picture of him in the Reform Club,
+London, which enables one to understand how stately and imposing his
+presence must have been.</p>
+
+<p>The career of O'Connell would appear to have been easily marked out
+for him. He was the foremost advocate in Ireland; he was making a
+large income; he had inherited a considerable property&mdash;what was there
+for him but to go on and prosper; make money, hunt, shoot, fish, and
+be happy. He could not indeed obtain any of the honors or dignities of
+his profession. He could not even be a king's counsel, and wear a silk
+gown. His religion cut him off from all such marks of distinction&mdash;for
+he was a member of the Catholic Church. But no penal laws prevented
+him from addressing juries and winning verdicts and attracting popular
+admiration and making money. He was very happily married&mdash;a genuine
+love-match, it would seem to have been, and the love lasted. Moreover
+he was strongly and almost unreasonably opposed to all manner of
+agitation that bordered on rebellion or even on sedition. He was
+positively unjust, he was utterly unreasonable, in his estimate of the
+rebellion of 1798 and Robert Emmet's abortive effort in 1803. He never
+did full justice even to the brave men who were concerned in these
+movements. He had an absolute detestation for all manner of secret
+societies. He knew too well that they only ended in betrayal by some
+traitor who had contrived to be admitted to their ranks. Under such
+conditions and with such views what was there to induce the successful
+and prosperous advocate who loved peace and who hated social
+disturbance, to mix himself up with political affairs at a time when
+national politics meant for a patriotic Irishman only social
+exclusion, danger, poverty, and even ruin?</p>
+
+<p>O'Connell could not help himself. He had to walk, as Carlyle says of a
+very different man, "his own wild road whither that led him."
+O'Connell's wild road&mdash;the road that he had to walk, led him to the
+leadership of two great national movements.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page302" name="page302"></a>(p. 302)</span> To understand what O'Connell fought against we must, of
+course, understand O'Connell's time. It is not easy for an American
+reader to understand it without some thought and without the endeavor
+to grasp the reality of a state of things quite outside his own living
+experience. When O'Connell began his career in politics the Act of
+Union had but lately been passed. That Act of Union deprived Ireland
+of the more or less independent Parliament which she had had for
+generations and even for centuries. It was indeed a Parliament "more
+or less" independent&mdash;less, perhaps, much rather than more. Still
+there had been always a recognition of Irish nationality in the
+existence of any form of Irish Parliament. The troubles between
+England and her American colonies&mdash;between England and France&mdash;had led
+to the concession of what we now know as Grattan's Parliament&mdash;the
+nearest form of Home Rule Ireland had ever enjoyed since her conquest
+by the descendants of the great Norman kings. But it was a Parliament
+of Protestants&mdash;no Catholic, in a nation of which five-sixths were
+Catholics, could sit in the National Parliament or even give a vote
+for a member of that National Parliament. Grattan's Parliament was
+exclusively Protestant; but yet, with all its imperfections, so
+nationalist was it in spirit that it was willing, under Grattan's
+inspiration, to enable Roman Catholics to vote for the election of
+members of the Irish House of Commons. But Grattan and his friends
+were anxious to go much farther. They demanded a complete political
+equality for the Roman Catholics. A society was formed for the purpose
+of conducting the agitation. Its leaders were almost all
+Protestants&mdash;many of them were Protestants from Ulster. The stupid
+bigotry of George the Third bluntly refused Catholic Emancipation; and
+the Society of United Irishmen became a rebellious organization. The
+rebellion of 1798 broke out and was crushed after terrible bloodshed.
+Then, when Ireland was wholly at the mercy of England, Pitt brought in
+his proposal for an Act of Union. After much resistance from all that
+was patriotic in Ireland and all that was sympathetic in England, the
+Act of Union was carried&mdash;by fraud and force and bribery and purchase.
+It has to be remembered with satisfaction that some of the noblest
+Englishmen of the time were as strenuously opposed to such a measure
+as Grattan himself. Pitt had made liberal promises about Catholic
+Emancipation while he was striving to carry the Act of Union, but when
+the Act was passed he dropped all talk about Catholic Emancipation,
+and pleaded as his excuse that the king would not listen to any
+further proposals on the subject. O'Connell's first political speech
+was made in January, 1800, at a meeting of Catholics held in Dublin to
+protest against the Act of Union.</p>
+
+<p>Something else had to be done, however, before it could be possible in
+Ireland to encounter the Act of Union with anything like a successful
+constitutional agitation. The right had to be obtained for a Catholic
+to sit in Parliament. The Catholic Association had been formed for the
+purpose, and O'Connell became its recognized leader, and, more than
+that, the recognized leader of the Irish people. Meanwhile there were
+constant efforts made in Parliament for the emancipation of the
+Catholics. Sir Robert Peel, who had begun his career as <span class="pagenum"><a id="page303" name="page303"></a>(p. 303)</span>
+Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had become
+Secretary of State for the Home Department&mdash;and it may be well to
+mention to American readers that the Irish Secretaryship is really a
+subordinate part of the Home Office. Peel, as Home Secretary, was
+necessarily kept in constant touch with everything going on in
+Ireland. He was greatly impressed by some of the debates in the House
+of Commons. He was especially impressed by an observation which Lord
+Brougham, then Mr. Brougham, made in a speech supporting Catholic
+Emancipation, to the effect that not one of those who spoke against
+emancipation had ventured even to suggest that things could remain as
+they then were. Something will have to be done, Peel said to himself.
+What is the something to be? The new king, George the Fourth, in whose
+succession to the throne O'Connell and Thomas Moore and the Irish
+people generally had had so much hope, was doggedly opposed to the
+political relief of the Catholics.</p>
+
+<p>Accident helped to bring about a settlement of the question. A sudden
+vacancy occurred in the Parliamentary representation of the County of
+Clare, owing to the fact that the former representative had accepted
+office in the government, and had therefore to offer himself for
+re-election. The leaders of the Catholic Association determined on the
+bold policy of putting forward a candidate to contest the seat.
+O'Connell, of course, was recognized by everyone as the man to fight
+the battle. He willingly accepted the responsibility. Even moderate
+men, partly sympathetic, shook their heads when they heard of this
+determination. "O'Connell will end his life on the gallows" was the
+confident prediction of some who passed among their neighbors for
+sensible persons. The Viceroy of Ireland predicted that O'Connell
+would take care to maintain good order in Clare during the election.
+O'Connell's opponent predicted that O'Connell would not dare to come
+to Clare in person; that he would not run the risk of confronting his
+enemies. O'Connell ran the risk&mdash;he was not a man likely to be afraid
+of risks. He went to Clare. The enthusiasm was wild, but the order was
+perfect. O'Connell, the excluded Catholic, was elected by a majority
+of more than two to one. The result set Peel thinking. What he thought
+we have in his own words. Was it possible to take no account of "that
+political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and
+fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population&mdash;which had
+inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and the energy of a
+freeman?" No, it was not possible. Peel soon made up his mind.</p>
+
+<p>O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons later
+on, but not until after Peel and Wellington had crammed emancipation
+down the king's throat and compelled him to accept it. Wellington
+seems to have reasoned much in this way: "I know nothing about the
+question&mdash;Peel knows all about it; Peel thinks it will be for the good
+of the king and the country to pass Catholic Emancipation; the king, I
+am sure, does not know any more about the matter than I do, and I am
+prepared to go with Peel, and the king must come with us. Peel thinks
+there must be civil war if we don't pass Catholic Emancipation, and I
+have had too much of war in my time&mdash;and I don't propose to stand
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page304" name="page304"></a>(p. 304)</span> a civil war&mdash;not if I know it." The king had, of course, to
+give way in the end, and Catholic Emancipation was passed. It was
+passed rather ungraciously. It was accompanied by a quite superfluous
+measure suppressing the Catholic Association, which had in fact
+already dissolved itself, its work being done, and invalidating the
+election of O'Connell. Perhaps, without these sops to religious
+bigotry, an act for the emancipation of the Catholics could not then
+have been carried through the Houses of Parliament. O'Connell
+presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons and claimed a
+right to take his seat. He was called upon to swear the old
+oaths&mdash;what we may fairly call the anti-Catholic oaths. Of course he
+refused. A new writ was ordered for Clare, and O'Connell was
+triumphantly returned. The struggle was over.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of O'Connell's life was devoted mainly to the cause of
+Repeal of the Union&mdash;in other words, the cause of Home Rule. He
+organized the great system of monster meetings&mdash;vast out-of-door
+gatherings, which he swayed as he pleased by the magic of his
+eloquence, his humor, his passion, and the charm of his wonderful
+voice. No doubt he sometimes used very strong language; no doubt some
+of the younger men fully believed that he meant rebellion&mdash;that he had
+rebellion up his sleeve if his demands were not conceded. The meetings
+were always held on the Sunday; were indeed, regarded as, in a certain
+sense, religious celebrations. The meeting of October 8, 1843, was to
+be held on the historic ground of Clontarf, and it was expected to be
+the greatest of all the assemblages, although some of them had drawn
+together a crowd of nearly a quarter of a million of men. The
+Government issued a proclamation prohibiting the meeting, and
+O'Connell bowed to the prohibition. He sent messengers in every
+direction countermanding the assembling of men, in order to prevent
+any chance of that disorder and bloodshed which he had always shrunk
+from and abhorred. He and some of his friends, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy
+among the rest, were put on their trial on a charge of sedition. Most
+of them were found guilty and sentenced to fine and imprisonment. They
+were confined in Richmond Prison, Dublin. Their incarceration did not
+last long, and indeed, was what might be called "internment" rather
+than actual imprisonment. A majority of the law lords in the House of
+Peers, the final tribunal, annulled the sentences on the ground that
+the jury had been unfairly chosen&mdash;was packed, in fact. O'Connell and
+his colleagues were set free after a few months; but the leader never
+recovered his former ascendency over the political movement of
+Ireland. He was growing old; he had been reckless of his great
+physical resources, he had been unsparing of his strength; and
+undoubtedly, the younger men in the agitation fell away from him when
+he had made it clear that he never meant, under any conditions, to
+lead them into revolution. A number of his young and brilliant
+followers set up a party of their own&mdash;the Young Ireland
+Confederation&mdash;which after his death drifted into a generous, but
+hopeless, rebellion. The Young Ireland movement, however, quickened
+and established a national literature which had an immense effect on
+subsequent political history in Ireland. The Irish famine of 1846 and
+1847 was a terrible blow to O'Connell in his rapidly <span class="pagenum"><a id="page305" name="page305"></a>(p. 305)</span>
+weakening health. His last speech in the House of Commons was an
+appeal for a generous help to Ireland, and a prediction, which proved
+only too true, that if generous help were not given, one-fourth of
+Ireland's population must perish by starvation. His physicians ordered
+him to the Continent, and he passionately longed to reach Rome and die
+under the shadow of the Vatican. He had during some of his years led a
+wild life, and he had killed a man in a duel&mdash;a duel which was
+literally forced upon him, but for which he always felt deeply
+penitent. His ultimate longing had come to be a quiet death in the
+papal city. He was not graced so far. He died in Genoa on May 15,
+1847.</p>
+
+<p>As a politician O'Connell was absolutely consistent. He was in favor
+of liberty for Ireland, but he was in favor of liberty for every other
+country. His definition of liberty was practical and not merely
+declamatory. He was in favor of equal rights for all men before the
+law; he was in favor of a free press, a free vote, and as nearly as
+possible a manhood suffrage. He was in many ways far in advance of the
+English liberals of his day. When the question of slavery in the West
+Indian colonies was under discussion in Parliament, he went farther
+for abolition than even the professed philanthropists and
+emancipationists, the Clarksons and the Buxtons, were inclined to go.
+He was almost fanatically opposed to the advocates of the slave system
+in the United States, and he refused to receive any help in money from
+them to carry on his Repeal agitation. He declined to endure any
+political dictation from the Vatican, although he was a most devoted
+Roman Catholic. He would take, he said, without question his religion
+from Rome, but not his politics. There was no great cause of freedom
+upheld all through the world in his time, but he clung to it and
+cleaved to it. The writer of this article once talked to Mr. Gladstone
+about O'Connell, well knowing that in early life Mr. Gladstone had
+been a great admirer of O'Connell's abilities. Mr. Gladstone told many
+anecdotes of O'Connell's personal energy in pursuit of any purpose
+which he believed to be just, and in illustration of his wonderful
+mastery over even a thoroughly hostile audience. When asked what he
+believed to be O'Connell's principal characteristic, Mr. Gladstone
+paused for a while and thought the question out, and then gravely and
+deliberately answered: "I should think his greatest characteristic was
+a passion of philanthropy." A passion of philanthropy! Is it possible
+to have a nobler epitaph pronounced on one than that&mdash;and pronounced
+by such a man? No man in our modern history was ever so bitterly and
+savagely denounced in England as O'Connell. No words were too rough
+for him. He was commonly called in English newspapers the "Big
+Beggarman." He was accused every day, of making a fortune out of the
+contributions of a half-starving people. The truth was that all and
+much more than all the money raised by the Irish people, was spent on
+the agitation for repeal of the Union. The truth was that O'Connell
+gave up his splendid practice at the bar, for the sake of advocating
+the Irish national cause. The truth was that he spent his own money
+and reduced his own property to all but pauperism, for the sake of
+advancing the same cause. The truth was that he died poor, leaving his
+children poor. But he had his reward. A man whom Mr. Gladstone could
+describe <span class="pagenum"><a id="page306" name="page306"></a>(p. 306)</span> as possessed above all other things by a passion of
+philanthropy, may leave his memory safely in the charge of those whose
+best interests he honestly strove to serve.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig006" name="sig006"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig006.jpg" width="250" height="54" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+<h3>SIMON BOLIVAR<a id="footnotetag9" name="footnotetag9"></a><a href="#footnote9" title="Go to footnote 9"><span class="smaller">[9]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Hon. John P. St. John</span><br>
+(1783-1830)</h3>
+
+<a id="img028" name="img028"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img028.jpg" width="250" height="309" alt="Bolivar." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>So far as the world knew, the birth of Simon Bolivar at Caracas,
+Venezuela, on July 24, 1783, was of no greater importance than that of
+any other child. Perhaps but one person entertained the slightest
+thought that he would ever be the hero of many battles and the
+liberator of his countrymen; and that person was his mother. A mother,
+as a rule, always in her imagination anticipates a brilliant future
+for her boy. If Bolivar's mother was not an exception to this rule,
+surely her highest anticipations were fully realized in the wonderful
+career of her son.</p>
+
+<p>His father, Juan Vincente Bolivar y Ponte, and his mother, Maria
+Concepcion Palacios y Sojo, were descendants of noble families in
+Venezuela. Nothing unusual occurred in his school-boy days to
+distinguish him from others of his age and rank. He was attentive to
+his studies, warm-hearted, generous, and always a favorite among his
+associates. When he had made sufficient advancement in his studies at
+home, and had arrived at the proper age, he was sent to Madrid, where
+he remained several years, during which time he completed his
+education.</p>
+
+<p>Bolivar was now a full-grown man, and as a source of needed recreation
+after years of hard study, he spent some time in visiting places of
+special interest in the south of Europe. On his journey he stopped for
+a time at the French capital, where he witnessed the closing scenes of
+the French revolution. This was the hour of Napoleon's greatest glory.
+He was the acknowledged military hero of the age. All France bowed at
+his feet. Is it not probable that here was where Bolivar caught the
+inspiration that led him to make an effort to be to his own <span class="pagenum"><a id="page307" name="page307"></a>(p. 307)</span>
+country, what Napoleon was to France? From Paris Bolivar returned to
+Madrid, where, in 1801, he married the daughter of Don N. Toro, uncle
+of the Marquis of Toro, in Caracas. He soon sailed with his young
+bride for his native country, but it was only a little while until she
+fell a victim to yellow fever. The sudden and unexpected death of his
+young wife, to whom he was intensely devoted, so shattered his health
+and frustrated his plans, that he wended his way back to Europe, where
+he remained until 1809, when he returned through the United States to
+his own country. His remembrance of the closing scenes of the French
+revolution, and the realization as he passed through the United States
+of the blessings of her free institutions, no doubt account in some
+measure for the fact that, as soon as he reached Venezuela, he joined
+the movement then crystallizing into an aggressive warfare for
+independence, and a larger degree of freedom for his own countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>In 1810 he received a colonel's commission from the revolutionary
+junta, and was associated with Luis Lopez Mendez in a mission to the
+court of Great Britain, which was rendered fruitless by England
+announcing her position in relation to the troubles in Venezuela as
+one of strict neutrality. On July 5, 1811, Venezuela formally declared
+her independence from the mother-country. This brought on a clash of
+arms at once.</p>
+
+<p>The Spanish troops under Monteverde, owing to a lack of concert of
+action on the part of the "patriots," forced Bolivar, with his little
+band of volunteers, to abandon the important post of Puerto Cabello,
+and flee to Curaçao, which was reached in safety, while Monteverde at
+the head of the Spanish troops gained control of Venezuela.</p>
+
+<p>Chafing under defeat, Bolivar, in September, 1812, repaired to
+Carthagena, where a commission was given him to make war upon the
+Spanish troops along the Magdalena River. Although his army numbered
+but 500 men, he succeeded in driving the enemy, not only from the
+country along the Magdalena River, but entered Venezuela, and forced
+his way westward to the important towns of Merida and Truxillo, where
+the people gladly welcomed him and rallied to his support. Encouraged
+by his success, and embittered by the brutalities of the enemy, as he
+pressed forward he issued his noted proclamation of "War to the
+death."</p>
+
+<p>He soon routed Monteverde's army at Lastoguanes, forcing him to take
+refuge in Puerto Cabello, while Bolivar pushed forward, entering
+Caracas in triumph August 4, 1813. But the tide of battle soon turned.
+The Royalists concentrated all their available force, and a number of
+bloody battles ensued, and finally Bolivar's men, inferior in numbers,
+were badly defeated near Cura. The fall of Caracas soon followed, and
+before the close of the year 1814 the Royalists were again in full
+possession of Venezuela. Though defeated, Bolivar was not dismayed. He
+had great faith in the righteousness of his cause, and his
+consciousness of this fact seemed to give him that courage which never
+knows defeat.</p>
+
+<p>He next went to Tunja, where the revolutionary congress was in
+session, and notwithstanding the misfortunes of war and the bitter
+opposition of a few personal <span class="pagenum"><a id="page308" name="page308"></a>(p. 308)</span> enemies, his enthusiastic
+reception showed that he still retained the confidence and respect of
+the people. He was soon given command of an expedition against Santa
+Fé de Bogota, where Don Cundinamarca had refused official recognition
+of the new union of the provinces, which, without any conflict of
+arms, was crowned with success by the surrender of the rebellious
+leaders. For this service Bolivar received the special thanks of
+Congress. The Royalists having captured Santa Martha, Bolivar was
+ordered to retake it, but failed in his attempt.</p>
+
+<p>In May, 1814, he resigned his commission, and went to Kingston,
+Jamaica, where an attempt was made to assassinate him, which resulted,
+by a mistake, in the murder of another. Later on he went to Aux Cayes,
+in Hayti, where President Petion assisted him in organizing an
+expedition which, though it succeeded in reaching the main-land in
+May, 1816, eventually failed. But Bolivar's past experience had taught
+him not to go wild over a victory, nor be discouraged by a defeat, so
+he returned to Aux Cayes, where he secured reinforcements, and in
+December landed his troops, first at Marguerite, and then at
+Barcelona. At this point a provisional government was formed and all
+the available military force was promptly organized, and placed in
+readiness to resist the invasion of Morillo, who was at the head of a
+strong, well-disciplined army of Royalists. The opposing forces met on
+February 16, 1817, and a desperate battle, lasting three days, ensued,
+resulting in a complete rout of the Royalists, who, while retreating
+in great disorder, were assailed with such impetuosity by small bands
+of patriots, as to make their overthrow complete.</p>
+
+<p>Being now the undisputed commander-in-chief, Bolivar seemed
+irresistible. Victory after victory crowned his efforts, until he
+established his head-quarters at Angostura, on the Orinoco. From this
+point, after a thorough reorganization of his forces, he pressed
+forward over the Cordilleras, and effected a junction with the army
+headed by General Santander, commander of the Republican forces in New
+Granada. The armies thus united proved to be invincible. The entire
+march was characterized by a succession of victories, ending in a
+complete overthrow of the enemy on August 7, 1819, at Bojaca, which
+gave him full possession, not only of Bogota, but of all New Granada.
+This brilliant achievement attracted the attention of the civilized
+world then, and as we read about it now, it forcibly reminds us, in
+its conception, the skill and rapidity of its execution, and its
+results, of the wonderful march of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea.
+Taking advantage of the great prestige his marvellous victories had
+given him with the people, he procured the passage of a fundamental
+law, December 17, 1819, uniting Venezuela and New Granada under one
+government, to be known as the Republic of Colombia, of which Bolivar
+was made president.</p>
+
+<p>Bolivar was now at the head of the grandest army he had ever
+commanded. The Royalists, under Morillo, having been beaten at several
+points, induced Bolivar, at Truxillo on November 20, 1820, to consent
+to an armistice for six months, which he did; no doubt with the hope
+that meantime a treaty of peace might be effected and the war thus
+brought to an end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page309" name="page309"></a>(p. 309)</span> Subsequent events, however, gave strong reasons to believe
+that the armistice was a mere ruse to gain time while Morillo could be
+recalled and General Torre placed in command. Bolivar, no doubt
+incensed by this apparent trick, determined, upon the expiration of
+the armistice, to strike a blow that would not soon be forgotten;
+which he did at Carabolo, by attacking and completely routing General
+Torre's command, compelling the fleeing fragments to seek shelter in
+Puerto Cabello, where two years after they surrendered to Paez. This
+practically closed the war in Venezuela. On August 30, 1821, the
+constitution of Colombia was adopted amid great rejoicing, with
+Bolivar as president and Santander as vice-president. But there was
+more work to do, and no one could do it so well as Bolivar. He
+determined that nowhere should the Royalists have a foothold in the
+whole country. He attacked them at Pichincha, in Ecuador, and after a
+desperate struggle they were forced to retreat in disorder, while
+victorious Bolivar with his enthusiastic followers triumphantly
+entered Quito, June 22, 1822. Next Lima was taken, but owing to the
+dissensions among the Republican factions in Peru, Bolivar was
+compelled to abandon the city, which was again occupied by the
+Royalists, while he withdrew to Truxillo.</p>
+
+<p>Having thoroughly reorganized his forces, and gotten everything in
+good condition for an aggressive warfare, he again assaulted the
+Royalists with unrelenting vigor, driving them before him, and finally
+administering a crushing defeat on the plains of Junin, August 6th;
+after which he returned to Lima, leaving Sucre, who had already
+displayed great military skill and bravery, to complete the work. This
+he did, by gaining a great victory at Ayacucho, which completely
+dispersed the Royalists, reducing their possessions in Peru to the
+Castles of Callao, which Rodil, after a little over a year's
+successful resistance, was compelled to surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Upper Peru having detached itself from Buenos Ayres, was organized as
+a separate state under the name of Bolivia, in honor of the man who
+had accomplished so much for its freedom, and who by the first
+Congress of the new republic, which convened in August, 1825, was made
+perpetual Protector, and requested to prepare for it a constitution.</p>
+
+<p>The country having been freed from armed resistance on the part of the
+Royalists, it next became Bolivar's duty to provide laws for the
+proper government of the people. Time proved this to be a more
+difficult task than meeting an open enemy on the field of battle. Many
+local leaders had been developed during the struggle for independence,
+among whom no little ill feeling was aroused by their scramble for
+recognition. Then there were some who were jealous of Bolivar's great
+popularity and influence with the people. They were busy in trying to
+turn public opinion against him by telling the people that he would
+use his power to add to, rather than lighten, their burdens. This
+feeling was intensified when he presented his plan of government for
+Bolivia to Congress on May 25, 1826, accompanied by an address in
+which he doubted the wisdom of extending the right of franchise
+indiscriminately to the people, and showed clearly his preference for
+a centralization of power, by proposing a president for life clothed
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page310" name="page310"></a>(p. 310)</span> with supreme executive powers, including the right to name
+his successor. It was charged by his enemies that this would be a
+monarchy in fact, and a republic only in name.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Paez, military commander in Venezuela, refused to recognize
+the constituted authorities, and assumed an attitude of open
+rebellion. But the presence in a short time of Bolivar, his old
+commander, followed by a personal interview and a decree of general
+amnesty, resulted in a complete restoration of peace and loyal
+adherence to the government. Bolivar and Santander having been
+re-elected to the respective offices of president and vice-president,
+Bolivar, before the time fixed by law for him to take the oath of
+office, resigned the presidency of the republic, with a view to
+retiring into private life, and thus refuting the charges made against
+him by personal enemies, that he was simply working in his own
+interest, and for his own personal aggrandizement.</p>
+
+<p>But in response to Santander's earnest appeal, and a resolution of
+Congress urging him to resume his position as president, Bolivar went
+to Bogota, and there took upon himself the oath of office.</p>
+
+<p>He soon issued three decrees: One granting general amnesty, another
+calling a national convention at Ocana, and a third for the
+establishment of constitutional order throughout Colombia. All eyes
+were now turned to the national convention at Ocana, which was to
+assemble in March, 1828. This was made the more important by the fact
+that it was to determine whether Bolivar's plan for a strong
+centralized government, backed up by ample military force, or a
+government controlled more directly by the great body of the people,
+should prevail. The events of the past year had served rather to
+strengthen Bolivar's position, and the action of the convention seems
+to have crystallized it into law, for a decree soon followed, dated
+August 27, 1828, giving to Bolivar supreme power over Colombia, which
+he continued to exercise until his death, which occurred at San Pedro,
+on December 17, 1830.</p>
+
+<p>Thus closes the life of one of the most remarkable characters the
+world has ever known. He possessed the intrepid courage and dash of a
+Sherman, the unrelenting firmness of a Grant, and the tenderness of a
+Lincoln. Local revolts against lawful authority always yielded to his
+personal presence and counsel. We fail to find in his history a single
+act of cruelty recorded against him. His proclamation of "War to the
+death," was a military necessity. The Royalists had shown no mercy to
+his soldiers. They had refused to treat them as prisoners of war. They
+had fired upon his flag of truce. They gave no quarter to
+revolutionists, but put them to death wherever found. And there was
+but one alternative left, and that was, unpleasant as it must have
+been to a man of such kindly nature, to meet such brutalities by a
+threat of retaliation in kind. The proclamation was not prompted by a
+spirit of cruelty, but rather by a love for humanity. It had the
+effect which he no doubt intended it should, and that was to secure
+the same treatment for his soldiers when captured, that the civilized
+world acknowledged due to prisoners of war. He was in no sense
+mercenary. He expended nine-tenths of his fortune for his country's
+freedom, and when voted a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page311" name="page311"></a>(p. 311)</span> million dollars by Congress he
+promptly declined it. He was always magnanimous, even to his bitterest
+enemies. He died comparatively poor. His remains sleep at Caracas, the
+place of his birth. His soul is with God. Monuments have been erected
+to his memory, one at Caracas and another at Lima. But his life-work
+has erected a monument in the hearts of his countrymen that will never
+perish. He sowed the seed for the harvest of a better government and
+higher civilization for all Spanish America. The influence of his
+example is not confined to his own country, but is felt throughout the
+civilized world. To-day, among the brightest and best of the world's
+good and great men, may justly be placed the name of Simon Bolivar.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig007" name="sig007"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig007.jpg" width="300" height="105" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>JEAN FRANÇOIS CHAMPOLLION<a id="footnotetag10" name="footnotetag10"></a><a href="#footnote10" title="Go to footnote 10"><span class="smaller">[10]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Georg Ebers</span><br>
+(1790-1832)</h3>
+
+<a id="img029" name="img029"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img029.jpg" width="300" height="176" alt="The pyramids of Gyzeh." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The deciphering of hieroglyphics is one of the greatest achievements
+of the human race in this century. Jean François Champollion was the
+man who accomplished this great feat. He is surnamed "<span class="italic">le jeune</span>," the
+younger, to distinguish him from his elder brother, Champollion
+Figeac, whose life was one of paternal devotion and the most unselfish
+sacrifice for his younger brother. Both were born in Figeac, in the
+south of France, François on December 23, 1790. He made his home,
+however, in the beautiful little town of Grenoble, situated on the
+hills near the valley of the Isère. It was to this place that
+Champollion Figeac, who was here engaged as director of the town
+library, and later on as professor of Greek at the university, drew
+his twelve years younger brother François, who, at <span class="pagenum"><a id="page312" name="page312"></a>(p. 312)</span> the age
+of nine, went to live with his elder brother, filled with the proudest
+hopes for the future, and grateful for the care and devotion bestowed
+upon him.</p>
+
+<p>At that time, naturally, all eyes were turned toward Egypt, where the
+First Consul, Bonaparte, had led the army of the Republic, accompanied
+by a host of celebrated men of science. The newly opened world of
+monuments on the banks of the Nile excited the greatest interest in
+everybody; but for few did it have as strong an attraction as for
+Champollion Figeac, who had occupied himself long previously with the
+study of the history and language of the ancient Egyptians.
+Furthermore, he and his brother François came, so to say, into
+indirect contact with the great expedition. For the famous
+mathematician Fourier, who had gone out with it, became afterward
+prefect of Grenoble, and one of Figeac's warmest and most intimate
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>François, who, at the age of twelve, was already fully master of the
+classic languages, had, surrounded by the rich collection of books
+placed in his brother's care, drifted into a territory which is not
+embraced in the usual high-school curriculum, viz., the Oriental
+languages. While still at school, and during his leisure hours, he
+mastered with wonderful energy, aided as it was by an almost
+phenomenal power for acquiring knowledge, the Hebrew and most other
+Semitic languages, as also Sanscrit and Persian. As, however, Egypt
+had the greatest attraction for him, he also studied the Coptic
+dialect, the language of the Egyptians during the early centuries
+after Christ, which was written in Greek letters with some few others
+added. Withal, the remarkable youth was cheerful and companionable,
+finding time even to practise his poetic gifts; nor did his physical
+development suffer through the severe exertion of his mind. His
+portrait, in the Louvre in Paris, represents him in manhood with
+bronzed skin, easily allowing him to be recognized as a native of the
+South of France. His nose is slightly bent, his forehead lofty, his
+hair black and of great abundance. The dark eyes, shaded by heavy
+brows, express serenity&mdash;earnest and profound sincerity&mdash;while his
+well-formed mouth gives evidence of winning manners and the
+friendliness of his nature.</p>
+
+<p>At the age of seventeen he submitted his first work, a geography of
+ancient Egypt, to the Academy of Grenoble, which, notwithstanding his
+extreme youth, conferred upon him the degree of associate. Soon after
+he followed a course of lectures at the Oriental College of Paris.
+With youthful zeal he availed himself of the numerous educational
+advantages at his disposal in this great city, and gained even then
+the notice of the most prominent men of his profession. After two
+years' time, not quite twenty years of age, he was called to a
+position at the University of Grenoble.</p>
+
+<p>When Napoleon rested in this town on his way from Elba to Paris, in
+1815, he appointed the elder Champollion as his private secretary.</p>
+
+<p>The close relationship into which this position brought Figeac to the
+emperor, and his republican ideas after Napoleon's downfall&mdash;which
+ideas were shared by his brother François&mdash;were circumstances which,
+in later years, became great obstacles to their further advancement.
+They were looked upon as characters <span class="pagenum"><a id="page313" name="page313"></a>(p. 313)</span> dangerous to the state,
+and were deprived of their positions, while the Institute of France
+even withheld from François its protection.</p>
+
+<p>The brothers were banished to their old homestead, Figeac, where they
+found leisure in abundance to complete several unfinished works; and
+when in 1818, through the influence of the Duke of Decazes, their
+banishment was pronounced at an end, François had completed his great
+work, "L'Égypte sous les Pharaons."</p>
+
+<p>This work, of the utmost importance at the time, in the preparation of
+which the Coptic sources were freely drawn upon, won François his lost
+chair at the Grenoble University. After he had secured this post he
+was encouraged to found a home of his own. Rose Blanc was the
+bride-elect, with whom he was united in a most happy marriage until
+his death.</p>
+
+<p>Since many years François had occupied himself with the monument which
+gave promise to the possibility of deciphering hieroglyphics.</p>
+
+<p>During the French expedition, as it happened, the talisman was found
+which was to become the key to disclose the mystery of the language
+and the written signs of the Ancient Egyptians&mdash;the tablet or the key
+of Rosetta, a stone-plate made of black granite. Three inscriptions,
+written in different signs, covered the originally rectangular surface
+of the tablet. The uppermost one, considerably injured, showed the
+hieroglyphics, which were familiar through the obelisks and other
+Egyptian monuments; the second inscription was obscure; while the
+third and lowest inscription, which had suffered but little injury,
+consisted of Greek letters clear to every philologist. It proclaimed
+that the tablet contained a decree of the Egyptian priesthood, in
+honor of the fifth king of the house of the Ptolemies, and that this
+was written in the holy language, in that of the people of Egypt, and
+in Greek, on the same tablet. Here was, therefore, a somewhat
+extensive text in two of the three modes of writing of the Egyptians
+of which Clemens of Alexandria makes mention, with a Greek translation
+of the same. The fortunes of war brought this extraordinary monument
+into the hands of the English. It was placed in the British Museum,
+and care was taken that copies of the three inscriptions should reach
+the various Egyptologists, among them Champollion.</p>
+
+<p>The demotic inscription&mdash;that is to say, the text in the writing of
+the people, was one of the most inviting to decipher, because the
+signs composing it seemed to be letters representing sound. This was
+sedulously attempted by several scientists, and with the best results
+by the great French Orientalist, De Sacy, and by the Swede, Akerblad.
+But though the former by a mechanical method recognized correctly the
+meaning of several groups, and though Akerblad had even ascertained
+most of the signs of the demotic alphabet, still they were both
+incapable of discerning the elements of which the demotic writing is
+composed.</p>
+
+<p>The great English physician and naturalist, Thomas Young, who also
+occupied himself with the three various texts, made better progress.
+Taking advantage and making use of the parts that had been revealed to
+him by demotic and hieroglyphic text, he succeeded, in a mechanical
+way, and by intelligent comparisons <span class="pagenum"><a id="page314" name="page314"></a>(p. 314)</span> in deciphering the names
+Ptolemaios and Berenike, and in recognizing even the hieroglyphic
+signs for numbers. Still the true nature of the Egyptian writing was
+not revealed to him either. In their particulars his ascertainments
+are untrue, for in the names he had in no way discovered the
+alphabetic signs of which they were composed.</p>
+
+<p>As to the remainder of the inscription he thought that it consisted of
+such drawn signs or forms with symbolical significance as might be
+found interpreted in the "Hieroglyphica of Horapollon."</p>
+
+<p>That those groups of hieroglyphics surrounded by a frame (cartouche)
+are the names of kings, had been contended long before by the Dane
+Zoëge, Barthélemy, and others. The framed hieroglyphics on the tablet
+of Rosetta could, as the Greek text taught, signify but the name of
+Ptolemaios. Champollion also had originally held the same erroneous
+opinion as Young and his predecessors. Though he succeeded in defining
+several groups of characters of the people's writing, like Akerblad,
+by comparison, he, even as late as 1821, in his essay on
+hieroglyphics, entitled "De l'Écriture hiératique des Anciens
+Égyptiens," declares them to be symbolical signs and figures.</p>
+
+<p>But he knew of Young's successful comparisons with Greek names; and
+when Mr. Bankes brought a small obelisk to England from the island of
+Philæ, on which the framed group of hieroglyphics were bound to
+contain the names of Ptolemaios and Cleopatra, because a Greek
+inscription at the foot of the obelisk mentioned these royal names, a
+firm starting-point was created by Champollion, from which he was to
+succeed in removing the mass of obstacles which had stood in the way
+of all previous explorations and researches.</p>
+
+<p>He made his basis the supposition that the framed names were
+constructed of alphabetic signs. The name Ptolemaios was known through
+the tablet of Rosetta. If the second name on Bankes's obelisk were
+Cleopatra, a comparison of the two names should confirm this. The
+first letter in the name Ptolemaios being a "p" it should occur as
+fifth letter in Cleopatra. And this was actually the case. The third
+letter in Ptolemaios, the "o," was found again as the fourth one in
+Cleopatra. The fourth sign in Ptolemaios, "l," a lion, occurred
+correctly as the second one in Cleopatra. By further comparison every
+sign was correctly found, and when Champollion had deciphered a group
+of signs which he took to be Alexander, and again found every letter
+in its right place, he could assure himself that hieroglyphics also
+were based on the phonetic system.</p>
+
+<p>He soon, with the aid of the letters discovered in the above-mentioned
+groups, deciphered other well-known names of kings, and in this way
+acquired a knowledge of the whole hieroglyphic alphabet. But the many
+hundred forms and signs, of which the holy scriptures of the Egyptians
+are composed, could not well be of an altogether alphabetic nature,
+and a further study of the subject brought the explorer to the
+conclusion that ideographs were interspersed among the alphabetical
+signs in order to make the alphabetic words more comprehensive. For
+instance, after a masculine proper name the picture of a man was
+drawn, and after every word connected with the motion of walking, the
+picture of two pacing legs. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page315" name="page315"></a>(p. 315)</span> Besides this, he found that some
+sounds could be represented by different hieroglyphics. With this the
+most important elements of hieroglyphics were disclosed, and it was
+all accomplished in one year, from 1821-22. When François, after a
+period of extraordinary mental exertion, appeared before his brother
+one morning with all the proofs in his hands, calling to him, "<span class="italic">Je
+tiens l'affaire; vois!</span>" (I have found it; look here!) he fell to the
+floor fainting, worn out by the immense exertions of the last few
+months.</p>
+
+<p>It required some time for him to recover his health; but Figeac read,
+on September 17, 1822, his brother's pamphlet at the Academy in Paris.
+It appeared under the name of "Lettre à M. Dacier," and contained the
+details of his discovery.</p>
+
+<p>That day decided Champollion's future career. As early as the year
+following he published his new work, "Précis du système
+hiéroglyphique," after which Louis Philippe of Orleans had the
+discovery officially announced before the Oriental Association, and
+Louis XVIII. made it his royal duty to lighten Champollion's future
+work.</p>
+
+<p>The "Précis" embraces the foregoing results of his discovery, and
+considering the short space of time in which all this was
+accomplished, it appears marvellous that François could thus early
+determine the most important elements of the hieroglyphic system in
+their minute details so correctly. In 1824 the king sent him to Italy,
+where he profited principally by the splendid collection of Egyptian
+antiquities in Turin. In 1826 Charles X. appointed him director of the
+Egyptian Museum in the Louvre, which Champollion founded by purchasing
+at Liverno the celebrated "Salt Collection."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his return to France the king sent him on a mission to
+Egypt, where he remained from August, 1828, till the end of 1829. The
+Italian Rosellini joined him on the Nile.</p>
+
+<p>His "Lettres écrites d'Égypte et de la Nubie" render his observations
+and impressions and describe his life and adventures in Egypt, in a
+most entertaining and instructive style. The many and various
+inscriptions, copied there by him, are all quoted in his great work on
+monuments, entitled, "Monuments de l'Égypte et de la Nubie," and in
+his posthumous work, "Notices descriptives conformes aux manuscrits
+autographes rédigés sur les lieux."</p>
+
+<p>Soon after his return to Paris (in March, 1830), by which time his
+health had commenced to fail, he was elected a Member of the Academy,
+and in March, 1831, was appointed professor at the "College de
+France." The solidity and instructiveness of his lectures brought the
+most celebrated leaders in science to hear him, but there were
+destined to be but few of the lectures, as he all too soon felt
+himself too weak to continue them. On March 4, 1832, at his old
+homestead Figeac, a stroke of apoplexy ended his active life of
+achievement.</p>
+
+<p>His great discovery was at first vigorously attacked. Erring minds
+declaring the system of the great Frenchman to be wrong, and
+submitting others of their own, as the Russian Klaproth and the German
+Seyffarth, disturbed Champollion's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page316" name="page316"></a>(p. 316)</span> peace; still more
+bitterly, however, was he pursued by the envy and hatred of his
+political opponents.</p>
+
+<p>Even when the laurel already decorated his brow, they saw to it that
+the thorns were not wanting in the wreath. Especially in England
+various efforts were made to have, not him, but Thomas Young,
+recognized as the discoverer of the science of deciphering
+hieroglyphics. But though Young had succeeded previously to
+Champollion in deciphering some hieroglyphic names in a mechanical
+way, yet the genial Englishman mistook, during the whole course of his
+activity, the real character of hieroglyphic writing. To Champollion,
+on the other hand, it was left to recognize their nature and
+construction, so that science must acknowledge him to be the
+discoverer of the true nature of the system of hieroglyphical writing.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly before his death it was vouchsafed him to proclaim to his
+loyal brother, "<span class="italic">Voici ma carte pour la postérité</span>," pointing to the
+manuscript of his "Egyptian Grammar," of which the last chapter was
+still missing. It contains the germs from which all similar works have
+sprung, which since have perfected and enlarged that of Champollion;
+it showed the path in which all subsequent grammarians were to walk.
+The results of Young's discoveries remain without influence upon the
+progress of the science, and have found a place long since among old
+relics.</p>
+
+<p>François Champollion's work is the seed, which even at the present day
+brings forth the richest fruits. When he died, at the age of
+forty-two, he left the world not only his "Egyptian Grammar," but also
+pioneer works in other branches of his science.</p>
+
+<p>His "Panthéon Égyptien" (1823-25) dealt with Egyptian mythology; his
+excellent knowledge of Coptic is clearly seen in many of his works;
+and his "Egyptian Dictionary of Hieroglyphics" (1841-44) is, bearing
+in mind the time when it was written, a work of marvellous
+accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p>This dictionary, with several other works and manuscripts of his
+literary estate, which the French Government had purchased for the sum
+of fifty thousand francs, were faithfully and lovingly edited and
+published after his death by his elder brother, Figeac. These
+posthumous works bear witness not only to the overwhelming industry of
+this great worker and explorer, but also to the loving unselfishness
+of his brother, who sacrificed a great part of his time and activity
+in editing and arranging the manuscripts of the departed. The
+"Grammar," the "Monuments," the "Dictionary," were all published by
+Figeac. At "Père Lachaise" Cemetery, in Paris, a weather-beaten
+obelisk and a broken stone tablet indicate the spot where the remains
+of François Champollion rest.</p>
+
+<p>A monument which was erected in his honor at his native town, Figeac,
+bears the well-chosen inscription which so frequently occurs among the
+titles of the Pharaohs in hieroglyphics, "'<span class="italic">anch zete</span>," i.e.,
+"everlasting." A beautiful sentence, which Chateaubriand addressed to
+the faithful brother and co-worker of the great searcher, is also
+inscribed on the statue of François Champollion, le <span class="pagenum"><a id="page317" name="page317"></a>(p. 317)</span> jeune.
+It reads: "Ses admirables travaux auront la durée des monuments qu'il
+nous a fait connaître." (His admirable works will last as long as the
+monuments which he has taught us to understand.)<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig008" name="sig008"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig008.jpg" width="200" height="72" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>ANDREW JACKSON<a id="footnotetag11" name="footnotetag11"></a><a href="#footnote11" title="Go to footnote 11"><span class="smaller">[11]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson</span><br>
+(1767-1845)</h3>
+
+<a id="img030" name="img030"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img030.jpg" width="300" height="358" alt="Andrew Jackson." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Dr. Von Holst, the most philosophic of historians, when he passes from
+the period of John Quincy Adams to that of his successor, is
+reluctantly compelled to leave the realm of pure history for that of
+biography, and to entitle a chapter "The Reign of Andrew Jackson."
+This change of treatment could, indeed, hardly be helped. Under Adams
+all was impersonal, methodical, a government of laws and not of men.
+With an individuality quite as strong as that of Jackson&mdash;as the whole
+nation learned ere his life ended&mdash;it had yet been the training of his
+earlier career to suppress himself, and be simply a perfect official.
+His policy aided the vast progress of the nation, but won no credit by
+the process. Men saw with wonder the westward march of an expanding
+people, but forgot to notice the sedate, passionless, orderly
+administration that held the door open and kept the peace <span class="pagenum"><a id="page318" name="page318"></a>(p. 318)</span>
+for all. In studying the time of Adams, we think of the nation; in
+observing that of Jackson, we think of Jackson himself. In him we see
+the first popular favorite of a nation now well out of
+leading-strings, and particularly bent on going alone. By so much as
+he differed from Adams, by so much the people liked him better. His
+conquests had been those of war, always more dazzling than those of
+peace; his temperament was of fire, always more attractive than one of
+marble. He was helped by what he had done, and by what he had not
+done. Even his absence of diplomatic training was almost counted for a
+virtue, because all this training was necessarily European, and the
+demand had ripened for a purely American product.</p>
+
+<p>It had been quite essential to the self-respect of the new republic,
+at the outset, that it should have at its head men who had coped with
+European statesmen on their own soil and not been discomfited. This
+was the case with each of the early successors of Washington, and in
+view of his manifest superiority this advantage was not needed.
+Perhaps it was in a different way a sign of self-respect that the new
+republic should at last turn from this tradition, and take boldly from
+the ranks a strong and ill-trained leader, to whom all European
+precedent&mdash;and, indeed, all other precedent, counted for nothing. In
+Jackson, moreover, there first appeared upon our national stage the
+since familiar figure of the self-made man. Other presidents had
+sprung from a modest origin, but nobody had made an especial point of
+it. Nobody had urged Washington for office because he had been a
+surveyor's lad; nobody had voted for Adams because stately old ladies
+designated him as "that cobbler's son." But when Jackson came into
+office the people had just had almost a surfeit of regular training in
+their chief magistrates. There was a certain zest in the thought of a
+change, and the nation certainly had it.</p>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that Jackson was in many ways far above the
+successive modern imitators who have posed in his image. He was
+narrow, ignorant, violent, unreasonable; he punished his enemies and
+rewarded his friends. But he was, on the other hand&mdash;and his worst
+opponents hardly denied it&mdash;chaste, honest, truthful, and sincere. It
+was not commonly charged upon him that he enriched himself at the
+public expense, or that he deliberately invented falsehoods. And as he
+was for a time more bitterly hated than anyone who ever occupied his
+high office, we may be very sure that these things would have been
+charged had it been possible. In this respect the contrast was
+enormous between Jackson and his imitators, and it explains his
+prolonged influence. He never was found out or exposed before the
+world, because there was nothing to detect or unveil; his merits and
+demerits were as visible as his long, narrow, firmly set features, or
+as the old military stock that encircled his neck. There he was,
+always fully revealed; everybody could see him; the people might take
+him or leave him&mdash;and they never left him.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, there was, after the eight years of Monroe and the four
+years of Adams, an immense popular demand for something piquant and
+even amusing, and this quality they always had from Jackson. There was
+nothing in the least <span class="pagenum"><a id="page319" name="page319"></a>(p. 319)</span> melodramatic about him; he never posed
+or attitudinized&mdash;it would have required too much patience; but he was
+always piquant. There was formerly a good deal of discussion as to who
+wrote the once famous "Jack Downing's" letters, but we might almost
+say that they wrote themselves. Nobody was ever less of a humorist
+than Andrew Jackson, and it was therefore the more essential that he
+should be the cause of humor in others. It was simply inevitable that
+during his progresses through the country there should be some amusing
+shadow evoked, some Yankee parody of the man, such as came from two or
+three quarters under the name of Jack Downing. The various records of
+Monroe's famous tours are as tame as the speeches which these
+expeditions brought forth, and John Quincy Adams never made any
+popular demonstrations to chronicle; but wherever Jackson went there
+went the other Jack, the crude first-fruits of what is now known
+through the world as "American humor." Jack Downing was Mark Twain and
+Hosea Biglow and Artemus Ward in one. The impetuous President enraged
+many and delighted many, but it is something to know that under him a
+serious people first found that it knew how to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The very extreme, the perfectly needless extreme, of political
+foreboding that marked the advent of Jackson furnished a background of
+lurid solemnity for all this light comedy. Samuel Breck records in his
+diary that he conversed with Daniel Webster in Philadelphia, March 24,
+1827, upon the prospects of the government. "Sir," said Mr. Webster,
+"if General Jackson is elected, the government of our country will be
+overthrown; the judiciary will be destroyed; Mr. Justice Johnson will
+be made Chief-Justice in the room of Mr. Marshall, who must soon
+retire, and then in half an hour Mr. Joseph Washington and Mr. Justice
+Story will resign. A majority will be left with Mr. Johnson, and every
+constitutional decision hitherto made will be reversed." As a matter
+of fact, none of these results followed. Mr. Justice Johnson never
+became Chief-Justice; Mr. Marshall retained that office till his death
+in 1835; Story and Washington also died in office; the judiciary was
+not overthrown, nor the government destroyed. But the very ecstasy of
+these fears stimulated the excitement of the public mind. No matter
+how extravagant the supporters of Jackson might be, they could hardly
+go farther in that direction than did the Websters in the other.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not the fault of the Jackson party if anybody went beyond
+them in exaggeration. An English traveller, William E. Alexander,
+going in a stage-coach from Baltimore to Washington in 1831, records
+the exuberant conversation of six editors, with whom he was shut up
+for hours. "The gentlemen of the press," he says, "talked of 'going
+the whole hog' for one another, of being 'up to the hub' (nave) for
+General Jackson, 'who was all brimstone but the head, and that was
+aqua-fortis,' and swore if anyone abused him he ought to be 'set
+straddle on an iceberg, and shot through with a streak of lightning.'"
+Somewhere between the dignified despair of Daniel Webster, and the
+adulatory slang of these gentry we must look for the actual truth
+about Jackson's administration. The fears of the statesman were not
+wholly groundless, for it is always hard to count in advance upon the
+tendency of high office to make men more reasonable. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page320" name="page320"></a>(p. 320)</span> The
+enthusiasm of the editors had a certain foundation; at any rate it was
+a part of their profession to like stirring times, and they had now
+the promise of them. After four years of Adams, preceded by eight
+years of Monroe, any party of editors in America, assembled in a
+stage-coach, would have showered epithets of endearment on the man who
+gave such promise in the way of lively items. No acute journalist
+could help seeing that a man had a career before him who was called
+"Old Hickory" by three-quarters of the nation, and who made "Hurrah
+for Jackson!" a cry so potent that it had the force of a popular
+decree.</p>
+
+<p>There was, indeed, unbounded room for popular enthusiasm in the review
+of Jackson's early career. Born in such obscurity that it is doubtful
+to this day whether he was born in South Carolina, as he himself
+claimed, or on the North Carolina side of the line, as Mr. Parton
+thinks, he had a childhood of poverty and ignorance. He was taken
+prisoner as a mere boy during the Revolution, and could never forget
+that he had been wounded by a British officer whose boots he had
+refused to brush. Afterward, in a frontier community, he was
+successively farmer, shopkeeper, law-student, lawyer, district
+attorney, judge, and Congressman, being first Representative from
+Tennessee, and then Senator, and all before the age of thirty-one. In
+Congress Albert Gallatin describes him "as a tall, lank,
+uncouth-looking personage, with long locks of hair hanging over his
+brows and face, and a queue down his back tied in an eel-skin; his
+dress singular, his manners and deportment those of a backwoodsman."
+He remained, however, but a year or two in all at Philadelphia&mdash;then
+the seat of national government&mdash;and afterward became a planter in
+Tennessee, fought duels, subdued Tecumseh and the Creek Indians,
+winning finally the great opportunity of his life by being made a
+Major-General in the United States army on May 31, 1814. He now had
+his old captors, the British, with whom to deal, and entered into the
+work with a relish. By way of preliminary he took Pensacola, without
+any definite authority, from the Spaniards, to whom it belonged, and
+the English whom they harbored; and then turned, without orders,
+without support, and without supplies, to undertake the defence of New
+Orleans.</p>
+
+<p>Important as was this city, and plain as it was that the British
+threatened it, the national authorities had done nothing to defend it.
+The impression prevailed at Washington that it must already have been
+taken, but that the President would not let it be known. The
+<span class="italic">Washington Republican</span> of January 17, 1815, said, "That Mr. Madison
+will find it convenient and will finally determine to abandon the
+State of Louisiana we have not a doubt." A New York newspaper of
+January 30th, quoted in Mr. Andrew Stevenson's eulogy on Jackson,
+said, "It is a general opinion here that the city of New Orleans must
+fall." Apparently but one thing averted its fall&mdash;the energy and will
+of Andrew Jackson. On his own responsibility he declared martial law,
+impressed soldiers, seized powder and supplies, built fortifications
+of cotton bales, if nothing else came to hand. When the news of the
+battle of New Orleans came to the seat of government it was almost too
+bewildering for belief. The British veterans of the Peninsular War,
+whose march wherever they had landed had heretofore seemed a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page321" name="page321"></a>(p. 321)</span>
+holiday parade, were repulsed in a manner so astounding that their
+loss was more than two thousand, while that of the Americans was but
+thirteen. By a single stroke the national self-respect was restored;
+and Henry Clay, at Paris, said "Now I can go to England without
+mortification."</p>
+
+<p>All these things must be taken into account in estimating what Dr. Von
+Holst calls "the reign of Andrew Jackson." After this climax of
+military success he was for a time employed on frontier service, again
+went to Florida to fight Englishmen and Spaniards, practically
+conquering that region in a few months, but this time with an
+overwhelming force. Already his impetuosity had proved to have a
+troublesome side to it; he had violated neutral territory, had hung
+two Indians without justification, and had put to death, with no
+authority, two Englishmen, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These
+irregularities did not harm him in the judgment of his admirers; they
+seemed in the line of his character and helped more than they hurt
+him. In the winter of 1823-24 he was again chosen a Senator from
+Tennessee. Thenceforth he was in the field as a candidate for the
+Presidency, with two things to aid him&mdash;his own immense popularity and
+a friend. This friend was one William B. Lewis, a man in whom all the
+skilful arts of the modern wire-puller seemed to be born full-grown.</p>
+
+<p>There was at that time (1824) no real division in parties. The
+Federalists had been effectually put down, and every man who aspired
+to office claimed to be Democratic-Republican. Nominations were
+irregularly made, sometimes by a Congressional caucus, sometimes by
+State legislatures. Tennessee, and afterward Pennsylvania, nominated
+Jackson. When it came to the vote, he proved to be by all odds the
+popular candidate. Professor W. G. Sumner, counting up the votes of
+the people, finds 155,800 votes for Jackson, 105,300 for Adams, 44,200
+for Crawford, 46,000 for Clay. Even with this strong popular vote
+before it, the House of Representatives, balloting by States, elected
+on the first trial John Quincy Adams. Seldom in our history has the
+cup of power come so near to the lips of a candidate and been dashed
+away again. Yet nothing is surer in a republic than a certain swing of
+the pendulum afterward, in favor of any candidate to whom a special
+injustice has been done, and in the case of a popular favorite like
+Jackson, this might have been foreseen to be irresistible. His
+election four years later was almost a foregone conclusion, but, as if
+to make it wholly sure, there came up the rumor of a "corrupt bargain"
+between the successful candidate and Mr. Clay, whose forces had indeed
+joined with those of Mr. Adams to make a majority. For General Jackson
+there could be nothing more fortunate. The mere ghost of a corrupt
+bargain is worth many thousand votes to the lucky man who conjures up
+the ghost.</p>
+
+<p>When it came the turn of the Adams party to be defeated, in 1828, they
+attributed this result partly to the depravity of the human heart,
+partly to the tricks of Jackson, and partly to the unfortunate
+temperament of Mr. Adams. The day after a candidate is beaten
+everybody knows why it was, and says it was just what anyone might
+have foreseen. Ezekiel Webster, writing from New Hampshire, laid the
+result chiefly on the candidate, whom everybody disliked, and who
+would <span class="pagenum"><a id="page322" name="page322"></a>(p. 322)</span> persist in leaving his bitter opponents in office. The
+people, he said, "always supported his cause from a cold sense of
+duty, and not from any liking of the man. We soon satisfy ourselves,"
+he added, "that we have discharged our duty to the cause of any man
+when we do not entertain for him one personal kind feeling, nor
+cannot, unless we disembowel ourselves, like a trussed turkey, of all
+that is human within us." There is, indeed, no doubt that Mr. Adams
+helped on his own defeat, both by his defects and by what would now be
+considered his virtues. The trouble, however, lay further back.
+Ezekiel Webster thought that "if there had been at the head of affairs
+a man of popular character like Mr. Clay, or any man whom we were not
+compelled by our natures, instinct, and fixed fate to dislike, the
+result would have been different." But we can now see that all this
+would really have made no difference at all. Had Mr. Adams been
+personally the most attractive of men, instead of being a
+conscientious iceberg, the same result would have followed, the people
+would have felt that Jackson's turn had come, and the demand for the
+"old ticket" would have been irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, the next election, that of 1828, was easily settled.
+Jackson had 178 electoral votes; Adams but 83&mdash;more than two to one.
+Adams had not an electoral vote south of the Potomac or west of the
+Alleghanies, though Daniel Webster, writing to Jeremiah Mason, had
+predicted that he would carry six Western and Southern States. In
+Georgia no Adams ticket was even nominated, he being there unpopular
+for one of his best acts&mdash;the protection of the Cherokees. On the
+other hand, but one Jackson elector was chosen from New England, and
+he by less than two hundred majority.</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>On the day of his inauguration the president was received in
+Washington with an ardor that might have turned a more modest head. On
+the day when the new administration began (March 4, 1829), Daniel
+Webster wrote to his sister-in-law, with whom he had left his children
+that winter: "To-day we have had the inauguration. A monstrous crowd
+of people is in the city. I never saw anything like it before. Persons
+have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really
+seem to think that the country is rescued from some frightful danger."
+It is difficult now to see what this peril was supposed to be; but we
+know that the charges of monarchical tendency made against John Adams
+had been renewed against his son&mdash;a renewal that seems absurd in case
+of a man so scrupulously republican that he would not use a seal ring,
+and so unambitious that he always sighed after the quieter walks of
+literature. Equally absurd was the charge of extravagance against a
+man who kept the White House in better order than his predecessors on
+less than half the appropriation&mdash;an economy wholly counterbalanced in
+some minds by the fact that he had put in a billiard-table. But
+however all this may have been, the fact is certain that no president
+had yet entered the White House amid such choruses of delight; nor did
+it happen again until Jackson's pupil, Van Buren, yielded, amid equal
+popular enthusiasm, to another military hero, Harrison.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page323" name="page323"></a>(p. 323)</span> For the social life of Washington the President had one
+advantage which was altogether unexpected, and seemed difficult of
+explanation by anything in his earlier career. He had at his command
+the most courteous and agreeable manners. Even before the election of
+Adams, Daniel Webster had written to his brother: "General Jackson's
+manners are better than those of any of the candidates. He is grave,
+mild, and reserved. My wife is for him decidedly." And long after,
+when the president was to pass in review before those who were perhaps
+his most implacable opponents, the ladies of Boston, we have the
+testimony of the late Josiah Quincy, in his "Figures from the Past,"
+that the personal bearing of this obnoxious official was most
+unwillingly approved. Mr. Quincy was detailed by Governor Lincoln, on
+whose military staff he was, to attend President Jackson everywhere
+when visiting Boston in 1833; and this narrator testifies that, with
+every prejudice against Jackson, he found him essentially "a knightly
+personage&mdash;prejudiced, narrow, mistaken on many points, it might be,
+but vigorously a gentleman in his high sense of honor, and in the
+natural, straightforward courtesies which are easily distinguished
+from the veneer of policy." Sitting erect on his horse, a thin, stiff
+type of military strength, he carried with him in the streets a
+bearing of such dignity that staid old Bostonians, who had refused
+even to look upon him from their windows, would finally be coaxed into
+taking one peep, and would then hurriedly bring forward their little
+daughters to wave their handkerchiefs. He wrought, Mr. Quincy
+declares, "a mysterious charm upon old and young;" showed, although in
+feeble health, a great consideration for others; and was in private a
+really agreeable companion. It appears from these reminiscences that
+the president was not merely the cause of wit in others, but now and
+then appreciated it himself, and that he used to listen with delight
+to the reading of the "Jack Downing" letters, laughing heartily
+sometimes, and declaring: "The Vice-President must have written that.
+Depend upon it Jack Downing is only Van Buren in masquerade." It is a
+curious fact that the satirist is already the better remembered of the
+two, although Van Buren was in his day so powerful as to preside over
+the official patronage of the nation and to be called the "Little
+Magician."</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>The two acts with which the administration of President Jackson will
+be longest identified are his dealings with South Carolina in respect
+to nullification, and his long warfare with the United States Bank.
+The first brought the New England States back to him, and the second
+took them away again. He perhaps won rather more applause than he
+merited by the one act, and more condemnation than was just for the
+other. Let us first consider the matter of nullification. When various
+Southern States&mdash;Georgia at first, not South Carolina, taking the
+lead&mdash;had quarrelled with the tariff of 1828, and openly threatened to
+set it aside, they evidently hoped for the co-operation of the
+President; or at least for that silent acquiescence he had shown when
+Georgia had been almost equally turbulent on the Indian question and
+he would not interfere, as his predecessor had done, to protect the
+treaty rights of the Indian tribes. The <span class="pagenum"><a id="page324" name="page324"></a>(p. 324)</span> whole South was
+therefore startled when he gave, at a banquet on Jefferson's birthday
+(April 13, 1830), a toast that now seems commonplace&mdash;"The Federal
+Union; it must be preserved." But this was not all; when the time came
+he took vigorous, if not altogether consistent, steps to preserve it.</p>
+
+<p>When, in November, 1832, South Carolina for the first time officially
+voted that certain tariff acts were null and void in that State, the
+gauntlet of defiance was fairly thrown down, and Jackson took it up.
+He sent General Scott to take command at Charleston, with troops near
+by, and two gunboats at hand; he issued a dignified proclamation,
+written by Livingston (December 10, 1832), which pronounced the act of
+South Carolina contradictory to the Constitution, unauthorized by it,
+and destructive of its aims. So far so good; but unfortunately the
+president had, the week before (December 4, 1832), sent a tariff
+message to Congress, of which John Quincy Adams wrote, "It goes far to
+dissolve the Union into its original elements, and is in substance a
+complete surrender into the hands of the nullifiers of South
+Carolina." Then came Mr. Clay's compromise tariff of 1833, following
+in part the line indicated by this message, and achieving, as Mr.
+Calhoun said, a victory for nullification, leaving the matter a drawn
+game at any rate.</p>
+
+<p>The action of Jackson thus accompanied settled nothing; it was like
+valiantly ordering a burglar out of your house with a pistol, and
+adding a suggestion that he will find a portion of the family silver
+on the hall-table, ready packed for his use, as he goes out.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the burglar was gone for the moment, and the president
+had the credit of it. He had already been re-elected by an
+overwhelming majority in November, 1832, receiving 219 electoral
+votes, and Clay 49, while Floyd had the 11 votes of South Carolina
+(which still chose electors by its Legislature&mdash;a practice now
+abandoned), and Wirt the 7 of Vermont. Van Buren was chosen
+vice-president, being nominated in place of Calhoun by the Democratic
+National Convention, which now for the first time came into operation.
+The president was now at his high-water mark of popularity&mdash;always a
+dangerous time for a public man. His vehement nature accepted his
+re-election as a proof that he was right in everything, and he grew
+more self-confident than ever. More imperiously than ever, he ordered
+about friends and opponents, and his friends repaid it by guiding his
+affairs, unconsciously to himself. Meantime he was encountering
+another enemy of greater power, because more silent, than Southern
+nullification, and he was drifting on to his final contest with the
+United States Bank.</p>
+
+<p>Sydney Smith says that every Englishman feels himself able, without
+instruction, to drive a pony-chaise, conduct a small farm, and edit a
+newspaper. The average American assumes, in addition to all this, that
+he is competent to manage a bank. President Jackson claimed for
+himself in this respect no more than his fellows; the difference was
+in strength of will and in possession of power. A man so ignorant that
+a member of his own family, according to Mr. Trist, used to say that
+the general did not believe the world was round, might easily convince
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page325" name="page325"></a>(p. 325)</span> himself that he knew all about banking. As he had, besides
+all this, very keen observation and great intuitive judgment of
+character, he was probably right in his point of attack. There is
+little doubt that the Bank of the United States, under Nicholas
+Biddle, concentrated in itself an enormous power; and it spent in four
+years, by confession of its directors, $58,000 in what they called
+self-defence "against politicians." When on July 10, 1832, General
+Jackson, in a message supposed to have been inspired by Amos Kendall,
+vetoed the bill renewing the charter of the bank, he performed an act
+of courage, taking counsel with his instincts. But when in the year
+following he performed the act known as the "Removal of the Deposits,"
+or, in other words, caused the public money to be no longer deposited
+in the National Bank and its twenty-five branches, but in a variety of
+State banks instead, then he took counsel of his ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>The consequence, immediate or remote, was an immense galvanizing into
+existence of State banks, and ultimately a vast increase of paper
+money. The Sub-Treasury system had not then been thought of; there was
+no proper place of deposit for the public funds; their possession was
+a direct stimulus to speculation; and the president's cure was worse
+than the disease. All the vast inflation of 1835 and 1836 and the
+business collapse of 1837 were due to the fact not merely that Andrew
+Jackson brought all his violent and persistent will to bear against
+the United States Bank, but that when he got the power into his own
+hands he did not know what to do with it. Not one of his
+biographers&mdash;hardly even a bigoted admirer, so far as I know&mdash;now
+claims that his course in this respect was anything but a mistake. "No
+monster bank," says Professor W. G. Sumner, "under the most malicious
+management, could have produced as much havoc, either political or
+financial, as this system produced while it lasted." If the bank was,
+as is now generally admitted, a dangerous institution, Jackson was in
+the right to resist it; he was right even in disregarding the enormous
+flood of petitions that poured in to its support. But to oppose a
+dangerous bank does not necessarily make one an expert in banking. The
+utmost that can be said in favor of his action is that the calamitous
+results showed the great power of the institution he overthrew, and
+that if he had let it alone the final result might have been as bad.</p>
+
+<p>Two new States were added to the Union in President Jackson's
+time&mdash;Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837). The population of the
+United States in 1830 had risen to nearly thirteen millions
+(12,866,020). There was no foreign war during his administration,
+although one with France was barely averted; and no domestic contest
+except with the Florida Indians&mdash;a contest in which these combatants
+held their ground so well, under the half-breed chief Osceola, that he
+himself was only captured by the violation of a flag of truce, and
+that even to this day, as the Indian Commissioners tell us, some three
+hundred of the tribe remain in Florida. The war being equally carried
+on against fugitive slaves called Maroons, who had intermarried with
+the Indians, did something to prepare the public mind for a new
+agitation which was to remould American political parties, and to
+modify the Constitution of the nation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page326" name="page326"></a>(p. 326)</span> It must be remembered that the very air began to be filled in
+Jackson's time with rumors of insurrections and uprisings in different
+parts of the world. The French revolution of the Three Days had roused
+all the American people to sympathy, and called forth especial
+enthusiasm in such cities as Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston. The
+Polish revolution had excited universal interest, and John Randolph
+had said "The Greeks are at your doors." All these things were being
+discussed at every dinner-table, and the debates in Virginia as to the
+necessity of restricting the growing intelligence of the slaves had
+added to the agitation. In the session of 1829-30 a bill had passed
+the Virginia Assembly by one majority, and had failed in the Senate,
+prohibiting slaves being taught to read or write; and the next year it
+had passed almost unanimously. There had been, about the same time,
+alarms of insurrection in North Carolina, so that a party of slaves
+were attacked and killed by the inhabitants of Newbern; alarms in
+Maryland, so that fifty blacks had been imprisoned on the Eastern
+Shore; alarms in Louisiana, so that reinforcements of troops had been
+ordered to Baton Rouge; and a traveller had written even from
+Richmond, Va., on February 12th, that there were constant fears of
+insurrections, and special patrols. Then came the insurrection of Nat
+Turner in Virginia&mdash;an uprising described minutely by myself
+elsewhere; the remarkable inflammatory pamphlet called "Walker's
+Appeal," by a Northern colored man&mdash;a piece of writing surpassed in
+lurid power by nothing in the literature of the French Revolution; and
+more potent than either or both of these, the appearance of the first
+number of the <span class="italic">Liberator</span>, in Boston. When Garrison wrote, "I am in
+earnest, I will not equivocate, I will not excuse, I will not retreat
+a single inch, and I will be heard," Andrew Jackson for once met a
+will firmer than his own, because more steadfast and moved by a
+loftier purpose. Thenceforth, for nearly half a century, the history
+of the nation was the history of the great anti-slavery contest.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>DANIEL WEBSTER<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Rev. Dr. Tweedie</span><br>
+(1782-1852)</h3>
+
+<a id="img031" name="img031"></a>
+<div class="floatright">
+<img src="images/img031.jpg" width="250" height="297" alt="Daniel Webster." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Daniel Webster, the American statesman, was born in the town of
+Salisbury, in the county of Merrimack, New Hampshire, America, on
+January 18, 1782. His mother, a woman of deep piety, was his first
+teacher; his father was a man of singular but quiet energy, and the
+training of the youthful statesman was well fitted to prepare him, at
+least in some respects, for the work which it fell to his lot to
+perform. From his mother's lips were first received the vital truths
+of the Bible; and the first copy of that book ever owned by Webster
+was her gift. Long subsequent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page327" name="page327"></a>(p. 327)</span> to this period, and in the
+full blaze of his fame, he could say that he had never been able to
+recollect the time when he could not read the Bible, and supposed that
+his first schoolmistress began to teach him when he was three or four
+years of age. His first school-house was built of logs, and stood
+about half a mile from his father's house, not very far from the
+beautiful Merrimack. All was then humble enough with this great
+American statesman. He attended school only during the winter months,
+and assisted his father in the business of his farm and his mill as
+soon as he had strength for doing so. He was, however, the brightest
+boy at school; and when the tempting reward of a knife was promised to
+the scholar who committed to memory the greatest number of verses from
+the Bible, Daniel came with whole chapters, which the master could not
+find time to hear him repeat in full. The boy secured the knife, and
+his delighted teacher subsequently told the father of that child that
+"he would do God's work injustice" if gifts so promising were not
+nurtured at college.</p>
+
+<p>But that consummation was not to be very soon realized. For some time
+Daniel had to assist his father at a saw-mill; but so resolute was he
+in acquiring knowledge and training the mind while toiling with the
+body, that the operations at the mill were systematically interspersed
+with studies well fitted to form and to brace the embryo patriot for
+his great life-work. The saw took about ten minutes to cleave a log,
+and young Webster, after setting the mill in motion, learned to fill
+up these ten minutes with reading. As a patriot, a statesman, an
+orator, and a scholar, he became famous, and was called the greatest
+intellectual character of his country; and we see where he laid the
+foundation of his greatness&mdash;by persistent and invincible ardor even
+in early boyhood. That magnanimous kindliness and tenderness of heart,
+which entered so largely into his character, was fostered amid such
+scenes; and of all the men whose memories we are fain to embalm, he
+ranks among the least indebted to casualty, and the most to
+indefatigable earnestness, for the position to which he eventually
+rose. Amid the forest wilds of America his perseverance laid the
+foundation of power, of learning, of fame, and of goodness.</p>
+
+<p>A simple incident which happened about this period decided his
+life-pursuit. He discovered a copy of the "Constitution of the United
+States," as drawn up by some of her ablest statesmen. It was printed
+upon a cotton handkerchief which he purchased in a country store with
+what was then his all, and which amounted to twenty-five cents. He was
+about eight years of age when that took place, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page328" name="page328"></a>(p. 328)</span> and learned
+then, for the first time, either that there were United States, or
+that they had a Constitution.</p>
+
+<p>From this date, or about the year 1790, his path through life was
+decided, not formally, but really, not by any avowal, but by a
+fostered predilection. Meanwhile other influences were at work. The
+father of this New Hampshire boy was strict in his religious opinions
+and observances, and the son had to conform, sometimes with a grudge
+at the restraint, but with effects of a vitally beneficial nature to
+the future patriot. His father then kept a place of entertainment,
+where teamsters halted to bait, and the attractions of the place were
+increased by the fact that young Webster often regaled those visitors
+by his readings. The Psalms of David were his favorite, and there,
+when only about seven years of age, he first imparted that pleasure by
+his oratory which he afterward carried up to the highest level which
+an American citizen can reach. To that humble abode Webster once
+returned in his declining years, and with streaming eyes descanted on
+the various events of the home of his youth.</p>
+
+<p>The school which he attended during the winter months was about three
+miles from his father's house, and he had often to travel thither
+through deep snow. At the age of fourteen he attended a somewhat more
+advanced academy for a few months, and his first effort at public
+speaking there was a failure. He burst into tears; his antipathy to
+public declamation appeared insurmountable, and neither frowns nor
+smiles could overcome the reluctance. It was overcome, for when young
+Webster felt the power which was in him, he boldly employed it. At
+first, however, he was a failure as a public speaker. With all this,
+he went forward in the acquisition of knowledge and the bracing of his
+mind; and in his fifteenth year he once undertook to repeat five
+hundred lines of Virgil, if his teacher would consent to listen.</p>
+
+<p>About this time the elder Webster disclosed to his son his purpose to
+send him to college. The talents of the boy and the counsels of
+friends pointed out that as a proper path, and that son himself will
+describe the effects of his father's information. "I could not speak,"
+he says. "How could my father, I thought, with so large a family, and
+in such narrow circumstances, think of incurring so great an expense
+for me, and I laid my head on his shoulder and wept." That boy,
+however, had further difficulties to surmount. He had to leave one of
+his schools to assist his father in the hay harvest; he had, moreover,
+the hindrance of a slender and sickly constitution; but the Bible,
+side by side with some standard authors, had now become his English
+classics, while Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Demosthenes, and others, were
+his manuals in ancient literature. It was knowledge pursued under
+unusual difficulties, but, in spite of all, acquired to an unusual
+extent. So indomitable and persistent was the boy that in a few months
+he mastered the difficulties of the Greek tongue, and finally
+graduated at Dartmouth when he was eighteen years of age. Incidents
+are recorded which show that during his residence at college he was
+determined to hold the first place or none.</p>
+
+<p>It was at Dartmouth that Webster's patriotism first flashed forth with
+true American ardor, a harbinger to his whole future career. He had
+now mastered <span class="pagenum"><a id="page329" name="page329"></a>(p. 329)</span> his boyish aversion to oratory, and on July 4,
+1800, the twenty-fourth anniversary of American Independence, he
+delivered an oration full of patriotic sentiment, manifesting the
+decided bent of his mind, and deserving a place, in the opinion of
+some, among the works which he subsequently published. He was then
+only eighteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>To increase the straitened funds of the family, Daniel Webster for
+some time kept a school at Freyburg, in Maine. His income there, eked
+out by other means, which were the wages of indomitable industry,
+enabled him to send his brother, Ezekiel, to college&mdash;the grand object
+which he had in view in becoming a schoolmaster. He was, however, all
+the while prosecuting his studies in law, and in the year 1805 entered
+on the duties of a legal practitioner at Boston. His familiar title in
+the country where he resided was "All eyes," and he used them with
+singular advantage. In Boston, at Portsmouth, and elsewhere, he
+continued these pursuits, and he thus early adopted some of the maxims
+which guided him through life. "There are evils greater than poverty;"
+"What bread you eat, let it be the bread of independence;" "Live on no
+man's favor;" "Pursue your profession;" "Make yourself useful to the
+world.... You will have nothing to fear." Such were his convictions,
+and he embodied them in deeds. One instance of his generosity is
+recorded at this period. His father had become embarrassed; the
+devoted son hastened to liquidate his father's debt, and he did it
+with a decision like that which signalized him all his days. He
+resided as a lawyer at Portsmouth for about nine years.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the year 1812 that Webster was first elected a member of
+Congress, and he reached that elevation by his masterly ability in the
+affairs of his profession. By persistent patience first, and then by
+resistless power, he took up the foremost position in the sphere in
+which he moved. He appeared in the majesty of intellectual grandeur,
+like one who was all might and soul, and poured forth the stores of an
+opulent mind in a manner which was entirely his own. His words had
+both weight and fire; and the contrast is now great between the boy
+who broke down and wept at his first declamation, and the man, bending
+opponents to his will by his energy and indomitable zeal. The laurel
+of victory, it has been fondly said, was proffered to him by all, and
+bound his brow for one exploit till he went forth to another. In his
+thirtieth year he entered the field of politics, like one who had made
+up his mind to be decided, firm, and straightforward; and such was the
+serenity of this great soul, amid wild commotions, that the enthusiast
+mistook it for apathy, the fierce for lukewarmness. It was the great
+calm of profound conviction, borne up by a thorough reliance on the
+right&mdash;the right as to time, as to degree, and as to resources for the
+battle of life. From the day on which he threw himself into the
+political arena, he belonged to the United States, and not to his
+native county alone. Crowds soon gathered round one who had mastered
+so many difficulties, and taken his place among the kingly men who
+rule the spirits whom they are born first to subdue, and then to bind
+to themselves by the spell of genius.</p>
+
+<p>It is well known that this man, so humble in his origin, yet so
+masterly in his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page330" name="page330"></a>(p. 330)</span> mind, passed through all the gradations of
+rank that are open to an American citizen, up to the right hand of the
+highest. We have seen when he entered Congress. In 1841 he became
+Secretary of State, and from that period bore the place in American
+politics which would be readily conceded, in this ardent country, to
+one who was deemed and called "the master mind of the world." In his
+love of freedom, Webster has been likened to Washington, or expressly
+called his equal in regard to patriotism and true greatness. It is not
+wonderful, therefore, that this patriot's friends proposed him as
+President of the United States. He failed, and felt the failure, but
+soothed his disappointment by the conviction that no man "could take
+away from him what he had done for his country." Those who loved and
+admired him thought that the word president would have dimmed the
+lustre of the name of Daniel Webster; and they add, in regard to his
+disappointment, "if we must sorrow that what men expected can never
+come to pass, let us not weep for him but for our country." Others,
+however, were of opinion that Webster was "rejected and lost"; while
+those who look deeper at the causes of events may see, in that
+disappointment, the needful antidote administered by the Supreme
+Wisdom to ward off the danger of too universal a success. This gifted
+and ambitious man was suffered to take an active part in the
+government of one of the greatest of the nations. By his bold and
+manly grasp of American interests, he did much to weld the different
+States more closely into one. He negotiated, on the part of his
+country, some of the most important treaties which promote the peace
+and the amity of nations, for example, what is called the Ashburton
+treaty with Great Britain; and it would have seemed too much for one
+mortal, successful as Webster had already been, to be lifted to an
+official level with princes. That was denied him; his empire was not
+countries&mdash;it was minds. He was to be trained for a nobler exaltation
+than a throne.</p>
+
+<p>Little has yet been said regarding Webster as an orator. It was mainly
+in that respect, however, that he surpassed his fellows, and mainly by
+that means was he enabled to ascend to the high position which he held
+so long. The versatility of his powers was very great, and the mode in
+which he sometimes employed them was not a little remarkable. He had,
+on one occasion, spent several hours with his colleagues in adjusting
+some important questions involving the interests of kingdoms; and on
+returning home he sportively sallied forth and purchased some eggs, on
+the principle of seeing how extremes meet, in regard to occupation as
+well as in other respects. But there were serious things mixed with
+his jests; and as an orator, Webster stands in the first rank, if not
+foremost, in the New World. When it was known that he was to speak,
+the excitement sometimes amounted to a furor, and a hundred dollars
+have been paid for a ticket of admission to hear him. Meanwhile the
+avenues that led to his arena were blocked up by the crowds pressing
+for admittance; and when he did appear, it was to rouse, to agitate,
+and convulse. He felt what he said in his inmost soul, and his words
+were winged with fire, even while they were massively powerful, and
+connected with a logic which tolerated no breaks in the chain.</p>
+
+<p>Webster reached the allotted term of mortal existence, and in his
+seventy-first <span class="pagenum"><a id="page331" name="page331"></a>(p. 331)</span> year passed away alike from the frowns and the
+applause of mortals. On the morning of Sabbath, October 24, 1852, he
+was summoned away. Though much enfeebled, his mind was calm, and he
+died with the confidence of a little child, reposing on the mercy of
+his God as revealed in the Saviour. Among his last utterances was
+this, "Heavenly Father, forgive my sins, and welcome me to thyself
+through Christ Jesus." His very last words were, "I still live," and
+his loving, weeping friends took them up as a prediction of that
+immortality on which he was about to enter. Through life he had
+hallowed the Sabbath, and he died upon it. The autumn was his favorite
+season, and he passed away amid its mellow glories, after
+affectionately and solemnly taking leave of his weeping wife,
+children, kindred, and friends, down to the humblest members of his
+household. His death, it is supposed, was hastened by injuries
+received by the breaking down of his carriage; but it did not find him
+unprepared. Long years before he had erected his own tomb; and there,
+on a plain marble slab over the door, the visitor reads the simple
+inscription&mdash;<span class="smcap">Daniel Webster</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Some ten thousand friends, countrymen, and lovers, helped to lay him
+there, and one of the orations pronounced in connection with his
+departure was thus touchingly closed: "The clasped hands&mdash;the dying
+prayers&mdash;oh, my fellow-citizens, this is a consummation over which
+tears of pious sympathy will be shed, after the glories of the forum
+and the senate are forgotten."</p>
+
+<p>The following letter to a friend on the choice of a profession,
+written by Webster when only twenty years of age, is reprinted from
+"The Life of Daniel Webster" by George Ticknor Curtis, through the
+courtesy of D. Appleton &amp; Co., the publishers, and with the permission
+of the widow and heirs of the author.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do? Shall I say, 'Yes, gentlemen,' and sit down here to
+spend my days in a kind of a comfortable privacy, or shall I
+relinquish these prospects, and enter into a profession, where my
+feelings will be constantly harrowed by objects either of dishonesty
+or misfortune, where my living must be squeezed from penury (for rich
+folks seldom go to law), and my moral principle continually be at
+hazard? I agree with you that the law is well calculated to draw forth
+the powers of the mind, but what are its effects on the heart? Are
+they equally propitious? Does it inspire benevolence, and awake
+tenderness; or does it, by a frequent repetition of wretched objects,
+blunt sensibility, and stifle the still small voice of mercy?</p>
+
+<p>"The talent with which Heaven has intrusted me is small, very small,
+yet I feel responsible for the use of it, and am not willing to
+pervert it to purposes reproachful and unjust; nor to hide it, like
+the slothful servant, in a napkin.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I will enumerate the inducements that draw me toward the law:
+First, and principally, it is my father's wish. He does not dictate,
+it is true, but how much short of dictation is the mere wish of a
+parent, whose labors of life are wasted on favors to his children?
+Even the delicacy with which the wish is expressed gives it more
+effect than it would have in the form of a command. Secondly, my
+friends generally wish it. They are urgent and pressing. My father
+even offers me&mdash;I will sometime tell you what&mdash;and Mr. Thompson offers
+my tuition gratis, and to relinquish his stand to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page332" name="page332"></a>(p. 332)</span> "On the whole, I imagine I shall make one more trial in the
+ensuing autumn. If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify
+me against its temptations. To the winds I dismiss those light hopes
+of eminence which ambition inspired, and vanity fostered. To be
+'honest, to be capable, to be faithful' to my client and my
+conscience, I earnestly hope will be my first endeavor. I believe you,
+my worthy boy, when you tell me what are your intentions. I have long
+known and long loved the honesty of your heart. But let us not rely
+too much on ourselves; let us look to some less fallible guide to
+direct us among the temptations that surround us."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD<a id="footnotetag12" name="footnotetag12"></a><a href="#footnote12" title="Go to footnote 12"><span class="smaller">[12]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Hon. Charles E. Fitch</span><br>
+(1801-1872)</h3>
+
+<a id="img032" name="img032"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img032.jpg" width="250" height="264" alt="William Henry Seward." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>William Henry Seward, the American statesman, was born in Florida,
+Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, in the same
+State, October 10, 1872. Precocious in his studies, he pursued his
+preliminary education in his native village, and, at the age of
+fifteen, entered, as a sophomore, Union College, then under the
+presidency of Eliphalet Nott, between whom and his pupil a life-long
+friendship, illustrated by mutual confidence and counsel, was early
+established. Seward's college course, especially brilliant in rhetoric
+and the classics, was interrupted in his senior year by a residence of
+six months, as a teacher, in Georgia, where previous impressions
+against African slavery were confirmed by observation of its workings.
+Returning to college, he was graduated with high honors in 1820, the
+subject of his Commencement oration being "The Integrity of the
+American Union."</p>
+
+<p>He was admitted to the bar at Utica, in October, 1822, and in January,
+1823, settled at Auburn as a partner of Judge Elijah Miller, whose
+daughter he married in October, 1824. Although certain features of the
+law&mdash;its technicalities and uncertainties&mdash;were repugnant to him, he
+was soon in the full tide of professional success, and, in the opening
+of the circuit courts to equity jurisprudence, found <span class="pagenum"><a id="page333" name="page333"></a>(p. 333)</span> much
+that was in harmony with his sense of justice. He was also, from the
+first, interested in politics, for which he had decided genius. He
+came upon the stage in the closing days of "The Era of Good Feeling,"
+under President Monroe, when parties were again dividing upon the
+issues that have mainly obtained throughout the constitutional era. He
+approved the principles of Hamilton, although his boyish training had
+been in the Jeffersonian school. Enunciating his views with precision
+and felicity of diction, his voice and pen were in constant request,
+and he rapidly rose to distinction until, in 1834, he was the
+acknowledged leader in the State of the Whig party and its candidate
+for governor.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile he had supported De Witt Clinton, the champion of internal
+improvements, and in 1824 drafted, for the Republican Convention of
+his county a trenchant address, detailing the history and criticising
+the aims of the "Albany Regency," which inspired the hostility to that
+famous clique that compassed its overthrow fourteen years later. Among
+his notable utterances of this period were an address on Grecian
+independence, at Auburn, in 1827; a Fourth-of-July oration, at
+Syracuse, in 1831, in which Calhoun's dogma of secession was
+denounced, and an eulogy on La Fayette, at Auburn, in 1834. In 1828 he
+presided over the Young Men's Convention, at Utica, in behalf of the
+renomination of President Adams, and declined a congressional
+nomination. In 1830 he was elected by the Anti-Masons to the State
+Senate, and was re-elected in 1832. He had a prominent and an
+influential part in the deliberations of that body, although its
+youngest member, and in the political minority, whose addresses to the
+people he wrote at the close of each session. His most notable
+speeches were those for the common-school and canal systems, the
+abolition of imprisonment for debt, the amelioration of prison
+discipline, and the reform of the militia law, and against corporate
+monopolies, increasing judicial salaries, Governor Marcy's loan law,
+and the removal of the deposits by President Jackson. The Senate was
+then a constituent portion of the Court of Errors, the tribunal of
+last resort, and Seward delivered many opinions which materially
+enhanced his legal reputation. In one instance he carried, with
+substantial unanimity, the court with him, against the views of the
+presiding judge, the eminent Chancellor Walworth. In 1833 he made a
+rapid tour of Europe, embodying his reflections in letters to the
+Albany <span class="italic">Evening Journal</span>, then edited by Thurlow Weed, between whom
+and Seward there was, for fifty years, an intimate and unbroken
+attachment, unique in political annals.</p>
+
+<p>In 1838 he was again the Whig candidate for governor, and defeated
+Governor Marcy, his former rival, his victory being the precursor of
+the national Whig triumph in 1840, in which year he was re-elected. He
+was inaugurated, January 1, 1839, his message to the Legislature
+embracing, with a masterly exposition of Whig policies, certain
+suggestions of his own concerning immigration, education, and
+eleemosynary institutions that revealed the catholic spirit and the
+philosophical habit which, despite his party fealty, he consistently
+exhibited. This message outlined the conduct of the administration
+that succeeded&mdash;enlightened in its scope, liberal to all classes,
+distinctly loyal to the Union, yet jealously <span class="pagenum"><a id="page334" name="page334"></a>(p. 334)</span> guarding
+against any infringement of the rights of the State. It widened
+educational privileges, urged the prosecution of the public works,
+including the enlargement of the Erie Canal, granted franchises to
+railways, removed imprisonment for debt and the remaining guarantees
+of slavery from the statute-books, composed the anti-rent troubles and
+executed the laws within the insurrectionary section, perfected the
+banking system, and proposed jury trials for fugitive slaves and a
+constitutional amendment abolishing the property qualification for the
+colored suffrage.</p>
+
+<p>Governor Seward's regard for the dignity of the State was displayed by
+his refusal to discharge from custody, without trial, one Alexander
+McLeod, a citizen of Canada, held for the burning of the steamer
+Caroline, in New York waters, although the demand of the British
+government, to that effect, was supplemented by the request of
+Presidents Harrison and Tyler. His abhorrence of slavery was
+accentuated in his denial of the application of the Governor of
+Virginia for the rendition of seamen charged with the abduction of a
+slave, upon the ground that the offence, if defined as a crime in
+Virginia, was not so in New York, and he did not hesitate to add that
+his feelings coincided with his conception of his constitutional
+prerogative. When a Democratic Assembly subsequently passed
+resolutions disapproving his action, he declined to transmit them to
+the Virginia authorities, and he also failed to respond to a similar
+requisition from South Carolina. His proposition for the employment of
+Roman Catholic teachers in the common schools showed his independence
+of partisan behest and popular clamor.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving office in 1843, he passed the next six years in professional
+labors, varied by occasional addresses of a literary or patriotic
+cast, and by many Whig speeches in the campaigns of 1844 and 1848. To
+his practice in the State courts was united that in patent cases,
+which not only brought him a lucrative clientage, but largely
+increased his acquaintance with public men at Washington. His
+gubernatorial service had given him national fame, and he was,
+although not in public life, esteemed as one of the national leaders
+of his party. In the courts he commanded respect for the clearness and
+strength of his arguments, but, even there, he was at his best when
+his heart inspired his speech with fervor, as in his pleas for Van
+Zandt and others charged with harboring fugitive slaves. The defence
+of Greeley, in the Cooper libel suit, and of the Michigan rioters, may
+be cited as instances of his persuasiveness before juries, but that in
+the case of William Freeman is celebrated both for its own quality and
+the intrepidity of its author. Gladstone has characterized it as the
+greatest forensic effort in the English language, not excluding the
+masterpieces of Erskine. It is a plea for the life of a brutalized
+negro who butchered a whole family under circumstances of peculiar
+atrocity. The deed was without excuse or palliation, save in the
+insanity of the perpetrator, of which Seward became convinced, and
+volunteered as counsel amid the surprise, imprecations, and threats of
+the Auburn community, where the case was at issue. The moment was a
+supreme one for him, but he did not hesitate. Without reward, or the
+hope of reward, even in the gratitude of the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page335" name="page335"></a>(p. 335)</span> insensate
+wretch for whom he risked professional standing and public favor, he
+worked as indefatigably as though the weightiest honors and emoluments
+depended thereon, from the impanelling of the jury to the failure of
+executive clemency; but Freeman's death in prison and the autopsy that
+disclosed the morbid condition of his brain fully vindicated Seward's
+analysis and exalted him in public regard.</p>
+
+<p>On March 4, 1849, coincident with the accession of General Taylor to
+the presidency, Seward entered the United States Senate, having been
+chosen thereto by a large majority of the Legislature of New York.
+When he took his seat, the Whig party was already divided upon the
+slavery question, and Seward, by virtue of his previous utterances and
+his skill as a politician, became the exponent of the free-soil
+element, as also the representative of the administration, an
+unprecedented trust to be confided to a senator in his first term. He
+thus found himself in opposition to Webster and Clay, and especially
+to the "Omnibus" bill of the latter, a measure intended to reconcile
+conflicting claims concerning the admission of new States, the status
+of slavery in the Territories, and the protection to be accorded it in
+the free States. On March 11, 1850, he made a speech, generally
+pronounced to be his ablest, as it is certainly his most noteworthy
+deliverance, in which he declared that there is a law higher than the
+Constitution, whose authority may be invoked in legislation for the
+national domain. The death of General Taylor brought him into
+collision with President Fillmore, who hailed from New York, and was
+largely indebted for his vice-presidential nomination to Seward's
+kindly offices. Fillmore urged the adoption of the compromise scheme
+and signed the separate bills therefor as they successively passed
+Congress, thereby incurring censure at the North, while Seward
+retained his ascendency with the anti-slavery masses throughout the
+country, as well as with the Whigs of New York.</p>
+
+<p>He was re-elected to the Senate in 1855 by a combination of Whigs and
+Anti-Nebraska Americans, and on October 12th, of that year, at Albany,
+formally announced his adhesion to the new Republican party. In the
+Senate he easily ranked as one of its most polished and effective
+speakers who, while resolutely maintaining his own convictions,
+scrupulously preserved the amenities of debate. He especially
+distinguished himself by his earnest, yet unavailing, resistance to
+the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Among his popular addresses of
+conspicuous merit are those on "The Elements of Empire in America," at
+Union College, 1843; "Daniel O'Connell," at New York, 1847; "John
+Quincy Adams," before the New York Legislature, 1848; "The Destiny of
+America," at Columbus, O., and "The True Basis of American
+Independence," at New York, 1853; "The Development of the American
+People," at Yale College 1854, and "The Irrepressible
+Conflict"&mdash;<span class="italic">i.e.</span>, between freedom and slavery&mdash;at Rochester, N. Y.,
+1858. He made an extended tour in Europe, Egypt, and Palestine, in
+1859.</p>
+
+<p>The Republicans met in National Convention at Chicago, in 1860,
+flushed with anticipated success. Northern opposition to the extension
+of slavery had <span class="pagenum"><a id="page336" name="page336"></a>(p. 336)</span> combined, and the Democracy was being
+resolved into antagonistic factions. Seward's nomination for the
+presidency seemed assured. He was the foremost statesman in his party.
+He had crystallized its ideas, interpreted its creed, and marshalled
+its forces. He had an enthusiastic following who believed that the
+occasion had met the man; but there were others who objected that his
+very superiority would provoke assault against him, which might hurt
+the cause for which he stood. They reasoned against his availability,
+and their argument prevailed. He led on the first two ballots in the
+convention, but, on the third, Abraham Lincoln, then comparatively
+unknown, became the Republican standard-bearer. Seward met this
+reverse tranquilly, rebuked certain manifestations of disaffection,
+proffered the candidate his hearty support, and, in a series of
+remarkably able and eloquent speeches, extending from Massachusetts to
+Kansas, contributed materially to his election.</p>
+
+<p>Seward accepted the portfolio of State in Lincoln's cabinet and
+immediately assumed the gravest responsibilities. American relations
+with foreign governments during the Civil War were uniformly serious
+and sometimes perilous. The duties of the Secretary of State were
+exacting and delicate. Seward, by his tact and discretion, as well as
+his courage and wisdom, kept peace with the world, without debasing
+the honor or forfeiting the rights of the republic. One of the most
+intricate issues arose in the first year of the war. It is known as
+the Trent case. Mason and Slidell, Confederate envoys to England and
+France respectively, were forcibly taken by an American naval
+commander from a British vessel and lodged in Fort Warren. The
+American public was exultant over the capture and protested vigorously
+against their release; but Seward had to decide officially the
+question of their surrender to the British Government, and, when the
+demand was duly made, he yielded to it, basing his conclusion, with
+admirable adroitness, not only upon international comity, but also
+upon American precedents. The president, at first disposed to take the
+contrary view, conceded the force of Seward's argument, the people
+acquiesced, and a war with England was avoided. Seward's state papers
+and despatches are models of style, and by their frankness of
+statement and hopefulness of tone did much to sustain the Union cause
+abroad. In accord with Lincoln in holding that the paramount task of
+the Government was to subdue rebellion against it and discouraging
+precipitate movements for the abolition of slavery, he was also in
+accord with the president in the policy of emancipation, as ultimately
+formulated, and, on January 1, 1863, attested the proclamation which
+has made the name of Lincoln immortal. He proclaimed the adoption of
+the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, by which slavery was
+abolished, December 18, 1865, and of the Fourteenth, conferring
+suffrage and civil rights upon the freedmen, July 26, 1868. On
+February 3, 1865, he attended, with the president, the so-called Peace
+Conference, in Hampton Roads, with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and
+Campbell, the Confederate commissioners. The conference was fruitless,
+owing to the inflexible determination of the president not to
+entertain any proposals that did not involve the complete restoration
+of the national authority as a condition precedent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page337" name="page337"></a>(p. 337)</span> Lincoln began his second term March 4, 1865, Seward remaining
+in the cabinet. On April 5th, Seward was badly injured by being thrown
+from his carriage. Nine days thereafter Lincoln visited him in his
+sick chamber. It was their last meeting. On the same evening Lincoln
+was assassinated, and the murder of Seward was attempted. He was
+stabbed in several places in the head and throat, and for several days
+his life was despaired of, but he slowly recovered, and in June
+resumed his desk in the State Department, President Johnson having
+urged him to retain it. He continued in office throughout Johnson's
+administration, favoring the reconstruction policy of his chief,
+without, however, incurring the active hostility of his Republican
+friends. Distinctive events of his second term were his maintenance of
+the Monroe doctrine, in the refusal to recognize the French empire in
+Mexico, and the purchase of Alaska, which was in consonance with views
+long entertained by him as to the propriety of the expansion of the
+territory of the United States upon the continent of North America. In
+the best sense of the term he was an advocate of "Manifest Destiny,"
+and was proud of the acquisition of the Russian territory at the Far
+North. A treaty which he negotiated for the cession of the Danish West
+India islands of St. Thomas and St. John failed of ratification by the
+Senate.</p>
+
+<p>He retired to private life March 4, 1869, and within the next three
+years visited Alaska and Mexico, and made a journey around the world,
+being everywhere received with official welcome and popular acclaim.
+The last few months of his life were passed at his home, where he
+dictated the story of his travels and began his "Autobiography,"
+which, even in its unfinished state, is a charming narrative.</p>
+
+<p>Seward achieved greatness as an executive, a legislator, and a
+diplomatist; was one of the most accomplished writers of his time, and
+was second only to Lincoln, among civilians, in conserving American
+nationality and enlarging American liberties. There is a statue to his
+memory in Madison Square, New York, and, on November 15, 1888, another
+was unveiled in front of the Auburn homestead, William M. Evarts
+delivering the oration. Charles Francis Adams also paid his tribute,
+in an address at the Capitol, in Albany, 1873, upon invitation of the
+New York Legislature. Seward published a volume on the "Life and
+Public Services of John Quincy Adams," 1849. His "Essays, Speeches,
+and Extracts from his Diplomatic Correspondence," etc., edited by
+George E. Baker, with a memoir, embrace five volumes. His adopted
+daughter published his "Travels Around the World," 1873, and his
+"Autobiography," to 1834, has been supplemented by a "Memoir" by his
+son, Frederick W. Seward, with extracts from his letters and
+selections from his "Table Talk."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig009" name="sig009"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig009.jpg" width="200" height="53" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page338" name="page338"></a>(p. 338)</span> ABRAHAM LINCOLN<a id="footnotetag13" name="footnotetag13"></a><a href="#footnote13" title="Go to footnote 13"><span class="smaller">[13]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Terence Vincent Powderly</span><br>
+(1809-1865)</h3>
+
+<a id="img033" name="img033"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img033.jpg" width="300" height="140" alt="A house." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Born in obscurity and poverty, with health and a good disposition as a
+heritage from nature, and with Christian parents as teachers and
+guides, Abraham Lincoln&mdash;sixteenth president of the United
+States&mdash;entered upon life's journey through toil and vicissitude to
+fame and immortality.</p>
+
+<p>Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the president, was born in Union, Pa.,
+and in 1759 removed with his parents to a point near Harrisonburg, Va.
+John Hanks and Squire Boone, father of Daniel Boone, were neighbors of
+the Lincolns at Union; the former took up his residence at
+Harrisonburg, Va., and Squire Boone removed to Holman's Ford, on the
+Yadkin River, in North Carolina. When he was twenty-one years old,
+Abraham Lincoln went to North Carolina to visit his old neighbors, the
+Boones, and while there met and married Mary Shipley. He built a log
+cabin on the banks of the Yadkin and lived there several years. Here
+it was that Thomas Lincoln, father of the president, was born. Shortly
+after his birth his parents, in 1778, removed to Kentucky and settled
+near Elizabethtown, in Hardin County. In 1784, when Thomas was but six
+years old, his father was killed by the Indians. There were no schools
+in that neighborhood, and Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood without
+receiving an education. Joseph Hanks, son of John Hanks, removed to
+Kentucky about the time that Abraham Lincoln moved there from North
+Carolina. His daughter, Nancy Hanks, who was born and educated in
+Virginia, grew up a playmate of Thomas Lincoln, and in 1806 became his
+wife. Thomas Lincoln selected a farm near Hodgensville, now the county
+seat of Larue County, Ky., built a log cabin containing but one room,
+in which, on February 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the future president,
+was born. A poor farmer, with no education and no capital other than
+his labor, Thomas Lincoln found little to encourage his stay in
+Kentucky. The institution of slavery, which lived on the toil of the
+black man, threw a dark shadow across the path of the "poor white" who
+could claim no title to property in human flesh and sinew, and in 1817
+he removed from Kentucky to Spencer County, Ind., and settled in the
+forest at Pigeon Creek, near the town of Gentryville. On October 5,
+1818, Mrs. Lincoln died and was laid to rest at the foot of a tree on
+the farm which her husband had hewed out of the forest with his axe.</p>
+
+<p>Eighteen months after the death of his wife, Mr. Lincoln married Mrs.
+Sarah <span class="pagenum"><a id="page339" name="page339"></a>(p. 339)</span> Bush Johnston, a widow who had been a neighbor of his
+in Kentucky. To his stepmother Abraham became very much attached, and
+he always entertained the greatest respect and affection for her. His
+education was very simple, his school days few, and his books fewer
+still. Before leaving Kentucky he learned to read while listening to
+his mother as she gave lessons to his father. In 1814, a Catholic
+priest, Zachariah Riney, who travelled through the country, opened a
+school in an untenanted cabin at Hodgensville, and for a few weeks
+gave instructions to the youth of the neighborhood. Abraham attended
+this school during its brief existence. In 1822 Azel Dorsey was
+employed as teacher at Pigeon Creek, Ind., and during his short stay
+Abraham Lincoln was his most attentive pupil. Two years after, Abraham
+went to school for several months, and in 1824 his school days came to
+an end. His time at school did not exceed twelve months altogether. In
+the meantime he had read Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's
+"Pilgrim's Progress," Æsop's "Fables," The Bible, and Weems's "Life of
+Washington." In 1824 his father, in need of his assistance as a
+bread-winner, began to instruct him in the carpenter trade. In 1825 he
+was employed at $6 a month to manage a ferry across the Ohio River at
+Gentry's Landing, near the mouth of Anderson Creek. His wages were
+paid to his father. The first money he earned for himself came in the
+shape of two half-dollars paid to him by two gentlemen whose trunks he
+transferred from the shore to a passing steamer. In 1828 Mr. Gentry
+engaged him to go to New Orleans on a flat-boat with a load of
+produce. In 1830 John Hanks, who had removed from Kentucky to
+Illinois, wrote to Thomas Lincoln, urging him to move to that State.
+Acting on the advice, Mr. Lincoln removed to Illinois and settled at a
+point some ten miles west of Decatur. Abraham Lincoln drove the ox
+team which hauled the household effects of the family, and wearing a
+coon-skin cap, jean jacket, and a pair of buckskin trousers, he
+entered the State poor, friendless, and unknown. Thirty years later he
+left Illinois the foremost man in the nation, and known to all the
+world. He assisted his father in clearing fifteen acres of land, and
+split the rails with which to build the fence. Although of age, he had
+no money, and having but a scant supply of clothing, made a bargain
+with Nancy Miller to make him a pair of trousers. For each yard of
+cloth required he split four hundred fence-rails, and as he was over
+six feet in height it took fourteen hundred rails to pay for his
+trousers. On April 19, 1831, he went to New Orleans with a flat-boat
+load of pigs, corn, pork, and beef; the pigs refusing to walk, Lincoln
+carried them aboard in his arms. John Hanks and Lincoln's
+half-brother, John Johnston, accompanied him on the trip. While in New
+Orleans he first saw men and women sold as slaves, and as every
+instinct of his nature revolted at the spectacle, he said to John
+Hanks: "If ever I get a chance to hit that institution, I'll hit it
+hard." Returning from New Orleans, he went to New Salem to clerk in
+the store of Denton Offut. While waiting for a shipment of goods he
+acted as clerk on a local election board, and thus filled his first
+political position. During his stay in New Salem he was frequently
+called on to exercise his great strength in quelling disturbances, and
+inspired the turbulent element of the place with a wholesome respect
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page340" name="page340"></a>(p. 340)</span> for his powers of muscular persuasion. He was not
+quarrelsome, never engaged in contention, but never hesitated to take
+his own part or that of another who might need a helping hand. He
+subscribed for the Louisville <span class="italic">Journal</span>, and generously read its
+contents aloud to those who gathered in the store. During the Black
+Hawk war he enlisted as private in a company which was raised in the
+neighborhood, and was at once elected captain. In a short time the
+company was mustered out, and he re-enlisted in an "Independent Spy
+Battalion" which continued in service until the end of the war. On
+returning to New Salem he announced himself an independent candidate
+for the Legislature, and at a meeting held during the canvass made his
+first political speech in these words: "Fellow-citizens: I presume you
+know who I am; I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by
+many friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics
+can be briefly stated. I am in favor of the internal improvement
+system, and a high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and
+political principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will
+be all the same."</p>
+
+<p>In the winter of 1832 he became a partner of a man named Berry, in the
+purchase and management of a store. They had no money, but gave their
+notes. Berry became dissipated, lost interest in the business, and the
+firm failed. In 1833 President Jackson appointed Lincoln postmaster of
+New Salem; he remained postmaster until 1836. While holding the office
+Lincoln voluntarily established the "free delivery" system in New
+Salem by carrying the letters around in his hat. He began the study of
+law, and was soon after appointed deputy surveyor. The note he gave on
+going into partnership with Berry had been sold to a man who wanted
+his money, and in the fall of 1834 the sheriff levied on and sold his
+instruments to satisfy the debt. In that year he was elected to the
+Legislature, and borrowed the money with which to purchase a suit of
+clothes to go to the State capital at Vandalia. He was re-elected to
+the Legislature in 1836, and during the canvass declared his
+principles as follows:</p>
+
+<p>"I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in
+bearing its burdens; consequently, I go for admitting all whites to
+the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, <span class="italic">by no means
+excluding females</span>."</p>
+
+<p>A few years later, when questioned concerning that utterance, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"All questions of social and moral reform find lodgement first with
+enlightened souls, who stamp them with their approval. In God's own
+time they will be organized into law, and thus woven into the fabric
+of our institutions."</p>
+
+<a id="img034" name="img034"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img034.jpg" width="400" height="565" alt="" title="">
+<p>A. Lincoln.</p></div>
+
+<p>In 1836 he met Stephen A. Douglas for the first time, at the State
+capital. In 1837 he was admitted to the bar, in 1838 re-elected to the
+Legislature, and again in 1840. The capital had been removed from
+Vandalia to Springfield, and in partnership with John T. Stuart he
+began the practice of law in that city in 1839. On November 4, 1842,
+he was married to Mary Todd, daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd. In the
+presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844 he canvassed the State as a
+presidential elector on the whig ticket; and in both campaigns was
+pitted, in joint debate, against Stephen A. Douglas. In 1846 he was
+elected to the thirtieth Congress, and was the only whig
+representative in that body from <span class="pagenum"><a id="page341" name="page341"></a>(p. 341)</span> Illinois. On January 12,
+1848, he made his first speech in Congress, on a resolution which he
+offered calling on the president to provide a statement relating to
+the war with Mexico. On January 16, 1849, he introduced a bill to
+abolish slavery in the District of Columbia and to compensate the
+owners of the liberated slaves. He declined a re-election to Congress,
+and in 1849 was an unsuccessful candidate for United States senator.
+In 1850 he refused to accept the appointment as Governor of Oregon,
+tendered him by President Fillmore. For a few years he gave no
+attention to political matters, but the introduction in Congress of
+the bill to admit Nebraska and Kansas to the Union, and the agitation
+for the repeal of the "Missouri Compromise," aroused his interest, and
+in a short time he became the leader of a new party in the State. All
+who opposed the repeal of that compromise, of whatever party, were
+known as "Anti-Nebraska" in the beginning, but gradually they began to
+call themselves "Republicans," and as such they carried most of the
+"Free State" elections of 1854. Senator Douglas, in defending his
+course on the "Nebraska Bill," made speeches through Illinois. On
+October 1, 1854, Lincoln, in reply to one of these speeches, in
+speaking of slavery said:</p>
+
+<p>"I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just
+influence in the world; it enables the enemies of free institutions to
+taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt
+our sincerity; is at war with the vital principles of civic liberty;
+contrary to the Declaration of Independence; and maintains that there
+is no right principle of action but self-interest.... No man is good
+enough to govern another man without the other's consent.... I object
+to the Nebraska Bill because it assumes there can be moral right in
+the enslaving of one man by another."</p>
+
+<p>He was a candidate for United States Senator in 1855, but his
+withdrawal from the contest gave the election to Mr. Trumbull. In 1856
+he received one hundred and ten votes for vice-president at the first
+Republican national contention, and canvassed the State as one of the
+presidential electors. During this canvass he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes when I am speaking I feel that the time is soon coming when
+the sun shall shine and the rain fall on no man who shall go forth to
+unrequited toil.... How it will come about, when it will come, I
+cannot tell; but that time will surely come."</p>
+
+<p>The Supreme Court of the United States, on March 6, 1857, committed
+itself to the perpetuation of slavery in the "Dred Scott" decision,
+and that act, together with the question of admitting Kansas to the
+Union as a slave or free State, furnished the argument for the
+legislative campaign of 1858, in which Lincoln was a candidate for
+United States senator against Stephen A. Douglas. In his speech
+accepting the nomination he, in referring to the agitation for the
+abolition of slavery, said:</p>
+
+<p>"In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been
+reached and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I
+believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half
+free. I do not expect the Union <span class="pagenum"><a id="page342" name="page342"></a>(p. 342)</span> to be dissolved, I do not
+expect the house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be
+divided."</p>
+
+<p>On May 16, 1860, the second Republican national convention met in
+Chicago, and on the third ballot nominated Lincoln for the presidency
+over William H. Seward, who was at that time the idol of the radical
+element of the party. Not many who listened to the clergyman who
+delivered the prayer at the opening of the convention, gave serious
+thought to these prophetic words as they fell from his lips:</p>
+
+<p>"We entreat Thee that at some future, but no distant, day the evil
+which now invests the body politic shall not only have been arrested
+in its progress, but wholly eradicated from the system."</p>
+
+<p>The Northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas; the
+slave-holding, Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge, and
+a Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell. The Electoral
+College gave Lincoln 180 votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas
+12. In his inaugural address Lincoln said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have
+no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."</p>
+
+<p>Although his inaugural breathed peace and conciliation in every line,
+it had no effect on the hot-headed advocates of secession. The war
+began with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and ended
+with his death. On April 15th, he issued his first call for troops,
+and during his administration the total number called for was
+2,759,049. With the exception of Russia, the foreign powers exhibited
+evidences of hostility to the Union, and when urged to retaliation
+Lincoln said: "One war at a time, if you please, gentlemen." On May
+20, 1862, he signed the Homestead Law, a boon of inestimable value to
+settlers on land. On January 1, 1863, he issued the "Emancipation
+Proclamation" which stamped the seal of eternal truth on the
+Declaration of Independence. On November 19, 1863, at the dedication
+of the Gettysburg Cemetery, he, in concluding a speech which should be
+committed to memory by every citizen of the nation, said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
+before us.... That we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have
+died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of
+freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the
+people shall not perish from the earth."</p>
+
+<p>On June 8, 1864, he was renominated by the Republican national
+convention, General McClellan was nominated by the Democrats, and at
+the election Lincoln received 212 of the 233 electoral votes cast. In
+concluding his inaugural address, March 4, 1865, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes
+His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should
+dare to ask God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of
+other men's faces; but let us <span class="pagenum"><a id="page343" name="page343"></a>(p. 343)</span> judge not, that we be not
+judged.... Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty
+scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it
+continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and
+fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of
+blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the
+sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so, still, it must be
+said, that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous
+altogether. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
+firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish
+the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him
+who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphans, to
+do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among
+ourselves and with all nations."</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of April 14, 1865, while seated in a box at Ford's
+Theatre, witnessing the play, "Our American Cousin," he was shot by an
+actor, J. Wilkes Booth, and at twenty-two minutes past seven on the
+morning of the 15th his life ended. His body was embalmed and taken,
+in funeral procession, from Washington through Baltimore, Harrisburg,
+Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago to
+Springfield, and was buried on May 4th at Oak Ridge Cemetery. On
+October 15, 1874, his remains were taken up and placed in a tomb
+beneath a magnificent and elegantly designed monument consisting of a
+statue of the martyred president and an obelisk of imposing
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>No pen can do justice to the character of Lincoln, for the world will
+never know of the trials, embarrassments, and misgivings which beset
+him from his infancy in the backwoods to his tomb in Springfield.
+During his administration he never knew a moment free from anxiety.
+Each day he faced a new problem, and finding no precedent to guide him
+in its solution, he acted in accordance with his own good common
+sense, and proved equal to every emergency. Frequently misunderstood
+by the nation and her foremost men, he removed all doubts by the touch
+of the statesman when the time was ripe. To fully estimate the
+statesman we must know the man, and as years go by the full nobility
+of his private character will be disclosed to the world in all its
+simple grandeur. His was "a spirit of the greatest size and divinest
+metal" which no temptation could allure from the course of right. His
+administration was the most trying that could fall to the lot of man,
+no other furnished so many opportunities to amass wealth through
+speculation and intrigue, but greed and avarice were strangers to his
+nature, and no stain rests upon his memory. He was slow to arrive at
+conclusions, but when deliberation gave birth to conviction he
+unfalteringly strove for the right. His education was practical, not
+theoretical, and was acquired in the school of nature and among men
+rather than among books. The basis of his life was earnestness. No
+rhetorical display marked his speech, but his oratory fastened the
+attention, appealed to reason and carried conviction to the hearts of
+his listeners. He valued public opinion, for he said:</p>
+
+<p>"With public sentiment nothing can fail; without public sentiment
+nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes
+deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions."</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page344" name="page344"></a>(p. 344)</span> He opposed the extension of slavery rather than its
+abolition; but as he divined the real sentiments of its advocates he
+realized that enduring peace would not bless the nation while the
+institution lived, a menace to free labor and industrial prosperity.
+He professed no religion, for his great heart throbbed in sympathy
+with all humanity, and he would not be separated from even the
+humblest among men by the artificial barriers of creed. He believed in
+the gospel of liberty and would guarantee it to all men through
+constitutional enactment. When he became president he found slavery
+intrenched behind the bulwarks of constitutional law and judicial
+decision; he found a united South, resolute in her determination to
+perpetuate slavery in the nation; a vacillating North, divided in its
+sentiment on the great question of property in man. He found the
+nation in the throes of civil war, and died in the triumphal hour of
+his country's deliverance, with the sceptre of slavery shattered, her
+fetters broken and in rust, and her power crumbled to ashes.</p>
+
+<p>Public criticism never annoyed him, and he was not averse to taking
+counsel from the poorest among men. It was love of country, not
+selfish ambition, which turned his attention to public life, and
+toward the end of his administration he was rewarded by public
+confidence and a respect for his honesty and singleness of aim toward
+the good of the nation. He had a great relish for story-telling and
+used his fund of anecdote to good advantage in illustrating points in
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>His administration stands the guide-post of the centuries, set by the
+Eternal as the dividing line between the serfdom of the past and the
+freedom of the future. His monument stands the altar of a nation's
+fame, and his name will live to guide the world to enfranchisement.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig010" name="sig010"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig010.jpg" width="250" height="147" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page345" name="page345"></a>(p. 345)</span> HORACE GREELEY<a id="footnotetag14" name="footnotetag14"></a><a href="#footnote14" title="Go to footnote 14"><span class="smaller">[14]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Noah Brooks</span><br>
+(1811-1872)</h3>
+
+<a id="img035" name="img035"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img035.jpg" width="250" height="312" alt="Horace Greeley." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Horace Greeley was one of the few persons whose manhood fulfilled the
+precocious promise of his youth. He could read before he could speak
+plainly, and at the age of six he had declared that his purpose in
+life was to be a printer. At eleven he tried to be apprenticed at the
+village printing-office and was unsuccessful; at the age of fourteen
+he was taken on as an apprentice in the office of the <span class="italic">Northern
+Spectator</span>, at East Poultney, Vt.</p>
+
+<p>His family were of Scotch-Irish origin, but had lived in the northern
+part of New Hampshire for several generations. Horace was born in
+Amherst, N. H., February 3, 1811. So quick of apprehension was he, and
+so active was his intellect, that the commonest of common-school
+education was for him sufficient. His schooling was only that which he
+could obtain during three or four months in winter; for at other
+seasons of the year he labored in the field with his father and
+brothers; and when he went to be an apprentice for five years in the
+printing-office, he was paid a very slender pittance, the greater part
+of which he gave to his father, whose income was probably next to
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>In June, 1830, the newspaper office in which young Greeley was
+learning his trade became insolvent, and Greeley, then in his
+twentieth year, was released from his indentures. He tramped from
+office to office as a journeyman printer, and his father having
+removed to the then "new country of western Pennsylvania," the
+youngster, with ten dollars in his pocket, walking part way and part
+way earning his passage on a tug-boat, entered the city of New York,
+August 18, 1831. For days he sought in vain for employment among the
+printing-offices of the metropolis. He was gawky, poorly clad, and
+doubtless presented a very grotesque appearance to the cityfied people
+to whom he vainly applied for employment. Finally he effected an
+entrance into one of the printing-offices of the city, and, much to
+the surprise of those who sneered at his ungainly and unpromising
+figure, he straightway proved himself to be a competent, careful, and
+skilful printer. For fourteen months or more, he picked up odd jobs in
+the offices of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page346" name="page346"></a>(p. 346)</span> the newspapers, always making friends and
+always managing to save a little money.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, at the beginning of 1833, in partnership with Francis V.
+Story, a printer, he established a penny paper called <span class="italic">The Morning
+Post</span>. This venture failed, but Greeley and Story saved from the wreck
+two-thirds of their capital, which was $150, all told, and still had
+on hand their type and materials. They now became master job-printers
+and made small contracts with persons who had newspaper printing to
+give out. In his New England boyhood Greeley had occasionally
+contributed to the columns of the newspapers on which he worked, and
+now he resumed that employment. He wrote for several of the feeble
+newspapers of the time, and on the death of his partner, Francis
+Story, he associated himself with Jonas Winchester. The firm
+prospered, and in 1834 was strong enough to establish a weekly
+literary newspaper called <span class="italic">The New Yorker</span>. The first number of this
+paper appeared on March 22, 1834, and it sold one hundred copies; for
+the three months next succeeding this was the average of its weekly
+circulation. The paper gradually increased in popularity, and the name
+of its Editor-in-Chief, Horace Greeley, was now known and respected.
+He furnished editorials also to the <span class="italic">Daily Whig</span> and to other
+journals, and was selected by William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed for
+the editorship of a campaign paper called <span class="italic">The Jeffersonian</span>,
+published in Albany. This was a Whig newspaper printed weekly, and the
+audacity, aggressiveness, and ability with which it was edited
+commanded the respect of its readers. <span class="italic">The Jeffersonian</span> was finally
+suspended in the spring of 1839, and during the presidential canvass
+of the following year, Greeley, foreseeing the activity of the
+campaign, seized upon the opportunity to establish a new campaign
+paper called <span class="italic">The Log Cabin</span>. This journal at once achieved the
+extraordinary circulation of twenty thousand copies for its first
+edition. It succeeded beyond the most sanguine expectations of its
+founders, H. Greeley &amp; Company, and in a few weeks the circulation ran
+up to sixty thousand, eighty thousand, and even ninety thousand
+copies, a newspaper circulation in those days absolutely
+unprecedented. <span class="italic">The Log Cabin</span> was characterized by the homely wit,
+the unsparing logic, and the terseness and vigor of expression which
+were always Horace Greeley's most marked traits as a journalist.</p>
+
+<p>After the campaign of 1840 <span class="italic">The Log Cabin</span> became a family political
+paper, and on April 10, 1841, its name was supplanted by that of <span class="italic">The
+New York Tribune</span>. Its home was at 30 Ann Street, and Horace Greeley,
+its editor, promised that it should be "worthy of the hearty approval
+of the virtuous and refined, and a welcome visitant to family
+firesides."</p>
+
+<p>As an editor Mr. Greeley was eccentric, and his marked personal traits
+were perceptible in his management of his newspaper. He was severely
+temperate, although opposed to prohibition as impracticable; he was in
+favor of a high protective tariff, opposed to slavery, predisposed to
+vegetarian diet, and at times manifested a proclivity to the doctrines
+of Fourier and Prudhomme.</p>
+
+<p>In his management of <span class="italic">The Tribune</span> Mr. Greeley made a wide
+acquaintance with the newspaper men, politicians, and the statesmen of
+the time. Among those <span class="pagenum"><a id="page347" name="page347"></a>(p. 347)</span> associated with him in the management
+of his paper was Henry J. Raymond, who afterward became the founder of
+<span class="italic">The New York Times</span>. Those who rendered service to <span class="italic">The Tribune</span> were
+George William Curtis, Charles A. Dana, Margaret Fuller, Bayard
+Taylor, and others who subsequently achieved renown. Mr. Greeley
+himself has said that of his first issue of five thousand copies of
+the paper, nearly all "were with difficulty given away." <span class="italic">The Tribune</span>
+was first sold at one cent a copy; in a month's time it reached a
+circulation of three thousand, and a month later it had reached the
+extraordinary circulation of eleven and twelve thousand. <span class="italic">The New
+Yorker</span> and <span class="italic">The Log Cabin</span> had all along been managed as weekly
+issues from the same office; but in September of the first year of the
+establishment of <span class="italic">The Tribune</span> these were merged in what was now <span class="italic">The
+New York Weekly Tribune</span>, which at once leaped to a large circulation
+and became a great force throughout the country, especially in the
+rural districts.</p>
+
+<p>In 1842 Mr. Greeley began to print in his paper one column daily of
+matter on Fourierite topics, written by Albert Brisbane, and
+occasionally these theories were defended in his editorial columns,
+and he thereby gained a certain amount of obloquy from which he did
+not readily recover. The paper had the reputation of being not only
+extremely radical in its political views, but also committed to many
+of the "isms" of the times. It paid much attention to the
+spirit-rappings of the Fox sisters, of Rochester, and investigated the
+curious phenomena with fearless open-mindedness. <span class="italic">The Tribune</span>
+prospered, though not greatly, and it was evident that Mr. Greeley's
+business management was never very successful; and it may be said that
+his greatest success as the editor of a prosperous and profitable
+newspaper was always achieved by the co-operation of wiser managers
+than himself. His personal appearance was peculiar, and he very soon
+became a well-known figure in the public life of New York. He usually
+wore a broad-brimmed, soft white hat and a light-colored overcoat, and
+his appearance, although always spotlessly neat, was characterized by
+a certain disorderliness which instantly attracted attention. He had a
+shrill, high-keyed voice; he was irascible in temper, and was never
+the "philosopher" which those who least knew him credited him with
+being. In an angry letter published in his own newspaper he referred
+to the editor of <span class="italic">The Daily Times</span> as "that little villain, Raymond;"
+and replying to an offensive charge against him by <span class="italic">The Evening Post</span>,
+he began with, "You lie, villain, wilfully, wickedly, basely lie."
+Other passages at arms like these occasionally enlivened, if they did
+not disfigure, the editorial columns of <span class="italic">The Tribune</span>, over which
+Greeley exercised a personal censorship which, in later years, he
+found it necessary to relax. He was sincerely and ardently devoted to
+the cause of Protection, to the interests of the farmer and the
+laboring man, to sound money, and to all the ennobling and refining
+activities of social life. In spite of a careless personal manner, and
+a voice not at all agreeable to the ear, he became a popular and
+greatly sought public speaker. As a lecturer in the lyceums of towns
+and villages, then greatly in vogue, he was always an acceptable and
+greatly admired figure.</p>
+
+<p>In 1848 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives
+to fill <span class="pagenum"><a id="page348" name="page348"></a>(p. 348)</span> a vacancy for three months. With great vigor he
+charged upon several of the most prominent abuses of the time, and
+selecting the practice of paying mileage to Congressmen, he assaulted
+that with a vehemence which ultimately destroyed it. As a member of
+Congress he also introduced the first bill to give free homesteads to
+actual settlers on the public lands. He was a candidate in 1861 for
+United States Senator, but was defeated by Ira Harris, of Albany. In
+1864 he was one of the Republican Presidential Electors, and in 1870
+was nominated for Congress in a hopelessly Democratic district, and
+was defeated. He had always been an intense opponent of human slavery,
+and in 1848 his hostility to the war with Mexico was doubtless
+inspired by his dread of the extension of the slave system. He was an
+enthusiastic supporter of John C. Fremont, who was nominated for
+President by the Republicans in 1856; and he made his newspaper so
+dreaded and feared by the opposition that he was indicted in Virginia
+for circulating incendiary documents through its columns. During these
+years he was an incessant and untiring worker, and produced for the
+columns of his own and other newspapers a prodigious amount of matter.
+He had heretofore labored in politics in conjunction with William H.
+Seward, Governor, and afterward United States Senator. In 1854 the
+separation between Greeley, Seward, and Thurlow Weed became
+established, and Mr. Seward's friends prevented the election of Mr.
+Greeley as a delegate to the Republican Convention which nominated
+Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Greeley, however, obtained a seat as delegate
+in the Convention as a representative from the State of Oregon, and in
+that capacity he, more than any other man, doubtless turned the tide
+against Mr. Seward and in favor of Abraham Lincoln, who was nominated
+by the Convention.</p>
+
+<p>At the breaking out of the Civil War Mr. Greeley manifested great
+trepidation and reluctance to face the issue. He even advised in <span class="italic">The
+Tribune</span> that the "Erring Sisters" be allowed to depart in peace; but
+later he rallied manfully to the cause of the defence of the Union,
+and his newspaper rang with impassioned appeals for the freedom of the
+slaves held in bondage in the South. He incessantly urged a more
+vigorous prosecution of the war, and called upon President Lincoln to
+take every possible measure for the emancipation of the Southern
+bondmen.</p>
+
+<p>In 1864, being convinced that the cause of the rebellion was gradually
+weakening, he urged upon the President the policy of negotiating with
+the leaders of the Confederate government for a surrender of their
+warlike policy, on conditions to be arrived at by commissioners from
+both sides. This proposition excited much indignation throughout the
+country, and when, in answer to repeated demands from Mr. Greeley,
+President Lincoln authorized him to undertake such a conference at
+Niagara Falls, the people generally applauded the wisdom of the
+President, as well as the disappointment of Mr. Greeley, when the
+conference came to naught.</p>
+
+<p>After the final surrender at Appomattox and the capture of the
+Confederate President, Mr. Greeley visited Richmond and signed the
+bail bond of Jefferson Davis. This action raised a storm of public
+censure, and he was for a time overwhelmed <span class="pagenum"><a id="page349" name="page349"></a>(p. 349)</span> by the wrath and
+indignation of those who had been formerly associated with him in
+political affairs. He defended himself with great vigor, and
+fearlessly assailed those who stigmatized him as a sympathizer with
+the fallen rebel chieftain. He was not friendly to the nomination of
+General Grant in 1868, and disapproved of many of the schemes that
+marked his administration. Returning from a visit through the Southern
+States in the early years of President Grant's term, he brought to his
+newspaper some vigorous and outspoken denunciations of the
+"carpet-bag" governments of the formerly rebel States, and
+denunciations of the "scalawags" who, he said, "were the pests of the
+reconstructed States of the South." These and similar outgivings
+attracted the attention of a large element of the Republican party,
+and he was nominated for the Presidency, against General Grant, in
+1872. Mr. Greeley's canvass was one of great picturesqueness and
+industry. He made a series of speeches extending over a tour from New
+England to the West, and returning to New York, which were marked by a
+most wonderful originality, freshness, and brilliance; but nothing
+could avail to stem the tide of prejudice which rose against him and
+in favor of General Grant. He had been nominated by the so-called
+Liberal Republicans and by the Democrats, but he failed to carry any
+one of the Northern States, and of the other States he carried only
+Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. He was
+assailed during this canvass in the bitterest terms by those who
+regarded him as a turncoat and a traitor, and undoubtedly the
+vituperation and abuse showered upon him had the effect of
+disheartening him and destroying the zest with which he had
+theretofore undertaken the multifarious duties of life. He returned to
+New York from an exhausting campaign, depressed in spirit and weary in
+body and in mind. The death of his devoted wife added to his sorrows,
+and on November 29, 1872, only a few weeks after the Presidential
+election, he died at Pleasantville, N. Y., of mental and nervous
+prostration. His body lay in state in the City Hall, and his funeral
+was attended by the notables of the land&mdash;President Grant, who had
+just been re-elected by the people, being numbered among those who
+mourned at his bier.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to his editorial labors Mr. Greeley was the author of a
+number of works, among which were "Hints toward Reforms," "Glances at
+Europe," "History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension," "Overland
+Journey to San Francisco," "The American Conflict," and "Recollections
+of a Busy Life." He was also the founder of "The Whig Almanac," a
+manual of politics, which in later years became known as "The Tribune
+Almanac," and survived his demise.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig011" name="sig011"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig011.jpg" width="250" height="75" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page350" name="page350"></a>(p. 350)</span> LOUIS AGASSIZ<a id="footnotetag15" name="footnotetag15"></a><a href="#footnote15" title="Go to footnote 15"><span class="smaller">[15]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Asa Gray</span><br>
+(1807-1873)</h3>
+
+<a id="img036" name="img036"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img036.jpg" width="250" height="318" alt="Louis Agassiz." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>There is no need to give an abstract of the contents of these
+fascinating volumes, for everybody is reading them. Most are probably
+wishing for more personal details, especially of the American life;
+but the editorial work is so deftly and delicately done, and "the
+story of an intellectual life marked by rare coherence and unity" is
+so well arranged to tell itself and make its impression, that we may
+thankfully accept what has been given us, though the desired "fulness
+of personal narrative" be wanting.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve years have passed since Agassiz was taken from us. Yet to some
+of us it seems not very long ago that the already celebrated Swiss
+naturalist came over, in the bloom of his manly beauty, to charm us
+with his winning ways, and inspire us with his overflowing enthusiasm,
+as he entered upon the American half of that career which has been so
+beneficial to the interests of natural science. There are not many
+left of those who attended those first Lowell Lectures in the autumn
+of 1846&mdash;perhaps all the more taking for the broken English in which
+they were delivered&mdash;and who shared in the delight with which, in a
+supplementary lecture, he more fluently addressed his audience in his
+mother-tongue.</p>
+
+<p>In these earliest lectures he sounded the note of which his last
+public utterance was the dying cadence. For, as this biography rightly
+intimates, his scientific life was singularly entire and
+homogeneous&mdash;if not uninfluenced, yet quite unchanged, by the
+transitions which have marked the period. In a small circle of
+naturalists, almost the first that was assembled to greet him on his
+coming to this country, and of which the writer is the sole survivor,
+when Agassiz was inquired of as to his conception of "species," he
+sententiously replied: "A species is a thought of the Creator." To
+this thoroughly theistic conception he joined the scientific deduction
+which he had already been led to draw, that the animal species of each
+geological age, or even stratum, were different from those preceding
+and following, and also unconnected by natural derivation. And his
+very last published works reiterated his steadfast conviction that
+"there is no evidence <span class="pagenum"><a id="page351" name="page351"></a>(p. 351)</span> of a direct descent of later from
+earlier species in the geological succession of animals." Indeed, so
+far as we know, he would not even admit that such "thoughts of the
+Creator" as these might have been actualized in the natural course of
+events. If he had accepted such a view, and if he had himself
+apprehended and developed in his own way the now well-nigh assured
+significance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the
+history of the doctrine of development would have been different from
+what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been
+prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting
+what he felt to be&mdash;at least for the present&mdash;a losing battle. It is
+possible that the "whirligig of time" may still "bring in his
+revenges," but not very probable.</p>
+
+<p>Much to his credit, it may be said that a good share of Agassiz's
+invincible aversion to evolution may be traced to the spirit in which
+it was taken up by his early associate, Vogt, and, indeed, by most of
+the German school then and since, which justly offended both his
+scientific and his religious sense. Agassiz always "thought nobly of
+the soul," and could in no way approve either materialistic or
+agnostic opinions. The idealistic turn of his mind was doubtless
+confirmed in his student days at Munich, whither he and his friend
+Braun resorted after one session at Heidelberg, and where both
+devotedly attended the lectures of Schelling&mdash;then in his later
+glory&mdash;and of Oken, whose "Natur-Philosophie" was then in the
+ascendant. Although fascinated and inspired by Oken's <span class="italic">à priori</span>
+biology(built upon morphological ideas which had not yet been
+established, but had, in part, been rightly divined) the two young
+naturalists were not carried away by it, probably because they were
+such keen and conscientious observers, and were kept in close
+communion with work-a-day nature. As Agassiz intimates, they had to
+resist "the temptation to impose one's own ideas upon nature, to
+explain her mysteries by brilliant theories rather than by patient
+study of the facts as we find them," and that "overbearing confidence
+in the abstract conceptions of the human mind as applied to the study
+of nature; although, indeed," he adds, "the young naturalist of that
+day who did not share in some degree the intellectual stimulus given
+to scientific pursuits by physio-philosophy would have missed a part
+of his training." That training was not lost upon Agassiz. Although
+the adage in his last published article, "A physical fact is as sacred
+as a moral principle," was well lived up to, yet ideal prepossessions
+often had much to do with his marshalling of the facts.</p>
+
+<p>Another professor at Munich, from whom Agassiz learned much, and had
+nothing to unlearn, was the anatomist and physiologist Döllinger. He
+published little, but he seems to have been the founder of modern
+embryological investigation, and to have initiated his two famous
+pupils, first Von Baer, and then Agassiz, into at least the rudiments
+of the doctrine of the correspondence between the stages of the
+development of the individual animal with that of its rank in the
+scale of being, and the succession in geological time of the forms and
+types to which the species belongs: a principle very fertile for
+scientific zoölogy in the hands of both these naturalists, and one of
+the foundations of that theory of evolution <span class="pagenum"><a id="page352" name="page352"></a>(p. 352)</span> which the
+former, we believe, partially accepted, and the other wholly rejected.</p>
+
+<p>The botanical professor, the genial Von Martius, should also be
+mentioned here. He found Agassiz a student, barely of age; he directly
+made him an author, and an authority, in the subject of his
+predilection. Dr. Spix, the zoölogical companion of Martius in
+Brazilian exploration, died in 1826; the fishes of the collection were
+left untouched. Martius recognized the genius of Agassiz, and offered
+him, and indeed pressed him, to undertake their elaboration. Agassiz
+brought out the first part of the quarto volume on the "Fishes of the
+Brazilian Expedition of Spix and Martius" before he took his degree of
+doctor of philosophy, and completed it before he proceeded to that of
+doctor in medicine, in 1830. The work opened his way to fame, but
+brought no money. Still, as Martius defrayed all the expenses, the net
+result compared quite favorably with that of later publications.
+Moreover, out of it possibly issued his own voyage to Brazil in later
+years, under auspices such as his early patron never dreamed of.</p>
+
+<p>This early work also made him known to Cuvier; so that, when he went
+to Paris, a year afterward, to continue his medical and scientific
+studies&mdash;the one, as he deemed, from necessity, the other from
+choice&mdash;he was received as a fellow-savant; yet at first with a
+certain reserve, probably no more than was natural in view of the
+relative age and position of the two men; but Agassiz, writing to his
+sister, says: "This extreme but formal politeness chills you instead
+of putting you at your ease; it lacks cordiality, and, to tell the
+truth, I would gladly go away if I were not held fast by the wealth of
+material of which I can avail myself." But only a month later he
+writes&mdash;this time to his uncle&mdash;that, while he was anxious lest he
+"might not be allowed to examine, and still less to describe, the
+fossil fishes and their skeletons in the Museum, ... knowing that
+Cuvier intended to write a work on this subject," and might naturally
+wish to reserve the materials for his own use; and when the young
+naturalist, as he showed his own sketches and notes to the veteran,
+was faintly venturing to hope that, on seeing his work so far
+advanced, he might perhaps be invited to share in a joint publication,
+Cuvier relieved his anxiety and more than fulfilled his half-formed
+desires.</p>
+
+<p>"He desired his secretary to bring him a certain portfolio of
+drawings. He showed me the contents: they were drawings of fossil
+fishes, and notes which he had taken in the British Museum and
+elsewhere. After looking it through with me, he said he had seen with
+satisfaction the manner in which I had treated this subject; that I
+had, indeed, anticipated him, since he had intended at some future
+time to do the same thing; but that as I had given it so much
+attention, and had done my work so well, he had decided to renounce
+his project, and to place at my disposition all the materials he had
+collected and all the preliminary notes he had taken."</p>
+
+<p>Within three months Cuvier fell under a stroke of paralysis, and
+shortly died. The day before the attack he had said to Agassiz, "Be
+careful, and remember that work kills." We doubt if it often kills
+naturalists, unless when, like Cuvier, they also become statesmen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page353" name="page353"></a>(p. 353)</span> But to live and work, the naturalist must be fed. It was a
+perplexing problem how possibly to remain a while longer in Paris,
+which was essential to the carrying on of his work, and to find the
+means of supplying his very simple wants. And here the most charming
+letters in these volumes are, first, the one from his mother, full of
+tender thoughtfulness, and making the first suggestion about Neuchâtel
+and its museum, as a place where the aspiring naturalist might secure
+something more substantial than "brilliant hopes" to live upon; next,
+that from Agassiz to his father, who begs to be told as much as he can
+be supposed to understand of the nature of this work upon fossil
+fishes, which called for so much time, labor, and expense; and, almost
+immediately, Agassiz's letter to his parents, telling them that
+Humboldt had, quite spontaneously and unexpectedly, relieved his
+present anxieties by a credit of a thousand francs, to be increased,
+if necessary. Humboldt had shown a friendly interest in him from the
+first, and had undertaken to negotiate with Cotta, the publisher, in
+his behalf; but, becoming uneasy by the delay, and feeling that "a man
+so laborious, so gifted, and so deserving of affection ... should not
+be left in a position where lack of serenity disturbs his power of
+work," he delicately pressed the acceptance of this aid as a
+confidential transaction between two friends of unequal age.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the relations between the "two friends," one at that time
+sixty-three, and the other twenty-five, were very beautiful, and so
+continued, as the correspondence shows. Humboldt's letters (we wish
+there were more of them) are particularly delightful, are full of wit
+and wisdom, of almost paternal solicitude, and of excellent counsel.
+He enjoins upon Agassiz to finish what he has in hand before taking up
+new tasks (this is in 1837), not to spread his intellect over too many
+subjects at once, nor to go on enlarging the works he had undertaken;
+he predicts the pecuniary difficulties in which expansion would be
+sure to land him, bewails the glacier investigations, and closes with
+"a touch of fun, in order that my letter may seem a little less like
+preaching. A thousand affectionate remembrances. No more ice, not much
+of echinoderms, plenty of fish, recall of ambassadors <span class="italic">in partibus</span>,
+and great severity toward booksellers, an infernal race, two or three
+of which have been killed under me."</p>
+
+<p>The ambassadors <span class="italic">in partibus</span> were the artists Agassiz employed and
+sent to England or elsewhere to draw fossil fishes for him in various
+museums, at a cost which Humboldt knew would be embarrassing. The ice,
+which he would have no more of, refers to the glacier researches upon
+which Agassiz was entering with ardor, laying one of the solid
+foundations of his fame. Curiously enough, both Humboldt and Von Buch,
+with all their interest in Agassiz, were quite unable to comprehend
+the importance of an inquiry which was directly in their line, and,
+indeed, they scorned it; while the young naturalist, without training
+in physics or geology, but with the insight of genius, at once
+developed the whole idea of the glacial period, with its wonderful
+consequences, upon his first inspection of the phenomena shown him by
+Charpentier in the valley of the Rhône.</p>
+
+<p>It is well that Humboldt's advice was not heeded in this regard.
+Nevertheless he was a wise counsellor. He saw the danger into which
+his young friend's <span class="pagenum"><a id="page354" name="page354"></a>(p. 354)</span> enthusiasm and boundless appetite for
+work was likely to lead him. For Agassiz it might be said, with a
+variation of the well-known adage, that there was nothing he touched
+that he did not aggrandize. Everything he laid hold of grew larger
+under his hand&mdash;grew into a mountain threatening to overwhelm him, and
+would have overwhelmed anyone whose powers were not proportionate to
+his aspirations. Established at Neuchâtel, and giving himself with
+ardor to the duties of his professorship, it was surely enough if he
+could do the author's share in the production of his great works on
+the fossil and the fresh-water fishes, without assuming the
+responsibilities and cares of publication as well, and even of a
+lithographic establishment which he set up mainly for his own use. But
+he carried <span class="italic">pari passu</span>, or nearly so, his work on fossil mollusca&mdash;a
+quarto volume with nearly a hundred plates&mdash;his monographs of
+echinoderms, living and fossil, his investigations of the
+embryological development of fishes, and that laborious work, the
+"Nomenclator Zoologicus," with the "Bibliographia," later published in
+England by the Ray Society. Moreover, of scattered papers, those of
+the Royal Society's Catalogue, which antedate his arrival in this
+country, are more than threescore and ten. He had help, indeed; but
+the more he had, the more he enlarged and diversified his tasks;
+Humboldt's sound advice about his zoölogical undertakings being no
+more heeded than his fulminations against the glacial theory.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of all this, Agassiz turned his glance upon the glaciers,
+and the "local phenomenon" became at once a cosmic one. So far a happy
+divination; but he seems to have believed quite to the last that, not
+only the temperate zones, but whole intertropical continents&mdash;at least
+the American&mdash;had been sheeted with ice. The narrative in the first
+volume will give the general reader a vivid but insufficient
+conception of the stupendous work upon which he so brilliantly labored
+for nearly a decade of years.</p>
+
+<p><span class="italic">C&oelig;lum, non animum, mutant</span> who come with such a spirit to a wider
+and, scientifically, less developed continent. First as visitor, soon
+as denizen, and at length as citizen of the American republic, Agassiz
+rose with every occasion to larger and more various activities. What
+with the Lowell Institute, the college in Charleston, S. C., and
+Cornell University, in addition to Harvard, he may be said to have
+held three or four professorships at once, none of them sinecures. He
+had not been two months in the country before a staff of assistants
+was gathered around him, and a marine zoölogical laboratory was in
+operation. The rude shed on the shore, and the small wooden building
+at Cambridge, developed under his hand into the Museum of Zoölogy&mdash;if
+not as we see it now, yet into one of the foremost collections. Who
+can say what it would have been if his plans and ideas had obtained
+full recognition, and "expenditure" had seemed to the trustees, as it
+seemed to him, "the best investment;" or if efficient filial aid, not
+then to be dreamed of, had not given solid realization to the high
+paternal aspirations? In like manner grew large under his hand the
+Brazilian exploration, so generously provided for by a Boston citizen
+and fostered by an enlightened emperor; and on a similar scale was
+planned, and partly carried out, the "Contributions to the Natural
+History of the United States," as the imperial quarto <span class="pagenum"><a id="page355" name="page355"></a>(p. 355)</span> work
+was modestly entitled, which was to be published "at the rate of one
+volume a year, each volume to contain about three hundred pages and
+twenty plates," with simple reliance upon a popular subscription; and
+so, indeed, of everything which this large-minded man undertook.</p>
+
+<p>While Agassiz thus was a magnanimous man, in the literal as well as
+the accepted meaning of the word, he was also, as we have seen, a
+truly fortunate one. Honorable assistance came to him at critical
+moments, such as the delicate gift from Humboldt at Paris, which
+perhaps saved him to science; such as the Wollaston prize from the
+Geological Society in 1834, when he was struggling for the means of
+carrying on the "Fossil Fishes." The remainder of the deficit of this
+undertaking he was able to make up from his earliest earnings in
+America. For the rest, we all know how almost everything he
+desired&mdash;and he wanted nothing except for science&mdash;was cheerfully
+supplied to his hand by admiring givers. Those who knew the man during
+the twenty-seven years of his American life, can quite understand the
+contagious enthusiasm and confidence which he evoked. The impression
+will in some degree be transmitted by these pleasant and timely
+volumes, which should make the leading lines of the life of Agassiz
+clear to the newer generation, and deepen them in the memory of an
+older one.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+<h3>CHARLES DARWIN<br>
+Extracts from "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," by <span class="smcap">Arch. Geikie,
+LL.D., F.R.S.</span><br>
+(1809-1882)</h3>
+
+<a id="img037" name="img037"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img037.jpg" width="250" height="255" alt="Charles Darwin." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>By the universal consent of mankind, the name of Charles Darwin was,
+even during his lifetime, among those of the few great leaders who
+stand forth for all time as the creative spirits who have founded and
+legislated for the realm of science. It is too soon to estimate with
+precision the full value and effect of his work. The din of
+controversy that rose around him has hardly yet died down, and the
+influence of the doctrines he propounded is extending into so many
+remote departments of human inquiry, that a generation or two may
+require to pass away before his true place in the history of thought
+can be definitely fixed. But the judgment of his contemporaries as to
+his proud pre-eminence is not likely ever to be called in question. He
+is enrolled among Dii majorum gentium, and there he will remain
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page356" name="page356"></a>(p. 356)</span> to the end of the ages. When he was laid beside the
+illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey, there arose far and wide a
+lamentation as of personal bereavement. Thousands of mourners who had
+never seen him, who knew only his writings, and judged of the
+gentleness and courtesy of his nature from these, and from such
+hearsay reports as passed outward from the privacy of his country
+home, grieved as for the loss of a friend. It is remarkable that
+probably no scientific man of his day was personally less familiar to
+the mass of his fellow-countrymen. He seemed to shun all the usual
+modes of contact with them. His weak health, domestic habits, and
+absorbing work kept him in the seclusion of his own quiet home. His
+face was seldom to be seen at the meetings of scientific societies, or
+at those gatherings where the discoveries of science are expounded to
+more popular audiences. He shrank from public controversy, although no
+man was ever more vigorously attacked and more completely
+misrepresented. Nevertheless, when he died the affectionate regret
+that followed him to the grave, came not alone from his own personal
+friends, but from thousands of sympathetic mourners in all parts of
+the world, who had never seen or known him. Men had ample material for
+judging of his work, and in the end had given judgment with general
+acclaim. Of the man himself, however, they could know but little, yet
+enough of his character shone forth in his work to indicate its
+tenderness and goodness. Men instinctively felt him to be in every way
+one of the great ones of the earth, whose removal from the living
+world leaves mankind poorer in moral worth as well as in intellect.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Darwin came of a family which from the beginning of the
+sixteenth century had been settled on the northern borders of
+Lincolnshire. Several of his ancestors had been men of literary taste
+and scientific culture, the most noted of them being his grandfather,
+Erasmus Darwin, the poet and philosopher. His father was a medical man
+in large practice at Shrewsbury, and his mother a daughter of Josiah
+Wedgwood, of Etruria. Some interesting reminiscences are given of the
+father, who must have been a man of uncommon strength of character. He
+left a large fortune, and thus provided for the career his son was
+destined to fulfil. Of his own early life and later years, Darwin has
+left a slight but most interesting sketch in an autobiographical
+fragment, written late in life for his children, and without any idea
+of its ever being published. Shortly before his mother's death, in
+1817, he was sent, when eight years old, to a day-school in his native
+town. But even in the period of childhood he had chosen the favorite
+occupation of his life: "My taste for natural history," he says, "and
+more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make
+out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things&mdash;shells,
+seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting which
+leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was
+very strong in me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters and
+brothers ever had this taste."</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>Some of the incidents of his Cambridge life which he records are full
+of interest in their bearing on his future career. Foremost among them
+stands the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page357" name="page357"></a>(p. 357)</span> friendship which he formed with Professor
+Henslow, whose lectures on botany he attended. He joined in the class
+excursions and found them delightful. But still more profitable to him
+were the long and almost daily walks which he enjoyed with his
+teacher, during the latter half of his time at Cambridge. Henslow's
+wide range of acquirement, modesty, unselfishness, courtesy,
+gentleness, and piety, fascinated him and exerted on him an influence
+which, more than anything else, tended to shape his whole future life.
+The love of travel which had been kindled by his boyish reading, now
+took a deeper hold of him as he read Humboldt's "Personal Narrative"
+and Herschel's "Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy." He
+determined to visit Teneriffe, and even went so far as to inquire
+about ships. But his desire was soon to be gratified in a far other
+and more comprehensive voyage. At the close of his college life he was
+fortunate enough, through Henslow's good offices, to accompany
+Sedgwick in a geological excursion in North Wales. There can be little
+doubt that this short trip sufficed to efface the dislike of geology
+which he had conceived at Edinburgh, and to show him how much it was
+in his own power to increase the sum of geological knowledge. To use
+his own phrase, he began to "work like a tiger" at geology.</p>
+
+<p>But he now had reached the main turning-point of his career. On
+returning home from his ramble with Sedgwick he found a letter from
+Henslow, telling him that Captain Fitz-Roy, who was about to start on
+the memorable voyage of the Beagle, was willing to give up part of his
+own cabin to any competent young man who would volunteer to go with
+him, without pay, as a naturalist. The post was offered to Darwin and,
+after some natural objections on the part of his father, accepted.</p>
+
+<p>The Beagle weighed anchor from Plymouth on December 27, 1831, and
+returned on October 2, 1836.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to England, Darwin at once took his place among the
+acknowledged men of science of his country. For a time his health
+continued to be such as to allow him to get through a large amount of
+work. The next two years, which in his own opinion were the most
+active of his life, were spent, partly at Cambridge, and partly in
+London, in the preparation of his "Journal of Researches," of the
+zoölogical and geological results of the voyage, and of various papers
+for the Geological and Zoölogical Societies. So keen was his
+geological zeal that, almost against his better judgment, he was
+prevailed upon to undertake the duties of honorary secretary of the
+Geological Society, an office which he continued to hold for three
+years. And at each period of enforced holiday, for his health had
+already begun to give way, he occupied himself with geological work in
+the field. In the Midlands he watched the operations of earthworms,
+and began those inquiries which formed the subject of his last
+research, and of the volume on "Vegetable Mould" which he published
+not long before his death. In the Highlands he studied the famous
+Parallel Roads of Glen Roy; and his work there, though in after-years
+he acknowledged it to be "a great failure," he felt at the time to
+have been "one of the most difficult and instructive tasks" he had
+ever undertaken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page358" name="page358"></a>(p. 358)</span> In the beginning of 1839 Darwin married his cousin, daughter
+of Josiah Wedgwood, and grand-daughter of the founder of the Etruria
+Works, and took a house in London. But the entries of ill-health in
+his diary grow more frequent. For a time he and his wife went into
+society, and took their share of the scientific life and work of the
+metropolis. But he was compelled gradually to withdraw from this kind
+of existence, which suited neither of them, and eventually they
+determined to live in the country. Accordingly, he purchased a house
+and grounds at Down, in a sequestered part of Kent, some twenty miles
+from London, and moved thither in the autumn of 1842. In that quiet
+home he passed the remaining forty years of his life. It was there
+that his children were born and grew up around him; that he carried on
+the researches and worked out the generalizations that have changed
+the whole realm of science; that he received his friends and the
+strangers who came from every country to see him; and it was there
+that, after a long and laborious life, full of ardor and work to the
+last, he died, at the age of seventy-three, on April 19, 1882.</p>
+
+<p>The story of his life at Down is almost wholly coincident with the
+history of the development of his views on evolution, and the growth
+and appearance of the successive volumes which he gave to the world.
+For the first four years his geological tastes continued in the
+ascendant. During that interval there appeared three remarkable works,
+his volume on "Coral Islands," that on "Volcanic Islands," and his
+"Geological Observations on South America."</p>
+
+<p>After working up the geological results of the long voyage in the
+Beagle, he set himself with great determination to more purely
+geological details. While on the coast of Chili he had found a curious
+new cirripede, to understand the structure of which he had to examine
+and dissect many of the common forms. The memoir, which was originally
+designed to describe only his new type, gradually expanded into an
+elaborate monograph on the Cirripedes (barnacles) as a whole group.
+For eight years he continued this self-imposed task, getting at last
+so weary of it as to feel at times as if the labor had been in some
+sense wasted which he had spent over it; and this suspicion seems to
+have remained with him in maturer years. But when at last the two
+bulky volumes, of more than one thousand pages of text, with forty
+detailed plates, made their appearance, they were hailed as an
+admirable contribution to the knowledge of a comparatively little
+known department of the animal kingdom. In the interests of science,
+perhaps, their chief value is to be recognized, not so much in their
+own high merit, as in the practical training which their preparation
+gave the author in anatomical detail and classification. He spoke of
+it himself afterward as a valuable discipline, and Professor Huxley
+truly affirms that the influence of this discipline was visible in
+everything which he afterward wrote.</p>
+
+<p>It was after Darwin had got rid of his herculean labors over the
+"Cirripede" book, that he began to settle down seriously to the great
+work of his life&mdash;the investigation of the origin of the species, of
+plants and animals. Briefly, it may be stated here that he seems to
+have been first led to ponder over the question of the transmutation
+of species, by facts that had come under his notice during the
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page359" name="page359"></a>(p. 359)</span> South American part of the voyage in the Beagle&mdash;such as the
+discovery of the fossil remains of huge animals akin to, but yet very
+distinct from, the living armadillos of the same regions; the manner
+in which closely allied animals were found to replace one another, as
+he followed them over the continent; and the remarkable character of
+the flora and fauna of the Galapagos Archipelago. "It was evident," he
+says, "that such facts as these, as well as many others, could only be
+explained on the supposition that species gradually become modified;
+and the subject haunted me." His first note-book for the accumulation
+of facts bearing on the question was opened in July, 1837, and from
+that date he continued to gather them "on a wholesale scale, more
+especially with respect to domesticated productions, by printed
+inquiries, by conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by
+extensive reading."</p>
+
+<hr>
+
+<p>He now set to work upon that epitome of his observations and
+deductions which appeared in November, 1859, as the immortal "Origin
+of Species."</p>
+
+<p>Those who are old enough to remember the publication of this work,
+cannot but marvel at the change, which, since that day, not yet thirty
+years ago, has come alike upon the non-scientific and the scientific
+part of the community in their estimation of it. Professor Huxley has
+furnished to the biography a graphic chapter on the reception of the
+book, and in his vigorous and witty style recalls the furious and
+fatuous objections that were urged against it. A much longer chapter
+will be required to describe the change which the advent of the
+"Origin of Species" has wrought in every department of science, and
+not of science only, but of philosophy. The principle of evolution, so
+early broached and so long discredited, has now at last been
+proclaimed and accepted as the guiding idea in the investigation of
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most marvellous aspects of Darwin's work was the way in
+which he seemed always to throw a new light upon every department of
+inquiry into which the course of his researches led him to look. The
+specialists who, in their own narrow domains, had been toiling for
+years, patiently gathering facts and timidly drawing inferences from
+them, were astonished to find that one who, in their eyes, was a kind
+of outsider, could point out to them the plain meaning of things
+which, though entirely familiar to them, they had never adequately
+understood. The central idea of the "Origin of Species" is an example
+of this in the biological sciences. The chapter on the imperfection of
+the geological record is another.</p>
+
+<p>After the publication of the "Origin" Darwin gave to the world, during
+a succession of years, a series of volumes in which some of his
+observations and conclusions were worked out in fuller detail. His
+books on the fertilization of orchids, on the movements and habits of
+climbing plants, on the variation of animals and plants under
+domestication, on the effects of cross-and self-fertilization in the
+vegetable kingdom, on the different forms of flowers on plants of the
+same species, were mainly based on his own quiet work in the
+greenhouse and garden at Down. His volumes on the descent of man and
+on the expression of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page360" name="page360"></a>(p. 360)</span> the emotions in man and animals,
+completed his contributions to the biological argument. His last
+volume, published the year before his death, treated of the formation
+of vegetable mould and the habits of earthworms, and the preparation
+of it enabled him to revive some of the geological enthusiasm which so
+marked the earlier years of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Such, in briefest outline, was the work accomplished by Charles
+Darwin. The admirable biography prepared by his son enables us to
+follow its progress from the beginning to its close. But higher even
+than the intellect which achieved the work, was the moral character
+which shone through it all.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS<br>
+(1797-1877)</h3>
+
+<a id="img038" name="img038"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img038.jpg" width="250" height="313" alt="Louis Adolphe Thiers." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Louis Adolphe Thiers, French historian, politician, and patriot, was
+born at Marseilles on April 16, 1797. His father, who seems to have
+belonged to a family in decayed circumstances, was a locksmith.
+Through the influence of his mother, who was a Chenier, he received a
+good education, first at the <span class="italic">Lycée</span> in his native city, and
+subsequently (1815) at Aix, whither he was sent to study law. At Aix
+he made the acquaintance of Mignet, cultivated literature rather than
+the law, and won a prize for a dissertation on Vauvenargues. Called to
+the bar at the age of twenty-three, he set off for Paris in the
+company of Mignet. His prospects did not seem brilliant, and his
+almost ludicrously squat figure and plain face were not
+recommendations to Parisian society. His industry and belief in
+himself were, however, unbounded, and an introduction to Lafitte, of
+the <span class="italic">Constitutionnel</span>, then the leading organ of the French liberals,
+gave him the chance of showing his capacity as a public writer. His
+articles in the <span class="italic">Constitutionnel</span>, chiefly on political and literary
+subjects, gained him the entry into the most influential salons of the
+opposition. At this time he made the acquaintance of Talleyrand,
+Casimir Périer, the Comte de Flahault, and Baron Louis, the financier.
+Meanwhile he was rapidly&mdash;indeed too rapidly&mdash;preparing his "Histoire
+de la Révolution Française." The first two volumes&mdash;there were ten in
+all&mdash;appeared in 1823. This work, although it has <span class="pagenum"><a id="page361" name="page361"></a>(p. 361)</span> been
+demonstrated to be very untrustworthy and inaccurate, more especially
+in its estimates of persons, gave its author a prominent place among
+French politicians and men of letters. About this time, too, the gift
+by his admirer, Cotta, the German publisher, of a share in the
+<span class="italic">Constitutionnel</span> raised him to comparative affluence. In January,
+1830, he, along with Armand Carrel, Mignet, and other friends, started
+the <span class="italic">National</span>, and in its columns waged relentless war on the
+Polignac administration. The ministry met the opposition it had
+provoked by the Ordonnances of July. Among the other repressive
+measures that were taken was the sending of a commissary of police to
+the office of the <span class="italic">National</span>, interdicting its publication. Its
+conductors, with Thiers at their head, defied the ministry, and the
+result was the revolution which drove Charles X. into exile.</p>
+
+<p>Thiers now entered on an active career as a politician. He was elected
+deputy for the town of Aix, and was appointed secretary-general to the
+minister of finance. His first appearance in the Chamber of Deputies
+gave no promise of his subsequent distinction. His diminutive person,
+his small face, encumbered with a pair of huge spectacles, and his
+whole exterior presenting something of the ludicrous, the new deputy,
+full of the impassioned eloquence of the revolutionary orators,
+attempted to impart the thrilling emotions affected by Mirabeau. The
+attempt provoked derision; but soon subsiding into the oratory natural
+to him&mdash;simple, easy, rapid, anecdotic&mdash;he became one of the most
+formidable of parliamentary speakers. Almost from the moment of his
+entrance into public life he and Guizot stood forth in opposition to
+each other as the champions of radicalism and conservatism,
+respectively. But he was a stanch monarchist, and for a time a
+favorite with Louis Philippe. In 1832 he accepted the post of minister
+of the interior under Soult, exchanging it subsequently for the
+ministry of commerce and public affairs, and that in turn for the
+foreign office. He was universally regarded as a stronger man than any
+of his chiefs during this period; but his public and private actions
+alike were always marked by a certain fussy quarrelsomeness which
+prevented him from being ever accounted a statesman of the first rank.
+The spirited foreign policy, calculated above all things to
+precipitate a quarrel between France and Great Britain, of which for
+many years he was the chief advocate, is now allowed to have been a
+great, and might have been a fatal, mistake. In 1836 he became
+president of the council, but in August of the same year he resigned
+office, and became the leader of the opposition. In 1840 he was again
+summoned to office as president of the council and foreign minister.
+In a few months he was a terror to the peace of Europe. He refused
+Lord Palmerston's invitation to enter into an alliance with Britain,
+Austria, and Prussia for the preservation of the integrity of the
+Ottoman empire, from a sympathy with the principles which dictated the
+first Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria, and a desire to
+accomplish by diplomacy with Mehemet Ali what Bonaparte had endeavored
+to effect by force of arms&mdash;the supremacy of France in these regions.
+He talked menacingly of setting aside the treaties of 1815, and of
+extending the French frontier to the Rhine, and is said to have
+actually spent £8,000,000 on military and naval demonstrations. Then
+followed the seizure of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page362" name="page362"></a>(p. 362)</span> the Society Islands, and a
+well-founded protest by the British government against the
+ill-treatment by the French of Mr. Pritchard, their consul at Tahiti.
+In consequence of this Thiers was forced to resign office, and retire
+into private life. He now returned to the study of French history. The
+first volume of his "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire" appeared in
+1845; it was not completed till 1860. This, the most ambitious of all
+Thiers's literary enterprises, must be considered a large rather than
+a great work. It is a monument to its author's industry in reading,
+and rises here and there to rhetorical brilliance. But that it is
+inaccurate and unfair has been admitted even by French critics. Thiers
+greatly overrated Napoleon, and probably to his own hurt.</p>
+
+<p>Thiers was not one of the promoters of the revolution which in 1848
+drove Louis Philippe from the throne. On the contrary, he would, as
+prime minister summoned at the eleventh hour, have prevented it if he
+could. He accepted its consequences in the form of the Republic. He
+voted for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon as its president. This
+action brought him much vituperation and ridicule from former
+political friends. But whatever may have been the motive that inspired
+it, it certainly did not help him at the time of the coup-d'état of
+1851; he was arrested, imprisoned in Mazas, and banished. Next year,
+however, he was allowed to return from Switzerland to France. For
+eight years he was occupied with his "History of the Consulate and
+Empire." He re-entered the Chamber in 1863, having been elected
+liberal deputy for the Department of the Seine in opposition to the
+imperialist candidate. Till the fall of the Second Empire he was
+regarded as the ablest and most formidable of its more moderate and
+parliamentary opponents. His speeches in the years between 1863 and
+1870 were filled with taunts of the Empire on account of the loss of
+prestige which had marked its history, and these must not be left out
+of account when blame has to be apportioned among the authors of the
+war of 1870, although he opposed it when declared by the Ollivier
+ministry, and predicted defeat.</p>
+
+<p>The collapse of the Second Empire, however, enabled Thiers to play the
+greatest of all his parts, that of "liberator of the territory." He
+declined, after Sedan, to become a member of the Government of
+National Defence; but he voluntarily undertook diplomatic journeys to
+Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Italy, on behalf of France&mdash;a
+self-imposed mission in which he was unsuccessful, but by which he
+obtained the gratitude of his countrymen. He was largely instrumental
+in securing for his country that armistice which permitted the holding
+of a national assembly with a view to the negotiation of a peace.
+Twenty constituencies chose him as their deputy. Electing to sit for
+Paris, he was made head of the provisional government. He had great
+difficulty in persuading the colleagues of the Assembly, and his
+countrymen generally, to agree to peace on terms that were practically
+dictated by Germany. But he succeeded; peace was voted March 1, 1871.
+No sooner had he accomplished this task than he was face to face with
+the sanguinary madness of the Commune. But this difficulty also he set
+himself to surmount with characteristic energy, and succeeded. When
+the seat of government was once more removed from Versailles to Paris,
+Thiers <span class="pagenum"><a id="page363" name="page363"></a>(p. 363)</span> was formally elected (August 30) President of the
+French Republic. He held office only till 1873, but during this brief
+period he was probably of greater service to his country than at any
+previous time in his life. He was mainly instrumental in securing the
+withdrawal of the Germans from France and the payment of the war
+indemnity, and in placing both the army and the civil service on a
+more satisfactory footing. But in course of time the gratitude of the
+country exhausted itself, and Thiers, who was old-fashioned in many of
+his opinions, and as opinionative as he was old-fashioned, did not
+make any new friends. He was specially detested by the Extreme Left,
+whose chief, Gambetta, he styled a <span class="italic">fou furieux</span>. As a result, a
+coalition of Reactionaries and Radicals was formed expressly, as it
+seemed, to harass him, and even in the beginning of 1872 he tendered
+his resignation. It was not accepted; and his opponents for a time
+suspended their intrigues. They were revived, however, in 1873, and
+resolved themselves into a resolute effort to limit the powers of the
+president. This Thiers stoutly resisted. He made an appeal to the
+country, but this course did not increase the strength of his
+following. Finally, what he interpreted as a vote of no confidence was
+carried (May 24) by a majority of sixteen. He resigned, and his place
+was taken by Marshal MacMahon. He lived four years longer, and never
+ceased to take an interest in politics. In 1877 he took an active part
+in bringing about the fall of the ministry presided over by the Duc de
+Broglie. He now leaned to the side of the Left, and was reconciled to
+Gambetta, and he might once again have played a prominent part in
+politics had he not died of apoplexy on September 3, 1877, at St.
+Germain en Laye. He has not left behind him the memory either of a
+very great statesman, or of a very great historian. But he was a man
+of indomitable courage, and his patriotism, if narrow and marred with
+Chauvinism, was deep and genuine. He was, perhaps, the most successful
+of the large class of journalist-politicians that France has produced,
+and that he was at least a personal power in literature was evidenced
+by the great influence which he wielded in the Academy, of which he
+became a member in 1834.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+<h3>LÉON GAMBETTA<br>
+(1838-1882)</h3>
+
+<a id="img039" name="img039"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img039.jpg" width="250" height="334" alt="Léon Gambetta." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Léon Michel Gambetta was born at Cahors on April 3, 1838. His father
+was a tradesman dealing in crockery; his mother's maiden name was
+Massabie. Léon's grandfather was a Genoese, who emigrated to France at
+the beginning of this century; and as his name signifies, in the
+dialect of Genoa, a liquid measure of two quarts capacity, it has been
+supposed that it was conferred upon one of his forefathers as a
+sobriquet. Léon Gambetta's grandfather was a poor man of no education,
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page364" name="page364"></a>(p. 364)</span> and his only son, Léon's father, thought he had done very
+well for himself when he set up a shop with the small dowry brought
+him by his wife, Mlle. Massabie. The mother of Léon died while he was
+a child, and he was indebted for his early teaching to his maternal
+aunt and to her brother, a priest, who held a small benefice in a
+village near Cahors. It was at first intended that Léon should follow
+his father's trade; but, as he was a boy very apt at learning and fond
+of books, his uncle and aunt decided that it would be better to put
+him at the seminary, with a view to his ultimately taking holy orders.
+Léon's father does not seem to have much liked this scheme, for he had
+no second son who could succeed to his business; but he had a great
+love for his bright-witted boy, and having conceived a high respect
+for his talents, yielded to the pleasing idea that he would some day
+become an ornament to the Church. This belief may be explained by the
+fact that Léon was, as a child, ardently religious. When twelve years
+old he wrote an ode dedicated to his "patron, St. Léon, and to all the
+popes called Léon," and this composition was printed in the Catholic
+journal of the diocese. In after-years some of his political enemies
+tried to get hold of a copy, but failed, and published a spurious one
+which they gave out for his.</p>
+
+<p>The career of Léon Gambetta must continue to exercise over young
+advocates and journalists the same kind of fascination as that of
+Napoleon I. does over young officers; and, indeed, the fact that
+Bonaparte and Gambetta were both of Italian origin, and came to sudden
+and great power while they were very young, was often quoted to draw a
+parallel between the two. But there is this difference between
+Bonaparte and Gambetta, that whereas the latter made his mark in life
+later by some three or four years than the former, brilliant destinies
+were prophesied for him by others besides his relations, when he was
+still a child. While Bonaparte was a pupil at the school of Brienne,
+his masters predicted that he would make a poor officer, because he
+had no aptitude for mathematics; when Gambetta was at the seminary,
+his tutors foretold that he would make a great figure in life, "but
+never," they regretfully added, "as a churchman." The boy began well,
+but he had evidently no vocation for the strict discipline of the
+Church; he was too disputatious, not meek enough about taking blows
+without returning them, and in short, too headstrong. Anticipating the
+judgment which M. Grévy passed upon him when he was thirty-three years
+old, his ecclesiastical masters reported of him that he was <span class="italic">un esprit
+rebelle, turbulent</span>, and they advised his removal to another school.</p>
+
+<p>Young Gambetta was accordingly sent to the <span class="italic">lycée</span>&mdash;that is, the lay
+public <span class="pagenum"><a id="page365" name="page365"></a>(p. 365)</span> school&mdash;of Cahors, and here he immediately won golden
+opinions by his cleverness, his industry, and the happy vivacity of
+his character. One of the half-yearly bulletins of the <span class="italic">lycée</span>, which
+has been preserved in his family, records that he was "passionate
+without being vindictive, and proud without arrogance." In time he
+became the best Latin scholar at the school, and the most proficient
+in French composition. When he was in his sixteenth year, however, an
+accident, which destroyed his left eye, quelled for a time the
+exuberance of his character and suddenly gave a new direction to his
+studies. Fearing lest he should lose his sight altogether, he set
+himself to learn the alphabet for the blind, in order that he might
+read in books with raised letters; he also applied himself to the
+study of music and the violin. During a whole year he was forbidden to
+open a book.</p>
+
+<p>From Cahors Gambetta went to Paris to study law, and he quickly drew
+the attention of the Imperial police upon himself by acting as
+ringleader in those demonstrations which the students of the Latin
+Quarter were accustomed to make in time of public excitement. Peaceful
+demonstrations they always were, because the police would stand
+nothing like rioting, but it was something to march at the head of a
+procession carrying wreaths to the tomb of a Republican, or to lead
+cabals for hissing off the stage of the Théâtre Français or the Odéon
+pieces by unpopular writers, like M. Edmond About (for in those days
+M. About was a Bonapartist).</p>
+
+<p>Gambetta's first public speech was delivered in 1861, in defence of
+the Marquis Le Guillois, a nobleman of facetious humor, who edited a
+comic newspaper called <span class="italic">Le Hanneton</span>. He was seized with unexpected
+nervousness as he began, but before he had stammered out a dozen
+sentences he was stopped by the presiding judge, who told him mildly
+that no big words were required in a cause which only involved a fine
+of 100 francs&mdash;"all the less so," added he, "as your client is
+acquitted."</p>
+
+<p>Gambetta used to say after this that it took him years to recover from
+the effect of the judge's quiet snub. Like many other young men of
+talent, he had gone into court expecting to carry everything before
+him, and had found that the art of forensic pleading is not to be
+acquired without practice. He did practise most diligently, and the
+speeches&mdash;some thirty in all&mdash;which he delivered in unimportant cases
+during the next seven years, were conspicuous for their avoidance of
+rhetorical flourish. Adolphe Crémieux had cautioned him that the
+secret of oratory lies in mastering the subject of one's discourse.
+"Don't try gymnastic feats until you have a firm platform to spring
+from"&mdash;a maxim which a conceited young man, impatient of results,
+might have despised, but which commended itself to an ambitious man
+who felt that, although a chance comes to all, it is an important
+point to be prepared for the chance when it does come. A plutocrat
+once asked Horace Vernet to "do him a little thing in pencil" for his
+album. Vernet did the little thing and asked 1,000 francs for it. "But
+it only took you five minutes to draw," exclaimed the man of wealth.
+"Yes, but it took me thirty years to learn to do it in five minutes,"
+replied Vernet. And so Gambetta, when someone remarked that he was
+very lucky in having conquered <span class="pagenum"><a id="page366" name="page366"></a>(p. 366)</span> renown by a single speech,
+broke out impetuously, "I was years preparing that speech&mdash;twenty
+times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had it here
+(touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his breast)
+as if it would break my heart."</p>
+
+<p>The speech in question was delivered on November 17, 1868, before the
+notorious Judge Delesvaux (who has been called the Jeffreys of the
+Second Empire), in defence of Louis Charles Delescluze, editor of the
+<span class="italic">Réveil</span>. The <span class="italic">Réveil</span> had started a subscription for erecting a
+monument to the memory of the Representative Baudin, who was killed at
+the <span class="italic">coup-d'état</span> of 1851, and the Government unwisely instituted a
+prosecution against the editor. It was late in the afternoon when the
+case was called on after a number of others, but the sixth chamber was
+crowded with journalists and barristers, as it always was on Fridays,
+when Delesvaux&mdash;a man with hawk-like features and a flaming
+complexion&mdash;would sit "tearing up newspaper articles with beak and
+talons," as Émile de Girardin said of him. Just before Gambetta rose,
+Delesvaux observed, "I suppose you have not much to say; so it will
+hardly be worth while to have the gas lighted." "Never mind the gas,
+sir, I will throw light enough on this affair," answered Gambetta; and
+it was amid the laughter produced by this joke that he began. His
+genius found vent that day, and he spoke from first to last without a
+halt. Reviewing his client's case, he brought Napoleon III. himself to
+book, and recalled the circumstances under which Baudin had died,
+"defending that Republican Constitution which President Louis
+Bonaparte, in contempt of his oath, had violated." At this, Judge
+Delesvaux half rose in his seat and endeavored to stop the speaker,
+but a positive roar from the whole crowd in court forced him to sit
+down. It was a sign of the approaching political earthquake that
+Delesvaux should have sat down in that way, for he was a man of great
+resolution; but he must have felt then as if the earth were trembling
+under him. So Gambetta continued to speak, denouncing with
+unimaginable energy the tyrannies and turpitudes of the reign which
+had confiscated all the liberties of France, till at last he concluded
+with this magnificent peroration, which was rendered most solemn by
+the increasing darkness of the court and the intense attentive silence
+of the audience: "In every country but this you see the people
+commemorate as a holiday the date which brought the reigning dynasty
+to the throne. You alone are ashamed of the day which gave you a
+blood-stained crown&mdash;the December 2d when Baudin died! Well, that day
+which you reject, we Republicans will keep holy. It shall be the day
+of mourning for our martyrs and the festival of our hopes!"</p>
+
+<p>When Gambetta left the court after this, it was felt by all who had
+heard him that he was the coming man of the Republican party; and next
+day opposition journals of every shade of opinion, from one end of
+France to the other, acclaimed him as a future leader.</p>
+
+<p>Within the next two years the Republican party made such rapid strides
+that to regain his prestige the French emperor felt that a glorious
+war was necessary. The leader of the moderate reformers, M. Ollivier,
+was won over, and was forced upon Prussia. Gambetta and the
+Republicans felt that they had every cause for <span class="pagenum"><a id="page367" name="page367"></a>(p. 367)</span> fear when
+matters had taken this turn. Relying upon Marshal Leb&oelig;uf's
+assurances that "everything was ready," they saw the prospect of a
+short sensational campaign like that against Austria in 1859, to be
+followed by some high-handed stroke of home policy that would sweep
+most of them into prison or exile. Gambetta could not refrain from
+bitterly upbraiding Ollivier. "You will find that you have been fooled
+in all this," he said; "for when the war is over you will be thrown
+aside like a squeezed orange." "I think my fate will be a happier one
+than yours, unless you mend your manners," answered Ollivier dryly.
+Three weeks after this, however, everything was changed. The imperial
+armies had been beaten at Woerth and Forbach; the Ollivier cabinet had
+fallen amid popular execration (hardly deserved); and Gambetta, forced
+by circumstances into a position of great influence, received a
+private visit from Madame Bazaine, who prayed him to agitate that her
+husband might be appointed as the commander-in-chief of the armies.
+Gambetta was too sincerely patriotic to feel any partisan satisfaction
+at the reverse which Napoleon III.'s armies had suffered; and in
+stirring up the Republicans in the Chamber and in the press to clamor
+for the appointment of Bazaine, he believed he was urging the claims
+of a competent soldier who was being kept from the chief command
+solely by dynastic jealousies. He was to learn, a couple of months
+later, how much he had been mistaken in his estimate of Bazaine's
+talents and rectitude of purpose; and, indeed, Bazaine's conduct
+toward Gambetta and the Republicans from first to last was the more
+inexplicable, as it was unquestionably owing to their agitation that
+he was placed in the high position which he had coveted.</p>
+
+<p>During the three weeks between Forbach and Sedan, Gambetta had to take
+rather exciting precautions to insure his own safety. He was aware
+that the Empress-Regent's advisers were urging her to have the leaders
+of the opposition arrested, and he felt pretty certain that this
+course would be adopted if the news of a victory arrived. He used to
+sleep in a different house every night, and never ventured abroad
+unattended or without firearms. His position was one of great
+difficulty, for agents of the Internationale made overtures to him
+with a view to promote an insurrection in Paris, and he forfeited the
+confidence of these fanatics by declining to abet their plans.
+Gambetta was so little desirous of establishing a republic by
+revolution that, even when the tidings arrived on the night of
+September 3d of the emperor's surrender at Sedan, his chief concern
+was as to how he could get the deposition of Napoleon III. and the
+Empress-Regent effected by lawful methods. He hastened to M. Thiers's
+house, and asked him whether he would accept the presidency of a
+provisional government? Thiers, sitting up in bed, said he was
+willing, provided that this office was conferred upon him by the Corps
+Législatif.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, Gambetta spent all the morning of Sunday, September 4th,
+whipping up members of the majority, and trying to persuade them to go
+down to the Palais Bourbon and elect a new government. But he found
+most of these gentlemen anxious to get off to the different railway
+stations as soon as possible in cabs. Going to the Chamber himself
+toward one o'clock, he was <span class="pagenum"><a id="page368" name="page368"></a>(p. 368)</span> carried through the doors by the
+surging mob which invaded the palace, and in half an hour he shouted
+himself quite hoarse in adjuring the crowds from the tribune to let
+the Assembly deliberate in peace. But while he was literally croaking
+in his attempts to make the people hear reason, news was brought to
+him that M. Blanqui and some other adventurous spirits, taking time by
+the forelock, had repaired to the Hôtel de Ville, and were setting up
+a government of their own. Upon this, Gambetta precipitately left the
+palace, jumped into a victoria, and drove to the Hôtel de Ville, amid
+a mob of several thousands of persons who escorted him, cheering all
+the way. Before five o'clock the deputies for Paris, with the
+exception of M. Thiers, had constituted themselves into a government,
+which, at the suggestion of M. Rochefort, took the name of Government
+of the National Defence; and M. Gambetta received the appointment of
+Minister of the Interior. It may be remarked in passing that on the
+day after these events, Judge Delesvaux, fearing, perhaps needlessly,
+that some of the triumphant Republicans whom he had so often punished
+would wreak vengeance upon him, committed suicide. On the other hand,
+Gambetta's client in the Baudin affair&mdash;L. C. Delescluze&mdash;came to him
+on the morning of September 5th, and reproached him with much asperity
+for not having caused the empress to be arrested. "We want no
+rose-water Republicans to rule us," said this honest, but gloomy,
+zealot, who was shot a few months later during the extermination of
+the Commune.</p>
+
+<p>The siege of Paris brought M. Gambetta to the most romantic part of
+his career. The National Defence Government had delegated two of their
+members, MM. Crémieux and Glaiz-Bizoin, to go to Tours and govern the
+provinces; but being both elderly men of weak health, they were hardly
+up to their work; and early in October M. Gambetta was ordered by his
+colleagues to join them. He had to leave Paris in a balloon, and in
+going over the German lines nearly met with misadventure, through the
+balloon sinking till it came within range of some marksmen's rifles.
+He reached Tours in safety, however, and set to work at once with
+marvellous activity to organize resistance against the invasion. He
+was ably seconded by M. de Freycinet, and between them these two did
+all that was humanly possible to perform; but from the first their
+task was one of formidable difficulty, and all chances of repelling
+the Germans from French soil vanished after the shameful capitulation
+of Bazaine at Metz.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, all who saw M. Gambetta during his proconsulate at Tours
+will remember with what a splendid energy he worked, how sincerely
+hopeful he was, and&mdash;this must not be forgotten&mdash;how uniformly
+generous and genial. Invested with despotic powers, he never once
+abused them to molest an opponent.</p>
+
+<a id="img040" name="img040"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img040.jpg" width="600" height="387" alt="" title="">
+<p>The enrollment of volunteers, 1870.</p></div>
+
+<p>In his public harangues, both at Tours and Bordeaux (whither the
+Provisional Government repaired in December, being driven southward by
+the German advance), he somehow always managed to electrify his
+hearers. He spoke from balconies, railway carriages, curb-stones;
+wherever he went the people demanded a speech of him, and his words
+never failed to cheer, while they conquered for him a wide popularity.
+Indeed, Gambetta so deluded himself while diffusing <span class="pagenum"><a id="page369" name="page369"></a>(p. 369)</span> hope
+and combativeness into others, that when, after a five months' siege,
+Paris capitulated, he still persisted in thinking that resistance was
+possible, and rather than take any part in the national surrender he
+gave in his resignation. He was by that time fairly worn out, and had
+to go to St. Sebastian to recruit his health. It was alleged that he
+went there so as to avoid taking any side in the civil war between the
+Parliament of Versailles and the Commune; but after the Communist
+Government had been at work a fortnight, and when the impracticability
+of its aims was fully disclosed, he took care to let it be known that
+he was on the side of the National Assembly.</p>
+
+<p>M. Thiers did not understand Gambetta as Gambetta understood him, or
+he would not have resigned in 1873, saying that the Republicans were
+making his work too difficult. When Marshal MacMahon succeeded to the
+Presidency it looked as if the Republic were doomed, and nothing but
+M. Gambetta's wonderful suppleness and tact during the sessions of
+1874-75 could have saved it. He had to keep himself in the background,
+to use an Italian astuteness in explaining away the blunders of his
+followers; and when this would not do he had to use violent language,
+which should frighten timid doctrinaire Orleanists with prospects of
+popular risings in which he would take the lead. His greatest triumphs
+were earned when, by dint of superhuman coaxing in the lobbies, he got
+the Republic proclaimed as the Government of France (in 1875, on M.
+Wallon's motion) by a majority of one vote; and again when, at the
+first election for life senators, he concluded a treaty with the
+Legitimists, and by giving them a dozen seats, secured fifty for the
+Republicans and ousted the Orleanists altogether.</p>
+
+<p>From this time the Republic was founded with at least temporary
+security, and although a coalition of all the reactionary parties
+rallied against it in 1877, when M. Jules Simon's ministry was
+dismissed, and when the Duc de Broglie was induced to try to destroy
+the new form of government by Cæsarist methods, yet there was never
+any real danger that the Republic would succumb. From the day when M.
+Thiers died, M. Gambetta stood guarding it like a sentinel. Just
+before the general election of 1877, an emissary was sent to him from
+the De Broglie-Fourtou Ministry, requesting him for his own sake not
+to make a speech against Marshal MacMahon. He laughed when he heard
+that he would be prosecuted if he made the speech. He was twirling a
+cigarette, and laid down a copy of the <span class="italic">Revue des Deux Mondes</span> in
+which he had been reading an essay on Mr. Gladstone's speeches about
+the Irish Church. "Tell the Prime Minister," he said, "that I will
+speak from a pedestal if I can, but if not, from a housetop. In one
+way or another, my voice shall reach further than his, and so long as
+I have a drop of blood to shed the Republic shall not fall." M.
+Gambetta was sentenced to four months' imprisonment for the speech in
+which he said that Marshal MacMahon would have to yield to the popular
+will or resign, but before he could be put into jail the De Broglie
+cabinet had ceased to exist. Marshal MacMahon's resignation in 1879
+was the obviously natural consequence of the complete victory which
+the Republicans gained in 1877; but it was greatly to M. Gambetta's
+credit that he quietly tolerated during fifteen months the presidency
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page370" name="page370"></a>(p. 370)</span> of the gallant soldier who had never been his friend. When
+urged to agitate for the marshal's overthrow, he always said, "It will
+do the Republic good if its first president serves his term of office
+quietly to the end."</p>
+
+<p>Had Gambetta lived till 1885 he would probably have been the next
+president of the Republic he had established and preserved; but it was
+not to be. His work was done. He died December 31, 1882.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>BENJAMIN DISRAELI<a id="footnotetag16" name="footnotetag16"></a><a href="#footnote16" title="Go to footnote 16"><span class="smaller">[16]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Harriet Prescott Spofford</span><br>
+(1804-1881)</h3>
+
+<a id="img041" name="img041"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img041.jpg" width="250" height="305" alt="Benjamin Disraeli." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>Since the days of Richelieu, there has been no such picturesque figure
+in the history of civilization as that of Benjamin Disraeli.</p>
+
+<p>Although his father, Isaac Disraeli, was in much more than easy
+circumstances and had made a literary reputation, he was under the
+social disadvantage that was the portion of a Jew, and his mother,
+Maria Basevi, was of the same despised race.</p>
+
+<p>Their son was born in London, December 21, 1804, and his birth was
+attended by the usual Jewish ceremonies in the Spanish synagogue. When
+he was thirteen years old his father formally withdrew from the Jewish
+congregation, and the children were baptized into the Christian faith,
+Benjamin's godfather being Sharon Turner. The boy was early seen to
+have rare talents, and he was already an immense reader in his
+father's vast library. It was decided to give him an exact education
+and send him to one of the large schools, where he should have the
+advantage of discipline and the opportunity of desirable friendships;
+but the prejudice against his birth was an obstacle&mdash;life would have
+been made impossible by the indelicacy and cruelty of the high-born
+and Christian lads. He was finally sent to a school where he found
+himself the superior of his masters; even there he was taunted with
+his birth; and he was taken home to work with his father and with
+tutors, where, conscious of his powers and full of lively ambition, he
+studied twelve hours a day, and made himself the master of a vast and
+varied information. At seventeen he entered a solicitor's office, and
+while working there for three years, entered at Lincoln's Inn, he
+evinced an ability that promised him <span class="pagenum"><a id="page371" name="page371"></a>(p. 371)</span> great eminence. It was
+not, however, precisely the sort of eminence that he desired, the
+strifes and achievements of political life being more to his taste.</p>
+
+<p>He had the qualities which fitted him for that life, the "taking arts"
+and accomplishments; he was a fine linguist; he had a wonderfully
+well-stored memory, great self-confidence, self-respect, and
+assurance; his manners were easy, and he had all social graces and
+refinements; his face was singularly handsome, and remarkable through
+its pallor, the depth of its black eyes, and delicacy of its chiselled
+features framed in night-dark curls; he was a master of the art of
+self-defence, a hard and fine rider, and he was equipped with wit,
+sarcasm, poetical perception, keen reason, unbounded ambition, and
+undaunted courage.</p>
+
+<p>He dressed in his early years in a manner that has been described as
+extraordinary, but which was the manner of the young men of the
+period, of D'Orsay and of Bulwer, at the time when Tennyson called the
+latter a band-box. Later his dress was more negligent, although always
+neat and fine.</p>
+
+<p>He was on pleasant terms with the distinguished people whom he met at
+his father's table, and was everywhere sought in society, when, at
+twenty, he began his career by the publication of "Vivian Grey," a
+novel, unlike anything that had been written, bristling with point and
+sally, and full of daring portraiture, and which made him immediately
+famous.</p>
+
+<p>His health, however, now gave way, a trouble in his head making it
+necessary to suspend work; and after a tour of Europe he remained for
+two or three years at Bradenham, near High Wycombe, his father's
+country-house, happy in the companionship of his father and mother,
+and his thoroughly congenial sister Sarah; passionately fond of
+country life, and during the time producing a novel, "The Young Duke,"
+and three shorter works, "Popanilla," "The Infernal Marriage," and
+"Ixion in Heaven," gay and brilliant satires, sparkling with epigram
+and with beauty, and destined to live with the English language and
+English history.</p>
+
+<p>In company with Mr. Meredith, to whom his sister was promised in
+marriage, he journeyed for the next two years through the south of
+Europe and the East. Spain was among the first of his objective
+points, in the proud memory of his descent from the Spanish nobles
+who, driven out of Spain in the fifteenth century, went over to
+Venice, and changed the name belonging to the House of Dara to that of
+D'Israeli, the sons of Israel&mdash;a cognomen never borne by any other
+family&mdash;and remained there for two hundred years, going to England
+only when, Venice falling into decay, it was necessary to go where
+they could live in safety. He wrote the account of his travels to his
+sister in a series of affectionate and light-hearted letters, which
+charmingly betray his own personality, and which are full of the most
+vivid pictures of Malta, Corfu, Albania, the Plains of Troy,
+Turkey&mdash;which was kind to his race when a cruel and unreasoning world
+showed it only malignant hate, and which he regarded with the
+gratitude that never forsakes a Jew; Cyprus, the advantage of whose
+possession he early recognized; Egypt, whose destinies were afterward
+in his hand; and Jerusalem, the holy city of his people, his
+impressions of which "Tancred" afterward embodied, together <span class="pagenum"><a id="page372" name="page372"></a>(p. 372)</span>
+with a foreshadowing of much of his policy in the East. The journey
+made him acquainted with the theatre of his intentions, and with the
+prepossessions which it gave or fostered, doubtless had a great
+influence upon his life and action. The close of the journey was
+darkened by the death of his companion, for whom his sister mourned as
+long as she lived.</p>
+
+<p>After his return home he wrote a new novel, "Contarini Fleming," a
+wonderful and poetical study of temperament, which Milman pronounced
+the equal of "Childe Harold," which Goethe and Heine and Beckford, the
+author of "Vathek," praised with delighted warmth. The "Wondrous Tale
+of Alroy," also, published a little later, with "The Rise of
+Iskander," Beckford found stirring and full of intensity and charm.</p>
+
+<p>In 1832 Disraeli offered himself as an independent candidate for the
+borough of High Wycombe. The Government of course defeated him; and
+not until after several hot contests during the next few years, did he
+gain his end, taking his seat, then at the age of thirty-three, in
+Queen Victoria's first Parliament. The character of the struggle at
+these elections may be inferred from O'Connell's declaration in one of
+them, that in all probability this "Disraeli was the heir-at-law of
+the blasphemous thief that died on the cross." Disraeli challenged
+O'Connell's son, who failed to accept the challenge. But Disraeli
+never cherished a grudge; and only three weeks after he entered
+Parliament he risked his seat there by a pointed statement of the
+misgovernment of Ireland. Neither did O'Connell bear malice, and he
+said of one of Disraeli's speeches, somewhat later, that "it was all
+excellent except the peroration, and that was matchless." Not only in
+O'Connell's case was this impossibility in Disraeli's nature of doing
+anything ignoble shown; he secured, when in power, a life-pension to
+the widow and children of the artist Leech, who had for half a
+lifetime showered him with the cruel ridicule of the caricaturist; and
+he offered the Grand Cross of the Bath, and a life-income suitable to
+the maintenance of its dignity, to Carlyle, who had pursued him now
+with contempt and now with malignity. In the intervals of the
+electoral contests a series of letters to <span class="italic">The Times</span>, filled with
+biting sarcasm, under the signature of "Runnymede;" a
+novel&mdash;"Henrietta Temple;" a "Vindication of the British
+Constitution," dedicated to Lord Lyndhurst; a contrasting presentation
+of the characters of Byron and Shelley, in the form of romance, under
+the title of "Venetia," sufficiently occupied Disraeli's time. He was,
+meanwhile, in the vortex of gay social life, a member of the Carlton
+Club, the friend of Count D'Orsay, Lady Blessington, Mrs. Norton, Lady
+Dufferin, Bulwer, Tom Moore, Lady Morgan, of Lyndhurst, of the public
+men and of the men of fashion, and he was courted by princes and
+pretty women. He had come to Parliament prepared as few or none before
+him, with coolness, courage, wit, and eloquence, and with a far-seeing
+sagacity that enabled him to make the most of something like the gift
+of prophecy. But he was handicapped with the fact of his race, with
+his debts, which, although he was not personally extravagant or at all
+self-indulgent, had become heavy, with the absence of a constituency
+or a popular cause; and having no landed property, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page373" name="page373"></a>(p. 373)</span> nor
+belonging even remotely to any great family, he was looked upon both
+by Whig and Tory as more or less of an adventurer.</p>
+
+<p>Like almost all young men, his first preferences and professions were
+for reform. But brought face to face with responsibility he modified
+his opinions; and the great power and place that he ultimately won,
+were won through the originality, the thought, the force, and the
+independence that dared act without reference to his own advantage,
+and the splendid courage that was undismayed by any odds. Although he
+could have acquired office in the earlier years by withholding open
+expression of his opinions, he preferred his freedom; and although
+always in want of money, he never made a penny by means of the place
+or the power that he won, or even through the legitimate opportunities
+which these offered.</p>
+
+<p>His first speech in Parliament was attended by peculiar circumstances.
+A number of the ruder members of the opposition were determined that
+he should not be heard, and they drowned every sentence in derisive
+cheers and mocking yells. Disraeli bore it with dignity, but as it was
+impossible to proceed in the noisy and barbarous din, he closed by
+saying that he had begun several times many things, and had succeeded
+at last; and then in a tone that resounded even above the clamor, for
+he had at all times a sonorous and impressive voice, he cried, "I will
+sit down now. But the time will come when you will hear me!" Of this
+speech Peel said it was anything but failure; and Sir John Campbell,
+the Attorney-General, assured him that there was a lively desire in
+the opposing party to hear him, but they were hindered by a coterie
+over whom they had no control. In describing the scene, in a letter to
+his sister that night, with great frankness, as disastrous, Disraeli
+signed himself, "Yours in very good spirits." When he spoke, a week
+afterward, he commanded the attention of the House.</p>
+
+<p>Disraeli had always declared that no government should have his
+support which did not seek to improve the condition of the poor; and
+as he looked at the British constitution and social construction, he
+believed that the Conservatives were the best able to accomplish this
+end. Because he was a Jew he was none the less an Englishman, and he
+had the true interests of the United Kingdom at heart. He held that
+the strength of England lay in the land, and he supported the corn
+laws from stern principle. "It will be an exception to the principles
+which seem hitherto to have ruled society," he exclaimed, "if you can
+maintain the success at which you aim, without the possession of that
+permanence and stability which the territorial principle alone can
+afford. Although you may for a moment flourish after their
+destruction, although your ports may be filled with shipping, your
+factories smoke on every plain, and your forges flame in every city, I
+see no reason why you should form an exception to that which the page
+of history has mournfully recorded, that you should not fade like
+Tyrian dye, and moulder like the Venetian palaces."</p>
+
+<p>He was already, in 1839, to a certain extent, a power in Parliament,
+launching the shafts of his sarcasm alike at the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer or an Under Secretary; and in this year he published his
+tragedy of "Count Alarcos," and <span class="pagenum"><a id="page374" name="page374"></a>(p. 374)</span> married Mrs. Wyndham Lewis,
+the wealthy widow of his friend and colleague, several years his
+senior, but through thirty years his invaluable friend and
+<span class="italic">confidante</span>. In dedicating "Sybil" to her, he said, "I would inscribe
+this work to one whose noble spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her
+to sympathize with the suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often
+encouraged and whose taste and judgment have ever guided its pages,
+the most severe of critics, but a perfect wife." Her devotion to him
+was illustrated by her behavior one night when, on the eve of an
+exciting session, she drove with him to Palace Yard, and her hand
+being crushed in the carriage-door, she gave no sign, lest it should
+disturb his train of thought and lessen his power in the approaching
+debate, and endured her agony without blenching till he had left her.
+He rewarded such devotion in kind, his happiest hours were those spent
+in her society, and perhaps the proudest moment of his life was that
+when, the Queen having offered him a peerage, he declined it for
+himself but accepted it for his wife, and made her Viscountess
+Beaconsfield in her own right.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately upon their marriage Mr. Disraeli travelled with his wife
+for a couple of months on the continent; and returning to London he
+received the congratulations of Peel, Wellington, and others, and
+began to entertain the party chiefs; he dined privately with Louis
+Philippe in Paris, shook hands with the King of Hanover in London, and
+in every way took his social and personal position firmly. In
+Parliament he crossed swords with Palmerston, refused his support to
+Peel's Coercion Bill in relation to Ireland, characterizing it as one
+of those measures which to introduce was degrading, and to oppose
+disgraceful; later he maintained that as revolution was the only
+remedy for the wrongs of Ireland, and as her connection with England
+prevented revolution, therefore it was the duty of England to effect
+by policy what revolution would effect by force, and as he had
+defended the Chartist petition, so in turn, when the Eastern Question
+came up, he defended Turkey; in all this making it supremely plain
+that he never was the one to truckle to rank or authority. He was the
+head of the small party of Young Englanders; he was feared and
+respected by both the larger parties; and the Commons, whose
+assemblage he had scornfully proclaimed a thing of past history, if
+they did not choose, had presently to accept him for their leader.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Hope, entertaining a number of their friends at Deepdene, urged
+Disraeli to treat the questions of common interest in a literary form,
+and the powerful works&mdash;rather treatises than novels&mdash;"Coningsby" and
+"Sybil," appeared; and these were followed by "Tancred," in which the
+curious reader will find much of Disraeli's Eastern policy indicated.
+These three books the author regarded as a trilogy upon English
+politics, principles, and possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>As a debater, then and always, Disraeli was keen, ready, and
+unanswerable; as a satirist, swift, subtle, and finished. His epigrams
+were among the "jewels that on the stretched forefinger of all time
+sparkle forever." It was he that said "Destiny is our will, and our
+will is nature." At another time he said, "The critics&mdash;they are those
+who have failed in literature and in art." When Prince <span class="pagenum"><a id="page375" name="page375"></a>(p. 375)</span>
+Napoleon was slain he exclaimed, "A very remarkable people the Zulus:
+they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled
+the fate of a great European dynasty." Every one remembers the
+startling sentence in which he condemned Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy
+of 1868: "We have legalized confiscation; we have consecrated
+sacrilege; we have condoned treason." And his power of picturesque
+mockery appears in a speech made, in 1872, immediately before the
+downfall of the Gladstone ministry: "As I sat opposite the Treasury
+bench the ministers reminded me of those marine landscapes not unusual
+on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted
+volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the
+situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and
+ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea." His attacks on Peel have
+been pronounced to be among the most remarkable speeches in the annals
+of the British Legislature. In 1849, at which period also he wrote the
+biography of his father and the memoir of his friend Lord George
+Bentinck, he was the recognized leader of the Conservatives. When Peel
+was overthrown, Disraeli, who had overthrown him, after a brief
+period, succeeded to his place.</p>
+
+<p>It was not with cordiality that the Conservatives submitted to
+Disraeli's direction. He had carried himself in relation to them with
+an unsurpassed independence. He was of a people whom they held in
+contempt, and whose admission to Parliament he had enforced. In his
+speeches he had spared none of them. He had no friend at court, and he
+was still very young. But there was no help for it&mdash;he was master of
+the situation, and master of them. He was now thrice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer; and for a quarter of a century he led the opposition in the
+House of Commons, except in the brief intervals when he was identified
+with the Government. In leading the opposition he was never an
+obstructionist; and he lent his aid to every generous measure, such as
+the reduction of the hours of labor, the protection of factory
+children, the improvement of the homes of the poor, the extension of
+the suffrage. He refused English interference on the side of the South
+during the Civil War in the United States of America; he hindered
+disastrous hostilities with France at the time of Louis Napoleon's
+<span class="italic">coup-d'état</span>; he would have prevented the Crimean War had it been
+possible; and he would not allow retaliation in kind for the Sepoy
+atrocities. He did the most and the best with his opportunities. His
+policy was always to develop and sustain English character. "There is
+no country," he said in a remarkable warning to the House, "at the
+present moment that exists under the same circumstances and under the
+same conditions as the people of this realm. You have an ancient,
+powerful, and richly endowed Church, and perfect religious liberty.
+You have unbroken order and complete freedom. You have landed estates
+as large as the Romans, combined with a commercial enterprise such as
+Carthage and Venice united never equalled. And you must remember that
+this peculiar country, with these strong contrasts, is not governed by
+force. It is governed by a most singular series of traditionary
+influences, which generation after generation cherishes and preserves,
+because it knows that they embalm custom and represent <span class="pagenum"><a id="page376" name="page376"></a>(p. 376)</span> law.
+And with this you have created the greatest empire of modern times.
+You have amassed a capital of fabulous amount. You have devised and
+sustained a system of credit still more marvellous, and you have
+established a scheme so vast and complicated of labor and industry
+that the history of the world affords no parallel to it. And these
+mighty creations are out of all proportion to the essential and
+indigenous elements and resources of the country. If you destroy that
+state of society, remember this: <span class="italic">England cannot begin again.</span>"</p>
+
+<p>In religion Disraeli accepted Christianity fully&mdash;but as a completion
+of the Hebrew revelation. He coupled in thought and word "the sacred
+heights of Sinai and of Calvary." He was proud of his great people,
+and never hesitated to declare his pride. "All the north of Europe
+worship a Jew," he said, "and all the south of Europe worship a Jew's
+mother." In spite of the fact that he was an Asiatic by nature, he
+despised what he called the pagan ceremonies of the ritualists, and
+distrusted what he felt to be the atheistic tendency of science.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after his father's death, Mr. Disraeli had purchased with his
+paternal inheritance the manor of Hughenden, near Bradenham, in whose
+park his wife erected a monument to his father; and there, in the
+intervals of public business, he found quiet and enjoyment with his
+peacocks and swans and owls, his gardening, his tenantry. His books
+brought him in great sums of money; a friend, Mrs. Brydges Willyams,
+of Torquay, after twelve years of romantic intimacy with him and his
+wife, bequeathed him a fortune, and lies buried by the side of himself
+and Lady Beaconsfield at Hughenden. His circumstances were easy, his
+fame was assured, and when he went down to Parliament for the first
+time after he became Prime Minister, the crowds outside cheered him to
+the echo, the crowds within took up the acclaim, and the House that
+once had silenced him with derisive mockery, hailed with wild welcome
+this man who, without money, without birth, without support, had made
+himself, by force of will, courage, genius, loyalty, and truth, the
+ruler of the British Empire.</p>
+
+<p>While he was again in opposition Mr. Disraeli took occasion to write
+"Lothair," a precise portraiture of the British aristocracy and a
+clear presentation of its relation to the Church, the spirit of
+revolution, the intrigues of the ultramontanes, the simplicity of true
+religion; every page splendid with wit and with picturesque charm.
+During another period of enforced leisure he wrote "Endymion," in
+which there are some slight autobiographical features.</p>
+
+<p>Succeeded by Mr. Gladstone as prime minister, a half-dozen years later
+Disraeli was again at the helm. The Eastern question was then one of
+passionate interest; and when Russia was dictating terms of peace with
+the Ottoman, Mr. Disraeli insisted on their revision at a Conference
+of all the Powers, held at Berlin, which he attended in person, and
+where he obliged Russia to yield, and won a great diplomatic
+victory.<a id="footnotetag17" name="footnotetag17"></a><a href="#footnote17" title="Go to footnote 17"><span class="smaller">[17]</span></a> He returned to London, said Mr. Froude, "in a <span class="pagenum"><a id="page377" name="page377"></a>(p. 377)</span>
+blaze of glory, bearing peace with honor." He was made Earl of
+Beaconsfield, and given the Garter; and before he went into retirement
+again, after the nation had revived its interest in imperialism, he
+had acquired the mastery of the Suez Canal, and he had annexed Cyprus,
+and, by giving the queen the additional title of Empress of India,
+this child of the Orient had made of Great Britain an Oriental empire.
+He had ruled the country for six consecutive years when he next went
+into retirement. He died shortly afterward, from the effect of a
+severe cold, aggravating an attack of gout, on April 19, 1881.</p>
+
+<p>In public or in private Disraeli never did a dishonorable action. He
+never attacked the weak or the defenceless, but singled out the
+proudest adversary. He never held malice. His impulses were always the
+most generous, his ideas and his purposes of the largest. He desired
+in all things the good of his country, and he sought it by what seemed
+to him, whether or not he was mistaken, the surest and loftiest ways.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig012" name="sig012"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig012.jpg" width="250" height="75" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<h3>WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Justin McCarthy</span><br>
+(Born 1809)</h3>
+
+<a id="img042" name="img042"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img042.jpg" width="250" height="346" alt="Axes." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>William Ewart Gladstone, statesman, orator, and author, was born in
+Rodney Street, Liverpool, on December 29, 1809. He is the fourth son
+of Sir John Gladstone (1764-1851), a well-known, and it might almost
+be said a famous, Liverpool merchant, who sat for some years in
+Parliament, and was a devoted friend and supporter of George Canning.
+Mr. Gladstone is of Scotch descent, on both sides, and has declared
+more than once in a public speech that the blood that runs in his
+veins is exclusively Scottish. He was educated at Eton and at Christ
+Church, Oxford. He became a student at Oxford in 1829, and graduated
+as a double first-class, in 1831. He had distinguished himself greatly
+as a speaker in the Oxford Union Debating Society, and had before that
+time written much in the <span class="italic">Eton Miscellany</span>, which indeed he helped to
+found. He appears to have begun his career as a strong opponent of all
+advanced measures of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page378" name="page378"></a>(p. 378)</span> political reform. In the Oxford Union
+he proposed a vote of censure on the government of Lord Grey for
+introducing the great Reform Bill which was carried in 1832, and on
+the Duke of Wellington, because of his having yielded to the claims
+for Catholic emancipation. He also opposed a motion in favor of
+immediate emancipation of the slaves in the West Indian islands. He
+soon became known as a young man of promise, who would be able to
+render good service to the Conservative party in the great struggle
+which seemed likely to be forced upon them&mdash;a struggle, as many
+thought, for their very existence. It was a time of intense political
+emotion. Passion and panic alike prevailed. The first great "leap in
+the dark" had been taken; the Reform Bill was carried, the sceptre of
+power had passed away from the aristocracy and the privileged ranks to
+the middle and lower middle classes. The Conservative party were
+looking eagerly out for young men of promise to stiffen their ranks in
+the new parliament, the first elected under the Reform Bill, the first
+which the middle class had their due share in creating; the first in
+which such cities as Manchester and Liverpool and Birmingham were
+allowed to have representation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone was invited to contest the burgh of Newark in the
+Conservative interest, and he had the support of the great Newcastle
+family. He stood for Newark, and he was elected. He delivered his
+maiden speech on a subject connected with the great movement for the
+emancipation of the West Indian slaves; but he seems to have confined
+himself mainly to a defence of the manner in which his father's
+estates were managed, the course of the debate having brought out some
+charge against the management of the elder Gladstone's possessions in
+one of the West Indian islands. The new orator appears to have made a
+decided impression on the House of Commons. His manner, his voice, his
+diction, his fluency were alike the subject of praise. Mr. Gladstone
+evidently continued to impress the House of Commons with a sense of
+his great parliamentary capacity. We get at this fact rather
+obliquely; for we do not hear of his creating any great sensation in
+debate; and to this day some very old members of the House insist that
+for a long time he was generally regarded as merely a fluent speaker,
+who talked like one reading from a book. But on the other hand, we
+find that he is described by Macaulay, in 1839, as "the rising hope"
+of the "stern and unbending Tories," and the whole tone of Macaulay's
+essay&mdash;a criticism of Gladstone's first serious attempt at authorship,
+his book on the relations between church and state&mdash;shows that the
+critic treats the author as a young man of undoubted mark and position
+in the House of Commons.</p>
+
+<a id="img043" name="img043"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img043.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="" title="">
+<p>Hawarden Castle, the home of Gladstone.</p></div>
+
+<p>In December, 1834, Sir Robert Peel appointed Gladstone to the office
+of a Junior Lord of the Treasury. In the next year Peel, who was quick
+to appreciate the great abilities and the sound commercial knowledge
+of his new recruit, gave to him the more important post of
+Under-secretary for the Colonies. Gladstone looked up to Peel with
+intense admiration. There was much to draw the two men together.
+Knowledge of finance, thorough understanding and firm grasp of the
+principles on which a nation's business must be conducted&mdash;perhaps, it
+may be added, a common origin in the middle class&mdash;these points of
+resemblance <span class="pagenum"><a id="page379" name="page379"></a>(p. 379)</span> might well have become points of attraction.
+But there were other and still higher sympathies to bring them close.
+The elder and the younger man were alike earnest, profoundly earnest;
+filled with conscience in every movement of their political and
+private lives; a good deal too earnest and serious, perhaps, for most
+of the parliamentary colleagues by whom they were surrounded. Mr.
+Gladstone always remained devoted to Peel, and knew him perhaps more
+thoroughly and intimately than any other man was privileged to do.
+Peel went out of office very soon after he had made Mr. Gladstone
+Under-secretary for the Colonies. Lord John Russell had brought
+forward a series of motions on the ominous subject of the Irish
+Church, and Peel was defeated and resigned. It is almost needless to
+say that Gladstone went with him. Peel came back again in office in
+1841, on the fall of the Melbourne administration, and Mr. Gladstone
+became Vice-president of the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint,
+and was at the same time sworn in a member of the Privy Council. In
+1843 he became President of the Board of Trade. Early in 1845 he
+resigned his office because he could not approve of the policy of the
+government with regard to the Maynooth grant.</p>
+
+<p>The great struggle on the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was
+now coming on. It would be impossible that a man with Mr. Gladstone's
+turn of mind and early training could have continued a protectionist,
+when once he applied his intellect and his experience to a practical
+examination of the subject. Once again he went with his leader. Peel
+saw that there was nothing for it but to accept the principles of the
+Free Trade party, who had been bearing the fiery cross of their
+peaceful and noble agitation all through the country, and were
+gathering adherents wherever they went.</p>
+
+<p>It is a somewhat curious fact that Mr. Gladstone was not in the House
+of Commons during the eventful session when the great battle of free
+trade was fought and won. In thorough sympathy with Peel, he had
+joined the government again as Colonial Secretary. Knowing that he
+could no longer be in political sympathy with the Duke of Newcastle,
+whose influence had obtained for him the representation of Newark, he
+had given up his seat, and did not come into Parliament again until
+the struggle was over. At the general elections in 1847, Mr.
+Gladstone, still accepted as a Tory, was chosen one of the
+representatives for the University of Oxford.</p>
+
+<p>Up to the time of the abolition of the Corn Laws, or at least of the
+movement which led to their abolition, Mr. Gladstone had been a Tory
+of a rather old-fashioned school. The corn-law agitation probably
+first set him thinking over the possible defects of the social and
+legislative system, and showed him the necessity for reform at least
+in one direction. The interests of religion itself at one time seemed
+to him to be bound up with the principles of the Tory party; and no
+doubt there was a period of his career when the principle of
+protection would have seemed to him as sacred as any other part of the
+creed. With a mind like his, inquiry once started, must go on. There
+was always something impetuous in the workings of his intellect, as
+well as the rush of his sympathy. He startled <span class="pagenum"><a id="page380" name="page380"></a>(p. 380)</span> Europe, and
+indeed the whole civilized world, by the terrible and only too
+truthful description which he gave, in 1851, of the condition of the
+prisons of Naples under the king who was known by the nickname of
+"Bomba," and the cruelties which were inflicted on political prisoners
+in particular. Again and again, in Mr. Gladstone's public life we
+shall see him carried away by the same generous and passionate emotion
+on behalf of the victims of despotic cruelty in any part of the world.
+Burke himself could not be more sympathetic, more earnest, or more
+strong.</p>
+
+<p>By the death of Sir Robert Peel, in 1850, Mr. Gladstone had lost a
+trusted leader, and a dear friend. But the loss of his leader had
+brought Gladstone himself more directly to the front. It was not till
+after Peel's death that he compelled the House of Commons and the
+country to recognize in him a supreme master of parliamentary debate.
+The first really great speech made by Mr. Gladstone in Parliament&mdash;the
+first speech which would fairly challenge comparison with any of the
+finest speeches of a past day&mdash;was made in the debate on Mr.
+Disraeli's budget in the winter of 1852, the first session of the new
+Parliament. Mr. Disraeli knew well that his government was doomed to
+fall. He knew that it could not survive that debate. It was always one
+of Mr. Disraeli's peculiarities that he could fight most brilliantly
+when he knew that his cause was already lost. That which would have
+disheartened and disarmed other men, seemed only to animate him with
+all Macbeth's wild courage of despair. Never did his gift of satire,
+of invective, and of epithet show to more splendid effect than in the
+speech with which he closed his part of the debate, and mercilessly
+assailed his opponents. Mr. Disraeli sat down at two o'clock in the
+morning, and then Mr. Gladstone rose to reply to him. Most men in the
+House, even on the opposition side, were filled with the belief that
+it would be impossible to make any real impression on the House after
+such a speech as that of Mr. Disraeli. Long before Mr. Gladstone had
+concluded, everyone admitted that the effect of Mr. Disraeli's speech
+had been outdone and outshone. From that hour Mr. Gladstone was
+recognized as one of the great historic orators of the English
+Parliament&mdash;a man to rank with Bolingbroke and Chatham and Pitt and
+Fox. With that speech began the long parliamentary duel between these
+two great masters of debate, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, which was
+carried on for four and twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>On the fall of the short-lived Tory administration, Lord Aberdeen came
+into office. He formed the famous Coalition Ministry. Lord Palmerston
+took what most people would have thought the uncongenial office of
+Home Secretary. Lord John Russell became Secretary of Foreign Affairs.
+Mr. Gladstone, who with others of the "Peelites," as they were called,
+had joined the new administration, was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
+His speech on the introduction of his first budget was waited for with
+great expectation, but it distanced all expectation. It occupied
+several hours in delivery, but none of those who listened to it would
+have wished it to be shortened by a sentence. It may be questioned
+whether even the younger Pitt, with all his magic of voice, and style,
+and phrase, could lend such charm to each successive budget as Mr.
+Gladstone was able to <span class="pagenum"><a id="page381" name="page381"></a>(p. 381)</span> do. A budget speech from Mr. Gladstone
+came to be expected with the same kind of keen, artistic longing as
+waits the first performance of a new opera by some great composer. A
+budget speech by Mr. Gladstone was a triumph in the realm of the fine
+arts.</p>
+
+<p>The Crimean War broke up the Coalition Ministry; but the year 1859 saw
+Lord Palmerston back again in office, and Mr. Gladstone in his old
+place as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The budget of 1860 was
+remarkable, as it contained the provisions for the reduction of the
+wine duties and the whole simplified system of taxation intended to
+apply to the commercial treaty which Mr. Cobden had succeeded in
+persuading the Emperor of the French to accept. Mr. Gladstone also
+introduced a provision for the abolition of the duty on paper&mdash;a duty
+which was simply a tax upon reading, a tax upon popular education. The
+House of Lords struck out this clause; a somewhat impassioned popular
+agitation followed; and in the next session the Lords passed the
+measure for the repeal of the duty without offering any further
+opposition. The death of Lord Palmerston, in 1865, called Lord Russell
+to the position of prime-minister, and made Mr. Gladstone leader of
+the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's mind had long been turning in
+the direction of an extension, or rather expansion, of the suffrage.
+It was assumed by everyone that Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone being
+now at the head of affairs, a reform bill would be sure to come. It
+did come; a very moderate and cautious bill, enlarging the area of the
+franchise in boroughs and counties. The Conservative party opposed it,
+and were supported in their opposition by a considerable section of
+the Liberals, who thought the measure was going too far on the road to
+universal suffrage and the rule of the democracy. The bill was
+defeated, and the Liberal statesman went out of office (1866). Mr.
+Gladstone had carried his point, however, for when Mr. Disraeli came
+into office he saw that a reform bill was inevitable, and he prepared
+his party, or most of them, for the course which would have to be
+taken. In the very next session Mr. Disraeli introduced a reform bill
+of his own, which was enlarged and expanded until it became
+practically a measure of household suffrage for cities and boroughs.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere about this time the attention of Mr. Gladstone began to be
+attracted to the condition of Ireland. The distressed and distracted
+state of Ireland, the unceasing popular agitation and discontent, the
+Fenian insurrection, brought under England's very eyes by the schemes
+for an attack on Chester Castle&mdash;all these evidences of malady in
+Ireland's system led Mr. Gladstone to the conviction that the time had
+come when statesmanship must seek through Parliament for some process
+of remedy. Mr. Gladstone came after a while to the conclusion that the
+Protestant State Church in Ireland must be disestablished and
+disendowed, that the Irish land tenure system must be reformed, and
+that better provision must be made for the higher education of the
+Catholics of Ireland. He made short work with the Irish State Church.
+He defeated the government on a series of resolutions foreshadowing
+his policy; the government appealed to the country, the Liberals
+returned to power, and Mr. Gladstone became <span class="pagenum"><a id="page382" name="page382"></a>(p. 382)</span> prime minister
+(1868). In his first session of government he disestablished and
+disendowed the State Church in Ireland. In the next session he passed
+a measure which for the first time recognized the right of the Irish
+tenant to the value of the improvements he had himself made at his own
+cost and labor. Never probably was there such a period of energetic
+reform in almost every direction as that which set in when Mr.
+Gladstone became prime-minister. For the first time in English history
+a system of national education was established. The Ballot Act was
+passed for the protection of voters. The system of purchase in the
+army was abolished by something, it must be owned, a little in the
+nature of a <span class="italic">coup-d'état</span>. Then Mr. Gladstone introduced a measure to
+improve the condition of university education in Ireland. This bill
+was intended almost altogether for the benefit of Irish Catholics; but
+it did not go far enough to satisfy the demands of the Catholics, and
+in some of its provisions was declared incompatible with the
+principles of their Church. The Catholic members of the House of
+Commons voted against it, and with that help the Conservatives were
+able to throw out the bill (1873). Mr. Gladstone tendered his
+resignation of office. But Mr. Disraeli declined just then to take any
+responsibility, and Mr. Gladstone had to remain at the head of
+affairs. The great wave of reforming energy had, however, subsided in
+the country. The period of reaction had come. The by-elections began
+to tell against the Liberals. Mr. Gladstone suddenly dissolved
+Parliament and appealed to the country, and the answer to his appeal
+was the election of a Conservative majority. Mr. Disraeli came back to
+power, and Mr. Gladstone retired from the leadership of the House of
+Commons (1874).</p>
+
+<p>For a while Mr. Gladstone occupied himself in literary and historical
+studies, and he published essays and pamphlets. But even in his
+literary career Mr. Gladstone would appear to have always kept
+glancing at the House of Commons, as Charles V. in his monastery kept
+his eyes on the world of politics outside. The atrocious conduct of
+the Turkish officials in Bulgaria aroused his generous anger, and he
+flung down his books and rushed out from his study to preach a crusade
+against the Ottoman power in Europe. The waters rose and lifted him,
+whether he would or no, into power. The Parliament which had gone on
+from the spring of 1874 was dissolved in the spring of 1880, and the
+Liberals came in with an overwhelming majority. The period of reaction
+had gone, and the period of action was come again. Mr. Gladstone had
+to become prime-minister once more. His name was, to adopt the
+phraseology of continental politics, the only name that had come out
+of the voting urns.</p>
+
+<a id="img044" name="img044"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img044.jpg" width="500" height="334" alt="" title="">
+<p>Gladstone's first home rule bill.</p></div>
+
+<p>It was an unpropitious hour at which to return to office. There were
+troubles in Egypt; there was impending war in the Soudan and in South
+Africa. There was something very like an agrarian revolution going on
+in Ireland; and the Home Rule party in the House of Commons was under
+new, resolute, and uncompromising leadership. Mr. Gladstone succeeded,
+nevertheless, in carrying what might be called a vast scheme of
+parliamentary reform, a scheme which established something very near
+to universal suffrage, arranged the constituencies into proportionate
+divisions, extinguished several small boroughs, leaving their electors
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page383" name="page383"></a>(p. 383)</span> to vote in their county division, and in general completed
+the work begun in 1832, and carried further in 1867. It is to the
+credit of the Conservative party that after a while they co-operated
+cordially with Mr. Gladstone in his reforming work of 1885. This was a
+triumph for Mr. Gladstone of an entirely satisfactory character; but
+he had sore trials to counterbalance it. He found himself drawn into a
+series of wars in North and South Africa; and he, whose generous
+sympathy had of late been so much given to Ireland, and who had
+introduced and carried another land bill for Ireland, found that in
+endeavoring to pass the measures of coercion, which the authorities in
+Dublin Castle deemed advisable, he had to encounter the fiercest
+opposition from the Irish members of Parliament and the vast bulk of
+the Irish population. That time must have been, for a man of Mr.
+Gladstone's nature, a time of darkness and of pain. Lord Frederick
+Cavendish and Mr. Burke were assassinated in Dublin; General Gordon
+perished at Khartoum. In the end the Irish members coalesced with the
+Conservatives in a vote on a clause in the budget, and Mr. Gladstone's
+government was defeated. Lord Salisbury came back into office, but not
+just then into power. He was in a most precarious position, depending
+on the course which might be taken by the Irish members. He was out of
+office in a few months, and then the general elections came on. These
+elections were to give the first opportunity to the newly made voters
+under Mr. Gladstone's latest reform act; and these voters sent him
+back into office and apparently into power once again. The use Mr.
+Gladstone made of office and of power astonished his enemies, and
+startled and shocked not a few of his friends. His government had had,
+in the years between 1881 and 1884, to fight a fierce battle against
+the policy of obstruction organized by Mr. Parnell, the leader of the
+Home Rule party. The obstruction was organized to prevent or delay the
+passing of coercion measures, and to force the attention of the
+British public to the claims of Ireland. The struggles that were
+carried on will be always memorable in the history of Parliament. The
+fiercest passions were aroused on both sides, and at one time Ireland
+seemed to have come to regard Mr. Gladstone as her worst enemy. Many a
+statesman in his place might have allowed himself to be governed by a
+feeling of disappointment and resentment. But when the elections under
+the new and extended Reform Bill were held, and the Irish Nationalist
+party came back 87 members out of the whole Irish representation of
+103, Mr. Gladstone made up his mind that the voice of the Irish people
+was in favor of Home Rule, and he resolved to stake power and
+popularity on an acceptance of their demand. In March, 1886, he
+brought in a measure to give a statutory Parliament to Ireland. A
+sudden and serious split took place in his party; some of his most
+influential colleagues declared against him; the bill was rejected on
+the second reading, and Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country, only to
+be defeated at the general elections.</p>
+
+<p>Opinion is still divided&mdash;may be divided forever&mdash;as to the wisdom of
+his policy; but no impartial man can deny him the credit of his
+sacrifice and the sincerity of his intentions. Then the Conservative
+party came back into office, and with the help of Liberals who had
+declined to follow Mr. Gladstone, came back <span class="pagenum"><a id="page384" name="page384"></a>(p. 384)</span> with a powerful
+majority, Mr. Gladstone leading the opposition. At the general
+election of 1892, his party, including both sections of Irish
+Nationalists, secured a majority of above forty over the combined
+Conservatives and Liberal Unionists. Under his leadership a home-rule
+bill for Ireland was passed by the Commons in spite of the most bitter
+opposition. It was rejected almost unanimously by the House of Lords;
+and for a time it seemed probable that the Liberals would attack the
+very existence of that body. Perhaps this was Mr. Gladstone's
+intention for he introduced several popular radical bills. But time
+was beginning to tell upon the Grand Old Man; he was now eighty-four
+years old, and he felt himself unequal to the gigantic struggle. He
+resigned his offices and retired into private life in March, 1894.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone will find his fame as a statesman and an orator. We have
+taken little account here of his contributions to literature; his
+Homeric studies, his various essays in political and literary, in
+ecclesiastical, and even theological, criticism. For another man these
+in themselves would have made a not inconsiderable reputation; but to
+the world they are interesting chiefly as illustrating a marvellous
+mental activity stretching itself out in every direction; unresting in
+the best sense of the word; incapable of settling down into even
+momentary idleness. "Repos ailleurs" seems to have been the motto of
+Mr. Gladstone's career&mdash;let rest come elsewhere&mdash;this is the world of
+activity and of labor. His work as a statesman has been almost unique;
+probably there is no other English minister who leaves behind him so
+long and so successful a record of practical legislation; and, as we
+have seen, some of the best legislation accomplished by his political
+opponents was initiated by him, was his own work taken out of his
+hands. As a parliamentary debater he never had a superior&mdash;it is
+doubtful whether he ever had an equal&mdash;in the whole of the political
+history of the British Empire. There have been, even in our time,
+orators who now and then shot their arrows higher; but so ready, so
+skilful, and so unerring an archer as he, taken all around, never drew
+bow on modern parliamentary battle-ground. Nature had given him an
+exquisite voice, sweet, powerful, easily penetrating, capable of
+filling without effort any public building however large, vibrating to
+every emotion. The incessant training of the House of Commons turned
+nature's gifts to their fullest account. He was almost too fluent; his
+eloquence sometimes carried him away on its impassioned tide; but his
+listeners were seldom inclined to find fault with this magnificent
+exuberance. We should be inclined to rank him as one of the greatest
+orators, and the very greatest debater, of the House of Commons.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3><span class="pagenum"><a id="page385" name="page385"></a>(p. 385)</span> PRINCE VON BISMARCK<a id="footnotetag18" name="footnotetag18"></a><a href="#footnote18" title="Go to footnote 18"><span class="smaller">[18]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Prince Outisky</span><br>
+(1815-1898)</h3>
+
+<a id="img045" name="img045"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img045.jpg" width="250" height="267" alt="Bismarck." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The "aureole of unpopularity" which encircled Bismarck's brow during
+four short years of inaugural premiership has, to all appearance,
+vanished under the influence of unbroken success, making room
+throughout the world for a confiding deference to his capacity and
+forethought, that every year seems to intensify. It is he, in the
+belief of most governments, who has preserved to them what never was
+more indispensable for their very existence&mdash;peace in Europe. With
+supreme adroitness, he avoids entanglements for himself and his
+country, bears many an affront patiently before retorting, keeps up
+the appearance of a good understanding after its substance has long
+passed away, but, when fairly engaged in diplomatic contention, lays
+out his field in a manner that insures success. People agree,
+therefore, that it is best to take him as he is. And it is in the
+nature of man when he has once accorded that favor to a
+fellow-creature, to "take him as he is," that he ends by liking him.
+Thus Bismarck, of all living men the most unlikely to succeed in the
+race after a world-wide popularity, is probably at this moment the
+best-liked man in either hemisphere.</p>
+
+<p>His own countrymen have shown a decided indisposition to admit him
+among their household gods. To them he was, from the commencement of
+his political career, the very embodiment of what had gradually become
+the most objectionable type of Teuton existence&mdash;the unmitigated
+squireen or Junker, with <span class="pagenum"><a id="page386" name="page386"></a>(p. 386)</span> his poverty and arrogance, with his
+hunger and thirst after position and good living, with his hatred for
+the upstart liberal burgher class. "Away with the cities! I hope I may
+yet live to see them levelled to the ground." Is there not a ring of
+many centuries of social strife, so laboriously kept down by the
+reigning dynasty, in these stupendous words, which were pronounced by
+Bismarck in 1847, when among the leaders of the conservatives in the
+first embryo parliament of the Prussian monarchy? And if uncongenial
+to the generation of Prussians among whom he had grown up, how
+infinitely greater was the dislike against him of South Germans, more
+gifted, as a rule, by nature, to whom the name of Prussian is
+synonymous of all that is strait-laced and overweening and unnatural
+and&mdash;generally inconvenient.</p>
+
+<p>Little of that sentiment remains among the Germans of the present day.
+Such strangers as have had the opportunity of observing the attitude
+of the nation during the late celebration of his seventieth birthday,
+agree in declaring them to have been spontaneous, enthusiastic, and at
+times almost aggressive. Some tell us, to be sure, that the farther
+from Berlin the more gushing has been the ecstasy. The electors of
+Professor Virchow and of Herr Löwe, in whose electoral districts a
+torchlight procession on the eve of Bismarck's birthday had to elbow
+its way through immense crowds, must have kept at home. The
+municipality of Berlin, a model body of civic administrators, sent a
+birthday letter to their "honorary citizen," but abstained, with
+proper self-respect, from tendering their congratulations through a
+deputation. No Berlin citizen of any importance had a hand in the
+management of the procession. Yet, if thousands kept aloof, tens of
+thousands shared the national enthusiasm&mdash;students of universities
+chiefly, but older men too, even in distrustful, radical Berlin. And
+as for South Germany, where the gospel of protection seems, perhaps,
+to be more firmly believed in than any other, we read of trains to
+Berlin taken by storm, banquets, processions, chorus-singing&mdash;of real,
+heartfelt, rapturous effervescence.</p>
+
+<p>There cannot be a shadow of doubt that, to numberless non-Prussians at
+any rate, the new era of German unity has brought a symbol of
+greatness not before known, and that they worship in Bismarck the hero
+who has given them a country to love, who has delivered them from the
+pettiness and self-satisfaction of Philistinism.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if this be so&mdash;if, indeed, the countries of the world at large,
+and Germany in particular, acknowledge him almost affectionately as
+the leading statesman of the day, would it not be an interesting study
+to examine the degree of merit due to him personally, the character of
+the present administration, and what lasting good or lasting evil may
+be expected from this new phase of European politics? The subject,
+through its weight and its bulk alike, excludes full treatment within
+the limits of an essay. Nevertheless, since it intertwines itself with
+nearly every other question of moment, a few remarks by an outsider
+may be acceptable.</p>
+
+<a id="img046" name="img046"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img046.jpg" width="500" height="431" alt="" title="">
+<p>Proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles.</p></div>
+
+<p>None but the incorrigibly childish can be inclined to ascribe to good
+luck a prosperous career extending over near twenty-three years, spent
+under the fiercest <span class="pagenum"><a id="page387" name="page387"></a>(p. 387)</span> glare of the world's sunshine. No
+minister of any age was more bitterly assailed or opposed, even at the
+court of which he is now the acknowledged major domus in the manner of
+the Pepins and other Thum-Meiers of the Frankish monarchy. The king's
+brother, Prince Charles, detested the innovator whose opinions on the
+necessity of Austria being removed from membership in a remodelled
+German confederation, had for years leaked out from the despatch-boxes
+of the Foreign Office. Even the Junkers, whose dauntless leader he had
+been before and after the revolutionary events of 1848, shrank
+instinctively from a man who could not be credited with veneration for
+the Holy Alliance. It is remembered in Berlin that, on the nomination
+of one of them, well at court, a diplomatist of some standing, to the
+post of under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, the new member
+of the government confessed to his friends that he accepted the post
+<span class="italic">in spite</span> of Bismarck's "foreign" policy, and only in consideration
+of his contempt for parliamentarism. The queen, on the other hand,
+brought up in principles of constitutional government, and strongly
+attached to the English alliance, viewed with horror the bold pugilist
+who was daily assailing, not the persons only of the people's
+representatives, but some of the very foundations of every
+parliamentary edifice. Yet fiercer was the animosity shown him on
+every occasion by the Princess Royal of England, whose father had
+early taught her that a throne, to be safe, requires absolute solidity
+of institutions and agreement with the people, and who seriously
+trembled for the preservation of her children's future. Her husband
+expressed himself forcibly on a public occasion against some
+reactionary measures of the government. As the court, so were the
+liberal parties, so the people in general. When a fanatic, of the name
+of Kohn, attempted Bismarck's life in May, 1866, there were few
+persons who did not regret his failure. It may be said with truth
+that, for years, two men only understood a portion at least of his
+political views, and shared them. One was King William. Isolated as
+Herr von Bismarck was, he learned to rely implicitly on his
+sovereign's faithfulness, and has had no reason to regret his trust;
+for the king, though greatly his inferior in intellect, and far from
+unblest with legitimist predilections, was as firmly convinced as his
+minister that the confederation of German states, and Prussia herself,
+might be swept away unless placed upon a new footing, in one of those
+tornadoes which used periodically to blow across the continent of
+Europe. Thus, the new departure was as much his own programme as
+Bismarck's, and although he started (in 1861) with a hankering after
+"moral" rather than material conquests, he gradually understood the
+necessity for war, and has of a certainty "taken kindly," as the
+saying is, to material conquests of no inconsiderable magnitude.</p>
+
+<p>None, even among Bismarck's modern sycophants, would pretend that
+their hero was the inventor of German unity. Passionately, though not
+over-wisely, had that ideal been striven after and suffered for by the
+best patriots in various parts of Fatherland, their vision becoming
+hazy just as often as they attempted to combine two opposite claims,
+that of a national texture, and that of a headship of Austria, which
+is non-German in a majority of its subjects, and alien in nearly
+<span class="pagenum"><a id="page388" name="page388"></a>(p. 388)</span> all its interests. The Frankfort Parliament of 1848 marks
+the transition to a clear insight, inasmuch as its final performance,
+the constitution of 1849, placed the new crown on the King of
+Prussia's head. When offered, it was haughtily declined under the
+applause of Bismarck and his friends. The king refused because its
+origin lay in a popular assembly; in Bismarck's eyes its chief defect
+was that Prussia would be dictated to by the minor states. It was not
+until later, in 1851, when appointed Prussian ambassador to the
+Germanic Diet, chiefly because of his defence of the Treaty of Olmütz,
+which placed Prussia at the mercy of Austria, that he recognized the
+central point to be the necessity of thrusting Austria out of the
+confederation. It is proved now that he was sagacious enough also to
+perceive that such a wrench would not lead to a permanent
+estrangement, but that Austria, removed once and for all from her
+incubus-like and dog-in-the-manger position within the federate body,
+would become, in her own interest and that of European peace, New
+Germany's permanent ally.</p>
+
+<p>These, then, became the two purposes of his active life ever since the
+day when, at the age of thirty-six, he obtained a share of the
+responsibility in the management of affairs as ambassador in
+Frankfort; first, to transfer <span class="italic">Austria to a position in the East</span>, and
+then to bestow upon the Fatherland <span class="italic">political unity under Prussia, the
+royal prerogative in the latter remaining uncurtailed</span>, so far as
+circumstances would allow. Thirty-four years have now elapsed. His
+opponents, in his own country or out of it, are at liberty to
+reiterate that he was born under a lucky star; that he merely took up
+the thread of German unification where the Frankfort Parliament of
+1849 had let it drop; that anybody could have utilized such mighty
+armaments as those of Prussia with the same effect; that, given total
+disregard of principle or moral obligations, the result, in the hands
+of any political gamester, must have been what it was. There is
+something to be set against each of these assertions. For it was not
+the goddess of Fortune which pursued Bismarck in the ungainly shape of
+his former friend, that spiteful Prince Gortschakoff. The Frankfort
+assembly had left the Austrian riddle unsolved, and apparently
+insoluble. There was no hand in the country firm or skilful enough, no
+brain sufficiently hard or enlightened as to the needs of the day&mdash;not
+the king's, not Count Arnim's, nor certainly that of any other known
+to his contemporaries. And finally, when a public man so deftly gauges
+the mental capacities or extent of power of his antagonists&mdash;such as
+Count Beust, or Napoleon, or Earl Russell&mdash;that he knows exactly how
+far he can step with safety; then such a "gamester," however terrible
+the risks to which he may have exposed his country, is a great man.
+Complete unity of aims throughout, power given to carry them out, a
+wonderful absence of very serious mistakes, and finally a life
+sufficiently prolonged to admit of retrospection; in each of these
+respects the career of Bismarck resembles that of Mr. Disraeli.</p>
+
+<p>The oft-told story of his diplomatic adventures at Frankfort, at
+Vienna, at Petersburg, and at Paris, and still more of his rulership
+in Prussia since 1862, and in Germany since 1866, has been uniform
+under two aspects. First, as already <span class="pagenum"><a id="page389" name="page389"></a>(p. 389)</span> mentioned, in the stern
+continuity of his purposes. And secondly, in the mistaken view
+entertained regarding him at each successive period of his public
+life. Passing under review the whole career of this political
+phenomenon, you naturally pause before its strangest and its most
+humorous feature, viz., that, although living under the closest
+inspection, he was misunderstood year after year. Who would,
+consequently, deny the possibility at least, of Bismarck's being so
+misunderstood, by friend and foe, at this present moment?</p>
+
+<p>While those despatches were written by him from Frankfort which
+Poschinger's researches have now exhumed, their writer was thought, by
+his partisans just as much as by his enemies, to be occupied solely
+with strengthening the "solidarity of conservative interests" and the
+supremacy of Austria, or with spinning the rope of steel which was to
+strangle all parliaments in Germany. And yet we know positively at
+present that, with increasing vigor day by day, did he warn his
+government against the scarcely concealed intention of Austria to
+"<span class="italic">avilir la Prusse d'abord et puis l'anéantir</span>" (Prince
+Schwartzenberg's famous saying in 1851); we observe with surprise how
+quickly legitimist leanings disappear behind his own country's
+interests; we stand aghast at the iron sway obtained by so young a man
+over the self-conceit of a vacillating, yet dogmatic and wilful, king
+(Frederick William IV.). It was he whose advice, given in direct
+opposition to Bunsen's, led to the refusal by Prussia of the Western
+alliance during the Crimean war. But he did not give this advice, as
+German liberals then believed, out of subservience to the autocrat of
+the North, whose assistance his party humbly solicited in order to
+exterminate liberalism. He persistently gave it to thwart Austria and
+to preserve Prussia (then in no brilliant military condition) from
+having to bear the brunt of Muscovite wrath, which he cunningly judged
+to be of more lasting importance in the coming struggles than the
+friendship of Western Europe. At a time when European politicians
+considered that he was the mouthpiece of schemers for a Russo-French
+alliance in his repeated and successful endeavors to gain Napoleon's
+good-will, he was adroitly sounding the French emperor's mind and
+character. He soon convinced himself that it was shallow and
+fantastic, and he built upon this conviction one of the most hazardous
+designs which ever originated in a brain observant of realities&mdash;that
+identical design which eventually led Prussia, some years later, first
+to Schleswig and then to Sadowa, with the "arbiter of Europe," as
+Napoleon was then called, stolidly looking on! And what is one to say
+of the four years of parliamentary conflicts (1862 to 1866), during
+which no one doubted but that his object in life and his <span class="italic">raison
+d'être</span> consisted in a reinstatement of the Prussian king on the
+absolute throne of his ancestors&mdash;a reaction from all that was
+progressive to the grossest abuses of despotism? All this time he was
+fighting a desperate battle against backstairs influences, which with
+true instinct were deprecating and counteracting his schemes of
+aggrandizement and national reorganization. It is clear, on looking
+back to that period which has left such indelible marks on the
+judgment of many well-meaning liberals, that his exaggerated tone of
+aggressive defence in the Prussian Landtag, the furious onslaught of
+his harangues, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page390" name="page390"></a>(p. 390)</span> were intended to silence the tongues at court
+which denounced him as a demagogue and a radical. Paradoxical as it
+may sound, one may safely assert that nothing more effectually helped
+King William in his later foreign policy, than the opinion pervading
+all Europe in 1864 and 1866, that, having lost all hold upon the minds
+of his people, weakened and crippled in every sense of the word by
+Bismarckian folly, his Majesty could never strike a blow.</p>
+
+<p>There was peace and concord in Germany between 1866 and 1877. Without
+becoming a liberal, and while opposing every attempt to outstep
+certain limits, Bismarck created and rather enjoyed an alliance with
+the majority formed in his favor by the national liberals and a
+moderate section of the conservatives. The German Empire, proclaimed
+by the German sovereigns at Versailles in January, 1871, was of his
+creation; and while established upon somewhat novel principles of
+federation by a parliamentary statute, it looked to outsiders like a
+home for progress and liberty. There were dangers lurking, it is true,
+beneath many a provision of the new constitution, such as the absence
+of an upper house, and the substitution in its stead of delegates from
+the separate governments, acting in each case according to
+instructions received, authorized to speak whenever they chose before
+the Reichstag, but deliberating separately and secretly both upon
+bills to propose, and upon replies to give to resolutions of the
+Reichstag. In fact, this Bundesrath, or federal council, represents
+the governing element under the emperor, with functions both
+administrative and legislative. By an artificial method of counting,
+Prussia, although she would command three-fifths of all the voters by
+virtue of her population, has less than one-third. Thus the
+possibility of an imbroglio between the governments is ever present,
+as well as that of a hasty vote in the popular assembly.</p>
+
+<a id="img047" name="img047"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img047.jpg" width="400" height="569" alt="" title="">
+<p>Bismarck before Paris.</p></div>
+
+<p>It will never, probably, be quite understood why Prince Bismarck broke
+loose from a political alliance which, it would seem, had given no
+trouble whatever. In foreign affairs the house, in its immense
+majority, abstained from even the faintest attempt at interference. As
+for patronage, it has been said that no appointment was ever solicited
+for anyone by a member of the liberal party. From ministerial down to
+menial posts no claim was raised, no request preferred. If the section
+of moderate conservatives above mentioned has furnished a few
+ambassadors like Prince Hohenlohe, Count Münster, Baron Keudell, and
+Count Stolberg, that was by the chief's free will. Why, then, it has
+been asked, a change so absolute as the one the world has witnessed,
+from the saying of the chancellor in 1877, that his ideal was to have
+high financial duties on half a dozen objects and free trade on all
+others, to one of the most comprehensive tariffs in the world two
+years later? His own and his friends' explanations are lamentably
+deficient&mdash;"growing anæmia and impoverishment of the country,"
+"drowning of native industry by foreign manufacturers," "corn imported
+cheaper than produced," and what not. The present writer, looking from
+afar, has always thought two motives to have been paramount in the
+chancellor's mind when he separated from the liberals and became, not
+a convinced, but a thorough-going protectionist. It is not said that
+these were his only motives. Chess-players <span class="pagenum"><a id="page391" name="page391"></a>(p. 391)</span> know that each
+important move affects not only the figures primarily attacked, but
+changes the whole texture of the play.</p>
+
+<p>First, then, and foremost, fresh sources of income were wanted to make
+the finances of the empire independent from the several exchequers of
+the states bound by statute to make up for any deficiency <span class="italic">pro rata
+parte</span> of their population. Two or three objects would have provided
+the needful, viz., spirits and beetroot sugar, and (with due caution)
+tobacco; or an "imperial" income tax, changing according to each
+year's necessities; or both systems combined. Tobacco, it is true, was
+tried, and the attempt failed. Spirits would bear almost any taxation,
+but the chancellor does not choose to tread upon the tender toe of the
+great owners of land who are potato-growers, and consequently
+distillers on a large scale. And another important class of
+agriculturists, the beetroot growers and sugar-producers, were not to
+be trifled with either. But how about direct taxation, the manly
+sacrifice of free peoples, the plummet by which to sound the
+enlightenment of a nation? The chancellor instinctively felt, I
+believe, that there he would be going beyond his depth; that under
+such a <span class="italic">régime</span> the free will of citizens must have the fullest swing;
+the "prerogative" would suffer, if not immediately, yet as a necessary
+sequence. And so he deliberately abandoned free trade and espoused
+indirect taxation and protection.</p>
+
+<p>Success, let free traders say what they please on the subject, success
+has accompanied Bismarck's genius on this novel field, as well as on
+the older fields where all mankind acknowledges his superiority. For
+the coffers of the empire are filling. A motley majority in the
+Reichstag not only accepts, but improves upon his protectionist
+demands. He has become the demigod of the bloated manufacturing,
+mining, and landlord interests throughout the country. He is now about
+to win the last of the great industries, and the one which withstood
+his blandishments the longest, viz., the trans-oceanic carrying trade.
+He is credited with having improved the state of certain trades, even
+by such as know perfectly well that, like the former depression, the
+present improvement in those has been universal. The whole country is
+becoming protectionist. All young men, even in Hamburg and Bremen,
+believe in protection as "the thing." The Prussian landlord, whose
+soul was steeped in free trade so long as Prussia was a
+grain-exporting country, cherishes protectionist convictions now that
+she must largely import cereals. The bureaucrat who had never sworn by
+other economic lawgivers than Adam Smith and his followers, now
+accepts Professor Adolphus Wagner's ever-changing sophisms. And as for
+the south and the west of Germany, why, they adore the man who had
+fulfilled that dream of protection in which they, as disciples of
+Friedrich List, had grown up. It is true that all large cities, even
+there, are protesting against the lately imposed and quite lately
+increased duties upon cereals; but then, "can any good thing come out
+of" large cities? Compared to the difficulties that impede the action
+of the free trade party in Germany, Mr. Bright's and Mr. Cobden's
+up-hill work sinks into insignificance.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing, to a beginner in the study of Bismarck's character, would
+appear so <span class="pagenum"><a id="page392" name="page392"></a>(p. 392)</span> utterly puzzling as his demeanor toward the
+communists, socialists, or, as they call themselves in Germany, Social
+Democrats. One of his most trusted secretaries is an old ally and
+correspondent of Herr Karl Marx, the high-priest of communism, who,
+toward the end of his London career, rode the whirlwind and directed
+the storm of German socialism. Bismarck himself confesses to having
+received in private audience Lassalle, one certainly of the most
+capable men of modern Germany, and to whom as its first author, a
+retrospective inquiry would trace back the present formidable, closely
+ruled organization of socialist operatives of Germany. The first
+minister of the Prussian crown was closeted once&mdash;people say more than
+once, but that does not matter&mdash;with the ablest subverter of the
+modern fabric of society. He found him "mighty pleasant to talk to."
+He liked his predilection for a powerful supreme authority overawing
+the organized masses, though "whether he did so in the interest of a
+dynasty of Lassalles or of Hohenzollern's" seemed to Herr von Bismarck
+an open question. After Lassalle's tragical death in 1864, we observe
+how the Prussian government, while watching with Argus-eyes every
+excess of speech among liberals, allowed his first successors,
+Schweizer and others, a vulgar set of demagogues, such license of
+bloody harangue as has of late years got Louise Michel into trouble in
+republican France. Then we hear of nothing as between Bismarck and the
+socialists for some years&mdash;the years I have described above as years
+of peace and concord in Germany&mdash;till suddenly, on the occasion of two
+attempts made in 1878, by Hödel and by Nobiling against the emperor's
+life, he came down upon that sect as with a sledge-hammer. His famous
+anti-socialist bill was at first rejected. It passed into law only
+after a dissolution, the electors having in their affectionate pity
+for the wounded emperor unequivocally given their verdict in favor of
+suppression. It has since been reaccepted three times by an unwilling
+house, and with exertions of the same man who had fostered and
+protected the beginnings of socialism, and who had the watchword given
+out at the last general elections in 1884, that "His Serene Highness
+the Chancellor would prefer the sight of ten Social-Democrats to that
+of one Liberal (Deutsch-Freisinige.)"</p>
+
+<p>Now, what is the clew to this comedy of errors? No mere waywardness or
+perversity of character, but some powerful bias and a first-cousinship
+in principle must account for one of the strangest anomalies in modern
+history. Perhaps the following consideration will render both the
+"bias" and the "first-cousinship" at least intelligible. Prince
+Bismarck is a good hater. Now, if he has any one antipathy stronger
+than another, and that through life, it is that against the burgher
+class, the reverse of aristocrats, the born liberals, townsmen mostly
+yet not exclusively&mdash;the "bourgeois," as the French call them
+(although, if I err not, the exact counterpart to the "bourgeois"
+species is not found on German soil), a law-abiding set, independent
+of government, paying their taxes, and thoroughly happy. When they,
+through their representatives, bade him defiance in 1862 to 1865, and
+thwarted his measures of coercion, his inmost soul cried, <span class="italic">Acheronta
+movebo!</span> He sent for Lassalle, he paid his successors' debts, and
+generally assisted the sect. So much for the "bias." And now for the
+"first-cousinship." <span class="pagenum"><a id="page393" name="page393"></a>(p. 393)</span> No student of history will deny that
+despotism, whenever it has arisen, or been preserved in highly
+civilized communities, will extend more of a fatherly care to the
+masses than liberalism. This cannot be otherwise; for liberalism sets
+itself to educate the masses to self-responsibility, and each
+individual to thrift and self-reliance. The sight of an able-bodied
+beggar is, to a genuine liberal, a source of anger first, and only on
+further contemplation, of pity. He will exert all his energies to
+remove every obstacle from out of the way of his poorer brethren; he
+will preach wise economy, and facilitate it by personal sacrifices and
+legislative inducements; but he will not tempt the government of his
+country to act as a second providence for the operative classes. Quite
+the reverse is Bismarck's opinion. According to him, the state should
+exercise "practical Christianity." With Titanic resolution to drive
+out Satan through Beelzebub, he does not shrink from acknowledging and
+proclaiming the "right of labor." There is probably nothing left to
+say after your lips have spoken these unholy, blood-stained words. If
+there was, he would be the man to say it rather than allow himself to
+be outbid by mob-leaders of the socialistic feather. <span class="italic">Droit au
+travail</span>, forsooth! The phrase has cost thousands their lives in the
+Parisian carnage of June, 1848. In the mouth of Karl Marx and other
+outspoken champions of his cause, it means absorption by the state of
+all the <span class="italic">sources</span> of labor, such as land and factories, because by
+such absorption only can the state insure work for the unemployed. In
+the mouth of Bismarck it means a lesser thing, of course, in extent,
+but not in its essence. As chief minister of Prussia he has ably
+brought about the purchase of nearly all lines of railway within that
+monarchy. As chancellor of the empire he has tried his very best to
+obtain a monopoly on tobacco. All accident insurance companies have
+already been ruined and their place taken, so far as accidents to
+factory-hands, etc., are concerned, by an imperial office. His mighty
+hand is stretched out already to suppress and absorb all other
+insurances. The kingdom of the Incas, in ancient Peru, as described in
+Prescott's volumes, has probably not done more work for its subjects
+than Bismarck's ideal of a German empire would do for its inhabitants.
+With every species of occupation or enterprise managed directly by
+government, why should the ruler of an empire, or of a socialist
+republic, hesitate about proclaiming a right to labor? A critic might
+object that its proclamation by Bismarck, in 1884, was premature,
+inasmuch as he had failed in carrying his Monopoly bill, and could not
+be certain of success regarding other state encroachments. Granted.
+But a "first-cousinship" between his views on social reform and those
+of Messrs. Bebel and Liebknecht, is an actuality of modern Germany,
+and should be seen to by those who desire this central power of Europe
+to remain exempt from a social revolution. Cursory as this review of
+Bismarck's past life and present policy has of necessity been, some
+indulgent reader may perhaps bestow upon me&mdash;besides his thanks for
+having withstood the temptation to quote the pithy, and at times
+impassioned, utterances of the wittiest man in power of the present
+day&mdash;just enough of his confidence to believe that I have suppressed
+no trait of importance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page394" name="page394"></a>(p. 394)</span> However, since there is one thing more important still than a
+great man, namely his country, let us not dismiss the interesting
+subject of this retrospect without inquiring what that country has
+gained and what lost through his agency. Germany possesses a
+federation, not constructed after any existing pattern, not made to
+please any theory, not the object of anybody's very passionate
+admiration, but accepted in order to alter as little as possible the
+accustomed territorial and political arrangements. In one sense it has
+no army, for the Prussian and the Bavarian armies, although the empire
+bears the cost, still exist. In one sense it possesses not the
+indirect taxation, for the individual states do the collecting of
+custom-house duties, etc. In one sense it has scarcely any organ of
+administration, for the whole internal government, the schools, courts
+of law, and police, all belong to the single states; and foreign
+affairs, the navy, the post-office, and railways in Alsace, are the
+only fields of imperial direct administration. Yet, what it has is
+valuable enough. The empire rules the army and can legislate over and
+control a prodigious amount of national subjects. Its foreign policy
+is one. The military command is one. Certain specified sources of
+revenue are the empire's. Patriotic aspirations are fulfilled. The
+individual sovereigns in Germany possess a guarantee of their status,
+the operative classes an opportunity for organization and improvement
+on a large scale. Monarchical feeling has gained in depth, both
+generally and with personal reference to the emperor and to the crown
+prince, both "representative men" in the best sense of the word, and
+the crown prince, the most lovable man of his day.</p>
+
+<p>Another salutary constitutional reform&mdash;not of Bismarck's making, for
+he gave his consent unwillingly and not without first having marred
+its beauty, but yet an effect of his great deeds&mdash;is the Prussian
+"Kreis" and "Provinzial-Ordnung," first introduced in 1874. No more
+logical deduction was possible than this commencement of
+decentralization within the Prussian monarchy. Before that date
+provincial diets had existed for fifty years, and a kind of assembly
+had also managed certain affairs for the Kreis, an administrative unit
+smaller than an English county, and averaging about one hundred
+thousand inhabitants. In the same proportion as German unity made
+progress, it was believed that self-government ought to become more
+extensively introduced, and the "tendency of the blood toward the
+head" or capital, be obviated. The example of home rule presented by
+the "Kreis" and the provinces of Prussia since this reform, is not
+assuredly of a nature to frighten weak nerves. But much money is now
+usefully spent within and by the provinces independently of any decree
+from a central authority; and as regards willingness to work on
+provincial and (so to say) county boards, it is said to be beyond all
+praise. An English public man of high standing assured me, some years
+ago, that these Prussian beginnings of home rule had attracted the
+serious notice of Mr. Gladstone. I do not wonder at it.</p>
+
+<p>Another permanent good for which Germany seems indebted to Bismarck,
+and the last I will mention, is of quite modern date&mdash;I mean his
+colonial policy. Individual Germans have, at all times and in immense
+numbers, found their way across the sea. On the Baltic and North Sea
+coast, German ports, though few <span class="pagenum"><a id="page395" name="page395"></a>(p. 395)</span> in number, yet command a
+very large trade. Next to the English, German traders form the most
+numerous community in every place, however remote, where business of
+any kind can be transacted. But to convert the inland
+Philistines&mdash;that vast majority of Germans who have never sniffed
+sea-air&mdash;into enthusiasts for a colonial empire required all
+Bismarck's ability and prestige. No doubt he descried in the movement
+a chance for a diversion of the public mind from obnoxious topics. It
+was useful to him to produce an impression as if the export trade,
+stagnating as it must under the baneful effects of modern protection,
+could rally under the influence of colonial enterprise. These
+considerations would not, however, suffice to explain his
+long-considered, cautious proceedings in this matter. To comprehend
+his motives fully, it will be necessary to admit that his prescient
+mind would consider the time, apparently not very far distant, when
+what are now styled Great Powers will be dwindling fast by the side of
+such gigantic empires as seem intent upon dividing the earth's surface
+between them, like England with her colonial possessions, and Russia.
+The effect upon this country, its foreign policy, and the very
+character of its inhabitants, would be alike cramping, unless a way
+for expansion was opened for each. When the political schemes of a
+considerable man are subjects of speculation, it is wiser to guess at
+something exalted if you wish to come near the truth. So probably in
+this case. No doubt he, too, has foreseen the reaction which, at no
+very remote period of German history, will gain a mastery over
+people's minds, when failures and disappointments begin to crowd
+around each of the present equatorial enterprises. But he believes in
+his countrymen's capacity to overcome failure and disappointment
+without recourse to costly warlike expeditions, for which Germany is
+unfitted by her institution of universal and short military service.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>CHARLES STEWART PARNELL<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Thomas Davidson</span><br>
+(1846-1891)</h3>
+
+
+<p>Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish politician, was born at Avondale,
+in County Wicklow, June 28, 1846. His father belonged to an old
+Cheshire family, which purchased an estate in Ireland under Charles
+II., and from which had sprung Thomas Parnell, the poet, and Sir Henry
+Brooke Parnell, created Baron Congleton in 1841. His great-grandfather
+was that Sir John Parnell who was long Chancellor of the Irish
+Exchequer, and an active supporter of Grattan in his struggle against
+the Union; his grandfather, William Parnell, sat for County Wicklow,
+and published in 1819 a foolish political novel, anything but Irish in
+sentiment; his mother, Delia Tudor Stewart, was daughter of Admiral
+Charles Stewart, of the United <span class="pagenum"><a id="page396" name="page396"></a>(p. 396)</span> States Navy. He was educated
+at Yeovil and elsewhere in England under private masters, and was for
+some time a member of Magdalene College, Cambridge, but took no
+degree. In 1874 he became High Sheriff of County Wicklow; next year he
+contested County Dublin without success, but in April, 1875, was
+returned as an avowed Home Ruler for County Meath.</p>
+
+<p>He attached himself to Joseph Biggar, the member for Cavan, who was
+the first to discover the value of deliberate obstruction in
+parliamentary tactics, and during 1877 and 1878 he gained great
+popularity in Ireland by his audacity in the use of the new engine.
+There were many scenes of violence and excitement, and the new horror
+of all-night sittings became familiar to the House of Commons.
+Throughout the struggle Parnell showed equal audacity and coolness,
+and acquired a masterly knowledge of parliamentary forms. Mr. Butt,
+the Irish leader, disapproved of this development of the <span class="italic">active</span> or
+obstructive policy, but his influence quickly gave way before
+Parnell's, and in May, 1879, he died. The year before, Parnell had
+been elected president of the English Home Rule Association. He now
+threw himself with energy into agrarian agitation, gave it its
+watchword: "Keep a firm grip of your homesteads," at Westport in June,
+and in October was elected president of the Irish National Land
+League, which had been founded by Michael Davitt.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Parnell next visited the United States to raise funds for the
+cause, was allowed, like Lafayette and Kossuth, to address Congress
+itself, and carried home £70,000. At the general election of 1880 he
+was returned for the counties of Meath and Mayo and for the city of
+Cork, and chose to sit for the last. He was now formally elected
+chairman of the Irish parliamentary party by twenty-three votes over
+eighteen for Mr. Shaw. Meantime the agrarian agitation grew, and in a
+speech at Ennis, September 19, 1880, he formulated the method of
+boycotting as an engine for punishing an unpopular individual. Mr.
+Gladstone's government now came to the conclusion that the objects of
+the Land League were contrary to the law, and in December put Parnell
+and several other members of the executive on trial, but the jury
+finally failed to agree. Next session the government brought in a
+Coercion Bill, which Mr. Parnell opposed vigorously. In the course of
+the struggle he was ejected from the House, after a stormy scene,
+together with thirty-four of his followers, February 3, 1881. Mr.
+Gladstone next carried his famous Land Bill, but this Parnell refused
+to accept as a final settlement until the result of certain test cases
+before the new Land Court was seen. On October 13th, Mr. Gladstone
+sent him to Kilmainham Jail, and there he lay till released on May 2,
+1882, after some private negotiations with the government conducted
+through the medium of Captain O'Shea. Mr. Forster resigned the Irish
+secretaryship in consequence of the release, and next followed the
+terrible tragedy of Ph&oelig;nix Park, of which Parnell, in his place in
+the House of Commons, expressed his detestation.</p>
+
+<a id="img048" name="img048"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img048.jpg" width="400" height="539" alt="" title="">
+<p>Parnell testifying against the "Times."</p></div>
+
+<p>The Crimes Act was now hurried through Parliament in spite of the
+strenuous opposition of the Irish party. Already the Land League had
+been proclaimed as an illegal association after the issue of the "No
+Rent" manifesto, but <span class="pagenum"><a id="page397" name="page397"></a>(p. 397)</span> early in 1884 the Nationalists
+succeeded in reviving it under the name of the National League, and
+Mr. Parnell was elected its president. The year before the sum of
+£35,000, mostly raised in America, had been presented to him by his
+admirers. After an unsuccessful attempt to make terms with the
+Conservatives, in the course of which he had a famous interview with
+Lord Carnarvon, the viceroy, Parnell flung his vote&mdash;now eighty-six
+strong since the lowering of the franchise&mdash;into the Liberal scale and
+so brought about the fall of the short-lived first Salisbury
+government. Mr. Parnell nominated the greater number of Nationalist
+candidates for the Irish constituencies, and the firm hand with which
+he controlled his party was seen in the promptitude with which he
+crushed a revolt of Healy and Biggar against his nomination of Captain
+O'Shea for Galway.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gladstone's views on the question of Home Rule had by this time
+undergone a complete change, and accordingly he introduced a Home Rule
+Bill which was defeated owing to the defection of a large number of
+Liberal members headed by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The
+consequent appeal to the country (July, 1886) gave Lord Salisbury a
+Unionist majority of over a hundred votes, and threw Parnell into a
+close alliance with Mr. Gladstone and the portion of the Liberal party
+that adhered to him. It was at this period that the <span class="italic">Times</span> newspaper
+published its series of articles entitled "Parnellism and Crime"&mdash;a
+tremendous indictment against the chief Nationalist leaders, the most
+startling point in which was a series of letters published in
+fac-simile, one, signed by Parnell, expressing approval of Mr. Burke's
+murder. After an elaborate trial (extending to one hundred and
+twenty-eight days), the most sensational event in which was the
+breakdown under cross-examination, and the flight and suicide at
+Madrid, of Pigott, the wretched Irishman who had imposed upon the
+<span class="italic">Times</span> with forgeries, Mr. Parnell was formally cleared of the charge
+of having been personally guilty of organizing outrages, but his party
+were declared to have been guilty of incitements to intimidation, out
+of which had grown crimes which they had failed to denounce. Parnell
+now began an action against the <span class="italic">Times</span>, which was quickly compromised
+by a payment of £5,000.</p>
+
+<p>The "uncrowned king" of Ireland had now reached the summit of his
+power&mdash;the height of the wave was marked by the presentation of the
+freedom of Edinburgh, July 30, 1889, and the banquet given him on his
+forty-fourth birthday. But his fall in public esteem was quickly to
+follow. A few months later his frequent mysterious absences from his
+parliamentary duties were explained by his appearance, or rather his
+non-appearance, as co-respondent in a divorce case brought by Captain
+O'Shea against his wife. After formal evidence was given by the
+petitioner, the usual decree was granted with costs against Parnell
+(November 17, 1890).</p>
+
+<p>The Gladstonian party in England now demanded his retirement from the
+leadership of the cause, and Mr. Gladstone informed the Irish members
+that they must make their choice between Parnell and himself. They met
+and reappointed him their chairman, expecting, as the majority
+explained later, that after <span class="pagenum"><a id="page398" name="page398"></a>(p. 398)</span> this recognition of his past
+services he would voluntarily retire, at least for a time. But they
+had not calculated upon the characteristic obstinacy of his nature,
+and quickly found that their leader had no mind to efface himself.
+After some days of profitless and heated wrangling, the majority ended
+the discussion by leaving the room and electing Justin McCarthy as
+their chairman. Parnell, with the shattered remnants of his party, now
+carried the warfare into Ireland, where his condemnation by the Irish
+bishops and the emphatic defeat of his nominees for North Kilkenny and
+North Sligo showed that a large number of his fellow-countrymen shared
+the judgment of his conduct pronounced by Mr. Gladstone and the party
+in England. The career of the man who had forced the issue of Irish
+Home Rule upon the English people, and made it the great question of
+the day, was drawing rapidly to its close. He died October 6, 1891.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+<h3>WILLIAM McKINLEY<br>
+By <span class="smcap">Rossiter Johnson</span><br>
+(1843-1901)</h3>
+
+<a id="img049" name="img049"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img049.jpg" width="250" height="345" alt="" title="">
+<p class="smaller"> William McKinley.<br> From a copyrighted photograph by<br>
+Courtney, Canton, O.</p></div>
+
+<p>With all the opportunities that our great Republic offers to native
+ability and energy for attaining the highest civic prizes without
+extraneous assistance or arbitrary distinction, we have produced no
+more perfect example of a happy result than the career of William
+McKinley. European critics who are unwilling to see anything good in
+democracy are fond of repeating certain disparaging assertions
+concerning American life, activities, and government. They represent
+us as virtually a plutocracy; but Mr. McKinley never was rich, and
+never was under the slightest suspicion of using his great office to
+acquire wealth. They say we are rude and vulgar; but Mr. McKinley was
+as courteous and as gentle as the most fastidious could wish. They say
+we are ignorant of all but the most sordid affairs; but he was
+thoroughly educated, and probably there are not half a dozen statesmen
+in Europe who know as much of his country as he knew of theirs. They
+point with a sneer at the divorce laws of some of our States, and
+infer therefrom the direst things with regard to our domestic life;
+but Mr. McKinley's devotion to his <span class="pagenum"><a id="page399" name="page399"></a>(p. 399)</span> wife and his home was
+known and admired of all. Moreover, there is not a sovereign in
+Europe, though some of them command vast armies, that ever has been
+within reach of an enemy's guns; but William McKinley carried a musket
+in the great Civil War, won promotion by merit, and participated in
+hotter battles than Europe has seen since Waterloo.</p>
+
+<p>This man came of Scottish ancestry, the earliest records of the family
+dating from 1547. The crest of the clan was a mailed hand holding an
+olive branch, and the motto was "Not too much." William (father of the
+President) was born in Mercer County, Penn., in 1807, and two years
+later the family removed to Columbiana County, O., where in 1829 he
+married Nancy Campbell. Nine children were born of this union, of whom
+William, Jr., was the seventh.</p>
+
+<p>The future President was born in Niles, Trumbull County, O., January
+29, 1843. His grandfather and his father were iron manufacturers. His
+father was a Whig and a Protectionist. The family were Methodists.</p>
+
+<p>William McKinley, Jr., was sent to the public school in Niles till
+1852, when his father removed to Poland, where he studied at the
+seminary. He is said to have excelled in mathematics and languages,
+but was specially noted for his activity and ability in the debating
+club. Here he was prepared for college, and in 1860 he entered the
+junior class at Meadville, Penn. But the boy had worked too hard and
+steadily, and in a little while he was obliged to give up his studies
+and seek a change. He taught for a time in a public school, and then
+became a clerk in the Poland post-office. And here came the
+turning-point in his life.</p>
+
+<p>The irrepressible conflict, foretold by our poets and dreaded by our
+statesmen, broke out in the spring of 1861. The great Civil War, which
+lasted four years and cost four hundred lives for every day of its
+duration, appealed to the young manhood of the country as nothing else
+ever had; and while it sent many to the grave, and changed all the
+scheme of life for others, it opened for still others such careers as
+without it would have been impossible.</p>
+
+<p>William McKinley, Jr., then eighteen years of age, was one of the
+first in his town to enlist for the defence of the Republic. He became
+a private in the Twenty-third Ohio infantry, and in this he was
+exceedingly fortunate, as it was one of the best regiments in the
+service and numbered among its officers several who became famous.
+William S. Rosecrans was the Colonel, Stanley Matthews the
+Lieutenant-Colonel, and Rutherford B. Hayes the Major. In the four
+years of its service that regiment mustered, first and last, 2,095
+men; it marched hundreds of miles, and was in nineteen battles, and
+169 of its men were killed.</p>
+
+<p>Young McKinley was one of the model soldiers of the regiment. General
+Hayes said: "We soon found that in business and executive ability he
+was of unusual and surpassing capacity for a boy of his age. When
+battles were to be fought, or a service was to be performed in warlike
+things, he always took his place." McKinley said in after years that
+he looked back with pleasure upon the fourteen months that he carried
+a musket in the ranks, for they taught him many things. The regiment
+was sent into West Virginia, and its first engagement was at Carnifex
+Ferry. In the summer of 1862 it was ordered to Washington, <span class="pagenum"><a id="page400" name="page400"></a>(p. 400)</span>
+and a few days after its arrival it joined the Army of the Potomac,
+which was then moving northward to head off the Army of Northern
+Virginia, which was bent upon an invasion of the Northern States. The
+crash of arms came at South Mountain (September 14th) and Antietam
+(September 17th). At South Mountain the regiment made three successful
+charges, and lost heavily. Antietam was the bloodiest day of the war,
+more than 2,000 men on each side were killed on the field, and the
+Twenty-third Ohio was in the hottest of the fight, holding its
+position from morning till evening unrelieved. Private McKinley,
+meanwhile, had been made Commissary Sergeant, and his place was with
+the supplies in the rear. He pressed a few stragglers into his service
+and got ready a dinner for the regiment, with hot coffee, and loaded
+it into two wagons. With these he drove upon the field, under fire.
+The enemy's shot struck down the mules of one wagon, but with the
+other he reached his comrades on the firing-line, who gave a great
+shout of welcome when they saw him. He walked along the line, and fed
+every man with his own hand. There is no record that such a thing ever
+was done before or since. For this service he was made a second
+lieutenant, and in the following February he was promoted to first
+lieutenant. The regiment was a part of the force that headed off
+Morgan in his raid into Ohio, fought him at Buffington's Ford, and
+finally captured him. After that it took part in a series of battles
+in the mountains and in the Shenandoah Valley. At Cloyd's Mountain,
+after a wonderful march through ravines and dense woods, they burst
+into the enemy's camp, McKinley leading his company, which was the
+first to leap over the fortifications and silence the guns.</p>
+
+<p>At Winchester, in July, 1864, General Crook's army of 6,000 men was
+attacked by Early's of 20,000 and compelled to retreat. A West
+Virginia regiment failed to fall back with the rest, and Lieutenant
+McKinley was ordered to bring it off. Major Hastings says: "None of us
+expected to see him again as we watched him push his horse through the
+open fields. Once he was completely enveloped in the smoke of an
+exploding shell." He brought off the regiment and led it to its place
+in the marching column. And a little later he found opportunity to
+perform another peculiar service. As they continued their retreat down
+the valley, they came upon four guns, with caissons, that had been
+abandoned. Lieutenant McKinley asked for permission to bring them off,
+and received it, though his superior officers would not order the
+tired men to undertake the task. "I think the Twenty-third will do
+it," said the young lieutenant, and when he called for volunteers
+every man in his company came forward and the guns were saved. The
+next day he was promoted to captain.</p>
+
+<p>He again distinguished himself in the battles of Berryville, Fisher's
+Hill, and Opequan. He was now on General Crook's staff, and at the
+bloody battle of the Opequan occurred an incident that showed the
+young officer capable of becoming a successful commander. He was sent
+with an order to General Duval to move his brigade to a position on
+the right of the Sixth Corps. The General asked, "By what route?" and
+the Captain suggested, "I would move up this creek." The General,
+ignorant of the ground, refused to move without definite <span class="pagenum"><a id="page401" name="page401"></a>(p. 401)</span>
+orders. "Then," said McKinley, who knew that there was urgent need of
+the movement, "by command of General Crook, I order you to move your
+command up this ravine to a position on the right of the army." The
+movement was made at once, and proved successful. McKinley was also in
+the fierce fight at Cedar Creek, and afterward served on Hancock's
+staff. In March, 1865, he received from President Lincoln a commission
+as Major by brevet for gallant services.</p>
+
+<p>With so much of manly character developed at the age of twenty-two,
+and so much experience in the greatest conflict of modern times, he
+turned to the study of law&mdash;first in an office, and then in the Albany
+Law School&mdash;and was admitted to the Bar in 1867. He settled in Canton,
+which was thenceforth his home, and there in 1871 he married Miss Ida
+Saxton, who was cashier in her father's bank. Their devotion for
+thirty years, and the tenderness and constancy with which he watched
+over her in the latter years when she was an invalid, form a chapter
+that never can be mentioned without touching the hearts of their
+countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. McKinley made his first political speech in 1867, and in 1869, as
+a Republican, was elected prosecuting attorney for Stark County. In
+1875 he made effective speeches for honest money and the resumption of
+specie payments, and in 1876 he was elected to Congress by a large
+majority. He was re-elected six times, but in 1890 was defeated by the
+gerrymandering of his district. In 1891 he was nominated for Governor
+of Ohio, and was elected by a plurality of 21,500. He was re-elected
+in 1893 by a plurality of more than 80,000.</p>
+
+<p>In Congress he had been a prominent debater on many important
+questions, but he was chiefly conspicuous as an advocate of
+protection, and, as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, he
+was largely the author of the tariff bill of 1890 which bears his
+name. It was slow work getting the bill through Congress, and it did
+not become a law till October. The most amazing misrepresentations of
+it were set afloat, and it had not time to vindicate itself before the
+Congressional elections came on in November, when the party that had
+carried it through was overwhelmingly defeated.</p>
+
+<p>During these years Mr. McKinley was almost constantly in the field as
+a political speaker, and he became known as one of the most popular
+and effective that our country has produced. It is computed that he
+addressed a larger number of men, from the platform, than any other
+man that ever lived.</p>
+
+<p>He was a delegate to several national conventions of his party, and in
+1888, and again in 1892, there was a strong movement to give him the
+presidential nomination; but he decisively suppressed it each time&mdash;on
+the first occasion because he had gone there as a friend and supporter
+of John Sherman, and on the second because he declared that President
+Harrison was entitled to a renomination. In 1896 he was unanimously
+nominated on the first ballot. One circumstance that pointed him out
+as the logical candidate was the fact that his tariff bill had been
+replaced by one that proved a complete failure. The most exciting
+question in the canvass was that of free coinage of silver. Mr.
+McKinley was on a platform that declared for the gold standard, and
+his opponent, William J. Bryan, was on one that declared for free and
+unlimited coinage of silver at the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page402" name="page402"></a>(p. 402)</span> ratio of sixteen to one.
+Mr. McKinley was elected by a plurality in the popular vote of more
+than 600,000, and in the electoral college by 271 to 176. In 1900 he
+was renominated, and his opponent as before was Mr. Bryan, the issues
+being the same. This time Mr. McKinley had a plurality in the popular
+vote of more than 800,000, and in the electoral college had 292 to
+155.</p>
+
+<p>In the canvass of 1896 Mr. McKinley announced that he would make no
+electioneering tour. But the people were determined to hear him, and
+they went to Canton in large delegations and excursions from all parts
+of the country. From his doorstep he made more than three hundred
+addresses, speaking thus to three-quarters of a million persons. There
+was scarcely any repetition, yet every speech was an admirable
+specimen of argument and oratory.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after his first inauguration he called a special session
+of Congress to revise the tariff, and the new bill was put through in
+time to have a fair chance to vindicate itself before new elections
+occurred. The other notable event in the first year of his
+administration was the treaty for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands,
+which he signed in June, but which was not confirmed by the Senate
+till a year later. In 1898 occurred the most important event in
+American affairs since the Civil War&mdash;the war with Spain. This arose
+from the intolerable condition of things in Cuba, where the Spanish
+authorities, endeavoring to suppress the last of many insurrections,
+had resorted to the most cruel measures, which entailed horrible
+suffering upon the women and children, and the feeling was intensified
+by the blowing up of the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana,
+February 15, 1898. President McKinley did his utmost to prevent actual
+war; and when he saw that to be inevitable, he delayed it as long as
+possible and pushed on the preparations for it with all practicable
+speed. On April 11th he sent to Congress a message on the subject, and
+on the 20th he signed a joint resolution declaring that the people of
+Cuba ought to be free and independent, and demanding that the
+Government of Spain relinquish its authority over that island.
+Diplomatic relations were broken off at once, and a state of war was
+declared. Ten days later an American fleet commanded by Commodore
+George Dewey entered the harbor of Manila, destroyed a Spanish fleet,
+and silenced the shore batteries, without losing a vessel or a man. On
+July 3d another American fleet destroyed another Spanish fleet that
+had run out of the harbor of Santiago, Cuba, and was trying to escape
+westward. In this action, again, the Americans lost not a single
+vessel, and but one man. Two days earlier than this the American land
+forces that had been approaching the defences of Santiago on the east
+advanced to the final assault, and after bloody fighting at San Juan
+Hill and El Caney they were victorious. The invasion and capture of
+the island of Porto Rico, soon afterward, ended the war in the West
+Indies. In August the American land forces that had been sent to the
+Philippines captured the city of Manila and its garrison. Peace soon
+followed, and by the treaty signed in Paris, December 10th, Spain
+relinquished her sovereignty over Cuba and ceded to the United States
+Porto Rico and the Philippines, receiving $20,000,000 as an indemnity
+for her expenditures in the last-named islands.</p>
+
+<a id="img050" name="img050"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img050.jpg" width="400" height="644" alt="" title="">
+<p class="italic" style="font-size: 70%;">From Harper's Magazine Copyright, 1897,<br> by Harper &amp;
+Brothers.</p>
+<p>President Mckinley taking the oath of office.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="page403" name="page403"></a>(p. 403)</span> President McKinley travelled extensively during his term of
+office, spoke many times in nearly every State, and was probably more
+generally beloved by the people than any of his predecessors. He
+visited the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, in September, 1901,
+and on the 5th delivered a notable speech, which was admired and
+commented upon all over the world. The next day, when he was holding a
+reception in the Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds, he was
+treacherously shot by an anarchist and wounded so that, in spite of
+the immediate services of the most skilful surgeons, he died on the
+14th. His amiable and dignified character was conspicuous to the last.
+When he saw the crowd about to kill the assassin on the spot, he
+exclaimed: "Let no one hurt him!" To the surgeons he said: "I wish you
+to do whatever in your judgment is best." When his last hour came he
+was heard softly chanting his favorite hymns&mdash;"Nearer, my God, to
+Thee" and "Abide with me," and his last words were, "It is God's
+way&mdash;His will be done. Good-by all&mdash;good-by!" Thus passed away this
+wonderful man, this model American, worthy of a place in history
+beside Washington and Lincoln. He had fought like a hero&mdash;he had
+wrought like a genius&mdash;he had lived like a patriot&mdash;he died like a
+philosopher.<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+<h3>GROVER CLEVELAND<a id="footnotetag19" name="footnotetag19"></a><a href="#footnote19" title="Go to footnote 19"><span class="smaller">[19]</span></a><br>
+By <span class="smcap">Clarence Cook</span><br>
+(BORN 1837)</h3>
+
+<a id="img051" name="img051"></a>
+<div class="floatleft">
+<img src="images/img051.jpg" width="250" height="254" alt="Grover Cleveland." title="">
+</div>
+
+<p>The history of our country discovers so many instances of men who have
+risen from humble beginnings to posts of honor and influence by their
+own energy, industry, and steadiness of purpose, that a fresh
+illustration, while always sure of sympathy, no longer causes
+surprise. But one element of interest always remains: the variety of
+character which makes each new arrival at the goal an illustration of
+human capacity different from all that have preceded it. As no two men
+are alike, and as the conditions of life are infinitely various, the
+outcome of character and disposition, as affected by circumstances,
+will also be infinitely varied; and the discovery that every human
+experience puts the possibilities of life in a new light, makes,
+perhaps, the greatest charm of biography.</p>
+
+<p>The life of Grover Cleveland is one that has appealed by its lessons
+to a large body of his countrymen, without distinction of party, for
+the plain reason that he is not removed from the mass of men by the
+profession of extraordinary faculties. <span class="pagenum"><a id="page404" name="page404"></a>(p. 404)</span> He has no genius,
+unless we accept Goethe's dictum that genius is only the capacity for
+hard work; he has no ornamental accomplishments; in social intercourse
+he does not shine by wit, nor charm by humor, and we have too often to
+regret that tact seems to have been wanting among his natal gifts. In
+these respects he is himself one of the "plain people" in whom he
+seems always to be interested, and whose welfare he has always in
+view; and as the plain people, fortunately, make up the bulk of the
+world, the example of one of our own number rising, unaided by friends
+or fortune, to so high a position, has in it a great encouragement. In
+spite of political differences, which, after all, are largely fostered
+by politicians for their own advantage, the people at large are quick
+to recognize the sterling qualities of honesty, industry, and
+plain-dealing, and it is by these qualities that Mr. Cleveland's
+career has been determined.</p>
+
+<p>Although we Americans have&mdash;rather ostentatiously, it must be
+confessed&mdash;declared our indifference to ancestry; that</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  "Our boast is not, that we deduce our birth<br>
+  From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;"</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">yet we all have an innate conviction that there is something pleasant
+in knowing that we come of good stock; and indeed it would be strange
+if we valued that recommendation little for ourselves, as human
+beings, which we prize so much in the animals that serve us. And so,
+although it has been left for others to make the discovery, the fact
+is not without interest that the American branch of the family to
+which the president belongs, runs back to 1635, when Moses Cleaveland
+came to Massachusetts from Ipswich, in Suffolk County, England. The
+spelling Cleaveland is still retained by some of the collateral
+branches of the family on this side the water, but the form Cleveland
+was in common use in England, and it was so that John Cleveland, the
+Royalist poet, wrote the name. It may be said, in passing, that it
+would not be without interest to discover, if possible, if there were
+any connection between the family of John Cleveland and that of Grover
+Cleveland's English ancestors, for the resemblance between the
+characters of the two men is striking, and as honorable as it is
+striking. As we read John Cleveland's appeals to Cromwell for freedom
+and immunity after the death of the king, to whose cause the poet had
+so devotedly adhered until that cause was hopelessly lost, we seem to
+hear the prophecy of that boldness, that honesty fearless of
+consequences, that refusal to withdraw or apologize for sentiments
+honestly held and openly maintained, which are so characteristic of
+one who may easily be an offshoot of that vigorous stem.</p>
+
+<p>The President's grandfather, William Cleveland, was a watchmaker doing
+business at Westfield, Mass., but on his marriage with Margaret
+Falley, of Norwich, Conn., he went there to live, and it was there
+that his son, Richard Falley Cleveland, was born. According to the old
+system, it was decided by his family to make a clergyman of Richard
+Cleveland, and accordingly after making his terms at Yale College, and
+studying divinity at Princeton, he entered the ministry; and having
+made some preliminary trials, was finally settled in charge of the
+Presbyterian <span class="pagenum"><a id="page405" name="page405"></a>(p. 405)</span> Church in the village of Caldwell, Essex
+County, N. J., and in this place his son, Stephen Grover Cleveland,
+was born, March 18, 1837. The name of Stephen Grover was given out of
+respect to the memory of a clergyman, Stephen Grover, who preceded his
+father in the charge of his new parish. When the boy was only four
+years of age, Richard Cleveland accepted a call to what was then
+almost the frontier-settlement of Fayetteville, Onondaga County, N. Y.
+Here the Cleveland family remained for eleven years making the most of
+life, and winning from the meagre salary of $600 earned by the father,
+a harvest of cheerful content, of homely comfort, and of unselfish
+mutual affection that might well be envied by many whose means are far
+greater. The children were blessed in their parents, and the parents
+were rewarded by the love and devotion of their children. Later in
+life, on the day of his election to the governorship of New York, in a
+letter to his elder brother, the Rev. William N. Cleveland, Grover
+Cleveland showed where his heart was, for his first words express a
+quiet regret that his mother's recent death had made it impossible to
+make her the recipient of his deepest feelings, of his hopes and fears
+on this important event in his life; and at the close of the letter he
+again recurs to the theme as if the memory of his mother were a part
+and parcel of his life.</p>
+
+<p>In 1851, Richard Cleveland, with his wife and nine children, left
+Fayetteville, for Clinton, Oneida County, N. Y., where he was to act
+as the agent for the American Home Missionary Society, with a salary
+of $1,000 a year. But of more importance than this modest increase of
+pay, was the opportunity the new place offered for giving his children
+a better education than they had been able to get at Fayetteville.
+Grover did not leave Fayetteville with the rest of the family, because
+he had engaged himself for a year with the keeper of a grocery store
+in the village, where he was to receive the sum of $50 for the first
+year and $100 for the second. At the end of the first year, however,
+his father, ambitious for his boy's education, sent for him and placed
+him at the Academy in Clinton, where he was to be fitted to enter
+Hamilton College in due time. But this larger opportunity he was not
+to enjoy. His father received a call to take charge of a church at
+Holland Patent, a village near Utica, N. Y., and the whole family left
+their home in Clinton for this place; but only three weeks after their
+arrival the father died, October 1, 1853, and the wife, with so many
+of the children as still remained at home, were left to support life
+as their scanty means enabled them. The mother, evidently a woman of
+much force of character, remained on the rock where the waves of
+changing fortune last flung her, and by her own efforts and the
+willing hands of her children, kept the family together until, her
+loving duty done by all that remained to her, she died in 1882, living
+happily long enough to see the beginning of her high hope for her son
+Grover, fulfilled in his honorable career as Mayor of Buffalo.</p>
+
+<p>Grover Cleveland was now to exchange for a short time the quiet life
+of a country village for the more stirring experience of life in a
+great city. His brother William, after leaving Hamilton College, had
+obtained employment as an instructor in the Institution for the Blind
+in New York City, where he was the <span class="pagenum"><a id="page406" name="page406"></a>(p. 406)</span> principal of the male
+teachers. After the death of his father, he secured for his brother
+Grover the place of book-keeper and assistant to the superintendent of
+the asylum. The boy came to his new place, not only with the good
+character given him by his brother, then as now a man much respected
+by his associates, but with the good word of all with whom he had been
+connected, whether as school-boy or as work-boy.</p>
+
+<p>Grover Cleveland left New York in the autumn of 1854, at the end of
+his year's engagement at the Institution for the Blind. He returned to
+his mother's home for a brief visit, and then, with the hope of making
+a beginning in the profession of the law, which he for some time
+intended to take up, he visited some of the towns where his family was
+known, Syracuse and Utica, in the hope of finding employment; but as
+no opening presented itself, he determined to visit Cleveland, a town
+named for one of his family. He stopped on his way at Buffalo, to
+visit an uncle, Lewis F. Allen, a well-known farmer, who published
+each year a compilation made by himself: "The American Short-Horn
+Herd-Book." Pleased with his young relative, Mr. Allen persuaded him
+to remain in Buffalo and assist him in his work; and thus it happened
+that Grover Cleveland found himself planted in a city with which in
+time his fortunes and his fame were to become closely associated;
+while, on the other hand, the results of that connection to the city
+itself were to be far-reaching and of great importance.</p>
+
+<p>By the recommendation of his uncle he obtained a place as office-boy
+in the office of Bowen &amp; Rogers, one of the principal firms of lawyers
+in Western New York. It was thus that he began his legal studies,
+reading hard in all his odd moments; and in his spare time after
+office-hours assisting his uncle, with whom at first he lived, in the
+compilation of the "Herd-Book." Mr. Parker tells us that the first
+appearance in print of Grover Cleveland's name is in the "Herd-Book"
+for 1861, in which Mr. Allen expresses his acknowledgment of "the
+kindness, industry, and ability of his young friend and kinsman, in
+correcting and arranging the pedigrees for publication." Prompt to
+seize every opportunity for increasing his knowledge of the world
+about him, and feeling, perhaps, that his uncle's farm in the
+outskirts of Buffalo was too much like the village he had left, he
+took rooms with an old schoolmate from Fayetteville in the old
+Southern Hotel in Buffalo, at that time a resort for drovers and
+farmers, where his knowledge of their business, obtained in his
+uncle's employ, brought him into closer acquaintance with at least one
+division of the "plain people" than could have been gained without
+that experience.</p>
+
+<a id="img052" name="img052"></a>
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/img052.jpg" width="500" height="338" alt="" title="">
+<p>The ceremony at Grover Cleveland's marriage.</p></div>
+
+<p>Grover Cleveland was admitted to the bar in 1859. He did not at first
+begin the practice of the law on his own account, but remained for
+four years longer with his teachers, until he had gained the position
+of chief clerk. In 1858, on coming of age, he cast his first vote,
+giving it to the Democratic party; but not content with the mere
+performance of this part of the citizen's duty, "he took his place at
+the polls and throughout the day distributed ballots by the side of
+the veterans of his party." "This habit," says Mr. Parker, "he kept up
+until his election as governor. He was never a partisan, but he
+believed in working <span class="pagenum"><a id="page407" name="page407"></a>(p. 407)</span> for his party, and he not only worked
+for it at the polls, but he always marched in the procession whenever
+a great Democratic demonstration was made."</p>
+
+<p>On January 1, 1863, Mr. Cleveland began his first independent work as
+a lawyer, and on leaving the office of the firm that had been his
+teachers and associates, he accepted the office of assistant district
+attorney of Erie County, to which he had been appointed. For this he
+give up a salary of $1,000, and took one of $600, but he did this
+because he saw that the training and experience of such an office
+would be worth more to him than money. It was while he held this
+office that he was drafted into the army, and being convinced that he
+was more useful in his office than he could be as a soldier, he sent a
+substitute, borrowing the money for the bounty from his superior, the
+district attorney. This money, says Mr. Parker, he was not able to pay
+back until the close of his term as assistant district attorney, and
+until the war itself was over. Two of his brothers entered the army in
+1861, and served through the war.</p>
+
+<p>From this time Mr. Cleveland's rise was rapid, and made by great
+strides, each new position the result of the satisfactory way in which
+he had filled the one previously held. He was indeed defeated in his
+first contest, that for district attorney of Erie County. In 1870 he
+accepted the nomination of his party for the office of sheriff of Erie
+County. It was not usual for lawyers to accept this office, and Mr.
+Cleveland did not take it until after much deliberation and
+consultation with his party friends. He was finally moved to accept
+the nomination for the practical reasons that the place would give him
+leisure for much-needed study in his profession, and that it would
+also enable him to lay up a little money. He held the office for the
+full term, and returned to the practice of the law in 1874, becoming a
+member of the firm of Bass, Cleveland, &amp; Bissell. Mr. Bass was the
+opponent who had defeated him in the contest for district attorney,
+and Mr. Bissell is now the Postmaster-General in the cabinet of his
+former law-partner.</p>
+
+<p>In 1881, Mr. Cleveland was nominated for the office of Mayor of
+Buffalo, and was elected by a majority of thirty-five hundred, the
+largest which had ever been given in Buffalo for that office. It was a
+time of great excitement, for the government of the city had fallen
+into very bad hands, and in the election of Mr. Cleveland party lines
+were disregarded to an unusual degree. His fearless and energetic
+administration of this office; his resolute refusal to give any
+support to those fictions of politicians and office-holders by which
+the citizens in all our great municipalities are robbed of their
+rights and their money; his obstinate vetoing of one proposed law
+after another by which these people hoped to gain their ends&mdash;vetoes
+for which he always gave his reasons in the plainest words, meant to
+be understood by the plainest people&mdash;his determination, in short, to
+be true to his principle declared on taking office, that the affairs
+of government were to be managed as a man would manage his private
+business&mdash;all this fixed the eyes of the people upon him as a man to
+be intrusted with still graver responsibilities.</p>
+
+<p>In 1882, Mr. Cleveland was nominated for the high position of Governor
+of <span class="pagenum"><a id="page408" name="page408"></a>(p. 408)</span> New York, in opposition to Charles J. Folger, a man of
+high character, formerly chief justice of the Court of Appeals, and at
+the time of the contest, secretary of the treasury under President
+Arthur. For reasons into which we cannot enter here, but which, though
+purely political, gave good cause for public discontent, Mr. Folger's
+nomination roused the determined opposition of many of his own party,
+and this defection, added to the united enthusiasm of the Democracy,
+insured Mr. Cleveland's election by one hundred and ninety-two
+thousand eight hundred and fifty-four votes more than were cast for
+Mr. Folger.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cleveland administered the office of governor in such a way as
+greatly to strengthen the admiration of his party, especially of the
+better portion of it, in spite of the fact that partisan advantages
+were often lost by Mr. Cleveland's independent and patriotic action.
+Nor can it be doubted that his election to the presidency, which
+followed, was the fruit of the experience the people had had of his
+character while in the governor's chair. That campaign was one of the
+most interesting, and we may say, one of the most valuable morally,
+that has been waged in our day in this country. So far as mere votes
+were concerned, it was not such a victory as that for the
+governorship, but in its political meaning, and its influence on the
+course of our history, it was of the first importance.</p>
+
+<p>At the close of his first term of office as president, Mr. Cleveland
+was again nominated, but was defeated by his opponent, Mr. Harrison;
+yet when the time for choosing a successor to Mr. Harrison came round,
+Mr. Cleveland was again nominated, and was elected, defeating Mr.
+Harrison in his turn. The vote on this last occasion was so
+overwhelmingly in favor of the Democratic party as to have amounted
+virtually to a political revolution; but the limitation and character
+of this sketch do not permit us to go into a discussion of it. Our
+purpose has been to show the elements of character that have gone to
+make the truly extraordinary success that has marked Mr. Cleveland's
+political life. That success has not been due to genius, nor to social
+or personal advantages. It has been due to nobler causes; it is the
+result of sterling and well-tried honesty, of hard and unremitting
+labor applied to the understanding of every question coming before him
+for decision, and of a resolute independence; his fixed belief that</p>
+
+<p class="poem30">
+  "Because right is right to follow right<br>
+  Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence."<a href="#toc"><span class="small">[Back to Contents]</span></a></p>
+
+<a id="sig013" name="sig013"></a>
+<div class="right">
+<img src="images/sig013.jpg" width="250" height="62" alt="Author signature." title="">
+</div>
+
+
+<p><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 1:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag1"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 2:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag2"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 3:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag3"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote4" name="footnote4"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 4:</strong> Copied by kind permission of the publishers, Messrs.
+Harper &amp; Bros., from Benson Lossing's "Mary and Martha Washington."<a href="#footnotetag4"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote5" name="footnote5"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 5:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag5"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote6" name="footnote6"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 6:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag6"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote7" name="footnote7"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 7:</strong> Written at the time of the death of Baron Von Humboldt,
+and reprinted, by permission, from "Littell's Living Age."<a href="#footnotetag7"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote8" name="footnote8"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 8:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag8"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote9" name="footnote9"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 9:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag9"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote10" name="footnote10"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 10:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag10"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote11" name="footnote11"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 11:</strong> Reprinted from Harper's Magazine by permission.
+Copyright, 1884, by Harper &amp; Bros.<a href="#footnotetag11"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote12" name="footnote12"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 12:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag12"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote13" name="footnote13"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 13:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag13"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote14" name="footnote14"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 14:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag14"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote15" name="footnote15"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 15:</strong> Written in 1886, on the publication of "Louis Agassiz,
+His Life and Correspondence." Reprinted, by permission of Messrs.
+Houghton, Mifflin &amp; Co., from "The Scientific Papers of Asa Gray."<a href="#footnotetag15"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote16" name="footnote16"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 16:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag16"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote17" name="footnote17"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 17:</strong> In the painting of the Berlin Conference by Werner,
+Prince Gortschakoff is seated at the left with his hand on Disraeli's
+arm. Prince Bismarck in the foreground is shaking hands with Count
+Schuvaloff, while Count Andrassy stands beside them. Lord Russell is
+seated a little farther to the right; behind him on the other side of
+the table is Lord Salisbury. The figure on the extreme right is
+Mehemet Ali.<a href="#footnotetag17"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote18" name="footnote18"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 18:</strong> This sketch was written by Prince Outisky in 1885. The
+Emperor William I. died in March, 1888, and his son a few months
+later. The views of the young Emperor William II., thus advanced to
+the throne, did not at all coincide with those of Bismarck, and he
+retired into private life in 1890. Four years later a somewhat
+ostentatious reconciliation took place between him and the emperor;
+but Bismarck did not return to power, his great age perhaps
+incapacitating him for active work.</p>
+
+<p>As regards his early life, he was born at Schönhausen, April 1, 1815,
+educated at Göttingen, Berlin, and Griefswald, and at first entered
+the army. He became a member of the General Diet in 1847, was
+successively ambassador to Austria, Russia, and France, and in 1862
+became Minister of the King's House and Foreign Affairs in Prussia. He
+was created a count in 1865; and in 1871, having achieved his great
+aim in the coronation of his king as Emperor of United Germany at
+Versailles, he became Chancellor of the Empire and Prince von
+Bismarck-Schönhausen.<a href="#footnotetag18"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+<p><a id="footnote19" name="footnote19"></a>
+<strong>Footnote 19:</strong> Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.<a href="#footnotetag19"><span class="small">[Back to Main Text]</span></a></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,10882 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8
+       A series of pen and pencil sketches of the lives of more
+       than 200 of the most prominent personages in History
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: Charles F. Horne
+
+Release Date: August 27, 2008 [EBook #26424]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT MEN, FAMOUS WOMEN, VOL. 4 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Christine P. Travers and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all
+other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has
+been maintained.
+
+Captions marked with [TN] have been added while producing this file.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Berlin Conference.]
+
+
+
+
+GREAT MEN AND FAMOUS WOMEN
+
+
+_A Series of Pen and Pencil Sketches of_
+
+THE LIVES OF MORE THAN 200 OF THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONAGES IN HISTORY
+
+
+VOL. IV.
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, BY SELMAR HESS
+
+edited by Charles F. Horne
+
+[Illustration: Publisher's arm.]
+
+New-York: Selmar Hess Publisher
+
+
+Copyright, 1894, by SELMAR HESS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV.
+
+
+  SUBJECT                         AUTHOR                          PAGE
+
+  JOHN ADAMS,                 _Edwin Williams_,                    251
+  Letter from Adams to a friend
+    on the "Destiny of America,"                                   252
+  LOUIS AGASSIZ,              _Asa Gray_,                          350
+  PRINCE VON BISMARCK,        _Prince Outisky_,                    385
+  SIMON BOLIVAR,              _Hon. John P. St. John_,             306
+  EDMUND BURKE,               _Dr. Heinrich Geffcken_,             226
+  JEAN FRANCOIS CHAMPOLLION,  _Georg Ebers_,                       311
+  GROVER CLEVELAND,           _Clarence Cook_,                     403
+  GEORGES CUVIER,             _John Stoughton, D.D._,              287
+  CHARLES DARWIN,             _Arch. Geikie, LL.D., F.R.S._,       355
+  BENJAMIN DISRAELI,          _Harriet Prescott Spofford_,         370
+  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,                                               231
+  LEON GAMBETTA,                                                   363
+  WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE,    _Justin McCarthy_,                   377
+  HORACE GREELEY,             _Noah Brooks_,                       345
+  ALEXANDER HAMILTON,                                              265
+  PATRICK HENRY,              _General Bradley T. Johnson_,        236
+  ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT,     _Louis Agassiz_,                     292
+  ANDREW JACKSON,             _Thomas Wentworth Higginson_,        317
+  THOMAS JEFFERSON,           _Hon. John B. Henderson_,            256
+  ABRAHAM LINCOLN,            _Terence Vincent Powderly_,          338
+  WILLIAM MCKINLEY,           _Rossiter Johnson_,                  398
+  MARIA THERESA,              _Anna C. Brackett_,                  221
+  COUNT DE MIRABEAU,          _Charles S. Hathaway_,               273
+  ISAAC NEWTON,               _John Stoughton, D.D._,              211
+  DANIEL O'CONNELL,           _Justin McCarthy_,                   300
+  CHARLES STEWART PARNELL,    _Thomas Davidson_,                   395
+  JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI,      _Harriet Martineau_,                 282
+  PETER THE GREAT,                                                 215
+  MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE,                                          278
+  WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD,       _Hon. Charles E. Fitch_,             332
+  LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS,                                            360
+  GEORGE WASHINGTON,                                               242
+  _Letter from Washington to his adopted
+    daughter on the subject of "Love,"_                            250
+  DANIEL WEBSTER,             _Rev. Dr. Tweedy_,                   326
+  _Letter from Webster to his friend
+    Brigham on the "Choice of a Profession,"_                      331
+  WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND,                                         205
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+VOLUME IV.
+
+
+PHOTOGRAVURES
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATION                           ARTIST               TO FACE PAGE
+
+  THE BERLIN CONFERENCE,                 _Anton von Werner_  _Frontispiece_
+  THE THIRD ESTATE TAKES REFUGE IN THE
+    TENNIS COURT,                        _Etienne Lucien Melingue_ 276
+  PESTALOZZI, THE CHILDREN'S FRIEND,     _Konrad Grob_             286
+  THE ENROLLMENT OF VOLUNTEERS, 1870,    _Alfred Paul de
+                                           Richemont_              368
+  BISMARCK BEFORE PARIS,                 _Ludwig Braun_            390
+
+
+
+
+WOOD-ENGRAVINGS AND TYPOGRAVURES
+
+
+  COUNCIL OF WAR AFTER THE LANDING OF WILLIAM OF
+    ORANGE,                              _H. G. Glindoni_          208
+  NEWTON ANALYZING THE RAY OF LIGHT,     _Loudan_                  212
+  THE LIFE OF PETER THE GREAT SAVED AT
+    THE FOOT OF THE ALTAR,               _Steuben_                 216
+  BURKE, JOHNSON, AND THEIR FRIENDS,     _James E. Doyle_          228
+  THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS TO
+    WASHINGTON,                          _Armand Dumaresq_         246
+  ROBESPIERRE'S ARREST,                  _Francois Flameng_        280
+  A. LINCOLN,                                                      340
+  HAWARDEN CASTLE, THE HOME OF
+    GLADSTONE,                           _G. Montbard_             378
+  GLADSTONE'S FIRST HOME RULE BILL,                                382
+  PROCLAMATION OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE AT
+    VERSAILLES,                          _Anton von Werner_        386
+  PARNELL TESTIFYING AGAINST THE
+    "TIMES,"                             _Walter Wilson_           396
+  PRESIDENT MCKINLEY TAKING THE OATH OF
+    OFFICE,                              _A. de Thulstrup_         402
+  THE CEREMONY AT GROVER CLEVELAND'S
+    MARRIAGE,                            _A. de Thulstrup_         406
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM III. OF ENGLAND
+
+(1650-1702)
+
+[Illustration: William III. [TN]]
+
+
+William, Prince of Orange, the third king of England of that name, born
+November 14, 1650, was the posthumous son of William II., Prince of
+Orange, and Mary Stuart, daughter of Charles I. of England. The fortunes
+of his childhood did not promise that greatness which he attained. His
+father had been thought to entertain designs hostile to the liberties of
+the United Provinces, and the suspicions of the father produced distrust
+of the son. When Cromwell dictated terms of peace to the Dutch in 1654,
+one of the articles insisted on the perpetual exclusion of the Prince of
+Orange from all the great offices formerly held by his family; and this
+sentence of exclusion was confirmed, so far as Holland was concerned,
+thirteen years after, by the enactment of the Perpetual Edict, by which
+the office of Stadtholder of Holland was forever abolished. The
+restoration of the Stuarts, however, was so far favorable to the
+interests of the House of Orange, as to induce the princess-royal to
+petition, on her son's behalf, that he might be invested with the
+offices and dignities possessed by his ancestors. The provinces of
+Zealand, Friesland, and Guelderland warmly espoused her cause: even the
+States of Holland engaged to watch over his education, "that he might be
+rendered capable of filling the posts held by his forefathers." They
+formally adopted him as "a child of the state," and surrounded him with
+such persons as were thought likely to educate him in a manner suited to
+his station in a free government.
+
+A storm broke upon Holland just as William was ripening into manhood;
+and discord at home threatened to aggravate the misfortunes of the
+country. The House of Orange had again become popular; and a loud cry
+was raised for the instant abolition of the Perpetual Edict, and for
+installing the young prince in all the offices enjoyed by his ancestors.
+The Republican party, headed by the De Witts, prevented this; but they
+were forced to yield to his being chosen captain-general and
+high-admiral. Many persons hoped that William's military rank and
+prospects would incline his uncle Charles II. to make common cause with
+the friends of liberty and independence; but the English monarch was the
+pensioner of the French king, and France and England jointly declared
+war against the States, April 7, 1672. The Dutch made large
+preparations; but new troops could not suddenly acquire discipline and
+experience. The enemy meditated, and had nearly effected, the entire
+conquest of the country; the populace became desperate; a total change
+of government was demanded; the De Witts were brutally massacred, and
+William was invested with the full powers of stadtholder. His fitness
+for this high office was soon demonstrated by the vigor and the wisdom
+of his measures. Maestricht was strongly garrisoned; the prince of
+Orange, with a large army, advanced to the banks of the Issel; the Dutch
+fleet cruised off the mouth of the Thames, to prevent the naval forces
+of England and France from joining. The following year, 1763, Louis XIV.
+took Maestricht; while the Prince of Orange, not having forces
+sufficient to oppose the French army, employed himself in retaking other
+towns from the enemy. New alliances were formed; and the prince's
+masterly conduct not only stopped the progress of the French, but forced
+them to evacuate the province of Utrecht. In 1674 the English Parliament
+compelled Charles II. to make peace with Holland. The Dutch signed
+separate treaties with the Bishop of Munster and the Elector of Cologne.
+The gallantry of the prince had so endeared him to the States of
+Holland, that the offices of stadtholder and captain-general were
+declared hereditary in his male descendants. Meanwhile he continued to
+display both courage and conduct in various military operations against
+the French. The battle of Seneffe was desperately fought. After sunset,
+the conflict was continued by the light of the moon; and darkness,
+rather than the exhaustion of the combatants, put an end to the contest,
+and left the victory undecided. The veteran Prince of Conde gave a
+candid and generous testimonial to the merit of his young antagonist:
+"The Prince of Orange," said he, "has in every point acted like an old
+captain, except in venturing his life too much like a young soldier."
+
+In 1675 the sovereignty of Guelderland and of the county of Zutphen was
+offered to William, with the title of duke, which was asserted to have
+been formerly vested in his family. Those who entertained a bad opinion
+of him, and attributed whatever looked like greatness in his character
+to ambition rather than patriotism, insinuated that he was himself the
+main-spring of this manifest intrigue. He had at least prudence enough
+to deliberate on the offer, and to submit it to the judgment of the
+States of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht. They viewed with jealousy the
+aristocratic dignity, and he wisely refused it. This forbearance was
+rewarded by the province of Utrecht, which adopted the precedent of
+Holland, in voting the stadtholdership hereditary in the heirs-male of
+his body.
+
+The campaign of 1675 passed without any memorable event in the Low
+Countries. In the following year hopes of peace were held out from the
+meeting of a congress at Nimeguen; but the articles of peace were to be
+determined rather by the events of the campaign than by the
+deliberations of the negotiators. The French took Conde and several
+other places; the Prince of Orange, bent on retaliation, sat down before
+Maestricht, the siege of which he urged impetuously; but the masterly
+movements of the enemy, and a scarcity of forage, frustrated his plans.
+Aire had already been taken; the Duke of Orleans had made himself master
+of Bouchain; Marshal Schomberg, to whom Louis had intrusted his army on
+retiring to Versailles, was on the advance; and it was found expedient
+to raise the siege of Maestricht. It was now predicted that the war in
+Flanders would be unfortunate in its issue; but the Prince of Orange,
+influenced by the mixed motives of honor, ambition, and animosity, kept
+the Dutch Republic steady to the cause of its allies, and refused to
+negotiate a separate peace with France. In October, 1677, he came to
+England, and was graciously received by the king, his uncle. His
+marriage with Mary, eldest daughter of the Duke of York, was the object
+of his visit. That event gave general satisfaction at the time; the
+consequences which arose from it were unsuspected by the most
+far-sighted. At first the king was disinclined to the match, then
+neutral; and at last favorable, in the hope of engaging William to fall
+in with his designs, and listen to the separate proposals of the French
+monarch. The prince, on his part, was pleased with the prospect, because
+he expected that the King of England would, at length, find himself
+obliged to declare against Louis, and because he imagined that the
+English nation would be more strongly engaged in his interest, and would
+adopt his views with respect to the war. In this he was disappointed,
+though the Parliament was determined on forcing the king to renounce his
+alliance with Louis. But the States had gained no advantage commensurate
+with the expense and danger of the contest in which they were engaged,
+and were inclined to conclude a separate treaty. Mutual discontent among
+the allies led to the dissolution of the confederacy, and a peace
+advantageous to France was concluded at Nimeguen in 1678; but causes of
+animosity still subsisted. The Prince of Orange, independent of
+political enmity, had now personal grounds of complaint against Louis,
+who deeply resented the zeal with which William had espoused the
+liberties of Europe and resisted his aggressions. He could neither bend
+so haughty a spirit to concessions, nor warp his integrity even by the
+suggestions of his dominant passion, ambition. But it was in the power
+of the French monarch to punish this obstinacy, and by oppressing the
+inhabitants of the principality of Orange, to take a mean revenge on an
+innocent people for the imputed offences of their sovereign. In addition
+to other injuries, when the Duchy of Luxembourg was invaded by the
+French troops, the commanding officer had orders to expose to sale all
+the lands, furniture, and effects of the Prince of Orange, although they
+had been conferred on him by a formal decree of the States of the
+country. Whether to preserve the appearance of justice, or merely as an
+insult, Louis summoned the Prince to appear before his Privy Council in
+1682, by the title of _Messire Guillaume Comte de Nassau_, living at The
+Hague in Holland. In the emergency occasioned by the probability of the
+Dutch frontier being attacked in 1683, the Prince of Orange exerted all
+his influence to procure an augmentation of the troops of the republic;
+but he had the mortification to experience an obstinate resistance in
+several of the States, especially in that of Holland, headed by the city
+of Amsterdam. His coolness and steadiness, qualities invaluable in a
+statesman, at length prevailed, and he was enabled to carry his measures
+with a high hand.
+
+The accession of James II. to the throne of Great Britain, in 1685, was
+hailed as an opportunity for drawing closer both the personal friendship
+and the political alliance between the stadtholder of the one country
+and the king of the other; but a totally different result took place.
+The headstrong violence of James brought about a coalition of parties to
+resist him; and many of the English nobility and gentry concurred in an
+application to the Prince of Orange for assistance. At this crisis,
+William acted with such circumspection as befitted his calculating
+character. The nation was looking forward to the prince and princess as
+its only resource against tyranny, civil and ecclesiastical. Were the
+presumptive heir to concur in the offensive measures, he must partake
+with the king of the popular hatred. Even the continental alliances,
+which William was setting his whole soul to establish and improve, would
+become objects of suspicion to the English, and Parliament might refuse
+to furnish the necessary funds. Thus by one course he might risk the
+loss of a succession which was awaiting him; by an opposite conduct, he
+might profit by the king's indiscretion, and even forestall the time
+when the throne was to be his in the course of nature. The birth of a
+son and heir, in June, 1688, seemed to turn the scale in favor of James;
+but the affections of his people were not to be recovered; it was even
+asserted that the child was supposititious. This event, therefore,
+confirmed William's previous choice of the side which he was to take;
+and his measures were well and promptly concerted. A declaration was
+dispersed throughout Great Britain, setting forth the grievances of the
+kingdom, and announcing the immediate introduction of an armed force
+from abroad, for the purpose of procuring the convocation of a free
+parliament. In a short time, full four hundred transports were hired;
+the army rapidly fell down the rivers and canals from Nimeguen; the
+artillery, arms, stores, and horses were embarked; and, on October 21,
+1668, the prince set sail from Helvoetsluys, with a fleet of near five
+hundred vessels, and an army of more than fourteen thousand men. He was
+compelled to put back by a storm; but, on a second attempt, he had a
+prosperous voyage, while the king's fleet was wind-bound. He arrived at
+Torbay on November 4th, and disembarked on the 5th, the anniversary of
+the gunpowder treason. The remembrance of Monmouth's ill-fated rebellion
+prevented the western people from joining him; but at length several
+persons of consideration took up the cause, and an association was
+formed for its support. At this last hour James expressed his
+readiness to make concessions; but it was too late, they were looked on
+only as tokens of fear; the confidence of the people in the king's
+sincerity was gone forever. But, how much soever his conduct deserved
+censure, his distresses entitled him to pity. One daughter was the wife
+of his opponent; the other threw herself into the hands of the
+insurgents. In the agony of his heart the father exclaimed, "God help
+me! my own children have forsaken me!" He sent the queen and infant
+prince to France. Public affairs were in the utmost confusion, and
+seemed likely to remain so while he stayed in the island. After many of
+those perplexing adventures and narrow escapes which generally befall
+dethroned royalty, he at length succeeded in embarking for the
+continent.
+
+[Illustration: Council of war after the landing of William of Orange.]
+
+The prince issued circular letters for the election of members to a
+convention, which met January 22, 1689. It appeared at once that the
+House of Commons, agreeably to the prevailing sentiments both of the
+nation and of those in present authority, was chiefly chosen from among
+the Whig party. The throne was declared vacant by the following vote:
+"That King James the Second, having endeavored to subvert the
+constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between
+king and people; and having, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked
+persons, violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out of the
+kingdom, has abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby
+vacant." By the national consent, the vacancy was supplied by his
+daughter Mary and her husband William jointly.
+
+The Prince of Orange lost no time in apprising the States-General of his
+accession to the British throne. He assured them of his persevering
+endeavors to promote the well-being of his native country, which he was
+so far from abandoning, that he intended to retain his high offices in
+it. War with France was renewed early in 1689 by the States, supported
+by the house of Austria and some of the German princes; nor was it
+difficult for William to procure the concurrence of the English
+Parliament, when the object was the humiliation of France and her
+arbitrary sovereign. In the spring of 1689, James landed in Ireland with
+a French force, and was received by the Catholics with marks of strong
+attachment. Marshal Schomberg was sent to oppose him, but was able to
+effect little during the campaign of that year. William, in the
+meantime, had been successful in suppressing a Jacobite insurrection in
+Scotland, and embarked for Ireland with a reinforcement in the summer of
+1690. He immediately marched against James, who was strongly posted on
+the River Boyne. Schomberg passed the river in person, and put himself
+at the head of a corps of French Protestants. Pointing to the enemy, he
+said, "Gentlemen, behold your persecutors!" With these words he advanced
+to the attack, but was killed by a random shot from the French
+regiments. The death of this general was near proving fatal to the
+English army; but William retrieved the fortune of the day, and totally
+dispersed the opposite force. In this engagement the Irish lost 1,500
+men, and the English about one-third of that number.
+
+Disturbances again took place among the Jacobites in the Scotch
+Highlands. A simultaneous insurrection was planned in both kingdoms,
+while a descent from the French coast was to have divided the attention
+of the friends of government; but the defeat of the French fleet near
+Cape La Hogue, in 1692, frustrated this combined attempt, and relieved
+the nation from the dread of civil war. In 1691 the king had placed
+himself at the head of the Grand Alliance against France, of which he
+had been the prime mover; he was, therefore, absent on the continent
+during the dangers to which his new kingdom was exposed. His repeated
+losses in the following campaigns rather impaired than enhanced his
+military renown, though they increased his already high reputation for
+personal courage. The death of Queen Mary, which took place early in
+1695, proved a severe calamity, both to the king and the nation. She had
+been a vigilant guardian of her husband's interests, which were
+constantly exposed to hazard by the conflicts of party and by the
+disadvantages under which he labored as a foreigner. In 1696 a congress
+was opened at Ryswick, to negotiate a general peace; and William did not
+interpose any obstacles. In the following year the treaty was concluded.
+
+The King of Spain's death led to the last event of great importance in
+William's reign. The powers of Europe had arranged plans to prevent the
+accumulation of the Spanish possessions in the houses of Bourbon and
+Austria; but the French king violated all his solemn pledges, by
+accepting the deceased monarch's will in favor of his own grandson, the
+Duke of Anjou. In consequence of this breach of faith, preparations were
+made by England and Holland for a renewal of war with France; but a fall
+from his horse prevented William from further pursuing his military
+career, and the glory of reducing Louis XIV. within the bounds of his
+own kingdom was left to be earned by the generals of Queen Anne. The
+king was nearly recovered from the lameness consequent on his fall, when
+fever supervened; and he died March 8, 1702, in the fifty-second year of
+his age and thirteenth of his reign.
+
+The character of King William has been drawn with all the exaggeration
+of panegyric and obloquy by opposing partisans. His native country owes
+him a lasting debt of gratitude, as the second founder of its liberty
+and independence; and his adopted country is bound to uphold his memory,
+as its champion and deliverer from civil and religious thraldom. In
+short, the attachment of the English nation to constitutional rights and
+liberal government may be measured by its adherence to the principles
+established at the Revolution of 1688 and its just estimate of that
+sovereign and those statesmen who placed the liberties of Great Britain
+on a solid and lasting foundation.
+
+
+
+
+ISAAC NEWTON
+
+By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
+
+(1642-1727)
+
+[Illustration: Isaac Newton. [TN]]
+
+
+As a literary philosopher, Bacon surpasses Newton; as an experimental
+philosopher, Newton surpasses Bacon. Newton's works contain nothing in
+point of style and illustration comparable to Bacon's essays; Bacon's
+works contain nothing in point of scientific discovery and mathematical
+calculation comparable to Newton's "Optics" and "Principia."
+
+Newton has been the great glory of the Royal Society; and the Royal
+Society is justly proud of its most illustrious ornament. He joined it
+in January, 1674, when he was excused the ordinary payment of a shilling
+a week, "on account of his low circumstances as he represented." In 1703
+he was elected to the presidential chair, which he continued to occupy
+until his death, in 1727. Characteristic mementoes of him are preserved
+among the Royal Society's treasures. There is a solar dial made by the
+boy Isaac, when, instead of studying his grammar and learning Virgil and
+Horace, he was busy making windmills and water-clocks. We fancy we see
+him going along the road to Grantham on a market day with the old
+servant whom his mother sent to take care of him, and then stopping by
+the wayside to watch the motions of a water-wheel, reflecting upon the
+mechanical principles involved in the simplest contrivances. It is
+pleasant, with our knowledge of what he afterward became, to sit down on
+the green bank by the river side, and to speculate upon the ignorance of
+the old servant who accompanied him, and of the farmers they saluted by
+the way, as to the illustrious destiny which awaited the widow's son who
+lived in the manor house of Woolsthorpe. The reflecting telescope,
+preserved along with the dial, was made by Newton in his thirtieth year,
+and reminds us of the deep mathematical studies he was then pursuing at
+Cambridge. The autograph MS. of the "Principia," also in the possession
+of the Royal Society, gives increased vividness to the picture of this
+extraordinary person in his study, solving mysterious problems, and
+suggesting others still more mysterious; and then the lock of silvery
+hair adds the last touch to fancy's picture--like a stroke of the pencil
+which, when a portrait is nearly complete, gives life and expression to
+the whole.
+
+Newton was portly but not tall, his silvery locks were abundant without
+any baldness, and his eyes were sparkling and piercing, though perhaps
+they failed to indicate the profound genius which through them looked
+into the secrets of the universe. Wonderful humility blended with his
+intellectual greatness. To other men he seemed a spirit of higher rank,
+having almost superhuman faculties of mental vision, wont to soar into
+regions which the vulture's eye hath never seen; to himself he was but a
+boy playing with the shells on the seashore, while the ocean lay
+undiscovered before him. Others were taken up with what Newton
+accomplished, Newton was taken up with what remained to be done. So it
+is ever with the highest genius; the broader the range of view, the
+wider the horizon of mystery. He who understands more than others is
+conscious beyond others of what still remains to be understood.
+
+Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, on December 25,
+1642, one year after the death of Galileo, and just as England was being
+plunged into the confusion and miseries of civil war. Strange to say, as
+a lad, at first he was inattentive to study; but being struck a severe
+blow by a school-fellow, he strangely retaliated by determining to get
+above him in the class, which he accomplished, and ere long became head
+of the school. His play hours were employed in mechanical contrivances,
+and a windmill in the course of erection on the Grantham road was an
+object of intense curiosity and a source of immense instruction. He soon
+had a windmill of his own, at the top of the house in which he lived. He
+had also a water-clock in his bedroom, and a mechanical carriage in the
+parlor, in which he could wheel himself. Paper kites and paper lanterns
+were his favorite toys. In the yard of the house he traced on a wall the
+movements of the sun by means of fixed pins; the contrivance received
+the name of "Isaac's dial," and was a standard of time to the country
+people in the neighborhood.
+
+[Illustration: Newton analysing the ray of light.]
+
+He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, June 5, 1660, just as England was
+astir with restoration festivities, and he soon devoted himself to
+mathematical studies. Euclid he took in at a glance, and afterward
+proceeded to master Descartes's geometry. Isaac Barrow, then Lucasian
+Professor of Mathematics, became his friend and tutor; and the pupil
+repaid the master's kind attention by services rendered to him in
+connection with his optical lectures. In 1669, Newton succeeded Barrow
+in his professorship. He rose to eminence in the university, and in 1688
+was chosen its representative in the Convention parliament. In 1695 he
+was appointed Warden of the Mint, and was promoted to the Mastership in
+1699. After his appointment to a government office he left Cambridge to
+reside in London, and occupied for a time a house in Jermyn Street. From
+1710 till two years before his death he lived close to Leicester Square.
+Next door to Orange Street Chapel there stands an old house which has
+seen a good many changes, and is identified as the abode of Sir Isaac,
+who had been knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. We visited it many years
+ago. The part of the house most intimately associated with his name is
+the little observatory perched on the roof. We were permitted to ascend
+into that spot, to see it desecrated by its present use, for there we
+found a shoemaker busy at his toil. A glass cupola probably crowned
+the observatory in Newton's time, and evidently there was a window in
+each of the four walls. So here he looked out on the London of nearly a
+century and a half ago, hardly less crowded and smoky about the
+neighborhood than now. Overhead, where Newton turned his eyes with most
+interest, we know it was just the same; the same beautiful stars shining
+out on a cold winter's night, the same planets sailing along the same
+blue ocean, the same moon throwing its light over the same old city.
+What observations, keen and searching, what calculations, intricate and
+profound, what speculations, far-reaching and sublime, must there have
+been, when one of the most gifted of mortals from that spot looked out
+upon the heavens, and in thought went forth on voyages of discovery into
+the distant regions of the universe! At the calm, still hour of
+midnight, Sirius watching over the city of sleepers, Jupiter carrying
+his brilliant lamp along his ancient pathway, every one of the
+luminaries in the place appointed by Him who calleth them all by their
+names--there stood the thoughtful man, with his reflecting telescope,
+occupied with thoughts which we common mortals in vain endeavor to
+conjecture.
+
+The first department in the field which Newton explored with
+characteristic success was the study of optics. Philosophers were busy
+with inquiries into the nature of light. It had been long believed that
+every colored ray is equally refracted when passing through a lens.
+Newton determined to analyze the prismatic hues. He made a hole in a
+window-shutter, and darkening the room, let in a portion of light, which
+he passed through a prism. The _white_ sunbeam formed a circular image
+on the opposite wall, but the _prismatic colors_ formed an image five
+times as long as it was broad. He was curious to know how this came to
+pass. Satisfied that the length of the image in the latter case did not
+arise from any irregularity in his glass, or from any differences in the
+incidence of light from different parts of the sun's disk, or from any
+curvature in the direction of the rays, he concluded, after thorough
+reflection, that light is not _homogeneous_, but that it consists of
+rays of diverse refrangibility. The red hue he saw was less refracted
+than the orange, the orange less refracted than the yellow, and the
+violet more than any of the rest. These important conclusions he applied
+in the construction of the first reflecting telescope ever used in the
+survey of the heavens, and an instrument is preserved in Trinity College
+Library bearing the inscription, "Invented by Sir Isaac Newton, and made
+with his own hands, 1671."
+
+At the request of the Royal Society, he published in the "Transactions"
+an account of his optical discoveries, and proved that white light is a
+compound of seven prismatic colors.
+
+Everybody is familiar with the story of Newton's watching the apple fall
+from the tree. The tradition is fondly cherished on the spot where the
+philosopher is said to have been struck by the fact. The _law_ by which
+the apple falls, not the _reason_ which underlies the law, formed the
+subject of Newton's reflections, and led to the grandest of modern
+discoveries. The unknown cause of the apple's descent is the unknown
+cause of the planet's motion. That was the truth, simple and grand,
+which he brought to light and inculcated on the world. He undertook long
+calculations which he expected would prove this theory, but they failed
+to give the desired result. He consequently for a time desisted from the
+inquiry and turned his attention to other subjects. The error in
+Newton's first calculation arose from his taking the radius of the earth
+according to the received notion that a degree measured sixty miles,
+whereas Picard had determined it to be sixty-nine and a half miles. This
+was mentioned at a meeting of the Royal Society in 1682, at which Newton
+was present. "It immediately struck him that the value of the earth's
+radius was the erroneous element in his first calculation. With a
+feverish interest in this result, little imagined by those present, he
+hurried home, resumed his calculation with the new value, and having
+proceeded some way in it, was so overpowered by nervous agitation at its
+anticipated result, that he was unable to go on, and requested a friend
+to finish it for him, when it came out, _exactly establishing the
+inverse square_ as the true measure of the moon's gravitation, and thus
+furnishing the key to the whole system." Hence proceeded Newton's
+immortal work, the "Principia."
+
+The sublimest conclusion which Newton drew from his cautious and
+successful investigations of the laws of nature is put, with his
+characteristic humility, in the form of a query: "These things being
+rightly described, does it not appear from the phenomena that there is a
+Being incorporeal, living, intelligent, omnipresent, who, in infinite
+space (as it were in His sensory), sees the things themselves
+intimately, and thoroughly perceives them, and comprehends them wholly
+by their immediate presence to Himself?"
+
+Newton spent his last days in Kensington. "I was, Sunday night," says
+his nephew, "March 7, 1725, at Kensington, with Sir Isaac Newton in his
+lodgings, just after he was come out of a fit of the gout, which he had
+in both of his feet for the first time, in the eighty-third year of his
+age. He was better after it, and had his health clearer and memory
+stronger than I had known them for some years." A year later the same
+diarist says: "April 15, 1726. I passed the whole day with Sir Isaac
+Newton, at his lodgings, Orbell's Buildings, Kensington, which was the
+last time I saw him." The house was lately in existence, situated in
+what is called Bullingham Place, retaining, when we visited it, a
+mansion-like aspect, with a large garden and tall trees. There he died,
+March 20, 1727, having on the previous day been able to read the
+newspaper and to hold a long conversation with Dr. Mead.
+
+His body was laid in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and then buried in
+Westminster Abbey.
+
+
+
+
+PETER THE GREAT
+
+(1672-1725)
+
+[Illustration: Peter the Great. [TN]]
+
+
+At the close of the sixteenth century, the dominions of Russia, or
+Muscovy, as it was then more generally called, were far thrown back from
+the more civilized nations of southern Europe, by the intervention of
+Lithuania, Livonia, and other provinces now incorporated in the Russian
+empire, but then belonging either to Sweden or Poland. The Czar of
+Muscovy, therefore, possessed no political weight in the affairs of
+Europe, and little intercourse existed between the court of Moscow and
+the more polished potentates whom it affected to despise as barbarians,
+even for some time after the accession of the reigning dynasty, the
+house of Romanoff, in 1613, and the establishment of a more regular
+government than had previously been known. We only read occasionally of
+embassies being sent to Moscow, in general for the purpose of arranging
+commercial relations. From this state of insignificance, Peter, the
+first Emperor of Russia, raised his country, by introducing into it the
+arts of peace, by establishing a well-organized and disciplined army in
+the place of a lawless body of tumultuous mutineers, by creating a navy,
+where scarce a merchant vessel existed before, and, as the natural
+result of these changes, by important conquests on both the Asiatic and
+European frontiers of his hereditary dominions. For these services his
+countrymen bestowed on him, yet living, the title of Great; and it is
+well deserved, whether we look to the magnitude of those services, the
+difficulty of carrying into effect his benevolent designs, which
+included nothing less than the remodelling a whole people, or the grasp
+of mind and the iron energy of will, which were necessary to conceive
+such projects and to overcome the difficulties which beset them. It will
+not vitiate his claim to the epithet that his manners were coarse and
+boisterous, his amusements often ludicrous and revolting to a polished
+taste; if that claim be questionable, it is because he who aspired to be
+the reformer of others was unable to control the violence of his own
+passions.
+
+The Czar Alexis, Peter's father, was actuated by somewhat of the spirit
+which so distinguished the son. He endeavored to introduce the European
+discipline into his armies; he had it much at heart to turn the
+attention of the Russians to maritime pursuits; and he added the fine
+provinces of Plescow and Smolensko to his paternal dominions. At the
+death of Alexis, in 1677, Peter was but five years old. His eldest
+brother Theodore succeeded to the throne. Theodore died after a reign of
+five years, and named Peter his successor, passing over the second
+brother, Ivan, who was weak-minded. Their ambitious sister, Sophia,
+stirred the strelitzi, or native militia, to revolt in favor of Ivan,
+and Peter and his mother had to take refuge in the Troitski convent.
+This retreat being discovered, they were driven for protection to the
+church altar itself, where the religion or superstition of the wild
+soldiery saved the intended victims. We pass in silence over the
+remaining intrigues and insurrections which troubled the young czar's
+minority. It was not until the close of the year 1689, in the eighteenth
+year of his age, that he finally shook off the trammels of his ambitious
+sister, and assumed in reality, as well as in name, the direction of the
+state. How he had been qualified for this task by education does not
+clearly appear; but even setting aside the stories which attribute to
+his sister the detestable design of leading him into all sorts of
+excess, and especially drunkenness, with the hope of ruining both his
+constitution and intellect, it is probable that no pains whatever had
+been taken to form his intellect or manners for the station which he was
+to occupy. One of the few anecdotes told of his early life is, that
+being struck by the appearance of a boat on the river Yausa, which runs
+through Moscow, and noticing it to be of different construction from the
+flat-bottomed vessels commonly in use, he was led to inquire into the
+method of navigating it. It had been built for the Czar Alexis by a
+Dutchman, who was still in Moscow. He was immediately sent for; he
+rigged and repaired the boat, and under his guidance the young prince
+learned how to sail her, and soon grew passionately fond of his new
+amusement. He had five small vessels built at Plescow, on the lake
+Peipus; and not satisfied with this fresh-water navigation, hired a ship
+at Archangel, in which he made a voyage to the coast of Lapland. In
+these expeditions his love of sailing was nourished into a passion which
+lasted through life. He prided himself upon his practical skill as a
+seaman; and both at this time and afterward exposed himself and his
+friends to no small hazard by his rashness in following this favorite
+pursuit.
+
+[Illustration: The life of Peter the Great saved at the foot of the
+altar.]
+
+The first serious object of Peter's attention was to reform the army. In
+this he was materially assisted by a Swiss gentleman named Lefort; at
+whose suggestion he raised a company of fifty men, who were clothed and
+disciplined in the European manner, the Russian army at that time being
+little better than a tribe of Tartars. As soon as the little corps was
+formed, Peter caused himself to be enrolled in it as a private soldier.
+It is a remarkable trait in the character of the man, that he thought no
+condescension degrading which forwarded any of his ends. In the army he
+entered himself in the lowest rank, and performed successively the
+duties of every other; in the navy he went still further, for he
+insisted on performing the menial duties of the lowest cabin-boy, rising
+step by step, till he was qualified to rate as an able seaman. Nor was
+this done merely for the sake of singularity; he had resolved that
+every officer of the sea or land service should enter in the lowest rank
+of his profession, that he might obtain a practical knowledge of every
+task or manoeuvre which it was his duty to see properly executed; and he
+felt that his nobility might scarcely be brought to submit to what in
+their eyes would be a degradation, except by the personal example of the
+czar himself. Meanwhile he had not been negligent of the other arm of
+war; for a number of Dutch and Venetian workmen were employed in
+building gunboats and small ships of war at Voronitz, on the river Don,
+intended to secure the command of the Sea of Azof, and to assist in
+capturing the strong town of Azof, then held by the Turks. The
+possession of this place was of great importance, from its situation at
+the mouth of the Don, commanding access to the Mediterranean Sea. His
+first military attempts were accordingly directed against it, and he
+succeeded in taking it in 1696.
+
+In the spring of the ensuing year, the empire being tranquil and the
+young czar's authority apparently established on a safe footing, he
+determined to travel into foreign countries, to view with his own eyes,
+and become personally and practically familiar with the arts and
+institutions of refined nations. There was a grotesqueness in his manner
+of executing this design, which has tended, more probably than even its
+real merit, to make it one of the common-places of history. Every child
+knows how the Czar of Muscovy worked in the dock-yard of Saardam in
+Holland, as a common carpenter. In most men this would have been
+affectation; and perhaps there was some tinge of that weakness in the
+earnestness with which Peter handled the axe, obeyed the officers of the
+dock-yard, and in all points of outward manners and appearance, put
+himself on a level with the shipwrights who were earning their daily
+bread. It seems, however, to have been the turn of Peter's mind always
+to begin at the beginning; a sound maxim, though here, perhaps, pushed
+beyond reasonable bounds. And his abode and occupations in Holland
+formed only part of an extensive plan. On quitting Russia he sent sixty
+young Russians to Venice and Leghorn to learn ship-building and
+navigation, and especially the construction and management of galleys
+moved by oars, which were so much used by the Venetian republic. Others
+he sent into Holland, with similar instructions; others into Germany, to
+study the art of war, and make themselves well acquainted with the
+discipline and tactics of the German troops. So that while his personal
+labor at Saardam may have been stimulated in part by affectation of
+singularity, in part, perhaps, by a love of bodily exertion common in
+men of his busy and ardent temper, it would be unjust not to give him
+credit for higher motives; such as the desire to become thoroughly
+acquainted with the art of ship-building, which he thought so important,
+and to set a good example of diligence to those whom he had sent out on
+a similar voyage of education.
+
+Peter remained nine months in Holland, the greatest part of which he
+spent in the dock-yard of Saardam. He displayed unwearied zeal in
+seeking out and endeavoring to comprehend everything of interest in
+science and art, especially in visiting manufactories. In January, 1698,
+he sailed for London in an English man-of-war, sent out expressly to
+bring him over. His chief object was to perfect himself in the higher
+branches of ship-building. With this view he occupied Mr. Evelyn's
+house, adjoining the dock-yard of Deptford; and there remain in that
+gentleman's journal some curious notices of the manners of the czar and
+his household, which were of the least refined description. During his
+stay he showed the same earnestness in inquiring into all things
+connected with the maritime and commercial greatness of the country, as
+before in Holland; and he took away nearly five hundred persons in his
+suite, consisting of naval captains, pilots, gunners, surgeons, and
+workmen in various trades, especially those connected with the naval
+service. In England, without assuming his rank, he ceased to wear the
+attire and adopt the habits of a common workman; and he had frequent
+intercourse with William III., who is said to have conceived a strong
+liking for him, notwithstanding the uncouthness of his manners. Kneller
+painted a portrait of him for the king, which is said to have been a
+good likeness.
+
+He left London in April, 1698, and proceeded to Vienna, principally to
+inspect the Austrian troops, then esteemed among the best in Europe. He
+had intended to visit Italy; but his return was hastened by the tidings
+of a dangerous insurrection having broken out, which, though suppressed,
+seemed to render a longer absence from the seat of government
+inexpedient. The insurgents were chiefly composed of the Russian
+soldiery, abetted by a large party who thought everything Russian good,
+and hated and dreaded the czar's innovating temper. Of those who had
+taken up arms, many were slain in battle; the rest, with many persons of
+more rank and consequence, suspected of being implicated in the revolt,
+were retained in prison until the czar himself should decide their fate.
+Numerous stories of his extravagant cruelties on this occasion have been
+told, which may safely be passed over as unworthy of credit. It is
+certain, however, that considerable severity was shown. This
+insurrection led to the complete remodelling of the Russian army, on the
+same plan which had already been partially adopted.
+
+During the year 1699 the czar was chiefly occupied by civil reforms.
+According to his own account, as published in his journal, he regulated
+the press, caused translations to be published of various treatises on
+military and mechanical science and history; he founded a school for the
+navy; others for the study of the Latin, German, and other languages; he
+encouraged his subjects to cultivate foreign trade, which before they
+had absolutely been forbidden to do under pain of death; he altered the
+Russian calendar, in which the year began on September 1st, to agree in
+that point with the practice of other nations; he broke through the
+Oriental custom of not suffering women to mix in general society; and he
+paid sedulous attention to the improvement of his navy on the river Don.
+We have the testimony of Mr. Deane, an English ship-builder, that the
+czar had turned his manual labors to good account, who states in a
+letter to England, that "the czar has set up a ship of sixty guns, where
+he is both foreman and masterbuilder; and, not to flatter him, I'll
+assure your lordship it will be the best ship among them, and it is all
+from his own draught: how he framed her together, and how he made the
+moulds, and in so short a time as he did, is really wonderful."
+
+He introduced an improved breed of sheep from Saxony and Silesia;
+despatched engineers to survey the different provinces of his extensive
+empire; sent persons skilled in metallurgy to the various districts in
+which mines were to be found; established manufactories of arms, tools,
+stuffs; and encouraged foreigners skilled in the useful arts to settle
+in Russia, and enrich it by the produce of their industry.
+
+We cannot trace the progress of that protracted contest between Sweden
+and Russia, in which the short-lived greatness of Sweden was broken: we
+can only state the causes of the war and the important results to which
+it led. Peter's principal motive for engaging in it was his leading wish
+to make Russia a maritime and commercial nation. To this end it was
+necessary that she should be possessed of ports, of which, however, she
+had none but Archangel and Azof, both most inconveniently situated, as
+well in respect of the Russian empire itself, as of the chief commercial
+nations of Europe. On the waters of the Baltic Russia did not possess a
+foot of coast. Both sides of the Baltic, both sides of the Gulf of
+Finland, the country between the head of that gulf and the Lake Ladoga,
+including both sides of the River Neva, and the western side of Lake
+Ladoga itself, and the northern end of Lake Peipus, belonged to Sweden.
+In the year 1700, Charles XII. being but eighteen years of age, Denmark,
+Poland, and Russia, which had all of them suffered from the ambition of
+Sweden, formed a league to repair their losses, presuming on the
+weakness usually inherent in a minority. The object of Russia was the
+restoration of the provinces of Ingria, Carelia, and Wiborg, the country
+round the head of the Gulf of Finland, which formerly had belonged to
+her; that of Poland, was the recovery of Livonia and Esthonia, the
+greater part of which had been ceded by her to Charles XI. of Sweden.
+Denmark was to obtain Holstein and Sleswick. But Denmark and Poland very
+soon withdrew, and left Russia to encounter Sweden single-handed. To
+this she was entirely unequal; her army, the bulk of it undisciplined,
+and even the disciplined part unpractised in the field, was no match for
+the veteran troops of Sweden, the terror of Germany. In the battle of
+Narva, a town on the river which runs out of the Peipus Lake, fought
+November 30, 1700, 9,000 Swedes defeated signally near forty thousand
+Russians, strongly intrenched and with a numerous artillery. Had Charles
+prosecuted his success with vigor, he might probably have delayed for
+many years the rise of Russia; but whether from contempt or mistake he
+devoted his whole attention to the war in Poland, and left the czar at
+liberty to recruit and discipline his army, and improve the resources of
+his kingdom. In these labors he was most diligent. His troops, practised
+in frequent skirmishes with the Swedes quartered in Ingria and Livonia,
+rapidly improved, and on the celebrated field of Pultowa broke forever
+the power of Charles XII. This decisive action did not take place until
+July 8, 1709. The interval was occupied by a series of small, but
+important additions to the Russian territory. In 1701-2, great part of
+Livonia and Ingria were subdued, including the banks of the Neva, where
+on May 27, 1703, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. It was not till
+1710 that the conquest of Courland, with the remainder of Livonia,
+including the important harbors of Riga and Revel, gave to Russia that
+free navigation of the Baltic Sea which Peter had longed for as the
+greatest benefit which he could confer upon his country.
+
+After the battle of Pultowa Charles fled to Turkey, where he continued
+for some years, shut out from his own dominions, and intent chiefly on
+spiriting the Porte to make war on Russia. In this he succeeded; but
+hostilities were terminated almost at their beginning by the battle of
+the Pruth, fought July 20, 1711, in which the Russian army, not
+mustering more than forty thousand men, and surrounded by five times
+that number of Turks, owed its preservation to Catherine, first the
+mistress, at this time the wife, and finally the acknowledged partner
+and successor of Peter on the throne of Russia. By her coolness and
+prudence, while the czar, exhausted by fatigue, anxiety, and
+self-reproach, was laboring under nervous convulsions, to which he was
+liable throughout life, a treaty was concluded with the vizier in
+command of the Turkish army, by which the Russians preserved indeed
+life, liberty, and honor, but were obliged to resign Azof, to give up
+the forts and burn the vessels built to command the sea bearing that
+name, and to consent to other stipulations, which must have been very
+bitter to the hitherto successful conqueror. Returning to the seat of
+government, his foreign policy for the next few years was directed to
+breaking down the power of Sweden, and securing his new metropolis by
+prosecuting his conquests on the northern side of the Gulf of Finland.
+Here he was entirely successful; and the whole of Finland itself, and of
+the gulf, fell into his hands. These provinces were secured to Russia by
+the peace of Nieustadt, in 1721. Upon this occasion the senate or state
+assembly of Russia requested him to assume the title of Emperor of all
+the Russias, with the adjunct of Great, and Father of his Country.
+
+If our sketch of the latter years of Peter's life appears meagre and
+unsatisfactory, it is to be recollected that the history of that life is
+the history of a great empire, which it would be vain to condense within
+our limits, were they greater than they are. Results are all that we are
+competent to deal with. From the peace of Nieustadt, the exertions of
+Peter, still unremitting, were directed more to consolidate and improve
+the internal condition of the empire, by watching over the changes which
+he had already made, than to effect farther conquests, or new
+revolutions in policy or manners. He died February 8, 1725, leaving no
+surviving male issue. Some time before he had caused the Empress
+Catherine to be solemnly crowned and associated with him on the throne,
+and to her he left the charge of fostering those schemes of civilization
+which he had originated.
+
+
+
+
+MARIA THERESA[1]
+
+By ANNA C. BRACKETT
+
+(1717-1780)
+
+         [Footnote 1: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Maria Theresa. [TN]]
+
+
+Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria, was born May 13, 1717, daughter
+of Charles VI. of the house of Hapsburg--ruling Austria for more than
+four hundred years--and of Elizabeth of Brunswick. From her father she
+inherited the "deadly Hapsburg tenacity," and from her mother much good
+sense and capacity for managing affairs, all of which stood her in good
+stead. She was especially fortunate in three things: that she lived in
+the time of Frederick the Great of Prussia, for thus she had given to
+her a chance to know of what stuff she was made; that she did not marry
+him, as was proposed by the great Eugene; and that she did not live to
+see the beautiful head of her daughter, Marie Antoinette, fall under the
+guillotine. Though the court of Charles VI. rivalled in ceremonial
+observance that of Spain, the little archduchess was reared in almost
+Spartan simplicity of dress and food. From Jesuit text-books she learned
+her history and geography, and she spoke several languages, none of
+which, however, could she ever write or spell quite correctly. But
+chiefly she was taught the pre-eminent dignity and power of the
+Hapsburgs, and the necessary indivisibility of the Austrian state. She
+learned to hunt, to shoot, and to dance, and at suppers of state she and
+her little sister were sometimes allowed to present to their stately
+mother her gloves and fan when the emperor rose. She had an aversion to
+business and great diffidence of her own capacity, and though the
+emperor took her to the council of state at the time of the Polish
+election, when she was only sixteen, he yet failed to give her any real
+knowledge of the commonest forms of business. In this austere court,
+never seeing a smile on her father's face, she grew up, "the prettiest
+little maiden in the world," to a radiant woman, heir-expectant to the
+throne by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, an order of state by means
+of which the Emperor Charles VI. had undertaken to settle the Austrian
+succession.
+
+At nineteen she was "beautiful to soul and eye," tall and slight, with
+brilliant complexion, sparkling gray eyes, and a profusion of golden
+wavy hair. She had an aquiline nose,--strange to say for a Hapsburg, an
+exceedingly lovely mouth,--and very beautiful hands and arms. Her voice
+was sharp but musical, and her quick speech and animated gestures
+betrayed an ardent and impetuous nature, though she never lost her high
+and dignified bearing. Her anger was easily roused, but never lasted
+long, especially when a fault had been committed against herself, and
+when she knew that she had been too angry she tried to atone by
+overflowing kindness. She needed only to be convinced that a thing was
+wrong, to give it up. Whatever she did she did with her whole heart, and
+gratitude was one of her strongest characteristics. Withal she kept a
+constant and steadfast soul, and her nature was delicate and refined;
+she was a worthy sister of Isabella of Castile. At nineteen, largely
+through her own persistence, she escaped being made a sacrifice to the
+political needs of Austria in being given to the heir of Philip V. of
+Spain, and married the man of her choice, Francis Stephen, the grandson
+of that Duke of Lorraine who, in 1683, together with John Sobieski, King
+of Poland, had saved Vienna from the Turks. Her husband was of comely
+person and suave manners, kind-hearted, though not strong nor brilliant.
+To him she bore five sons and eleven daughters. She was looking forward
+to the birth of her eldest son, when, at the age of twenty-three,
+October 20, 1740, she was proclaimed by the heralds Sovereign
+Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, for her father lay
+dead in Vienna, and all the cares and anxieties of government had fallen
+upon her shoulders. Austria was not one nation, but composed of many
+differing and scattered peoples jealous of their ancient rights, among
+whom there could be no sense of unity, and in his many disastrous wars
+her father had lost several of its possessions. There was the depression
+of defeat and mismanagement among the state-counsellors, there were only
+$65,000 in the treasury, and an army of but 68,000 soldiers. The powers
+that had given in their adhesion to the Pragmatic Sanction were tardily
+and but half acknowledging her succession, and from France she could get
+nothing but dissimulation and uncertainty. On November 1st the young
+royal wife was joyfully and peacefully creating her husband Grand Master
+of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and co-regent, and conferring upon
+him the Bohemian electoral vote. In less than six weeks from that day
+the Elector of Bavaria had laid formal claim to her throne, Frederick of
+Prussia had marched his troops into Silesia, one of her finest
+provinces, calling it his own, and the war of the Austrian Succession
+was on for seven long years; for the high, heroic heart would not yield
+one inch, and the sovereign ruler of Austria had met with fine Hapsburg
+scorn the insulting proposition of the King of Prussia that he would
+gladly support her right to the throne of her ancestors, provided she
+would resign to his obliging majesty the whole of Silesia.
+
+The aged counsellors who took it upon themselves to dictate to the young
+and inexperienced ruler soon found out their mistake. The little girl
+who had displayed an aversion for business was now a woman with talent
+for its details, only eager for instruction in order to make up her own
+mind. The army must be increased and improved, and the people aroused to
+enthusiasm, if Frederick was to be checked. And it was not Frederick
+alone that was to be feared, for a great coalition of European powers
+was formed against her, and she had but England and Saxony to depend on
+for help, while the enemy was already within her dominions. March 13,
+1741, her son Joseph was born, and by September 11th the young mother
+was in Hungary to urge its people to come to the aid of the threatened
+country in its extremity. In deep mourning and still pale and delicate,
+holding the little archduke in her arms, her appeal to the Hungarian
+nobles roused them to lofty enthusiasm and gained their unswerving
+devotion. She never forgot this, and when she lay dying, spoke of them
+with grateful affection. The war went on with varying fortunes, but she
+kept heart and hope, though by the end of 1741 the powers were plotting
+the partition of Austria as a probable event. By 1743 the luck had
+changed; the Austrian army had redeemed itself, and Maria Theresa was
+fancying that she should be able to conquer Prussia. It was about this
+time that she began greatly to rely on Kaunitz, who afterward became
+Prime Minister, and who shaped for all the after-years of her reign the
+policy of her rule. The old ministers left her by her father were not
+able to meet the new difficulties, and the sovereign was often in great
+anxiety amid conflicting and hesitating counsels, for it was nothing
+less than the very existence of the country that was at stake. She was
+thirty-one years old when the war came to an end by the peace of
+Aix-la-Chapelle, the particulars of which were entrusted to Kaunitz
+while he was ambassador at London. By that treaty Maria Theresa gained
+the final guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, though she had to cede
+two of her Italian duchies to the Spanish Bourbons, and Glatz and the
+much-desired Silesia to the "bad neighbor," as she always called
+Frederick. She was twenty-eight when she had the pleasure of seeing her
+husband elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, gaining as his wife
+the title of empress, and being thus often spoken of as the
+empress-queen.
+
+The war was over, but she knew full well that it was only for a short
+time, and she spent the eight years of restless peace that followed, in
+the most unremitting efforts to enable her country to endure the next
+attack. She had proved that she could create heroes out of common men;
+she was now to extort praise even from Frederick of Prussia for
+"accomplishing designs worthy of a great man." A military academy was
+created at Vienna; order and economy were brought into the treasury and
+the army; she established camps of instruction and went herself to visit
+them, recompensing brave officers, calling forth abilities and
+emulation. The Department of Justice was disjoined from that of the
+Police, a superior court was established, and the direction of the
+finances given to a special council, reporting every week to the
+empress. She often consulted men who were not in office upon matters of
+policy, and thus got many valuable suggestions. Meantime Kaunitz was
+ambassador at Paris, and had been bending all his efforts to secure a
+French alliance, which seemed to him of so much importance that he even
+induced his royal mistress to write to the Pompadour with a view to
+securing the influence of Louis XV. in the impending war. This was not
+the only time that Maria Theresa sacrificed the woman in her to the
+ruler, for though above all breath of scandal, and devotedly attached to
+husband and children, she never forgot that she was Austria, and must
+maintain her inheritance. Then came on the Seven Years' War, in which
+she had as allies almost all Europe, though at its close she had to give
+up the last hope of ever regaining Silesia, which was as dear to her as
+Calais to Mary of England, Frederick agreeing to vote for Joseph as
+successor to his father as emperor. It was in this war, after the
+victory of Kolin, that she founded the military order of Maria Theresa,
+the beautiful cross of which is still the highest and most coveted
+Austrian decoration. At the end of the war she was forty-six years old,
+and it was only two years after, August 18, 1765, that she herself made
+the shroud for her husband, and put on the mourning which was to last
+for fifteen years. Ever after that she spent in seclusion the whole
+month of August and the 18th of every other month, thus breaking the
+routine of her busy days. I give in brief the account of one of these:
+Rising at five or six, according to the season, prayer, dressing,
+hearing mass, breakfast, work till nine on petitions and reports, a
+second mass, a visit to her children, more work till dinner at one, and
+again work. This she was apt to do in a sentinel-guarded arbor to which
+she would go from the palace, carrying despatches and papers in a tray
+slung by a cord round her neck. Vespers at six, an evening card-party,
+supper, a walk at eight, and then sleep. After the death of Francis she
+made her son Joseph joint-ruler, but soon found herself obliged to limit
+his authority to the care of the army. At fifty the small-pox greatly
+marred her beauty, though she was now at the age when the constant
+beauty of soul of her life shone fair on the lofty face. When she was
+fifty-three she bade good-by to the little fifteen-years-old Marie
+Antoinette, going, as she hoped, to assure the alliance of France, never
+to see her again. To her for the rest of Maria Theresa's life, as to the
+other married daughters, went a courier every three weeks with letters,
+which have been preserved, and may still be read for knowledge of the
+mother and empress. At fifty-five Maria Theresa became a party to the
+partition of Poland, and because this transaction is regarded as a blot
+upon her character, I give in full the words which she sent to Kaunitz
+when she returned to him the signed agreement. She was then fifty-five
+years old, and keen memories of 1741 and of her young life must have
+stirred the trembling pen as she wrote on it: "_Placet_, because so many
+great and learned men wish it; but when I have been long dead, people
+will see what must come from the violation of everything that until now
+has been deemed holy and right." And then on a slip of paper sent with
+the document stood these words: "When all my countries were attacked,
+and I no longer knew where I might go quietly to lie in, I stood stiff
+on my good right and the help of God. But in this affair, when not only
+clear justice cries to Heaven against us, but also all fairness and
+common-sense condemn us, I must confess that all the days of my life I
+have never felt so troubled, and I am ashamed to show myself before the
+people. Let the prince consider what an example we give to the world,
+when, for a miserable slice of Poland or of Moldavia and Wallachia, we
+risk the loss of our honor and reputation. I feel that I am alone, and
+no longer in health and strength; and therefore, although not without my
+greatest sorrow I allow matters to take their own course."
+
+The heaviest burdens and greatest trials of her life were now over. The
+fruit of her careful plans was beginning to be reaped in prosperity, and
+a long period of tranquillity had come. She turned all her attention to
+reforms: academies were established, among others one for the education
+of the Magyar noble youth in Vienna, that these might become the more
+surely incorporated with the Austrian system. The public schools were
+reconstituted, the monasteries reformed, and no longer allowed to
+furnish asylums for criminals. Priests were forbidden to be present at
+the making of wills, and the Inquisition was suppressed. Through most
+convincing efforts on the part of Kaunitz, the Jesuits had been finally
+expelled from the country. Agriculture, trade, and commerce were
+encouraged, though by the advice of England the navy was given up.
+Inoculation for the small-pox was introduced, and a hospital for its
+treatment, as well as a home for veteran soldiers, built in Vienna. When
+she was sixty, the war of the Bavarian Succession was happily ended, in
+opposition to the will of Joseph, by her most untiring efforts.
+Servitude and the torture had been abolished; the taxes, on a better
+basis, were bringing in large returns; a standing army had been created,
+the monarchy lifted and strengthened, and the court and the people stood
+together against oppression from the aristocracy. Austria had been
+carried from the Middle Ages into modern times, and was no longer a
+conglomeration but a nation.
+
+Maria Theresa had reached the age of sixty-three when the brave
+religious spirit, over which flattery had had no power, was waiting in
+pain and anguish but not in fear the hour of its release. The generous
+and open hand could no longer give; the heart so keenly sensitive to
+criticism was to dread it no more; the eyes that, as she had written to
+Marie Antoinette, had shed so many relieving tears were nevermore to
+need that relief. "You are all so timid," she said, "I am not afraid of
+death. I only pray to God to give me strength to the end." She did not
+forget Poland, she gratefully remembered Hungary, and then, with the
+cry, "To Thee! I am coming!" she sank back dead, in the arms of the son
+whom, as a little baby, she had held up in her brave arms to plead for
+the loyalty of the Hungarian nobles. The high imperial heart had ceased
+to beat, the house of Hapsburg had come to an end, and Joseph II., of
+the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, was the sovereign ruler of Austria.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+EDMUND BURKE[2]
+
+By DR. HEINRICH GEFFCKEN
+
+(1730-1797)
+
+         [Footnote 2: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Edmund Burke. [TN]]
+
+
+Edmund Burke, the great British politician, and one of the greatest
+political philosophers that ever lived, was born at Dublin, January 1,
+1730, as son of a petty attorney. Conformably to the wishes of his
+father, he began to study law in London, but found it so little
+attractive that, encouraged by eminent men, particularly by Johnson, he
+turned to literary pursuits. His first work, "Vindication of Natural
+Society" (1756), which at once won him fame, is a keen satire on
+Bolingbroke, showing that the attacks of that writer upon revealed
+religion might as well be turned against all social and political
+institutions. His reputation was still enhanced by the "Philosophical
+Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful"
+(1757); and at the same time he showed, by publishing "Dodd's Annual
+Register," that he was equally gifted for politics. As a preliminary for
+practical activity in that domain, he became private secretary of Gerard
+Hamilton, the lieutenant-general's assistant for Ireland, but soon found
+that his chief's smart mediocrity only wanted to turn to advantage the
+secretary's scantily rewarded talent. He returned to London (1764), and
+at once entered upon the political career in which he was to play so
+eminent a part.
+
+The Grenville ministry was dismissed and replaced by an administration
+of rather heterogeneous elements, under Lord Rockingham, not a great
+statesman, but combining unblemished character and solid gifts with rank
+and wealth. Burke became his private secretary and influential adviser,
+being at the same time elected a member for Wendover. Matters then were
+in a very critical state: while discontent was fast rising in America
+and commerce trembling for its colonial trade, two parties were fiercely
+opposed in Parliament. Pitt deemed it treason against the Constitution
+and to the colonies to tax America without its consent. Grenville
+declared it treason to crown and legislature to abandon that right.
+Burke, though in principle more inclining to Pitt, advised a middle
+course by redressing the grievances of the colonies, while maintaining
+the dignity of the crown. The government proposed (January, 1766) to
+repeal Grenville's Stamp Act, but to guard the constitutional rights of
+the mother-country by a "Declaratory Act." In the debate on these bills
+Burke made his maiden speech, which called forth universal admiration; a
+friend wrote to him, "You have made us hear a new eloquence." The bills
+passed, but the ministry, mined by both parties, soon afterward was
+obliged to resign. Burke summed up its activity in an excellent
+pamphlet, "A Short Account of a Late Short Administration," and now
+entered into opposition against Lord Chatham's ministry, which he called
+"a tessellated pavement without cement." On the other hand, he
+victoriously refuted the attacks of the Grenvilles against Rockingham,
+in his "Observations on the Present State of the Nation," exhibiting the
+emptiness of his opponents' declamations on the declining wealth of the
+country, and proving that its resources were fast increasing.
+
+Burke rises still higher in the "Thoughts on the Causes of the Present
+Discontents" (1770), a powerful plea for the British Constitution in its
+development from 1688, and exhibiting the full maturity of his talent.
+He denies that the prevailing discontents are due to some factious
+libellers exciting the people, who have no interest in disorder, but are
+only roused by the impatience of suffering. The discontents were real,
+and their cause was a perversion of the true principles on which the
+Constitution rested. As hitherto, business had gone alternately through
+the hands of Whigs and Tories, the opposition controlling the
+government; but now a court faction had sprung up called "the king's
+friends," a double cabinet, acting as irresponsible wire-pullers behind
+the scenes. These men deriving, like Janissaries, a kind of freedom from
+the very condition of their servitude, were sitting in secondary, but
+efficient, departments of office and in the household of the royal
+family, so as to occupy the avenues to the throne and to forward or
+frustrate the execution of any measure according to their own interests;
+they endeavored to separate the crown from the administration, and to
+divide the latter within itself. To this cabal it was owing that British
+policy was brought into derision in those foreign countries which, a
+while ago, trembled at the power of England's arms. Above all, they
+tried to pervert the principles of Parliament by raising divisions among
+the people, by influencing the elections, by separating representatives
+from their constituents, and by undermining the control of the
+legislature over the executive. They maintained that all political
+connections were in their nature factious; but free commonwealths were
+ever made by parties, _i.e._, bodies of men united for promoting by
+their joint endeavors the national interest upon great leading
+principles in which they were agreed; government by parties was the very
+soul of representative institutions; it had raised England to her
+present power and protected the liberty of the people; while the cant,
+"measures not men," had always been the pretext for getting loose from
+every honorable engagement.
+
+Burke finds the remedy in restoring the Constitution to its original
+principles; all patriots must form a firm combination against the cabal;
+a just connection between representatives and constituents must be
+re-established; Parliament ought not to meddle with the privileges of
+the executive, but exercise real control upon the acting powers of the
+state, and if necessary, not be afraid to resort to impeachment, "that
+great guardian of the purity of the Constitution;" finally, if all means
+fail, there must be an interposition of the body of the people
+itself--"an unpleasant remedy but legal, when it is evident that nothing
+else can hold the Constitution to its true principles."
+
+He at the same time displayed a prominent activity in Parliament, where
+soon all internal questions gave way to the great contest with America.
+In 1771 he had accepted the place of an agent for New York, had become
+intimately acquainted with Franklin, and won a deep insight into
+American affairs. Of the six duties imposed by Townshend's Revenue Act
+(1767) five had been repealed, the tea duty alone remained. December 18,
+1773, the cargo of an East Indian tea-ship was thrown into the sea at
+Boston, and the first armed conflict ensued. Court and government were
+resolved to put down this rebellion; Burke, on the contrary, supported
+in his great speech "On American Taxation" Rose-Fuller's motion (April,
+1774) for suppressing the last duty. England had no right to tax the
+colonies, nor had she ever pretended to do so before Grenville's Stamp
+Act; that, as well as the most important duties of the Revenue Act, had
+been repealed; the tea-duty was slight and it produced short of nothing,
+the cost of collection devouring it to the bone; for the Americans
+refused to buy imported tea, and they were right to do so; having
+inherited English principles they resisted for the same reason for which
+Hampden had resisted the payment of the trifling ship-money, because the
+principle on which it was demanded would have made him a slave. It would
+be a signal folly to maintain the shadow of a duty and to risk the loss
+of an empire merely because the preamble of the Revenue Act said it was
+expedient that a revenue should be raised in his majesty's dominions in
+America.
+
+[Illustration: Burke, Johnson and their friends.]
+
+The blindness of the majority turned away from those wise counsels.
+Parliament was dissolved. Burke, elected for Bristol, forthwith
+introduced thirteen resolutions, which he defended in his celebrated
+speech for "Conciliation with the Colonies" (March 22, 1775). As he had
+told his constituents his aim was to reconcile British superiority with
+American liberty, he proposed to remove the ground of the difference in
+order to restore the former confidence of the colonies in the
+mother-country. "Fighting is not the best way of gaining a people of
+more than two millions, in which the fierce spirit of liberty is
+probably stronger than in any other country, and that liberty is founded
+upon English principles." Now, a fundamental point of our Constitution
+is that the people have power of "granting their own money;" the
+colonial assemblies have uncontested competence to raise taxes, and have
+frequently granted them for imperial purposes; sometimes so liberally
+that, in 1743, the Commons resolved to reimburse the expense; no method
+for procuring a representation in Parliament of the colonies has
+hitherto been advised, consequently no revenue by imposition has been
+raised before the Stamp Act; we therefore ought to acknowledge that only
+the general assemblies can grant "aids to his Majesty." To enforce the
+reverse principle is not only unjust, but impossible, "when three
+thousand miles of ocean lie between us and them. Seas roll and months
+pass between the order and the execution. We may impoverish the
+colonies and cripple our own most important trade, but it is
+preposterous to make them unserviceable, in order to keep them
+obedient." The motions were rejected; three years afterward, when it was
+too late, Burke's opponent, Lord North, proposed a similar plan.
+
+In 1780 Burke introduced his bill for "Economical reform in support of
+several petitions to correct the gross abuses in the management of
+public expenditure before laying fresh burdens upon the people." His
+speech derives a particular interest from its defining the difference of
+timely and gradual reformation from hasty and harsh, making clear work.
+The former was an amicable and temperate arrangement with a friend in
+power, leaving room for growth; the latter was imposing terms upon a
+conquered enemy under a state of inflammation. In 1782 Lord North was
+obliged to resign, and Rockingham became again premier, Burke
+paymaster-general of the army. He now carried his economical reform,
+abolishing sinecures, suppressing useless expenses, and cutting down
+salaries, among which was his own.
+
+After Rockingham's death and the overthrow of the short Shelburne
+administration, Burke turned his activity to the misgovernment of India;
+his speeches in support of Fox's East-India Bill (December 1, 1783), and
+on the Nabob of Arcot's debts (February 15, 1783), show that he had
+thoroughly mastered that intricate subject. He violently denounced the
+oppression exercised by the company, a prelude to his campaign against
+Warren Hastings, which he continued for eight years. His speech
+justifying the impeachment of the governor-general, said Erskine,
+"irresistibly carried away its brilliant audience by a superhuman
+eloquence."
+
+Burke in this contest was, as always, animated by the purest motives,
+but his passion went too far in comparing Hastings to Verres, and did
+not sufficiently allow for the difficult circumstances in which his
+adversary was placed. Without the latter's unscrupulous energy, India
+would have been lost. Hastings finally was acquitted, but Burke's
+attacks nevertheless had the effect of uncovering and redressing the
+prevailing abuses.
+
+The last period of Burke's life is filled up by his great struggle
+against the French revolution. Already in 1769 he had prophetically
+asserted that the derangement of French finances must infallibly lead to
+a violent convulsion, the influence of which upon France and even Europe
+could be scarcely divined; now he directed the attention of the House
+(February 4, 1790) to the dangers of the revolution, by which the French
+had shown themselves "the ablest architects of ruin," pulling down all
+their domestic institutions, making "a digest of anarchy" called "the
+rights of men," and establishing a ferocious, tyrannical, and
+atheistical democracy. It might be said that they had done service to
+England, a rival, by reducing their country to impotence and expunging
+it out of the system of Europe; but, by the vicinity of the two
+countries, their present distemper might prove more contagious than the
+gilded tyranny of Louis XIV. had been, and "much as it would afflict
+him, he would abandon his best friends and join with his worst enemies
+to oppose all violent exertions of the spirit of innovation, which by
+tearing to pieces the contexture of the state prevented all real
+reformation;" the last passage alluding to the apology of Fox, hitherto
+his closest friend, for French proceedings.
+
+These ideas Burke more fully developed in his famous "Reflections on the
+Revolution in France" (1790); liberals maintained that by this work he
+had deserted the cause of liberty; conservatives asserted that he had
+become the stoutest champion of order combined with rational freedom. It
+must be acknowledged that Burke erred by judging the state of France
+before the revolution too favorably; if he justly appreciated the
+pernicious influence of Rousseau, "that great professor and hero of
+vanity," he ought to have discerned that a nation, the higher classes of
+which were undermined by materialism and unbelief, while the masses
+lived in deep misery, was incapable of a temperate reform; the follies
+and terrors of the revolution were the children of the sins of the
+"ancien regime." But how amply has history confirmed his judgment on the
+revolution itself! While Fox admired the constitution of 1791 as "the
+most astonishing and glorious edifice of liberty that ever was erected,"
+Burke foresaid that this constitutional king would be torn from his
+throne by the mob, that the wildest anarchy would put France in
+confusion, and that after its exhaustion an unlimited military despotism
+would be established.
+
+This work, which produced a European sensation, receives its true light
+by Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" (1791). His former
+friends having sided with Fox, he refuted the reproach of having
+abandoned his principles by an elaborate comparison of the English
+revolution of 1688 with that of France. His later writings, among which
+the "Thoughts on French Affairs" (1791) and "Thoughts on a Regicide
+Peace" (1796) are the principal, were directed against the foreign
+influence of the revolutionary system, "France being no more a state but
+a faction, which must be destroyed or will destroy Europe." Here again
+Burke was wrong; if France was a revolutionary crater, the safest way
+was to let it burn out in itself, while the insane aggression of
+continental powers only confirmed the reign of terror. Burke would go to
+war for the idea of prescriptive right; Pitt declined to fight for the
+French monarchy, and would make war only for the defence of English
+interests.
+
+Although Burke had the satisfaction of gaining the majority for his
+views, he retired from Parliament in 1794; a pension which he obtained
+he defended in the "Letter to a Noble Lord," a dignified plea, "pro
+domo." One of his last works was "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity"
+(1795). In a time when political economy was still in a state of
+infancy, he held the most enlightened opinions on all questions relating
+to it; his doctrines on prices, wages, rent, etc., are still worth
+reading. Above all, he opposes indiscreet government tampering with the
+trade of provisions. "Once habituated to get cheap bread, the people
+will never be satisfied to get it otherwise, and on the first scarcity
+they will turn and bite the hand that fed them."
+
+Burke died July 8, 1797. His was a character of unblemished purity,
+manly uprightness, and perfect disinterestedness. He was a conservative
+of the truest and best kind, but in his later years went too far in
+supporting existing institutions merely because they existed. Lacking
+practical accommodation to circumstances, he would probably not have
+been a great minister; neither was he a consummate parliamentary
+tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands in the first ranks of
+statesmen and orators. Lord Brougham goes too far in calling his
+speeches spoken dissertations; they were carefully prepared set
+speeches. In them, as in his writings, we admire the most varied
+information, philosophical acuteness, penetrating sagacity, curious
+felicity of expression, and an eloquence embracing the full range and
+depth of the subject. Fox avowed that he had learned more from Burke
+than from all other men and authors, and for the same reason his works
+will remain a mine of political wisdom. The only drawback is that in his
+eagerness he sometimes overstated his case, and, embittered by the
+struggles of his later years, occasionally condescended to expressions
+bordering upon scurrility.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
+
+(1706-1790)
+
+[Illustration: Benjamin Franklin. [TN]]
+
+
+Though eminent qualities are generally necessary to the acquisition of
+permanent fame, the life of Franklin affords signal proof that moderate
+talents, judiciously directed, when aided by industry and perseverance,
+will enable a man to render signal services to his country and his kind,
+and give him a claim to the homage of posterity. He was the fifteenth
+child of a tallow-chandler in Boston, where he was born January 17,
+1706. His father at first intended to educate him for the church, but
+finding that the expense was likely to exceed his means, he took the boy
+home after he had acquired little more than the elements of learning, to
+assist him in his own trade. The boy greatly disliked the nature of the
+employment, and was very anxious to become a sailor. Fortunately for him
+his friends controlled his inclinations; instead of going to sea he was
+apprenticed to his eldest brother, James, who was a printer. Franklin
+records in his Memoirs that though he had only at this time entered his
+twelfth year he paid so much attention to his business that he soon
+became proficient in all its details, and, by the quickness with which
+he executed his work, obtained a little leisure, which he devoted to
+study. His studious habits were noticed by a gentleman named Adams, who
+had a large collection of books, which he placed at the disposal of
+Franklin; among these were some volumes of poetry, which fired his
+emulation, and he began to compose little pieces in verse. Two of these
+were printed by his brother and sold as street-ballads, but they were,
+as he informs us, wretched doggerel, and the ridicule thrown on them by
+his father deterred him from similar attempts. But though he laid aside
+poetry, he did not abandon his ambition to become a good English writer;
+he studied the art of composition with great labor, being rewarded by
+the consciousness of improvement.
+
+Franklin's self-denial and power of control over his appetites were not
+less remarkable than his industry. Having, at the age of sixteen, read a
+work which recommended vegetable diet, he determined to adopt the
+system, and undertook to provide for himself upon his brother's allowing
+him one-half of the ordinary expenses of board. On this pittance he not
+only supported himself, but contrived, by great abstemiousness, to save
+a portion of it, which he devoted to the purchase of books. He soon had
+an opportunity of testing his literary progress; in 1720 his brother
+commenced the publication of a newspaper, the second which had appeared
+in America, called the _New England Courant_. This paper, at a time when
+periodicals were rare, attracted most of the literary men of Boston to
+the house of the proprietor; their conversation, and particularly their
+remarks on the authorship of the various articles contributed to the
+paper, revived Franklin's literary ambition; he sent some communications
+to the journal in a feigned hand; they were inserted, and he tells us
+that "he had the exquisite pleasure to find that they met with
+approbation, and that, in the various conjectures respecting the author,
+no one was mentioned who did not enjoy a high reputation in the country
+for talents and genius." He was thus encouraged to reveal his secret to
+his brother, but he did not obtain the respect and fraternal indulgence
+which he had anticipated. James Franklin was a man of violent temper; he
+treated Benjamin with great harshness, and often proceeded to the
+extremity of blows.
+
+An article which appeared in the _Courant_ having given offence to the
+authorities, James was thrown into prison for a month, and the
+management of the paper devolved on Benjamin. He conducted it with great
+spirit, but with questionable prudence, for he made it the vehicle of
+sharp attacks on the principal persons in the colony. This gave such
+offence that when James was liberated from prison, an arbitrary order
+was issued that he should no longer print the paper called the _New
+England Courant_. To evade this order it was arranged that Benjamin's
+indentures should be cancelled in order that the paper might be
+published in his name, but at the same time a secret contract was made
+between the parties, by which James was entitled to his brother's
+services during the unexpired period of apprenticeship. A fresh quarrel,
+however, soon arose, and Benjamin separated from his brother, taking
+what he has confessed to be an unfair advantage of the circumstance
+that the contract could not be safely brought forward.
+
+The circumstance produced an unfavorable impression on the minds of the
+printers in Boston, and Franklin, finding it impossible to obtain
+employment in his native town, resolved to seek it in New York. Aware
+that his father would be opposed to this measure, he was compelled to
+sell his books to raise money for defraying the expenses of his journey.
+America was at this time very thinly inhabited; there were no public
+conveyances on the roads, the inns were few, and their accommodations
+miserable; but Franklin had accustomed himself to hard fare, and he did
+not allow the inconvenience he endured to interfere with his enjoyment
+of new scenery. On reaching New York he found that the printers there
+had no occasion for his services, and he continued his journey to
+Philadelphia. Having obtained employment in that city from a printer
+named Keimer, Franklin continued to devote his leisure hours to
+literature. The respectability of his appearance and the superior tone
+of his conversation began soon to be remarked; they led to his being
+introduced to several eminent men, and particularly to Sir William
+Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, who frequently invited him to his
+table. Keith urged Franklin to commence business on his own account, and
+when the young man had ineffectually applied for assistance to his
+father in Boston, he advised him to go to London and form a connection
+with some of the great publishing houses, promising him letters of
+credit and recommendation. Franklin sailed for London, but the promised
+letters were never sent; and he found himself, on his arrival in
+England, thrown entirely on his own resources.
+
+Having soon obtained employment, he exhibited to his fellow-workmen an
+edifying example of industry and temperance, by which many of them
+profited. He also published a little work of a sceptical tendency, which
+procured him introductions to some eminent men, but which he afterward
+lamented as one of the greatest errors of his life. After remaining
+about eighteen months in England, he returned to Philadelphia as a clerk
+to Mr. Denham, and on the death of that gentleman went back once more to
+his old employer, Keimer. About this time he established a debating
+society, or club of persons of his own age, for the discussion of
+subjects connected with morals, politics, and natural philosophy. These
+discussions gradually assumed political importance, and had a great
+effect in stimulating the public mind during the War of Independence.
+
+Having quarrelled with Keimer, Franklin entered into partnership with a
+young man named Meredith, and commenced publishing a paper in opposition
+to one which had been started by his former employer. Meredith proving
+negligent of business, Franklin was enabled by his friends to dissolve
+the partnership, and to take the entire business into his own hands. His
+steady adherence to habits of industry and economy had brought him
+comparative wealth; and he now married Miss Read, whom he had met on his
+first arrival in Philadelphia.
+
+In 1732 Franklin began the publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac,"
+which soon became celebrated for its important lessons of practical
+morality. These were subsequently collected in a little volume, and are
+still highly esteemed both in England and America. His high character
+for probity and intelligence induced the citizens of Philadelphia to
+intrust him with the management of public affairs; he was appointed
+clerk of the general assembly, postmaster, and alderman, and was put by
+the governor into the commission of the peace. All the hours he could
+spare from business he now devoted to objects of local utility, and the
+city of Philadelphia is indebted to him for some of its finest buildings
+and best institutions. As his wealth increased he obtained leisure to
+devote himself to the study of philosophy, and to take a leading part in
+political life.
+
+We shall first look at his philosophical labors, by which his name first
+became known abroad. His attention was drawn to the subject of
+electricity in 1746, by some experiments exhibited by Dr. Spence, who
+had come to Boston from Scotland. These isolated experiments were made
+with no regard to system, and led to no results. A glass tube, and some
+other apparatus that had been sent to Franklin by a friend in London,
+enabled him to repeat and verify these experiments. He soon began to
+devise new forms of investigation for himself, and at length made the
+great discovery, which may be said to be the foundation of electrical
+science, that there is a positive and negative state of electricity. By
+this fact he explained the phenomenon of the Leyden phial, which at that
+time excited great attention in Europe, and had foiled the sagacity of
+its principal philosophers. In the course of his investigations he was
+led to suspect the identity of lightning and the electric fluid; and he
+resolved to test this happy conjecture by a direct experiment. His
+apparatus was simply a paper-kite with a key attached to the tail.
+Having raised the kite during a thunder-storm, he watched the result
+with great anxiety; after an interval of painful suspense, he saw the
+filaments of the string exhibit by their motion signs of electrical
+action; he drew in the kite, and, presenting his knuckles to the key,
+received a strong spark, which of course decided the success of the
+experiment. Repeated sparks were drawn from the key, a phial was
+charged, a shock given, and the identity of lightning with the electric
+fluid demonstrated beyond all possibility of doubt.
+
+Franklin had from time to time transmitted accounts of his electrical
+experiments to his friend, Mr. Collinson, in England, in order that they
+should be laid before the Council of the Royal Society; but, as they
+were not published in the "Transactions" of that learned body, Collinson
+gave copies of the communications to Cave, for insertion in the
+_Gentleman's Magazine_. Cave resolved to publish them in a separate
+form, and the work, soon after its appearance, became generally
+recognized as the text-book of electrical science. It was translated
+into French, German, and Latin; the author's experiments were repeated,
+and verified by the leading philosophers of France, Germany, and even
+Russia; the Royal Society atoned for its former tardiness by a hearty
+recognition of their value, and Franklin was elected a member of their
+body without solicitation or expense. The universities of St. Andrews,
+Edinburgh, and Oxford subsequently conferred upon him the honorary title
+of Doctor of Laws.
+
+We must pass more briefly over Franklin's political career. In 1753 he
+was appointed Deputy Postmaster of the American colonies. The
+post-office, which had previously supplied no revenue to the Government,
+became very productive under his management, and yielded three times as
+much as the post-office in Ireland. Nor was this the only service he
+rendered to the Government. At the time of Braddock's unfortunate
+expedition against the French and Indians, he provided conveyances for
+the troops and stores at his own risk; he took a leading part in
+obtaining a militia bill, and he proposed a plan for the union of the
+several colonies in a common system of defence against the Indians.
+These measures greatly increased his influence and popularity.
+
+Pennsylvania was at this period a proprietary government, and the
+proprietary body claimed exemption from taxation. In consequence of the
+disputes to which these claims gave rise, he was sent to England by the
+General Assembly, as agent for the provinces. He performed his duties
+with such zeal and ability, that he was appointed agent for the
+provinces of Massachusetts, Georgia, and Maryland; and, on his return to
+America in 1762, received not only the thanks of the House of Assembly,
+but a grant of L5,000. Previous to his return he made a short visit to
+the continent, and was everywhere received with great honor, especially
+at the court of Louis XV.
+
+In the year 1764, the American colonies, alarmed at the system of
+taxation with which they were menaced by the British, resolved that
+Franklin should be sent to England, no longer as an agent, but as the
+general representative of the States. In this character he arrived in
+London about forty years after his first appearance in that city as a
+distressed mechanic. His own mind was strongly impressed by the
+contrast; he went to the printing-office where he had worked, introduced
+himself to the men employed there, and joined in a little festival in
+honor of printing. He officially presented to Mr. Grenville a petition
+against the Stamp Act, but finding that the minister was not deterred
+from his purpose, he zealously exerted himself to organize an opposition
+to the measure. When it was proposed to repeal the bill in the following
+year, Franklin was examined before the House of Commons; the effect of
+his evidence was decisive, and the Stamp Act was repealed.
+
+The quarrel with the colonies, however, grew more and more bitter; and
+while Franklin's words were always of peace, he championed the American
+cause with power and dignity. Attempts were made to win him over to the
+side of the Government, by offers of high honors and liberal emoluments;
+but threats and promises were alike unavailing to divert him from his
+course. He lingered in England, hoping that some turn in public affairs
+would avert the fatal necessity of war; but when the petition of the
+American Congress was rejected, and Lord Chatham's plan of
+reconciliation outvoted, he resolved to return home and share the
+fortunes of his countrymen. His departure was hastened by the
+intelligence that the ministers intended to arrest him on a charge of
+fomenting rebellion in the colonies; he narrowly escaped this danger,
+and on landing in America, he was elected a member of Congress.
+
+Soon after the declaration of independence was issued, Dr. Franklin was
+sent as ambassador to France, to solicit aid for the infant republic. On
+his first arrival, in 1776, he was not officially received; but when the
+intelligence of the English losses had given courage to the French
+court, negotiations were formally commenced, and on February 7, 1778, he
+had the honor of signing the first treaty between the United States and
+a foreign power. He remained at the French court as ambassador until the
+end of the war, when, as an American plenipotentiary, he signed the
+treaty of Paris, by which Great Britain recognized the independence of
+the United States. At the close of the negotiations (November, 1782), he
+was anxious to be recalled; but his diplomatic services were too highly
+valued to be spared, and he remained at Paris three years longer, during
+which period he negotiated treaties with Sweden and with Prussia. His
+residence in France was cheered by the enthusiasm with which he was
+regarded by all classes, particularly persons of literature and science;
+his departure from that city was lamented as a general loss to society.
+
+Honors of every kind awaited him on his return to his native land; he
+was appointed President of the State of Pennsylvania, and a member of
+the Federal Convention, by which the American Constitution was framed.
+But old age, and a painful disease, to which he had been long subject,
+compelled him to retire into the bosom of his family. Notwithstanding
+his sufferings, he preserved his affections and faculties unimpaired to
+the last, and died tranquilly, April 17, 1790. The American Congress,
+and the National Assembly of France, both went into mourning on
+receiving the intelligence of his death.
+
+Franklin's powers were useful rather than brilliant; his philosophical
+discoveries were the result of patience and perseverance; with a warmer
+imagination he would probably have been misled by speculative theory,
+like so many of his contemporaries. His industry and his temperance were
+the sources of his early success, and they nurtured in him that spirit
+of independence which was the leading characteristic of his private and
+public career.
+
+
+
+
+PATRICK HENRY[3]
+
+By GENERAL BRADLEY T. JOHNSON
+
+(1736-1799)
+
+         [Footnote 3: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Patrick Henry. [TN]]
+
+
+Patrick Henry was born in Hanover County, Virginia, May 29, 1736; died
+in Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799. He was the son of Colonel
+John Henry, of Mount Brilliant, a Scotchman by birth, who was the nephew
+of Dr. William Robertson, the historian. Henry received only the limited
+education accessible in the rural locality in which he was born,
+consisting of the rudiments of an English training and absolutely no
+acquaintance with the classics. His early youth was spent on the
+plantation, occupied with the amusements of his age and his epoch;
+fishing and hunting gave him acquaintance with the fields, the streams,
+and the forests, and the observation of nature, her changes, her forces,
+and her moods. The habits thus formed evolved in part the great power of
+introspection and analysis of the feelings of men which afterward gave
+him such control of them.
+
+At the age of fifteen he was placed in a country store as assistant
+salesman, or clerk. After a year's experience, his father purchased a
+small stock of goods for him, and set him up on his own account in
+partnership with his brother William.
+
+This adventure came to grief in a year, and then Henry, at the age of
+eighteen, married Miss Shelton, the daughter of a neighboring farmer.
+
+The young couple were settled on a farm by the joint efforts of their
+parents, where they endeavored to win a subsistence with the assistance
+of two or three servants. In two years he sold out and invested in
+another mercantile undertaking. In a few years this ended in bankruptcy,
+leaving him without a dollar and with a wife and an increasing family to
+support. He was devoted to music, dancing, and amusement, and was
+incapable of continuous physical or intellectual labor. He had devoted
+himself to desultory reading of the best kind, and made himself
+acquainted with the history of England, of Greece, and of Rome. He
+therefore undertook to win a support by the profession and the practice
+of the law, and after a brief pretence of preparation, by the generosity
+of the bar at that period, was admitted to practice. The vigor of his
+intellect, his powerful logic, and his acute analysis induced the
+examining committee to sign his certificate.
+
+That committee consisted of Mr. Lyons, then the leader of the Provincial
+bar, afterward president-judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals of
+Virginia; Mr. John Lewis, an eminent lawyer, and John Randolph,
+afterward knighted and as Sir John Randolph, the king's Attorney General
+for Virginia. Henry was twenty-four when admitted to the bar, and for
+three years did nothing.
+
+Under the law of Virginia the people, without regard to religious
+belief, were bound to pay a tax of so many pounds of tobacco per poll
+for the support of the clergy. The parson of each parish was entitled to
+sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco per annum. When the price of tobacco
+was low this imposition was borne not without grumbling. When short
+crops or increased demand raised the price, the General Assembly of the
+colony by law allowed the people the option to pay their poll-tax in
+tobacco, or to commute it at the fixed price of 16_s._ and 8_d._ per
+hundred. When the market price was above that the tax was paid in
+currency; when it was below, in tobacco. When tobacco rose to 50_s._ per
+hundred the parsons demanded tobacco for their salaries instead of
+16_s._ 8_d._ per hundred. The King in council declared the Commutation
+Act void, and the parsons brought suit for their salaries. The
+defendants pleaded the Commutation Act in defence; to this plea the
+plaintiffs demurred; and the court, as it was bound to do, gave judgment
+for the plaintiff on the demurrer. The only question then left was the
+_quantum_ of damages, to be assessed by a jury. The case selected for a
+test was the case of the Rev. James Maury against the sheriff of Hanover
+County and his sureties. It was set for trial at the December term of
+the County Court of Hanover, 1763. Henry was retained for the defendant,
+and made an argument so forcible, so conclusive, and so eloquent that it
+has made his fame as "the greatest orator who ever lived," as Mr.
+Jefferson wrote of him. He took the ground that allegiance and
+protection in government are reciprocal, that the King of Great Britain
+had failed to protect the people of Virginia in their rights as
+Englishmen, and that therefore they owed no allegiance to him and he had
+no right to declare laws made by them void, therefore his nullification
+of the Commutation Act was void and of no effect. The jury found for the
+plaintiff with one penny damages, and thus ended the attempt to rely
+upon the power of the king to set aside laws made by Virginia for her
+own government.
+
+It was the first announcement in America of the radical revolutionary
+doctrine that government is a matter of compact with the people, and
+when the former breaks the agreement, the latter are absolved from
+obedience to it.
+
+The next year Henry removed to Louisa County and was employed by
+Dandridge in the contested election case of Dandridge _v._ Littlepage
+before the House of Burgesses for a seat in that body. When the Stamp
+Act passed in 1765, Mr. William Johnson, member of the House of
+Burgesses for Louisa County, resigned his place to make way for Henry,
+who was elected to fill the vacancy.
+
+This body consisted of some of the ablest and most illustrious Americans
+who ever lived. George Washington, Peyton Randolph, Richard Bland,
+Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee were all members, and
+Henry at the first session won a place in the front rank among them. In
+May, 1765, he introduced a series of resolutions, reiterating and
+enlarging the propositions of the parson's case, and declaring that the
+people of Virginia are entitled to all the rights of British subjects,
+and that they alone, through their General Assembly, "have the sole
+right and power to lay taxes and impositions on this colony," and that
+any attempt by any other authority "has a manifest tendency to destroy
+British as well as American freedom." They were opposed by the old
+members, but the eloquent logic of Henry, backed by Johnston, a member
+from Fairfax, carried them by a close vote, the last one by a majority
+of one.
+
+In this debate, Henry in a passion of eloquence exclaimed, "Caesar had
+his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George III.----"
+"Treason," cried the Speaker and the House----"may profit by their
+example. If this be treason, make the most of it."
+
+The next day, the House in a panic, reconsidered, rejected, and expunged
+from the _Journal_ the last resolution, which asserted the sole right
+of taxation in Virginia, and denied it to Parliament.
+
+Henry continued a member of the House of Burgesses from Louisa County
+until the close of the Revolution. He led Virginia in resistance to the
+tax on tea, and in organizing armed resistance to the Mother Country by
+all the colonies. He was among the first of the Americans who understood
+that liberty could only be preserved by defending it by force.
+
+He was sent as a deputy from Virginia to the first Continental Congress,
+which met at Philadelphia in September, 1774. He at once took a
+commanding influence in that body, and on its adjournment in October,
+returned home.
+
+In March, 1776, he attended the Convention of Virginia held in Richmond.
+Here he moved that "this colony be immediately put in a state of
+defence, and that a committee be appointed to prepare a plan for
+embodying, assigning, and disciplining such a number of men as may be
+sufficient for that purpose." Bland, Harrison, Pendleton, and Nicholas,
+all vigorously opposed these resolutions as leading inevitably and
+logically to revolution and separation; but Henry, in a storm of
+patriotic, eloquent enthusiasm, carried everything, uttering those
+deathless sentences, "Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand
+we here idle. What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?
+
+"Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
+chains and slavery?
+
+"Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as
+for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
+
+The resolutions were carried and Henry made chairman of the committee to
+organize the colony. He proceeded with great vigor to form companies of
+cavalry or infantry in every county. On April 20, 1775, Lord Dunmore,
+the royal governor, seized the powder of the colony and placed it on the
+armed schooner Magdalene. The country rose at once. Henry, as captain,
+marched the independent company of Hanover on Williamsburgh, to compel
+the governor to pay for or restore the powder. Five thousand armed men
+were marching from the counties to reinforce him, when Lord Dunmore,
+through the intercession of Peyton Randolph, paid Henry for the powder
+and induced the volunteers from Hanover, Frederick, Berkeley, and other
+counties to return to their homes. As soon as they had returned, Dunmore
+issued a proclamation denouncing Henry and his comrades as traitors and
+rebels.
+
+Henry was elected by the Virginia Convention one of the deputies to the
+second Continental Congress. He was also elected colonel of the first
+Virginia Regiment, and "commander-in-chief of all the forces raised and
+to be raised for the defence of the colony." Lord Dunmore having erected
+a fortification south of Norfolk, at Great Bridge, Colonel Woodford,
+with the second Virginia Regiment, was sent by the Committee of Safety
+to drive him away, which he did promptly and well. Henry claimed the
+right to command this expedition himself, but his claim was not admitted
+by the committee, and his authority was disclaimed by Colonel Woodford.
+Henry insisted upon having the question of rank between them decided,
+and the committee decided in favor of Colonel Henry. Yet when brigadiers
+were selected by Congress to command the troops of Virginia in the
+Continental Army, Andrew Lewis was made brigadier, Henry colonel of the
+first regiment. He promptly refused the Continental commission, and
+resigned the one held in the service of Virginia. Henry's conduct was
+justified in the opinion of his contemporaries and of posterity. He had
+led the colony at the risk of life and fortune, he had organized and led
+the first movement of troops against the royal authority, he had been
+appointed commander-in-chief and colonel of the First Regiment, and then
+had been superseded in command by another, without excuse or
+justification. He was thus driven out of the military service by petty
+intrigues and small jealousies of smaller men, and the country deprived
+of his great abilities in the military field.
+
+On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed their deputies in
+Congress "to declare the United Colonies free and independent States,"
+and on June 29th adopted a form of State government and elected Mr.
+Henry governor. During the winter of 1776-77 was the darkest period of
+the revolution, and it has been charged that it was proposed to create
+him dictator; but his friends have always denied this, and it seems with
+truth, for he was re-elected governor, May 30th, 1777. He was a firm
+supporter of General Washington through all the trials of that period,
+and firmly stood by him against the intrigue in the army to supersede
+him with Gates. He was again elected governor in the spring of 1778, and
+the next year declined a re-election because in his opinion he was
+ineligible. His wife, Miss Shelton, died in 1775, leaving him the father
+of six children, and in 1777 he married Dorothea, daughter of Nathaniel
+W. Dandridge.
+
+After the expiration of his gubernatorial service he retired to his
+estate in Henry County. He was elected to the General Assembly for that
+County in 1780, and he continued to represent it until after the
+revolution. He took the ground of amnesty to the Tories and the
+resumption of commercial intercourse with Great Britain. In 1784, he
+introduced and urged the passage of a bill to promote inter-marriages
+with the Indians, which failed to pass from his being again elected
+governor on November 17, 1784, for the term of three years.
+
+He declined a re-election, and was appointed one of the deputies from
+Virginia to the Constitutional Convention to meet in Philadelphia. The
+order of appointment being George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund
+Randolph, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason and George Wythe. He,
+however, was too poor to perform the duties of the office and was
+obliged to return to the practice of the law. He was sent as a member
+from Prince Edward to the convention to consider the Federal
+Constitution which had been framed at Philadelphia. The convention met
+at Richmond, June 2, 1788.
+
+It was composed of the most illustrious men that Virginia ever produced,
+and was probably the ablest body that ever convened in any country in
+any age. James Madison, John Marshall, James Monroe, Edmund Pendleton,
+George Nicholas, George Mason, Jarvis, Grayson, and Henry, Lee, and
+Randolph were among the members. Henry vigorously opposed the
+ratification of the new constitution on the ground that it would
+establish a government of the people in place of a government of the
+States, and would create a consolidated government with omnipotent
+power, without check or balance, and lead to a great and mighty empire
+and an absolute despotism. The Federal party carried the ratification
+under the lead of Madison and Marshall by a majority of ten.
+
+In the ensuing General Assembly Henry opposed the election of Madison as
+one of the first senators under the new constitution, and secured that
+of Richard Henry Lee and Grayson to represent Virginia in the first
+Congress. He also drafted and had passed resolutions calling upon
+Congress to call a Constitutional Convention of the States to cure by
+amendments the many defects in the Federal Constitution which were
+indicated by the amendments proposed to it by Virginia. The Convention
+was never called, but ten of the amendments were adopted by Congress and
+ratified by the States.
+
+He declined a re-election to the General Assembly in 1791, and retired
+to private life. In November, 1791, he appeared before the Federal Court
+in Richmond, for the defendant in the case of the British debts. The
+question involved was the right of Virginia to confiscate, during the
+war, debts due by her citizens to subjects of Great Britain. With Henry
+was John Marshall, and in the argument Henry made the greatest legal
+effort of his life.
+
+In November, 1795, he was again elected Governor of Virginia, but
+declined on account of his age. He was offered the mission to Spain by
+Washington during his first term, and to France during his second--both
+of which positions he declined. Alarmed at the position taken by the
+Virginia resolutions of 1798, he became a candidate for, and was elected
+to the General Assembly from Charlotte County in 1799. But the Virginia
+Legislature was opposed to his views, and reiterated those set forth in
+the resolution of 1798.
+
+His health had been infirm for several years, and he died June 6, 1799.
+The General Assembly passed resolutions recording their love and
+veneration for his name and fame, and ordered a bust of him to be
+procured and set up in one of the niches of the hall of the House of
+Delegates. It is now in the capitol at Richmond.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE WASHINGTON
+
+(1732-1799)
+
+[Illustration: George Washington. [TN]]
+
+
+George Washington was born at Bridge's Creek, in Westmoreland County,
+Va., on February 22, 1732. The first of the family who settled in
+Virginia came from Northampton, but their ancestors are believed to have
+been from Lancashire, while the ancient stock of the family is traced to
+the De Wessyngtons of Durham. George Washington's father, Augustine, who
+died, after a sudden illness, in 1743, was twice married. At his death
+he left two surviving sons by the first marriage, and by the second,
+four sons (of whom George was the eldest) and a daughter. The mother of
+George Washington survived to see her son President. Augustine
+Washington left all his children in a state of comparative independence;
+to his eldest son by the first marriage he left an estate (afterward
+called Mount Vernon) of twenty-five hundred acres and shares in iron
+works situated in Virginia and Maryland; to the second, an estate in
+Westmoreland. Confiding in the prudence of his widow, he directed that
+the proceeds of all the property of her children should be at her
+disposal till they should respectively come of age; to George were left
+the lands and mansion occupied by his father at his decease; to each of
+the other sons, an estate of six or seven hundred acres; a suitable
+provision was made for the daughter.
+
+George Washington was indebted for all the education he received to one
+of the common schools of the province, in which little was taught beyond
+reading, writing, and accounts. He left it before he had completed his
+sixteenth year; the last two years of his attendance had been devoted to
+the study of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying. He had learned to
+use logarithms. It is doubtful whether he ever received any instruction
+in the grammar of his own language; and although, when the French
+officers under Rochambeau were in America, he attempted to acquire their
+language, it appears to have been without success. From his thirteenth
+year he evinced a turn for mastering the forms of deeds, constructing
+diagrams, and preparing tabular statements. His juvenile manuscripts
+have been preserved; the handwriting is neat, but stiff. During the last
+summer he was at school, he surveyed the fields adjoining the
+school-house and the surrounding plantations, entering his measurements
+and calculations in a respectable field-book. He compiled about the same
+time, from various sources, "Rules of Behavior in Company and
+Conversation." Some selections in rhyme appear in his manuscripts, but
+the passages were evidently selected for the moral and religious
+sentiments they express, not from any taste for poetry. When a boy he
+was fond of forming his school-mates into companies, who paraded and
+fought mimic battles, in which he always commanded one of the parties.
+He cultivated with ardor all athletic exercises. His demeanor and
+conduct at school are said to have won the deference of the other boys,
+who were accustomed to make him the arbiter of their disputes.
+
+From the time of his leaving school till the latter part of 1753,
+Washington was unconsciously preparing himself for the great duties he
+had afterward to discharge. An attempt made to have him entered in the
+Royal Navy, in 1746, was frustrated by the interposition of his mother.
+The winter of 1748-49 he passed at Mount Vernon, then the seat of his
+brother Lawrence, in the study of mathematics and the exercise of
+practical surveying. George was introduced about this time to the family
+of Lord Fairfax, his brother having married the daughter of William
+Fairfax, a member of the Colonial Council, and a distant relative of
+that nobleman. The immense tracts of wild lands belonging to Lord
+Fairfax, in the valley of the Alleghany Mountains, had never been
+surveyed; he had formed a favorable estimate of the talents of young
+Washington, and intrusted the task to him. His first essay was on some
+lands situated on the south branch of the Potomac, seventy miles above
+its junction with the main branch. Although performed in an almost
+impenetrable country, while winter yet lingered in the valleys, by a
+youth who had only a month before completed his sixteenth year, it gave
+so much satisfaction that he soon after received a commission as public
+surveyor, an appointment which gave authority to his surveys, and
+enabled him to enter them in the county offices.
+
+The next three years were devoted without intermission, except in the
+winter months, to his profession. There were few surveyors in Virginia,
+and the demand for their services was consequently great, and their
+remuneration ample. Washington spent a considerable portion of these
+three years among the Alleghanies. The exposures and hardships of the
+wilderness could be endured only for a few weeks together, and he
+recruited his strength by surveying, at intervals, tracts and farms in
+the settled districts. Even at that early age his regular habits enabled
+him to acquire some property; and his probity and business talent
+obtained for him the confidence of the leading men of the colony.
+
+At the time he attained his nineteenth year the frontiers were
+threatened with Indian depredations and French encroachments. To meet
+this danger the province was divided into military districts, to each of
+which an adjutant-general with the rank of major was appointed. George
+Washington was commissioned to one of these districts, with a salary of
+L150 per annum. There were many provincial officers (his brother among
+the number) in Virginia, who had served in the expedition against
+Carthagena and in the West Indies. Under them he studied military
+exercises and tactics, entering with alacrity and zeal into the duties
+of his office. These pursuits were varied by a voyage to Barbadoes, and
+a residence of some months in that colony, in company with his brother
+Lawrence, who was sent there by his physicians to seek relief from a
+pulmonary complaint. Fragments of the journal kept by George Washington
+on this excursion have been preserved; they evince an interest in a wide
+range of subjects, and habits of minute observation. At sea the log-book
+was daily copied, and the application of his favorite mathematics to
+navigation studied; in the island, the soil, agricultural products,
+modes of culture, fruits, commerce, military force, fortifications,
+manners of the inhabitants, municipal regulations and government, all
+were noted in this journal. Lawrence Washington died in July, 1752,
+leaving a wife and infant daughter, and upon George, although the
+youngest executor, devolved the whole management of the property, in
+which he had a residuary interest. The affairs of the estate were
+extensive and complicated, and engrossed much of his time and thoughts
+for several months. His public duties were not, however, neglected. Soon
+after the arrival of Governor Dinwiddie the number of military divisions
+was reduced to four and the northern division allotted to Washington. It
+included several counties, which he had visited at stated intervals, to
+train and instruct the military officers, inspect the men, arms, and
+accoutrements, and establish a uniform system of manoeuvres and
+discipline.
+
+In 1753 the French in Canada pushed troops across the lakes, and at the
+same time bodies of armed men ascended from New Orleans to form a
+junction with them, and establish themselves on the upper waters of the
+Ohio. Governor Dinwiddie resolved to send a commissioner to confer with
+the French officer in command, and inquire by what authority he occupied
+a territory claimed by the British. This charge required a man of
+discretion, accustomed to travel in the woods, and familiar with Indian
+manners. Washington was selected, notwithstanding his youth, as
+possessed of these requisites. He set out from Williamsburg on October
+31, 1753, and returned on January 16, 1754. He discovered that a
+permanent settlement was contemplated by the French within the British
+territory, and notwithstanding the vigilance of the garrison, he
+contrived to bring back with him a plan of their fort on a branch of
+French Creek, fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and an accurate
+description of its form, size, construction, cannon, and barracks.
+
+In March, 1754, the military establishment of the colony was increased
+to six companies. Colonel Fry, an Englishman of scientific acquirements
+and gentlemanly manners, was placed at the head of them, and Washington
+was appointed second in command. His first campaign was a trying but
+useful school to him. He was pushed forward, with three small companies,
+to occupy the outposts of the Ohio, in front of a superior French force,
+and unsupported by his commanding officer. Relying upon his own
+resources and the friendship of the Indians, Washington pushed boldly
+on. On May 27th he encountered and defeated a detachment of the French
+army under M. De Jumonville, who fell in the action. Soon after Colonel
+Fry died suddenly, and the chief command devolved upon Washington.
+Innis, the commander of the North Carolina troops, was, it is true,
+placed over his head, but the new commander never took the field. An
+ill-timed parsimony had occasioned disgust among the soldiers, but
+Washington remained unshaken. Anticipating that a strong detachment
+would be sent against him from Fort Duquesne as soon as Jumonville's
+defeat was known there, he intrenched himself on the Great Meadows. The
+advance of the French in force obliged him to retreat, but this
+operation he performed in a manner that elicited a vote of thanks from
+the House of Burgesses. In 1755 Colonel Washington acceded to the
+request of General Braddock to take part in the campaign as one of his
+military family, retaining his former rank. When privately consulted by
+Braddock, "I urged him," wrote Washington, "in the warmest terms I was
+able, to push forward, if he even did it with a small but chosen band,
+with such artillery and light stores as were necessary, leaving the
+heavy artillery and baggage to follow with the rear division by slow and
+easy marches." This advice prevailed. Washington was, however, attacked
+by a violent fever, in consequence of which he was only able to rejoin
+the army on the evening before the battle of the Monongahela. In that
+fatal affair he exposed himself with the most reckless bravery, and when
+the soldiers were finally put to rout, hastened to the rear division to
+order up horses and wagons for the wounded. The panic-stricken army
+dispersed on all sides, and Washington retired to Mount Vernon, which
+had now, by the death of his brother's daughter without issue, become
+his own property. His bravery was universally admitted, and it was known
+that latterly his prudent counsels had been disregarded.
+
+In the autumn of the same year he was appointed to reorganize the
+provincial troops. He retained the command of them till the close of the
+campaign of 1758. The tardiness and irresolution of provincial
+assemblies and governors compelled him to act during much of this time
+upon the defensive; but to the necessity hence imposed upon him of
+projecting a chain of defensive forts for the Ohio frontier, he was
+indebted for that mastery of this kind of war, which afterward availed
+him so much. Till 1758 the Virginia troops remained on the footing of
+militia; and Washington having had ample opportunities to convince
+himself of the utter worthlessness of a militia in time of war, in the
+beginning of that year prevailed upon the Government to organize them on
+the same footing as the royal forces. At the same time that Washington's
+experience was extending, his sentiments of allegiance were weakened by
+the reluctance with which the claims of the provincial officers were
+admitted, and the unreserved preference uniformly given to the officers
+of the regular army. At the close of 1758 he resigned his commission and
+retired into private life.
+
+On January 6, 1759, he married Mrs. Martha Custis, a young widow with
+two children. "Mr. Custis," says Mr. Sparke, "had left large landed
+estates, and L45,000 sterling in money. One-third of this property she
+held in her own right; the other two-thirds being equally divided
+between her two children." Washington had a considerable fortune of his
+own at the time of his marriage, consisting of the estate at Mount
+Vernon, and large tracts of land which he had selected during his
+surveying expeditions and obtained grants of at different times. He now
+devoted himself to the management of this extensive property, and to the
+guardianship of Mrs. Washington's children, and till the commencement of
+1763 was, in appearance at least, principally occupied with these
+private matters. He found time, however, for public civil duties. He had
+been elected a member of the House of Burgesses before he resigned his
+commission, and although there were commonly two, and sometimes three
+sessions in every year, he was punctual in his attendance from beginning
+to end of each. During the period of his service in the Legislature he
+frequently attended on such theatrical exhibitions as were then
+presented in America, and lived on terms of intimacy with the most
+eminent men of Virginia. At Mount Vernon he practised on a large scale
+the hospitality for which the Southern planters have ever been
+distinguished. His chief diversion in the country was the chase. He
+exported the produce of his estates to London, Liverpool, and Bristol,
+and imported everything required for his property, and domestic
+establishment. His industry was equal to his enterprise; his day-books,
+ledgers and letter-books were all kept by himself and he drew up his own
+contracts and deeds. In the House of Burgesses he seldom spoke, but
+nothing escaped his notice, and his opinion was eagerly sought and
+followed. He assumed trusts at the solicitation of friends, and was much
+in request as an arbitrator. He was, probably without being himself
+aware of it, establishing a wide and strong influence, which no person
+suspected till the time arrived for exercising it.
+
+On March 4, 1773, Lord Dunmore prorogued the intractable House of
+Burgesses. Washington had been a close observer of every previous
+movement in his country, though it was not in his nature to play the
+agitator. He had expressed his disapprobation of the Stamp Act in
+unqualified terms. The non-importation agreement, drawn up by George
+Mason in 1769, was presented to the members of the dissolved House of
+Burgesses by Washington. In 1773 he supported the resolutions
+instituting a committee of correspondence and recommending the
+legislatures of the other colonies to do the same. He represented
+Fairfax County in the Convention which met at Williamsburg, in August,
+1774, and was appointed by it one of the six Virginian delegates to the
+first General Congress. On his return from Congress he was virtually
+placed in command of the Virginian Independent Companies. In the spring
+of 1775 he devised a plan for the more complete military organization of
+Virginia; and on June 15th of that year, he was elected
+commander-in-chief of the continental army by Congress.
+
+[Illustration: The surrender of Cornwallis to Washington.]
+
+The portion of Washington's life which we have hitherto been passing in
+review, may be considered as his probationary period--the time during
+which he was training himself for the great business of his life. His
+subsequent career naturally subdivides itself into two periods--that of
+his military command and that of his presidency. In the former we have
+Washington the soldier; in the latter, Washington the statesman. His
+avocations from 1748 to 1775 were as good a school as can well be
+conceived for acquiring the accomplishments of either character. His
+early intimacy and connection with the Fairfax family had taught him to
+look on society with the eyes of the class which takes a part in
+government. His familiarity with applied mathematics and his experience
+as a surveyor on the wild frontier lands, had made him master of that
+most important branch of knowledge for a commander--the topography of
+the country. His experience as a parade officer, as a partisan on the
+frontier, and as the commander of considerable bodies of disciplined
+troops, had taught him the principles both of the war of detail and the
+war of large masses. On the other hand, his punctual habits of business,
+his familiarity with the details both of agriculture and commerce, and
+the experience he had acquired as trustee, arbitrator, and member of the
+House of Burgesses, were so many preparatory studies for the duties of a
+statesman. He commenced his great task of first liberating and then
+governing a nation, with all the advantages of this varied experience,
+in his forty-third year, an age at which the physical vigor is
+undiminished, and the intellect fully ripe. He persevered in it, with a
+brief interval of repose, for upward of twenty years, with almost
+uniform success, and with an exemption from the faults of great leaders
+unparalleled in history.
+
+Washington was elected commander-in-chief on June 15, 1775; he resigned
+his commission into the hands of the President of Congress on December
+23, 1783. His intermediate record as a general, and as the steadfast and
+undismayed leader of an apparently hopeless struggle, we pass over here.
+It is the entire history of the American Revolution.
+
+We must also pass briefly over the interval which separates the epoch of
+Washington the soldier from that of Washington the statesman--the few
+years which elapsed between the resignation of his command in 1783, and
+his election as first President of the United States, in February, 1789.
+It was for him no period of idleness. In addition to a liberal increase
+of hospitality at Mount Vernon, and indefatigable attention to the
+management of his large estates, he actively promoted in his own State,
+plans of internal navigation, acts for encouraging education, and plans
+for the civilization of the Indians. He also acted as delegate from
+Virginia to the Convention which framed the first constitution of the
+United States. We now turn to contemplate him as president.
+
+Washington left Mount Vernon for New York, which was then the seat of
+Congress, on April 16, 1789. His journey was a triumphal procession. He
+took the oath of office on April 30th, with religious services,
+processions, and other solemnities.
+
+The new president's first step was to request elaborate reports from the
+Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary of War, and the
+Commissioners of the Treasury. The reports he read, and condensed with
+his own hand, particularly those of the Treasury board. The voluminous
+official correspondence in the public archives, from the time of the
+treaty of peace till the time he entered on the presidency, he read,
+abridged, and studied, with the view of fixing in his mind every
+important point that had been discussed, and the history of what had
+been done.
+
+His arrangements for the transaction of business and the reception of
+visitors were characterized by the same spirit of order which had marked
+him when a boy and when at the head of the army. Every Tuesday, between
+the hours of three and four, he was prepared to receive such persons as
+chose to call. Every Friday afternoon the rooms were open in like manner
+for visits to Mrs. Washington. He accepted no invitations to dinner, but
+invited to his own table foreign ministers, officers of the government,
+and others, in such numbers as his domestic establishment could
+accommodate. The rest of the week-days were devoted to business
+appointments. No visits were received on Sunday, or promiscuous company
+admitted; he attended church regularly, and the rest of that day was his
+own.
+
+The organization of the executive departments was decreed by act of
+Congress during the first session. They were the Departments of Foreign
+Affairs (afterward called the Department of State, and including both
+foreign and domestic affairs), of the Treasury, and of War. It devolved
+upon the president to select proper persons to fill the several offices.
+Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State; Hamilton, Secretary of the
+Treasury; and Knox, Secretary of War. Randolph had the post of
+Attorney-General. Jay was made Chief-Justice. After making these
+appointments he undertook a tour through the Eastern States, and
+returned to be present at the opening of Congress, in January, 1790.
+
+In his opening speech he recommended to the attention of the Legislature
+a provision for the common defence; laws for naturalizing foreigners; a
+uniform system of currency, weights, and measures; the encouragement of
+agriculture, commerce, and manufactures; the promotion of science and
+literature; and an effective system for the support of the public
+credit. The last topic gave rise to protracted and vehement debates. At
+last Hamilton's plan for funding all the domestic debts was carried by a
+small majority in both Houses of Congress. The president suppressed his
+sentiments on the subject while it was under debate in Congress, but he
+approved the act for funding the public debt, and was from conviction a
+decided friend to the measure. It now became apparent to the most
+unreflecting that two great parties were in the process of formation,
+the one jealous of anything that might encroach upon democratic
+principles; the other distrustful of the power of institutions so simple
+as those of the United States to preserve tranquillity and the cohesion
+of the state. Jefferson was the head of the Democratic, Hamilton of what
+was afterward called the Federalist party. Washington endeavored to
+reconcile these ardent and incompatible spirits. His own views were more
+in accordance with those of Hamilton; but he knew Jefferson's value as a
+statesman, and he felt the importance of the president remaining
+independent of either party. The two secretaries, however, continued to
+diverge in their political course, and ultimately their differences
+settled into personal enmity.
+
+The president's term of office was drawing to a close, and an anxious
+wish began to prevail that he should allow himself to be elected for a
+second term. Jefferson, Hamilton, and Randolph--who did not exactly
+coincide with either--all shared in this anxiety, and each wrote a long
+letter to Washington, assigning reasons for his allowing himself to be
+re-elected. He yielded; and on March 4, 1793, he took the oath of office
+in the senate chamber.
+
+The first question that came before the cabinet after the re-election,
+rendered more decided the differences which already existed. The
+European parties, of which the court of England and the French republic
+were the representatives, were eager to draw the United States into the
+vortex of their struggle. The president and his cabinet were unanimous
+in their determination to preserve neutrality, but the aristocratic and
+democratic sections of the cabinet could not refrain from displaying
+their respective biases and their jealousy of each other. Foreign
+affairs were mingled with domestic politics, and the Democratic and
+Federalist parties became avowedly organized. Washington was for a time
+allowed to keep aloof from the contest--not for a long time. A
+circumstance insignificant in itself increased the bitterness of the
+contest out of doors. Democratic societies had been formed on the model
+of the Jacobin clubs of France. Washington regarded them with alarm, and
+the unmeasured expression of his sentiments on this head subjected him
+to a share in the attacks made upon the party accused of undue fondness
+for England and English institutions.
+
+Advices from the American minister in London representing that the
+British cabinet was disposed to settle the differences between the two
+countries amicably, Washington nominated Mr. Jay to the Senate as
+Envoy-extraordinary to the court of Great Britain. The nomination,
+though strenuously opposed by the Democratic party, was confirmed in the
+Senate by a majority of two to one. The treaty negotiated by Jay was
+received at the seat of government in March, 1795, soon after the
+session of Congress closed. The president summoned the Senate to meet in
+June to ratify it. The treaty was ratified. Before the treaty was signed
+by the president it was surreptitiously published. It was vehemently
+condemned, and public meetings against it were held to intimidate the
+executive. The president, nevertheless, signed the treaty on August
+18th. When Congress met in March, 1796, a resolution was carried by a
+large majority in the House of Representatives, requesting the president
+to lay before the house the instructions to Mr. Jay, the correspondence,
+and other documents relating to the negotiations. Washington declined to
+furnish the papers; a vehement debate ensued, but in the end the hostile
+majority yielded to the exigency of the case and united in passing laws
+for the fulfilment of the treaty.
+
+The two houses of Congress met again in December. Washington had
+published on September 15th his farewell address to the United States.
+He now delivered his last speech to Congress, and took occasion to urge
+upon that body the gradual increase of the navy, a provision for the
+encouragement of agriculture and manufactures, the establishment of a
+national university, and of a military academy. Little was done during
+the session; public attention was engrossed by the presidential
+election. Adams, the Federalist candidate, had the highest number of
+votes; Jefferson, the Democratic candidate (who was consequently
+declared vice-president), the next. Washington's commanding character
+and isolation from party, had preserved this degree of strength to the
+holders of his own political views. He was present as a spectator at
+the installation of his successor, and immediately afterward returned to
+Mount Vernon.
+
+He survived till December 14, 1799, but except when summoned in May,
+1798, to take the command of the provincial army, on the prospect of a
+war with France, did not again engage in public business.
+
+The character of Washington is one of simple and substantial greatness.
+His passions were vehement but concentrated, and thoroughly under
+control. An irresistible strength of will was combined with a singularly
+well-balanced mind, with much sagacity, much benevolence, much love of
+justice. Without possessing what may be called genius, Washington was
+endowed with a rare quickness of perception and soundness of judgment,
+and an eager desire of knowledge. His extremely methodical habits
+enabled him to find time for everything, and were linked with a talent
+for organization. During the War of Independence he was the defensive
+force of America; wanting him, it would almost appear as if the
+democratic mass must have resolved itself into its elements. To place
+Washington as a warrior on a footing with the Caesars, Napoleons, and
+Wellingtons, would be absurd. He lost more battles than he gained. But
+he kept an army together and kept up resistance to the enemy, under more
+adverse circumstances than any other general ever did. His services as a
+statesman were similar in kind. He upheld the organization of the
+American state during the first eight years of its existence, amid the
+storms of Jacobinical controversy, and gave it time to consolidate. No
+other American but himself could have done this, for of all the American
+leaders he was the only one whom men felt differed from themselves. The
+rest were soldiers or civilians, Federalists or Democrats; but he was
+Washington. The awe and reverence felt for him were blended with
+affection for his kindly qualities, and except for a brief period toward
+the close of his second presidential term, there has been but one
+sentiment entertained toward him throughout the Union--that of
+reverential love. His was one of those rare natures which greatness
+follows without their striving for it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following extract is from a letter written by him to his adopted
+daughter, Nellie Custis, on the subject of love:[4]
+
+         [Footnote 4: Copied by kind permission of the publishers,
+         Messrs. Harper & Bros., from Benson Lossing's "Mary and Martha
+         Washington."]
+
+"Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is therefore
+contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for
+like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with
+aliment it is rapid in progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may
+be stifled in its birth or much stunted in its growth. For example: a
+woman (the same may be said of the other sex) all beautiful and
+accomplished, will, while her hand and heart are undisposed of, turn the
+heads and set the circle in which she moves on fire. Let her marry, and
+what is the consequence? The madness ceases and all is quiet again. Why?
+Not because there is any diminution in the charm of the lady, but
+because there is an end of hope. Hence it follows that love may, and
+therefore ought to be, under the guidance of reason, for although we
+cannot avoid first impressions, we may assuredly place them under guard;
+and my motives for treating on this subject are to show you, while you
+remain Eleanor Parke Custis, spinster, and retain the resolution to love
+with moderation, the propriety of adhering to the latter resolution, at
+least until you have secured your game, or the way by which it may be
+accomplished.
+
+"When the fire is beginning to kindle, and your heart growing warm,
+propound these questions to it: Who is this invader? Have I a competent
+knowledge of him? Is he a man of good character; a man of sense? For, be
+assured, a sensible woman can never be happy with a fool. What has been
+his walk in life? Is he a gambler, a spendthrift, or drunkard? Is his
+fortune sufficient to maintain me in the manner I have been accustomed
+to live, and my sisters do live? and is he one to whom my friends can
+have no reasonable objection? If these interrogatories can be
+satisfactorily answered there will remain but one more to be asked;
+that, however, is an important one: Have I sufficient ground to conclude
+that his affections are engaged by me? Without this the heart of
+sensibility will struggle against a passion that is not
+reciprocated--delicacy, custom, or call it by what epithet you will,
+having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the
+_most indirect_ invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to
+render it permanent and valuable, and nothing short of good sense, and
+an easy, unaffected conduct can draw the line between prudery and
+coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say that it
+rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in
+celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others by
+encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to
+draw men on to make overtures that they may be rejected.... Every
+blessing, among which a good husband when you want one, is bestowed on
+you by yours affectionately."
+
+
+
+
+JOHN ADAMS
+
+By EDWIN WILLIAMS
+
+(1735-1826)
+
+[Illustration: John Adams. [TN]]
+
+
+John Adams, the second president of the United States, was born on the
+19th of October (old style), 1735, in that part of the town of Braintree
+(near Boston), Massachusetts, which has since been incorporated by the
+name of Quincy. He was the fourth in descent from Henry Adams, who fled
+from persecution in Devonshire, England, and settled in Massachusetts
+about the year 1630. Another of the ancestors of Mr. Adams was John
+Alden, one of the Pilgrim founders of the Plymouth colony in 1620.
+Receiving his early education in his native town, John Adams, in 1751,
+was admitted a member of Harvard College, at Cambridge, where he
+graduated in regular course four years afterward. On leaving college he
+went to Worcester, for the purpose of studying law, and at the same time
+to support himself, according to the usage at that time in New England,
+by teaching in the grammar-school of that town. He studied law with
+James Putnam, a barrister of eminence, by whom he was afterward
+introduced to the acquaintance of Jeremy Gridley, then attorney-general
+of the province, who proposed him to the court for admission to the bar
+of Suffolk County, in 1758, and gave him access to his library, which
+was then one of the best in America.
+
+Mr. Adams commenced the practice of his profession in his native town,
+and by travelling the circuits with the court, became well known in that
+part of the country. In 1766, by the advice of Mr. Gridley, he removed
+to Boston, where he soon distinguished himself at the bar by his
+superior talents as counsel and advocate. At an earlier period of his
+life his thoughts had begun to turn on general politics, and the
+prospects of his country engaged his attention. Soon after leaving
+college he wrote a letter to a friend, dated at Worcester, October 12,
+1755, which evinces so remarkable a foresight that it is fortunate it
+has been preserved. We make the following extracts: "Soon after the
+Reformation a few people came over into this new world for conscience'
+sake. Perhaps this apparently trivial incident may transfer the great
+seat of empire into America. It looks likely to me, if we can remove the
+turbulent Gallics, our people, according to the exactest computation,
+will, in another century, become more numerous than England herself. The
+only way to keep us from setting up for ourselves is to disunite us.
+_Divide et impera_. Keep us in distinct colonies, and then some great
+men in each colony, desiring the monarchy of the whole, will destroy
+each other's influence, and keep the country in equilibrio. Be not
+surprised that I am turned politician; the whole town is immersed in
+politics. I sit and hear, and, after being led through a maze of sage
+observations, I sometimes retire and, by laying things together, form
+some reflections pleasing to myself. The produce of one of these
+reveries you have read above." Mr. Webster observes: "It is remarkable
+that the author of this prognostication should live to see fulfilled to
+the letter what could have seemed to others, at the time, but the
+extravagance of youthful fancy. His earliest political feelings were
+thus strongly American, and from this ardent attachment to his native
+soil he never departed."
+
+In 1764 he married Abigail Smith, daughter of Rev. William Smith, of
+Weymouth, and grand-daughter of Colonel Quincy, a lady of uncommon
+endowments and excellent education. He had previously imbibed a
+prejudice against the prevailing religious opinions of New England, and
+became attached to speculations hostile to those opinions. Nor were his
+views afterward changed. In his religious sentiments he accorded with
+Dr. Bancroft, a Unitarian minister of Worcester, of whose printed
+sermons he expressed his high approbation. In 1765 Mr. Adams published
+an essay on canon and feudal law, the object of which was to show the
+conspiracy between Church and State for the purpose of oppressing the
+people.
+
+In 1770 he was chosen a representative from the town of Boston, in the
+Legislature of Massachusetts. The same year he was one of the counsel
+who defended Captain Preston and the British soldiers who fired at his
+order upon the inhabitants of Boston. Captain Preston was acquitted, and
+Mr. Adams lost no favor with his fellow-citizens by engaging in this
+trial. As a member of the Legislature he opposed the royal governor,
+Hutchinson, in his measures, and also wrote against the British
+Government in the newspapers. In 1774 he was elected a member of the
+Massachusetts Council, and negatived by Governor Gage. In this and the
+next year he wrote on the Whig side, the pamphlets called "Nov Anglus,"
+in reply to essays, signed "Massachusitensis," in favor of the British
+Government, by Sewall, the attorney-general. The same year he was
+appointed a member of the Continental Congress, from Massachusetts, and
+in that body, which met at Philadelphia, he became one of the most
+efficient and able advocates of liberty. In the Congress which met in
+May, 1775, he again took his seat, having been reappointed as a
+delegate. In 1775 he seconded the nomination of Washington as
+commander-in-chief of the army, and in July, 1776, he was the adviser
+and great supporter of the Declaration of Independence. It was reported
+by a committee composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin
+Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. During the same year
+he, with Dr. Franklin and Edward Rutledge, was deputed to treat with
+Lord Howe for the pacification of the colonies. He declined at this time
+the offer of the office of Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of
+Massachusetts.
+
+In December, 1777, Mr. Adams was appointed a commissioner to the court
+of France; and with the exception of one short interval, during which he
+aided in the framing of the Massachusetts State Constitution, he spent
+the following eleven years in diplomatic services abroad. He arranged
+the treaties of the United States with most foreign nations during that
+time, was associated with Franklin and Jay in signing the treaty of
+peace with England, and was our first English minister.
+
+The services of Mr. Adams in the cause of his country, at home and
+abroad, during the period to which we have referred, it is believed,
+were not excelled by those of any other of the patriots of the
+Revolution. In the language of one of his eulogists (Mr. J. E. Sprague,
+of Massachusetts), "Not a hundred men in the country could have been
+acquainted with any part of the labors of Mr. Adams--they appeared
+anonymously, or under assumed titles; they were concealed in the secret
+conclaves of Congress, or the more secret cabinets of princes. Such
+services are never known to the public; or, if known, only in history,
+when the actors of the day have passed from the stage, and the motives
+for longer concealment cease to exist. As we ascend the mount of
+history, and rise above the vapors of party prejudice, we shall all
+acknowledge that we owe our independence more to John Adams than to any
+other created being, and that he was the Great Leader of the American
+Revolution."
+
+When permission was given him to return from Europe, the Continental
+Congress adopted the following resolution: "Resolved, That Congress
+entertain a high sense of the services which Mr. Adams has rendered to
+the United States, in the execution of the various important trusts
+which they have from time to time committed to him; and that the thanks
+of Congress be presented to him for the patriotism, perseverance,
+integrity, and diligence with which he has ably and faithfully served
+his country." Such was the testimonial of his country, expressed through
+the national councils, at the termination of his revolutionary and
+diplomatic career.
+
+During the absence of Mr. Adams in Europe, the Constitution of the
+United States had been formed and adopted. He highly approved of its
+provisions, and on his return, when it was about to go into operation,
+he was selected by the friends of the Constitution to be placed on the
+ticket with Washington as a candidate for one of the two highest offices
+in the gift of the people. He was consequently elected vice-president,
+and on the assembling of the Senate he took his seat, as president of
+that body, at New York, in April, 1789. Having been re-elected to that
+office in 1792, he held it, and presided in the Senate with great
+dignity, during the entire period of the administration of Washington,
+whose confidence he enjoyed, and by whom he was consulted on important
+questions. In his valedictory address to the Senate he remarks: "It is a
+recollection of which nothing can ever deprive me, and it will be a
+source of comfort to me through the remainder of my life that, on the
+one hand, I have for eight years held the second situation under our
+Constitution, in perfect and uninterrupted harmony with the first,
+without envy in the one, or jealousy in the other, so, on the other
+hand, I have never had the smallest misunderstanding with any member of
+the Senate."
+
+In 1790 Mr. Adams wrote his celebrated "Discourses on Davila;" they were
+anonymously published at first, in the _Gazette of the United States_,
+of Philadelphia, in a series of numbers; they may be considered as a
+sequel to his "Defence of the American Constitutions." He was a decided
+friend and patron of literature and the arts, and while in Europe,
+having obtained much information on the subject of public institutions,
+he contributed largely to the advancement of establishments in his
+native State for the encouragement of arts, sciences, and letters.
+
+On the retirement of General Washington from the presidency of the
+United States, Mr. Adams was elected his successor, after a close and
+spirited contest with two rivals for that high office; Mr. Jefferson
+being supported by the Democratic or Republican party, while a portion
+of the Federal party preferred Mr. Thomas Pinckney, of South Carolina,
+who was placed on the ticket with Mr. Adams. The result was the election
+of Mr. Adams as president, and in March, 1797, he entered upon his
+duties in that office. He came to the presidency in a stormy time. In
+the language of Colonel Knapp, "the French revolution had just reached
+its highest point of settled delirium, after some of the paroxysms of
+its fury had passed away. The people of the United States took sides,
+some approving, others deprecating, the course pursued by France. Mr.
+Adams wished to preserve a neutrality, but found this quite impossible.
+A navy was raised with surprising promptitude, to prevent insolence and
+to chastise aggression. It had the desired effect, and France was taught
+that the Americans were friends in peace, but were not fearful of war
+when it could not be averted. When the historian shall come to this page
+of our history, he will do justice to the sagacity, to the spirit, and
+to the integrity of Mr Adams, and will find that he had more reasons,
+and good ones, for his conduct, than his friends or enemies ever gave
+him."
+
+In his course of public policy, when war with France was expected, he
+was encouraged by addresses from all quarters, and by the approving
+voice of Washington. He, however, gave dissatisfaction to many of his
+own political party, in his final attempts to conciliate France, and in
+his removal of two members of his cabinet toward the close of his
+administration. Under these circumstances, notwithstanding Mr. Adams was
+the candidate of the Federal party for re-election as president, and
+received their faithful support, it is not strange that his opponents,
+with the advantage in their favor of the superior popularity of Mr.
+Jefferson, succeeded in defeating him. For this event, the
+correspondence of Mr. Adams shows that he was prepared, and he left the
+arduous duties of chief magistrate probably with less of disappointment
+than his enemies expected.
+
+Immediately after Mr. Jefferson had succeeded to the presidency, in
+1801, Mr. Adams retired to his estate at Quincy, in Massachusetts, and
+passed the remainder of his days in literary and scientific leisure,
+though occasionally addressing various communications to the public. He
+gave his support generally to the administration of Mr. Jefferson, and
+the friendship between these distinguished men was revived by a
+correspondence, and continued for several years previous to their death.
+When the disputes with Great Britain eventuated in war, Mr. Adams avowed
+his approbation of that measure, and in 1815 he saw the second treaty of
+peace concluded with that nation, by a commission of which his son was
+at the head, as he had been himself in that commission which formed the
+treaty of 1783.
+
+In 1816 the Republican party in Massachusetts, which had once vehemently
+opposed him as president of the United States, paid him the compliment
+of placing his name at the head of their list of presidential electors.
+In 1820 he was chosen a member of the State Convention to revise the
+constitution of Massachusetts, which body unanimously solicited him to
+act as their president. This he declined on account of his age, but he
+was complimented by a vote of the convention acknowledging his great
+services, for a period of more than half a century, in the cause of his
+country and of mankind.
+
+The last years of the long life of Mr. Adams were peaceful and tranquil.
+His mansion was always the abode of elegant hospitality, and he was
+occasionally enlivened by visits from his distinguished son, whom, in
+1825, he had the singular felicity of seeing elevated to the office of
+President of the United States. At length, having lived to a good old
+age, he expired, surrounded by his affectionate relatives, on July 4,
+1826, the fiftieth anniversary of that independence which he had done so
+much to achieve. A short time before his death, being asked to suggest a
+toast for the customary celebration, he replied, "I will give
+you--Independence forever." Mr. Jefferson died on the same day. A
+similar coincidence occurred five years afterward, in the death of
+President Monroe, July 4, 1831.
+
+Mr. Adams was of middle stature and full person, and when elected
+president, was bald on the top of his head. His countenance beamed with
+intelligence, and moral as well as physical courage. His walk was firm
+and dignified to a late period of his life. His manner was slow and
+deliberate, unless he was excited, and when this happened he expressed
+himself with great energy. He was ever a man of purest morals, and is
+said to have been a firm believer in Christianity, not from habit and
+example, but from diligent investigation of its proofs.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS JEFFERSON[5]
+
+By HON. JOHN B. HENDERSON
+
+(1743-1826)
+
+         [Footnote 5: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Thomas Jefferson. [TN]]
+
+
+Thomas Jefferson was born April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, Albemarle County,
+Va. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a descendant of a Welsh family
+which came to Virginia before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. The
+father's income was derived from a large farm adjoining that of William
+Randolph, whose daughter, Jane, he married in 1738. Monticello, the
+future residence of his son Thomas, was a part of this farm. Peter
+Jefferson was a leader among the men of his day and received expressions
+of public confidence from the voters of his county. He died in 1759,
+having directed that Thomas should complete his education in William and
+Mary College at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony.
+
+Thomas entered the college and by assiduous application he soon built
+upon the learning acquired in the public and private schools of his
+county, an education quite liberal and advanced for that period.
+
+He was tall, and in youth somewhat awkward in manner. What he lacked,
+however, in personal grace was at once forgotten in the vivacity of his
+conversation, made doubly charming by the extent and variety of his
+learning. During his collegiate days he formed a close friendship with
+Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and others who afterward became
+distinguished in American history. He was always welcome in the house of
+Governor Fauquier, from whom he learned much of the social, political,
+and parliamentary life of the old world. It was here that he first met
+George Wythe, a gifted and talented young lawyer, who afterward became
+Chancellor of the State.
+
+After leaving college he entered upon the study of the law in the office
+of his friend Mr. Wythe, and with this and the management of his
+father's estate he found himself abundantly occupied.
+
+In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and for several years devoted
+himself to the practice of his profession. It is quite probable that, in
+consequence of his inability to speak and his utter incapacity for
+forensic controversy, his career at the bar would not have reached the
+highest distinction. What he lacked, however, in the power of speech,
+found ample compensation in the strength, beauty, and elegance of
+expression which he commanded with the pen. This extraordinary talent
+was destined soon to find abundant employment in defending the rights of
+the people against the oppressive acts of the mother-country. Patrick
+Henry had already argued the "Parsons' Cause" in December, 1763, and
+Jefferson himself, as a college student at Williamsburg, had listened to
+the impassioned speech of Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses
+against the Stamp Act of Parliament. But the fiery eloquence of his
+friend Henry only fanned a flame that already burned in the breast of
+Jefferson. Impulsive by nature, by education and training a democrat, he
+naturally espoused the cause of his countrymen. The peculiar condition
+of the colonies furnished the opportunity to Jefferson's wonderful
+faculty for writing. The orator could not be heard by all the people of
+the colonies; but the products of the pen could be carried to the most
+secluded hamlet. And truly in Jefferson's hands the pen was "mightier
+than the sword."
+
+The first year after opening his law office, at the age of twenty-five,
+he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses from Albemarle, his
+native county, and on taking his seat the following May, the controversy
+between the royal governor and the assembly at once began. Jefferson
+prepared the resolutions in reply to the executive speech; and on the
+third day of the session the passage of other resolutions, in the form
+of a bill of rights, caused the governor to dissolve the assembly.
+Jefferson was again elected to the House of Burgesses, and in 1774, was
+elected a delegate to the State convention.
+
+On account of illness he failed to reach the convention, but he prepared
+and forwarded to its president a draft of instructions which he hoped
+would be adopted for the guidance of those to be sent by the body as
+delegates to the General Congress of the colonies. For this paper,
+afterward published as "A Summary View of the Rights of British
+America," the name of Jefferson was inserted in a bill of attainder
+brought into the English Parliament.
+
+After a short detention in the House of Burgesses, in which he drafted
+the reply of Virginia to the "conciliatory proposition" of Lord North,
+he proceeded to Philadelphia as a delegate to the General Congress, in
+which he took his seat on June 21, 1775.
+
+When Jefferson entered the Congress, conditions existing between the
+mother country and the colonies had already reached the point of open
+rebellion. It is true that the taxes had all been repealed except the
+import tax on tea, but the repeals had been invariably accompanied with
+the assertion of an unlimited right to tax without the consent of the
+colonies. English troops had been quartered in Boston, and English
+war-ships occupied its harbor. The right of deportation to, and trial
+in, England for offences committed in America, was still claimed by both
+king and Parliament. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had now
+been fought, and Washington had already been commissioned as
+commander-in-chief of the colonial armies.
+
+In this condition of affairs Massachusetts and Virginia, in which had
+been most keenly felt the oppressive acts of the mother country, were
+quite ready for open and avowed rebellion. But in many of the other
+colonies the sense of loyalty and the ties of friendship were yet
+sufficiently strong to induce the hope of continued union.
+
+It was therefore not until June 7, 1776, that Virginia, through Richard
+Henry Lee, introduced into Congress at Philadelphia the resolutions for
+a final separation; and a few days thereafter a committee was appointed
+to prepare the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was placed at the
+head of this committee, his colleagues consisting of Adams, Franklin,
+Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The declaration was prepared by
+Jefferson, and when submitted to Dr. Franklin and John Adams for
+criticism, some verbal amendments suggested by them were made. It was
+then reported to Congress on June 28th, and after debate and other
+slight amendments by the body itself, it was adopted and signed on July
+4, 1776.
+
+Whatever the merits or demerits of the paper, it is essentially the work
+of Jefferson. It has been much criticised, both in its substance and its
+form. It is quite certain, however, that since its promulgation there
+has been, not only in the United States but abroad, a continually
+increasing tendency to accept and apply its principles in the practical
+affairs of government. As an eloquent arraignment of tyranny, a
+denunciation of oppression and an inspiration to resistance, it stands
+perhaps unequalled among the products of human intellect. As
+appropriately said by another, the paper is "consecrated in the
+affections of Americans and praise may seem as superfluous as censure
+would be unavailing."
+
+So soon as the colonies had become united in the cause of forcible
+resistance, Jefferson returned to his own State to commence perhaps the
+most useful and beneficent work of his life. He had again been elected
+to Congress, but with the prescience of the seer, he chose the seemingly
+less important place of representative to the Legislature of his State.
+He took his seat on October 7, 1776. On the 11th of the same month he
+asked leave to present a bill to establish courts of justice in the
+State of Virginia; on the next day, to authorize tenants _en tail_ to
+convey their estates in fee simple. This was immediately followed by
+other bills for the utter overthrow of primogeniture and the whole law
+of entails.
+
+His reformatory spirit did not stop with these radical measures. He
+found another danger in the conservatism and aristocratic tendencies of
+the established church of the State. In his judgment the whole body of
+law and custom inherited from England must be thoroughly exterminated,
+to the end that English influence might be driven from the land. In his
+judgment English institutions had been cunningly devised in the interest
+of monarchy. Their purpose, he believed, was to create and maintain
+distinctions in society, and to perpetuate and strengthen an
+aristocratic caste as the ally and support of the crown. So long as they
+existed there was constant danger of relapse from the high purposes of
+the rebellion. In Jefferson's regard, they were inconsistent with the
+principles of the revolution now proclaimed, and sooner or later would
+be found its open or secret enemies.
+
+For these reforms the old aristocracy of his State denounced him as a
+Jacobin, and the established church denounced him as an infidel.
+
+Jefferson continued to serve in the House of Delegates during the years
+1777 and 1778, and in addition to the measures already named, he secured
+laws to establish elementary and collegiate education in the State, and
+to prohibit the further importation of slaves into Virginia. He also
+sought to inaugurate a system of gradual emancipation; but slavery was
+already so thoroughly engrafted on the social system of the people, that
+even Jefferson, Wythe, and Mason could not dislodge it. Jefferson, in
+1821, referring to his failure in this regard, said: "it was found that
+the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it,
+even to this day; yet the day is not distant, when it must bear and
+adopt it, or worse will, follow. Nothing is more certainly written in
+the book of fate than that these people are to be free."
+
+On retiring from the Legislature he was elected governor of the State.
+The period of his service in this position was unfortunate for his fame.
+He was essentially a civilian, neither having, nor pretending to have,
+military skill or knowledge. The war had now been transferred to the
+Southern States. Cornwallis had overrun Georgia and South Carolina,
+defeated Gates at Camden, and was pushing north for the desolation of
+Virginia. The State had already become impoverished by its liberal
+contributions of money, men, and arms to the general cause, and was now
+powerless for its own defence. The hated Benedict Arnold was able to
+ascend the James River to Richmond, dispersing the Legislature and
+burning the town. Tarleton afterward penetrated as far as
+Charlottesville--Jefferson and the Legislature narrowly escaping
+capture. Jefferson felt keenly the situation, and at the expiration of
+his term retired to Monticello, humiliated and overwhelmed by unjust
+criticism and undeserved censure. His gloom and melancholy were made
+still more sad at this period, by the death of his wife, whom he had
+married in 1772. But the privilege of neither obscurity nor rest was
+reserved for him. The winter session of 1783 found him again in the
+General Congress abolishing the English system of coinage and providing
+for the government of the Northwestern territory, which had been ceded
+to the confederation by Virginia.
+
+In 1784 he was named as a minister plenipotentiary to Europe at large,
+to assist Adams and Franklin in the negotiation of commercial treaties.
+In 1785 he became minister to France in the place of Dr. Franklin, who
+had resigned; and in March, 1790, in pursuance of a previous acceptance,
+he entered the Cabinet of President Washington as Secretary of State.
+
+Already the germs of two great conflicting parties had been sown. The
+debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and still more
+manifestly the controversies in the State Conventions called to consider
+the adoption of the instrument, had developed the differences, which, in
+theory at least, have distinguished political parties ever since. The
+colonies had been chiefly settled by Englishmen. No people are more
+tenacious than they of preconceived opinions, or more averse to the
+abandonment of ancient forms and customs. A strong attachment to the
+institutions of England still remained with the people of the colonies.
+With many of them the whole object of the revolution was political
+separation from the mother country. They heartily desired independence
+and freedom, and they had willingly risked their lives to secure them.
+But the freedom they sought was the right, if they chose, to establish
+and perpetuate those cherished institutions of the mother-country for
+themselves. They would enjoy them still, and make them a lasting
+inheritance for their posterity, but free from the power and dominion of
+Europe.
+
+Such persons had revolted not against England, but against England's
+wrongful acts; not against the authority of law, but against the
+perversion of law. To them the Declaration of Independence was a
+splendid piece of rhetoric intended only to inflame the mind with a
+sense of injury, and to nerve the heart to determined resistance. Like
+the Marseillaise hymn, it was merely to be repeated on entering the
+battle. Like the bugle blast, it served only to stimulate the soul and
+shut out all other sounds while the contest lasted. Not so with
+Jefferson and his followers. The Declaration of Independence truly
+reflected their political sentiments. To them the revolution meant
+something more than mere separation. It looked to the total repudiation
+of the English system of government, and the substitution of the rule of
+the people. They admitted the inefficiency of the articles of
+confederation, and were willing to accept nationality in a modified
+form. But to them the Constitution as framed in 1787 was armed with the
+most dangerous powers. They accepted it merely as a choice of evils,
+trusting by strict construction and future amendment to give it
+eventually the form and mould of their own views.
+
+The President, in selecting his ministers, sought to compromise these
+antagonisms by giving the parties equal representation in his Cabinet.
+Between two such men, however, as Jefferson, his Secretary of State, and
+Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, there could be no
+permanent co-operation. So eager, indeed, was Jefferson to inaugurate
+the controversy, that he really began the battle of strict construction
+before his peculiar principles had been seriously invaded. Time has long
+since demonstrated that, in his opposition to Hamilton's financial
+measures, he was clearly wrong. The truth seems to be, that in this
+branch of politics, Jefferson was without knowledge or practical skill.
+
+In his discussions with the English minister touching violations of the
+late treaty of peace, and in the controversy with Spain in respect to
+the right of navigating the Mississippi River through her territory to
+the Gulf, Jefferson displayed his usual ability.
+
+The declaration of war by France, now a republic, against England,
+precipitated upon the Government of the United States a number of
+difficult and troublesome questions of international law. They were
+especially irritating because of the personal feelings involved in their
+discussion and settlement. A profound sense of gratitude to France for
+assistance in the late revolutionary struggle, was felt by all classes
+in America, while the Republicans were especially open and undisguised
+in their expressions of sympathy for the French people. And but for the
+imprudent conduct of the French minister, Genet, the supremacy of the
+Federal party might have been seriously jeopardized in the beginning of
+Washington's second term. The conduct of this functionary was so
+insolent and exacting as to excite disgust for himself, and to cool in a
+marked degree the zeal of the Republicans in their support of the new
+republic.
+
+While Jefferson's sympathy with France was perhaps too manifest, and
+while his personal conduct in the Cabinet touching this question was not
+altogether kind to the president, and in other respects liable to
+criticism, his correspondence with the French Government, when finally
+published, was found to have been based upon the highest principles of
+international right and dictated by a proper sense of the dignity and
+character of his own country.
+
+Jefferson's proud nature had for several years, chafed under the
+continued success of Federal measures. Washington had manifestly ignored
+his counsel in the Cabinet, and favored Hamilton in the administration
+of the Government. Jefferson was piqued and chagrined beyond further
+endurance. He hated Hamilton with an intensity due only to an open enemy
+of the country.
+
+In this state of mind, on December 31, 1793, he resigned from the
+Cabinet, and again sought the seclusion and quiet of his farm at
+Monticello. But his pen was never idle. He was untiring in the
+dissemination of his peculiar views of government. With emotions
+intensified by strong convictions of right his contributions to the
+political literature of the day were vigorous and peculiarly attractive.
+He continued to be the acknowledged leader of the Republican party, and
+was promptly named as its candidate for president in 1796, to succeed
+General Washington, who had declined a third term. Between him and John
+Adams, the candidate of the Federal party, the vote was very close,
+Adams receiving 71 electoral votes and Jefferson 68. Under the
+provisions of the Constitution as they existed at the time, Adams became
+President and Jefferson Vice-President.
+
+During Adams' term were passed the Alien and Sedition laws, as well as
+others, unnecessary and of doubtful constitutionality, which proved to
+be fatal and ruinous mistakes of the Federal party. Jefferson and
+Madison's threats of State repudiation against Federal legislation, as
+enunciated in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, furnished good
+arguments, of course, for the continued existence of a truly national
+party. But the seeds of decay had been sown. Adams was vain, impulsive,
+rash, and violent. Jefferson was far more deliberate, with larger views
+of statesmanship and a better knowledge of the people. He had abundant
+cunning and the ready adaptation of partisan skill.
+
+In a contest of four years between such leaders, it is not strange that
+when the election of 1800 came on, Jefferson should receive 73 electoral
+votes while Adams received but 65.
+
+Although Jefferson was elected over Adams, he was not yet elected over
+Aaron Burr, who had received an equal number of votes for president with
+himself. In reality no vote had been intended for Burr as President--the
+purpose being to elect Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President.
+
+Under the constitutional provision already referred to, the election was
+remitted to the House of Representatives. Finally, by the aid of
+Hamilton, who only hated Jefferson less than he hated Burr, the
+controversy was decided in favor of the former.
+
+The moment Jefferson became president his whole character seemed to be
+changed. Instead of the relentless partisan of the past, he became the
+apostle of benevolence and charity. His inaugural address, in that
+florid rhetoric of which he was master, enunciated principles of
+government to which no friend of human liberty could object. The spirit
+of conciliation breathed in every sentence. "Every difference of
+opinion," he said, "is not a difference of principle. We have called by
+different names brethren of the same principles. We are all
+Republicans--we are all Federalists.... Let us then, with courage and
+confidence, pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our
+attachment to our Union and representative government."
+
+The short-lived peace of Europe had re-established American commerce on
+the ocean, and general prosperity pervaded all departments of business.
+Indeed, the wise moderation of the president had brought the most
+agreeable disappointment to his enemies. Federalists were not removed
+from office for political reasons, and the country settled down into the
+conviction that Republican success after all, might prove to be a
+beneficent change.
+
+As already stated, the Northwest territory, extending from the Ohio to
+the Mississippi River, had formerly belonged to Virginia, and perhaps no
+public man of his day so well understood as did Jefferson, the
+importance and needs of that vast domain. Spain, as the owner of
+Louisiana, held supreme control of New Orleans and the lower
+Mississippi.
+
+While Secretary of State under Washington, Jefferson would have been
+content with the acquisition of the Island of New Orleans, and the free
+navigation of the Mississippi River. Circumstances had now changed. He
+was himself president. Spain had suddenly conveyed Louisiana to France,
+and Napoleon was meditating the abrogation of the peace of Amiens and
+the declaration of war against England. In such a war France could not
+well retain her distant possessions against the superior naval power of
+her old and grasping enemy. Napoleon had a property which in case of
+war, he was likely to lose. He had resolved on war, and for that purpose
+needed money, which, fortunately, the American Treasury could furnish at
+once.
+
+Instead of the Island of New Orleans the President's dream now embraced
+the whole of the Louisiana purchase, extending from the Mississippi
+River to the Pacific Ocean.
+
+Livingston, of New York, the associate of Jefferson, in 1776, on the
+Committee to frame the Declaration of Independence, was now Minister to
+France, but he was unfortunately embarrassed by his committal to the
+acquisition of New Orleans alone. Monroe's term, as Governor of
+Virginia, had just expired. He had formerly served the country most
+acceptably at the French court. He was the devoted friend, personally
+and politically, of Jefferson. They were both committed to the "strict
+construction" theory of the Constitution. This narrow view of the
+instrument, on which their party had come into power, absolutely forbade
+the acquisition of territory by purchase. But Louisiana was necessary
+not only to the growth, but to the maintenance of the Union. It mattered
+not that the professions of the Republican party had to be violated. The
+prize outweighed the virtue of party consistency. Jefferson himself was
+forced to admit the want of power, but having resolved on the act, he
+said: "The less that is said about any constitutional difficulty the
+better." Again he said: "It will be desirable for Congress to do what is
+necessary in silence."
+
+With these views he despatched Monroe to Paris. For obvious reasons
+written instructions were avoided; but it is quite certain that
+unlimited discretion to the Minister had resulted from a careful
+comparison of views.
+
+It was under these circumstances that in 1803 the vast domain known as
+"The Louisiana Purchase" was obtained by the United States for the
+paltry consideration of fifteen million dollars.
+
+This of itself added immensely to Jefferson's popularity. Internal
+taxation had been abolished. Rigid economy of administration had been
+introduced. The public debt was in the course of rapid extinction. The
+rigorous ceremonials of former administrations had given place to the
+simplest forms, and the temples of power had been made accessible to the
+humblest citizen. The country enjoyed great prosperity, and a spirit of
+contentment pervaded the land.
+
+Jefferson's second election, in 1804, was almost without opposition--his
+vote being 162 to 14 for C. C. Pinckney, the Federal candidate.
+
+The second term of the President was far less successful than the first.
+A political exigency in France had forced the sale of Louisiana, and its
+opportune purchase had given Jefferson unbounded popularity, and linked
+his name with the future greatness of his country. But the impending
+hostilities producing that exigency had now been declared. France and
+England were again in open war, and each, to wound the other, had
+recklessly trampled upon the rights of the United States. English orders
+in council blockaded the ports of France, and Napoleon's Berlin decrees
+equally closed those of England against neutral commerce. The right of
+search was claimed by both powers, and offensively exercised by England.
+Time had now brought its inevitable revenges. Jefferson was again
+confronted by conditions in which he manifested more or less of weakness
+and incapacity. In peace his statesmanship was always creditable, and at
+times, truly magnificent. In the presence of war he was too often
+vacillating and incompetent. The embargo on the commerce of his own
+country, which he suggested, was hardly less injurious than the wrongs
+of which he complained. The remedy was worse, if possible, than the
+disease.
+
+Aaron Burr, in contesting for the presidency in 1801, had forfeited the
+confidence of his own party, and for killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804,
+he had incurred the hatred of the Federalists, and lost the respect of
+all parties. In his desperation he had organized an expedition to
+proceed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a view, as was
+supposed, of invading Mexico, or segregating from the United States a
+portion of its territory. He was arrested for treason and brought to
+Richmond, where he was finally tried for a high misdemeanor in
+organizing forces against Spain within the United States. In this
+prosecution, as in the impeachment of Judge Chase of the Supreme Court,
+executive encouragement and aid were offensively open and notorious.
+
+When the embargo had almost ruined the commercial States of the Union,
+it was modified by a non-intercourse act with France and England, to
+take effect on March 4, 1809, the last day of Jefferson's term.
+
+At the close of his second term Jefferson permanently retired from
+office, and spent his remaining years at Monticello.
+
+By a singular coincidence both he and John Adams died on July 4, 1826,
+just fifty years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence.
+
+The brief facts already recited clearly indicate the character of the
+man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was
+without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and
+unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for
+self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the
+struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people
+against English tyranny took the form of religious enthusiasm. In France
+he witnessed the sufferings and misery of the down-trodden poor, whose
+wild vengeance he believed to be justified by the long ages of
+oppression and wrong under which they had groaned.
+
+He distrusted power and naturally sought to restrict its exercise.
+Hating monarchy, he feared to delegate large powers of government even
+in republican forms. Hating an aristocracy, he encouraged the masses to
+demand equality in civil, political, and social rights.
+
+His political inconsistencies resulted from the usual impossibility of
+reconciling theory and practice. When his opponents were in power, their
+purposes, he thought, were accomplished through violations of the
+constitution. An equally dangerous exercise of power by his friends
+failed to excite his alarm. Feeling conscious within himself of an
+honest purpose to subserve the good of the people and to perpetuate
+their liberties, he found ready justification for every act having, in
+his judgment, those ends in view.
+
+America has produced no man so dear to the masses of its people as
+Thomas Jefferson. He was an iconoclast, but the images broken by him
+were the idols of a past age, and no longer deserved the worship of a
+free people.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER HAMILTON
+
+(1757-1804)
+
+[Illustration: Alexander Hamilton. [TN]]
+
+
+The parentage of Alexander Hamilton is given by his son and biographer
+as of mingled Scottish and French ancestry--Scottish on the father's
+side, Huguenot on the mother's. Students of the doctrine of temperaments
+may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under the genial ray
+of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock with it many
+cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamilton; Scottish
+perseverance and integrity, French honor and susceptibility, tropical
+fervor. Be that as it may, Alexander Hamilton first saw the light in the
+West India island, St. Christopher, January 11, 1757. His father was a
+trader or captain, sailing between the islands of the archipelago, whose
+business brought him into relation with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy
+merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with New York, in whose
+counting-house the son was placed at the age of twelve. He was a boy of
+quick intellect, in advance of his years, and had already made much of
+limited opportunities of instruction, as we may learn from an
+exceedingly well-penned epistle, addressed thus early to a school-fellow
+who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy
+seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness,
+Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the
+grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune
+condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character,
+to exalt my station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I
+shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war." This may be regarded
+as a boyish rhapsody; but all boys are not given to such rhapsodies.
+
+The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room, and
+doubtless practised his pen in composition, for we hear of his writing
+an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a narrative
+which appears to have been published, since it attracted the attention
+of the governor. These evidences of talent determined his friends to
+send him to New York to complete his education. He came, landing at
+Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York by the
+correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become interested in his
+welfare in Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced to the school of
+Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed the society of the
+Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influential people of the colony. He
+studied early, and at the close of the year presented himself to Doctor
+Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request to be permitted to overleap
+some of the usual collegiate terms according to his qualifications. As
+this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College,
+now Columbia, in New York, with the special privileges he desired. In
+addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of
+Clossey. Colonel Troup, at this time his room-fellow, testifies to his
+earnest religious feeling, a very noticeable thing in a youth of his
+powers. He wrote verses freely--among them doggerel burlesques of the
+productions of the ministerial writers of the day.
+
+The Revolution was now fairly getting under way, and in the opening
+tumultuous scenes in New York, strong hands were wanted at the wheel.
+Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making
+his decision. He entered the field against the dashing young president
+of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's
+_Gazette_ to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after
+the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published
+a pamphlet in vindication of the measures of Congress, against the
+attacks of Seabury and Wilkins. The contest, however, was one which was
+not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative lawyers and
+divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the constitutional
+arguments of such young counsellors as Hamilton and Jay. The hard hands
+of the committee of mechanics were much more demonstrative. Myles
+Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic,
+and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party
+in their restrictive, non-importation measures proposed to dispense with
+the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into
+independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question,
+too.
+
+But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony,
+was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were
+drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for
+action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery;
+Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades, "Hearts of oak" they
+called themselves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the
+harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and one
+of Hamilton's company was killed. The Liberty Boys spread the alarm and
+gathered in a mob, threatening to attack the college and seize its
+president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton, who was no friend to riot, little as
+he was afraid of discussion or of force, interposed with a speech from
+the college steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half naked,
+took refuge on the shore, wandering over the island in the night to the
+old Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was the next day finally removed from
+America in his Majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor,
+Tryon, took refuge in the Asia shortly after.
+
+Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs, making
+choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some instruction
+from a British soldier, and by aid of the popular leader, McDougal,
+received from the convention the appointment of captain of the
+Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed his
+nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of
+genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and youth
+is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The young
+captain was engaged, not only in the gymnastics of drilling recruits,
+but he was reading, thinking, and working out problems in political
+economy for himself--and the future. Dr. Johnson said that he learned
+little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the foundation
+at least, of all his knowledge before twenty. "His military books of
+this period," says his son, "give an interesting exhibition of his train
+of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various general
+speculations and extracts from the ancients, chiefly relating to
+politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic,
+considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions which
+are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of population, and
+the principles on which depends the value of a circulating medium; and
+among his papers there remains a carefully digested outline of a plan
+for the political and commercial history of British America, compiled at
+this time." There is the germ in all this of the Secretary of the
+Treasury.
+
+The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the
+landing of Howe and his British troops, followed by the masterly retreat
+of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The subsequent
+American proceedings in the evacuation of the city, the passage from the
+island to Westchester, and the subsequent retreat before Cornwallis
+through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had little of glory, at
+least required their full share of military determination and endurance.
+Hamilton was active throughout the campaign. At White Plains and on the
+Raritan, at Trenton and Princeton, his artillery did good service. When
+he entered Morristown, his original company of a hundred was reduced by
+the accidents of war to twenty-five. Here, on March 1, 1777, leaving the
+line of the army, he became attached to the staff of Washington as his
+aid. This was the commencement of that half military, half civil
+relation which identified Hamilton in joint labors and councils with the
+Father of his Country.
+
+Hamilton became, in fact, the right-hand man of Washington, not only
+during the war, but throughout his subsequent political career, and no
+better proof than this can be had at once of the sagacity of Washington
+in selecting his instruments, and of the honor and worth of Hamilton in
+so long and so successfully maintaining this distinguished position. In
+the staff of the commander-in-chief, Hamilton, we are told, acquired the
+title, "The Little Lion." His spirit and courage were shown in numerous
+instances, particularly in the battle of Monmouth, where Lee exposed
+bravery to such violent hazards, an affair out of which grew a duel
+between that officer and Colonel John Laurens, one of Washington's aids,
+in which Hamilton was the second of his friend and associate. Nor was
+Hamilton's counsel less serviceable in interviews with the French
+officers, and those frequent negotiations with the different portions of
+the army, and with Congress, which were among the hardest necessities of
+Washington's campaigns.
+
+The relation of Hamilton to Washington, as a member of his military
+family, was suddenly brought to a termination at head-quarters on the
+Hudson, in February, 1781. The difference arose in a momentary
+forgetfulness of temper on the part of Washington. For some purpose of
+consultation he required the presence of Hamilton, who was detained from
+keeping the appointment on the instant, for it appears to have been a
+delay of but a few moments. Washington, however, was impatient, and
+meeting Hamilton at the head of the stairs, angrily exclaimed, "Colonel
+Hamilton, you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten
+minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect." Hamilton
+firmly replied, "I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you have
+thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." "Very well, sir," said
+Washington, "if it be your choice," or something to that effect, and the
+friends separated. Washington immediately opened the way for the
+Secretary's continuance at his post, but, without any feeling of
+asperity, the overture was declined. Hamilton, however, proffered his
+services and counsel. With no other man than Washington, indeed, could
+the subordinate relation have continued so long, and Hamilton had often
+thought of renouncing it; but he saw in Washington the man for the
+times, the great representative of a great cause, for which minor
+considerations must be sacrificed. Writing at this moment to Schuyler,
+he says, "The General is a very honest man; his competitors have slender
+abilities and less integrity. His popularity has often been essential to
+the safety of America, and is still of great importance to it. These
+considerations have influenced my past conduct respecting him, and will
+influence my future. I think it is necessary he should be supported."
+
+Hamilton was now desirous to resume active service in the line, and
+after some discussion as to rank, received the command of a New York
+battalion of light infantry, which he led right manfully at the siege of
+Yorktown. He was anxious to signalize himself at this crowning act of
+the war by some distinguished exercise of bravery, and when, at an
+advanced period of the approaches, a redoubt was to be stormed, he
+eagerly solicited the forlorn hope from Washington. Advancing to the
+charge with characteristic spirit, at the point of the bayonet, exposed
+to a heavy fire, he struggled through the ditch, and surmounting the
+defences, took the work in the most brilliant manner. He gallantly
+arrested the slaughter at the first moment, and thus placed his humanity
+upon a level with his bravery.
+
+The war being now brought to an end, Hamilton turned his attention to
+the law, and in a few months' ardent devotion--the devotion of Hamilton
+was always ardent--at Albany to the study with the aid of his friend,
+Colonel Troup, and the stimulus of his recent marriage, qualified
+himself thoroughly for the practice of the profession. He was admitted
+to the Supreme Court at its July term, 1782. About the same time, at the
+solicitation of Robert Morris, the financier of Congress, he accepted
+the appointment of receiver of the continental taxes in the State of New
+York, with the understanding that his exertions were to be employed in
+impressing upon the Legislature the wants and objects of the Government.
+In pursuance of this, he urged resolutions which were unanimously
+adopted in July, 1782, recommending the call of a convention for the
+purpose of revising and amending the Articles of Confederation. He was
+also elected by the Legislature of this year a member of Congress. He
+bore an active part in its debates, and was greatly employed in its
+important financial measures.
+
+On the final departure of the British from New York, in 1783, Hamilton
+became a resident of the city with his family, and devoted himself
+assiduously to the practice of his profession. He was constantly,
+however, looked to as a public man. We find him, in 1784, appealing to
+the public under the signature of Phocion, in favor of more liberal and
+enlightened views in regard to the loyalists of the late Revolution, and
+their rights of property. In 1786 he is a member of the State Assembly,
+and in September of the same year among the delegates of the five States
+which, at the instance of Virginia, met at Annapolis to confer on the
+commercial interests of the country; a too limited representation,
+indeed, to achieve the objects in view, but the precursor of the great
+Federal Convention at Philadelphia of the following year.
+
+We have seen Hamilton's early studies of the theoretical workings of
+government. His practical experience, in the army of Washington, of the
+imperfections of Congress and the defects of the old confederation, was
+not likely to let him forget the subject. Authority in government, rules
+in legislation, financial measures, taxes, loans, and a bank, were
+topics constantly before his mind. The Convention of 1787 gave him, at
+length, the wished-for opportunity to enter upon a full discussion of
+his plans in a cause and before an audience worthy of his powers.
+Washington was the presiding officer, Franklin was in attendance; it was
+a congregation of notables--Rufus King, Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman,
+William Livingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson,
+Luther Martin, James Madison, George Wythe, John Rutledge, and others as
+worthy. Much has been said of Hamilton's course in this Convention, and
+of his advocacy of monarchical views. It is true that a plan of
+government which he supported in a speech of length and eloquence,
+provided several features, as the life tenure of the President and
+senators, and the appointment of State officers by the General
+Government, which, in the interpretation of some minds, as Patrick Henry
+used to express it, "was an awful squinting toward monarchy;" but, on
+the other hand, it should be remembered that the Convention was a
+meeting for consultation, with closed doors, in a committee of the
+whole, in which perfect freedom in the interchange of views was
+desirable; that, in the view of our own day, other members displayed
+heresies quite as obnoxious, and that in the final resolves of the
+Constitution, Hamilton, with the others, yielded his prejudices, and
+became the firm defender of the instrument as it was adopted, and
+substantially now stands.
+
+Remember the age of Hamilton at this time--twenty-nine; a greater
+prodigy in the Convention at Philadelphia than the youth in the army of
+Washington. To no one probably are we more indebted for the Constitution
+than to Hamilton. The Convention which laid the instrument before the
+country for its adoption had scarcely adjourned, when, in company with
+Madison and Jay, he took up the pen in its explanation and defence, in
+the celebrated series of papers, "The Federalist," originally published
+in the New York _Daily Advertiser_. Hamilton began and closed the work.
+Of its eighty-five papers much the greater portion, it is believed, were
+written by him.
+
+The discussion of the financial and military powers, the executive and
+the judiciary, fell to his pen. In the New York Convention he was again
+the efficient advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. In a
+separate series of papers, signed Philo Publius, published in another
+journal, Hamilton, assisted by his friends, met various objections, the
+discussion of which would have marred the unity of "The Federalist,"
+which was thus left a classical commentary upon the Constitution.
+
+Having been thus instrumental in forming the Constitution, Hamilton was
+destined to be one of the most active agents of its powers. When the new
+government went into operation, under its provisions he was summoned by
+Washington, to the discharge of one of the most onerous duties of the
+department, in his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. He
+continued in office six years, marking his administration--for such it
+was in his province--by his report and measures for the funding of the
+public debt, the excise revenue system, which he was called upon to
+assert in arms during the insurrection of Western Pennsylvania, and the
+creation of a National Bank. His reports on these subjects, and on
+manufactures, in which he advocated protection, are among the most
+important contributions of their kind to our national archives. In
+allusion to the financial measures of Hamilton, and their success at the
+time in the welfare of the country, Daniel Webster, in a speech at New
+York, half a century afterward, exclaimed: "He smote the rock of the
+national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He
+touched the dead corpse of the public, and it sprung upon its feet."
+
+The measures of Hamilton, however, were not adopted without opposition.
+Jefferson was their persistent opponent; local interests and State
+pretensions arose to thwart the measures of Government, and gave birth
+to the party feuds of Federalism and its opponents. A growing element of
+disaffection was added to the political caldron in the relations with
+England and the disturbing influences of the principles of the French
+Revolution. Hamilton bore the brunt of much of this popular opposition,
+which came to a crisis in the discussions attending the British Treaty
+of Jay, in 1794, as he defended its provisions in the papers signed
+"Camillus," while it was before the country, and advocated its leading
+neutrality principles in "The Letters of Pacificus," published by him
+the previous year. When France had wearied out all indulgence by her
+aggressions on the high seas, and by her treatment of our ministers at
+Paris, and Washington was again called to the field in anticipation of
+an expected invasion, Hamilton was appointed second in command, and now
+employed himself in the organization of the army. On the death of
+Washington he became commander-in-chief. On the conclusion of a treaty
+with France the army disbanded.
+
+In the intervals of these public duties, Hamilton was actively employed
+in his profession in the higher courts of the State. The late Chancellor
+Kent afterward recalled his "clear, elegant, and fluent style and
+commanding manner. He never made any argument in court without
+displaying his habit of thinking and resorting at once to some
+well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically from
+his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded on
+established principles. His manners were gentle, affable, and kind. He
+appeared to be frank, liberal, and courteous in all his professional
+intercourse."
+
+The last important trial in which Hamilton was engaged, the case of the
+People against Harry Croswell, in the Supreme Court, a few months before
+his untimely death, is memorable also for his maintenance of the right
+of juries to determine the law as well as the fact in cases of libel.
+
+The party politics of the time had been broken up in the simplicity of
+their outline by the administration of John Adams. Aaron Burr was the
+most prominent intriguer in the field. He had attained the
+vice-presidency, and the choice hung for a while suspended between him
+and Jefferson for the presidency. Between the two, Hamilton, who had
+formed an unfavorable opinion of the character of Burr, preferred his
+old antagonist, Jefferson, and cast his influence accordingly. When Burr
+afterward sought the office of Governor of New York, in a contest with a
+member of his own Republican party, in which he relied upon the support
+of the Federalists, he was defeated by Hamilton, who made no secret of
+his opposition. Smarting under the failure of his intrigue, Burr
+determined to challenge the honest man who stood in his way to power. He
+had no ground of personal offence bringing Hamilton within any
+justifiable pretensions even of the lax code of the duellist. The
+expressions which he called upon him to avow or disavow, were vague, and
+were based upon the report of a person who specified neither time,
+place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay which was
+alleged--evidently a wanton provocation to a murderous duel. Burr
+demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have said,
+that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an
+indorsement of his character at the cost of the moral character of the
+indorser. Hamilton despised the manoeuvre, but perceiving that a meeting
+was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, contrary to his better
+judgment, that his usefulness would be destroyed in the public affairs
+of the times if he avoided the contest, fell into the fatal snare.
+
+He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and
+creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to bear
+in mind she had been to them the most devoted and best of mothers. On
+the night preceding the appointment he wrote a paper declaring his
+intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself before the
+world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his conduct upon
+his usefulness to his country. The next morning, July 11th, they met at
+Weehawken; the weapons were pistols, the distance ten paces. The duel
+was fought within a few feet of the shore, in a woodland scene beneath
+the cliff opposite the present inhabited portion of New York, at a spot
+now traversed or closely approached by the river road, but then readily
+accessible only by water. Hamilton fell at the first fire, mortally
+wounded, his pistol-shot striking at random a twig some seven feet above
+the head of his antagonist. Burr fled, a wanderer over the earth.
+Hamilton was carried across the river, supported by Pendleton and Dr.
+Hosack, to the house of his friend, Mr. Bayard, at Greenwich. He was
+there enabled to take farewell of his family, and receive the last
+consolations of religion from the hands of Bishop Moore. He died on the
+afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 1804.
+
+The reception of the fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the
+community. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted his
+countrymen to victory and a place among the nations--Hamilton, the
+counsellor of Washington, the consummate statesman of the Constitution,
+the reliance of the State, the hope of the future: visions such as these
+were contrasted in the popular mind with his wretched fall. We perhaps
+darken the shades of the picture, for time and proof have added to the
+greatness of Hamilton, and Burr waited not for death to exhibit the
+penury of his fame. But the men who knew the heart of Hamilton, who saw
+in him the bulwark of the State, his contemporaries, wept his fate with
+no common lamentation. New York gave her public honors to his grave.
+Gouverneur Morris, with strenuous words, delivered the funeral oration
+by the side of his bier, under the portico of old Trinity; and Mason,
+the pulpit orator of his time, thundered his strong sentences at the
+crime which had robbed the world of Hamilton.
+
+
+
+
+COUNT DE MIRABEAU[6]
+
+By CHARLES S. HATHAWAY
+
+(1749-1791)
+
+         [Footnote 6: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Mirabeau. [TN]]
+
+
+Honore Gabriel Riquetti, Count de Mirabeau, one of the most eminent
+among the great authors, orators, and statesmen of France, was born on
+March 9, 1749 on his father's estate at Bignon, near Nemours.
+
+The earliest of Mirabeau's ancestors of whom there is any notable
+record, was Jean Riquetti, a prominent merchant at Marseilles, who, in
+1570, bought the chateau and estate of Mirabeau, near Pertuis, from the
+well-known Provencal family of Barras and who, a few years later,
+acquired the title of Esquire.
+
+In 1685, one hundred and fifteen years after the purchase above
+mentioned, Honore Riquetti, lineal descendant of the Marseilles
+merchant, obtained the title of Marquis de Mirabeau, and there was born
+to this marquis a son, Jean Antoine Riquetti, who achieved a worthy
+record as a soldier, but whose prominent place in history is due to the
+fact that he was the grandfather of the great Mirabeau.
+
+Victor Riquetti, son of this second Marquis de Mirabeau and father of
+the great, the Count de Mirabeau, was in his early manhood an
+indifferent soldier, but he afterward became distinguished as a writer
+and leader in French politics. His wife (the mother of Count de
+Mirabeau) was Marie Genevieve, daughter of M. de Vassan, a brigadier in
+the French army, she being, also, the widow of the Marquis de
+Saulyeboeuf. This union, entered into without a previous meeting between
+the principals to the contract, and at a time when the Marquis de
+Mirabeau was well started in his career as a politician, was not a happy
+one. The new husband was more loyal to politics than to his wife, so
+that, when their son, who was destined to achieve fame, was but thirteen
+years old, there was a separation between the parents by mutual consent.
+
+Thus, in outline, is indicated the ancestry of Mirabeau through a period
+of nearly two centuries, and, meagre as the showing is, it is evident
+that he was the scion of a long line of wealth and nobility, his
+paternal ancestors having served with credit as soldiers, while his
+father was eminent as a politician. There is a second group of facts
+which bear interestingly upon the career under discussion. Mirabeau the
+great was born at a time when more than two-thirds of France was in the
+hands of privileged classes--the king, the nobility, and the clergy--and
+at a time, too, when the structure founded upon years of feudalism and
+absolutism was about to be shaken to its base by the magic of popular
+public opinion.
+
+Under such conditions, at such a time, and from such stock, occurred the
+birth of Mirabeau the great; a coming into the world of a babe "scarce
+half made up;" a child with a head so large that it was a dire
+deformity, with one foot sadly twisted, and with a tongue that was tied;
+in brief, an infant ogre born with teeth. So great was the chagrin of
+the father that he made no effort to conceal his dislike for the
+misshapen child. Hence, when at three years of age the little one was
+left wretchedly pitted by a severe attack of small-pox, its fate was
+listed. It must not, could not, bear the name of Mirabeau.
+
+Accordingly, when the youngster was fourteen years old--after several
+years of instruction under the private tutorship of Lachabeaussiere,
+_pere_--he was entered under the fictitious name of "Pierre Buffiere,"
+at a private military school in Paris. Here, strong of limb, body, and
+mind, industrious and aggressive, he remained for four years. Then his
+father placed him in the Berry regiment of cavalry, which regiment had
+been commanded, sixty-two years before, by his grandfather.
+
+This event marked the end of a boyhood which had been clouded by an
+almost entire absence of paternal favor, and wholly free from maternal
+care--the mother's absence having been secured by the father, by a
+_lettre de cachet_. In addition, that boyhood had been irritated and
+embittered by a continuous and exasperating development of his natural
+personal disfigurement. His enormous head grew less in harmony with his
+torso, his lips and nose became thick and heavy, great moles revealed
+themselves upon his cheeks, and in every way, physically, his growth was
+a perpetual disappointment.
+
+However, he was now (1767) the eighteen-year old "Pierre Buffiere," a
+lieutenant of cavalry, conscious of his exceptional mental strength and
+somewhat vain thereof, and full of ambition and determination to win as
+he wished and in spite of all of his many obstacles. Unfortunately, but
+most naturally, considering his temperament, the first test of his will,
+his passion, and his determination, resulted in his victory. He won the
+affection of a young woman to whom his colonel had long been devoted,
+and the scandal resulting therefrom caused the father to obtain a
+_lettre de cachet_, by authority of which the indiscreet young man was
+placed in confinement in the Isle of Rhe. Immediately the prisoner began
+his first illustration of his ability to gain to his own purposes the
+ability and influence of others--one of his strongest and most useful
+characteristics. Within two months he had secured the esteem and
+confidence of his jailer, so that that official soon made a most
+favorable report, upon the strength of which Mirabeau was accepted as a
+volunteer to accompany the French expedition sent (in 1769) to conquer
+Corsica. So well did the young soldier conduct himself during this
+campaign, that he was not only promoted to a captaincy in the dragoons,
+but he effected a partial reconciliation with his father, returned to
+Provence, was permitted to assume his true name and title, and was
+presented at court. In June, 1772, he married, by his father's advice,
+Marie Emile de Covet, only daughter of the Marquis de Marignane. She
+came to him portionless, and he, impetuous, ambitious, and extravagant,
+became, during the next two years, deeply involved in debt. The marriage
+was a failure. Again the father utilized the _lettre de cachet_, and a
+second time was Mirabeau a prisoner (August 23, 1774), this time in the
+Chateau d'If, at Marseilles. Here it was that he wrote his first work of
+which we have any exact knowledge, its title being: "Essai sur le
+Despotisme."
+
+In the following year he was transferred from the Chateau d'If to the
+Castle of Joux, where he was less strictly confined. He had the freedom
+of the place and frequent opportunities for visiting the near-by town of
+Pontarlier. It was in this town that he first met Marie Therese, the
+Marchioness de Monnier, the young and attractive wife of an aged
+magistrate. A love affair was the result, and it culminated in August,
+1776, in an elopement, first to Switzerland and then to Amsterdam. For
+over nine months the fugitive pair lived together in the Dutch capital,
+Mirabeau, under the assumed name of St. Mathieu, earning a livelihood as
+a pamphleteer and by making translations for Holland publishers.
+Meanwhile the tribunal of Pontarlier had condemned both
+parties--Mirabeau to be beheaded and his companion (his "Sophie," as she
+is most widely known) to imprisonment for life. On May 14, 1777, they
+were arrested at Amsterdam, and Mirabeau was imprisoned by a _lettre de
+cachet_ in the Castle of Vincennes, while Sophie was surrendered to the
+Pontarlier authorities.
+
+For three and a half years thereafter Mirabeau was in confinement, a
+term which proved sufficient to temper his passion, and during which he
+wrote his well-known "Letters to Sophie," the "Erotica Biblion," and "My
+Conversion." He also wrote, during this time, his first worthy political
+production, the "Lettres de Cachet." He was released from this
+imprisonment on December 13, 1780, and at once sought out Sophie, to
+quarrel with and leave her, and so, fortunately, end the most
+disgraceful portion of his life.
+
+Mirabeau, now thirty-one years old, and, according to the times, most
+liberally experienced in the ways of the then turbulent world,
+undertook, as his first task, the removal of the sentence of death which
+still confronted him. Not only did he succeed in this, but, by his
+plausibility and eloquence, he shifted the entire cost of the
+proceedings to the shoulders of the complainant--the aged magistrate he
+had so grossly wronged. His next venture was an effort before the
+tribunal of Aix, to compel his wife to return to him. Here he failed, as
+also he failed in an effort to compromise a suit pending between his
+father and mother. Not only that, but by his pleadings his mother became
+forever alienated from him, and by reason of his bitter attacks upon the
+rulings of the court he was forced to leave Paris. Locating at
+Amsterdam, he began his lasting and respectable relations with Madame de
+Nehra, daughter of Zwier van Haren, a Dutch writer and politician. She
+was a woman of education and refinement, who exercised a valuable
+influence over his rapidly growing celebrity, bringing out his good
+qualities, subduing his undesirable characteristics, and encouraging all
+of his better ambitions. It was at her suggestion that he went to
+England, after a brief stay in Holland, while she repaired to Paris. His
+mission--which he accomplished--was to publish his "Considerations sur
+l'Ordre de Cincinnatus" and his "Doutes sur la Liberte de l'Escaut;"
+while her mission, also successful, was to establish peace between
+Mirabeau and the authorities at the French capital.
+
+During twenty years of the thirty-six years he had lived, Mirabeau had
+been, either through his father's intervention or by his own acts, a
+constant topic of consideration by the French authorities. On the other
+hand, by virtue of his writings, his declared enmity to all forms of
+tyranny and oppression, and his distaste for pretence, he had become a
+popular idol. He was, as Carlyle puts it, "a swallower of formulas," and
+it seems he had the ability to digest such food thus taken. Therefore,
+upon his return to Paris in April, 1785, he made a series of attacks
+upon agiotage, or stock jobbing, most effectively assaulting the
+Compagnie des Eaux and the Banque de St. Charles. While such efforts
+proved offensive to the government, it caused such an appreciation of
+his ability that he was sent, in June, 1786, on a secret mission to
+Berlin. He remained there for half a year, and during that time he
+secured the material for his notable work, "Histoire Secrete de la Cour
+de Berlin." Among other writings which he produced about this time were
+his "Moses Mendelssohn, ou la Reforme politique des Juifs," and his
+pamphlet "Denonciation de l'Agiotage," aimed against the policy of
+Calonne. Again he was in danger of the _lettre de cachet_, and so he
+repaired to Brunswick, where he finished his work "De la Monarchie
+Prussienne," which was published in 1788.
+
+Up to 1789, Mirabeau had been a dramatic character, an individual
+revelation of theatric passion, a figure-piece single and alone; but the
+climax was at hand. The achievement of American independence had been an
+object-lesson most potent. Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette, could
+not check the storm, and for the first time in one hundred and
+seventy-three years, France was to have an assembly of the nation by its
+representatives. The "third estate" was aroused and the States-General
+was summoned. Mirabeau, having a deep-rooted desire to provide for
+France a government in accord with the wishes and intent of a majority
+of the people, and having been rejected by the noblesse of his own
+district, presented himself to the "third estate," as a candidate. He
+was elected both for Aix and for Marseilles, and he decided to sit for
+Aix. Naturally an enthusiast, he was present (May 4, 1789) at the
+opening of the States-General, but with excellent sagacity he entered
+that body as an independent. To the end of his life, twenty-three months
+later, he maintained that independence.
+
+[Illustration: The Third Estate takes refuge in the tennis court.]
+
+When, being shut out in the rain from the great hall of the Estates, the
+"third estate" established themselves in the adjacent tennis-court, and
+when, being ejected from there, they came together again and forced the
+king to recognize them as the representatives of the nation; through all
+these earlier and wiser stages of the great revolt, Mirabeau was the
+leader and director. But when, on June 5, 1789, a resolution was passed
+by the delegates declaring themselves--the people, the Commons of
+France--to be the National Assembly, he spoke and worked bravely and
+eloquently against abandoning the old order of things before formulating
+an exact and sufficient policy as its successor. He declared the action
+a hasty one, and finally avoided the issue in the only way possible, by
+absenting himself when the vote was taken. And yet, eight days later, at
+the close of the royal sitting, he bade the grand master of ceremonies:
+"Go and tell your master we are here by the power of the people, and
+that we are only to be driven out by that of the bayonet."
+
+He advised the Assembly against the publication of pompous
+proclamations, and classed the demonstration of the night of August 4th
+as a theoretical display of liberty wholly without practical value. He
+was opposed to mob-law, and in no sense was he dazzled by the fall of
+the Bastille. He pleaded in favor of the royal right to veto, and
+proclaimed that he was willing, even, to advocate a "restoration of the
+king's legitimate authority as the only means of saving France."
+
+He was a leader of magnificent power, enthusiastic in the advocacy and
+support of his convictions; a statesman who would not speak, write or
+do, in politics, anything not in accord with his estimate as to what was
+right. True, he was accused of treason for speaking in support of the
+king's right to proclaim war or peace, but three days thereafter he
+defended himself against the charge, and with overwhelming success. He
+was a leader who worked prodigiously. In addition to his duties as a
+member of the Assembly, he was also publisher and editor of a paper
+first called the _Journal des Etats-Generaux_, later the _Lettres a mes
+Constituants_, and at last the _Courrier de Provence_. As clerk of the
+Comite Diplomatique of the Assembly and because of his thorough
+knowledge of foreign affairs, he was the constant adviser of Montmorin,
+the foreign secretary. Thus, by his wise appreciation of the subject, he
+established harmony between the Assembly and Montmorin, and so prevented
+foreign intervention, at the same time maintaining the honor of France
+abroad. But this bulwark to the nation's safety was about to topple and
+fall, precipitated by its own decay. As in all things, Mirabeau had been
+colossal in his excesses, and like them, the punishment was great. He
+wished to live, but he did not fear death. Early in 1791 the structure
+began to weaken, and realizing that the time was at hand, Mirabeau
+carefully collected all of his writings, and after classifying them,
+forwarded them to his firm friend and companion, Sir Gilbert Elliott, in
+England. So far as he was able, he continued to contribute to the
+guidance and protection of his country. He was patient and fearless, his
+only regret taking the form of a pardonable conceit that, could he but
+live, the Revolution could be controlled and guided, that the awful
+Reign of Terror, so soon to follow, could be averted. The progress of
+his decline was without hindrance, in spite of all that science could
+devise. It is reported that, as he looked out from his sick-room, on the
+day of his death, on the brilliant spring-time sun, he said: "If he is
+not God, he is at least his cousin-german." Those were, it is said, his
+last spoken words, although some time later when unable to articulate,
+he feebly held a pen in his hand as he wrote the single word: "dormir."
+And so, on April 2, 1791, he died. Thus ended the life of a wondrous
+statesman; a singular career, of which Carlyle (in his "French
+Revolution") says: "Strange lot! Forty years of that smouldering with
+foul fire-damp and vapor enough; then victory over that;--and like a
+burning mountain, he blazes heaven high; and for twenty-three
+resplendent months pours out, in flame and molten fire-torrents, all
+that is in him, the Pharos and the Wondersign of an amazed Europe;--and
+then lies hollow, cold, forever."
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE
+
+(1758-1794)
+
+[Illustration: Robespierre. [TN]]
+
+
+Maximilien Isidore Robespierre, the leader of the most violent of those
+theorizers who overthrew the French monarchy, the exponent of all that
+deep-rooted hatred which the commoners of France, as the result of long
+centuries of oppression, harbored against their king, nobles, and
+clergy; Robespierre, who ruled the infant republic during her first bold
+defiance of united Europe, yet whose name has become, even among his
+countrymen, a symbol of horror, was born at Arras, in 1758. His father
+was an advocate in the supreme council of Artois, and, ruined by his
+dissipation, had left France long before the revolution. An orphan at
+the age of nine, and without fortune, Maximilien was indebted to the
+benevolent protection of the Bishop of Arras, M. de Conzie, for the
+situation of bursar of the College of Louis XIV. We are assured that
+from his infancy he manifested a cruel, reserved, and timid disposition,
+and an ardent love of liberty and independence. After having passed
+through his studies, and obtained the honor of being chosen by his
+fellow-students to address Louis XVI., upon the entrance of that prince
+into Paris, he returned to Arras, where, having become an advocate of
+the council of Artois, he composed strictures against the magistrates of
+that province. A daring enthusiast, in 1789 he was elected, on account
+of his revolutionary principles, by the third estate of Artois, to a
+seat in the Constituent Assembly. We shall not follow him in detail in
+that assembly: we shall simply remark, that he spoke much without
+obtaining any particular influence and evinced himself constantly the
+enthusiastic champion of the people. Robespierre, in all his harangues,
+appears to foresee events. The avowed enemy of royalty, we behold him on
+the side of republicanism, of which he ventured to alter the name on the
+day when the Assembly decreed the French government monarchical. We
+behold him again, after the arrest of the king at Varennes, resuming his
+projects for the destruction of that monarch, preparing the movements
+which took place at the Champ-de-Mars, on July 14, 16, 17, 1791, and
+attacking, on the 14th, in the Assembly, the principle of the
+inviolability of the sovereign, in the hope of having him arraigned; but
+at the end of the sitting, finding his opinion rejected, he began to
+tremble for his temerity, and required that they should not provoke the
+ruin of persons who had engaged in that affair.
+
+If Robespierre was unable to distinguish himself among the orators of
+the Constituent Assembly; if his principles appeared obnoxious to the
+innovators acting from sentiment in 1789; if they often drew upon him
+the indignation of his colleagues; they were the means of his acquiring
+among the Jacobins that reputation and favor which, daily increasing,
+rendered him at last the idol of the people and the ruler of the
+government. He was called "The Incorruptible." The day of the closing of
+the Assembly, the populace surrounded him on his coming out of the hall,
+put a crown of oak upon his head, placed him in a carriage, and, taking
+out the horses, dragged him to his house, exclaiming as they moved,
+"Behold the friend of the people, the great defender of Liberty!"
+Robespierre was fully sensible of the advantages which might result from
+his alliance with the Jacobins. He devoted himself entirely to the
+direction of a club bearing that name, and refused, in order to give up
+his whole time to the objects they had in view, the office of accuser in
+the criminal tribunal at Paris, to which he had been appointed. Until
+his election to a seat in the Convention, he was never seen personally
+to engage in those insurrections which produced the atrocious attack
+upon the king, nor in the horrible massacres which, in 1792, covered
+Paris with murder and blood, and the French name with eternal
+opprobrium. He refused even to preside at the tribunal of August 10th,
+because, as he said, "He had long since denounced and accused the
+conspirators, whom this tribunal was ordained to judge." But he had
+scarcely entered the Convention when he resolved to raise his faction
+upon the ruins of all the others, and his power upon the destruction of
+those factions which he might employ. To attain this end, he was seen at
+first to strengthen the ties by which he had already been united to
+Marat and Danton, and to avail himself particularly of the latter, in
+order to overthrow the Girondins, who, from the fifth session, had
+suspected his ambition, and accused him of aspiring to the dictatorship.
+It was during this struggle that Louvet pronounced against him that very
+eloquent harangue, which Madame Roland called the "Robespierreiad."
+Assisted by his brother and by Danton, Robespierre, in the sitting of
+November 5th, overpowered the Girondins, and went to the Jacobins to
+enjoy the fruits of his victory, where Merlin de Thionville declared him
+an eagle, and a barbarous reptile. From that moment he never ceased to
+promote the death of Louis XVI., with an asperity and a perseverance
+almost incredible. In short, until the fatal day of the martyrdom of
+that amiable and unfortunate prince, he continually importuned the
+tribune to pronounce upon him (according to the expression of one of his
+colleagues) _des vociferations de cannibale_, and the most atrocious
+prejudgments. It is almost superfluous to add, that he voted for his
+death on the day of the nominal appeal to the nation.
+
+Within any moderate limits, it would be impossible to give the details
+of this monstrous proceeding. Of all the disorders which had occurred
+during the stormy period which had seen him on the throne of France,
+Louis was accused. He was assigned counsel; and MM. Tronchet, Lamoignon,
+Malesherbes, and De Seze, with his approbation, undertook his defence.
+Their exertions, though creditable to themselves, were of no avail; and
+on January 16, 1793, after hearing them in his defence, and his solemn
+denial of the crimes laid to his charge, and after a sitting of nearly
+thirty-four hours, the punishment of death was awarded.
+
+Constant in his hatred of the Girondins, Robespierre attacked them with
+great vehemence until May 31st, when he obtained a complete triumph. His
+most dangerous enemies among the men of that faction were outlawed, and
+others arrested. The success of this day rendered him absolute ruler of
+the Convention, and founded that tyrannical empire which only terminated
+with his life.
+
+[Illustration: Robespierre's arrest.]
+
+Among the factions which had lent him their assistance, the Hebertistes
+were the first that separated from his cause. This faction aspired to
+sole dominion, but the good fortune or the address of Robespierre was
+able at once to oppose to it the Jacobins and the Cordeliers, and it
+sunk in March, 1794, under their united efforts. Danton, who had been
+particularly serviceable on this occasion, whose energy had been of such
+utility, who had aided him in sweeping away the other factions; Danton,
+in short, whom he ought to have considered as the instrument of his
+power, became a formidable enemy, after being for a length of time a
+most devoted friend and faithful ally. The two parties were at issue;
+one or the other must necessarily be overcome. The cunning of
+Robespierre triumphed over the inconsiderate ardor of his rival, whom he
+took pains to render unpopular by sending him to enrich himself in
+Belgium. A few days afterward he was accused, arrested, and conveyed to
+the scaffold with Desmoulins, La Croix, Fabre, and others. In the course
+of the same month (April, 1794) he delivered over to the Revolutionary
+Tribunal the remainder of the party of the Hebertistes, and that of the
+Cordeliers, whom he degraded by the name of Atheists, and from that
+moment to the period of his downfall he met no opposition. It was then
+that his language assumed a different tone. "I must be," "it is
+necessary," "I will," were his general expressions; and the Convention,
+as he himself called it, was only his _machine a decrets_. What is
+worthy of remark is, that France, groaning under the struggles of
+different parties, should applaud the conduct of Robespierre, from an
+idea that she would be less miserable under a single tyrant. His new
+plan of religion, ridiculous as it was, gained him some adherents; but
+it must be evident to every reflecting mind that Robespierre must have
+conceived himself at the head of the government, since he, whose sole
+object had hitherto been to destroy, attempted to rebuild. It is
+impossible to conjecture how long his power might have continued, had
+he spared his colleagues, and if he had not incited to resistance men
+who, until then, had blindly executed his orders, and who desired
+nothing more than to continue to serve and obey him; but in sacrificing
+the leaders of the Revolutionary Government, Robespierre sought a
+support in the moderate party. This policy ruined him; those whose
+destruction he had meditated occasioned his downfall. Danger, however,
+inspired him with courage. From June 10th, Ruamps and Bourdon de l'Oise,
+in particular, had expressed some distrust of the Committee of Public
+Safety, which produced a discussion in which Robespierre, speaking with
+an air of despotism, had the good fortune to silence them. This was the
+moment he should have chosen to overwhelm the party, which redoubled its
+intrigues for his destruction; and at whose head Tallien rendered
+himself remarkable. His friend, St. Just, advised him to strike the
+first blow. Robespierre had passed several days in retirement, occupied
+in projecting, at a moment when he ought to have acted. When he
+reappeared on the 26th, at the Convention, his partisans abandoned him;
+he in vain endeavored to regain the ground he had lost. Sensible of the
+danger which threatened him, he called together his most intimate
+friends on the night of the 26th. St. Just pressed him immediately to
+act. He hesitated for twenty-four hours, and this delay was the sentence
+of his death. The next day Billaud-Varennes removed the veil, and
+Robespierre having rushed to the tribune to reply to him, the cries of
+"Down with the tyrant!" drove him instantly from the assembly. A few
+minutes after a decree was passed for his arrest, and that of St. Just,
+Couthon, and Lebas. "The robbers triumph," he exclaimed, on turning to
+the side of the conquerors. He was afterward conducted to the
+Luxembourg, and in a little time removed from that palace and conveyed
+to the tribune which had delivered him up. He for some instants
+cherished the hopes of a triumph; the national guard, under the command
+of Henriot, assembled in his defence. But the Convention having put him
+out of the protection of the law, the Parisians abandoned him, and at
+three o'clock in the morning he found himself with his accomplices in
+the power of the officers of the Convention. At the moment he was about
+to be seized he discharged a pistol at his head, which only fractured
+his lower jaw; others say it was fired by Medal, one of the gendarmes,
+who had stepped forward to arrest him, and against whom he defended
+himself. He was immediately conducted to the Commune, from thence
+conveyed to the Conciergerie, and executed on the same day, July 28,
+1794.
+
+His last moments presented a terrific scene; his mouth full of blood,
+his eyes half closed, his head bound up with a bloody handkerchief, he
+was thrown into the same cell which had been successively inhabited by
+Hebert, Danton, and Chaumette. When he quitted the prison to meet his
+punishment, the proscribed persons obstructing the passage, the jailer
+cried out, "Make way for monsieur the incorruptible!" He was conveyed in
+a cart between Henriot and Couthon; the people halted before the house,
+two women danced before the wagon, and one of them exclaimed; "Your
+sufferings intoxicate us with joy! You will descend to hell, accompanied
+by the curses of all wives and mothers." The executioner, in order to
+dispatch him, rudely tore away the bandage from his wound. He uttered a
+cry of horror; his lower jaw separated itself from the upper. The blood
+again flowed, and his head exhibited a spectacle of the most frightful
+kind. He died at the age of thirty-six.
+
+Robespierre was not a monster; his life attests it; nor was he solely
+guilty of the atrocities which signalized his reign. By his downfall he
+was loaded with all those iniquities which, had he triumphed, he would
+have attributed to his opponents.
+
+
+
+
+JEAN HENRI PESTALOZZI
+
+By HARRIET MARTINEAU
+
+(1746-1827)
+
+[Illustration: Jean Henri Pestalozzi. [TN]]
+
+
+Those of us who can look back forty years must well remember the fancy
+that society took, on a sudden, to interrogate children. It is an odd
+thing to recall now one of the strangest fashions of a period full of
+wild fashions. After a long term of insular seclusion, through the war,
+we welcomed all sorts of foreigners to our soil, and all manner of
+foreign notions to our minds. The grand discovery of the benefit of
+questioning children made great way in the country, and among some of
+the best-hearted people in it. Wherever one went, among the educated
+classes, one found the same thing going on. Children of all ages, but
+especially the younger, were undergoing cross-examination from morning
+till night. It was a terrible time for them. I have seen some fall into
+a habit of tears when asked a question which they could not answer. I
+have seen more fall into a habit of glib lying, under the teazing
+constraint. I have seen tempers ruined for life by the constant
+irritation, and most old people can probably say that they have seen
+promising intellects frittered away; minds above the average at the
+outset of life rendered incurably desultory, shallow, and conceited. If
+there are readers of Wordsworth who are puzzled at this day about the
+drift of his poem, called "Anecdote for Fathers, Showing how the
+Practice of Lying May be Taught," let them remember that it was written
+at a time when "the Pestalozzian system" was in vogue in England, and
+throughout Europe; and then they will see what a good lesson it yields.
+If, at this day, the image flits across our memories of some pale child,
+with a fretful brow, red eyes, and a constant disposition to get out of
+the room, or to hide behind the window curtains, when spoken to, we may
+refer that image back to the days of the "Pestalozzian system," as it
+was fashionably understood in this country.
+
+It was a cruel injustice to Pestalozzi to render him responsible for all
+this mischief. His mission was, not to craze children's brains and break
+their hearts, but the very contrary. We, in fact, gave his name to a
+mere reaction from a mistake of our own--to one kind of ignorance into
+which we fell in our escape from another.
+
+In our desire for popular education, early in the century, we had
+supposed the thing to be done was to put certain facts into the
+learner's mind--to lay them upon his memory, as it were. To quicken and
+spread the process, we set children who had learned a thing one minute
+to teach it to other children the next. This did not answer. We called
+it "the Lancasterian system," and supposed the nation would be educated
+in a trice. When we found, at the end of ten or twenty years, that boys
+and girls left school after sitting nine years on the benches, unable to
+do any good with book or pen, while they had lost their home-training in
+the workshop, the field, or the dairy, we were ready for a reaction; and
+to that reaction we most unjustly gave the name of "Pestalozzian
+system."
+
+The notion was that we had been all wrong in putting knowledge into
+children's heads; and that the right way was to get ideas out of them.
+Henceforth we were to develop faculties, and not impose knowledge. It
+was a great day for us when the conception was formed, and began to
+spread. Without it, education would never have advanced even as far as
+it has. But we blundered over it sadly at first; and among our mistakes,
+it was not the least that we christened our follies after Pestalozzi.
+Every great step in social progress is taken in the name of some
+representative man. It is the business of those who come after to
+absolve those representatives from the disrepute of mistakes which were
+none of theirs; and we may hope that Pestalozzi's memory has long been
+clear from the charge of torturing on the rack of cross-examination the
+generation of children whom he loved so well. What it was that he did
+propose is best seen by looking at his life; for, if he was not a very
+practical man in the sense of wisely conducted affairs, he was still
+less of a theorist. He knew very well what he meant and what he wanted;
+but he had no compact system to propose, grounded on any new theory of
+the human faculties. The foremost man in the educational revolution of
+modern times, he obeyed his instincts, and left it for incompetent
+followers to make a scheme of doctrine out of what he said and did.
+
+What were those instincts? And how did he use them?
+
+We first see him as a very peculiar little boy, whose best friend was
+his mother's maid, Barbara. His name is Italian, but he was a Swiss. His
+ancestors had been citizens of Milan; but one of them, becoming
+Protestant at the time of the Reformation, had to seek a Protestant
+country to live in, and went to Zurich. The father of this little John
+Henry was a physician. He died so early that he left a very bare
+provision for his widow and their only son; and, aware of the prudence
+that their circumstances would require, he recommended them, on his
+death-bed, to the care of the trusty maid Barbara, who fully justified
+the confidence. She carried them through with an appearance of
+respectability on the smallest means, and nourished the pride of narrow
+circumstances in the boy, in striving to avoid the opposite fault of
+meanness. She told him that no Pestalozzi had ever eaten the bread of
+dependence, and that his mother's self-denial raised him above the
+degradation suffered by many another orphan in Zurich. These lessons and
+Barbara's own character, account for much of the passionate advocacy of
+the claims and the independence of the poor, and of the respect for
+their virtue, which were the chief features of the whole life of the
+man. From six years old, when his father died, he looked upon all
+orphans with an interest compounded of fellow-feeling and of lofty pity
+for their inferiority in independence. His great, but as yet
+unconscious, desire was to help the whole class to independence.
+
+It does not appear why he devoted himself, as he grew up, to the study
+of languages. Probably he had no choice as to the course of his
+training; but we find him, so early as the age of eighteen, leaving that
+study and preparing himself with great zeal for the pulpit. His deeply
+religious nature might well indicate this career; but he early failed in
+it and gave it up. His first attempt to preach ended in mortification,
+and it is not difficult to perceive why. His education must have been
+defective, for, to the end of his long life, he spoke a jargon of German
+or French, sometimes mixing the two; a kind of language which none but
+his intimates could comprehend. His articulation was defective; his
+countenance was so ugly as to be forbidding; and, during the latter part
+of his life at least, his personal habits were worse than slovenly. The
+failure in the pulpit is not wonderful; nor yet that in the law, which
+he tried next. He turned again to his first pursuit, and published some
+philological writings. While eager about a new method of teaching Latin,
+he one day took up Rousseau's "Emile," and the book determined the whole
+course of his life.
+
+Insisting that the pursuit of learning was the most unnatural of human
+occupations, he not only gave it up, but burned all his papers; not only
+his notes, but manuscripts on Swiss law and Swiss history. He would live
+henceforth as a son of the soil. He sold his small patrimony to buy a
+bit of land to farm; married the daughter of a merchant of Zurich, and
+began domestic life at two and twenty. His wife's connection gave him an
+interest in a cotton manufactory; and he became well acquainted with two
+classes of laborers at once. The discovery of their intellectual
+degradation shocked him. Both the farm-laborers and the spinners were so
+inferior to the poor of his imagination, that he was at once stimulated
+and dismayed. He was thirty when he set about the sort of work which
+made him the world's benefactor. He collected about fifty poor and
+desolate children on his little estate, lived with them in a state of
+hardship, taught them to work, and to think, and to read, and made
+friends of them. In the absence of other assistants, he adopted the plan
+of setting them to teach one another; a feature of his method which
+recommended it where the Lancasterian system existed. Having no skill,
+and no prudence in the management of affairs, he was soon ruined, and
+the establishment was broken up.
+
+This was the occasion of his giving us the book which made his name
+famous all over Europe. To explain his views, and to get immediate means
+of support, he wrote "Leonard and Gertrude," which might soon after be
+seen on the tables of all benevolent and literary persons in all
+countries. Its disclosure of continental peasant life was perhaps the
+first charm to us; but it also changed the character of educational
+effort in England as elsewhere. Perhaps this popularity gave the good
+man honor in his own country.
+
+After the Revolutionary War in Switzerland, the Canton of Unterwalden
+was overrun with wretched children who seemed to belong to nobody. They
+prowled about the burned hamlets, and infested town and country like
+little wolves. The government asked Pestalozzi to take charge of some of
+them, and offered him some little aid. It was a singular spectacle when
+this uncouth man, then in the vigor of his years (it was in 1798),
+entered the ruins of a ravaged convent, with his mob of one hundred and
+fifty outcast children. He was all alone with them; and some of them
+were sickly and stunted; many were fretful; and not a few ferocious, or
+malicious, or impudent, or full of suspicion and falsehood. He lived and
+labored among them, nursed them, taught them, and soon began to open
+their minds and gain their hearts. In a little while their avidity for
+knowledge astonished him. The facts of the case indicate that he had an
+aptitude for communicating with children's minds that amounted to
+genius. Our mistake, twenty years later, was in supposing that the
+virtue lay in that part of the method which could be imitated.
+Pestalozzi, conversing with young creatures who had never supposed that
+anybody cared for them, surprised them by his interest in what they felt
+and thought. His questions roused their faculties, and sent a glow
+through their feelings; and their improvement transcended all precedent.
+Reports of his conversation and his achievements set others to work; and
+there was such an interrogation of children as was never dreamed of
+before.
+
+One question which Pestalozzi asked of this set of pupils is memorable.
+They had seen Altdorf in flames. About those blackened ruins there were
+again desolate children, living as they could. Pestalozzi sounded the
+minds of his pupils as to doing something in the case. When they eagerly
+desired to take in twenty among them, Pestalozzi asked them whether they
+could bear the consequences. They must work harder even than now; they
+must live yet more barely; they might have to share their dinners and
+their clothes with strangers whom they might not like. He would not
+allow a rash decision. He made them fully understand what they were
+undertaking, and put off the settlement of the question. Still, the
+pupils said, "Let them come!"
+
+The ravage of the war swept away this institution; but Pestalozzi could
+never again be overlooked. His special function was recognized at home
+and abroad. His books were translated into many languages; and the
+emperors and kings of Europe were eager to apply his wisdom to the
+education of their people. He was summoned to Paris to join a
+consultation on the interests of Switzerland, ordered by Napoleon. But
+he made his escape from Paris at the first possible moment; he did not
+want imperial patronage which interfered with his work at home; but he
+would have nothing to do with politics. He desired to live with children
+and the poor, to open their minds, and make them good and happy.
+
+It seemed as if he had attained his utmost wishes when the town of
+Yverdun offered him its castle and grounds for a school, with perfect
+freedom as to the management. For a few years the promise of educational
+advancement was truly splendid. Some of Pestalozzi's own pupils became
+able and devoted assistants; and other young men of the highest
+qualifications devoted themselves as apostles of his mission. Here and
+there over Europe establishments arose where boys, and sometimes girls,
+were trained at once in industry and intellectual progress. Those who
+were in the gardens, or the harvest field, or the dairy at one time of
+the day, were studying languages, mathematics, or music at other hours.
+And where this direct imitation of the Swiss establishments was not
+attempted, there was a visible improvement in methods of instruction. We
+learned to see that books and education, books and teaching, are not the
+same thing. Oral instruction came into use elsewhere than at mothers'
+knees; and amid some gross abuses, "the Pestalozzian system" began to
+work great good.
+
+There is almost always some dreary chapter in the history of these
+representative men. In Pestalozzi's there were several; but the
+dreariest of all was the last.
+
+There never was a movement which depended more entirely for success on
+the personal qualifications of its agents. We need not look further than
+the next street, or the next house, to see how one person differs from
+another in the faculty of genuine intercourse with children's minds. The
+smallness of the number of the well-endowed with this power, is the best
+reason for the large use of books in schools; and Pestalozzi's genius
+for companionship with inferior minds caused a too exclusive recourse to
+oral instruction. Thus, when assistants came upon the scene, there was
+diversity, disagreement, disappointment, and no little disorder. We need
+not go into the painful story of warring tempers and incompatible
+interests. The institution declined for some years, and then was broken
+up--the government of the Canton warning the manager of the concern, who
+acted in Pestalozzi's name, to leave the country.
+
+[Illustration: Pestalozzi, the children's friend.]
+
+It needs no explanation that Pestalozzi was in some respects weak. The
+failure of all his establishments and his inability to keep out of debt
+show this. His faculties of imagination and sympathy overpowered the
+rest of his mind. He early seized a great truth--that of the claim of
+every human being to the full development of his faculties, whatever
+they may be; and the concentration of his strongest powers on this great
+truth made him a social reformer of a high order. He was not a
+philosopher; he was not a man of good sense, or temper, or practical
+ability, generally speaking; though sense, temper, and ability appeared
+to be all transcendent in the particular direction taken by his
+genius. Among his inferiors--and particularly friendless children--he
+was a prophet and apostle; among men he was a child, and sometimes a
+perverse one.
+
+He died at the age of eighty-one, preserving, in the midst of great
+pain, his enthusiasm for justice, his special love for children and the
+poor, and his strong religious sentiment. Two days before his death he
+spoke long and nobly, while taking leave of his family and his
+enterprises. His country, and we hope the world, has remembered his good
+offices to society, and forgiven his foibles.
+
+
+
+
+GEORGES CUVIER
+
+By JOHN STOUGHTON, D.D.
+
+(1769-1832)
+
+[Illustration: Cuvier. [TN]]
+
+
+Georges Chretien Leopold Dagobert Cuvier was born at Montbeliard, a
+place of manufacturing industry about forty miles from Besancon, now
+within the French dominions, then a little principality pertaining to
+the Duke of Wurtemberg. Young Cuvier was remarkable for his intelligence
+and precocity; and an incident in his boyish days indicated the bent of
+his genius, and the sphere of knowledge and discovery in which as a man
+he was destined to excel. He found one day, among his father's books,
+Buffon's work on natural history, and it suggested the idea of copying
+and coloring the plates, after he had carefully studied the text. The
+contents formed his chief reading for many years. The relatives of
+Cuvier were poor. His father was a pensioned officer in a Swiss regiment
+in the service of France. His mother was an affectionate, godly, wise
+woman. To her early lessons in Latin, geography, and drawing, and to her
+communications of religion, he always acknowledged himself much
+indebted. He went to the public gymnasium at the age of ten, and
+remained there for four years, bearing off prizes for learning and
+athletics. Through the patronage of a Wurtemberg princess he was sent
+to the university of Stuttgart, where he pursued a course of scientific
+study, particularly in the division relating to natural history. There
+he acquitted himself with distinction, not only in that special
+department, but also in the most sacred branch of learning. "The young
+Cuvier," said his examiners, "has shown just notions of Christianity
+well adapted to his years," and "considerable skill" in reading the
+Greek Testament.
+
+Circumstances compelled him in early life to do something toward earning
+a livelihood, and in 1794 he became tutor in a French Protestant family
+living in the castle of Fiquainville, near Fecamp. In that little Norman
+fishing-town he found much to gratify his curiosity; and he might often
+be seen scouring the country after birds, butterflies, and other
+insects; or prying into nooks and corners on the shore, after shell-fish
+and other marine productions; while the treasures of the boundless sea
+inspired wonder, with a longing to explore its depths and to become
+acquainted with the forms of life hidden under its waters.
+
+He appears to have continued in the family of Count d'Hericy for nearly
+seven years. He was introduced to the _savants_ of Paris by his
+researches, and accepted an invitation to remove thither in 1795. He
+reached the French metropolis just after the horrors of the Revolution.
+Papers written by him already on his favorite subject had brought him
+into notice; and he found congenial employment in the Jardin des
+Plantes--the home of his after-studies and the sphere of his scientific
+exploits. There he worked and lectured, and obtained the office of
+assistant to the aged professor of comparative anatomy. In the year of
+his appointment, he made a mark in the study which he rendered so
+famous, by a memoir on the Megalonyx, a fossil animal known by a few of
+its bones, and which, contrary to received opinion, he boldly proved to
+have been a gigantic sloth. This was the first of those able comparisons
+of the fossil with the present world which revolutionized geology,
+extended comparative anatomy, and absolutely created the science of
+palaeontology. He was also appointed to a professorship of natural
+philosophy in the College of France; then he rose, step by step, under
+the favor and patronage of Napoleon, who made him an inspector-general
+of schools; secretary to the French Institute; councillor of the new
+Imperial University, and organizer of reformed colleges in Italy,
+Holland, and Germany, after the vast extension of the empire. Even at
+Rome he was thus employed in 1813; and though a Protestant, he there won
+the good opinion of the authorities. The conquest and banishment of the
+great ruler of France did not spoil the fortunes of Cuvier; for, after
+the restoration of Louis XVIII., he was confirmed by that monarch in the
+office of state councillor, to which he had been appointed by the
+emperor, and in 1819 he was made a baron of France.
+
+Just before this he visited England, and was received with the highest
+honors. Another visit followed in 1830. An amusing circumstance occurred
+on one of these occasions, indicative of his wide-spread fame amid the
+lower as well as the upper classes of society. When in London, owing to
+the absence of his valet, he sent for a barber to shave him. When the
+operation was finished he offered payment. "I am too much honored,"
+replied the Gascon--for such the operator happened to be, "by having
+shaved the greatest man of the age, to accept any recompense." M. Cuvier
+allowed him the honor to the full extent, and engaged him to perform the
+function repeatedly, for which, at length, he was willing to pocket
+payment.
+
+Cuvier's life must have been most laborious. The same year in which he
+was made baron, he became president of the Committee of the Interior;
+and the numerous and various affairs which there passed under his
+review, and required his examination, were perfectly wonderful; together
+with his scientific employments, they seem more than any mortal man
+could accomplish. But by economy of time and distribution of labor,
+concentration of thought, retentiveness of memory, and a profound
+knowledge of principles in every department, he acquitted himself in a
+manner which secured universal admiration.
+
+Charles X., of France, and the King of Wurtemberg, vied with each other
+in the honors they conferred on Cuvier; and on the accession of Louis
+Philippe to the French throne the new sovereign continued the favors
+shown by his predecessors, and in 1832 made the baron a French peer. But
+his end was now drawing nigh. "Gentlemen," he said one day to his
+hearers, in opening a new course of lectures, "these will be the objects
+of our future investigations, if time, health, and strength shall be
+given to me to continue and finish them with you." But an overwrought
+brain the very next day produced paralysis, and the distinguished
+statesman and philosopher died at the age of sixty-three, on May 13,
+1832.
+
+Down to the time of Cuvier, the classification of animal life had been
+most imperfect and unsatisfactory. The basis adopted by Ray was open to
+criticism. Comparative anatomy, rising into importance during the
+eighteenth century, continued through that period in a state of infancy.
+Linnaeus and Buffon rendered valuable service; but all former students in
+this branch of science were surpassed by Cuvier. A curious anecdote is
+recorded of the ignorance of natural objects which continued even after
+the opening of the present century. When the committee of the French
+Academy were employed in preparing the well-known Academy dictionary,
+Cuvier came one day into the room where they were holding a session.
+"Glad to see you, M. Cuvier," said one of the forty; "we have just
+finished a definition which we think quite satisfactory, but on which we
+should like to have your opinion. We have been defining the word 'crab,'
+and explained it thus: 'Crab, a small red fish, which walks backward.'"
+"Perfect, gentlemen," said Cuvier; "only, if you will give me leave, I
+will make one small observation in natural history. The crab is not a
+fish, it is not red, and it does not walk backward. With these
+exceptions your definition is excellent."
+
+Cuvier was the first to give a really philosophical view of the animal
+world in reference to the plan on which each animal is constructed.
+There are, he says, four such plans--four forms on which animals appear
+to have been modelled, and of which the ulterior divisions, with
+whatever titles naturalists have decorated them, are only very slight
+modifications, founded on the development or addition of some parts
+which do not produce any essential change in the plan. These four great
+branches of the animal world are the _vertebrata_, _mollusca_,
+_articulata_, and _radiata_.
+
+Comparative anatomy found in Cuvier a student who appreciated its
+importance and revived its efficiency and honors. He saw more distinctly
+than anyone before, that large classes of animals, when carefully
+examined, are but modifications of a common type; that, for example,
+there is after all a strong resemblance, when their skeletons are looked
+at, between a man and a bird, and also a complete analogy between the
+human skull and the head of a fish. It was in the pursuit after such
+analogies that Cuvier was led into the track where he found the basis of
+his new anatomical classifications.
+
+For his wonderful volumes on fossil animals, Cuvier had made some
+preparation by an essay, presented in 1810 to the Academy, on the
+geology of the basin of Paris, a district singularly rich in fossil
+remains. Montmartre and its vicinity, covered with buildings and crowded
+with people, would not strike many observers as a promising field for
+scientific exploration; but it is the peculiarity of genius to read
+instruction where others can find only a blank, or a record of
+commonplace character. Cuvier discovered in the geological construction
+and the fossil remains of the Paris basin, elements for the solution of
+the most critical scientific questions, relative not only to that
+locality, but to the globe at large. Long before, he had begun to
+treasure up facts, the collocation of which ultimately constituted his
+marvellous additions to human knowledge. In 1800 he finds a few teeth,
+in following years a few bones; and after many years' patience and skill
+he ascertains and demonstrates the existence and place of a number of
+tapir-like animals which he classed as _Lophiodon Paleotherium_ and
+_Anoplotherium_, formerly abounding on the banks of the ponds which have
+left their mud and marl in the tertiary strata of the Paris basin. His
+anticipations seemed like prophecies, based, as they were, on a tooth or
+a bone; but subsequent discoveries enabled him to verify them all, so
+that they became parts of scientific and general knowledge. The effect
+of these discoveries on the scientific world was prodigious.
+
+"The great work of Cuvier," says Lord Brougham, "stands among those rare
+monuments of human genius and labor, of which each department of
+exertion can scarcely ever furnish more than one, eminent therefore
+above all the other efforts made in the same kind. In the stricter
+sciences, the 'Principia' of Newton, and in later times its continuation
+and extension in La Place's 'Mecanique Celeste;' in intellectual
+philosophy, Locke's celebrated work; in oratory, Demosthenes; in poetry,
+Homer, leave all competitors behind by the common consent of mankind;
+and Cuvier's researches in fossil osteology will probably be reckoned to
+prefer an equal claim to distinction among the works on comparative
+anatomy."
+
+"If," says Cuvier, "you have but the extremity of a bone well preserved,
+you may, by attention, consideration, and the aid of resources which
+analogy furnishes to skill, determine all the rest as well as if you had
+the entire skeleton submitted to you."
+
+The great scientific value of the work lies in its comparative anatomy,
+creating as it were (as we have said) the science of palaeontology at a
+leap; but there are in it also sundry other philosophical deductions in
+geology, such as the following: that in the strata called primitive
+there are no remains of life or organized existence;--that all organized
+existences were not created at the same time, but at different times,
+probably very remote from each other, vegetables before animals, the
+mollusca and fishes before reptiles, and the latter before the
+mammalia;--that the transition limestone exhibits remains of the lowest
+forms of existence; and the chalk and clay conceal the remains of
+fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds, beings of a former order of things,
+which have now disappeared;--that among fossil remains no vestige
+appears of man or his works; that the fossil remains in the more recent
+strata are those which approach nearest to the present type of the
+corresponding living species; and that these strata show the former
+prevalence of fresh water as well as sea-water.
+
+The extraordinary sagacity of Cuvier, coupled with his extensive
+knowledge, qualified him for the execution of this herculean task. His
+power of geological classification sprang out of his zooelogical skill,
+and he was a great pioneer in previously unexplored fields of research,
+where relations between the organic and inorganic changes of the earth
+were revealed to the eye of the philosopher. "His guiding ideas had been
+formed, his facts had been studied, by the assistance of all the
+sciences which could be made to bear upon them. In his geological labors
+he seems to see some beautiful temple, not only firm and fair in itself,
+but decorated with sculptures and painting, and rich in all that art and
+labor, memory and imagination, can contribute to its beauty."
+
+These remarks occur in connection with Whewell's sketch of the
+contributions to science made by Cuvier: "I may observe, that he is
+allowed by all to have established on an indestructible basis many of
+the most important generalizations which zooelogy now contains; and the
+principal defect which his critics have pointed out has been that he did
+not generalize still more widely and boldly. It appears, therefore, that
+he cannot but be placed among the great discoverers in the studies which
+he pursued; and this being the case, those who look with pleasure on the
+tendency of the thoughts of the greatest men to an intelligence far
+higher than their own, must be gratified to find that he was an example
+of this tendency, and that the acknowledgment of a creative purpose, as
+well as a creative power, not only entered into his belief, but made an
+indispensable and prominent part of his philosophy."
+
+"Beauty, richness, abundance," says Cuvier, "have been the ways of the
+Creator, no less than simplicity. We conceive nature to be simply a
+production of the Almighty, regulated by a wisdom the laws of which can
+only be discovered by observation."
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT[7]
+
+By LOUIS AGASSIZ
+
+(1769-1859)
+
+         [Footnote 7: Written at the time of the death of Baron Von
+         Humboldt, and reprinted, by permission, from "Littell's Living
+         Age."]
+
+[Illustration: Humboldt. [TN]]
+
+
+Humboldt--Alexander Von Humboldt, as he always called himself, though he
+was christened with the names of Frederick Heinrich Alexander--was born
+in 1769, on September 14th, in that memorable year which gave to the
+world those philosophers, warriors, and statesmen who have changed the
+face of science and the condition of affairs in our century. It was in
+that year that Cuvier also and Schiller were born; and among the
+warriors and statesmen, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, and Canning
+are children of 1769, and it is certainly a year of which we can say
+that its children have revolutionized the world. Of the early life of
+Humboldt I know nothing, and I find no records except that in his tenth
+year he lost his father, who had been a major in the army during the
+seven years' war, and afterward a chamberlain to the King of Prussia.
+But his mother took excellent care of him, and watched over his early
+education. The influence she had upon his life is evident from the fact
+that, notwithstanding his yearning for the sight of foreign lands, he
+did not begin to make active preparations for his travels during her
+lifetime. In the winter of 1787-1788 he was sent to the University of
+Frankfort on the Oder, to study finances. He was to be a statesman; he
+was to enter high offices, for which there was a fair chance, owing to
+his noble birth and the patronage he could expect at court. He remained,
+however, but a short time there.
+
+Not finding these studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence in
+the university we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate
+friendship with Wildenow, then professor of botany, and who at that time
+possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the first
+branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial attention. The
+next year he went to Goettingen--being then a youth of twenty years; and
+here he studied natural history with Blumenbach, and thus had an
+opportunity of seeing the progress zooelogy was making in anticipation of
+the great movement by which Cuvier placed zooelogy on a new foundation.
+
+For it is an unquestionable fact that in first presenting a
+classification of the animal kingdom based upon a knowledge of its
+structure, Blumenbach in a measure anticipated Cuvier; though it is
+only by an exaggeration of what Blumenbach did that an unfair writer of
+later times has attempted to deprive Cuvier of the glory of having
+accomplished this object upon the broadest possible basis. From
+Goettingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of studying geology, and
+in particular the basaltic formations of the Seven Mountains. At Mayence
+he became acquainted with George Forster, who proposed to accompany him
+on a journey to England. You may imagine what impression the
+conversation of that active, impetuous and powerful man had upon the
+youthful Humboldt. They went to Belgium and Holland, and thence to
+England, where Forster introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks. Thus the
+companions of Captain Cook in his first and second voyages round the
+world, who were already venerable in years and eminent promoters of
+physical science not yet established in the popular favor, were the
+early guides of Humboldt in his aspirations for scientific distinction.
+Yet Humboldt had a worldly career to accomplish. He was to be a
+statesman, and this required that he should go to the Academy of
+Commerce at Hamburg. He remained there five months, but could endure it
+no longer, and he begged so hard that his mother allowed him to go to
+Freyberg and study geology with Werner, with a view of obtaining a
+situation in the Administration of Mines. See what combinations of
+circumstances prepare him for his great career, as no other young man
+ever was prepared. At Freyberg he received the private instruction of
+Werner, the founder of modern geology, and he had as his fellow-student
+no less a man than Leopold Von Buch, then a youth, to whom, at a later
+period, Humboldt himself dedicated one of his works, inscribing it "to
+the greatest geologist," as he was till the day of his recent death.
+From Freyberg he made frequent excursions into the Hartz and
+Fichtelgeberg and surrounding regions, and these excursions ended in the
+publication of a small work upon the subterranean flora of Freyberg
+("Flora Subterranea Fribergensis"), in which he described especially
+those cryptogamous plants, or singular low and imperfect formations
+which occur in the deep mines. But here ends his period of pupilage. In
+1792 he was appointed an officer of the mines (Oberbergmeister). He went
+to Beyreuth as director of the operations in those mines belonging to
+the Frankish provinces of Prussia. Yet he was always wandering in every
+direction, seeking for information and new subjects of study. He visited
+Vienna, and there heard of the discoveries of Galvani, with which he
+made himself familiar; went to Italy and Switzerland, where he became
+acquainted with the then celebrated Professors Jurine and Pictet, and
+with the illustrious Scarpa. He also went to Jena, formed an intimate
+acquaintance with Schiller and Goethe, and also with Loder, with whom he
+studied anatomy. From that time he began to make investigations of his
+own, and these investigations were in a line which he has never
+approached since, being experiments in physiology. He turned his
+attention to the newly-discovered power by which he tested the activity
+of organic substances; and it is plain, from his manner of treating the
+subject, that he leaned to the idea that the chemical process going on
+in the living body of animals furnished a clew to the phenomena of life,
+if it was not life itself. This may be inferred from the title of the
+book published in 1797--"Ueber die gereizte Muskel und Nervenfaser, mit
+Vermuthungen ueber den chemischen Process des Lebens, in Thieren und
+Pflanzen."
+
+In these explanations of the phenomena we have the sources of the first
+impulses in a direction which has been so beneficial in advancing the
+true explanation of the secondary phenomena of life; but which, at the
+same time, in its exaggeration as it prevails now has degenerated into
+the materialism of modern investigators.
+
+In that period of all-embracing activity, he began to study astronomy.
+His attention was called to it by Baron Von Zach, who was a prominent
+astronomer of the time, and who at that time was actively engaged upon
+astronomical investigations in Germany. He showed Humboldt to what
+extent astronomy would be useful to him, in his travels, in determining
+the position of places, the altitude of mountains, etc.
+
+So prepared, Humboldt now broods over his plans of foreign travel. He
+has published his work on the muscular and nervous fibre at the age of
+twenty-eight. He has lost his mother; and his mind is now inflamed with
+an ungovernable passion for the sight of foreign and especially tropical
+lands. He goes to Paris to make preparation by securing the best
+astronomical, meteorological and surveying instruments. Evidently he
+does not care where he shall go, for on a proposition of Lord Bristol to
+visit Egypt he agrees to it. The war prevents the execution of this
+plan, and he enters into negotiations to accompany the projected
+expedition of Captain Baudin to Australia; but when Bonaparte, bent on
+the conquest of Egypt, started with a scientific expedition, Humboldt
+wishes to join it. He expects to be one of the scientific party, and to
+reach Egypt by way of Barbary.
+
+But all these plans failing, he goes to Spain with the view of exploring
+that country, and finding perhaps some means of joining the French
+expedition in Egypt from Spain. While in Madrid he is so well received
+at the court--a young nobleman so well instructed has access
+everywhere--and he receives such encouragement from persons in high
+positions, that he turns his thoughts to an exploration of the Spanish
+provinces of America. He receives permission not only to visit them, but
+instructions are given to the officers of the colonies to receive him
+everywhere and give him all facilities, to permit him to transport his
+instruments, to make astronomical and other observations, and to collect
+whatever he chooses; and all that only in consequence of the good
+impression he has made when he appeared there, with no other
+recommendation than that of a friend who happened to be at that time
+Danish minister to the court of Madrid. But with these facilities
+offered to him, he sails in June, 1799, from Corunna, whence he reaches
+Teneriffe, makes short explorations of that island, ascending the peak,
+and sailing straightway to America, where he lands in Cumana in the
+month of July, and employs the first year and a half in the exploration
+of the basin of the Orinoco and its connection with the Amazon. This was
+a journey of itself, and completed a work of scientific importance,
+establishing the fact that the two rivers were connected by an
+uninterrupted course of water. He established for the first time the
+fact that there was an extensive low plain, connected by water, which
+circled the high table-land of Guiana. It was an important discovery in
+physical geography, because it changed the ideas about water-courses and
+about the distributions of mountains and plains in a manner which has
+had the most extensive influence upon the progress of physical
+geography. It may well be said that after this exploration of the
+Orinoco, physical geography begins to appear as a part of science. From
+Cumana he makes a short excursion to Havana, and hearing there of the
+probable arrival of Baudin on the west coast of America, starts with the
+intention of crossing at Panama. He arrives at Carthagena, but was
+prevented by the advance of the season from crossing the Isthmus, and
+changed his determination from want of precise information respecting
+Baudin's locality. He determines to ascend the Magdalena River and visit
+Santa Fe de Bogota, where, for several months, he explores the
+construction of the mountains, and collects plants and animals; and, in
+connection with his friend, Bonpland, who accompanied him from Paris, he
+makes those immense botanical collections, which were afterward
+published by Bonpland himself, and by Kunth after Bonpland had
+determined on an expedition to South America. In the beginning of 1802
+he reaches Quito, where, during four months, he turns his attention to
+everything worth investigating, ascends the Chimborazo, to a height to
+which no human foot had reached, anywhere; and, having completed this
+survey and repeatedly crossed the Andes, he descends the southern slope
+of the continent to the shore of the Pacific at Truxillo, and following
+the arid coast of Peru, he visits finally Lima.
+
+I will pass lightly over all the details of his journey, for they are
+only incidents in that laborious exploration of the country which is
+best appreciated by a consideration of the works which were published in
+consequence of that immense accumulation of materials gathered during
+those explorations. From Lima, or rather from Callao, he sails in 1802
+for Guayaquil and Acapulco, and reaches Mexico in 1803, where he makes
+as extensive explorations as he had made in Venezuela and the Andes, and
+after a stay of about a year, and having put all his collections and
+manuscripts in order, revisits Cuba for a short time, comes to the
+United States, makes a hurried excursion to Philadelphia and Washington,
+where he is welcomed by Jefferson, and finally returns with his faithful
+companion Bonpland to France, accompanied by a young Spanish nobleman,
+Don Carlo de Montufar, who had shared his travels since his visits to
+Quito.
+
+At thirty-six years of age Humboldt is again in Europe with collections
+made in foreign lands, such as had never been brought together before.
+But here we meet with a singular circumstance. The German nobleman, the
+friend of the Prussian and Spanish courts, chooses Paris for his
+residence, and remains there twenty-two years to work out the result of
+his scientific labor; for since his return, with the exception of short
+journeys to Italy, England and Germany, sometimes accompanying the King
+of Prussia, sometimes alone, or accompanied by scientific friends, he is
+entirely occupied in scientific labors and studies. So passes the time
+to the year 1827, and no doubt he was induced to make this choice of a
+residence by the extraordinary concourse of distinguished men in all
+branches of science with whom he thought he could best discuss the
+results of his own observations. I shall presently have something to say
+about the works he completed during that most laborious period of his
+life. I will only add now, that in 1827 he returned to Berlin
+permanently, having been urged of late by the King of Prussia again and
+again to return to his native land. And there he delivered a series of
+lectures preparatory to the publication of "Cosmos;" for in substance,
+even in form and arrangement, these lectures, of which the papers of the
+day gave short accounts, are a sort of prologue to the "Cosmos," and a
+preparation for its publication. In 1829, when he was sixty years of
+age, he undertakes another great journey. He accepts the invitation of
+the Emperor Nicholas to visit the Ural Mountains, with a view of
+examining the gold mines, and localities where platina and diamonds had
+been found, to determine their geological relation. He accomplished the
+journey with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose, who published the result of
+their mineralogical and geological survey, in a work of which he is the
+sole author; while Humboldt published under the title of "Asiatic
+Fragments of Geology and Climatology," his observations of the physical
+and geographical features made during that journey. But he had hardly
+returned to Berlin when in consequence of the revolution of 1830, he was
+sent by the King of Prussia as extraordinary ambassador to France, to
+honor the elevation of Louis Philippe to the throne. Humboldt had long
+been a personal friend of the Orleans family, and he was selected
+ambassador on that occasion on account of these personal relations. From
+1830 to 1848 he lived alternately in Berlin and in Paris, spending
+nearly half the time in Paris and half the time in Berlin, with
+occasional visits to England and Denmark; publishing the results of his
+investigations in Asia, making original investigations upon various
+things and especially pressing the establishment of observatories, and
+connected magnetic observations all over the globe, for which he
+obtained the co-operation of the Russian government and that of the
+government of England; and at that time those observations in Australia
+and in the Russian empire to the borders of China, were established
+which have led to such important results in our knowledge of terrestrial
+magnetism. Since 1848 he has lived uninterruptedly in Berlin, where he
+published on the anniversary of his eightieth year a new edition of
+those charming first flowers of his pen; his "Views of Nature," the
+first edition of which was published in Germany in 1808. This third
+edition appeared with a series of new and remodelled annotations and
+explanations; and that book in which he first presented his views of
+nature, in which he drew those vivid pictures of the physiognomy of
+plants and of their geographical distribution is now revived and brought
+to the present state of science.
+
+The "Views of Nature" is a work which Humboldt has always cherished, and
+to which in his "Cosmos" he refers more frequently than to any other
+work. It is no doubt because there he has expressed his deepest
+thoughts, his most impressive views, and even foreshadowed those
+intimate convictions which he never expressed, but which he desired to
+record in such a manner that those that can read between the lines might
+find them there; and certainly there we find them. His aspiration has
+been to present to the world a picture of the physical world from which
+he would exclude everything that relates to the turmoil of human
+society, and to the ambitions of individual men. A life so full, so
+rich, is worth explaining in every respect, and it is really instructive
+to see with what devotion he pursues his work. As long as he is a
+student he is really a student and learns faithfully, and learns
+everything he can reach. And he continues so for twenty-three years. He
+is not one of those who is impatient to show that he has something in
+him, and with premature impatience utters his ideas, so that they become
+insuperable barriers to his independent progress in later life. Slowly
+and confident of his sure progress, he advances, and while he learns he
+studies also independently of those who teach him. He makes his
+experiments, and to make them with more independence he seeks for an
+official position. During five years he is a business man, in a station
+which gives him leisure. He is superintendent of the mines, but the
+superintendent of the mines who can do much as he pleases; and while he
+is thus officially engaged journeying and superintending, he prepares
+himself for his independent researches. And yet it will be seen he is
+thirty years of age before he enters upon his American travels--those
+travels which will be said to have been the greatest undertaking ever
+carried to a successful issue, if judged by the results; they have as
+completely changed the basis of physical science as the revolution which
+took place in France about the same time has changed the social
+condition of that land. Having returned from these travels to Paris,
+there begins in his life a period of concentrated critical studies. He
+works his materials, and he works them with an ardor and devotion which
+are untiring; and he is not anxious to appear to have done it all
+himself. Oltmann is called to his aid to revise his astronomical
+observations, and his barometrical measurements by which he has
+determined the geographical position of seven hundred different points
+and the altitude of more than four hundred and fifty of them.
+
+The large collection of plants which Bonpland had begun to illustrate,
+but of which his desire of seeing the tropics again has prevented the
+completion he intrusts to Kunth. He has also brought home animals of
+different classes, and distributes them among the most eminent
+zooelogists of the day.
+
+To Cuvier he intrusts the investigation of that remarkable batrachian,
+the Aaeolotel, the mode of development of which is still unknown, but
+which remains in its adult state in a condition similar to that of the
+tadpole of the frog during the earlier period of its life. Latreille
+describes the insects, and Valenciennes the shells and the fishes; but
+yet to show that he might have done the work himself, he publishes a
+memoir on the anatomical structure of the organs of breathing in the
+animals he has preserved, and another upon the tropical monkeys of
+America, and another upon the electric properties of the electric eel.
+But he was chiefly occupied with investigations in physical geography
+and climatology. The first work upon that subject is a dissertation on
+the geographical distribution of plants, published in 1817. Many
+botanist travellers had observed that in different parts of the world
+there are plants not found in others, and that there is a certain
+arrangement in that distribution; but Humboldt was the first to see that
+this distribution is connected with the temperature of the air as well
+as with the altitudes of the surface on which they grow, and he
+systematized his researches into a general exposition of the laws by
+which the distribution of plants is regulated. Connected with this
+subject he made those extensive investigations into the mean temperature
+of a large number of places on the surface of the globe, which led to
+the drawing of those isothermal lines so important in their influence in
+shaping physical geography, and giving accuracy to the mode of
+representing natural phenomena. Before Humboldt we had no graphic
+representation of complex natural phenomena which made them easily
+comprehensible, even to minds of moderate cultivation. He has done that
+in a way which has circulated information more extensively, and brought
+it to the apprehension more clearly than it could have been done by any
+other means.
+
+It is not too much to say that this mode of representing natural
+phenomena has made it possible to introduce in our most elementary works
+the broad generalizations derived from the investigations of Humboldt in
+South America; and that every child in our schools has his mind fed from
+the labors of Humboldt's brain, wherever geography is no longer taught
+in the old routine.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Humboldt was born near the court. He was brought up in connection with
+courtiers and men in high positions of life. He was no doubt imbued with
+the prejudices of his caste. He was a nobleman of high descent. And yet
+the friend of kings was the bosom friend of Arago, and he was the man
+who could, after his return from America, refuse the highest position at
+the court of Berlin, that of the secretaryship of public instruction,
+preferring to live in a modest way in Paris, in the society of all those
+illustrious men, who then made Paris the centre of intellectual culture.
+It was there where he became one of that Societe d'Arceuil, composed of
+all the great men of the day, to which the paper on "Isothermal Lines"
+was presented, and by which it was printed, as all papers presented to
+it were, for private distribution. But from his intimate relations,
+especially to the court of Prussia, some insinuations have been made as
+to the character of Humboldt. They are as unjust as they are severe in
+expression. He was never a flatterer of those in power. He has shown it
+by taking a prominent position, in 1848, at the head of those who
+accompanied the victims of the revolution of that year to their last
+place of rest. But while he expressed his independence in such a manner,
+he had the kindliest feeling for all parties. He could not offend, even
+by an expression, those with whom he had been associated in early life;
+and I have no doubt that it is to that kindliness of feeling we must
+ascribe his somewhat indiscriminate patronage of aspirants in science,
+as well as men who were truly devoted to its highest aims. He may be
+said to have been, especially in his latter years, the friend of every
+cultivated man, wishing to lose no opportunity to do all the good of
+which he was capable; for he had a degree of benevolence and generosity
+which was unbounded. I can well say that there is not a man engaged in
+scientific investigations in Europe, who has not received at his hands
+marked tokens of his favor, and who is not under deep obligations to
+him. May I be permitted to tell a circumstance which is personal to me
+in that respect, and which shows what he was capable of doing while he
+was forbidden an opportunity of telling it. I was only twenty-four years
+of age when in Paris, whither I had gone with means given me by a
+friend; but was at last about to resign my studies from want of ability
+to meet my expenses. Professor Mitscherlich was then on a visit to
+Paris, and I had seen him in the morning, when he asked me what was the
+cause of my depressed feelings; and I told him that I had to go for I
+had nothing left. The next morning as I was seated at breakfast in front
+of the yard of the hotel where I lived, I saw the servant of Humboldt
+approach. He handed me a note, saying there was no answer and
+disappeared. I opened the note, and I see it now before me as distinctly
+as if I held the paper in my hand. It said:--
+
+"My friend, I hear that you intend leaving Paris in consequence of some
+embarrassments. That shall not be. I wish you to remain here as long as
+the object for which you came is not accomplished. I enclose you a check
+of L50. It is a loan which you may repay when you can."
+
+Some years afterward, when I could have repaid him, I wrote, asking for
+the privilege of remaining forever in his debt, knowing that this
+request would be more consonant to his feelings than the recovery of the
+money, and I am now in his debt. What he has done for me, I know he has
+done for many others; in silence and unknown to the world. I wish I
+could go on to state something of his character, his conversational
+powers, etc., but I feel that I am not in a condition to speak of them.
+I would only say that his habits were very peculiar. He was an early
+riser, and yet he was seen at late hours in the salons in different
+parts of Paris. From the year 1830 to 1848, while in Paris, he had been
+charged by the King of Prussia to send reports upon the condition of
+things there. He had before prepared for the King of Prussia a report on
+the political condition of the Spanish colonies in America, which no
+doubt had its influence afterward upon the recognition of the
+independence of those colonies. The importance of such reports to the
+government of Prussia may be inferred from a perusal of his political
+and statistical essays upon Mexico and Cuba. It is a circumstance worth
+noticing, that above all great powers, Prussia has more distinguished,
+scientific, and literary men among her diplomatists than any other
+state. And so was Humboldt actually a diplomatist in Paris, though he
+was placed in that position, not from choice, but in consequence of the
+benevolence of the king, who wanted to give him an opportunity of being
+in Paris as often and as long as he chose.
+
+But from that time there were two men in him--the diplomatist, living in
+the Hotel des Princes, and the naturalist who roomed in the Rue de la
+Harpe, in a modest apartment in the second story; where his scientific
+friends had access to him every day before seven. After that he was
+frequently seen working in the library of the Institute, until the time
+when the grand seigneur made his appearance at the court or in the
+salons of Paris.
+
+The influence he has exerted upon the progress of science is
+incalculable. I need only allude to the fact that the "Cosmos," bringing
+every branch of natural science down to the comprehension of every class
+of students, has been translated into the language of every civilized
+nation of the world, and gone through several editions. With him ends a
+great period in the history of science, a period to which Cuvier,
+Laplace, Arago, Gay-Lussac and De Candolle, and Robert Brown belonged.
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL O'CONNELL[8]
+
+By JUSTIN MCCARTHY
+
+(1775-1847)
+
+         [Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: O'Connell. [TN]]
+
+
+Daniel O'Connell, undoubtedly one of the greatest Irishmen that ever
+lived, and according to Mr. Lecky perhaps the greatest political
+agitator that the modern world has known, was born August 6, 1775, in
+the county of Kerry, in Ireland. His parents were of good family, but
+comparatively poor, his father being a second son. Later on, Daniel was
+adopted by an uncle, through whom he came in for the property of
+Darrynane, made famous by his name. He was sent when a boy--the fact is
+worth noticing--to the first school kept openly by a Catholic priest
+since the establishment of the penal laws. Afterward he became a student
+in France--in St. Omer and in Douay, until the outbreak of the French
+Revolution made it unsafe for him to remain longer in France--or at all
+events until his family believed that it would not be safe for him to
+remain there any longer. The excesses of the Revolution greatly shocked
+and horrified the young O'Connell, and indeed the effect of that early
+shock was felt by him all through his career. He became impressed with
+an almost morbid detestation of all forms of blood-shedding; and for a
+while after his return to Ireland he firmly believed himself to be a
+Conservative in politics. But the system of administration which
+prevailed in Great Britain and Ireland under Conservative governments
+soon convinced him that he could have nothing to do with Conservatism,
+and he very soon became--what he ever after continued to be--a Liberal
+as regarded Imperial policy, and indeed something more than a
+Liberal--what we should now call a Radical. He studied for the bar, and
+was, to all appearance, little inclined for anything but law and field
+sports. He was a keen sportsman, and, like another distinguished
+Irishman, "all his life long he loved rivers, and poets who sang of
+rivers." He made rapid way in his profession, and soon became one of the
+foremost advocates in Ireland. He was a safe, shrewd, keen lawyer as
+well as a great advocate--the two parts do not always go together. He
+was a master of the art of cross-examination and he was a magnificent
+speaker--his speeches were aflame with humor, and pathos, and passion.
+His voice was one of immense power and sweetness and variety of tone.
+Mr. Disraeli in one of his books, when praising to the highest the
+superb voice of the great Sir Robert Peel, says that he had never heard
+its superior "except indeed in the thrilling tones of O'Connell." The
+Irish advocate had the advantage, too, of a commanding presence. He was
+tall and moulded in almost herculean form, and he had eyes which were
+often compared with those of Robert Burns--the light of genius was in
+them. There is a full-length picture of him in the Reform Club, London,
+which enables one to understand how stately and imposing his presence
+must have been.
+
+The career of O'Connell would appear to have been easily marked out for
+him. He was the foremost advocate in Ireland; he was making a large
+income; he had inherited a considerable property--what was there for him
+but to go on and prosper; make money, hunt, shoot, fish, and be happy.
+He could not indeed obtain any of the honors or dignities of his
+profession. He could not even be a king's counsel, and wear a silk gown.
+His religion cut him off from all such marks of distinction--for he was
+a member of the Catholic Church. But no penal laws prevented him from
+addressing juries and winning verdicts and attracting popular admiration
+and making money. He was very happily married--a genuine love-match, it
+would seem to have been, and the love lasted. Moreover he was strongly
+and almost unreasonably opposed to all manner of agitation that bordered
+on rebellion or even on sedition. He was positively unjust, he was
+utterly unreasonable, in his estimate of the rebellion of 1798 and
+Robert Emmet's abortive effort in 1803. He never did full justice even
+to the brave men who were concerned in these movements. He had an
+absolute detestation for all manner of secret societies. He knew too
+well that they only ended in betrayal by some traitor who had contrived
+to be admitted to their ranks. Under such conditions and with such views
+what was there to induce the successful and prosperous advocate who
+loved peace and who hated social disturbance, to mix himself up with
+political affairs at a time when national politics meant for a patriotic
+Irishman only social exclusion, danger, poverty, and even ruin?
+
+O'Connell could not help himself. He had to walk, as Carlyle says of a
+very different man, "his own wild road whither that led him."
+O'Connell's wild road--the road that he had to walk, led him to the
+leadership of two great national movements.
+
+To understand what O'Connell fought against we must, of course,
+understand O'Connell's time. It is not easy for an American reader to
+understand it without some thought and without the endeavor to grasp the
+reality of a state of things quite outside his own living experience.
+When O'Connell began his career in politics the Act of Union had but
+lately been passed. That Act of Union deprived Ireland of the more or
+less independent Parliament which she had had for generations and even
+for centuries. It was indeed a Parliament "more or less"
+independent--less, perhaps, much rather than more. Still there had been
+always a recognition of Irish nationality in the existence of any form
+of Irish Parliament. The troubles between England and her American
+colonies--between England and France--had led to the concession of what
+we now know as Grattan's Parliament--the nearest form of Home Rule
+Ireland had ever enjoyed since her conquest by the descendants of the
+great Norman kings. But it was a Parliament of Protestants--no Catholic,
+in a nation of which five-sixths were Catholics, could sit in the
+National Parliament or even give a vote for a member of that National
+Parliament. Grattan's Parliament was exclusively Protestant; but yet,
+with all its imperfections, so nationalist was it in spirit that it was
+willing, under Grattan's inspiration, to enable Roman Catholics to vote
+for the election of members of the Irish House of Commons. But Grattan
+and his friends were anxious to go much farther. They demanded a
+complete political equality for the Roman Catholics. A society was
+formed for the purpose of conducting the agitation. Its leaders were
+almost all Protestants--many of them were Protestants from Ulster. The
+stupid bigotry of George the Third bluntly refused Catholic
+Emancipation; and the Society of United Irishmen became a rebellious
+organization. The rebellion of 1798 broke out and was crushed after
+terrible bloodshed. Then, when Ireland was wholly at the mercy of
+England, Pitt brought in his proposal for an Act of Union. After much
+resistance from all that was patriotic in Ireland and all that was
+sympathetic in England, the Act of Union was carried--by fraud and force
+and bribery and purchase. It has to be remembered with satisfaction that
+some of the noblest Englishmen of the time were as strenuously opposed
+to such a measure as Grattan himself. Pitt had made liberal promises
+about Catholic Emancipation while he was striving to carry the Act of
+Union, but when the Act was passed he dropped all talk about Catholic
+Emancipation, and pleaded as his excuse that the king would not listen
+to any further proposals on the subject. O'Connell's first political
+speech was made in January, 1800, at a meeting of Catholics held in
+Dublin to protest against the Act of Union.
+
+Something else had to be done, however, before it could be possible in
+Ireland to encounter the Act of Union with anything like a successful
+constitutional agitation. The right had to be obtained for a Catholic to
+sit in Parliament. The Catholic Association had been formed for the
+purpose, and O'Connell became its recognized leader, and, more than
+that, the recognized leader of the Irish people. Meanwhile there were
+constant efforts made in Parliament for the emancipation of the
+Catholics. Sir Robert Peel, who had begun his career as Chief Secretary
+to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had become Secretary of State for the
+Home Department--and it may be well to mention to American readers that
+the Irish Secretaryship is really a subordinate part of the Home Office.
+Peel, as Home Secretary, was necessarily kept in constant touch with
+everything going on in Ireland. He was greatly impressed by some of the
+debates in the House of Commons. He was especially impressed by an
+observation which Lord Brougham, then Mr. Brougham, made in a speech
+supporting Catholic Emancipation, to the effect that not one of those
+who spoke against emancipation had ventured even to suggest that things
+could remain as they then were. Something will have to be done, Peel
+said to himself. What is the something to be? The new king, George the
+Fourth, in whose succession to the throne O'Connell and Thomas Moore and
+the Irish people generally had had so much hope, was doggedly opposed to
+the political relief of the Catholics.
+
+Accident helped to bring about a settlement of the question. A sudden
+vacancy occurred in the Parliamentary representation of the County of
+Clare, owing to the fact that the former representative had accepted
+office in the government, and had therefore to offer himself for
+re-election. The leaders of the Catholic Association determined on the
+bold policy of putting forward a candidate to contest the seat.
+O'Connell, of course, was recognized by everyone as the man to fight the
+battle. He willingly accepted the responsibility. Even moderate men,
+partly sympathetic, shook their heads when they heard of this
+determination. "O'Connell will end his life on the gallows" was the
+confident prediction of some who passed among their neighbors for
+sensible persons. The Viceroy of Ireland predicted that O'Connell would
+take care to maintain good order in Clare during the election.
+O'Connell's opponent predicted that O'Connell would not dare to come to
+Clare in person; that he would not run the risk of confronting his
+enemies. O'Connell ran the risk--he was not a man likely to be afraid of
+risks. He went to Clare. The enthusiasm was wild, but the order was
+perfect. O'Connell, the excluded Catholic, was elected by a majority of
+more than two to one. The result set Peel thinking. What he thought we
+have in his own words. Was it possible to take no account of "that
+political and religious excitement which was quickening the pulse and
+fluttering the bosom of the whole Catholic population--which had
+inspired the serf of Clare with the resolution and the energy of a
+freeman?" No, it was not possible. Peel soon made up his mind.
+
+O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons later on,
+but not until after Peel and Wellington had crammed emancipation down
+the king's throat and compelled him to accept it. Wellington seems to
+have reasoned much in this way: "I know nothing about the question--Peel
+knows all about it; Peel thinks it will be for the good of the king and
+the country to pass Catholic Emancipation; the king, I am sure, does not
+know any more about the matter than I do, and I am prepared to go with
+Peel, and the king must come with us. Peel thinks there must be civil
+war if we don't pass Catholic Emancipation, and I have had too much of
+war in my time--and I don't propose to stand a civil war--not if I know
+it." The king had, of course, to give way in the end, and Catholic
+Emancipation was passed. It was passed rather ungraciously. It was
+accompanied by a quite superfluous measure suppressing the Catholic
+Association, which had in fact already dissolved itself, its work being
+done, and invalidating the election of O'Connell. Perhaps, without these
+sops to religious bigotry, an act for the emancipation of the Catholics
+could not then have been carried through the Houses of Parliament.
+O'Connell presented himself at the bar of the House of Commons and
+claimed a right to take his seat. He was called upon to swear the old
+oaths--what we may fairly call the anti-Catholic oaths. Of course he
+refused. A new writ was ordered for Clare, and O'Connell was
+triumphantly returned. The struggle was over.
+
+The remainder of O'Connell's life was devoted mainly to the cause of
+Repeal of the Union--in other words, the cause of Home Rule. He
+organized the great system of monster meetings--vast out-of-door
+gatherings, which he swayed as he pleased by the magic of his eloquence,
+his humor, his passion, and the charm of his wonderful voice. No doubt
+he sometimes used very strong language; no doubt some of the younger men
+fully believed that he meant rebellion--that he had rebellion up his
+sleeve if his demands were not conceded. The meetings were always held
+on the Sunday; were indeed, regarded as, in a certain sense, religious
+celebrations. The meeting of October 8, 1843, was to be held on the
+historic ground of Clontarf, and it was expected to be the greatest of
+all the assemblages, although some of them had drawn together a crowd of
+nearly a quarter of a million of men. The Government issued a
+proclamation prohibiting the meeting, and O'Connell bowed to the
+prohibition. He sent messengers in every direction countermanding the
+assembling of men, in order to prevent any chance of that disorder and
+bloodshed which he had always shrunk from and abhorred. He and some of
+his friends, Sir Charles Gavan Duffy among the rest, were put on their
+trial on a charge of sedition. Most of them were found guilty and
+sentenced to fine and imprisonment. They were confined in Richmond
+Prison, Dublin. Their incarceration did not last long, and indeed, was
+what might be called "internment" rather than actual imprisonment. A
+majority of the law lords in the House of Peers, the final tribunal,
+annulled the sentences on the ground that the jury had been unfairly
+chosen--was packed, in fact. O'Connell and his colleagues were set free
+after a few months; but the leader never recovered his former ascendency
+over the political movement of Ireland. He was growing old; he had been
+reckless of his great physical resources, he had been unsparing of his
+strength; and undoubtedly, the younger men in the agitation fell away
+from him when he had made it clear that he never meant, under any
+conditions, to lead them into revolution. A number of his young and
+brilliant followers set up a party of their own--the Young Ireland
+Confederation--which after his death drifted into a generous, but
+hopeless, rebellion. The Young Ireland movement, however, quickened and
+established a national literature which had an immense effect on
+subsequent political history in Ireland. The Irish famine of 1846 and
+1847 was a terrible blow to O'Connell in his rapidly weakening health.
+His last speech in the House of Commons was an appeal for a generous
+help to Ireland, and a prediction, which proved only too true, that if
+generous help were not given, one-fourth of Ireland's population must
+perish by starvation. His physicians ordered him to the Continent, and
+he passionately longed to reach Rome and die under the shadow of the
+Vatican. He had during some of his years led a wild life, and he had
+killed a man in a duel--a duel which was literally forced upon him, but
+for which he always felt deeply penitent. His ultimate longing had come
+to be a quiet death in the papal city. He was not graced so far. He died
+in Genoa on May 15, 1847.
+
+As a politician O'Connell was absolutely consistent. He was in favor of
+liberty for Ireland, but he was in favor of liberty for every other
+country. His definition of liberty was practical and not merely
+declamatory. He was in favor of equal rights for all men before the law;
+he was in favor of a free press, a free vote, and as nearly as possible
+a manhood suffrage. He was in many ways far in advance of the English
+liberals of his day. When the question of slavery in the West Indian
+colonies was under discussion in Parliament, he went farther for
+abolition than even the professed philanthropists and emancipationists,
+the Clarksons and the Buxtons, were inclined to go. He was almost
+fanatically opposed to the advocates of the slave system in the United
+States, and he refused to receive any help in money from them to carry
+on his Repeal agitation. He declined to endure any political dictation
+from the Vatican, although he was a most devoted Roman Catholic. He
+would take, he said, without question his religion from Rome, but not
+his politics. There was no great cause of freedom upheld all through the
+world in his time, but he clung to it and cleaved to it. The writer of
+this article once talked to Mr. Gladstone about O'Connell, well knowing
+that in early life Mr. Gladstone had been a great admirer of O'Connell's
+abilities. Mr. Gladstone told many anecdotes of O'Connell's personal
+energy in pursuit of any purpose which he believed to be just, and in
+illustration of his wonderful mastery over even a thoroughly hostile
+audience. When asked what he believed to be O'Connell's principal
+characteristic, Mr. Gladstone paused for a while and thought the
+question out, and then gravely and deliberately answered: "I should
+think his greatest characteristic was a passion of philanthropy." A
+passion of philanthropy! Is it possible to have a nobler epitaph
+pronounced on one than that--and pronounced by such a man? No man in our
+modern history was ever so bitterly and savagely denounced in England as
+O'Connell. No words were too rough for him. He was commonly called in
+English newspapers the "Big Beggarman." He was accused every day, of
+making a fortune out of the contributions of a half-starving people. The
+truth was that all and much more than all the money raised by the Irish
+people, was spent on the agitation for repeal of the Union. The truth
+was that O'Connell gave up his splendid practice at the bar, for the
+sake of advocating the Irish national cause. The truth was that he spent
+his own money and reduced his own property to all but pauperism, for the
+sake of advancing the same cause. The truth was that he died poor,
+leaving his children poor. But he had his reward. A man whom Mr.
+Gladstone could describe as possessed above all other things by a
+passion of philanthropy, may leave his memory safely in the charge of
+those whose best interests he honestly strove to serve.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+SIMON BOLIVAR[9]
+
+By HON. JOHN P. ST. JOHN
+
+(1783-1830)
+
+         [Footnote 9: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Bolivar. [TN]]
+
+
+So far as the world knew, the birth of Simon Bolivar at Caracas,
+Venezuela, on July 24, 1783, was of no greater importance than that of
+any other child. Perhaps but one person entertained the slightest
+thought that he would ever be the hero of many battles and the liberator
+of his countrymen; and that person was his mother. A mother, as a rule,
+always in her imagination anticipates a brilliant future for her boy. If
+Bolivar's mother was not an exception to this rule, surely her highest
+anticipations were fully realized in the wonderful career of her son.
+
+His father, Juan Vincente Bolivar y Ponte, and his mother, Maria
+Concepcion Palacios y Sojo, were descendants of noble families in
+Venezuela. Nothing unusual occurred in his school-boy days to
+distinguish him from others of his age and rank. He was attentive to his
+studies, warm-hearted, generous, and always a favorite among his
+associates. When he had made sufficient advancement in his studies at
+home, and had arrived at the proper age, he was sent to Madrid, where he
+remained several years, during which time he completed his education.
+
+Bolivar was now a full-grown man, and as a source of needed recreation
+after years of hard study, he spent some time in visiting places of
+special interest in the south of Europe. On his journey he stopped for a
+time at the French capital, where he witnessed the closing scenes of the
+French revolution. This was the hour of Napoleon's greatest glory. He
+was the acknowledged military hero of the age. All France bowed at his
+feet. Is it not probable that here was where Bolivar caught the
+inspiration that led him to make an effort to be to his own country,
+what Napoleon was to France? From Paris Bolivar returned to Madrid,
+where, in 1801, he married the daughter of Don N. Toro, uncle of the
+Marquis of Toro, in Caracas. He soon sailed with his young bride for his
+native country, but it was only a little while until she fell a victim
+to yellow fever. The sudden and unexpected death of his young wife, to
+whom he was intensely devoted, so shattered his health and frustrated
+his plans, that he wended his way back to Europe, where he remained
+until 1809, when he returned through the United States to his own
+country. His remembrance of the closing scenes of the French revolution,
+and the realization as he passed through the United States of the
+blessings of her free institutions, no doubt account in some measure for
+the fact that, as soon as he reached Venezuela, he joined the movement
+then crystallizing into an aggressive warfare for independence, and a
+larger degree of freedom for his own countrymen.
+
+In 1810 he received a colonel's commission from the revolutionary junta,
+and was associated with Luis Lopez Mendez in a mission to the court of
+Great Britain, which was rendered fruitless by England announcing her
+position in relation to the troubles in Venezuela as one of strict
+neutrality. On July 5, 1811, Venezuela formally declared her
+independence from the mother-country. This brought on a clash of arms at
+once.
+
+The Spanish troops under Monteverde, owing to a lack of concert of
+action on the part of the "patriots," forced Bolivar, with his little
+band of volunteers, to abandon the important post of Puerto Cabello, and
+flee to Curacao, which was reached in safety, while Monteverde at the
+head of the Spanish troops gained control of Venezuela.
+
+Chafing under defeat, Bolivar, in September, 1812, repaired to
+Carthagena, where a commission was given him to make war upon the
+Spanish troops along the Magdalena River. Although his army numbered but
+500 men, he succeeded in driving the enemy, not only from the country
+along the Magdalena River, but entered Venezuela, and forced his way
+westward to the important towns of Merida and Truxillo, where the people
+gladly welcomed him and rallied to his support. Encouraged by his
+success, and embittered by the brutalities of the enemy, as he pressed
+forward he issued his noted proclamation of "War to the death."
+
+He soon routed Monteverde's army at Lastoguanes, forcing him to take
+refuge in Puerto Cabello, while Bolivar pushed forward, entering Caracas
+in triumph August 4, 1813. But the tide of battle soon turned. The
+Royalists concentrated all their available force, and a number of bloody
+battles ensued, and finally Bolivar's men, inferior in numbers, were
+badly defeated near Cura. The fall of Caracas soon followed, and before
+the close of the year 1814 the Royalists were again in full possession
+of Venezuela. Though defeated, Bolivar was not dismayed. He had great
+faith in the righteousness of his cause, and his consciousness of this
+fact seemed to give him that courage which never knows defeat.
+
+He next went to Tunja, where the revolutionary congress was in session,
+and notwithstanding the misfortunes of war and the bitter opposition of
+a few personal enemies, his enthusiastic reception showed that he still
+retained the confidence and respect of the people. He was soon given
+command of an expedition against Santa Fe de Bogota, where Don
+Cundinamarca had refused official recognition of the new union of the
+provinces, which, without any conflict of arms, was crowned with success
+by the surrender of the rebellious leaders. For this service Bolivar
+received the special thanks of Congress. The Royalists having captured
+Santa Martha, Bolivar was ordered to retake it, but failed in his
+attempt.
+
+In May, 1814, he resigned his commission, and went to Kingston, Jamaica,
+where an attempt was made to assassinate him, which resulted, by a
+mistake, in the murder of another. Later on he went to Aux Cayes, in
+Hayti, where President Petion assisted him in organizing an expedition
+which, though it succeeded in reaching the main-land in May, 1816,
+eventually failed. But Bolivar's past experience had taught him not to
+go wild over a victory, nor be discouraged by a defeat, so he returned
+to Aux Cayes, where he secured reinforcements, and in December landed
+his troops, first at Marguerite, and then at Barcelona. At this point a
+provisional government was formed and all the available military force
+was promptly organized, and placed in readiness to resist the invasion
+of Morillo, who was at the head of a strong, well-disciplined army of
+Royalists. The opposing forces met on February 16, 1817, and a desperate
+battle, lasting three days, ensued, resulting in a complete rout of the
+Royalists, who, while retreating in great disorder, were assailed with
+such impetuosity by small bands of patriots, as to make their overthrow
+complete.
+
+Being now the undisputed commander-in-chief, Bolivar seemed
+irresistible. Victory after victory crowned his efforts, until he
+established his head-quarters at Angostura, on the Orinoco. From this
+point, after a thorough reorganization of his forces, he pressed forward
+over the Cordilleras, and effected a junction with the army headed by
+General Santander, commander of the Republican forces in New Granada.
+The armies thus united proved to be invincible. The entire march was
+characterized by a succession of victories, ending in a complete
+overthrow of the enemy on August 7, 1819, at Bojaca, which gave him full
+possession, not only of Bogota, but of all New Granada. This brilliant
+achievement attracted the attention of the civilized world then, and as
+we read about it now, it forcibly reminds us, in its conception, the
+skill and rapidity of its execution, and its results, of the wonderful
+march of Sherman from Atlanta to the sea. Taking advantage of the great
+prestige his marvellous victories had given him with the people, he
+procured the passage of a fundamental law, December 17, 1819, uniting
+Venezuela and New Granada under one government, to be known as the
+Republic of Colombia, of which Bolivar was made president.
+
+Bolivar was now at the head of the grandest army he had ever commanded.
+The Royalists, under Morillo, having been beaten at several points,
+induced Bolivar, at Truxillo on November 20, 1820, to consent to an
+armistice for six months, which he did; no doubt with the hope that
+meantime a treaty of peace might be effected and the war thus brought to
+an end.
+
+Subsequent events, however, gave strong reasons to believe that the
+armistice was a mere ruse to gain time while Morillo could be recalled
+and General Torre placed in command. Bolivar, no doubt incensed by this
+apparent trick, determined, upon the expiration of the armistice, to
+strike a blow that would not soon be forgotten; which he did at
+Carabolo, by attacking and completely routing General Torre's command,
+compelling the fleeing fragments to seek shelter in Puerto Cabello,
+where two years after they surrendered to Paez. This practically closed
+the war in Venezuela. On August 30, 1821, the constitution of Colombia
+was adopted amid great rejoicing, with Bolivar as president and
+Santander as vice-president. But there was more work to do, and no one
+could do it so well as Bolivar. He determined that nowhere should the
+Royalists have a foothold in the whole country. He attacked them at
+Pichincha, in Ecuador, and after a desperate struggle they were forced
+to retreat in disorder, while victorious Bolivar with his enthusiastic
+followers triumphantly entered Quito, June 22, 1822. Next Lima was
+taken, but owing to the dissensions among the Republican factions in
+Peru, Bolivar was compelled to abandon the city, which was again
+occupied by the Royalists, while he withdrew to Truxillo.
+
+Having thoroughly reorganized his forces, and gotten everything in good
+condition for an aggressive warfare, he again assaulted the Royalists
+with unrelenting vigor, driving them before him, and finally
+administering a crushing defeat on the plains of Junin, August 6th;
+after which he returned to Lima, leaving Sucre, who had already
+displayed great military skill and bravery, to complete the work. This
+he did, by gaining a great victory at Ayacucho, which completely
+dispersed the Royalists, reducing their possessions in Peru to the
+Castles of Callao, which Rodil, after a little over a year's successful
+resistance, was compelled to surrender.
+
+Upper Peru having detached itself from Buenos Ayres, was organized as a
+separate state under the name of Bolivia, in honor of the man who had
+accomplished so much for its freedom, and who by the first Congress of
+the new republic, which convened in August, 1825, was made perpetual
+Protector, and requested to prepare for it a constitution.
+
+The country having been freed from armed resistance on the part of the
+Royalists, it next became Bolivar's duty to provide laws for the proper
+government of the people. Time proved this to be a more difficult task
+than meeting an open enemy on the field of battle. Many local leaders
+had been developed during the struggle for independence, among whom no
+little ill feeling was aroused by their scramble for recognition. Then
+there were some who were jealous of Bolivar's great popularity and
+influence with the people. They were busy in trying to turn public
+opinion against him by telling the people that he would use his power to
+add to, rather than lighten, their burdens. This feeling was intensified
+when he presented his plan of government for Bolivia to Congress on May
+25, 1826, accompanied by an address in which he doubted the wisdom of
+extending the right of franchise indiscriminately to the people, and
+showed clearly his preference for a centralization of power, by
+proposing a president for life clothed with supreme executive powers,
+including the right to name his successor. It was charged by his enemies
+that this would be a monarchy in fact, and a republic only in name.
+
+Meantime Paez, military commander in Venezuela, refused to recognize the
+constituted authorities, and assumed an attitude of open rebellion. But
+the presence in a short time of Bolivar, his old commander, followed by
+a personal interview and a decree of general amnesty, resulted in a
+complete restoration of peace and loyal adherence to the government.
+Bolivar and Santander having been re-elected to the respective offices
+of president and vice-president, Bolivar, before the time fixed by law
+for him to take the oath of office, resigned the presidency of the
+republic, with a view to retiring into private life, and thus refuting
+the charges made against him by personal enemies, that he was simply
+working in his own interest, and for his own personal aggrandizement.
+
+But in response to Santander's earnest appeal, and a resolution of
+Congress urging him to resume his position as president, Bolivar went to
+Bogota, and there took upon himself the oath of office.
+
+He soon issued three decrees: One granting general amnesty, another
+calling a national convention at Ocana, and a third for the
+establishment of constitutional order throughout Colombia. All eyes were
+now turned to the national convention at Ocana, which was to assemble in
+March, 1828. This was made the more important by the fact that it was to
+determine whether Bolivar's plan for a strong centralized government,
+backed up by ample military force, or a government controlled more
+directly by the great body of the people, should prevail. The events of
+the past year had served rather to strengthen Bolivar's position, and
+the action of the convention seems to have crystallized it into law, for
+a decree soon followed, dated August 27, 1828, giving to Bolivar supreme
+power over Colombia, which he continued to exercise until his death,
+which occurred at San Pedro, on December 17, 1830.
+
+Thus closes the life of one of the most remarkable characters the world
+has ever known. He possessed the intrepid courage and dash of a Sherman,
+the unrelenting firmness of a Grant, and the tenderness of a Lincoln.
+Local revolts against lawful authority always yielded to his personal
+presence and counsel. We fail to find in his history a single act of
+cruelty recorded against him. His proclamation of "War to the death,"
+was a military necessity. The Royalists had shown no mercy to his
+soldiers. They had refused to treat them as prisoners of war. They had
+fired upon his flag of truce. They gave no quarter to revolutionists,
+but put them to death wherever found. And there was but one alternative
+left, and that was, unpleasant as it must have been to a man of such
+kindly nature, to meet such brutalities by a threat of retaliation in
+kind. The proclamation was not prompted by a spirit of cruelty, but
+rather by a love for humanity. It had the effect which he no doubt
+intended it should, and that was to secure the same treatment for his
+soldiers when captured, that the civilized world acknowledged due to
+prisoners of war. He was in no sense mercenary. He expended nine-tenths
+of his fortune for his country's freedom, and when voted a million
+dollars by Congress he promptly declined it. He was always magnanimous,
+even to his bitterest enemies. He died comparatively poor. His remains
+sleep at Caracas, the place of his birth. His soul is with God.
+Monuments have been erected to his memory, one at Caracas and another at
+Lima. But his life-work has erected a monument in the hearts of his
+countrymen that will never perish. He sowed the seed for the harvest of
+a better government and higher civilization for all Spanish America. The
+influence of his example is not confined to his own country, but is felt
+throughout the civilized world. To-day, among the brightest and best of
+the world's good and great men, may justly be placed the name of Simon
+Bolivar.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+JEAN FRANCOIS CHAMPOLLION[10]
+
+By GEORG EBERS
+
+(1790-1832)
+
+         [Footnote 10: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: The pyramids of Gyzeh. [TN]]
+
+
+The deciphering of hieroglyphics is one of the greatest achievements of
+the human race in this century. Jean Francois Champollion was the man
+who accomplished this great feat. He is surnamed "_le jeune_," the
+younger, to distinguish him from his elder brother, Champollion Figeac,
+whose life was one of paternal devotion and the most unselfish sacrifice
+for his younger brother. Both were born in Figeac, in the south of
+France, Francois on December 23, 1790. He made his home, however, in the
+beautiful little town of Grenoble, situated on the hills near the valley
+of the Isere. It was to this place that Champollion Figeac, who was here
+engaged as director of the town library, and later on as professor of
+Greek at the university, drew his twelve years younger brother Francois,
+who, at the age of nine, went to live with his elder brother, filled
+with the proudest hopes for the future, and grateful for the care and
+devotion bestowed upon him.
+
+At that time, naturally, all eyes were turned toward Egypt, where the
+First Consul, Bonaparte, had led the army of the Republic, accompanied
+by a host of celebrated men of science. The newly opened world of
+monuments on the banks of the Nile excited the greatest interest in
+everybody; but for few did it have as strong an attraction as for
+Champollion Figeac, who had occupied himself long previously with the
+study of the history and language of the ancient Egyptians. Furthermore,
+he and his brother Francois came, so to say, into indirect contact with
+the great expedition. For the famous mathematician Fourier, who had gone
+out with it, became afterward prefect of Grenoble, and one of Figeac's
+warmest and most intimate friends.
+
+Francois, who, at the age of twelve, was already fully master of the
+classic languages, had, surrounded by the rich collection of books
+placed in his brother's care, drifted into a territory which is not
+embraced in the usual high-school curriculum, viz., the Oriental
+languages. While still at school, and during his leisure hours, he
+mastered with wonderful energy, aided as it was by an almost phenomenal
+power for acquiring knowledge, the Hebrew and most other Semitic
+languages, as also Sanscrit and Persian. As, however, Egypt had the
+greatest attraction for him, he also studied the Coptic dialect, the
+language of the Egyptians during the early centuries after Christ, which
+was written in Greek letters with some few others added. Withal, the
+remarkable youth was cheerful and companionable, finding time even to
+practise his poetic gifts; nor did his physical development suffer
+through the severe exertion of his mind. His portrait, in the Louvre in
+Paris, represents him in manhood with bronzed skin, easily allowing him
+to be recognized as a native of the South of France. His nose is
+slightly bent, his forehead lofty, his hair black and of great
+abundance. The dark eyes, shaded by heavy brows, express
+serenity--earnest and profound sincerity--while his well-formed mouth
+gives evidence of winning manners and the friendliness of his nature.
+
+At the age of seventeen he submitted his first work, a geography of
+ancient Egypt, to the Academy of Grenoble, which, notwithstanding his
+extreme youth, conferred upon him the degree of associate. Soon after he
+followed a course of lectures at the Oriental College of Paris. With
+youthful zeal he availed himself of the numerous educational advantages
+at his disposal in this great city, and gained even then the notice of
+the most prominent men of his profession. After two years' time, not
+quite twenty years of age, he was called to a position at the University
+of Grenoble.
+
+When Napoleon rested in this town on his way from Elba to Paris, in
+1815, he appointed the elder Champollion as his private secretary.
+
+The close relationship into which this position brought Figeac to the
+emperor, and his republican ideas after Napoleon's downfall--which ideas
+were shared by his brother Francois--were circumstances which, in later
+years, became great obstacles to their further advancement. They were
+looked upon as characters dangerous to the state, and were deprived of
+their positions, while the Institute of France even withheld from
+Francois its protection.
+
+The brothers were banished to their old homestead, Figeac, where they
+found leisure in abundance to complete several unfinished works; and
+when in 1818, through the influence of the Duke of Decazes, their
+banishment was pronounced at an end, Francois had completed his great
+work, "L'Egypte sous les Pharaons."
+
+This work, of the utmost importance at the time, in the preparation of
+which the Coptic sources were freely drawn upon, won Francois his lost
+chair at the Grenoble University. After he had secured this post he was
+encouraged to found a home of his own. Rose Blanc was the bride-elect,
+with whom he was united in a most happy marriage until his death.
+
+Since many years Francois had occupied himself with the monument which
+gave promise to the possibility of deciphering hieroglyphics.
+
+During the French expedition, as it happened, the talisman was found
+which was to become the key to disclose the mystery of the language and
+the written signs of the Ancient Egyptians--the tablet or the key of
+Rosetta, a stone-plate made of black granite. Three inscriptions,
+written in different signs, covered the originally rectangular surface
+of the tablet. The uppermost one, considerably injured, showed the
+hieroglyphics, which were familiar through the obelisks and other
+Egyptian monuments; the second inscription was obscure; while the third
+and lowest inscription, which had suffered but little injury, consisted
+of Greek letters clear to every philologist. It proclaimed that the
+tablet contained a decree of the Egyptian priesthood, in honor of the
+fifth king of the house of the Ptolemies, and that this was written in
+the holy language, in that of the people of Egypt, and in Greek, on the
+same tablet. Here was, therefore, a somewhat extensive text in two of
+the three modes of writing of the Egyptians of which Clemens of
+Alexandria makes mention, with a Greek translation of the same. The
+fortunes of war brought this extraordinary monument into the hands of
+the English. It was placed in the British Museum, and care was taken
+that copies of the three inscriptions should reach the various
+Egyptologists, among them Champollion.
+
+The demotic inscription--that is to say, the text in the writing of the
+people, was one of the most inviting to decipher, because the signs
+composing it seemed to be letters representing sound. This was
+sedulously attempted by several scientists, and with the best results by
+the great French Orientalist, De Sacy, and by the Swede, Akerblad. But
+though the former by a mechanical method recognized correctly the
+meaning of several groups, and though Akerblad had even ascertained most
+of the signs of the demotic alphabet, still they were both incapable of
+discerning the elements of which the demotic writing is composed.
+
+The great English physician and naturalist, Thomas Young, who also
+occupied himself with the three various texts, made better progress.
+Taking advantage and making use of the parts that had been revealed to
+him by demotic and hieroglyphic text, he succeeded, in a mechanical way,
+and by intelligent comparisons in deciphering the names Ptolemaios and
+Berenike, and in recognizing even the hieroglyphic signs for numbers.
+Still the true nature of the Egyptian writing was not revealed to him
+either. In their particulars his ascertainments are untrue, for in the
+names he had in no way discovered the alphabetic signs of which they
+were composed.
+
+As to the remainder of the inscription he thought that it consisted of
+such drawn signs or forms with symbolical significance as might be found
+interpreted in the "Hieroglyphica of Horapollon."
+
+That those groups of hieroglyphics surrounded by a frame (cartouche) are
+the names of kings, had been contended long before by the Dane Zoege,
+Barthelemy, and others. The framed hieroglyphics on the tablet of
+Rosetta could, as the Greek text taught, signify but the name of
+Ptolemaios. Champollion also had originally held the same erroneous
+opinion as Young and his predecessors. Though he succeeded in defining
+several groups of characters of the people's writing, like Akerblad, by
+comparison, he, even as late as 1821, in his essay on hieroglyphics,
+entitled "De l'Ecriture hieratique des Anciens Egyptiens," declares them
+to be symbolical signs and figures.
+
+But he knew of Young's successful comparisons with Greek names; and when
+Mr. Bankes brought a small obelisk to England from the island of Philae,
+on which the framed group of hieroglyphics were bound to contain the
+names of Ptolemaios and Cleopatra, because a Greek inscription at the
+foot of the obelisk mentioned these royal names, a firm starting-point
+was created by Champollion, from which he was to succeed in removing the
+mass of obstacles which had stood in the way of all previous
+explorations and researches.
+
+He made his basis the supposition that the framed names were constructed
+of alphabetic signs. The name Ptolemaios was known through the tablet of
+Rosetta. If the second name on Bankes's obelisk were Cleopatra, a
+comparison of the two names should confirm this. The first letter in the
+name Ptolemaios being a "p" it should occur as fifth letter in
+Cleopatra. And this was actually the case. The third letter in
+Ptolemaios, the "o," was found again as the fourth one in Cleopatra. The
+fourth sign in Ptolemaios, "l," a lion, occurred correctly as the second
+one in Cleopatra. By further comparison every sign was correctly found,
+and when Champollion had deciphered a group of signs which he took to be
+Alexander, and again found every letter in its right place, he could
+assure himself that hieroglyphics also were based on the phonetic
+system.
+
+He soon, with the aid of the letters discovered in the above-mentioned
+groups, deciphered other well-known names of kings, and in this way
+acquired a knowledge of the whole hieroglyphic alphabet. But the many
+hundred forms and signs, of which the holy scriptures of the Egyptians
+are composed, could not well be of an altogether alphabetic nature, and
+a further study of the subject brought the explorer to the conclusion
+that ideographs were interspersed among the alphabetical signs in order
+to make the alphabetic words more comprehensive. For instance, after a
+masculine proper name the picture of a man was drawn, and after every
+word connected with the motion of walking, the picture of two pacing
+legs. Besides this, he found that some sounds could be represented by
+different hieroglyphics. With this the most important elements of
+hieroglyphics were disclosed, and it was all accomplished in one year,
+from 1821-22. When Francois, after a period of extraordinary mental
+exertion, appeared before his brother one morning with all the proofs in
+his hands, calling to him, "_Je tiens l'affaire; vois!_" (I have found
+it; look here!) he fell to the floor fainting, worn out by the immense
+exertions of the last few months.
+
+It required some time for him to recover his health; but Figeac read, on
+September 17, 1822, his brother's pamphlet at the Academy in Paris. It
+appeared under the name of "Lettre a M. Dacier," and contained the
+details of his discovery.
+
+That day decided Champollion's future career. As early as the year
+following he published his new work, "Precis du systeme hieroglyphique,"
+after which Louis Philippe of Orleans had the discovery officially
+announced before the Oriental Association, and Louis XVIII. made it his
+royal duty to lighten Champollion's future work.
+
+The "Precis" embraces the foregoing results of his discovery, and
+considering the short space of time in which all this was accomplished,
+it appears marvellous that Francois could thus early determine the most
+important elements of the hieroglyphic system in their minute details so
+correctly. In 1824 the king sent him to Italy, where he profited
+principally by the splendid collection of Egyptian antiquities in Turin.
+In 1826 Charles X. appointed him director of the Egyptian Museum in the
+Louvre, which Champollion founded by purchasing at Liverno the
+celebrated "Salt Collection."
+
+Soon after his return to France the king sent him on a mission to Egypt,
+where he remained from August, 1828, till the end of 1829. The Italian
+Rosellini joined him on the Nile.
+
+His "Lettres ecrites d'Egypte et de la Nubie" render his observations
+and impressions and describe his life and adventures in Egypt, in a most
+entertaining and instructive style. The many and various inscriptions,
+copied there by him, are all quoted in his great work on monuments,
+entitled, "Monuments de l'Egypte et de la Nubie," and in his posthumous
+work, "Notices descriptives conformes aux manuscrits autographes rediges
+sur les lieux."
+
+Soon after his return to Paris (in March, 1830), by which time his
+health had commenced to fail, he was elected a Member of the Academy,
+and in March, 1831, was appointed professor at the "College de France."
+The solidity and instructiveness of his lectures brought the most
+celebrated leaders in science to hear him, but there were destined to be
+but few of the lectures, as he all too soon felt himself too weak to
+continue them. On March 4, 1832, at his old homestead Figeac, a stroke
+of apoplexy ended his active life of achievement.
+
+His great discovery was at first vigorously attacked. Erring minds
+declaring the system of the great Frenchman to be wrong, and submitting
+others of their own, as the Russian Klaproth and the German Seyffarth,
+disturbed Champollion's peace; still more bitterly, however, was he
+pursued by the envy and hatred of his political opponents.
+
+Even when the laurel already decorated his brow, they saw to it that the
+thorns were not wanting in the wreath. Especially in England various
+efforts were made to have, not him, but Thomas Young, recognized as the
+discoverer of the science of deciphering hieroglyphics. But though Young
+had succeeded previously to Champollion in deciphering some hieroglyphic
+names in a mechanical way, yet the genial Englishman mistook, during the
+whole course of his activity, the real character of hieroglyphic
+writing. To Champollion, on the other hand, it was left to recognize
+their nature and construction, so that science must acknowledge him to
+be the discoverer of the true nature of the system of hieroglyphical
+writing.
+
+Shortly before his death it was vouchsafed him to proclaim to his loyal
+brother, "_Voici ma carte pour la posterite_," pointing to the
+manuscript of his "Egyptian Grammar," of which the last chapter was
+still missing. It contains the germs from which all similar works have
+sprung, which since have perfected and enlarged that of Champollion; it
+showed the path in which all subsequent grammarians were to walk. The
+results of Young's discoveries remain without influence upon the
+progress of the science, and have found a place long since among old
+relics.
+
+Francois Champollion's work is the seed, which even at the present day
+brings forth the richest fruits. When he died, at the age of forty-two,
+he left the world not only his "Egyptian Grammar," but also pioneer
+works in other branches of his science.
+
+His "Pantheon Egyptien" (1823-25) dealt with Egyptian mythology; his
+excellent knowledge of Coptic is clearly seen in many of his works; and
+his "Egyptian Dictionary of Hieroglyphics" (1841-44) is, bearing in mind
+the time when it was written, a work of marvellous accomplishment.
+
+This dictionary, with several other works and manuscripts of his
+literary estate, which the French Government had purchased for the sum
+of fifty thousand francs, were faithfully and lovingly edited and
+published after his death by his elder brother, Figeac. These posthumous
+works bear witness not only to the overwhelming industry of this great
+worker and explorer, but also to the loving unselfishness of his
+brother, who sacrificed a great part of his time and activity in editing
+and arranging the manuscripts of the departed. The "Grammar," the
+"Monuments," the "Dictionary," were all published by Figeac. At "Pere
+Lachaise" Cemetery, in Paris, a weather-beaten obelisk and a broken
+stone tablet indicate the spot where the remains of Francois Champollion
+rest.
+
+A monument which was erected in his honor at his native town, Figeac,
+bears the well-chosen inscription which so frequently occurs among the
+titles of the Pharaohs in hieroglyphics, "'_anch zete_," i.e.,
+"everlasting." A beautiful sentence, which Chateaubriand addressed to
+the faithful brother and co-worker of the great searcher, is also
+inscribed on the statue of Francois Champollion, le jeune. It reads:
+"Ses admirables travaux auront la duree des monuments qu'il nous a fait
+connaitre." (His admirable works will last as long as the monuments
+which he has taught us to understand.)
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ANDREW JACKSON[11]
+
+By COLONEL THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON
+
+(1767-1845)
+
+         [Footnote 11: Reprinted from Harper's Magazine by permission.
+         Copyright, 1884, by Harper & Bros.]
+
+[Illustration: Andrew Jackson. [TN]]
+
+
+Dr. Von Holst, the most philosophic of historians, when he passes from
+the period of John Quincy Adams to that of his successor, is reluctantly
+compelled to leave the realm of pure history for that of biography, and
+to entitle a chapter "The Reign of Andrew Jackson." This change of
+treatment could, indeed, hardly be helped. Under Adams all was
+impersonal, methodical, a government of laws and not of men. With an
+individuality quite as strong as that of Jackson--as the whole nation
+learned ere his life ended--it had yet been the training of his earlier
+career to suppress himself, and be simply a perfect official. His policy
+aided the vast progress of the nation, but won no credit by the process.
+Men saw with wonder the westward march of an expanding people, but
+forgot to notice the sedate, passionless, orderly administration that
+held the door open and kept the peace for all. In studying the time of
+Adams, we think of the nation; in observing that of Jackson, we think of
+Jackson himself. In him we see the first popular favorite of a nation
+now well out of leading-strings, and particularly bent on going alone.
+By so much as he differed from Adams, by so much the people liked him
+better. His conquests had been those of war, always more dazzling than
+those of peace; his temperament was of fire, always more attractive than
+one of marble. He was helped by what he had done, and by what he had not
+done. Even his absence of diplomatic training was almost counted for a
+virtue, because all this training was necessarily European, and the
+demand had ripened for a purely American product.
+
+It had been quite essential to the self-respect of the new republic, at
+the outset, that it should have at its head men who had coped with
+European statesmen on their own soil and not been discomfited. This was
+the case with each of the early successors of Washington, and in view of
+his manifest superiority this advantage was not needed. Perhaps it was
+in a different way a sign of self-respect that the new republic should
+at last turn from this tradition, and take boldly from the ranks a
+strong and ill-trained leader, to whom all European precedent--and,
+indeed, all other precedent, counted for nothing. In Jackson, moreover,
+there first appeared upon our national stage the since familiar figure
+of the self-made man. Other presidents had sprung from a modest origin,
+but nobody had made an especial point of it. Nobody had urged Washington
+for office because he had been a surveyor's lad; nobody had voted for
+Adams because stately old ladies designated him as "that cobbler's son."
+But when Jackson came into office the people had just had almost a
+surfeit of regular training in their chief magistrates. There was a
+certain zest in the thought of a change, and the nation certainly had
+it.
+
+It must be remembered that Jackson was in many ways far above the
+successive modern imitators who have posed in his image. He was narrow,
+ignorant, violent, unreasonable; he punished his enemies and rewarded
+his friends. But he was, on the other hand--and his worst opponents
+hardly denied it--chaste, honest, truthful, and sincere. It was not
+commonly charged upon him that he enriched himself at the public
+expense, or that he deliberately invented falsehoods. And as he was for
+a time more bitterly hated than anyone who ever occupied his high
+office, we may be very sure that these things would have been charged
+had it been possible. In this respect the contrast was enormous between
+Jackson and his imitators, and it explains his prolonged influence. He
+never was found out or exposed before the world, because there was
+nothing to detect or unveil; his merits and demerits were as visible as
+his long, narrow, firmly set features, or as the old military stock that
+encircled his neck. There he was, always fully revealed; everybody could
+see him; the people might take him or leave him--and they never left
+him.
+
+Moreover, there was, after the eight years of Monroe and the four years
+of Adams, an immense popular demand for something piquant and even
+amusing, and this quality they always had from Jackson. There was
+nothing in the least melodramatic about him; he never posed or
+attitudinized--it would have required too much patience; but he was
+always piquant. There was formerly a good deal of discussion as to who
+wrote the once famous "Jack Downing's" letters, but we might almost say
+that they wrote themselves. Nobody was ever less of a humorist than
+Andrew Jackson, and it was therefore the more essential that he should
+be the cause of humor in others. It was simply inevitable that during
+his progresses through the country there should be some amusing shadow
+evoked, some Yankee parody of the man, such as came from two or three
+quarters under the name of Jack Downing. The various records of Monroe's
+famous tours are as tame as the speeches which these expeditions brought
+forth, and John Quincy Adams never made any popular demonstrations to
+chronicle; but wherever Jackson went there went the other Jack, the
+crude first-fruits of what is now known through the world as "American
+humor." Jack Downing was Mark Twain and Hosea Biglow and Artemus Ward in
+one. The impetuous President enraged many and delighted many, but it is
+something to know that under him a serious people first found that it
+knew how to laugh.
+
+The very extreme, the perfectly needless extreme, of political
+foreboding that marked the advent of Jackson furnished a background of
+lurid solemnity for all this light comedy. Samuel Breck records in his
+diary that he conversed with Daniel Webster in Philadelphia, March 24,
+1827, upon the prospects of the government. "Sir," said Mr. Webster, "if
+General Jackson is elected, the government of our country will be
+overthrown; the judiciary will be destroyed; Mr. Justice Johnson will be
+made Chief-Justice in the room of Mr. Marshall, who must soon retire,
+and then in half an hour Mr. Joseph Washington and Mr. Justice Story
+will resign. A majority will be left with Mr. Johnson, and every
+constitutional decision hitherto made will be reversed." As a matter of
+fact, none of these results followed. Mr. Justice Johnson never became
+Chief-Justice; Mr. Marshall retained that office till his death in 1835;
+Story and Washington also died in office; the judiciary was not
+overthrown, nor the government destroyed. But the very ecstasy of these
+fears stimulated the excitement of the public mind. No matter how
+extravagant the supporters of Jackson might be, they could hardly go
+farther in that direction than did the Websters in the other.
+
+But it was not the fault of the Jackson party if anybody went beyond
+them in exaggeration. An English traveller, William E. Alexander, going
+in a stage-coach from Baltimore to Washington in 1831, records the
+exuberant conversation of six editors, with whom he was shut up for
+hours. "The gentlemen of the press," he says, "talked of 'going the
+whole hog' for one another, of being 'up to the hub' (nave) for General
+Jackson, 'who was all brimstone but the head, and that was aqua-fortis,'
+and swore if anyone abused him he ought to be 'set straddle on an
+iceberg, and shot through with a streak of lightning.'" Somewhere
+between the dignified despair of Daniel Webster, and the adulatory slang
+of these gentry we must look for the actual truth about Jackson's
+administration. The fears of the statesman were not wholly groundless,
+for it is always hard to count in advance upon the tendency of high
+office to make men more reasonable. The enthusiasm of the editors had a
+certain foundation; at any rate it was a part of their profession to
+like stirring times, and they had now the promise of them. After four
+years of Adams, preceded by eight years of Monroe, any party of editors
+in America, assembled in a stage-coach, would have showered epithets of
+endearment on the man who gave such promise in the way of lively items.
+No acute journalist could help seeing that a man had a career before him
+who was called "Old Hickory" by three-quarters of the nation, and who
+made "Hurrah for Jackson!" a cry so potent that it had the force of a
+popular decree.
+
+There was, indeed, unbounded room for popular enthusiasm in the review
+of Jackson's early career. Born in such obscurity that it is doubtful to
+this day whether he was born in South Carolina, as he himself claimed,
+or on the North Carolina side of the line, as Mr. Parton thinks, he had
+a childhood of poverty and ignorance. He was taken prisoner as a mere
+boy during the Revolution, and could never forget that he had been
+wounded by a British officer whose boots he had refused to brush.
+Afterward, in a frontier community, he was successively farmer,
+shopkeeper, law-student, lawyer, district attorney, judge, and
+Congressman, being first Representative from Tennessee, and then
+Senator, and all before the age of thirty-one. In Congress Albert
+Gallatin describes him "as a tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with
+long locks of hair hanging over his brows and face, and a queue down his
+back tied in an eel-skin; his dress singular, his manners and deportment
+those of a backwoodsman." He remained, however, but a year or two in all
+at Philadelphia--then the seat of national government--and afterward
+became a planter in Tennessee, fought duels, subdued Tecumseh and the
+Creek Indians, winning finally the great opportunity of his life by
+being made a Major-General in the United States army on May 31, 1814. He
+now had his old captors, the British, with whom to deal, and entered
+into the work with a relish. By way of preliminary he took Pensacola,
+without any definite authority, from the Spaniards, to whom it belonged,
+and the English whom they harbored; and then turned, without orders,
+without support, and without supplies, to undertake the defence of New
+Orleans.
+
+Important as was this city, and plain as it was that the British
+threatened it, the national authorities had done nothing to defend it.
+The impression prevailed at Washington that it must already have been
+taken, but that the President would not let it be known. The _Washington
+Republican_ of January 17, 1815, said, "That Mr. Madison will find it
+convenient and will finally determine to abandon the State of Louisiana
+we have not a doubt." A New York newspaper of January 30th, quoted in
+Mr. Andrew Stevenson's eulogy on Jackson, said, "It is a general opinion
+here that the city of New Orleans must fall." Apparently but one thing
+averted its fall--the energy and will of Andrew Jackson. On his own
+responsibility he declared martial law, impressed soldiers, seized
+powder and supplies, built fortifications of cotton bales, if nothing
+else came to hand. When the news of the battle of New Orleans came to
+the seat of government it was almost too bewildering for belief. The
+British veterans of the Peninsular War, whose march wherever they had
+landed had heretofore seemed a holiday parade, were repulsed in a
+manner so astounding that their loss was more than two thousand, while
+that of the Americans was but thirteen. By a single stroke the national
+self-respect was restored; and Henry Clay, at Paris, said "Now I can go
+to England without mortification."
+
+All these things must be taken into account in estimating what Dr. Von
+Holst calls "the reign of Andrew Jackson." After this climax of military
+success he was for a time employed on frontier service, again went to
+Florida to fight Englishmen and Spaniards, practically conquering that
+region in a few months, but this time with an overwhelming force.
+Already his impetuosity had proved to have a troublesome side to it; he
+had violated neutral territory, had hung two Indians without
+justification, and had put to death, with no authority, two Englishmen,
+Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These irregularities did not harm him in the
+judgment of his admirers; they seemed in the line of his character and
+helped more than they hurt him. In the winter of 1823-24 he was again
+chosen a Senator from Tennessee. Thenceforth he was in the field as a
+candidate for the Presidency, with two things to aid him--his own
+immense popularity and a friend. This friend was one William B. Lewis, a
+man in whom all the skilful arts of the modern wire-puller seemed to be
+born full-grown.
+
+There was at that time (1824) no real division in parties. The
+Federalists had been effectually put down, and every man who aspired to
+office claimed to be Democratic-Republican. Nominations were irregularly
+made, sometimes by a Congressional caucus, sometimes by State
+legislatures. Tennessee, and afterward Pennsylvania, nominated Jackson.
+When it came to the vote, he proved to be by all odds the popular
+candidate. Professor W. G. Sumner, counting up the votes of the people,
+finds 155,800 votes for Jackson, 105,300 for Adams, 44,200 for Crawford,
+46,000 for Clay. Even with this strong popular vote before it, the House
+of Representatives, balloting by States, elected on the first trial John
+Quincy Adams. Seldom in our history has the cup of power come so near to
+the lips of a candidate and been dashed away again. Yet nothing is surer
+in a republic than a certain swing of the pendulum afterward, in favor
+of any candidate to whom a special injustice has been done, and in the
+case of a popular favorite like Jackson, this might have been foreseen
+to be irresistible. His election four years later was almost a foregone
+conclusion, but, as if to make it wholly sure, there came up the rumor
+of a "corrupt bargain" between the successful candidate and Mr. Clay,
+whose forces had indeed joined with those of Mr. Adams to make a
+majority. For General Jackson there could be nothing more fortunate. The
+mere ghost of a corrupt bargain is worth many thousand votes to the
+lucky man who conjures up the ghost.
+
+When it came the turn of the Adams party to be defeated, in 1828, they
+attributed this result partly to the depravity of the human heart,
+partly to the tricks of Jackson, and partly to the unfortunate
+temperament of Mr. Adams. The day after a candidate is beaten everybody
+knows why it was, and says it was just what anyone might have foreseen.
+Ezekiel Webster, writing from New Hampshire, laid the result chiefly on
+the candidate, whom everybody disliked, and who would persist in
+leaving his bitter opponents in office. The people, he said, "always
+supported his cause from a cold sense of duty, and not from any liking
+of the man. We soon satisfy ourselves," he added, "that we have
+discharged our duty to the cause of any man when we do not entertain for
+him one personal kind feeling, nor cannot, unless we disembowel
+ourselves, like a trussed turkey, of all that is human within us." There
+is, indeed, no doubt that Mr. Adams helped on his own defeat, both by
+his defects and by what would now be considered his virtues. The
+trouble, however, lay further back. Ezekiel Webster thought that "if
+there had been at the head of affairs a man of popular character like
+Mr. Clay, or any man whom we were not compelled by our natures,
+instinct, and fixed fate to dislike, the result would have been
+different." But we can now see that all this would really have made no
+difference at all. Had Mr. Adams been personally the most attractive of
+men, instead of being a conscientious iceberg, the same result would
+have followed, the people would have felt that Jackson's turn had come,
+and the demand for the "old ticket" would have been irresistible.
+
+Accordingly, the next election, that of 1828, was easily settled.
+Jackson had 178 electoral votes; Adams but 83--more than two to one.
+Adams had not an electoral vote south of the Potomac or west of the
+Alleghanies, though Daniel Webster, writing to Jeremiah Mason, had
+predicted that he would carry six Western and Southern States. In
+Georgia no Adams ticket was even nominated, he being there unpopular for
+one of his best acts--the protection of the Cherokees. On the other
+hand, but one Jackson elector was chosen from New England, and he by
+less than two hundred majority.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the day of his inauguration the president was received in Washington
+with an ardor that might have turned a more modest head. On the day when
+the new administration began (March 4, 1829), Daniel Webster wrote to
+his sister-in-law, with whom he had left his children that winter:
+"To-day we have had the inauguration. A monstrous crowd of people is in
+the city. I never saw anything like it before. Persons have come five
+hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that
+the country is rescued from some frightful danger." It is difficult now
+to see what this peril was supposed to be; but we know that the charges
+of monarchical tendency made against John Adams had been renewed against
+his son--a renewal that seems absurd in case of a man so scrupulously
+republican that he would not use a seal ring, and so unambitious that he
+always sighed after the quieter walks of literature. Equally absurd was
+the charge of extravagance against a man who kept the White House in
+better order than his predecessors on less than half the
+appropriation--an economy wholly counterbalanced in some minds by the
+fact that he had put in a billiard-table. But however all this may have
+been, the fact is certain that no president had yet entered the White
+House amid such choruses of delight; nor did it happen again until
+Jackson's pupil, Van Buren, yielded, amid equal popular enthusiasm, to
+another military hero, Harrison.
+
+For the social life of Washington the President had one advantage which
+was altogether unexpected, and seemed difficult of explanation by
+anything in his earlier career. He had at his command the most courteous
+and agreeable manners. Even before the election of Adams, Daniel Webster
+had written to his brother: "General Jackson's manners are better than
+those of any of the candidates. He is grave, mild, and reserved. My wife
+is for him decidedly." And long after, when the president was to pass in
+review before those who were perhaps his most implacable opponents, the
+ladies of Boston, we have the testimony of the late Josiah Quincy, in
+his "Figures from the Past," that the personal bearing of this obnoxious
+official was most unwillingly approved. Mr. Quincy was detailed by
+Governor Lincoln, on whose military staff he was, to attend President
+Jackson everywhere when visiting Boston in 1833; and this narrator
+testifies that, with every prejudice against Jackson, he found him
+essentially "a knightly personage--prejudiced, narrow, mistaken on many
+points, it might be, but vigorously a gentleman in his high sense of
+honor, and in the natural, straightforward courtesies which are easily
+distinguished from the veneer of policy." Sitting erect on his horse, a
+thin, stiff type of military strength, he carried with him in the
+streets a bearing of such dignity that staid old Bostonians, who had
+refused even to look upon him from their windows, would finally be
+coaxed into taking one peep, and would then hurriedly bring forward
+their little daughters to wave their handkerchiefs. He wrought, Mr.
+Quincy declares, "a mysterious charm upon old and young;" showed,
+although in feeble health, a great consideration for others; and was in
+private a really agreeable companion. It appears from these
+reminiscences that the president was not merely the cause of wit in
+others, but now and then appreciated it himself, and that he used to
+listen with delight to the reading of the "Jack Downing" letters,
+laughing heartily sometimes, and declaring: "The Vice-President must
+have written that. Depend upon it Jack Downing is only Van Buren in
+masquerade." It is a curious fact that the satirist is already the
+better remembered of the two, although Van Buren was in his day so
+powerful as to preside over the official patronage of the nation and to
+be called the "Little Magician."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The two acts with which the administration of President Jackson will be
+longest identified are his dealings with South Carolina in respect to
+nullification, and his long warfare with the United States Bank. The
+first brought the New England States back to him, and the second took
+them away again. He perhaps won rather more applause than he merited by
+the one act, and more condemnation than was just for the other. Let us
+first consider the matter of nullification. When various Southern
+States--Georgia at first, not South Carolina, taking the lead--had
+quarrelled with the tariff of 1828, and openly threatened to set it
+aside, they evidently hoped for the co-operation of the President; or at
+least for that silent acquiescence he had shown when Georgia had been
+almost equally turbulent on the Indian question and he would not
+interfere, as his predecessor had done, to protect the treaty rights of
+the Indian tribes. The whole South was therefore startled when he gave,
+at a banquet on Jefferson's birthday (April 13, 1830), a toast that now
+seems commonplace--"The Federal Union; it must be preserved." But this
+was not all; when the time came he took vigorous, if not altogether
+consistent, steps to preserve it.
+
+When, in November, 1832, South Carolina for the first time officially
+voted that certain tariff acts were null and void in that State, the
+gauntlet of defiance was fairly thrown down, and Jackson took it up. He
+sent General Scott to take command at Charleston, with troops near by,
+and two gunboats at hand; he issued a dignified proclamation, written by
+Livingston (December 10, 1832), which pronounced the act of South
+Carolina contradictory to the Constitution, unauthorized by it, and
+destructive of its aims. So far so good; but unfortunately the president
+had, the week before (December 4, 1832), sent a tariff message to
+Congress, of which John Quincy Adams wrote, "It goes far to dissolve the
+Union into its original elements, and is in substance a complete
+surrender into the hands of the nullifiers of South Carolina." Then came
+Mr. Clay's compromise tariff of 1833, following in part the line
+indicated by this message, and achieving, as Mr. Calhoun said, a victory
+for nullification, leaving the matter a drawn game at any rate.
+
+The action of Jackson thus accompanied settled nothing; it was like
+valiantly ordering a burglar out of your house with a pistol, and adding
+a suggestion that he will find a portion of the family silver on the
+hall-table, ready packed for his use, as he goes out.
+
+Nevertheless, the burglar was gone for the moment, and the president had
+the credit of it. He had already been re-elected by an overwhelming
+majority in November, 1832, receiving 219 electoral votes, and Clay 49,
+while Floyd had the 11 votes of South Carolina (which still chose
+electors by its Legislature--a practice now abandoned), and Wirt the 7
+of Vermont. Van Buren was chosen vice-president, being nominated in
+place of Calhoun by the Democratic National Convention, which now for
+the first time came into operation. The president was now at his
+high-water mark of popularity--always a dangerous time for a public man.
+His vehement nature accepted his re-election as a proof that he was
+right in everything, and he grew more self-confident than ever. More
+imperiously than ever, he ordered about friends and opponents, and his
+friends repaid it by guiding his affairs, unconsciously to himself.
+Meantime he was encountering another enemy of greater power, because
+more silent, than Southern nullification, and he was drifting on to his
+final contest with the United States Bank.
+
+Sydney Smith says that every Englishman feels himself able, without
+instruction, to drive a pony-chaise, conduct a small farm, and edit a
+newspaper. The average American assumes, in addition to all this, that
+he is competent to manage a bank. President Jackson claimed for himself
+in this respect no more than his fellows; the difference was in strength
+of will and in possession of power. A man so ignorant that a member of
+his own family, according to Mr. Trist, used to say that the general did
+not believe the world was round, might easily convince himself that he
+knew all about banking. As he had, besides all this, very keen
+observation and great intuitive judgment of character, he was probably
+right in his point of attack. There is little doubt that the Bank of the
+United States, under Nicholas Biddle, concentrated in itself an enormous
+power; and it spent in four years, by confession of its directors,
+$58,000 in what they called self-defence "against politicians." When on
+July 10, 1832, General Jackson, in a message supposed to have been
+inspired by Amos Kendall, vetoed the bill renewing the charter of the
+bank, he performed an act of courage, taking counsel with his instincts.
+But when in the year following he performed the act known as the
+"Removal of the Deposits," or, in other words, caused the public money
+to be no longer deposited in the National Bank and its twenty-five
+branches, but in a variety of State banks instead, then he took counsel
+of his ignorance.
+
+The consequence, immediate or remote, was an immense galvanizing into
+existence of State banks, and ultimately a vast increase of paper money.
+The Sub-Treasury system had not then been thought of; there was no
+proper place of deposit for the public funds; their possession was a
+direct stimulus to speculation; and the president's cure was worse than
+the disease. All the vast inflation of 1835 and 1836 and the business
+collapse of 1837 were due to the fact not merely that Andrew Jackson
+brought all his violent and persistent will to bear against the United
+States Bank, but that when he got the power into his own hands he did
+not know what to do with it. Not one of his biographers--hardly even a
+bigoted admirer, so far as I know--now claims that his course in this
+respect was anything but a mistake. "No monster bank," says Professor W.
+G. Sumner, "under the most malicious management, could have produced as
+much havoc, either political or financial, as this system produced while
+it lasted." If the bank was, as is now generally admitted, a dangerous
+institution, Jackson was in the right to resist it; he was right even in
+disregarding the enormous flood of petitions that poured in to its
+support. But to oppose a dangerous bank does not necessarily make one an
+expert in banking. The utmost that can be said in favor of his action is
+that the calamitous results showed the great power of the institution he
+overthrew, and that if he had let it alone the final result might have
+been as bad.
+
+Two new States were added to the Union in President Jackson's
+time--Arkansas (1836) and Michigan (1837). The population of the United
+States in 1830 had risen to nearly thirteen millions (12,866,020). There
+was no foreign war during his administration, although one with France
+was barely averted; and no domestic contest except with the Florida
+Indians--a contest in which these combatants held their ground so well,
+under the half-breed chief Osceola, that he himself was only captured by
+the violation of a flag of truce, and that even to this day, as the
+Indian Commissioners tell us, some three hundred of the tribe remain in
+Florida. The war being equally carried on against fugitive slaves called
+Maroons, who had intermarried with the Indians, did something to prepare
+the public mind for a new agitation which was to remould American
+political parties, and to modify the Constitution of the nation.
+
+It must be remembered that the very air began to be filled in Jackson's
+time with rumors of insurrections and uprisings in different parts of
+the world. The French revolution of the Three Days had roused all the
+American people to sympathy, and called forth especial enthusiasm in
+such cities as Baltimore, Richmond, and Charleston. The Polish
+revolution had excited universal interest, and John Randolph had said
+"The Greeks are at your doors." All these things were being discussed at
+every dinner-table, and the debates in Virginia as to the necessity of
+restricting the growing intelligence of the slaves had added to the
+agitation. In the session of 1829-30 a bill had passed the Virginia
+Assembly by one majority, and had failed in the Senate, prohibiting
+slaves being taught to read or write; and the next year it had passed
+almost unanimously. There had been, about the same time, alarms of
+insurrection in North Carolina, so that a party of slaves were attacked
+and killed by the inhabitants of Newbern; alarms in Maryland, so that
+fifty blacks had been imprisoned on the Eastern Shore; alarms in
+Louisiana, so that reinforcements of troops had been ordered to Baton
+Rouge; and a traveller had written even from Richmond, Va., on February
+12th, that there were constant fears of insurrections, and special
+patrols. Then came the insurrection of Nat Turner in Virginia--an
+uprising described minutely by myself elsewhere; the remarkable
+inflammatory pamphlet called "Walker's Appeal," by a Northern colored
+man--a piece of writing surpassed in lurid power by nothing in the
+literature of the French Revolution; and more potent than either or both
+of these, the appearance of the first number of the _Liberator_, in
+Boston. When Garrison wrote, "I am in earnest, I will not equivocate, I
+will not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard,"
+Andrew Jackson for once met a will firmer than his own, because more
+steadfast and moved by a loftier purpose. Thenceforth, for nearly half a
+century, the history of the nation was the history of the great
+anti-slavery contest.
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL WEBSTER
+
+By REV. DR. TWEEDIE
+
+(1782-1852)
+
+[Illustration: Daniel Webster. [TN]]
+
+
+Daniel Webster, the American statesman, was born in the town of
+Salisbury, in the county of Merrimack, New Hampshire, America, on
+January 18, 1782. His mother, a woman of deep piety, was his first
+teacher; his father was a man of singular but quiet energy, and the
+training of the youthful statesman was well fitted to prepare him, at
+least in some respects, for the work which it fell to his lot to
+perform. From his mother's lips were first received the vital truths of
+the Bible; and the first copy of that book ever owned by Webster was her
+gift. Long subsequent to this period, and in the full blaze of his
+fame, he could say that he had never been able to recollect the time
+when he could not read the Bible, and supposed that his first
+schoolmistress began to teach him when he was three or four years of
+age. His first school-house was built of logs, and stood about half a
+mile from his father's house, not very far from the beautiful Merrimack.
+All was then humble enough with this great American statesman. He
+attended school only during the winter months, and assisted his father
+in the business of his farm and his mill as soon as he had strength for
+doing so. He was, however, the brightest boy at school; and when the
+tempting reward of a knife was promised to the scholar who committed to
+memory the greatest number of verses from the Bible, Daniel came with
+whole chapters, which the master could not find time to hear him repeat
+in full. The boy secured the knife, and his delighted teacher
+subsequently told the father of that child that "he would do God's work
+injustice" if gifts so promising were not nurtured at college.
+
+But that consummation was not to be very soon realized. For some time
+Daniel had to assist his father at a saw-mill; but so resolute was he in
+acquiring knowledge and training the mind while toiling with the body,
+that the operations at the mill were systematically interspersed with
+studies well fitted to form and to brace the embryo patriot for his
+great life-work. The saw took about ten minutes to cleave a log, and
+young Webster, after setting the mill in motion, learned to fill up
+these ten minutes with reading. As a patriot, a statesman, an orator,
+and a scholar, he became famous, and was called the greatest
+intellectual character of his country; and we see where he laid the
+foundation of his greatness--by persistent and invincible ardor even in
+early boyhood. That magnanimous kindliness and tenderness of heart,
+which entered so largely into his character, was fostered amid such
+scenes; and of all the men whose memories we are fain to embalm, he
+ranks among the least indebted to casualty, and the most to
+indefatigable earnestness, for the position to which he eventually rose.
+Amid the forest wilds of America his perseverance laid the foundation of
+power, of learning, of fame, and of goodness.
+
+A simple incident which happened about this period decided his
+life-pursuit. He discovered a copy of the "Constitution of the United
+States," as drawn up by some of her ablest statesmen. It was printed
+upon a cotton handkerchief which he purchased in a country store with
+what was then his all, and which amounted to twenty-five cents. He was
+about eight years of age when that took place, and learned then, for
+the first time, either that there were United States, or that they had a
+Constitution.
+
+From this date, or about the year 1790, his path through life was
+decided, not formally, but really, not by any avowal, but by a fostered
+predilection. Meanwhile other influences were at work. The father of
+this New Hampshire boy was strict in his religious opinions and
+observances, and the son had to conform, sometimes with a grudge at the
+restraint, but with effects of a vitally beneficial nature to the future
+patriot. His father then kept a place of entertainment, where teamsters
+halted to bait, and the attractions of the place were increased by the
+fact that young Webster often regaled those visitors by his readings.
+The Psalms of David were his favorite, and there, when only about seven
+years of age, he first imparted that pleasure by his oratory which he
+afterward carried up to the highest level which an American citizen can
+reach. To that humble abode Webster once returned in his declining
+years, and with streaming eyes descanted on the various events of the
+home of his youth.
+
+The school which he attended during the winter months was about three
+miles from his father's house, and he had often to travel thither
+through deep snow. At the age of fourteen he attended a somewhat more
+advanced academy for a few months, and his first effort at public
+speaking there was a failure. He burst into tears; his antipathy to
+public declamation appeared insurmountable, and neither frowns nor
+smiles could overcome the reluctance. It was overcome, for when young
+Webster felt the power which was in him, he boldly employed it. At
+first, however, he was a failure as a public speaker. With all this, he
+went forward in the acquisition of knowledge and the bracing of his
+mind; and in his fifteenth year he once undertook to repeat five hundred
+lines of Virgil, if his teacher would consent to listen.
+
+About this time the elder Webster disclosed to his son his purpose to
+send him to college. The talents of the boy and the counsels of friends
+pointed out that as a proper path, and that son himself will describe
+the effects of his father's information. "I could not speak," he says.
+"How could my father, I thought, with so large a family, and in such
+narrow circumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for me, and
+I laid my head on his shoulder and wept." That boy, however, had further
+difficulties to surmount. He had to leave one of his schools to assist
+his father in the hay harvest; he had, moreover, the hindrance of a
+slender and sickly constitution; but the Bible, side by side with some
+standard authors, had now become his English classics, while Cicero,
+Virgil, Horace, Demosthenes, and others, were his manuals in ancient
+literature. It was knowledge pursued under unusual difficulties, but, in
+spite of all, acquired to an unusual extent. So indomitable and
+persistent was the boy that in a few months he mastered the difficulties
+of the Greek tongue, and finally graduated at Dartmouth when he was
+eighteen years of age. Incidents are recorded which show that during his
+residence at college he was determined to hold the first place or none.
+
+It was at Dartmouth that Webster's patriotism first flashed forth with
+true American ardor, a harbinger to his whole future career. He had now
+mastered his boyish aversion to oratory, and on July 4, 1800, the
+twenty-fourth anniversary of American Independence, he delivered an
+oration full of patriotic sentiment, manifesting the decided bent of his
+mind, and deserving a place, in the opinion of some, among the works
+which he subsequently published. He was then only eighteen years of age.
+
+To increase the straitened funds of the family, Daniel Webster for some
+time kept a school at Freyburg, in Maine. His income there, eked out by
+other means, which were the wages of indomitable industry, enabled him
+to send his brother, Ezekiel, to college--the grand object which he had
+in view in becoming a schoolmaster. He was, however, all the while
+prosecuting his studies in law, and in the year 1805 entered on the
+duties of a legal practitioner at Boston. His familiar title in the
+country where he resided was "All eyes," and he used them with singular
+advantage. In Boston, at Portsmouth, and elsewhere, he continued these
+pursuits, and he thus early adopted some of the maxims which guided him
+through life. "There are evils greater than poverty;" "What bread you
+eat, let it be the bread of independence;" "Live on no man's favor;"
+"Pursue your profession;" "Make yourself useful to the world.... You
+will have nothing to fear." Such were his convictions, and he embodied
+them in deeds. One instance of his generosity is recorded at this
+period. His father had become embarrassed; the devoted son hastened to
+liquidate his father's debt, and he did it with a decision like that
+which signalized him all his days. He resided as a lawyer at Portsmouth
+for about nine years.
+
+It was in the year 1812 that Webster was first elected a member of
+Congress, and he reached that elevation by his masterly ability in the
+affairs of his profession. By persistent patience first, and then by
+resistless power, he took up the foremost position in the sphere in
+which he moved. He appeared in the majesty of intellectual grandeur,
+like one who was all might and soul, and poured forth the stores of an
+opulent mind in a manner which was entirely his own. His words had both
+weight and fire; and the contrast is now great between the boy who broke
+down and wept at his first declamation, and the man, bending opponents
+to his will by his energy and indomitable zeal. The laurel of victory,
+it has been fondly said, was proffered to him by all, and bound his brow
+for one exploit till he went forth to another. In his thirtieth year he
+entered the field of politics, like one who had made up his mind to be
+decided, firm, and straightforward; and such was the serenity of this
+great soul, amid wild commotions, that the enthusiast mistook it for
+apathy, the fierce for lukewarmness. It was the great calm of profound
+conviction, borne up by a thorough reliance on the right--the right as
+to time, as to degree, and as to resources for the battle of life. From
+the day on which he threw himself into the political arena, he belonged
+to the United States, and not to his native county alone. Crowds soon
+gathered round one who had mastered so many difficulties, and taken his
+place among the kingly men who rule the spirits whom they are born first
+to subdue, and then to bind to themselves by the spell of genius.
+
+It is well known that this man, so humble in his origin, yet so masterly
+in his mind, passed through all the gradations of rank that are open to
+an American citizen, up to the right hand of the highest. We have seen
+when he entered Congress. In 1841 he became Secretary of State, and from
+that period bore the place in American politics which would be readily
+conceded, in this ardent country, to one who was deemed and called "the
+master mind of the world." In his love of freedom, Webster has been
+likened to Washington, or expressly called his equal in regard to
+patriotism and true greatness. It is not wonderful, therefore, that this
+patriot's friends proposed him as President of the United States. He
+failed, and felt the failure, but soothed his disappointment by the
+conviction that no man "could take away from him what he had done for
+his country." Those who loved and admired him thought that the word
+president would have dimmed the lustre of the name of Daniel Webster;
+and they add, in regard to his disappointment, "if we must sorrow that
+what men expected can never come to pass, let us not weep for him but
+for our country." Others, however, were of opinion that Webster was
+"rejected and lost"; while those who look deeper at the causes of events
+may see, in that disappointment, the needful antidote administered by
+the Supreme Wisdom to ward off the danger of too universal a success.
+This gifted and ambitious man was suffered to take an active part in the
+government of one of the greatest of the nations. By his bold and manly
+grasp of American interests, he did much to weld the different States
+more closely into one. He negotiated, on the part of his country, some
+of the most important treaties which promote the peace and the amity of
+nations, for example, what is called the Ashburton treaty with Great
+Britain; and it would have seemed too much for one mortal, successful as
+Webster had already been, to be lifted to an official level with
+princes. That was denied him; his empire was not countries--it was
+minds. He was to be trained for a nobler exaltation than a throne.
+
+Little has yet been said regarding Webster as an orator. It was mainly
+in that respect, however, that he surpassed his fellows, and mainly by
+that means was he enabled to ascend to the high position which he held
+so long. The versatility of his powers was very great, and the mode in
+which he sometimes employed them was not a little remarkable. He had, on
+one occasion, spent several hours with his colleagues in adjusting some
+important questions involving the interests of kingdoms; and on
+returning home he sportively sallied forth and purchased some eggs, on
+the principle of seeing how extremes meet, in regard to occupation as
+well as in other respects. But there were serious things mixed with his
+jests; and as an orator, Webster stands in the first rank, if not
+foremost, in the New World. When it was known that he was to speak, the
+excitement sometimes amounted to a furor, and a hundred dollars have
+been paid for a ticket of admission to hear him. Meanwhile the avenues
+that led to his arena were blocked up by the crowds pressing for
+admittance; and when he did appear, it was to rouse, to agitate, and
+convulse. He felt what he said in his inmost soul, and his words were
+winged with fire, even while they were massively powerful, and connected
+with a logic which tolerated no breaks in the chain.
+
+Webster reached the allotted term of mortal existence, and in his
+seventy-first year passed away alike from the frowns and the applause
+of mortals. On the morning of Sabbath, October 24, 1852, he was summoned
+away. Though much enfeebled, his mind was calm, and he died with the
+confidence of a little child, reposing on the mercy of his God as
+revealed in the Saviour. Among his last utterances was this, "Heavenly
+Father, forgive my sins, and welcome me to thyself through Christ
+Jesus." His very last words were, "I still live," and his loving,
+weeping friends took them up as a prediction of that immortality on
+which he was about to enter. Through life he had hallowed the Sabbath,
+and he died upon it. The autumn was his favorite season, and he passed
+away amid its mellow glories, after affectionately and solemnly taking
+leave of his weeping wife, children, kindred, and friends, down to the
+humblest members of his household. His death, it is supposed, was
+hastened by injuries received by the breaking down of his carriage; but
+it did not find him unprepared. Long years before he had erected his own
+tomb; and there, on a plain marble slab over the door, the visitor reads
+the simple inscription--DANIEL WEBSTER.
+
+Some ten thousand friends, countrymen, and lovers, helped to lay him
+there, and one of the orations pronounced in connection with his
+departure was thus touchingly closed: "The clasped hands--the dying
+prayers--oh, my fellow-citizens, this is a consummation over which tears
+of pious sympathy will be shed, after the glories of the forum and the
+senate are forgotten."
+
+The following letter to a friend on the choice of a profession, written
+by Webster when only twenty years of age, is reprinted from "The Life of
+Daniel Webster" by George Ticknor Curtis, through the courtesy of D.
+Appleton & Co., the publishers, and with the permission of the widow and
+heirs of the author.
+
+"What shall I do? Shall I say, 'Yes, gentlemen,' and sit down here to
+spend my days in a kind of a comfortable privacy, or shall I relinquish
+these prospects, and enter into a profession, where my feelings will be
+constantly harrowed by objects either of dishonesty or misfortune, where
+my living must be squeezed from penury (for rich folks seldom go to
+law), and my moral principle continually be at hazard? I agree with you
+that the law is well calculated to draw forth the powers of the mind,
+but what are its effects on the heart? Are they equally propitious? Does
+it inspire benevolence, and awake tenderness; or does it, by a frequent
+repetition of wretched objects, blunt sensibility, and stifle the still
+small voice of mercy?
+
+"The talent with which Heaven has intrusted me is small, very small, yet
+I feel responsible for the use of it, and am not willing to pervert it
+to purposes reproachful and unjust; nor to hide it, like the slothful
+servant, in a napkin.
+
+"Now, I will enumerate the inducements that draw me toward the law:
+First, and principally, it is my father's wish. He does not dictate, it
+is true, but how much short of dictation is the mere wish of a parent,
+whose labors of life are wasted on favors to his children? Even the
+delicacy with which the wish is expressed gives it more effect than it
+would have in the form of a command. Secondly, my friends generally wish
+it. They are urgent and pressing. My father even offers me--I will
+sometime tell you what--and Mr. Thompson offers my tuition gratis, and
+to relinquish his stand to me.
+
+"On the whole, I imagine I shall make one more trial in the ensuing
+autumn. If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify me against
+its temptations. To the winds I dismiss those light hopes of eminence
+which ambition inspired, and vanity fostered. To be 'honest, to be
+capable, to be faithful' to my client and my conscience, I earnestly
+hope will be my first endeavor. I believe you, my worthy boy, when you
+tell me what are your intentions. I have long known and long loved the
+honesty of your heart. But let us not rely too much on ourselves; let us
+look to some less fallible guide to direct us among the temptations that
+surround us."
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD[12]
+
+By HON. CHARLES E. FITCH
+
+(1801-1872)
+
+         [Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: William Henry Seward. [TN]]
+
+
+William Henry Seward, the American statesman, was born in Florida,
+Orange County, N. Y., May 16, 1801, and died at Auburn, in the same
+State, October 10, 1872. Precocious in his studies, he pursued his
+preliminary education in his native village, and, at the age of fifteen,
+entered, as a sophomore, Union College, then under the presidency of
+Eliphalet Nott, between whom and his pupil a life-long friendship,
+illustrated by mutual confidence and counsel, was early established.
+Seward's college course, especially brilliant in rhetoric and the
+classics, was interrupted in his senior year by a residence of six
+months, as a teacher, in Georgia, where previous impressions against
+African slavery were confirmed by observation of its workings. Returning
+to college, he was graduated with high honors in 1820, the subject of
+his Commencement oration being "The Integrity of the American Union."
+
+He was admitted to the bar at Utica, in October, 1822, and in January,
+1823, settled at Auburn as a partner of Judge Elijah Miller, whose
+daughter he married in October, 1824. Although certain features of the
+law--its technicalities and uncertainties--were repugnant to him, he was
+soon in the full tide of professional success, and, in the opening of
+the circuit courts to equity jurisprudence, found much that was in
+harmony with his sense of justice. He was also, from the first,
+interested in politics, for which he had decided genius. He came upon
+the stage in the closing days of "The Era of Good Feeling," under
+President Monroe, when parties were again dividing upon the issues that
+have mainly obtained throughout the constitutional era. He approved the
+principles of Hamilton, although his boyish training had been in the
+Jeffersonian school. Enunciating his views with precision and felicity
+of diction, his voice and pen were in constant request, and he rapidly
+rose to distinction until, in 1834, he was the acknowledged leader in
+the State of the Whig party and its candidate for governor.
+
+Meanwhile he had supported De Witt Clinton, the champion of internal
+improvements, and in 1824 drafted, for the Republican Convention of his
+county a trenchant address, detailing the history and criticising the
+aims of the "Albany Regency," which inspired the hostility to that
+famous clique that compassed its overthrow fourteen years later. Among
+his notable utterances of this period were an address on Grecian
+independence, at Auburn, in 1827; a Fourth-of-July oration, at Syracuse,
+in 1831, in which Calhoun's dogma of secession was denounced, and an
+eulogy on La Fayette, at Auburn, in 1834. In 1828 he presided over the
+Young Men's Convention, at Utica, in behalf of the renomination of
+President Adams, and declined a congressional nomination. In 1830 he was
+elected by the Anti-Masons to the State Senate, and was re-elected in
+1832. He had a prominent and an influential part in the deliberations of
+that body, although its youngest member, and in the political minority,
+whose addresses to the people he wrote at the close of each session. His
+most notable speeches were those for the common-school and canal
+systems, the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the amelioration of
+prison discipline, and the reform of the militia law, and against
+corporate monopolies, increasing judicial salaries, Governor Marcy's
+loan law, and the removal of the deposits by President Jackson. The
+Senate was then a constituent portion of the Court of Errors, the
+tribunal of last resort, and Seward delivered many opinions which
+materially enhanced his legal reputation. In one instance he carried,
+with substantial unanimity, the court with him, against the views of the
+presiding judge, the eminent Chancellor Walworth. In 1833 he made a
+rapid tour of Europe, embodying his reflections in letters to the Albany
+_Evening Journal_, then edited by Thurlow Weed, between whom and Seward
+there was, for fifty years, an intimate and unbroken attachment, unique
+in political annals.
+
+In 1838 he was again the Whig candidate for governor, and defeated
+Governor Marcy, his former rival, his victory being the precursor of the
+national Whig triumph in 1840, in which year he was re-elected. He was
+inaugurated, January 1, 1839, his message to the Legislature embracing,
+with a masterly exposition of Whig policies, certain suggestions of his
+own concerning immigration, education, and eleemosynary institutions
+that revealed the catholic spirit and the philosophical habit which,
+despite his party fealty, he consistently exhibited. This message
+outlined the conduct of the administration that succeeded--enlightened
+in its scope, liberal to all classes, distinctly loyal to the Union, yet
+jealously guarding against any infringement of the rights of the State.
+It widened educational privileges, urged the prosecution of the public
+works, including the enlargement of the Erie Canal, granted franchises
+to railways, removed imprisonment for debt and the remaining guarantees
+of slavery from the statute-books, composed the anti-rent troubles and
+executed the laws within the insurrectionary section, perfected the
+banking system, and proposed jury trials for fugitive slaves and a
+constitutional amendment abolishing the property qualification for the
+colored suffrage.
+
+Governor Seward's regard for the dignity of the State was displayed by
+his refusal to discharge from custody, without trial, one Alexander
+McLeod, a citizen of Canada, held for the burning of the steamer
+Caroline, in New York waters, although the demand of the British
+government, to that effect, was supplemented by the request of
+Presidents Harrison and Tyler. His abhorrence of slavery was accentuated
+in his denial of the application of the Governor of Virginia for the
+rendition of seamen charged with the abduction of a slave, upon the
+ground that the offence, if defined as a crime in Virginia, was not so
+in New York, and he did not hesitate to add that his feelings coincided
+with his conception of his constitutional prerogative. When a Democratic
+Assembly subsequently passed resolutions disapproving his action, he
+declined to transmit them to the Virginia authorities, and he also
+failed to respond to a similar requisition from South Carolina. His
+proposition for the employment of Roman Catholic teachers in the common
+schools showed his independence of partisan behest and popular clamor.
+
+Leaving office in 1843, he passed the next six years in professional
+labors, varied by occasional addresses of a literary or patriotic cast,
+and by many Whig speeches in the campaigns of 1844 and 1848. To his
+practice in the State courts was united that in patent cases, which not
+only brought him a lucrative clientage, but largely increased his
+acquaintance with public men at Washington. His gubernatorial service
+had given him national fame, and he was, although not in public life,
+esteemed as one of the national leaders of his party. In the courts he
+commanded respect for the clearness and strength of his arguments, but,
+even there, he was at his best when his heart inspired his speech with
+fervor, as in his pleas for Van Zandt and others charged with harboring
+fugitive slaves. The defence of Greeley, in the Cooper libel suit, and
+of the Michigan rioters, may be cited as instances of his persuasiveness
+before juries, but that in the case of William Freeman is celebrated
+both for its own quality and the intrepidity of its author. Gladstone
+has characterized it as the greatest forensic effort in the English
+language, not excluding the masterpieces of Erskine. It is a plea for
+the life of a brutalized negro who butchered a whole family under
+circumstances of peculiar atrocity. The deed was without excuse or
+palliation, save in the insanity of the perpetrator, of which Seward
+became convinced, and volunteered as counsel amid the surprise,
+imprecations, and threats of the Auburn community, where the case was at
+issue. The moment was a supreme one for him, but he did not hesitate.
+Without reward, or the hope of reward, even in the gratitude of the
+insensate wretch for whom he risked professional standing and public
+favor, he worked as indefatigably as though the weightiest honors and
+emoluments depended thereon, from the impanelling of the jury to the
+failure of executive clemency; but Freeman's death in prison and the
+autopsy that disclosed the morbid condition of his brain fully
+vindicated Seward's analysis and exalted him in public regard.
+
+On March 4, 1849, coincident with the accession of General Taylor to the
+presidency, Seward entered the United States Senate, having been chosen
+thereto by a large majority of the Legislature of New York. When he took
+his seat, the Whig party was already divided upon the slavery question,
+and Seward, by virtue of his previous utterances and his skill as a
+politician, became the exponent of the free-soil element, as also the
+representative of the administration, an unprecedented trust to be
+confided to a senator in his first term. He thus found himself in
+opposition to Webster and Clay, and especially to the "Omnibus" bill of
+the latter, a measure intended to reconcile conflicting claims
+concerning the admission of new States, the status of slavery in the
+Territories, and the protection to be accorded it in the free States. On
+March 11, 1850, he made a speech, generally pronounced to be his ablest,
+as it is certainly his most noteworthy deliverance, in which he declared
+that there is a law higher than the Constitution, whose authority may be
+invoked in legislation for the national domain. The death of General
+Taylor brought him into collision with President Fillmore, who hailed
+from New York, and was largely indebted for his vice-presidential
+nomination to Seward's kindly offices. Fillmore urged the adoption of
+the compromise scheme and signed the separate bills therefor as they
+successively passed Congress, thereby incurring censure at the North,
+while Seward retained his ascendency with the anti-slavery masses
+throughout the country, as well as with the Whigs of New York.
+
+He was re-elected to the Senate in 1855 by a combination of Whigs and
+Anti-Nebraska Americans, and on October 12th, of that year, at Albany,
+formally announced his adhesion to the new Republican party. In the
+Senate he easily ranked as one of its most polished and effective
+speakers who, while resolutely maintaining his own convictions,
+scrupulously preserved the amenities of debate. He especially
+distinguished himself by his earnest, yet unavailing, resistance to the
+repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Among his popular addresses of
+conspicuous merit are those on "The Elements of Empire in America," at
+Union College, 1843; "Daniel O'Connell," at New York, 1847; "John Quincy
+Adams," before the New York Legislature, 1848; "The Destiny of America,"
+at Columbus, O., and "The True Basis of American Independence," at New
+York, 1853; "The Development of the American People," at Yale College
+1854, and "The Irrepressible Conflict"--_i.e._, between freedom and
+slavery--at Rochester, N. Y., 1858. He made an extended tour in Europe,
+Egypt, and Palestine, in 1859.
+
+The Republicans met in National Convention at Chicago, in 1860, flushed
+with anticipated success. Northern opposition to the extension of
+slavery had combined, and the Democracy was being resolved into
+antagonistic factions. Seward's nomination for the presidency seemed
+assured. He was the foremost statesman in his party. He had crystallized
+its ideas, interpreted its creed, and marshalled its forces. He had an
+enthusiastic following who believed that the occasion had met the man;
+but there were others who objected that his very superiority would
+provoke assault against him, which might hurt the cause for which he
+stood. They reasoned against his availability, and their argument
+prevailed. He led on the first two ballots in the convention, but, on
+the third, Abraham Lincoln, then comparatively unknown, became the
+Republican standard-bearer. Seward met this reverse tranquilly, rebuked
+certain manifestations of disaffection, proffered the candidate his
+hearty support, and, in a series of remarkably able and eloquent
+speeches, extending from Massachusetts to Kansas, contributed materially
+to his election.
+
+Seward accepted the portfolio of State in Lincoln's cabinet and
+immediately assumed the gravest responsibilities. American relations
+with foreign governments during the Civil War were uniformly serious and
+sometimes perilous. The duties of the Secretary of State were exacting
+and delicate. Seward, by his tact and discretion, as well as his courage
+and wisdom, kept peace with the world, without debasing the honor or
+forfeiting the rights of the republic. One of the most intricate issues
+arose in the first year of the war. It is known as the Trent case. Mason
+and Slidell, Confederate envoys to England and France respectively, were
+forcibly taken by an American naval commander from a British vessel and
+lodged in Fort Warren. The American public was exultant over the capture
+and protested vigorously against their release; but Seward had to decide
+officially the question of their surrender to the British Government,
+and, when the demand was duly made, he yielded to it, basing his
+conclusion, with admirable adroitness, not only upon international
+comity, but also upon American precedents. The president, at first
+disposed to take the contrary view, conceded the force of Seward's
+argument, the people acquiesced, and a war with England was avoided.
+Seward's state papers and despatches are models of style, and by their
+frankness of statement and hopefulness of tone did much to sustain the
+Union cause abroad. In accord with Lincoln in holding that the paramount
+task of the Government was to subdue rebellion against it and
+discouraging precipitate movements for the abolition of slavery, he was
+also in accord with the president in the policy of emancipation, as
+ultimately formulated, and, on January 1, 1863, attested the
+proclamation which has made the name of Lincoln immortal. He proclaimed
+the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, by which
+slavery was abolished, December 18, 1865, and of the Fourteenth,
+conferring suffrage and civil rights upon the freedmen, July 26, 1868.
+On February 3, 1865, he attended, with the president, the so-called
+Peace Conference, in Hampton Roads, with Messrs. Stephens, Hunter, and
+Campbell, the Confederate commissioners. The conference was fruitless,
+owing to the inflexible determination of the president not to entertain
+any proposals that did not involve the complete restoration of the
+national authority as a condition precedent.
+
+Lincoln began his second term March 4, 1865, Seward remaining in the
+cabinet. On April 5th, Seward was badly injured by being thrown from his
+carriage. Nine days thereafter Lincoln visited him in his sick chamber.
+It was their last meeting. On the same evening Lincoln was assassinated,
+and the murder of Seward was attempted. He was stabbed in several places
+in the head and throat, and for several days his life was despaired of,
+but he slowly recovered, and in June resumed his desk in the State
+Department, President Johnson having urged him to retain it. He
+continued in office throughout Johnson's administration, favoring the
+reconstruction policy of his chief, without, however, incurring the
+active hostility of his Republican friends. Distinctive events of his
+second term were his maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, in the refusal
+to recognize the French empire in Mexico, and the purchase of Alaska,
+which was in consonance with views long entertained by him as to the
+propriety of the expansion of the territory of the United States upon
+the continent of North America. In the best sense of the term he was an
+advocate of "Manifest Destiny," and was proud of the acquisition of the
+Russian territory at the Far North. A treaty which he negotiated for the
+cession of the Danish West India islands of St. Thomas and St. John
+failed of ratification by the Senate.
+
+He retired to private life March 4, 1869, and within the next three
+years visited Alaska and Mexico, and made a journey around the world,
+being everywhere received with official welcome and popular acclaim. The
+last few months of his life were passed at his home, where he dictated
+the story of his travels and began his "Autobiography," which, even in
+its unfinished state, is a charming narrative.
+
+Seward achieved greatness as an executive, a legislator, and a
+diplomatist; was one of the most accomplished writers of his time, and
+was second only to Lincoln, among civilians, in conserving American
+nationality and enlarging American liberties. There is a statue to his
+memory in Madison Square, New York, and, on November 15, 1888, another
+was unveiled in front of the Auburn homestead, William M. Evarts
+delivering the oration. Charles Francis Adams also paid his tribute, in
+an address at the Capitol, in Albany, 1873, upon invitation of the New
+York Legislature. Seward published a volume on the "Life and Public
+Services of John Quincy Adams," 1849. His "Essays, Speeches, and
+Extracts from his Diplomatic Correspondence," etc., edited by George E.
+Baker, with a memoir, embrace five volumes. His adopted daughter
+published his "Travels Around the World," 1873, and his "Autobiography,"
+to 1834, has been supplemented by a "Memoir" by his son, Frederick W.
+Seward, with extracts from his letters and selections from his "Table
+Talk."
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN[13]
+
+By TERENCE VINCENT POWDERLY
+
+(1809-1865)
+
+         [Footnote 13: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: A house. [TN]]
+
+
+Born in obscurity and poverty, with health and a good disposition as a
+heritage from nature, and with Christian parents as teachers and guides,
+Abraham Lincoln--sixteenth president of the United States--entered upon
+life's journey through toil and vicissitude to fame and immortality.
+
+Abraham Lincoln, grandfather of the president, was born in Union, Pa.,
+and in 1759 removed with his parents to a point near Harrisonburg, Va.
+John Hanks and Squire Boone, father of Daniel Boone, were neighbors of
+the Lincolns at Union; the former took up his residence at Harrisonburg,
+Va., and Squire Boone removed to Holman's Ford, on the Yadkin River, in
+North Carolina. When he was twenty-one years old, Abraham Lincoln went
+to North Carolina to visit his old neighbors, the Boones, and while
+there met and married Mary Shipley. He built a log cabin on the banks of
+the Yadkin and lived there several years. Here it was that Thomas
+Lincoln, father of the president, was born. Shortly after his birth his
+parents, in 1778, removed to Kentucky and settled near Elizabethtown, in
+Hardin County. In 1784, when Thomas was but six years old, his father
+was killed by the Indians. There were no schools in that neighborhood,
+and Thomas Lincoln grew to manhood without receiving an education.
+Joseph Hanks, son of John Hanks, removed to Kentucky about the time that
+Abraham Lincoln moved there from North Carolina. His daughter, Nancy
+Hanks, who was born and educated in Virginia, grew up a playmate of
+Thomas Lincoln, and in 1806 became his wife. Thomas Lincoln selected a
+farm near Hodgensville, now the county seat of Larue County, Ky., built
+a log cabin containing but one room, in which, on February 12, 1809,
+Abraham Lincoln, the future president, was born. A poor farmer, with no
+education and no capital other than his labor, Thomas Lincoln found
+little to encourage his stay in Kentucky. The institution of slavery,
+which lived on the toil of the black man, threw a dark shadow across the
+path of the "poor white" who could claim no title to property in human
+flesh and sinew, and in 1817 he removed from Kentucky to Spencer County,
+Ind., and settled in the forest at Pigeon Creek, near the town of
+Gentryville. On October 5, 1818, Mrs. Lincoln died and was laid to rest
+at the foot of a tree on the farm which her husband had hewed out of the
+forest with his axe.
+
+Eighteen months after the death of his wife, Mr. Lincoln married Mrs.
+Sarah Bush Johnston, a widow who had been a neighbor of his in
+Kentucky. To his stepmother Abraham became very much attached, and he
+always entertained the greatest respect and affection for her. His
+education was very simple, his school days few, and his books fewer
+still. Before leaving Kentucky he learned to read while listening to his
+mother as she gave lessons to his father. In 1814, a Catholic priest,
+Zachariah Riney, who travelled through the country, opened a school in
+an untenanted cabin at Hodgensville, and for a few weeks gave
+instructions to the youth of the neighborhood. Abraham attended this
+school during its brief existence. In 1822 Azel Dorsey was employed as
+teacher at Pigeon Creek, Ind., and during his short stay Abraham Lincoln
+was his most attentive pupil. Two years after, Abraham went to school
+for several months, and in 1824 his school days came to an end. His time
+at school did not exceed twelve months altogether. In the meantime he
+had read Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress,"
+AEsop's "Fables," The Bible, and Weems's "Life of Washington." In 1824
+his father, in need of his assistance as a bread-winner, began to
+instruct him in the carpenter trade. In 1825 he was employed at $6 a
+month to manage a ferry across the Ohio River at Gentry's Landing, near
+the mouth of Anderson Creek. His wages were paid to his father. The
+first money he earned for himself came in the shape of two half-dollars
+paid to him by two gentlemen whose trunks he transferred from the shore
+to a passing steamer. In 1828 Mr. Gentry engaged him to go to New
+Orleans on a flat-boat with a load of produce. In 1830 John Hanks, who
+had removed from Kentucky to Illinois, wrote to Thomas Lincoln, urging
+him to move to that State. Acting on the advice, Mr. Lincoln removed to
+Illinois and settled at a point some ten miles west of Decatur. Abraham
+Lincoln drove the ox team which hauled the household effects of the
+family, and wearing a coon-skin cap, jean jacket, and a pair of buckskin
+trousers, he entered the State poor, friendless, and unknown. Thirty
+years later he left Illinois the foremost man in the nation, and known
+to all the world. He assisted his father in clearing fifteen acres of
+land, and split the rails with which to build the fence. Although of
+age, he had no money, and having but a scant supply of clothing, made a
+bargain with Nancy Miller to make him a pair of trousers. For each yard
+of cloth required he split four hundred fence-rails, and as he was over
+six feet in height it took fourteen hundred rails to pay for his
+trousers. On April 19, 1831, he went to New Orleans with a flat-boat
+load of pigs, corn, pork, and beef; the pigs refusing to walk, Lincoln
+carried them aboard in his arms. John Hanks and Lincoln's half-brother,
+John Johnston, accompanied him on the trip. While in New Orleans he
+first saw men and women sold as slaves, and as every instinct of his
+nature revolted at the spectacle, he said to John Hanks: "If ever I get
+a chance to hit that institution, I'll hit it hard." Returning from New
+Orleans, he went to New Salem to clerk in the store of Denton Offut.
+While waiting for a shipment of goods he acted as clerk on a local
+election board, and thus filled his first political position. During his
+stay in New Salem he was frequently called on to exercise his great
+strength in quelling disturbances, and inspired the turbulent element of
+the place with a wholesome respect for his powers of muscular
+persuasion. He was not quarrelsome, never engaged in contention, but
+never hesitated to take his own part or that of another who might need a
+helping hand. He subscribed for the Louisville _Journal_, and generously
+read its contents aloud to those who gathered in the store. During the
+Black Hawk war he enlisted as private in a company which was raised in
+the neighborhood, and was at once elected captain. In a short time the
+company was mustered out, and he re-enlisted in an "Independent Spy
+Battalion" which continued in service until the end of the war. On
+returning to New Salem he announced himself an independent candidate for
+the Legislature, and at a meeting held during the canvass made his first
+political speech in these words: "Fellow-citizens: I presume you know
+who I am; I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by many
+friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics can be
+briefly stated. I am in favor of the internal improvement system, and a
+high protective tariff. These are my sentiments and political
+principles. If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will be all the
+same."
+
+In the winter of 1832 he became a partner of a man named Berry, in the
+purchase and management of a store. They had no money, but gave their
+notes. Berry became dissipated, lost interest in the business, and the
+firm failed. In 1833 President Jackson appointed Lincoln postmaster of
+New Salem; he remained postmaster until 1836. While holding the office
+Lincoln voluntarily established the "free delivery" system in New Salem
+by carrying the letters around in his hat. He began the study of law,
+and was soon after appointed deputy surveyor. The note he gave on going
+into partnership with Berry had been sold to a man who wanted his money,
+and in the fall of 1834 the sheriff levied on and sold his instruments
+to satisfy the debt. In that year he was elected to the Legislature, and
+borrowed the money with which to purchase a suit of clothes to go to the
+State capital at Vandalia. He was re-elected to the Legislature in 1836,
+and during the canvass declared his principles as follows:
+
+"I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in
+bearing its burdens; consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the
+right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms, _by no means excluding
+females_."
+
+A few years later, when questioned concerning that utterance, he said:
+
+"All questions of social and moral reform find lodgement first with
+enlightened souls, who stamp them with their approval. In God's own time
+they will be organized into law, and thus woven into the fabric of our
+institutions."
+
+[Illustration: A. Lincoln.]
+
+In 1836 he met Stephen A. Douglas for the first time, at the State
+capital. In 1837 he was admitted to the bar, in 1838 re-elected to the
+Legislature, and again in 1840. The capital had been removed from
+Vandalia to Springfield, and in partnership with John T. Stuart he began
+the practice of law in that city in 1839. On November 4, 1842, he was
+married to Mary Todd, daughter of Hon. Robert S. Todd. In the
+presidential campaigns of 1840 and 1844 he canvassed the State as a
+presidential elector on the whig ticket; and in both campaigns was
+pitted, in joint debate, against Stephen A. Douglas. In 1846 he was
+elected to the thirtieth Congress, and was the only whig representative
+in that body from Illinois. On January 12, 1848, he made his first
+speech in Congress, on a resolution which he offered calling on the
+president to provide a statement relating to the war with Mexico. On
+January 16, 1849, he introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the
+District of Columbia and to compensate the owners of the liberated
+slaves. He declined a re-election to Congress, and in 1849 was an
+unsuccessful candidate for United States senator. In 1850 he refused to
+accept the appointment as Governor of Oregon, tendered him by President
+Fillmore. For a few years he gave no attention to political matters, but
+the introduction in Congress of the bill to admit Nebraska and Kansas to
+the Union, and the agitation for the repeal of the "Missouri
+Compromise," aroused his interest, and in a short time he became the
+leader of a new party in the State. All who opposed the repeal of that
+compromise, of whatever party, were known as "Anti-Nebraska" in the
+beginning, but gradually they began to call themselves "Republicans,"
+and as such they carried most of the "Free State" elections of 1854.
+Senator Douglas, in defending his course on the "Nebraska Bill," made
+speeches through Illinois. On October 1, 1854, Lincoln, in reply to one
+of these speeches, in speaking of slavery said:
+
+"I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just
+influence in the world; it enables the enemies of free institutions to
+taunt us as hypocrites; causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our
+sincerity; is at war with the vital principles of civic liberty;
+contrary to the Declaration of Independence; and maintains that there is
+no right principle of action but self-interest.... No man is good enough
+to govern another man without the other's consent.... I object to the
+Nebraska Bill because it assumes there can be moral right in the
+enslaving of one man by another."
+
+He was a candidate for United States Senator in 1855, but his withdrawal
+from the contest gave the election to Mr. Trumbull. In 1856 he received
+one hundred and ten votes for vice-president at the first Republican
+national contention, and canvassed the State as one of the presidential
+electors. During this canvass he said:
+
+"Sometimes when I am speaking I feel that the time is soon coming when
+the sun shall shine and the rain fall on no man who shall go forth to
+unrequited toil.... How it will come about, when it will come, I cannot
+tell; but that time will surely come."
+
+The Supreme Court of the United States, on March 6, 1857, committed
+itself to the perpetuation of slavery in the "Dred Scott" decision, and
+that act, together with the question of admitting Kansas to the Union as
+a slave or free State, furnished the argument for the legislative
+campaign of 1858, in which Lincoln was a candidate for United States
+senator against Stephen A. Douglas. In his speech accepting the
+nomination he, in referring to the agitation for the abolition of
+slavery, said:
+
+"In my opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have been reached
+and passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe
+this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do
+not expect the Union to be dissolved, I do not expect the house to
+fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided."
+
+On May 16, 1860, the second Republican national convention met in
+Chicago, and on the third ballot nominated Lincoln for the presidency
+over William H. Seward, who was at that time the idol of the radical
+element of the party. Not many who listened to the clergyman who
+delivered the prayer at the opening of the convention, gave serious
+thought to these prophetic words as they fell from his lips:
+
+"We entreat Thee that at some future, but no distant, day the evil which
+now invests the body politic shall not only have been arrested in its
+progress, but wholly eradicated from the system."
+
+The Northern Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas; the slave-holding,
+Southern Democrats nominated John C. Breckenridge, and a Constitutional
+Union party nominated John Bell. The Electoral College gave Lincoln 180
+votes, Breckenridge 72, Bell 39, and Douglas 12. In his inaugural
+address Lincoln said:
+
+"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the
+institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have
+no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
+
+Although his inaugural breathed peace and conciliation in every line, it
+had no effect on the hot-headed advocates of secession. The war began
+with the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and ended with
+his death. On April 15th, he issued his first call for troops, and
+during his administration the total number called for was 2,759,049.
+With the exception of Russia, the foreign powers exhibited evidences of
+hostility to the Union, and when urged to retaliation Lincoln said: "One
+war at a time, if you please, gentlemen." On May 20, 1862, he signed the
+Homestead Law, a boon of inestimable value to settlers on land. On
+January 1, 1863, he issued the "Emancipation Proclamation" which stamped
+the seal of eternal truth on the Declaration of Independence. On
+November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, he, in
+concluding a speech which should be committed to memory by every citizen
+of the nation, said:
+
+"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
+before us.... That we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have
+died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of
+freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the
+people shall not perish from the earth."
+
+On June 8, 1864, he was renominated by the Republican national
+convention, General McClellan was nominated by the Democrats, and at the
+election Lincoln received 212 of the 233 electoral votes cast. In
+concluding his inaugural address, March 4, 1865, he said:
+
+"Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His
+aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to
+ask God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other
+men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged.... Fondly do
+we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may
+speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the
+wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited
+toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
+shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three
+thousand years ago, so, still, it must be said, that the judgments of
+the Lord are true and righteous altogether. With malice toward none,
+with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see
+the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's
+wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his
+widow and his orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just
+and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
+
+On the evening of April 14, 1865, while seated in a box at Ford's
+Theatre, witnessing the play, "Our American Cousin," he was shot by an
+actor, J. Wilkes Booth, and at twenty-two minutes past seven on the
+morning of the 15th his life ended. His body was embalmed and taken, in
+funeral procession, from Washington through Baltimore, Harrisburg,
+Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago to
+Springfield, and was buried on May 4th at Oak Ridge Cemetery. On October
+15, 1874, his remains were taken up and placed in a tomb beneath a
+magnificent and elegantly designed monument consisting of a statue of
+the martyred president and an obelisk of imposing appearance.
+
+No pen can do justice to the character of Lincoln, for the world will
+never know of the trials, embarrassments, and misgivings which beset him
+from his infancy in the backwoods to his tomb in Springfield. During his
+administration he never knew a moment free from anxiety. Each day he
+faced a new problem, and finding no precedent to guide him in its
+solution, he acted in accordance with his own good common sense, and
+proved equal to every emergency. Frequently misunderstood by the nation
+and her foremost men, he removed all doubts by the touch of the
+statesman when the time was ripe. To fully estimate the statesman we
+must know the man, and as years go by the full nobility of his private
+character will be disclosed to the world in all its simple grandeur. His
+was "a spirit of the greatest size and divinest metal" which no
+temptation could allure from the course of right. His administration was
+the most trying that could fall to the lot of man, no other furnished so
+many opportunities to amass wealth through speculation and intrigue, but
+greed and avarice were strangers to his nature, and no stain rests upon
+his memory. He was slow to arrive at conclusions, but when deliberation
+gave birth to conviction he unfalteringly strove for the right. His
+education was practical, not theoretical, and was acquired in the school
+of nature and among men rather than among books. The basis of his life
+was earnestness. No rhetorical display marked his speech, but his
+oratory fastened the attention, appealed to reason and carried
+conviction to the hearts of his listeners. He valued public opinion, for
+he said:
+
+"With public sentiment nothing can fail; without public sentiment
+nothing can succeed. Consequently he who moulds public sentiment goes
+deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions."
+
+He opposed the extension of slavery rather than its abolition; but as he
+divined the real sentiments of its advocates he realized that enduring
+peace would not bless the nation while the institution lived, a menace
+to free labor and industrial prosperity. He professed no religion, for
+his great heart throbbed in sympathy with all humanity, and he would not
+be separated from even the humblest among men by the artificial barriers
+of creed. He believed in the gospel of liberty and would guarantee it to
+all men through constitutional enactment. When he became president he
+found slavery intrenched behind the bulwarks of constitutional law and
+judicial decision; he found a united South, resolute in her
+determination to perpetuate slavery in the nation; a vacillating North,
+divided in its sentiment on the great question of property in man. He
+found the nation in the throes of civil war, and died in the triumphal
+hour of his country's deliverance, with the sceptre of slavery
+shattered, her fetters broken and in rust, and her power crumbled to
+ashes.
+
+Public criticism never annoyed him, and he was not averse to taking
+counsel from the poorest among men. It was love of country, not selfish
+ambition, which turned his attention to public life, and toward the end
+of his administration he was rewarded by public confidence and a respect
+for his honesty and singleness of aim toward the good of the nation. He
+had a great relish for story-telling and used his fund of anecdote to
+good advantage in illustrating points in conversation.
+
+His administration stands the guide-post of the centuries, set by the
+Eternal as the dividing line between the serfdom of the past and the
+freedom of the future. His monument stands the altar of a nation's fame,
+and his name will live to guide the world to enfranchisement.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+HORACE GREELEY[14]
+
+By NOAH BROOKS
+
+(1811-1872)
+
+         [Footnote 14: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Horace Greeley. [TN]]
+
+
+Horace Greeley was one of the few persons whose manhood fulfilled the
+precocious promise of his youth. He could read before he could speak
+plainly, and at the age of six he had declared that his purpose in life
+was to be a printer. At eleven he tried to be apprenticed at the village
+printing-office and was unsuccessful; at the age of fourteen he was
+taken on as an apprentice in the office of the _Northern Spectator_, at
+East Poultney, Vt.
+
+His family were of Scotch-Irish origin, but had lived in the northern
+part of New Hampshire for several generations. Horace was born in
+Amherst, N. H., February 3, 1811. So quick of apprehension was he, and
+so active was his intellect, that the commonest of common-school
+education was for him sufficient. His schooling was only that which he
+could obtain during three or four months in winter; for at other seasons
+of the year he labored in the field with his father and brothers; and
+when he went to be an apprentice for five years in the printing-office,
+he was paid a very slender pittance, the greater part of which he gave
+to his father, whose income was probably next to nothing.
+
+In June, 1830, the newspaper office in which young Greeley was learning
+his trade became insolvent, and Greeley, then in his twentieth year, was
+released from his indentures. He tramped from office to office as a
+journeyman printer, and his father having removed to the then "new
+country of western Pennsylvania," the youngster, with ten dollars in his
+pocket, walking part way and part way earning his passage on a tug-boat,
+entered the city of New York, August 18, 1831. For days he sought in
+vain for employment among the printing-offices of the metropolis. He was
+gawky, poorly clad, and doubtless presented a very grotesque appearance
+to the cityfied people to whom he vainly applied for employment. Finally
+he effected an entrance into one of the printing-offices of the city,
+and, much to the surprise of those who sneered at his ungainly and
+unpromising figure, he straightway proved himself to be a competent,
+careful, and skilful printer. For fourteen months or more, he picked up
+odd jobs in the offices of the newspapers, always making friends and
+always managing to save a little money.
+
+Finally, at the beginning of 1833, in partnership with Francis V. Story,
+a printer, he established a penny paper called _The Morning Post_. This
+venture failed, but Greeley and Story saved from the wreck two-thirds of
+their capital, which was $150, all told, and still had on hand their
+type and materials. They now became master job-printers and made small
+contracts with persons who had newspaper printing to give out. In his
+New England boyhood Greeley had occasionally contributed to the columns
+of the newspapers on which he worked, and now he resumed that
+employment. He wrote for several of the feeble newspapers of the time,
+and on the death of his partner, Francis Story, he associated himself
+with Jonas Winchester. The firm prospered, and in 1834 was strong enough
+to establish a weekly literary newspaper called _The New Yorker_. The
+first number of this paper appeared on March 22, 1834, and it sold one
+hundred copies; for the three months next succeeding this was the
+average of its weekly circulation. The paper gradually increased in
+popularity, and the name of its Editor-in-Chief, Horace Greeley, was now
+known and respected. He furnished editorials also to the _Daily Whig_
+and to other journals, and was selected by William H. Seward and Thurlow
+Weed for the editorship of a campaign paper called _The Jeffersonian_,
+published in Albany. This was a Whig newspaper printed weekly, and the
+audacity, aggressiveness, and ability with which it was edited commanded
+the respect of its readers. _The Jeffersonian_ was finally suspended in
+the spring of 1839, and during the presidential canvass of the following
+year, Greeley, foreseeing the activity of the campaign, seized upon the
+opportunity to establish a new campaign paper called _The Log Cabin_.
+This journal at once achieved the extraordinary circulation of twenty
+thousand copies for its first edition. It succeeded beyond the most
+sanguine expectations of its founders, H. Greeley & Company, and in a
+few weeks the circulation ran up to sixty thousand, eighty thousand, and
+even ninety thousand copies, a newspaper circulation in those days
+absolutely unprecedented. _The Log Cabin_ was characterized by the
+homely wit, the unsparing logic, and the terseness and vigor of
+expression which were always Horace Greeley's most marked traits as a
+journalist.
+
+After the campaign of 1840 _The Log Cabin_ became a family political
+paper, and on April 10, 1841, its name was supplanted by that of _The
+New York Tribune_. Its home was at 30 Ann Street, and Horace Greeley,
+its editor, promised that it should be "worthy of the hearty approval of
+the virtuous and refined, and a welcome visitant to family firesides."
+
+As an editor Mr. Greeley was eccentric, and his marked personal traits
+were perceptible in his management of his newspaper. He was severely
+temperate, although opposed to prohibition as impracticable; he was in
+favor of a high protective tariff, opposed to slavery, predisposed to
+vegetarian diet, and at times manifested a proclivity to the doctrines
+of Fourier and Prudhomme.
+
+In his management of _The Tribune_ Mr. Greeley made a wide acquaintance
+with the newspaper men, politicians, and the statesmen of the time.
+Among those associated with him in the management of his paper was
+Henry J. Raymond, who afterward became the founder of _The New York
+Times_. Those who rendered service to _The Tribune_ were George William
+Curtis, Charles A. Dana, Margaret Fuller, Bayard Taylor, and others who
+subsequently achieved renown. Mr. Greeley himself has said that of his
+first issue of five thousand copies of the paper, nearly all "were with
+difficulty given away." _The Tribune_ was first sold at one cent a copy;
+in a month's time it reached a circulation of three thousand, and a
+month later it had reached the extraordinary circulation of eleven and
+twelve thousand. _The New Yorker_ and _The Log Cabin_ had all along been
+managed as weekly issues from the same office; but in September of the
+first year of the establishment of _The Tribune_ these were merged in
+what was now _The New York Weekly Tribune_, which at once leaped to a
+large circulation and became a great force throughout the country,
+especially in the rural districts.
+
+In 1842 Mr. Greeley began to print in his paper one column daily of
+matter on Fourierite topics, written by Albert Brisbane, and
+occasionally these theories were defended in his editorial columns, and
+he thereby gained a certain amount of obloquy from which he did not
+readily recover. The paper had the reputation of being not only
+extremely radical in its political views, but also committed to many of
+the "isms" of the times. It paid much attention to the spirit-rappings
+of the Fox sisters, of Rochester, and investigated the curious phenomena
+with fearless open-mindedness. _The Tribune_ prospered, though not
+greatly, and it was evident that Mr. Greeley's business management was
+never very successful; and it may be said that his greatest success as
+the editor of a prosperous and profitable newspaper was always achieved
+by the co-operation of wiser managers than himself. His personal
+appearance was peculiar, and he very soon became a well-known figure in
+the public life of New York. He usually wore a broad-brimmed, soft white
+hat and a light-colored overcoat, and his appearance, although always
+spotlessly neat, was characterized by a certain disorderliness which
+instantly attracted attention. He had a shrill, high-keyed voice; he was
+irascible in temper, and was never the "philosopher" which those who
+least knew him credited him with being. In an angry letter published in
+his own newspaper he referred to the editor of _The Daily Times_ as
+"that little villain, Raymond;" and replying to an offensive charge
+against him by _The Evening Post_, he began with, "You lie, villain,
+wilfully, wickedly, basely lie." Other passages at arms like these
+occasionally enlivened, if they did not disfigure, the editorial columns
+of _The Tribune_, over which Greeley exercised a personal censorship
+which, in later years, he found it necessary to relax. He was sincerely
+and ardently devoted to the cause of Protection, to the interests of the
+farmer and the laboring man, to sound money, and to all the ennobling
+and refining activities of social life. In spite of a careless personal
+manner, and a voice not at all agreeable to the ear, he became a popular
+and greatly sought public speaker. As a lecturer in the lyceums of towns
+and villages, then greatly in vogue, he was always an acceptable and
+greatly admired figure.
+
+In 1848 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives to
+fill a vacancy for three months. With great vigor he charged upon
+several of the most prominent abuses of the time, and selecting the
+practice of paying mileage to Congressmen, he assaulted that with a
+vehemence which ultimately destroyed it. As a member of Congress he also
+introduced the first bill to give free homesteads to actual settlers on
+the public lands. He was a candidate in 1861 for United States Senator,
+but was defeated by Ira Harris, of Albany. In 1864 he was one of the
+Republican Presidential Electors, and in 1870 was nominated for Congress
+in a hopelessly Democratic district, and was defeated. He had always
+been an intense opponent of human slavery, and in 1848 his hostility to
+the war with Mexico was doubtless inspired by his dread of the extension
+of the slave system. He was an enthusiastic supporter of John C.
+Fremont, who was nominated for President by the Republicans in 1856; and
+he made his newspaper so dreaded and feared by the opposition that he
+was indicted in Virginia for circulating incendiary documents through
+its columns. During these years he was an incessant and untiring worker,
+and produced for the columns of his own and other newspapers a
+prodigious amount of matter. He had heretofore labored in politics in
+conjunction with William H. Seward, Governor, and afterward United
+States Senator. In 1854 the separation between Greeley, Seward, and
+Thurlow Weed became established, and Mr. Seward's friends prevented the
+election of Mr. Greeley as a delegate to the Republican Convention which
+nominated Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Greeley, however, obtained a seat as
+delegate in the Convention as a representative from the State of Oregon,
+and in that capacity he, more than any other man, doubtless turned the
+tide against Mr. Seward and in favor of Abraham Lincoln, who was
+nominated by the Convention.
+
+At the breaking out of the Civil War Mr. Greeley manifested great
+trepidation and reluctance to face the issue. He even advised in _The
+Tribune_ that the "Erring Sisters" be allowed to depart in peace; but
+later he rallied manfully to the cause of the defence of the Union, and
+his newspaper rang with impassioned appeals for the freedom of the
+slaves held in bondage in the South. He incessantly urged a more
+vigorous prosecution of the war, and called upon President Lincoln to
+take every possible measure for the emancipation of the Southern
+bondmen.
+
+In 1864, being convinced that the cause of the rebellion was gradually
+weakening, he urged upon the President the policy of negotiating with
+the leaders of the Confederate government for a surrender of their
+warlike policy, on conditions to be arrived at by commissioners from
+both sides. This proposition excited much indignation throughout the
+country, and when, in answer to repeated demands from Mr. Greeley,
+President Lincoln authorized him to undertake such a conference at
+Niagara Falls, the people generally applauded the wisdom of the
+President, as well as the disappointment of Mr. Greeley, when the
+conference came to naught.
+
+After the final surrender at Appomattox and the capture of the
+Confederate President, Mr. Greeley visited Richmond and signed the bail
+bond of Jefferson Davis. This action raised a storm of public censure,
+and he was for a time overwhelmed by the wrath and indignation of those
+who had been formerly associated with him in political affairs. He
+defended himself with great vigor, and fearlessly assailed those who
+stigmatized him as a sympathizer with the fallen rebel chieftain. He was
+not friendly to the nomination of General Grant in 1868, and disapproved
+of many of the schemes that marked his administration. Returning from a
+visit through the Southern States in the early years of President
+Grant's term, he brought to his newspaper some vigorous and outspoken
+denunciations of the "carpet-bag" governments of the formerly rebel
+States, and denunciations of the "scalawags" who, he said, "were the
+pests of the reconstructed States of the South." These and similar
+outgivings attracted the attention of a large element of the Republican
+party, and he was nominated for the Presidency, against General Grant,
+in 1872. Mr. Greeley's canvass was one of great picturesqueness and
+industry. He made a series of speeches extending over a tour from New
+England to the West, and returning to New York, which were marked by a
+most wonderful originality, freshness, and brilliance; but nothing could
+avail to stem the tide of prejudice which rose against him and in favor
+of General Grant. He had been nominated by the so-called Liberal
+Republicans and by the Democrats, but he failed to carry any one of the
+Northern States, and of the other States he carried only Georgia,
+Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. He was assailed
+during this canvass in the bitterest terms by those who regarded him as
+a turncoat and a traitor, and undoubtedly the vituperation and abuse
+showered upon him had the effect of disheartening him and destroying the
+zest with which he had theretofore undertaken the multifarious duties of
+life. He returned to New York from an exhausting campaign, depressed in
+spirit and weary in body and in mind. The death of his devoted wife
+added to his sorrows, and on November 29, 1872, only a few weeks after
+the Presidential election, he died at Pleasantville, N. Y., of mental
+and nervous prostration. His body lay in state in the City Hall, and his
+funeral was attended by the notables of the land--President Grant, who
+had just been re-elected by the people, being numbered among those who
+mourned at his bier.
+
+In addition to his editorial labors Mr. Greeley was the author of a
+number of works, among which were "Hints toward Reforms," "Glances at
+Europe," "History of the Struggle for Slavery Extension," "Overland
+Journey to San Francisco," "The American Conflict," and "Recollections
+of a Busy Life." He was also the founder of "The Whig Almanac," a manual
+of politics, which in later years became known as "The Tribune Almanac,"
+and survived his demise.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS AGASSIZ[15]
+
+By ASA GRAY
+
+(1807-1873)
+
+         [Footnote 15: Written in 1886, on the publication of "Louis
+         Agassiz, His Life and Correspondence." Reprinted, by permission
+         of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., from "The Scientific Papers
+         of Asa Gray."]
+
+[Illustration: Louis Agassiz. [TN]]
+
+
+There is no need to give an abstract of the contents of these
+fascinating volumes, for everybody is reading them. Most are probably
+wishing for more personal details, especially of the American life; but
+the editorial work is so deftly and delicately done, and "the story of
+an intellectual life marked by rare coherence and unity" is so well
+arranged to tell itself and make its impression, that we may thankfully
+accept what has been given us, though the desired "fulness of personal
+narrative" be wanting.
+
+Twelve years have passed since Agassiz was taken from us. Yet to some of
+us it seems not very long ago that the already celebrated Swiss
+naturalist came over, in the bloom of his manly beauty, to charm us with
+his winning ways, and inspire us with his overflowing enthusiasm, as he
+entered upon the American half of that career which has been so
+beneficial to the interests of natural science. There are not many left
+of those who attended those first Lowell Lectures in the autumn of
+1846--perhaps all the more taking for the broken English in which they
+were delivered--and who shared in the delight with which, in a
+supplementary lecture, he more fluently addressed his audience in his
+mother-tongue.
+
+In these earliest lectures he sounded the note of which his last public
+utterance was the dying cadence. For, as this biography rightly
+intimates, his scientific life was singularly entire and homogeneous--if
+not uninfluenced, yet quite unchanged, by the transitions which have
+marked the period. In a small circle of naturalists, almost the first
+that was assembled to greet him on his coming to this country, and of
+which the writer is the sole survivor, when Agassiz was inquired of as
+to his conception of "species," he sententiously replied: "A species is
+a thought of the Creator." To this thoroughly theistic conception he
+joined the scientific deduction which he had already been led to draw,
+that the animal species of each geological age, or even stratum, were
+different from those preceding and following, and also unconnected by
+natural derivation. And his very last published works reiterated his
+steadfast conviction that "there is no evidence of a direct descent of
+later from earlier species in the geological succession of animals."
+Indeed, so far as we know, he would not even admit that such "thoughts
+of the Creator" as these might have been actualized in the natural
+course of events. If he had accepted such a view, and if he had himself
+apprehended and developed in his own way the now well-nigh assured
+significance of some of his early and pregnant generalizations, the
+history of the doctrine of development would have been different from
+what it is, a different spirit and another name would have been
+prominent in it, and Agassiz would not have passed away while fighting
+what he felt to be--at least for the present--a losing battle. It is
+possible that the "whirligig of time" may still "bring in his revenges,"
+but not very probable.
+
+Much to his credit, it may be said that a good share of Agassiz's
+invincible aversion to evolution may be traced to the spirit in which
+it was taken up by his early associate, Vogt, and, indeed, by most of
+the German school then and since, which justly offended both his
+scientific and his religious sense. Agassiz always "thought nobly of
+the soul," and could in no way approve either materialistic or
+agnostic opinions. The idealistic turn of his mind was doubtless
+confirmed in his student days at Munich, whither he and his friend
+Braun resorted after one session at Heidelberg, and where both
+devotedly attended the lectures of Schelling--then in his later
+glory--and of Oken, whose "Natur-Philosophie" was then in the
+ascendant. Although fascinated and inspired by Oken's _a priori_
+biology (built upon morphological ideas which had not yet been
+established, but had, in part, been rightly divined) the two young
+naturalists were not carried away by it, probably because they were
+such keen and conscientious observers, and were kept in close
+communion with work-a-day nature. As Agassiz intimates, they had to
+resist "the temptation to impose one's own ideas upon nature, to
+explain her mysteries by brilliant theories rather than by patient
+study of the facts as we find them," and that "overbearing confidence
+in the abstract conceptions of the human mind as applied to the study
+of nature; although, indeed," he adds, "the young naturalist of that
+day who did not share in some degree the intellectual stimulus given
+to scientific pursuits by physio-philosophy would have missed a part
+of his training." That training was not lost upon Agassiz. Although
+the adage in his last published article, "A physical fact is as sacred
+as a moral principle," was well lived up to, yet ideal prepossessions
+often had much to do with his marshalling of the facts.
+
+Another professor at Munich, from whom Agassiz learned much, and had
+nothing to unlearn, was the anatomist and physiologist Doellinger. He
+published little, but he seems to have been the founder of modern
+embryological investigation, and to have initiated his two famous
+pupils, first Von Baer, and then Agassiz, into at least the rudiments of
+the doctrine of the correspondence between the stages of the development
+of the individual animal with that of its rank in the scale of being,
+and the succession in geological time of the forms and types to which
+the species belongs: a principle very fertile for scientific zooelogy in
+the hands of both these naturalists, and one of the foundations of that
+theory of evolution which the former, we believe, partially accepted,
+and the other wholly rejected.
+
+The botanical professor, the genial Von Martius, should also be
+mentioned here. He found Agassiz a student, barely of age; he directly
+made him an author, and an authority, in the subject of his
+predilection. Dr. Spix, the zooelogical companion of Martius in Brazilian
+exploration, died in 1826; the fishes of the collection were left
+untouched. Martius recognized the genius of Agassiz, and offered him,
+and indeed pressed him, to undertake their elaboration. Agassiz brought
+out the first part of the quarto volume on the "Fishes of the Brazilian
+Expedition of Spix and Martius" before he took his degree of doctor of
+philosophy, and completed it before he proceeded to that of doctor in
+medicine, in 1830. The work opened his way to fame, but brought no
+money. Still, as Martius defrayed all the expenses, the net result
+compared quite favorably with that of later publications. Moreover, out
+of it possibly issued his own voyage to Brazil in later years, under
+auspices such as his early patron never dreamed of.
+
+This early work also made him known to Cuvier; so that, when he went to
+Paris, a year afterward, to continue his medical and scientific
+studies--the one, as he deemed, from necessity, the other from
+choice--he was received as a fellow-savant; yet at first with a certain
+reserve, probably no more than was natural in view of the relative age
+and position of the two men; but Agassiz, writing to his sister, says:
+"This extreme but formal politeness chills you instead of putting you at
+your ease; it lacks cordiality, and, to tell the truth, I would gladly
+go away if I were not held fast by the wealth of material of which I can
+avail myself." But only a month later he writes--this time to his
+uncle--that, while he was anxious lest he "might not be allowed to
+examine, and still less to describe, the fossil fishes and their
+skeletons in the Museum, ... knowing that Cuvier intended to write a
+work on this subject," and might naturally wish to reserve the materials
+for his own use; and when the young naturalist, as he showed his own
+sketches and notes to the veteran, was faintly venturing to hope that,
+on seeing his work so far advanced, he might perhaps be invited to share
+in a joint publication, Cuvier relieved his anxiety and more than
+fulfilled his half-formed desires.
+
+"He desired his secretary to bring him a certain portfolio of drawings.
+He showed me the contents: they were drawings of fossil fishes, and
+notes which he had taken in the British Museum and elsewhere. After
+looking it through with me, he said he had seen with satisfaction the
+manner in which I had treated this subject; that I had, indeed,
+anticipated him, since he had intended at some future time to do the
+same thing; but that as I had given it so much attention, and had done
+my work so well, he had decided to renounce his project, and to place at
+my disposition all the materials he had collected and all the
+preliminary notes he had taken."
+
+Within three months Cuvier fell under a stroke of paralysis, and shortly
+died. The day before the attack he had said to Agassiz, "Be careful, and
+remember that work kills." We doubt if it often kills naturalists,
+unless when, like Cuvier, they also become statesmen.
+
+But to live and work, the naturalist must be fed. It was a perplexing
+problem how possibly to remain a while longer in Paris, which was
+essential to the carrying on of his work, and to find the means of
+supplying his very simple wants. And here the most charming letters in
+these volumes are, first, the one from his mother, full of tender
+thoughtfulness, and making the first suggestion about Neuchatel and its
+museum, as a place where the aspiring naturalist might secure something
+more substantial than "brilliant hopes" to live upon; next, that from
+Agassiz to his father, who begs to be told as much as he can be supposed
+to understand of the nature of this work upon fossil fishes, which
+called for so much time, labor, and expense; and, almost immediately,
+Agassiz's letter to his parents, telling them that Humboldt had, quite
+spontaneously and unexpectedly, relieved his present anxieties by a
+credit of a thousand francs, to be increased, if necessary. Humboldt had
+shown a friendly interest in him from the first, and had undertaken to
+negotiate with Cotta, the publisher, in his behalf; but, becoming uneasy
+by the delay, and feeling that "a man so laborious, so gifted, and so
+deserving of affection ... should not be left in a position where lack
+of serenity disturbs his power of work," he delicately pressed the
+acceptance of this aid as a confidential transaction between two friends
+of unequal age.
+
+Indeed, the relations between the "two friends," one at that time
+sixty-three, and the other twenty-five, were very beautiful, and so
+continued, as the correspondence shows. Humboldt's letters (we wish
+there were more of them) are particularly delightful, are full of wit
+and wisdom, of almost paternal solicitude, and of excellent counsel. He
+enjoins upon Agassiz to finish what he has in hand before taking up new
+tasks (this is in 1837), not to spread his intellect over too many
+subjects at once, nor to go on enlarging the works he had undertaken; he
+predicts the pecuniary difficulties in which expansion would be sure to
+land him, bewails the glacier investigations, and closes with "a touch
+of fun, in order that my letter may seem a little less like preaching. A
+thousand affectionate remembrances. No more ice, not much of
+echinoderms, plenty of fish, recall of ambassadors _in partibus_, and
+great severity toward booksellers, an infernal race, two or three of
+which have been killed under me."
+
+The ambassadors _in partibus_ were the artists Agassiz employed and sent
+to England or elsewhere to draw fossil fishes for him in various
+museums, at a cost which Humboldt knew would be embarrassing. The ice,
+which he would have no more of, refers to the glacier researches upon
+which Agassiz was entering with ardor, laying one of the solid
+foundations of his fame. Curiously enough, both Humboldt and Von Buch,
+with all their interest in Agassiz, were quite unable to comprehend the
+importance of an inquiry which was directly in their line, and, indeed,
+they scorned it; while the young naturalist, without training in physics
+or geology, but with the insight of genius, at once developed the whole
+idea of the glacial period, with its wonderful consequences, upon his
+first inspection of the phenomena shown him by Charpentier in the valley
+of the Rhone.
+
+It is well that Humboldt's advice was not heeded in this regard.
+Nevertheless he was a wise counsellor. He saw the danger into which his
+young friend's enthusiasm and boundless appetite for work was likely to
+lead him. For Agassiz it might be said, with a variation of the
+well-known adage, that there was nothing he touched that he did not
+aggrandize. Everything he laid hold of grew larger under his hand--grew
+into a mountain threatening to overwhelm him, and would have overwhelmed
+anyone whose powers were not proportionate to his aspirations.
+Established at Neuchatel, and giving himself with ardor to the duties of
+his professorship, it was surely enough if he could do the author's
+share in the production of his great works on the fossil and the
+fresh-water fishes, without assuming the responsibilities and cares of
+publication as well, and even of a lithographic establishment which he
+set up mainly for his own use. But he carried _pari passu_, or nearly
+so, his work on fossil mollusca--a quarto volume with nearly a hundred
+plates--his monographs of echinoderms, living and fossil, his
+investigations of the embryological development of fishes, and that
+laborious work, the "Nomenclator Zoologicus," with the "Bibliographia,"
+later published in England by the Ray Society. Moreover, of scattered
+papers, those of the Royal Society's Catalogue, which antedate his
+arrival in this country, are more than threescore and ten. He had help,
+indeed; but the more he had, the more he enlarged and diversified his
+tasks; Humboldt's sound advice about his zooelogical undertakings being
+no more heeded than his fulminations against the glacial theory.
+
+In the midst of all this, Agassiz turned his glance upon the glaciers,
+and the "local phenomenon" became at once a cosmic one. So far a happy
+divination; but he seems to have believed quite to the last that, not
+only the temperate zones, but whole intertropical continents--at least
+the American--had been sheeted with ice. The narrative in the first
+volume will give the general reader a vivid but insufficient conception
+of the stupendous work upon which he so brilliantly labored for nearly a
+decade of years.
+
+_Coelum, non animum, mutant_ who come with such a spirit to a wider and,
+scientifically, less developed continent. First as visitor, soon as
+denizen, and at length as citizen of the American republic, Agassiz rose
+with every occasion to larger and more various activities. What with the
+Lowell Institute, the college in Charleston, S. C., and Cornell
+University, in addition to Harvard, he may be said to have held three or
+four professorships at once, none of them sinecures. He had not been two
+months in the country before a staff of assistants was gathered around
+him, and a marine zooelogical laboratory was in operation. The rude shed
+on the shore, and the small wooden building at Cambridge, developed
+under his hand into the Museum of Zooelogy--if not as we see it now, yet
+into one of the foremost collections. Who can say what it would have
+been if his plans and ideas had obtained full recognition, and
+"expenditure" had seemed to the trustees, as it seemed to him, "the best
+investment;" or if efficient filial aid, not then to be dreamed of, had
+not given solid realization to the high paternal aspirations? In like
+manner grew large under his hand the Brazilian exploration, so
+generously provided for by a Boston citizen and fostered by an
+enlightened emperor; and on a similar scale was planned, and partly
+carried out, the "Contributions to the Natural History of the United
+States," as the imperial quarto work was modestly entitled, which was
+to be published "at the rate of one volume a year, each volume to
+contain about three hundred pages and twenty plates," with simple
+reliance upon a popular subscription; and so, indeed, of everything
+which this large-minded man undertook.
+
+While Agassiz thus was a magnanimous man, in the literal as well as the
+accepted meaning of the word, he was also, as we have seen, a truly
+fortunate one. Honorable assistance came to him at critical moments,
+such as the delicate gift from Humboldt at Paris, which perhaps saved
+him to science; such as the Wollaston prize from the Geological Society
+in 1834, when he was struggling for the means of carrying on the "Fossil
+Fishes." The remainder of the deficit of this undertaking he was able to
+make up from his earliest earnings in America. For the rest, we all know
+how almost everything he desired--and he wanted nothing except for
+science--was cheerfully supplied to his hand by admiring givers. Those
+who knew the man during the twenty-seven years of his American life, can
+quite understand the contagious enthusiasm and confidence which he
+evoked. The impression will in some degree be transmitted by these
+pleasant and timely volumes, which should make the leading lines of the
+life of Agassiz clear to the newer generation, and deepen them in the
+memory of an older one.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES DARWIN
+
+Extracts from "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," by ARCH. GEIKIE,
+LL.D., F.R.S.
+
+(1809-1882)
+
+[Illustration: Charles Darwin. [TN]]
+
+
+By the universal consent of mankind, the name of Charles Darwin was,
+even during his lifetime, among those of the few great leaders who stand
+forth for all time as the creative spirits who have founded and
+legislated for the realm of science. It is too soon to estimate with
+precision the full value and effect of his work. The din of controversy
+that rose around him has hardly yet died down, and the influence of the
+doctrines he propounded is extending into so many remote departments of
+human inquiry, that a generation or two may require to pass away before
+his true place in the history of thought can be definitely fixed. But
+the judgment of his contemporaries as to his proud pre-eminence is not
+likely ever to be called in question. He is enrolled among Dii majorum
+gentium, and there he will remain to the end of the ages. When he was
+laid beside the illustrious dead in Westminster Abbey, there arose far
+and wide a lamentation as of personal bereavement. Thousands of mourners
+who had never seen him, who knew only his writings, and judged of the
+gentleness and courtesy of his nature from these, and from such hearsay
+reports as passed outward from the privacy of his country home, grieved
+as for the loss of a friend. It is remarkable that probably no
+scientific man of his day was personally less familiar to the mass of
+his fellow-countrymen. He seemed to shun all the usual modes of contact
+with them. His weak health, domestic habits, and absorbing work kept him
+in the seclusion of his own quiet home. His face was seldom to be seen
+at the meetings of scientific societies, or at those gatherings where
+the discoveries of science are expounded to more popular audiences. He
+shrank from public controversy, although no man was ever more vigorously
+attacked and more completely misrepresented. Nevertheless, when he died
+the affectionate regret that followed him to the grave, came not alone
+from his own personal friends, but from thousands of sympathetic
+mourners in all parts of the world, who had never seen or known him. Men
+had ample material for judging of his work, and in the end had given
+judgment with general acclaim. Of the man himself, however, they could
+know but little, yet enough of his character shone forth in his work to
+indicate its tenderness and goodness. Men instinctively felt him to be
+in every way one of the great ones of the earth, whose removal from the
+living world leaves mankind poorer in moral worth as well as in
+intellect.
+
+Charles Darwin came of a family which from the beginning of the
+sixteenth century had been settled on the northern borders of
+Lincolnshire. Several of his ancestors had been men of literary taste
+and scientific culture, the most noted of them being his grandfather,
+Erasmus Darwin, the poet and philosopher. His father was a medical man
+in large practice at Shrewsbury, and his mother a daughter of Josiah
+Wedgwood, of Etruria. Some interesting reminiscences are given of the
+father, who must have been a man of uncommon strength of character. He
+left a large fortune, and thus provided for the career his son was
+destined to fulfil. Of his own early life and later years, Darwin has
+left a slight but most interesting sketch in an autobiographical
+fragment, written late in life for his children, and without any idea of
+its ever being published. Shortly before his mother's death, in 1817, he
+was sent, when eight years old, to a day-school in his native town. But
+even in the period of childhood he had chosen the favorite occupation of
+his life: "My taste for natural history," he says, "and more especially
+for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of
+plants, and collected all sorts of things--shells, seals, franks, coins,
+and minerals. The passion for collecting which leads a man to be a
+systematic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in me,
+and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters and brothers ever had this
+taste."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some of the incidents of his Cambridge life which he records are full of
+interest in their bearing on his future career. Foremost among them
+stands the friendship which he formed with Professor Henslow, whose
+lectures on botany he attended. He joined in the class excursions and
+found them delightful. But still more profitable to him were the long
+and almost daily walks which he enjoyed with his teacher, during the
+latter half of his time at Cambridge. Henslow's wide range of
+acquirement, modesty, unselfishness, courtesy, gentleness, and piety,
+fascinated him and exerted on him an influence which, more than anything
+else, tended to shape his whole future life. The love of travel which
+had been kindled by his boyish reading, now took a deeper hold of him as
+he read Humboldt's "Personal Narrative" and Herschel's "Introduction to
+the Study of Natural Philosophy." He determined to visit Teneriffe, and
+even went so far as to inquire about ships. But his desire was soon to
+be gratified in a far other and more comprehensive voyage. At the close
+of his college life he was fortunate enough, through Henslow's good
+offices, to accompany Sedgwick in a geological excursion in North Wales.
+There can be little doubt that this short trip sufficed to efface the
+dislike of geology which he had conceived at Edinburgh, and to show him
+how much it was in his own power to increase the sum of geological
+knowledge. To use his own phrase, he began to "work like a tiger" at
+geology.
+
+But he now had reached the main turning-point of his career. On
+returning home from his ramble with Sedgwick he found a letter from
+Henslow, telling him that Captain Fitz-Roy, who was about to start on
+the memorable voyage of the Beagle, was willing to give up part of his
+own cabin to any competent young man who would volunteer to go with him,
+without pay, as a naturalist. The post was offered to Darwin and, after
+some natural objections on the part of his father, accepted.
+
+The Beagle weighed anchor from Plymouth on December 27, 1831, and
+returned on October 2, 1836.
+
+On his return to England, Darwin at once took his place among the
+acknowledged men of science of his country. For a time his health
+continued to be such as to allow him to get through a large amount of
+work. The next two years, which in his own opinion were the most active
+of his life, were spent, partly at Cambridge, and partly in London, in
+the preparation of his "Journal of Researches," of the zooelogical and
+geological results of the voyage, and of various papers for the
+Geological and Zooelogical Societies. So keen was his geological zeal
+that, almost against his better judgment, he was prevailed upon to
+undertake the duties of honorary secretary of the Geological Society, an
+office which he continued to hold for three years. And at each period of
+enforced holiday, for his health had already begun to give way, he
+occupied himself with geological work in the field. In the Midlands he
+watched the operations of earthworms, and began those inquiries which
+formed the subject of his last research, and of the volume on "Vegetable
+Mould" which he published not long before his death. In the Highlands he
+studied the famous Parallel Roads of Glen Roy; and his work there,
+though in after-years he acknowledged it to be "a great failure," he
+felt at the time to have been "one of the most difficult and instructive
+tasks" he had ever undertaken.
+
+In the beginning of 1839 Darwin married his cousin, daughter of Josiah
+Wedgwood, and grand-daughter of the founder of the Etruria Works, and
+took a house in London. But the entries of ill-health in his diary grow
+more frequent. For a time he and his wife went into society, and took
+their share of the scientific life and work of the metropolis. But he
+was compelled gradually to withdraw from this kind of existence, which
+suited neither of them, and eventually they determined to live in the
+country. Accordingly, he purchased a house and grounds at Down, in a
+sequestered part of Kent, some twenty miles from London, and moved
+thither in the autumn of 1842. In that quiet home he passed the
+remaining forty years of his life. It was there that his children were
+born and grew up around him; that he carried on the researches and
+worked out the generalizations that have changed the whole realm of
+science; that he received his friends and the strangers who came from
+every country to see him; and it was there that, after a long and
+laborious life, full of ardor and work to the last, he died, at the age
+of seventy-three, on April 19, 1882.
+
+The story of his life at Down is almost wholly coincident with the
+history of the development of his views on evolution, and the growth and
+appearance of the successive volumes which he gave to the world. For the
+first four years his geological tastes continued in the ascendant.
+During that interval there appeared three remarkable works, his volume
+on "Coral Islands," that on "Volcanic Islands," and his "Geological
+Observations on South America."
+
+After working up the geological results of the long voyage in the
+Beagle, he set himself with great determination to more purely
+geological details. While on the coast of Chili he had found a curious
+new cirripede, to understand the structure of which he had to examine
+and dissect many of the common forms. The memoir, which was originally
+designed to describe only his new type, gradually expanded into an
+elaborate monograph on the Cirripedes (barnacles) as a whole group. For
+eight years he continued this self-imposed task, getting at last so
+weary of it as to feel at times as if the labor had been in some sense
+wasted which he had spent over it; and this suspicion seems to have
+remained with him in maturer years. But when at last the two bulky
+volumes, of more than one thousand pages of text, with forty detailed
+plates, made their appearance, they were hailed as an admirable
+contribution to the knowledge of a comparatively little known department
+of the animal kingdom. In the interests of science, perhaps, their chief
+value is to be recognized, not so much in their own high merit, as in
+the practical training which their preparation gave the author in
+anatomical detail and classification. He spoke of it himself afterward
+as a valuable discipline, and Professor Huxley truly affirms that the
+influence of this discipline was visible in everything which he
+afterward wrote.
+
+It was after Darwin had got rid of his herculean labors over the
+"Cirripede" book, that he began to settle down seriously to the great
+work of his life--the investigation of the origin of the species, of
+plants and animals. Briefly, it may be stated here that he seems to have
+been first led to ponder over the question of the transmutation of
+species, by facts that had come under his notice during the South
+American part of the voyage in the Beagle--such as the discovery of the
+fossil remains of huge animals akin to, but yet very distinct from, the
+living armadillos of the same regions; the manner in which closely
+allied animals were found to replace one another, as he followed them
+over the continent; and the remarkable character of the flora and fauna
+of the Galapagos Archipelago. "It was evident," he says, "that such
+facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on the
+supposition that species gradually become modified; and the subject
+haunted me." His first note-book for the accumulation of facts bearing
+on the question was opened in July, 1837, and from that date he
+continued to gather them "on a wholesale scale, more especially with
+respect to domesticated productions, by printed inquiries, by
+conversation with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive
+reading."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He now set to work upon that epitome of his observations and deductions
+which appeared in November, 1859, as the immortal "Origin of Species."
+
+Those who are old enough to remember the publication of this work,
+cannot but marvel at the change, which, since that day, not yet thirty
+years ago, has come alike upon the non-scientific and the scientific
+part of the community in their estimation of it. Professor Huxley has
+furnished to the biography a graphic chapter on the reception of the
+book, and in his vigorous and witty style recalls the furious and
+fatuous objections that were urged against it. A much longer chapter
+will be required to describe the change which the advent of the "Origin
+of Species" has wrought in every department of science, and not of
+science only, but of philosophy. The principle of evolution, so early
+broached and so long discredited, has now at last been proclaimed and
+accepted as the guiding idea in the investigation of nature.
+
+One of the most marvellous aspects of Darwin's work was the way in which
+he seemed always to throw a new light upon every department of inquiry
+into which the course of his researches led him to look. The specialists
+who, in their own narrow domains, had been toiling for years, patiently
+gathering facts and timidly drawing inferences from them, were
+astonished to find that one who, in their eyes, was a kind of outsider,
+could point out to them the plain meaning of things which, though
+entirely familiar to them, they had never adequately understood. The
+central idea of the "Origin of Species" is an example of this in the
+biological sciences. The chapter on the imperfection of the geological
+record is another.
+
+After the publication of the "Origin" Darwin gave to the world, during a
+succession of years, a series of volumes in which some of his
+observations and conclusions were worked out in fuller detail. His books
+on the fertilization of orchids, on the movements and habits of climbing
+plants, on the variation of animals and plants under domestication, on
+the effects of cross-and self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom, on
+the different forms of flowers on plants of the same species, were
+mainly based on his own quiet work in the greenhouse and garden at Down.
+His volumes on the descent of man and on the expression of the emotions
+in man and animals, completed his contributions to the biological
+argument. His last volume, published the year before his death, treated
+of the formation of vegetable mould and the habits of earthworms, and
+the preparation of it enabled him to revive some of the geological
+enthusiasm which so marked the earlier years of his life.
+
+Such, in briefest outline, was the work accomplished by Charles Darwin.
+The admirable biography prepared by his son enables us to follow its
+progress from the beginning to its close. But higher even than the
+intellect which achieved the work, was the moral character which shone
+through it all.
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS ADOLPHE THIERS
+
+(1797-1877)
+
+[Illustration: Louis Adolphe Thiers. [TN]]
+
+
+Louis Adolphe Thiers, French historian, politician, and patriot, was
+born at Marseilles on April 16, 1797. His father, who seems to have
+belonged to a family in decayed circumstances, was a locksmith. Through
+the influence of his mother, who was a Chenier, he received a good
+education, first at the _Lycee_ in his native city, and subsequently
+(1815) at Aix, whither he was sent to study law. At Aix he made the
+acquaintance of Mignet, cultivated literature rather than the law, and
+won a prize for a dissertation on Vauvenargues. Called to the bar at the
+age of twenty-three, he set off for Paris in the company of Mignet. His
+prospects did not seem brilliant, and his almost ludicrously squat
+figure and plain face were not recommendations to Parisian society. His
+industry and belief in himself were, however, unbounded, and an
+introduction to Lafitte, of the _Constitutionnel_, then the leading
+organ of the French liberals, gave him the chance of showing his
+capacity as a public writer. His articles in the _Constitutionnel_,
+chiefly on political and literary subjects, gained him the entry into
+the most influential salons of the opposition. At this time he made the
+acquaintance of Talleyrand, Casimir Perier, the Comte de Flahault, and
+Baron Louis, the financier. Meanwhile he was rapidly--indeed too
+rapidly--preparing his "Histoire de la Revolution Francaise." The first
+two volumes--there were ten in all--appeared in 1823. This work,
+although it has been demonstrated to be very untrustworthy and
+inaccurate, more especially in its estimates of persons, gave its author
+a prominent place among French politicians and men of letters. About
+this time, too, the gift by his admirer, Cotta, the German publisher, of
+a share in the _Constitutionnel_ raised him to comparative affluence. In
+January, 1830, he, along with Armand Carrel, Mignet, and other friends,
+started the _National_, and in its columns waged relentless war on the
+Polignac administration. The ministry met the opposition it had provoked
+by the Ordonnances of July. Among the other repressive measures that
+were taken was the sending of a commissary of police to the office of
+the _National_, interdicting its publication. Its conductors, with
+Thiers at their head, defied the ministry, and the result was the
+revolution which drove Charles X. into exile.
+
+Thiers now entered on an active career as a politician. He was elected
+deputy for the town of Aix, and was appointed secretary-general to the
+minister of finance. His first appearance in the Chamber of Deputies
+gave no promise of his subsequent distinction. His diminutive person,
+his small face, encumbered with a pair of huge spectacles, and his whole
+exterior presenting something of the ludicrous, the new deputy, full of
+the impassioned eloquence of the revolutionary orators, attempted to
+impart the thrilling emotions affected by Mirabeau. The attempt provoked
+derision; but soon subsiding into the oratory natural to him--simple,
+easy, rapid, anecdotic--he became one of the most formidable of
+parliamentary speakers. Almost from the moment of his entrance into
+public life he and Guizot stood forth in opposition to each other as the
+champions of radicalism and conservatism, respectively. But he was a
+stanch monarchist, and for a time a favorite with Louis Philippe. In
+1832 he accepted the post of minister of the interior under Soult,
+exchanging it subsequently for the ministry of commerce and public
+affairs, and that in turn for the foreign office. He was universally
+regarded as a stronger man than any of his chiefs during this period;
+but his public and private actions alike were always marked by a certain
+fussy quarrelsomeness which prevented him from being ever accounted a
+statesman of the first rank. The spirited foreign policy, calculated
+above all things to precipitate a quarrel between France and Great
+Britain, of which for many years he was the chief advocate, is now
+allowed to have been a great, and might have been a fatal, mistake. In
+1836 he became president of the council, but in August of the same year
+he resigned office, and became the leader of the opposition. In 1840 he
+was again summoned to office as president of the council and foreign
+minister. In a few months he was a terror to the peace of Europe. He
+refused Lord Palmerston's invitation to enter into an alliance with
+Britain, Austria, and Prussia for the preservation of the integrity of
+the Ottoman empire, from a sympathy with the principles which dictated
+the first Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria, and a desire to
+accomplish by diplomacy with Mehemet Ali what Bonaparte had endeavored
+to effect by force of arms--the supremacy of France in these regions. He
+talked menacingly of setting aside the treaties of 1815, and of
+extending the French frontier to the Rhine, and is said to have actually
+spent L8,000,000 on military and naval demonstrations. Then followed the
+seizure of the Society Islands, and a well-founded protest by the
+British government against the ill-treatment by the French of Mr.
+Pritchard, their consul at Tahiti. In consequence of this Thiers was
+forced to resign office, and retire into private life. He now returned
+to the study of French history. The first volume of his "Histoire du
+Consulat et de l'Empire" appeared in 1845; it was not completed till
+1860. This, the most ambitious of all Thiers's literary enterprises,
+must be considered a large rather than a great work. It is a monument to
+its author's industry in reading, and rises here and there to rhetorical
+brilliance. But that it is inaccurate and unfair has been admitted even
+by French critics. Thiers greatly overrated Napoleon, and probably to
+his own hurt.
+
+Thiers was not one of the promoters of the revolution which in 1848
+drove Louis Philippe from the throne. On the contrary, he would, as
+prime minister summoned at the eleventh hour, have prevented it if he
+could. He accepted its consequences in the form of the Republic. He
+voted for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon as its president. This
+action brought him much vituperation and ridicule from former political
+friends. But whatever may have been the motive that inspired it, it
+certainly did not help him at the time of the coup-d'etat of 1851; he
+was arrested, imprisoned in Mazas, and banished. Next year, however, he
+was allowed to return from Switzerland to France. For eight years he was
+occupied with his "History of the Consulate and Empire." He re-entered
+the Chamber in 1863, having been elected liberal deputy for the
+Department of the Seine in opposition to the imperialist candidate. Till
+the fall of the Second Empire he was regarded as the ablest and most
+formidable of its more moderate and parliamentary opponents. His
+speeches in the years between 1863 and 1870 were filled with taunts of
+the Empire on account of the loss of prestige which had marked its
+history, and these must not be left out of account when blame has to be
+apportioned among the authors of the war of 1870, although he opposed it
+when declared by the Ollivier ministry, and predicted defeat.
+
+The collapse of the Second Empire, however, enabled Thiers to play the
+greatest of all his parts, that of "liberator of the territory." He
+declined, after Sedan, to become a member of the Government of National
+Defence; but he voluntarily undertook diplomatic journeys to Great
+Britain, Russia, Austria, and Italy, on behalf of France--a self-imposed
+mission in which he was unsuccessful, but by which he obtained the
+gratitude of his countrymen. He was largely instrumental in securing for
+his country that armistice which permitted the holding of a national
+assembly with a view to the negotiation of a peace. Twenty
+constituencies chose him as their deputy. Electing to sit for Paris, he
+was made head of the provisional government. He had great difficulty in
+persuading the colleagues of the Assembly, and his countrymen generally,
+to agree to peace on terms that were practically dictated by Germany.
+But he succeeded; peace was voted March 1, 1871. No sooner had he
+accomplished this task than he was face to face with the sanguinary
+madness of the Commune. But this difficulty also he set himself to
+surmount with characteristic energy, and succeeded. When the seat of
+government was once more removed from Versailles to Paris, Thiers was
+formally elected (August 30) President of the French Republic. He held
+office only till 1873, but during this brief period he was probably of
+greater service to his country than at any previous time in his life. He
+was mainly instrumental in securing the withdrawal of the Germans from
+France and the payment of the war indemnity, and in placing both the
+army and the civil service on a more satisfactory footing. But in course
+of time the gratitude of the country exhausted itself, and Thiers, who
+was old-fashioned in many of his opinions, and as opinionative as he was
+old-fashioned, did not make any new friends. He was specially detested
+by the Extreme Left, whose chief, Gambetta, he styled a _fou furieux_.
+As a result, a coalition of Reactionaries and Radicals was formed
+expressly, as it seemed, to harass him, and even in the beginning of
+1872 he tendered his resignation. It was not accepted; and his opponents
+for a time suspended their intrigues. They were revived, however, in
+1873, and resolved themselves into a resolute effort to limit the powers
+of the president. This Thiers stoutly resisted. He made an appeal to the
+country, but this course did not increase the strength of his following.
+Finally, what he interpreted as a vote of no confidence was carried (May
+24) by a majority of sixteen. He resigned, and his place was taken by
+Marshal MacMahon. He lived four years longer, and never ceased to take
+an interest in politics. In 1877 he took an active part in bringing
+about the fall of the ministry presided over by the Duc de Broglie. He
+now leaned to the side of the Left, and was reconciled to Gambetta, and
+he might once again have played a prominent part in politics had he not
+died of apoplexy on September 3, 1877, at St. Germain en Laye. He has
+not left behind him the memory either of a very great statesman, or of a
+very great historian. But he was a man of indomitable courage, and his
+patriotism, if narrow and marred with Chauvinism, was deep and genuine.
+He was, perhaps, the most successful of the large class of
+journalist-politicians that France has produced, and that he was at
+least a personal power in literature was evidenced by the great
+influence which he wielded in the Academy, of which he became a member
+in 1834.
+
+
+
+
+LEON GAMBETTA
+
+(1838-1882)
+
+[Illustration: Leon Gambetta. [TN]]
+
+
+Leon Michel Gambetta was born at Cahors on April 3, 1838. His father was
+a tradesman dealing in crockery; his mother's maiden name was Massabie.
+Leon's grandfather was a Genoese, who emigrated to France at the
+beginning of this century; and as his name signifies, in the dialect of
+Genoa, a liquid measure of two quarts capacity, it has been supposed
+that it was conferred upon one of his forefathers as a sobriquet. Leon
+Gambetta's grandfather was a poor man of no education, and his only
+son, Leon's father, thought he had done very well for himself when he
+set up a shop with the small dowry brought him by his wife, Mlle.
+Massabie. The mother of Leon died while he was a child, and he was
+indebted for his early teaching to his maternal aunt and to her brother,
+a priest, who held a small benefice in a village near Cahors. It was at
+first intended that Leon should follow his father's trade; but, as he
+was a boy very apt at learning and fond of books, his uncle and aunt
+decided that it would be better to put him at the seminary, with a view
+to his ultimately taking holy orders. Leon's father does not seem to
+have much liked this scheme, for he had no second son who could succeed
+to his business; but he had a great love for his bright-witted boy, and
+having conceived a high respect for his talents, yielded to the pleasing
+idea that he would some day become an ornament to the Church. This
+belief may be explained by the fact that Leon was, as a child, ardently
+religious. When twelve years old he wrote an ode dedicated to his
+"patron, St. Leon, and to all the popes called Leon," and this
+composition was printed in the Catholic journal of the diocese. In
+after-years some of his political enemies tried to get hold of a copy,
+but failed, and published a spurious one which they gave out for his.
+
+The career of Leon Gambetta must continue to exercise over young
+advocates and journalists the same kind of fascination as that of
+Napoleon I. does over young officers; and, indeed, the fact that
+Bonaparte and Gambetta were both of Italian origin, and came to sudden
+and great power while they were very young, was often quoted to draw a
+parallel between the two. But there is this difference between Bonaparte
+and Gambetta, that whereas the latter made his mark in life later by
+some three or four years than the former, brilliant destinies were
+prophesied for him by others besides his relations, when he was still a
+child. While Bonaparte was a pupil at the school of Brienne, his masters
+predicted that he would make a poor officer, because he had no aptitude
+for mathematics; when Gambetta was at the seminary, his tutors foretold
+that he would make a great figure in life, "but never," they regretfully
+added, "as a churchman." The boy began well, but he had evidently no
+vocation for the strict discipline of the Church; he was too
+disputatious, not meek enough about taking blows without returning them,
+and in short, too headstrong. Anticipating the judgment which M. Grevy
+passed upon him when he was thirty-three years old, his ecclesiastical
+masters reported of him that he was _un esprit rebelle, turbulent_, and
+they advised his removal to another school.
+
+Young Gambetta was accordingly sent to the _lycee_--that is, the lay
+public school--of Cahors, and here he immediately won golden opinions
+by his cleverness, his industry, and the happy vivacity of his
+character. One of the half-yearly bulletins of the _lycee_, which has
+been preserved in his family, records that he was "passionate without
+being vindictive, and proud without arrogance." In time he became the
+best Latin scholar at the school, and the most proficient in French
+composition. When he was in his sixteenth year, however, an accident,
+which destroyed his left eye, quelled for a time the exuberance of his
+character and suddenly gave a new direction to his studies. Fearing lest
+he should lose his sight altogether, he set himself to learn the
+alphabet for the blind, in order that he might read in books with raised
+letters; he also applied himself to the study of music and the violin.
+During a whole year he was forbidden to open a book.
+
+From Cahors Gambetta went to Paris to study law, and he quickly drew the
+attention of the Imperial police upon himself by acting as ringleader in
+those demonstrations which the students of the Latin Quarter were
+accustomed to make in time of public excitement. Peaceful demonstrations
+they always were, because the police would stand nothing like rioting,
+but it was something to march at the head of a procession carrying
+wreaths to the tomb of a Republican, or to lead cabals for hissing off
+the stage of the Theatre Francais or the Odeon pieces by unpopular
+writers, like M. Edmond About (for in those days M. About was a
+Bonapartist).
+
+Gambetta's first public speech was delivered in 1861, in defence of the
+Marquis Le Guillois, a nobleman of facetious humor, who edited a comic
+newspaper called _Le Hanneton_. He was seized with unexpected
+nervousness as he began, but before he had stammered out a dozen
+sentences he was stopped by the presiding judge, who told him mildly
+that no big words were required in a cause which only involved a fine of
+100 francs--"all the less so," added he, "as your client is acquitted."
+
+Gambetta used to say after this that it took him years to recover from
+the effect of the judge's quiet snub. Like many other young men of
+talent, he had gone into court expecting to carry everything before him,
+and had found that the art of forensic pleading is not to be acquired
+without practice. He did practise most diligently, and the
+speeches--some thirty in all--which he delivered in unimportant cases
+during the next seven years, were conspicuous for their avoidance of
+rhetorical flourish. Adolphe Cremieux had cautioned him that the secret
+of oratory lies in mastering the subject of one's discourse. "Don't try
+gymnastic feats until you have a firm platform to spring from"--a maxim
+which a conceited young man, impatient of results, might have despised,
+but which commended itself to an ambitious man who felt that, although a
+chance comes to all, it is an important point to be prepared for the
+chance when it does come. A plutocrat once asked Horace Vernet to "do
+him a little thing in pencil" for his album. Vernet did the little thing
+and asked 1,000 francs for it. "But it only took you five minutes to
+draw," exclaimed the man of wealth. "Yes, but it took me thirty years to
+learn to do it in five minutes," replied Vernet. And so Gambetta, when
+someone remarked that he was very lucky in having conquered renown by a
+single speech, broke out impetuously, "I was years preparing that
+speech--twenty times I wanted to deliver it, but did not feel that I had
+it here (touching his head), though it palpitated here (thumping his
+breast) as if it would break my heart."
+
+The speech in question was delivered on November 17, 1868, before the
+notorious Judge Delesvaux (who has been called the Jeffreys of the
+Second Empire), in defence of Louis Charles Delescluze, editor of the
+_Reveil_. The _Reveil_ had started a subscription for erecting a
+monument to the memory of the Representative Baudin, who was killed at
+the _coup-d'etat_ of 1851, and the Government unwisely instituted a
+prosecution against the editor. It was late in the afternoon when the
+case was called on after a number of others, but the sixth chamber was
+crowded with journalists and barristers, as it always was on Fridays,
+when Delesvaux--a man with hawk-like features and a flaming
+complexion--would sit "tearing up newspaper articles with beak and
+talons," as Emile de Girardin said of him. Just before Gambetta rose,
+Delesvaux observed, "I suppose you have not much to say; so it will
+hardly be worth while to have the gas lighted." "Never mind the gas,
+sir, I will throw light enough on this affair," answered Gambetta; and
+it was amid the laughter produced by this joke that he began. His genius
+found vent that day, and he spoke from first to last without a halt.
+Reviewing his client's case, he brought Napoleon III. himself to book,
+and recalled the circumstances under which Baudin had died, "defending
+that Republican Constitution which President Louis Bonaparte, in
+contempt of his oath, had violated." At this, Judge Delesvaux half rose
+in his seat and endeavored to stop the speaker, but a positive roar from
+the whole crowd in court forced him to sit down. It was a sign of the
+approaching political earthquake that Delesvaux should have sat down in
+that way, for he was a man of great resolution; but he must have felt
+then as if the earth were trembling under him. So Gambetta continued to
+speak, denouncing with unimaginable energy the tyrannies and turpitudes
+of the reign which had confiscated all the liberties of France, till at
+last he concluded with this magnificent peroration, which was rendered
+most solemn by the increasing darkness of the court and the intense
+attentive silence of the audience: "In every country but this you see
+the people commemorate as a holiday the date which brought the reigning
+dynasty to the throne. You alone are ashamed of the day which gave you a
+blood-stained crown--the December 2d when Baudin died! Well, that day
+which you reject, we Republicans will keep holy. It shall be the day of
+mourning for our martyrs and the festival of our hopes!"
+
+When Gambetta left the court after this, it was felt by all who had
+heard him that he was the coming man of the Republican party; and next
+day opposition journals of every shade of opinion, from one end of
+France to the other, acclaimed him as a future leader.
+
+Within the next two years the Republican party made such rapid strides
+that to regain his prestige the French emperor felt that a glorious war
+was necessary. The leader of the moderate reformers, M. Ollivier, was
+won over, and was forced upon Prussia. Gambetta and the Republicans felt
+that they had every cause for fear when matters had taken this turn.
+Relying upon Marshal Leboeuf's assurances that "everything was ready,"
+they saw the prospect of a short sensational campaign like that against
+Austria in 1859, to be followed by some high-handed stroke of home
+policy that would sweep most of them into prison or exile. Gambetta
+could not refrain from bitterly upbraiding Ollivier. "You will find that
+you have been fooled in all this," he said; "for when the war is over
+you will be thrown aside like a squeezed orange." "I think my fate will
+be a happier one than yours, unless you mend your manners," answered
+Ollivier dryly. Three weeks after this, however, everything was changed.
+The imperial armies had been beaten at Woerth and Forbach; the Ollivier
+cabinet had fallen amid popular execration (hardly deserved); and
+Gambetta, forced by circumstances into a position of great influence,
+received a private visit from Madame Bazaine, who prayed him to agitate
+that her husband might be appointed as the commander-in-chief of the
+armies. Gambetta was too sincerely patriotic to feel any partisan
+satisfaction at the reverse which Napoleon III.'s armies had suffered;
+and in stirring up the Republicans in the Chamber and in the press to
+clamor for the appointment of Bazaine, he believed he was urging the
+claims of a competent soldier who was being kept from the chief command
+solely by dynastic jealousies. He was to learn, a couple of months
+later, how much he had been mistaken in his estimate of Bazaine's
+talents and rectitude of purpose; and, indeed, Bazaine's conduct toward
+Gambetta and the Republicans from first to last was the more
+inexplicable, as it was unquestionably owing to their agitation that he
+was placed in the high position which he had coveted.
+
+During the three weeks between Forbach and Sedan, Gambetta had to take
+rather exciting precautions to insure his own safety. He was aware that
+the Empress-Regent's advisers were urging her to have the leaders of the
+opposition arrested, and he felt pretty certain that this course would
+be adopted if the news of a victory arrived. He used to sleep in a
+different house every night, and never ventured abroad unattended or
+without firearms. His position was one of great difficulty, for agents
+of the Internationale made overtures to him with a view to promote an
+insurrection in Paris, and he forfeited the confidence of these fanatics
+by declining to abet their plans. Gambetta was so little desirous of
+establishing a republic by revolution that, even when the tidings
+arrived on the night of September 3d of the emperor's surrender at
+Sedan, his chief concern was as to how he could get the deposition of
+Napoleon III. and the Empress-Regent effected by lawful methods. He
+hastened to M. Thiers's house, and asked him whether he would accept the
+presidency of a provisional government? Thiers, sitting up in bed, said
+he was willing, provided that this office was conferred upon him by the
+Corps Legislatif.
+
+Accordingly, Gambetta spent all the morning of Sunday, September 4th,
+whipping up members of the majority, and trying to persuade them to go
+down to the Palais Bourbon and elect a new government. But he found most
+of these gentlemen anxious to get off to the different railway stations
+as soon as possible in cabs. Going to the Chamber himself toward one
+o'clock, he was carried through the doors by the surging mob which
+invaded the palace, and in half an hour he shouted himself quite hoarse
+in adjuring the crowds from the tribune to let the Assembly deliberate
+in peace. But while he was literally croaking in his attempts to make
+the people hear reason, news was brought to him that M. Blanqui and some
+other adventurous spirits, taking time by the forelock, had repaired to
+the Hotel de Ville, and were setting up a government of their own. Upon
+this, Gambetta precipitately left the palace, jumped into a victoria,
+and drove to the Hotel de Ville, amid a mob of several thousands of
+persons who escorted him, cheering all the way. Before five o'clock the
+deputies for Paris, with the exception of M. Thiers, had constituted
+themselves into a government, which, at the suggestion of M. Rochefort,
+took the name of Government of the National Defence; and M. Gambetta
+received the appointment of Minister of the Interior. It may be remarked
+in passing that on the day after these events, Judge Delesvaux, fearing,
+perhaps needlessly, that some of the triumphant Republicans whom he had
+so often punished would wreak vengeance upon him, committed suicide. On
+the other hand, Gambetta's client in the Baudin affair--L. C.
+Delescluze--came to him on the morning of September 5th, and reproached
+him with much asperity for not having caused the empress to be arrested.
+"We want no rose-water Republicans to rule us," said this honest, but
+gloomy, zealot, who was shot a few months later during the extermination
+of the Commune.
+
+The siege of Paris brought M. Gambetta to the most romantic part of his
+career. The National Defence Government had delegated two of their
+members, MM. Cremieux and Glaiz-Bizoin, to go to Tours and govern the
+provinces; but being both elderly men of weak health, they were hardly
+up to their work; and early in October M. Gambetta was ordered by his
+colleagues to join them. He had to leave Paris in a balloon, and in
+going over the German lines nearly met with misadventure, through the
+balloon sinking till it came within range of some marksmen's rifles. He
+reached Tours in safety, however, and set to work at once with
+marvellous activity to organize resistance against the invasion. He was
+ably seconded by M. de Freycinet, and between them these two did all
+that was humanly possible to perform; but from the first their task was
+one of formidable difficulty, and all chances of repelling the Germans
+from French soil vanished after the shameful capitulation of Bazaine at
+Metz.
+
+Nevertheless, all who saw M. Gambetta during his proconsulate at Tours
+will remember with what a splendid energy he worked, how sincerely
+hopeful he was, and--this must not be forgotten--how uniformly generous
+and genial. Invested with despotic powers, he never once abused them to
+molest an opponent.
+
+[Illustration: The enrollment of volunteers, 1870.]
+
+In his public harangues, both at Tours and Bordeaux (whither the
+Provisional Government repaired in December, being driven southward by
+the German advance), he somehow always managed to electrify his hearers.
+He spoke from balconies, railway carriages, curb-stones; wherever he
+went the people demanded a speech of him, and his words never failed to
+cheer, while they conquered for him a wide popularity. Indeed, Gambetta
+so deluded himself while diffusing hope and combativeness into
+others, that when, after a five months' siege, Paris capitulated, he
+still persisted in thinking that resistance was possible, and rather
+than take any part in the national surrender he gave in his resignation.
+He was by that time fairly worn out, and had to go to St. Sebastian to
+recruit his health. It was alleged that he went there so as to avoid
+taking any side in the civil war between the Parliament of Versailles
+and the Commune; but after the Communist Government had been at work a
+fortnight, and when the impracticability of its aims was fully
+disclosed, he took care to let it be known that he was on the side of
+the National Assembly.
+
+M. Thiers did not understand Gambetta as Gambetta understood him, or he
+would not have resigned in 1873, saying that the Republicans were making
+his work too difficult. When Marshal MacMahon succeeded to the
+Presidency it looked as if the Republic were doomed, and nothing but M.
+Gambetta's wonderful suppleness and tact during the sessions of 1874-75
+could have saved it. He had to keep himself in the background, to use an
+Italian astuteness in explaining away the blunders of his followers; and
+when this would not do he had to use violent language, which should
+frighten timid doctrinaire Orleanists with prospects of popular risings
+in which he would take the lead. His greatest triumphs were earned when,
+by dint of superhuman coaxing in the lobbies, he got the Republic
+proclaimed as the Government of France (in 1875, on M. Wallon's motion)
+by a majority of one vote; and again when, at the first election for
+life senators, he concluded a treaty with the Legitimists, and by giving
+them a dozen seats, secured fifty for the Republicans and ousted the
+Orleanists altogether.
+
+From this time the Republic was founded with at least temporary
+security, and although a coalition of all the reactionary parties
+rallied against it in 1877, when M. Jules Simon's ministry was
+dismissed, and when the Duc de Broglie was induced to try to destroy the
+new form of government by Caesarist methods, yet there was never any real
+danger that the Republic would succumb. From the day when M. Thiers
+died, M. Gambetta stood guarding it like a sentinel. Just before the
+general election of 1877, an emissary was sent to him from the De
+Broglie-Fourtou Ministry, requesting him for his own sake not to make a
+speech against Marshal MacMahon. He laughed when he heard that he would
+be prosecuted if he made the speech. He was twirling a cigarette, and
+laid down a copy of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in which he had been
+reading an essay on Mr. Gladstone's speeches about the Irish Church.
+"Tell the Prime Minister," he said, "that I will speak from a pedestal
+if I can, but if not, from a housetop. In one way or another, my voice
+shall reach further than his, and so long as I have a drop of blood to
+shed the Republic shall not fall." M. Gambetta was sentenced to four
+months' imprisonment for the speech in which he said that Marshal
+MacMahon would have to yield to the popular will or resign, but before
+he could be put into jail the De Broglie cabinet had ceased to exist.
+Marshal MacMahon's resignation in 1879 was the obviously natural
+consequence of the complete victory which the Republicans gained in
+1877; but it was greatly to M. Gambetta's credit that he quietly
+tolerated during fifteen months the presidency of the gallant soldier
+who had never been his friend. When urged to agitate for the marshal's
+overthrow, he always said, "It will do the Republic good if its first
+president serves his term of office quietly to the end."
+
+Had Gambetta lived till 1885 he would probably have been the next
+president of the Republic he had established and preserved; but it was
+not to be. His work was done. He died December 31, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+BENJAMIN DISRAELI[16]
+
+By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD
+
+(1804-1881)
+
+         [Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Benjamin Disraeli. [TN]]
+
+
+Since the days of Richelieu, there has been no such picturesque figure
+in the history of civilization as that of Benjamin Disraeli.
+
+Although his father, Isaac Disraeli, was in much more than easy
+circumstances and had made a literary reputation, he was under the
+social disadvantage that was the portion of a Jew, and his mother, Maria
+Basevi, was of the same despised race.
+
+Their son was born in London, December 21, 1804, and his birth was
+attended by the usual Jewish ceremonies in the Spanish synagogue. When
+he was thirteen years old his father formally withdrew from the Jewish
+congregation, and the children were baptized into the Christian faith,
+Benjamin's godfather being Sharon Turner. The boy was early seen to have
+rare talents, and he was already an immense reader in his father's vast
+library. It was decided to give him an exact education and send him to
+one of the large schools, where he should have the advantage of
+discipline and the opportunity of desirable friendships; but the
+prejudice against his birth was an obstacle--life would have been made
+impossible by the indelicacy and cruelty of the high-born and Christian
+lads. He was finally sent to a school where he found himself the
+superior of his masters; even there he was taunted with his birth; and
+he was taken home to work with his father and with tutors, where,
+conscious of his powers and full of lively ambition, he studied twelve
+hours a day, and made himself the master of a vast and varied
+information. At seventeen he entered a solicitor's office, and while
+working there for three years, entered at Lincoln's Inn, he evinced an
+ability that promised him great eminence. It was not, however,
+precisely the sort of eminence that he desired, the strifes and
+achievements of political life being more to his taste.
+
+He had the qualities which fitted him for that life, the "taking arts"
+and accomplishments; he was a fine linguist; he had a wonderfully
+well-stored memory, great self-confidence, self-respect, and assurance;
+his manners were easy, and he had all social graces and refinements; his
+face was singularly handsome, and remarkable through its pallor, the
+depth of its black eyes, and delicacy of its chiselled features framed
+in night-dark curls; he was a master of the art of self-defence, a hard
+and fine rider, and he was equipped with wit, sarcasm, poetical
+perception, keen reason, unbounded ambition, and undaunted courage.
+
+He dressed in his early years in a manner that has been described as
+extraordinary, but which was the manner of the young men of the period,
+of D'Orsay and of Bulwer, at the time when Tennyson called the latter a
+band-box. Later his dress was more negligent, although always neat and
+fine.
+
+He was on pleasant terms with the distinguished people whom he met at
+his father's table, and was everywhere sought in society, when, at
+twenty, he began his career by the publication of "Vivian Grey," a
+novel, unlike anything that had been written, bristling with point and
+sally, and full of daring portraiture, and which made him immediately
+famous.
+
+His health, however, now gave way, a trouble in his head making it
+necessary to suspend work; and after a tour of Europe he remained for
+two or three years at Bradenham, near High Wycombe, his father's
+country-house, happy in the companionship of his father and mother, and
+his thoroughly congenial sister Sarah; passionately fond of country
+life, and during the time producing a novel, "The Young Duke," and three
+shorter works, "Popanilla," "The Infernal Marriage," and "Ixion in
+Heaven," gay and brilliant satires, sparkling with epigram and with
+beauty, and destined to live with the English language and English
+history.
+
+In company with Mr. Meredith, to whom his sister was promised in
+marriage, he journeyed for the next two years through the south of
+Europe and the East. Spain was among the first of his objective points,
+in the proud memory of his descent from the Spanish nobles who, driven
+out of Spain in the fifteenth century, went over to Venice, and changed
+the name belonging to the House of Dara to that of D'Israeli, the sons
+of Israel--a cognomen never borne by any other family--and remained
+there for two hundred years, going to England only when, Venice falling
+into decay, it was necessary to go where they could live in safety. He
+wrote the account of his travels to his sister in a series of
+affectionate and light-hearted letters, which charmingly betray his own
+personality, and which are full of the most vivid pictures of Malta,
+Corfu, Albania, the Plains of Troy, Turkey--which was kind to his race
+when a cruel and unreasoning world showed it only malignant hate, and
+which he regarded with the gratitude that never forsakes a Jew; Cyprus,
+the advantage of whose possession he early recognized; Egypt, whose
+destinies were afterward in his hand; and Jerusalem, the holy city of
+his people, his impressions of which "Tancred" afterward embodied,
+together with a foreshadowing of much of his policy in the East. The
+journey made him acquainted with the theatre of his intentions, and with
+the prepossessions which it gave or fostered, doubtless had a great
+influence upon his life and action. The close of the journey was
+darkened by the death of his companion, for whom his sister mourned as
+long as she lived.
+
+After his return home he wrote a new novel, "Contarini Fleming," a
+wonderful and poetical study of temperament, which Milman pronounced the
+equal of "Childe Harold," which Goethe and Heine and Beckford, the
+author of "Vathek," praised with delighted warmth. The "Wondrous Tale of
+Alroy," also, published a little later, with "The Rise of Iskander,"
+Beckford found stirring and full of intensity and charm.
+
+In 1832 Disraeli offered himself as an independent candidate for the
+borough of High Wycombe. The Government of course defeated him; and not
+until after several hot contests during the next few years, did he gain
+his end, taking his seat, then at the age of thirty-three, in Queen
+Victoria's first Parliament. The character of the struggle at these
+elections may be inferred from O'Connell's declaration in one of them,
+that in all probability this "Disraeli was the heir-at-law of the
+blasphemous thief that died on the cross." Disraeli challenged
+O'Connell's son, who failed to accept the challenge. But Disraeli never
+cherished a grudge; and only three weeks after he entered Parliament he
+risked his seat there by a pointed statement of the misgovernment of
+Ireland. Neither did O'Connell bear malice, and he said of one of
+Disraeli's speeches, somewhat later, that "it was all excellent except
+the peroration, and that was matchless." Not only in O'Connell's case
+was this impossibility in Disraeli's nature of doing anything ignoble
+shown; he secured, when in power, a life-pension to the widow and
+children of the artist Leech, who had for half a lifetime showered him
+with the cruel ridicule of the caricaturist; and he offered the Grand
+Cross of the Bath, and a life-income suitable to the maintenance of its
+dignity, to Carlyle, who had pursued him now with contempt and now with
+malignity. In the intervals of the electoral contests a series of
+letters to _The Times_, filled with biting sarcasm, under the signature
+of "Runnymede;" a novel--"Henrietta Temple;" a "Vindication of the
+British Constitution," dedicated to Lord Lyndhurst; a contrasting
+presentation of the characters of Byron and Shelley, in the form of
+romance, under the title of "Venetia," sufficiently occupied Disraeli's
+time. He was, meanwhile, in the vortex of gay social life, a member of
+the Carlton Club, the friend of Count D'Orsay, Lady Blessington, Mrs.
+Norton, Lady Dufferin, Bulwer, Tom Moore, Lady Morgan, of Lyndhurst, of
+the public men and of the men of fashion, and he was courted by princes
+and pretty women. He had come to Parliament prepared as few or none
+before him, with coolness, courage, wit, and eloquence, and with a
+far-seeing sagacity that enabled him to make the most of something like
+the gift of prophecy. But he was handicapped with the fact of his race,
+with his debts, which, although he was not personally extravagant or at
+all self-indulgent, had become heavy, with the absence of a constituency
+or a popular cause; and having no landed property, nor belonging even
+remotely to any great family, he was looked upon both by Whig and Tory
+as more or less of an adventurer.
+
+Like almost all young men, his first preferences and professions were
+for reform. But brought face to face with responsibility he modified his
+opinions; and the great power and place that he ultimately won, were won
+through the originality, the thought, the force, and the independence
+that dared act without reference to his own advantage, and the splendid
+courage that was undismayed by any odds. Although he could have acquired
+office in the earlier years by withholding open expression of his
+opinions, he preferred his freedom; and although always in want of
+money, he never made a penny by means of the place or the power that he
+won, or even through the legitimate opportunities which these offered.
+
+His first speech in Parliament was attended by peculiar circumstances. A
+number of the ruder members of the opposition were determined that he
+should not be heard, and they drowned every sentence in derisive cheers
+and mocking yells. Disraeli bore it with dignity, but as it was
+impossible to proceed in the noisy and barbarous din, he closed by
+saying that he had begun several times many things, and had succeeded at
+last; and then in a tone that resounded even above the clamor, for he
+had at all times a sonorous and impressive voice, he cried, "I will sit
+down now. But the time will come when you will hear me!" Of this speech
+Peel said it was anything but failure; and Sir John Campbell, the
+Attorney-General, assured him that there was a lively desire in the
+opposing party to hear him, but they were hindered by a coterie over
+whom they had no control. In describing the scene, in a letter to his
+sister that night, with great frankness, as disastrous, Disraeli signed
+himself, "Yours in very good spirits." When he spoke, a week afterward,
+he commanded the attention of the House.
+
+Disraeli had always declared that no government should have his support
+which did not seek to improve the condition of the poor; and as he
+looked at the British constitution and social construction, he believed
+that the Conservatives were the best able to accomplish this end.
+Because he was a Jew he was none the less an Englishman, and he had the
+true interests of the United Kingdom at heart. He held that the strength
+of England lay in the land, and he supported the corn laws from stern
+principle. "It will be an exception to the principles which seem
+hitherto to have ruled society," he exclaimed, "if you can maintain the
+success at which you aim, without the possession of that permanence and
+stability which the territorial principle alone can afford. Although you
+may for a moment flourish after their destruction, although your ports
+may be filled with shipping, your factories smoke on every plain, and
+your forges flame in every city, I see no reason why you should form an
+exception to that which the page of history has mournfully recorded,
+that you should not fade like Tyrian dye, and moulder like the Venetian
+palaces."
+
+He was already, in 1839, to a certain extent, a power in Parliament,
+launching the shafts of his sarcasm alike at the Chancellor of the
+Exchequer or an Under Secretary; and in this year he published his
+tragedy of "Count Alarcos," and married Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, the wealthy
+widow of his friend and colleague, several years his senior, but through
+thirty years his invaluable friend and _confidante_. In dedicating
+"Sybil" to her, he said, "I would inscribe this work to one whose noble
+spirit and gentle nature ever prompt her to sympathize with the
+suffering; to one whose sweet voice has often encouraged and whose taste
+and judgment have ever guided its pages, the most severe of critics, but
+a perfect wife." Her devotion to him was illustrated by her behavior one
+night when, on the eve of an exciting session, she drove with him to
+Palace Yard, and her hand being crushed in the carriage-door, she gave
+no sign, lest it should disturb his train of thought and lessen his
+power in the approaching debate, and endured her agony without blenching
+till he had left her. He rewarded such devotion in kind, his happiest
+hours were those spent in her society, and perhaps the proudest moment
+of his life was that when, the Queen having offered him a peerage, he
+declined it for himself but accepted it for his wife, and made her
+Viscountess Beaconsfield in her own right.
+
+Immediately upon their marriage Mr. Disraeli travelled with his wife for
+a couple of months on the continent; and returning to London he received
+the congratulations of Peel, Wellington, and others, and began to
+entertain the party chiefs; he dined privately with Louis Philippe in
+Paris, shook hands with the King of Hanover in London, and in every way
+took his social and personal position firmly. In Parliament he crossed
+swords with Palmerston, refused his support to Peel's Coercion Bill in
+relation to Ireland, characterizing it as one of those measures which to
+introduce was degrading, and to oppose disgraceful; later he maintained
+that as revolution was the only remedy for the wrongs of Ireland, and as
+her connection with England prevented revolution, therefore it was the
+duty of England to effect by policy what revolution would effect by
+force, and as he had defended the Chartist petition, so in turn, when
+the Eastern Question came up, he defended Turkey; in all this making it
+supremely plain that he never was the one to truckle to rank or
+authority. He was the head of the small party of Young Englanders; he
+was feared and respected by both the larger parties; and the Commons,
+whose assemblage he had scornfully proclaimed a thing of past history,
+if they did not choose, had presently to accept him for their leader.
+
+Henry Hope, entertaining a number of their friends at Deepdene, urged
+Disraeli to treat the questions of common interest in a literary form,
+and the powerful works--rather treatises than novels--"Coningsby" and
+"Sybil," appeared; and these were followed by "Tancred," in which the
+curious reader will find much of Disraeli's Eastern policy indicated.
+These three books the author regarded as a trilogy upon English
+politics, principles, and possibilities.
+
+As a debater, then and always, Disraeli was keen, ready, and
+unanswerable; as a satirist, swift, subtle, and finished. His epigrams
+were among the "jewels that on the stretched forefinger of all time
+sparkle forever." It was he that said "Destiny is our will, and our will
+is nature." At another time he said, "The critics--they are those who
+have failed in literature and in art." When Prince Napoleon was slain
+he exclaimed, "A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our
+generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a
+great European dynasty." Every one remembers the startling sentence in
+which he condemned Mr. Gladstone's Irish policy of 1868: "We have
+legalized confiscation; we have consecrated sacrilege; we have condoned
+treason." And his power of picturesque mockery appears in a speech made,
+in 1872, immediately before the downfall of the Gladstone ministry: "As
+I sat opposite the Treasury bench the ministers reminded me of those
+marine landscapes not unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold
+a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid
+crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional
+earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea." His
+attacks on Peel have been pronounced to be among the most remarkable
+speeches in the annals of the British Legislature. In 1849, at which
+period also he wrote the biography of his father and the memoir of his
+friend Lord George Bentinck, he was the recognized leader of the
+Conservatives. When Peel was overthrown, Disraeli, who had overthrown
+him, after a brief period, succeeded to his place.
+
+It was not with cordiality that the Conservatives submitted to
+Disraeli's direction. He had carried himself in relation to them with an
+unsurpassed independence. He was of a people whom they held in contempt,
+and whose admission to Parliament he had enforced. In his speeches he
+had spared none of them. He had no friend at court, and he was still
+very young. But there was no help for it--he was master of the
+situation, and master of them. He was now thrice Chancellor of the
+Exchequer; and for a quarter of a century he led the opposition in the
+House of Commons, except in the brief intervals when he was identified
+with the Government. In leading the opposition he was never an
+obstructionist; and he lent his aid to every generous measure, such as
+the reduction of the hours of labor, the protection of factory children,
+the improvement of the homes of the poor, the extension of the suffrage.
+He refused English interference on the side of the South during the
+Civil War in the United States of America; he hindered disastrous
+hostilities with France at the time of Louis Napoleon's _coup-d'etat_;
+he would have prevented the Crimean War had it been possible; and he
+would not allow retaliation in kind for the Sepoy atrocities. He did the
+most and the best with his opportunities. His policy was always to
+develop and sustain English character. "There is no country," he said in
+a remarkable warning to the House, "at the present moment that exists
+under the same circumstances and under the same conditions as the people
+of this realm. You have an ancient, powerful, and richly endowed Church,
+and perfect religious liberty. You have unbroken order and complete
+freedom. You have landed estates as large as the Romans, combined with a
+commercial enterprise such as Carthage and Venice united never equalled.
+And you must remember that this peculiar country, with these strong
+contrasts, is not governed by force. It is governed by a most singular
+series of traditionary influences, which generation after generation
+cherishes and preserves, because it knows that they embalm custom and
+represent law. And with this you have created the greatest empire of
+modern times. You have amassed a capital of fabulous amount. You have
+devised and sustained a system of credit still more marvellous, and you
+have established a scheme so vast and complicated of labor and industry
+that the history of the world affords no parallel to it. And these
+mighty creations are out of all proportion to the essential and
+indigenous elements and resources of the country. If you destroy that
+state of society, remember this: _England cannot begin again._"
+
+In religion Disraeli accepted Christianity fully--but as a completion of
+the Hebrew revelation. He coupled in thought and word "the sacred
+heights of Sinai and of Calvary." He was proud of his great people, and
+never hesitated to declare his pride. "All the north of Europe worship a
+Jew," he said, "and all the south of Europe worship a Jew's mother." In
+spite of the fact that he was an Asiatic by nature, he despised what he
+called the pagan ceremonies of the ritualists, and distrusted what he
+felt to be the atheistic tendency of science.
+
+Shortly after his father's death, Mr. Disraeli had purchased with his
+paternal inheritance the manor of Hughenden, near Bradenham, in whose
+park his wife erected a monument to his father; and there, in the
+intervals of public business, he found quiet and enjoyment with his
+peacocks and swans and owls, his gardening, his tenantry. His books
+brought him in great sums of money; a friend, Mrs. Brydges Willyams, of
+Torquay, after twelve years of romantic intimacy with him and his wife,
+bequeathed him a fortune, and lies buried by the side of himself and
+Lady Beaconsfield at Hughenden. His circumstances were easy, his fame
+was assured, and when he went down to Parliament for the first time
+after he became Prime Minister, the crowds outside cheered him to the
+echo, the crowds within took up the acclaim, and the House that once had
+silenced him with derisive mockery, hailed with wild welcome this man
+who, without money, without birth, without support, had made himself, by
+force of will, courage, genius, loyalty, and truth, the ruler of the
+British Empire.
+
+While he was again in opposition Mr. Disraeli took occasion to write
+"Lothair," a precise portraiture of the British aristocracy and a clear
+presentation of its relation to the Church, the spirit of revolution,
+the intrigues of the ultramontanes, the simplicity of true religion;
+every page splendid with wit and with picturesque charm. During another
+period of enforced leisure he wrote "Endymion," in which there are some
+slight autobiographical features.
+
+Succeeded by Mr. Gladstone as prime minister, a half-dozen years later
+Disraeli was again at the helm. The Eastern question was then one of
+passionate interest; and when Russia was dictating terms of peace with
+the Ottoman, Mr. Disraeli insisted on their revision at a Conference of
+all the Powers, held at Berlin, which he attended in person, and where
+he obliged Russia to yield, and won a great diplomatic victory.[17] He
+returned to London, said Mr. Froude, "in a blaze of glory, bearing
+peace with honor." He was made Earl of Beaconsfield, and given the
+Garter; and before he went into retirement again, after the nation had
+revived its interest in imperialism, he had acquired the mastery of the
+Suez Canal, and he had annexed Cyprus, and, by giving the queen the
+additional title of Empress of India, this child of the Orient had made
+of Great Britain an Oriental empire. He had ruled the country for six
+consecutive years when he next went into retirement. He died shortly
+afterward, from the effect of a severe cold, aggravating an attack of
+gout, on April 19, 1881.
+
+         [Footnote 17: In the painting of the Berlin Conference by
+         Werner, Prince Gortschakoff is seated at the left with his hand
+         on Disraeli's arm. Prince Bismarck in the foreground is shaking
+         hands with Count Schuvaloff, while Count Andrassy stands beside
+         them. Lord Russell is seated a little farther to the right;
+         behind him on the other side of the table is Lord Salisbury.
+         The figure on the extreme right is Mehemet Ali.]
+
+In public or in private Disraeli never did a dishonorable action. He
+never attacked the weak or the defenceless, but singled out the proudest
+adversary. He never held malice. His impulses were always the most
+generous, his ideas and his purposes of the largest. He desired in all
+things the good of his country, and he sought it by what seemed to him,
+whether or not he was mistaken, the surest and loftiest ways.
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
+
+By JUSTIN MCCARTHY
+
+(Born 1809)
+
+[Illustration: Axes. [TN]]
+
+
+William Ewart Gladstone, statesman, orator, and author, was born in
+Rodney Street, Liverpool, on December 29, 1809. He is the fourth son of
+Sir John Gladstone (1764-1851), a well-known, and it might almost be
+said a famous, Liverpool merchant, who sat for some years in Parliament,
+and was a devoted friend and supporter of George Canning. Mr. Gladstone
+is of Scotch descent, on both sides, and has declared more than once in
+a public speech that the blood that runs in his veins is exclusively
+Scottish. He was educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford. He
+became a student at Oxford in 1829, and graduated as a double
+first-class, in 1831. He had distinguished himself greatly as a speaker
+in the Oxford Union Debating Society, and had before that time written
+much in the _Eton Miscellany_, which indeed he helped to found. He
+appears to have begun his career as a strong opponent of all advanced
+measures of political reform. In the Oxford Union he proposed a vote of
+censure on the government of Lord Grey for introducing the great Reform
+Bill which was carried in 1832, and on the Duke of Wellington, because
+of his having yielded to the claims for Catholic emancipation. He also
+opposed a motion in favor of immediate emancipation of the slaves in the
+West Indian islands. He soon became known as a young man of promise, who
+would be able to render good service to the Conservative party in the
+great struggle which seemed likely to be forced upon them--a struggle,
+as many thought, for their very existence. It was a time of intense
+political emotion. Passion and panic alike prevailed. The first great
+"leap in the dark" had been taken; the Reform Bill was carried, the
+sceptre of power had passed away from the aristocracy and the privileged
+ranks to the middle and lower middle classes. The Conservative party
+were looking eagerly out for young men of promise to stiffen their ranks
+in the new parliament, the first elected under the Reform Bill, the
+first which the middle class had their due share in creating; the first
+in which such cities as Manchester and Liverpool and Birmingham were
+allowed to have representation.
+
+Mr. Gladstone was invited to contest the burgh of Newark in the
+Conservative interest, and he had the support of the great Newcastle
+family. He stood for Newark, and he was elected. He delivered his maiden
+speech on a subject connected with the great movement for the
+emancipation of the West Indian slaves; but he seems to have confined
+himself mainly to a defence of the manner in which his father's estates
+were managed, the course of the debate having brought out some charge
+against the management of the elder Gladstone's possessions in one of
+the West Indian islands. The new orator appears to have made a decided
+impression on the House of Commons. His manner, his voice, his diction,
+his fluency were alike the subject of praise. Mr. Gladstone evidently
+continued to impress the House of Commons with a sense of his great
+parliamentary capacity. We get at this fact rather obliquely; for we do
+not hear of his creating any great sensation in debate; and to this day
+some very old members of the House insist that for a long time he was
+generally regarded as merely a fluent speaker, who talked like one
+reading from a book. But on the other hand, we find that he is described
+by Macaulay, in 1839, as "the rising hope" of the "stern and unbending
+Tories," and the whole tone of Macaulay's essay--a criticism of
+Gladstone's first serious attempt at authorship, his book on the
+relations between church and state--shows that the critic treats the
+author as a young man of undoubted mark and position in the House of
+Commons.
+
+[Illustration: Hawarden Castle, the home of Gladstone.]
+
+In December, 1834, Sir Robert Peel appointed Gladstone to the office of
+a Junior Lord of the Treasury. In the next year Peel, who was quick to
+appreciate the great abilities and the sound commercial knowledge of his
+new recruit, gave to him the more important post of Under-secretary for
+the Colonies. Gladstone looked up to Peel with intense admiration. There
+was much to draw the two men together. Knowledge of finance, thorough
+understanding and firm grasp of the principles on which a nation's
+business must be conducted--perhaps, it may be added, a common origin in
+the middle class--these points of resemblance might well have become
+points of attraction. But there were other and still higher sympathies
+to bring them close. The elder and the younger man were alike earnest,
+profoundly earnest; filled with conscience in every movement of their
+political and private lives; a good deal too earnest and serious,
+perhaps, for most of the parliamentary colleagues by whom they were
+surrounded. Mr. Gladstone always remained devoted to Peel, and knew him
+perhaps more thoroughly and intimately than any other man was privileged
+to do. Peel went out of office very soon after he had made Mr. Gladstone
+Under-secretary for the Colonies. Lord John Russell had brought forward
+a series of motions on the ominous subject of the Irish Church, and Peel
+was defeated and resigned. It is almost needless to say that Gladstone
+went with him. Peel came back again in office in 1841, on the fall of
+the Melbourne administration, and Mr. Gladstone became Vice-president of
+the Board of Trade and Master of the Mint, and was at the same time
+sworn in a member of the Privy Council. In 1843 he became President of
+the Board of Trade. Early in 1845 he resigned his office because he
+could not approve of the policy of the government with regard to the
+Maynooth grant.
+
+The great struggle on the question of the repeal of the Corn Laws was
+now coming on. It would be impossible that a man with Mr. Gladstone's
+turn of mind and early training could have continued a protectionist,
+when once he applied his intellect and his experience to a practical
+examination of the subject. Once again he went with his leader. Peel saw
+that there was nothing for it but to accept the principles of the Free
+Trade party, who had been bearing the fiery cross of their peaceful and
+noble agitation all through the country, and were gathering adherents
+wherever they went.
+
+It is a somewhat curious fact that Mr. Gladstone was not in the House of
+Commons during the eventful session when the great battle of free trade
+was fought and won. In thorough sympathy with Peel, he had joined the
+government again as Colonial Secretary. Knowing that he could no longer
+be in political sympathy with the Duke of Newcastle, whose influence had
+obtained for him the representation of Newark, he had given up his seat,
+and did not come into Parliament again until the struggle was over. At
+the general elections in 1847, Mr. Gladstone, still accepted as a Tory,
+was chosen one of the representatives for the University of Oxford.
+
+Up to the time of the abolition of the Corn Laws, or at least of the
+movement which led to their abolition, Mr. Gladstone had been a Tory of
+a rather old-fashioned school. The corn-law agitation probably first set
+him thinking over the possible defects of the social and legislative
+system, and showed him the necessity for reform at least in one
+direction. The interests of religion itself at one time seemed to him to
+be bound up with the principles of the Tory party; and no doubt there
+was a period of his career when the principle of protection would have
+seemed to him as sacred as any other part of the creed. With a mind like
+his, inquiry once started, must go on. There was always something
+impetuous in the workings of his intellect, as well as the rush of his
+sympathy. He startled Europe, and indeed the whole civilized world, by
+the terrible and only too truthful description which he gave, in 1851,
+of the condition of the prisons of Naples under the king who was known
+by the nickname of "Bomba," and the cruelties which were inflicted on
+political prisoners in particular. Again and again, in Mr. Gladstone's
+public life we shall see him carried away by the same generous and
+passionate emotion on behalf of the victims of despotic cruelty in any
+part of the world. Burke himself could not be more sympathetic, more
+earnest, or more strong.
+
+By the death of Sir Robert Peel, in 1850, Mr. Gladstone had lost a
+trusted leader, and a dear friend. But the loss of his leader had
+brought Gladstone himself more directly to the front. It was not till
+after Peel's death that he compelled the House of Commons and the
+country to recognize in him a supreme master of parliamentary debate.
+The first really great speech made by Mr. Gladstone in Parliament--the
+first speech which would fairly challenge comparison with any of the
+finest speeches of a past day--was made in the debate on Mr. Disraeli's
+budget in the winter of 1852, the first session of the new Parliament.
+Mr. Disraeli knew well that his government was doomed to fall. He knew
+that it could not survive that debate. It was always one of Mr.
+Disraeli's peculiarities that he could fight most brilliantly when he
+knew that his cause was already lost. That which would have disheartened
+and disarmed other men, seemed only to animate him with all Macbeth's
+wild courage of despair. Never did his gift of satire, of invective, and
+of epithet show to more splendid effect than in the speech with which he
+closed his part of the debate, and mercilessly assailed his opponents.
+Mr. Disraeli sat down at two o'clock in the morning, and then Mr.
+Gladstone rose to reply to him. Most men in the House, even on the
+opposition side, were filled with the belief that it would be impossible
+to make any real impression on the House after such a speech as that of
+Mr. Disraeli. Long before Mr. Gladstone had concluded, everyone admitted
+that the effect of Mr. Disraeli's speech had been outdone and outshone.
+From that hour Mr. Gladstone was recognized as one of the great historic
+orators of the English Parliament--a man to rank with Bolingbroke and
+Chatham and Pitt and Fox. With that speech began the long parliamentary
+duel between these two great masters of debate, Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
+Disraeli, which was carried on for four and twenty years.
+
+On the fall of the short-lived Tory administration, Lord Aberdeen came
+into office. He formed the famous Coalition Ministry. Lord Palmerston
+took what most people would have thought the uncongenial office of Home
+Secretary. Lord John Russell became Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Mr.
+Gladstone, who with others of the "Peelites," as they were called, had
+joined the new administration, was Chancellor of the Exchequer. His
+speech on the introduction of his first budget was waited for with great
+expectation, but it distanced all expectation. It occupied several hours
+in delivery, but none of those who listened to it would have wished it
+to be shortened by a sentence. It may be questioned whether even the
+younger Pitt, with all his magic of voice, and style, and phrase, could
+lend such charm to each successive budget as Mr. Gladstone was able to
+do. A budget speech from Mr. Gladstone came to be expected with the
+same kind of keen, artistic longing as waits the first performance of a
+new opera by some great composer. A budget speech by Mr. Gladstone was a
+triumph in the realm of the fine arts.
+
+The Crimean War broke up the Coalition Ministry; but the year 1859 saw
+Lord Palmerston back again in office, and Mr. Gladstone in his old place
+as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The budget of 1860 was remarkable, as it
+contained the provisions for the reduction of the wine duties and the
+whole simplified system of taxation intended to apply to the commercial
+treaty which Mr. Cobden had succeeded in persuading the Emperor of the
+French to accept. Mr. Gladstone also introduced a provision for the
+abolition of the duty on paper--a duty which was simply a tax upon
+reading, a tax upon popular education. The House of Lords struck out
+this clause; a somewhat impassioned popular agitation followed; and in
+the next session the Lords passed the measure for the repeal of the duty
+without offering any further opposition. The death of Lord Palmerston,
+in 1865, called Lord Russell to the position of prime-minister, and made
+Mr. Gladstone leader of the House of Commons. Mr. Gladstone's mind had
+long been turning in the direction of an extension, or rather expansion,
+of the suffrage. It was assumed by everyone that Lord Russell and Mr.
+Gladstone being now at the head of affairs, a reform bill would be sure
+to come. It did come; a very moderate and cautious bill, enlarging the
+area of the franchise in boroughs and counties. The Conservative party
+opposed it, and were supported in their opposition by a considerable
+section of the Liberals, who thought the measure was going too far on
+the road to universal suffrage and the rule of the democracy. The bill
+was defeated, and the Liberal statesman went out of office (1866). Mr.
+Gladstone had carried his point, however, for when Mr. Disraeli came
+into office he saw that a reform bill was inevitable, and he prepared
+his party, or most of them, for the course which would have to be taken.
+In the very next session Mr. Disraeli introduced a reform bill of his
+own, which was enlarged and expanded until it became practically a
+measure of household suffrage for cities and boroughs.
+
+Somewhere about this time the attention of Mr. Gladstone began to be
+attracted to the condition of Ireland. The distressed and distracted
+state of Ireland, the unceasing popular agitation and discontent, the
+Fenian insurrection, brought under England's very eyes by the schemes
+for an attack on Chester Castle--all these evidences of malady in
+Ireland's system led Mr. Gladstone to the conviction that the time had
+come when statesmanship must seek through Parliament for some process of
+remedy. Mr. Gladstone came after a while to the conclusion that the
+Protestant State Church in Ireland must be disestablished and
+disendowed, that the Irish land tenure system must be reformed, and that
+better provision must be made for the higher education of the Catholics
+of Ireland. He made short work with the Irish State Church. He defeated
+the government on a series of resolutions foreshadowing his policy; the
+government appealed to the country, the Liberals returned to power, and
+Mr. Gladstone became prime minister (1868). In his first session of
+government he disestablished and disendowed the State Church in Ireland.
+In the next session he passed a measure which for the first time
+recognized the right of the Irish tenant to the value of the
+improvements he had himself made at his own cost and labor. Never
+probably was there such a period of energetic reform in almost every
+direction as that which set in when Mr. Gladstone became prime-minister.
+For the first time in English history a system of national education was
+established. The Ballot Act was passed for the protection of voters. The
+system of purchase in the army was abolished by something, it must be
+owned, a little in the nature of a _coup-d'etat_. Then Mr. Gladstone
+introduced a measure to improve the condition of university education in
+Ireland. This bill was intended almost altogether for the benefit of
+Irish Catholics; but it did not go far enough to satisfy the demands of
+the Catholics, and in some of its provisions was declared incompatible
+with the principles of their Church. The Catholic members of the House
+of Commons voted against it, and with that help the Conservatives were
+able to throw out the bill (1873). Mr. Gladstone tendered his
+resignation of office. But Mr. Disraeli declined just then to take any
+responsibility, and Mr. Gladstone had to remain at the head of affairs.
+The great wave of reforming energy had, however, subsided in the
+country. The period of reaction had come. The by-elections began to tell
+against the Liberals. Mr. Gladstone suddenly dissolved Parliament and
+appealed to the country, and the answer to his appeal was the election
+of a Conservative majority. Mr. Disraeli came back to power, and Mr.
+Gladstone retired from the leadership of the House of Commons (1874).
+
+For a while Mr. Gladstone occupied himself in literary and historical
+studies, and he published essays and pamphlets. But even in his literary
+career Mr. Gladstone would appear to have always kept glancing at the
+House of Commons, as Charles V. in his monastery kept his eyes on the
+world of politics outside. The atrocious conduct of the Turkish
+officials in Bulgaria aroused his generous anger, and he flung down his
+books and rushed out from his study to preach a crusade against the
+Ottoman power in Europe. The waters rose and lifted him, whether he
+would or no, into power. The Parliament which had gone on from the
+spring of 1874 was dissolved in the spring of 1880, and the Liberals
+came in with an overwhelming majority. The period of reaction had gone,
+and the period of action was come again. Mr. Gladstone had to become
+prime-minister once more. His name was, to adopt the phraseology of
+continental politics, the only name that had come out of the voting
+urns.
+
+[Illustration: Gladstone's first home rule bill.]
+
+It was an unpropitious hour at which to return to office. There were
+troubles in Egypt; there was impending war in the Soudan and in South
+Africa. There was something very like an agrarian revolution going on in
+Ireland; and the Home Rule party in the House of Commons was under new,
+resolute, and uncompromising leadership. Mr. Gladstone succeeded,
+nevertheless, in carrying what might be called a vast scheme of
+parliamentary reform, a scheme which established something very near to
+universal suffrage, arranged the constituencies into proportionate
+divisions, extinguished several small boroughs, leaving their electors
+to vote in their county division, and in general completed the work
+begun in 1832, and carried further in 1867. It is to the credit of the
+Conservative party that after a while they co-operated cordially with
+Mr. Gladstone in his reforming work of 1885. This was a triumph for Mr.
+Gladstone of an entirely satisfactory character; but he had sore trials
+to counterbalance it. He found himself drawn into a series of wars in
+North and South Africa; and he, whose generous sympathy had of late been
+so much given to Ireland, and who had introduced and carried another
+land bill for Ireland, found that in endeavoring to pass the measures of
+coercion, which the authorities in Dublin Castle deemed advisable, he
+had to encounter the fiercest opposition from the Irish members of
+Parliament and the vast bulk of the Irish population. That time must
+have been, for a man of Mr. Gladstone's nature, a time of darkness and
+of pain. Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were assassinated in
+Dublin; General Gordon perished at Khartoum. In the end the Irish
+members coalesced with the Conservatives in a vote on a clause in the
+budget, and Mr. Gladstone's government was defeated. Lord Salisbury came
+back into office, but not just then into power. He was in a most
+precarious position, depending on the course which might be taken by the
+Irish members. He was out of office in a few months, and then the
+general elections came on. These elections were to give the first
+opportunity to the newly made voters under Mr. Gladstone's latest reform
+act; and these voters sent him back into office and apparently into
+power once again. The use Mr. Gladstone made of office and of power
+astonished his enemies, and startled and shocked not a few of his
+friends. His government had had, in the years between 1881 and 1884, to
+fight a fierce battle against the policy of obstruction organized by Mr.
+Parnell, the leader of the Home Rule party. The obstruction was
+organized to prevent or delay the passing of coercion measures, and to
+force the attention of the British public to the claims of Ireland. The
+struggles that were carried on will be always memorable in the history
+of Parliament. The fiercest passions were aroused on both sides, and at
+one time Ireland seemed to have come to regard Mr. Gladstone as her
+worst enemy. Many a statesman in his place might have allowed himself to
+be governed by a feeling of disappointment and resentment. But when the
+elections under the new and extended Reform Bill were held, and the
+Irish Nationalist party came back 87 members out of the whole Irish
+representation of 103, Mr. Gladstone made up his mind that the voice of
+the Irish people was in favor of Home Rule, and he resolved to stake
+power and popularity on an acceptance of their demand. In March, 1886,
+he brought in a measure to give a statutory Parliament to Ireland. A
+sudden and serious split took place in his party; some of his most
+influential colleagues declared against him; the bill was rejected on
+the second reading, and Mr. Gladstone appealed to the country, only to
+be defeated at the general elections.
+
+Opinion is still divided--may be divided forever--as to the wisdom of
+his policy; but no impartial man can deny him the credit of his
+sacrifice and the sincerity of his intentions. Then the Conservative
+party came back into office, and with the help of Liberals who had
+declined to follow Mr. Gladstone, came back with a powerful majority,
+Mr. Gladstone leading the opposition. At the general election of 1892,
+his party, including both sections of Irish Nationalists, secured a
+majority of above forty over the combined Conservatives and Liberal
+Unionists. Under his leadership a home-rule bill for Ireland was passed
+by the Commons in spite of the most bitter opposition. It was rejected
+almost unanimously by the House of Lords; and for a time it seemed
+probable that the Liberals would attack the very existence of that body.
+Perhaps this was Mr. Gladstone's intention for he introduced several
+popular radical bills. But time was beginning to tell upon the Grand Old
+Man; he was now eighty-four years old, and he felt himself unequal to
+the gigantic struggle. He resigned his offices and retired into private
+life in March, 1894.
+
+Mr. Gladstone will find his fame as a statesman and an orator. We have
+taken little account here of his contributions to literature; his
+Homeric studies, his various essays in political and literary, in
+ecclesiastical, and even theological, criticism. For another man these
+in themselves would have made a not inconsiderable reputation; but to
+the world they are interesting chiefly as illustrating a marvellous
+mental activity stretching itself out in every direction; unresting in
+the best sense of the word; incapable of settling down into even
+momentary idleness. "Repos ailleurs" seems to have been the motto of Mr.
+Gladstone's career--let rest come elsewhere--this is the world of
+activity and of labor. His work as a statesman has been almost unique;
+probably there is no other English minister who leaves behind him so
+long and so successful a record of practical legislation; and, as we
+have seen, some of the best legislation accomplished by his political
+opponents was initiated by him, was his own work taken out of his hands.
+As a parliamentary debater he never had a superior--it is doubtful
+whether he ever had an equal--in the whole of the political history of
+the British Empire. There have been, even in our time, orators who now
+and then shot their arrows higher; but so ready, so skilful, and so
+unerring an archer as he, taken all around, never drew bow on modern
+parliamentary battle-ground. Nature had given him an exquisite voice,
+sweet, powerful, easily penetrating, capable of filling without effort
+any public building however large, vibrating to every emotion. The
+incessant training of the House of Commons turned nature's gifts to
+their fullest account. He was almost too fluent; his eloquence sometimes
+carried him away on its impassioned tide; but his listeners were seldom
+inclined to find fault with this magnificent exuberance. We should be
+inclined to rank him as one of the greatest orators, and the very
+greatest debater, of the House of Commons.
+
+
+
+
+PRINCE VON BISMARCK[18]
+
+By PRINCE OUTISKY
+
+(1815-1898)
+
+         [Footnote 18: This sketch was written by Prince Outisky in
+         1885. The Emperor William I. died in March, 1888, and his son a
+         few months later. The views of the young Emperor William II.,
+         thus advanced to the throne, did not at all coincide with those
+         of Bismarck, and he retired into private life in 1890. Four
+         years later a somewhat ostentatious reconciliation took place
+         between him and the emperor; but Bismarck did not return to
+         power, his great age perhaps incapacitating him for active
+         work.
+
+         As regards his early life, he was born at Schoenhausen, April 1,
+         1815, educated at Goettingen, Berlin, and Griefswald, and at
+         first entered the army. He became a member of the General Diet
+         in 1847, was successively ambassador to Austria, Russia, and
+         France, and in 1862 became Minister of the King's House and
+         Foreign Affairs in Prussia. He was created a count in 1865; and
+         in 1871, having achieved his great aim in the coronation of his
+         king as Emperor of United Germany at Versailles, he became
+         Chancellor of the Empire and Prince von Bismarck-Schoenhausen.]
+
+[Illustration: Bismarck. [TN]]
+
+
+The "aureole of unpopularity" which encircled Bismarck's brow during
+four short years of inaugural premiership has, to all appearance,
+vanished under the influence of unbroken success, making room throughout
+the world for a confiding deference to his capacity and forethought,
+that every year seems to intensify. It is he, in the belief of most
+governments, who has preserved to them what never was more indispensable
+for their very existence--peace in Europe. With supreme adroitness, he
+avoids entanglements for himself and his country, bears many an affront
+patiently before retorting, keeps up the appearance of a good
+understanding after its substance has long passed away, but, when fairly
+engaged in diplomatic contention, lays out his field in a manner that
+insures success. People agree, therefore, that it is best to take him as
+he is. And it is in the nature of man when he has once accorded that
+favor to a fellow-creature, to "take him as he is," that he ends by
+liking him. Thus Bismarck, of all living men the most unlikely to
+succeed in the race after a world-wide popularity, is probably at this
+moment the best-liked man in either hemisphere.
+
+His own countrymen have shown a decided indisposition to admit him among
+their household gods. To them he was, from the commencement of his
+political career, the very embodiment of what had gradually become the
+most objectionable type of Teuton existence--the unmitigated squireen or
+Junker, with his poverty and arrogance, with his hunger and thirst
+after position and good living, with his hatred for the upstart liberal
+burgher class. "Away with the cities! I hope I may yet live to see them
+levelled to the ground." Is there not a ring of many centuries of social
+strife, so laboriously kept down by the reigning dynasty, in these
+stupendous words, which were pronounced by Bismarck in 1847, when among
+the leaders of the conservatives in the first embryo parliament of the
+Prussian monarchy? And if uncongenial to the generation of Prussians
+among whom he had grown up, how infinitely greater was the dislike
+against him of South Germans, more gifted, as a rule, by nature, to whom
+the name of Prussian is synonymous of all that is strait-laced and
+overweening and unnatural and--generally inconvenient.
+
+Little of that sentiment remains among the Germans of the present day.
+Such strangers as have had the opportunity of observing the attitude of
+the nation during the late celebration of his seventieth birthday, agree
+in declaring them to have been spontaneous, enthusiastic, and at times
+almost aggressive. Some tell us, to be sure, that the farther from
+Berlin the more gushing has been the ecstasy. The electors of Professor
+Virchow and of Herr Loewe, in whose electoral districts a torchlight
+procession on the eve of Bismarck's birthday had to elbow its way
+through immense crowds, must have kept at home. The municipality of
+Berlin, a model body of civic administrators, sent a birthday letter to
+their "honorary citizen," but abstained, with proper self-respect, from
+tendering their congratulations through a deputation. No Berlin citizen
+of any importance had a hand in the management of the procession. Yet,
+if thousands kept aloof, tens of thousands shared the national
+enthusiasm--students of universities chiefly, but older men too, even in
+distrustful, radical Berlin. And as for South Germany, where the gospel
+of protection seems, perhaps, to be more firmly believed in than any
+other, we read of trains to Berlin taken by storm, banquets,
+processions, chorus-singing--of real, heartfelt, rapturous
+effervescence.
+
+There cannot be a shadow of doubt that, to numberless non-Prussians at
+any rate, the new era of German unity has brought a symbol of greatness
+not before known, and that they worship in Bismarck the hero who has
+given them a country to love, who has delivered them from the pettiness
+and self-satisfaction of Philistinism.
+
+Now, if this be so--if, indeed, the countries of the world at large, and
+Germany in particular, acknowledge him almost affectionately as the
+leading statesman of the day, would it not be an interesting study to
+examine the degree of merit due to him personally, the character of the
+present administration, and what lasting good or lasting evil may be
+expected from this new phase of European politics? The subject, through
+its weight and its bulk alike, excludes full treatment within the limits
+of an essay. Nevertheless, since it intertwines itself with nearly every
+other question of moment, a few remarks by an outsider may be
+acceptable.
+
+[Illustration: Proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles.]
+
+None but the incorrigibly childish can be inclined to ascribe to good
+luck a prosperous career extending over near twenty-three years, spent
+under the fiercest glare of the world's sunshine. No minister of any
+age was more bitterly assailed or opposed, even at the court of which he
+is now the acknowledged major domus in the manner of the Pepins and
+other Thum-Meiers of the Frankish monarchy. The king's brother, Prince
+Charles, detested the innovator whose opinions on the necessity of
+Austria being removed from membership in a remodelled German
+confederation, had for years leaked out from the despatch-boxes of the
+Foreign Office. Even the Junkers, whose dauntless leader he had been
+before and after the revolutionary events of 1848, shrank instinctively
+from a man who could not be credited with veneration for the Holy
+Alliance. It is remembered in Berlin that, on the nomination of one of
+them, well at court, a diplomatist of some standing, to the post of
+under-secretary of state for foreign affairs, the new member of the
+government confessed to his friends that he accepted the post _in spite_
+of Bismarck's "foreign" policy, and only in consideration of his
+contempt for parliamentarism. The queen, on the other hand, brought up
+in principles of constitutional government, and strongly attached to the
+English alliance, viewed with horror the bold pugilist who was daily
+assailing, not the persons only of the people's representatives, but
+some of the very foundations of every parliamentary edifice. Yet fiercer
+was the animosity shown him on every occasion by the Princess Royal of
+England, whose father had early taught her that a throne, to be safe,
+requires absolute solidity of institutions and agreement with the
+people, and who seriously trembled for the preservation of her
+children's future. Her husband expressed himself forcibly on a public
+occasion against some reactionary measures of the government. As the
+court, so were the liberal parties, so the people in general. When a
+fanatic, of the name of Kohn, attempted Bismarck's life in May, 1866,
+there were few persons who did not regret his failure. It may be said
+with truth that, for years, two men only understood a portion at least
+of his political views, and shared them. One was King William. Isolated
+as Herr von Bismarck was, he learned to rely implicitly on his
+sovereign's faithfulness, and has had no reason to regret his trust; for
+the king, though greatly his inferior in intellect, and far from unblest
+with legitimist predilections, was as firmly convinced as his minister
+that the confederation of German states, and Prussia herself, might be
+swept away unless placed upon a new footing, in one of those tornadoes
+which used periodically to blow across the continent of Europe. Thus,
+the new departure was as much his own programme as Bismarck's, and
+although he started (in 1861) with a hankering after "moral" rather than
+material conquests, he gradually understood the necessity for war, and
+has of a certainty "taken kindly," as the saying is, to material
+conquests of no inconsiderable magnitude.
+
+None, even among Bismarck's modern sycophants, would pretend that their
+hero was the inventor of German unity. Passionately, though not
+over-wisely, had that ideal been striven after and suffered for by the
+best patriots in various parts of Fatherland, their vision becoming hazy
+just as often as they attempted to combine two opposite claims, that of
+a national texture, and that of a headship of Austria, which is
+non-German in a majority of its subjects, and alien in nearly all its
+interests. The Frankfort Parliament of 1848 marks the transition to a
+clear insight, inasmuch as its final performance, the constitution of
+1849, placed the new crown on the King of Prussia's head. When offered,
+it was haughtily declined under the applause of Bismarck and his
+friends. The king refused because its origin lay in a popular assembly;
+in Bismarck's eyes its chief defect was that Prussia would be dictated
+to by the minor states. It was not until later, in 1851, when appointed
+Prussian ambassador to the Germanic Diet, chiefly because of his defence
+of the Treaty of Olmuetz, which placed Prussia at the mercy of Austria,
+that he recognized the central point to be the necessity of thrusting
+Austria out of the confederation. It is proved now that he was sagacious
+enough also to perceive that such a wrench would not lead to a permanent
+estrangement, but that Austria, removed once and for all from her
+incubus-like and dog-in-the-manger position within the federate body,
+would become, in her own interest and that of European peace, New
+Germany's permanent ally.
+
+These, then, became the two purposes of his active life ever since the
+day when, at the age of thirty-six, he obtained a share of the
+responsibility in the management of affairs as ambassador in Frankfort;
+first, to transfer _Austria to a position in the East_, and then to
+bestow upon the Fatherland _political unity under Prussia, the royal
+prerogative in the latter remaining uncurtailed_, so far as
+circumstances would allow. Thirty-four years have now elapsed. His
+opponents, in his own country or out of it, are at liberty to reiterate
+that he was born under a lucky star; that he merely took up the thread
+of German unification where the Frankfort Parliament of 1849 had let it
+drop; that anybody could have utilized such mighty armaments as those of
+Prussia with the same effect; that, given total disregard of principle
+or moral obligations, the result, in the hands of any political
+gamester, must have been what it was. There is something to be set
+against each of these assertions. For it was not the goddess of Fortune
+which pursued Bismarck in the ungainly shape of his former friend, that
+spiteful Prince Gortschakoff. The Frankfort assembly had left the
+Austrian riddle unsolved, and apparently insoluble. There was no hand in
+the country firm or skilful enough, no brain sufficiently hard or
+enlightened as to the needs of the day--not the king's, not Count
+Arnim's, nor certainly that of any other known to his contemporaries.
+And finally, when a public man so deftly gauges the mental capacities or
+extent of power of his antagonists--such as Count Beust, or Napoleon, or
+Earl Russell--that he knows exactly how far he can step with safety;
+then such a "gamester," however terrible the risks to which he may have
+exposed his country, is a great man. Complete unity of aims throughout,
+power given to carry them out, a wonderful absence of very serious
+mistakes, and finally a life sufficiently prolonged to admit of
+retrospection; in each of these respects the career of Bismarck
+resembles that of Mr. Disraeli.
+
+The oft-told story of his diplomatic adventures at Frankfort, at Vienna,
+at Petersburg, and at Paris, and still more of his rulership in Prussia
+since 1862, and in Germany since 1866, has been uniform under two
+aspects. First, as already mentioned, in the stern continuity of his
+purposes. And secondly, in the mistaken view entertained regarding him
+at each successive period of his public life. Passing under review the
+whole career of this political phenomenon, you naturally pause before
+its strangest and its most humorous feature, viz., that, although living
+under the closest inspection, he was misunderstood year after year. Who
+would, consequently, deny the possibility at least, of Bismarck's being
+so misunderstood, by friend and foe, at this present moment?
+
+While those despatches were written by him from Frankfort which
+Poschinger's researches have now exhumed, their writer was thought, by
+his partisans just as much as by his enemies, to be occupied solely with
+strengthening the "solidarity of conservative interests" and the
+supremacy of Austria, or with spinning the rope of steel which was to
+strangle all parliaments in Germany. And yet we know positively at
+present that, with increasing vigor day by day, did he warn his
+government against the scarcely concealed intention of Austria to
+"_avilir la Prusse d'abord et puis l'aneantir_" (Prince Schwartzenberg's
+famous saying in 1851); we observe with surprise how quickly legitimist
+leanings disappear behind his own country's interests; we stand aghast
+at the iron sway obtained by so young a man over the self-conceit of a
+vacillating, yet dogmatic and wilful, king (Frederick William IV.). It
+was he whose advice, given in direct opposition to Bunsen's, led to the
+refusal by Prussia of the Western alliance during the Crimean war. But
+he did not give this advice, as German liberals then believed, out of
+subservience to the autocrat of the North, whose assistance his party
+humbly solicited in order to exterminate liberalism. He persistently
+gave it to thwart Austria and to preserve Prussia (then in no brilliant
+military condition) from having to bear the brunt of Muscovite wrath,
+which he cunningly judged to be of more lasting importance in the coming
+struggles than the friendship of Western Europe. At a time when European
+politicians considered that he was the mouthpiece of schemers for a
+Russo-French alliance in his repeated and successful endeavors to gain
+Napoleon's good-will, he was adroitly sounding the French emperor's mind
+and character. He soon convinced himself that it was shallow and
+fantastic, and he built upon this conviction one of the most hazardous
+designs which ever originated in a brain observant of realities--that
+identical design which eventually led Prussia, some years later, first
+to Schleswig and then to Sadowa, with the "arbiter of Europe," as
+Napoleon was then called, stolidly looking on! And what is one to say of
+the four years of parliamentary conflicts (1862 to 1866), during which
+no one doubted but that his object in life and his _raison d'etre_
+consisted in a reinstatement of the Prussian king on the absolute throne
+of his ancestors--a reaction from all that was progressive to the
+grossest abuses of despotism? All this time he was fighting a desperate
+battle against backstairs influences, which with true instinct were
+deprecating and counteracting his schemes of aggrandizement and national
+reorganization. It is clear, on looking back to that period which has
+left such indelible marks on the judgment of many well-meaning liberals,
+that his exaggerated tone of aggressive defence in the Prussian Landtag,
+the furious onslaught of his harangues, were intended to silence the
+tongues at court which denounced him as a demagogue and a radical.
+Paradoxical as it may sound, one may safely assert that nothing more
+effectually helped King William in his later foreign policy, than the
+opinion pervading all Europe in 1864 and 1866, that, having lost all
+hold upon the minds of his people, weakened and crippled in every sense
+of the word by Bismarckian folly, his Majesty could never strike a blow.
+
+There was peace and concord in Germany between 1866 and 1877. Without
+becoming a liberal, and while opposing every attempt to outstep certain
+limits, Bismarck created and rather enjoyed an alliance with the
+majority formed in his favor by the national liberals and a moderate
+section of the conservatives. The German Empire, proclaimed by the
+German sovereigns at Versailles in January, 1871, was of his creation;
+and while established upon somewhat novel principles of federation by a
+parliamentary statute, it looked to outsiders like a home for progress
+and liberty. There were dangers lurking, it is true, beneath many a
+provision of the new constitution, such as the absence of an upper
+house, and the substitution in its stead of delegates from the separate
+governments, acting in each case according to instructions received,
+authorized to speak whenever they chose before the Reichstag, but
+deliberating separately and secretly both upon bills to propose, and
+upon replies to give to resolutions of the Reichstag. In fact, this
+Bundesrath, or federal council, represents the governing element under
+the emperor, with functions both administrative and legislative. By an
+artificial method of counting, Prussia, although she would command
+three-fifths of all the voters by virtue of her population, has less
+than one-third. Thus the possibility of an imbroglio between the
+governments is ever present, as well as that of a hasty vote in the
+popular assembly.
+
+[Illustration: Bismarck before Paris.]
+
+It will never, probably, be quite understood why Prince Bismarck broke
+loose from a political alliance which, it would seem, had given no
+trouble whatever. In foreign affairs the house, in its immense majority,
+abstained from even the faintest attempt at interference. As for
+patronage, it has been said that no appointment was ever solicited for
+anyone by a member of the liberal party. From ministerial down to menial
+posts no claim was raised, no request preferred. If the section of
+moderate conservatives above mentioned has furnished a few ambassadors
+like Prince Hohenlohe, Count Muenster, Baron Keudell, and Count Stolberg,
+that was by the chief's free will. Why, then, it has been asked, a
+change so absolute as the one the world has witnessed, from the saying
+of the chancellor in 1877, that his ideal was to have high financial
+duties on half a dozen objects and free trade on all others, to one of
+the most comprehensive tariffs in the world two years later? His own and
+his friends' explanations are lamentably deficient--"growing anaemia and
+impoverishment of the country," "drowning of native industry by foreign
+manufacturers," "corn imported cheaper than produced," and what not. The
+present writer, looking from afar, has always thought two motives to
+have been paramount in the chancellor's mind when he separated from the
+liberals and became, not a convinced, but a thorough-going
+protectionist. It is not said that these were his only motives.
+Chess-players know that each important move affects not only the
+figures primarily attacked, but changes the whole texture of the play.
+
+First, then, and foremost, fresh sources of income were wanted to make
+the finances of the empire independent from the several exchequers of
+the states bound by statute to make up for any deficiency _pro rata
+parte_ of their population. Two or three objects would have provided the
+needful, viz., spirits and beetroot sugar, and (with due caution)
+tobacco; or an "imperial" income tax, changing according to each year's
+necessities; or both systems combined. Tobacco, it is true, was tried,
+and the attempt failed. Spirits would bear almost any taxation, but the
+chancellor does not choose to tread upon the tender toe of the great
+owners of land who are potato-growers, and consequently distillers on a
+large scale. And another important class of agriculturists, the beetroot
+growers and sugar-producers, were not to be trifled with either. But how
+about direct taxation, the manly sacrifice of free peoples, the plummet
+by which to sound the enlightenment of a nation? The chancellor
+instinctively felt, I believe, that there he would be going beyond his
+depth; that under such a _regime_ the free will of citizens must have
+the fullest swing; the "prerogative" would suffer, if not immediately,
+yet as a necessary sequence. And so he deliberately abandoned free trade
+and espoused indirect taxation and protection.
+
+Success, let free traders say what they please on the subject, success
+has accompanied Bismarck's genius on this novel field, as well as on the
+older fields where all mankind acknowledges his superiority. For the
+coffers of the empire are filling. A motley majority in the Reichstag
+not only accepts, but improves upon his protectionist demands. He has
+become the demigod of the bloated manufacturing, mining, and landlord
+interests throughout the country. He is now about to win the last of the
+great industries, and the one which withstood his blandishments the
+longest, viz., the trans-oceanic carrying trade. He is credited with
+having improved the state of certain trades, even by such as know
+perfectly well that, like the former depression, the present improvement
+in those has been universal. The whole country is becoming
+protectionist. All young men, even in Hamburg and Bremen, believe in
+protection as "the thing." The Prussian landlord, whose soul was steeped
+in free trade so long as Prussia was a grain-exporting country,
+cherishes protectionist convictions now that she must largely import
+cereals. The bureaucrat who had never sworn by other economic lawgivers
+than Adam Smith and his followers, now accepts Professor Adolphus
+Wagner's ever-changing sophisms. And as for the south and the west of
+Germany, why, they adore the man who had fulfilled that dream of
+protection in which they, as disciples of Friedrich List, had grown up.
+It is true that all large cities, even there, are protesting against the
+lately imposed and quite lately increased duties upon cereals; but then,
+"can any good thing come out of" large cities? Compared to the
+difficulties that impede the action of the free trade party in Germany,
+Mr. Bright's and Mr. Cobden's up-hill work sinks into insignificance.
+
+Nothing, to a beginner in the study of Bismarck's character, would
+appear so utterly puzzling as his demeanor toward the communists,
+socialists, or, as they call themselves in Germany, Social Democrats.
+One of his most trusted secretaries is an old ally and correspondent of
+Herr Karl Marx, the high-priest of communism, who, toward the end of his
+London career, rode the whirlwind and directed the storm of German
+socialism. Bismarck himself confesses to having received in private
+audience Lassalle, one certainly of the most capable men of modern
+Germany, and to whom as its first author, a retrospective inquiry would
+trace back the present formidable, closely ruled organization of
+socialist operatives of Germany. The first minister of the Prussian
+crown was closeted once--people say more than once, but that does not
+matter--with the ablest subverter of the modern fabric of society. He
+found him "mighty pleasant to talk to." He liked his predilection for a
+powerful supreme authority overawing the organized masses, though
+"whether he did so in the interest of a dynasty of Lassalles or of
+Hohenzollern's" seemed to Herr von Bismarck an open question. After
+Lassalle's tragical death in 1864, we observe how the Prussian
+government, while watching with Argus-eyes every excess of speech among
+liberals, allowed his first successors, Schweizer and others, a vulgar
+set of demagogues, such license of bloody harangue as has of late years
+got Louise Michel into trouble in republican France. Then we hear of
+nothing as between Bismarck and the socialists for some years--the years
+I have described above as years of peace and concord in Germany--till
+suddenly, on the occasion of two attempts made in 1878, by Hoedel and by
+Nobiling against the emperor's life, he came down upon that sect as with
+a sledge-hammer. His famous anti-socialist bill was at first rejected.
+It passed into law only after a dissolution, the electors having in
+their affectionate pity for the wounded emperor unequivocally given
+their verdict in favor of suppression. It has since been reaccepted
+three times by an unwilling house, and with exertions of the same man
+who had fostered and protected the beginnings of socialism, and who had
+the watchword given out at the last general elections in 1884, that "His
+Serene Highness the Chancellor would prefer the sight of ten
+Social-Democrats to that of one Liberal (Deutsch-Freisinige.)"
+
+Now, what is the clew to this comedy of errors? No mere waywardness or
+perversity of character, but some powerful bias and a first-cousinship
+in principle must account for one of the strangest anomalies in modern
+history. Perhaps the following consideration will render both the "bias"
+and the "first-cousinship" at least intelligible. Prince Bismarck is a
+good hater. Now, if he has any one antipathy stronger than another, and
+that through life, it is that against the burgher class, the reverse of
+aristocrats, the born liberals, townsmen mostly yet not exclusively--the
+"bourgeois," as the French call them (although, if I err not, the exact
+counterpart to the "bourgeois" species is not found on German soil), a
+law-abiding set, independent of government, paying their taxes, and
+thoroughly happy. When they, through their representatives, bade him
+defiance in 1862 to 1865, and thwarted his measures of coercion, his
+inmost soul cried, _Acheronta movebo!_ He sent for Lassalle, he paid his
+successors' debts, and generally assisted the sect. So much for the
+"bias." And now for the "first-cousinship." No student of history will
+deny that despotism, whenever it has arisen, or been preserved in highly
+civilized communities, will extend more of a fatherly care to the masses
+than liberalism. This cannot be otherwise; for liberalism sets itself to
+educate the masses to self-responsibility, and each individual to thrift
+and self-reliance. The sight of an able-bodied beggar is, to a genuine
+liberal, a source of anger first, and only on further contemplation, of
+pity. He will exert all his energies to remove every obstacle from out
+of the way of his poorer brethren; he will preach wise economy, and
+facilitate it by personal sacrifices and legislative inducements; but he
+will not tempt the government of his country to act as a second
+providence for the operative classes. Quite the reverse is Bismarck's
+opinion. According to him, the state should exercise "practical
+Christianity." With Titanic resolution to drive out Satan through
+Beelzebub, he does not shrink from acknowledging and proclaiming the
+"right of labor." There is probably nothing left to say after your lips
+have spoken these unholy, blood-stained words. If there was, he would be
+the man to say it rather than allow himself to be outbid by mob-leaders
+of the socialistic feather. _Droit au travail_, forsooth! The phrase has
+cost thousands their lives in the Parisian carnage of June, 1848. In the
+mouth of Karl Marx and other outspoken champions of his cause, it means
+absorption by the state of all the _sources_ of labor, such as land and
+factories, because by such absorption only can the state insure work for
+the unemployed. In the mouth of Bismarck it means a lesser thing, of
+course, in extent, but not in its essence. As chief minister of Prussia
+he has ably brought about the purchase of nearly all lines of railway
+within that monarchy. As chancellor of the empire he has tried his very
+best to obtain a monopoly on tobacco. All accident insurance companies
+have already been ruined and their place taken, so far as accidents to
+factory-hands, etc., are concerned, by an imperial office. His mighty
+hand is stretched out already to suppress and absorb all other
+insurances. The kingdom of the Incas, in ancient Peru, as described in
+Prescott's volumes, has probably not done more work for its subjects
+than Bismarck's ideal of a German empire would do for its inhabitants.
+With every species of occupation or enterprise managed directly by
+government, why should the ruler of an empire, or of a socialist
+republic, hesitate about proclaiming a right to labor? A critic might
+object that its proclamation by Bismarck, in 1884, was premature,
+inasmuch as he had failed in carrying his Monopoly bill, and could not
+be certain of success regarding other state encroachments. Granted. But
+a "first-cousinship" between his views on social reform and those of
+Messrs. Bebel and Liebknecht, is an actuality of modern Germany, and
+should be seen to by those who desire this central power of Europe to
+remain exempt from a social revolution. Cursory as this review of
+Bismarck's past life and present policy has of necessity been, some
+indulgent reader may perhaps bestow upon me--besides his thanks for
+having withstood the temptation to quote the pithy, and at times
+impassioned, utterances of the wittiest man in power of the present
+day--just enough of his confidence to believe that I have suppressed no
+trait of importance.
+
+However, since there is one thing more important still than a great man,
+namely his country, let us not dismiss the interesting subject of this
+retrospect without inquiring what that country has gained and what lost
+through his agency. Germany possesses a federation, not constructed
+after any existing pattern, not made to please any theory, not the
+object of anybody's very passionate admiration, but accepted in order to
+alter as little as possible the accustomed territorial and political
+arrangements. In one sense it has no army, for the Prussian and the
+Bavarian armies, although the empire bears the cost, still exist. In one
+sense it possesses not the indirect taxation, for the individual states
+do the collecting of custom-house duties, etc. In one sense it has
+scarcely any organ of administration, for the whole internal government,
+the schools, courts of law, and police, all belong to the single states;
+and foreign affairs, the navy, the post-office, and railways in Alsace,
+are the only fields of imperial direct administration. Yet, what it has
+is valuable enough. The empire rules the army and can legislate over and
+control a prodigious amount of national subjects. Its foreign policy is
+one. The military command is one. Certain specified sources of revenue
+are the empire's. Patriotic aspirations are fulfilled. The individual
+sovereigns in Germany possess a guarantee of their status, the operative
+classes an opportunity for organization and improvement on a large
+scale. Monarchical feeling has gained in depth, both generally and with
+personal reference to the emperor and to the crown prince, both
+"representative men" in the best sense of the word, and the crown
+prince, the most lovable man of his day.
+
+Another salutary constitutional reform--not of Bismarck's making, for he
+gave his consent unwillingly and not without first having marred its
+beauty, but yet an effect of his great deeds--is the Prussian "Kreis"
+and "Provinzial-Ordnung," first introduced in 1874. No more logical
+deduction was possible than this commencement of decentralization within
+the Prussian monarchy. Before that date provincial diets had existed for
+fifty years, and a kind of assembly had also managed certain affairs for
+the Kreis, an administrative unit smaller than an English county, and
+averaging about one hundred thousand inhabitants. In the same proportion
+as German unity made progress, it was believed that self-government
+ought to become more extensively introduced, and the "tendency of the
+blood toward the head" or capital, be obviated. The example of home rule
+presented by the "Kreis" and the provinces of Prussia since this reform,
+is not assuredly of a nature to frighten weak nerves. But much money is
+now usefully spent within and by the provinces independently of any
+decree from a central authority; and as regards willingness to work on
+provincial and (so to say) county boards, it is said to be beyond all
+praise. An English public man of high standing assured me, some years
+ago, that these Prussian beginnings of home rule had attracted the
+serious notice of Mr. Gladstone. I do not wonder at it.
+
+Another permanent good for which Germany seems indebted to Bismarck, and
+the last I will mention, is of quite modern date--I mean his colonial
+policy. Individual Germans have, at all times and in immense numbers,
+found their way across the sea. On the Baltic and North Sea coast,
+German ports, though few in number, yet command a very large trade.
+Next to the English, German traders form the most numerous community in
+every place, however remote, where business of any kind can be
+transacted. But to convert the inland Philistines--that vast majority of
+Germans who have never sniffed sea-air--into enthusiasts for a colonial
+empire required all Bismarck's ability and prestige. No doubt he
+descried in the movement a chance for a diversion of the public mind
+from obnoxious topics. It was useful to him to produce an impression as
+if the export trade, stagnating as it must under the baneful effects of
+modern protection, could rally under the influence of colonial
+enterprise. These considerations would not, however, suffice to explain
+his long-considered, cautious proceedings in this matter. To comprehend
+his motives fully, it will be necessary to admit that his prescient mind
+would consider the time, apparently not very far distant, when what are
+now styled Great Powers will be dwindling fast by the side of such
+gigantic empires as seem intent upon dividing the earth's surface
+between them, like England with her colonial possessions, and Russia.
+The effect upon this country, its foreign policy, and the very character
+of its inhabitants, would be alike cramping, unless a way for expansion
+was opened for each. When the political schemes of a considerable man
+are subjects of speculation, it is wiser to guess at something exalted
+if you wish to come near the truth. So probably in this case. No doubt
+he, too, has foreseen the reaction which, at no very remote period of
+German history, will gain a mastery over people's minds, when failures
+and disappointments begin to crowd around each of the present equatorial
+enterprises. But he believes in his countrymen's capacity to overcome
+failure and disappointment without recourse to costly warlike
+expeditions, for which Germany is unfitted by her institution of
+universal and short military service.
+
+
+
+
+CHARLES STEWART PARNELL
+
+By THOMAS DAVIDSON
+
+(1846-1891)
+
+
+Charles Stewart Parnell, the Irish politician, was born at Avondale, in
+County Wicklow, June 28, 1846. His father belonged to an old Cheshire
+family, which purchased an estate in Ireland under Charles II., and from
+which had sprung Thomas Parnell, the poet, and Sir Henry Brooke Parnell,
+created Baron Congleton in 1841. His great-grandfather was that Sir John
+Parnell who was long Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, and an active
+supporter of Grattan in his struggle against the Union; his grandfather,
+William Parnell, sat for County Wicklow, and published in 1819 a foolish
+political novel, anything but Irish in sentiment; his mother, Delia
+Tudor Stewart, was daughter of Admiral Charles Stewart, of the United
+States Navy. He was educated at Yeovil and elsewhere in England under
+private masters, and was for some time a member of Magdalene College,
+Cambridge, but took no degree. In 1874 he became High Sheriff of County
+Wicklow; next year he contested County Dublin without success, but in
+April, 1875, was returned as an avowed Home Ruler for County Meath.
+
+He attached himself to Joseph Biggar, the member for Cavan, who was the
+first to discover the value of deliberate obstruction in parliamentary
+tactics, and during 1877 and 1878 he gained great popularity in Ireland
+by his audacity in the use of the new engine. There were many scenes of
+violence and excitement, and the new horror of all-night sittings became
+familiar to the House of Commons. Throughout the struggle Parnell showed
+equal audacity and coolness, and acquired a masterly knowledge of
+parliamentary forms. Mr. Butt, the Irish leader, disapproved of this
+development of the _active_ or obstructive policy, but his influence
+quickly gave way before Parnell's, and in May, 1879, he died. The year
+before, Parnell had been elected president of the English Home Rule
+Association. He now threw himself with energy into agrarian agitation,
+gave it its watchword: "Keep a firm grip of your homesteads," at
+Westport in June, and in October was elected president of the Irish
+National Land League, which had been founded by Michael Davitt.
+
+Mr. Parnell next visited the United States to raise funds for the cause,
+was allowed, like Lafayette and Kossuth, to address Congress itself, and
+carried home L70,000. At the general election of 1880 he was returned
+for the counties of Meath and Mayo and for the city of Cork, and chose
+to sit for the last. He was now formally elected chairman of the Irish
+parliamentary party by twenty-three votes over eighteen for Mr. Shaw.
+Meantime the agrarian agitation grew, and in a speech at Ennis,
+September 19, 1880, he formulated the method of boycotting as an engine
+for punishing an unpopular individual. Mr. Gladstone's government now
+came to the conclusion that the objects of the Land League were contrary
+to the law, and in December put Parnell and several other members of the
+executive on trial, but the jury finally failed to agree. Next session
+the government brought in a Coercion Bill, which Mr. Parnell opposed
+vigorously. In the course of the struggle he was ejected from the House,
+after a stormy scene, together with thirty-four of his followers,
+February 3, 1881. Mr. Gladstone next carried his famous Land Bill, but
+this Parnell refused to accept as a final settlement until the result of
+certain test cases before the new Land Court was seen. On October 13th,
+Mr. Gladstone sent him to Kilmainham Jail, and there he lay till
+released on May 2, 1882, after some private negotiations with the
+government conducted through the medium of Captain O'Shea. Mr. Forster
+resigned the Irish secretaryship in consequence of the release, and next
+followed the terrible tragedy of Phoenix Park, of which Parnell, in his
+place in the House of Commons, expressed his detestation.
+
+[Illustration: Parnell testifying against the "Times."]
+
+The Crimes Act was now hurried through Parliament in spite of the
+strenuous opposition of the Irish party. Already the Land League had
+been proclaimed as an illegal association after the issue of the "No
+Rent" manifesto, but early in 1884 the Nationalists succeeded in
+reviving it under the name of the National League, and Mr. Parnell was
+elected its president. The year before the sum of L35,000, mostly raised
+in America, had been presented to him by his admirers. After an
+unsuccessful attempt to make terms with the Conservatives, in the course
+of which he had a famous interview with Lord Carnarvon, the viceroy,
+Parnell flung his vote--now eighty-six strong since the lowering of the
+franchise--into the Liberal scale and so brought about the fall of the
+short-lived first Salisbury government. Mr. Parnell nominated the
+greater number of Nationalist candidates for the Irish constituencies,
+and the firm hand with which he controlled his party was seen in the
+promptitude with which he crushed a revolt of Healy and Biggar against
+his nomination of Captain O'Shea for Galway.
+
+Mr. Gladstone's views on the question of Home Rule had by this time
+undergone a complete change, and accordingly he introduced a Home Rule
+Bill which was defeated owing to the defection of a large number of
+Liberal members headed by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The
+consequent appeal to the country (July, 1886) gave Lord Salisbury a
+Unionist majority of over a hundred votes, and threw Parnell into a
+close alliance with Mr. Gladstone and the portion of the Liberal party
+that adhered to him. It was at this period that the _Times_ newspaper
+published its series of articles entitled "Parnellism and Crime"--a
+tremendous indictment against the chief Nationalist leaders, the most
+startling point in which was a series of letters published in
+fac-simile, one, signed by Parnell, expressing approval of Mr. Burke's
+murder. After an elaborate trial (extending to one hundred and
+twenty-eight days), the most sensational event in which was the
+breakdown under cross-examination, and the flight and suicide at Madrid,
+of Pigott, the wretched Irishman who had imposed upon the _Times_ with
+forgeries, Mr. Parnell was formally cleared of the charge of having been
+personally guilty of organizing outrages, but his party were declared to
+have been guilty of incitements to intimidation, out of which had grown
+crimes which they had failed to denounce. Parnell now began an action
+against the _Times_, which was quickly compromised by a payment of
+L5,000.
+
+The "uncrowned king" of Ireland had now reached the summit of his
+power--the height of the wave was marked by the presentation of the
+freedom of Edinburgh, July 30, 1889, and the banquet given him on his
+forty-fourth birthday. But his fall in public esteem was quickly to
+follow. A few months later his frequent mysterious absences from his
+parliamentary duties were explained by his appearance, or rather his
+non-appearance, as co-respondent in a divorce case brought by Captain
+O'Shea against his wife. After formal evidence was given by the
+petitioner, the usual decree was granted with costs against Parnell
+(November 17, 1890).
+
+The Gladstonian party in England now demanded his retirement from the
+leadership of the cause, and Mr. Gladstone informed the Irish members
+that they must make their choice between Parnell and himself. They met
+and reappointed him their chairman, expecting, as the majority explained
+later, that after this recognition of his past services he would
+voluntarily retire, at least for a time. But they had not calculated
+upon the characteristic obstinacy of his nature, and quickly found that
+their leader had no mind to efface himself. After some days of
+profitless and heated wrangling, the majority ended the discussion by
+leaving the room and electing Justin McCarthy as their chairman.
+Parnell, with the shattered remnants of his party, now carried the
+warfare into Ireland, where his condemnation by the Irish bishops and
+the emphatic defeat of his nominees for North Kilkenny and North Sligo
+showed that a large number of his fellow-countrymen shared the judgment
+of his conduct pronounced by Mr. Gladstone and the party in England. The
+career of the man who had forced the issue of Irish Home Rule upon the
+English people, and made it the great question of the day, was drawing
+rapidly to its close. He died October 6, 1891.
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM McKINLEY
+
+By ROSSITER JOHNSON
+
+(1843-1901)
+
+[Illustration: William McKinley. From a copyrighted photograph by
+Courtney, Canton, O.]
+
+
+With all the opportunities that our great Republic offers to native
+ability and energy for attaining the highest civic prizes without
+extraneous assistance or arbitrary distinction, we have produced no more
+perfect example of a happy result than the career of William McKinley.
+European critics who are unwilling to see anything good in democracy are
+fond of repeating certain disparaging assertions concerning American
+life, activities, and government. They represent us as virtually a
+plutocracy; but Mr. McKinley never was rich, and never was under the
+slightest suspicion of using his great office to acquire wealth. They
+say we are rude and vulgar; but Mr. McKinley was as courteous and as
+gentle as the most fastidious could wish. They say we are ignorant of
+all but the most sordid affairs; but he was thoroughly educated, and
+probably there are not half a dozen statesmen in Europe who know as much
+of his country as he knew of theirs. They point with a sneer at the
+divorce laws of some of our States, and infer therefrom the direst
+things with regard to our domestic life; but Mr. McKinley's devotion to
+his wife and his home was known and admired of all. Moreover, there is
+not a sovereign in Europe, though some of them command vast armies, that
+ever has been within reach of an enemy's guns; but William McKinley
+carried a musket in the great Civil War, won promotion by merit, and
+participated in hotter battles than Europe has seen since Waterloo.
+
+This man came of Scottish ancestry, the earliest records of the family
+dating from 1547. The crest of the clan was a mailed hand holding an
+olive branch, and the motto was "Not too much." William (father of the
+President) was born in Mercer County, Penn., in 1807, and two years
+later the family removed to Columbiana County, O., where in 1829 he
+married Nancy Campbell. Nine children were born of this union, of whom
+William, Jr., was the seventh.
+
+The future President was born in Niles, Trumbull County, O., January 29,
+1843. His grandfather and his father were iron manufacturers. His father
+was a Whig and a Protectionist. The family were Methodists.
+
+William McKinley, Jr., was sent to the public school in Niles till 1852,
+when his father removed to Poland, where he studied at the seminary. He
+is said to have excelled in mathematics and languages, but was specially
+noted for his activity and ability in the debating club. Here he was
+prepared for college, and in 1860 he entered the junior class at
+Meadville, Penn. But the boy had worked too hard and steadily, and in a
+little while he was obliged to give up his studies and seek a change. He
+taught for a time in a public school, and then became a clerk in the
+Poland post-office. And here came the turning-point in his life.
+
+The irrepressible conflict, foretold by our poets and dreaded by our
+statesmen, broke out in the spring of 1861. The great Civil War, which
+lasted four years and cost four hundred lives for every day of its
+duration, appealed to the young manhood of the country as nothing else
+ever had; and while it sent many to the grave, and changed all the
+scheme of life for others, it opened for still others such careers as
+without it would have been impossible.
+
+William McKinley, Jr., then eighteen years of age, was one of the first
+in his town to enlist for the defence of the Republic. He became a
+private in the Twenty-third Ohio infantry, and in this he was
+exceedingly fortunate, as it was one of the best regiments in the
+service and numbered among its officers several who became famous.
+William S. Rosecrans was the Colonel, Stanley Matthews the
+Lieutenant-Colonel, and Rutherford B. Hayes the Major. In the four years
+of its service that regiment mustered, first and last, 2,095 men; it
+marched hundreds of miles, and was in nineteen battles, and 169 of its
+men were killed.
+
+Young McKinley was one of the model soldiers of the regiment. General
+Hayes said: "We soon found that in business and executive ability he was
+of unusual and surpassing capacity for a boy of his age. When battles
+were to be fought, or a service was to be performed in warlike things,
+he always took his place." McKinley said in after years that he looked
+back with pleasure upon the fourteen months that he carried a musket in
+the ranks, for they taught him many things. The regiment was sent into
+West Virginia, and its first engagement was at Carnifex Ferry. In the
+summer of 1862 it was ordered to Washington, and a few days after its
+arrival it joined the Army of the Potomac, which was then moving
+northward to head off the Army of Northern Virginia, which was bent upon
+an invasion of the Northern States. The crash of arms came at South
+Mountain (September 14th) and Antietam (September 17th). At South
+Mountain the regiment made three successful charges, and lost heavily.
+Antietam was the bloodiest day of the war, more than 2,000 men on each
+side were killed on the field, and the Twenty-third Ohio was in the
+hottest of the fight, holding its position from morning till evening
+unrelieved. Private McKinley, meanwhile, had been made Commissary
+Sergeant, and his place was with the supplies in the rear. He pressed a
+few stragglers into his service and got ready a dinner for the regiment,
+with hot coffee, and loaded it into two wagons. With these he drove upon
+the field, under fire. The enemy's shot struck down the mules of one
+wagon, but with the other he reached his comrades on the firing-line,
+who gave a great shout of welcome when they saw him. He walked along the
+line, and fed every man with his own hand. There is no record that such
+a thing ever was done before or since. For this service he was made a
+second lieutenant, and in the following February he was promoted to
+first lieutenant. The regiment was a part of the force that headed off
+Morgan in his raid into Ohio, fought him at Buffington's Ford, and
+finally captured him. After that it took part in a series of battles in
+the mountains and in the Shenandoah Valley. At Cloyd's Mountain, after a
+wonderful march through ravines and dense woods, they burst into the
+enemy's camp, McKinley leading his company, which was the first to leap
+over the fortifications and silence the guns.
+
+At Winchester, in July, 1864, General Crook's army of 6,000 men was
+attacked by Early's of 20,000 and compelled to retreat. A West Virginia
+regiment failed to fall back with the rest, and Lieutenant McKinley was
+ordered to bring it off. Major Hastings says: "None of us expected to
+see him again as we watched him push his horse through the open fields.
+Once he was completely enveloped in the smoke of an exploding shell." He
+brought off the regiment and led it to its place in the marching column.
+And a little later he found opportunity to perform another peculiar
+service. As they continued their retreat down the valley, they came upon
+four guns, with caissons, that had been abandoned. Lieutenant McKinley
+asked for permission to bring them off, and received it, though his
+superior officers would not order the tired men to undertake the task.
+"I think the Twenty-third will do it," said the young lieutenant, and
+when he called for volunteers every man in his company came forward and
+the guns were saved. The next day he was promoted to captain.
+
+He again distinguished himself in the battles of Berryville, Fisher's
+Hill, and Opequan. He was now on General Crook's staff, and at the
+bloody battle of the Opequan occurred an incident that showed the young
+officer capable of becoming a successful commander. He was sent with an
+order to General Duval to move his brigade to a position on the right of
+the Sixth Corps. The General asked, "By what route?" and the Captain
+suggested, "I would move up this creek." The General, ignorant of the
+ground, refused to move without definite orders. "Then," said McKinley,
+who knew that there was urgent need of the movement, "by command of
+General Crook, I order you to move your command up this ravine to a
+position on the right of the army." The movement was made at once, and
+proved successful. McKinley was also in the fierce fight at Cedar Creek,
+and afterward served on Hancock's staff. In March, 1865, he received
+from President Lincoln a commission as Major by brevet for gallant
+services.
+
+With so much of manly character developed at the age of twenty-two, and
+so much experience in the greatest conflict of modern times, he turned
+to the study of law--first in an office, and then in the Albany Law
+School--and was admitted to the Bar in 1867. He settled in Canton, which
+was thenceforth his home, and there in 1871 he married Miss Ida Saxton,
+who was cashier in her father's bank. Their devotion for thirty years,
+and the tenderness and constancy with which he watched over her in the
+latter years when she was an invalid, form a chapter that never can be
+mentioned without touching the hearts of their countrymen.
+
+Mr. McKinley made his first political speech in 1867, and in 1869, as a
+Republican, was elected prosecuting attorney for Stark County. In 1875
+he made effective speeches for honest money and the resumption of specie
+payments, and in 1876 he was elected to Congress by a large majority. He
+was re-elected six times, but in 1890 was defeated by the gerrymandering
+of his district. In 1891 he was nominated for Governor of Ohio, and was
+elected by a plurality of 21,500. He was re-elected in 1893 by a
+plurality of more than 80,000.
+
+In Congress he had been a prominent debater on many important questions,
+but he was chiefly conspicuous as an advocate of protection, and, as
+Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, he was largely the author
+of the tariff bill of 1890 which bears his name. It was slow work
+getting the bill through Congress, and it did not become a law till
+October. The most amazing misrepresentations of it were set afloat, and
+it had not time to vindicate itself before the Congressional elections
+came on in November, when the party that had carried it through was
+overwhelmingly defeated.
+
+During these years Mr. McKinley was almost constantly in the field as a
+political speaker, and he became known as one of the most popular and
+effective that our country has produced. It is computed that he
+addressed a larger number of men, from the platform, than any other man
+that ever lived.
+
+He was a delegate to several national conventions of his party, and in
+1888, and again in 1892, there was a strong movement to give him the
+presidential nomination; but he decisively suppressed it each time--on
+the first occasion because he had gone there as a friend and supporter
+of John Sherman, and on the second because he declared that President
+Harrison was entitled to a renomination. In 1896 he was unanimously
+nominated on the first ballot. One circumstance that pointed him out as
+the logical candidate was the fact that his tariff bill had been
+replaced by one that proved a complete failure. The most exciting
+question in the canvass was that of free coinage of silver. Mr. McKinley
+was on a platform that declared for the gold standard, and his opponent,
+William J. Bryan, was on one that declared for free and unlimited
+coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Mr. McKinley was
+elected by a plurality in the popular vote of more than 600,000, and in
+the electoral college by 271 to 176. In 1900 he was renominated, and his
+opponent as before was Mr. Bryan, the issues being the same. This time
+Mr. McKinley had a plurality in the popular vote of more than 800,000,
+and in the electoral college had 292 to 155.
+
+In the canvass of 1896 Mr. McKinley announced that he would make no
+electioneering tour. But the people were determined to hear him, and
+they went to Canton in large delegations and excursions from all parts
+of the country. From his doorstep he made more than three hundred
+addresses, speaking thus to three-quarters of a million persons. There
+was scarcely any repetition, yet every speech was an admirable specimen
+of argument and oratory.
+
+Immediately after his first inauguration he called a special session of
+Congress to revise the tariff, and the new bill was put through in time
+to have a fair chance to vindicate itself before new elections occurred.
+The other notable event in the first year of his administration was the
+treaty for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, which he signed in June,
+but which was not confirmed by the Senate till a year later. In 1898
+occurred the most important event in American affairs since the Civil
+War--the war with Spain. This arose from the intolerable condition of
+things in Cuba, where the Spanish authorities, endeavoring to suppress
+the last of many insurrections, had resorted to the most cruel measures,
+which entailed horrible suffering upon the women and children, and the
+feeling was intensified by the blowing up of the battleship Maine in the
+harbor of Havana, February 15, 1898. President McKinley did his utmost
+to prevent actual war; and when he saw that to be inevitable, he delayed
+it as long as possible and pushed on the preparations for it with all
+practicable speed. On April 11th he sent to Congress a message on the
+subject, and on the 20th he signed a joint resolution declaring that the
+people of Cuba ought to be free and independent, and demanding that the
+Government of Spain relinquish its authority over that island.
+Diplomatic relations were broken off at once, and a state of war was
+declared. Ten days later an American fleet commanded by Commodore George
+Dewey entered the harbor of Manila, destroyed a Spanish fleet, and
+silenced the shore batteries, without losing a vessel or a man. On July
+3d another American fleet destroyed another Spanish fleet that had run
+out of the harbor of Santiago, Cuba, and was trying to escape westward.
+In this action, again, the Americans lost not a single vessel, and but
+one man. Two days earlier than this the American land forces that had
+been approaching the defences of Santiago on the east advanced to the
+final assault, and after bloody fighting at San Juan Hill and El Caney
+they were victorious. The invasion and capture of the island of Porto
+Rico, soon afterward, ended the war in the West Indies. In August the
+American land forces that had been sent to the Philippines captured the
+city of Manila and its garrison. Peace soon followed, and by the treaty
+signed in Paris, December 10th, Spain relinquished her sovereignty over
+Cuba and ceded to the United States Porto Rico and the Philippines,
+receiving $20,000,000 as an indemnity for her expenditures in the
+last-named islands.
+
+[Illustration: _From Harper's Magazine Copyright, 1897, by Harper &
+Brothers._
+
+President Mckinley taking the oath of office.]
+
+President McKinley travelled extensively during his term of office,
+spoke many times in nearly every State, and was probably more generally
+beloved by the people than any of his predecessors. He visited the
+Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, in September, 1901, and on the 5th
+delivered a notable speech, which was admired and commented upon all
+over the world. The next day, when he was holding a reception in the
+Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds, he was treacherously shot by
+an anarchist and wounded so that, in spite of the immediate services of
+the most skilful surgeons, he died on the 14th. His amiable and
+dignified character was conspicuous to the last. When he saw the crowd
+about to kill the assassin on the spot, he exclaimed: "Let no one hurt
+him!" To the surgeons he said: "I wish you to do whatever in your
+judgment is best." When his last hour came he was heard softly chanting
+his favorite hymns--"Nearer, my God, to Thee" and "Abide with me," and
+his last words were, "It is God's way--His will be done. Good-by
+all--good-by!" Thus passed away this wonderful man, this model American,
+worthy of a place in history beside Washington and Lincoln. He had
+fought like a hero--he had wrought like a genius--he had lived like a
+patriot--he died like a philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+GROVER CLEVELAND[19]
+
+By CLARENCE COOK
+
+(Born 1837)
+
+         [Footnote 19: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
+
+[Illustration: Grover Cleveland. [TN]]
+
+
+The history of our country discovers so many instances of men who have
+risen from humble beginnings to posts of honor and influence by their
+own energy, industry, and steadiness of purpose, that a fresh
+illustration, while always sure of sympathy, no longer causes surprise.
+But one element of interest always remains: the variety of character
+which makes each new arrival at the goal an illustration of human
+capacity different from all that have preceded it. As no two men are
+alike, and as the conditions of life are infinitely various, the outcome
+of character and disposition, as affected by circumstances, will also be
+infinitely varied; and the discovery that every human experience puts
+the possibilities of life in a new light, makes, perhaps, the greatest
+charm of biography.
+
+The life of Grover Cleveland is one that has appealed by its lessons to
+a large body of his countrymen, without distinction of party, for the
+plain reason that he is not removed from the mass of men by the
+profession of extraordinary faculties. He has no genius, unless we
+accept Goethe's dictum that genius is only the capacity for hard work;
+he has no ornamental accomplishments; in social intercourse he does not
+shine by wit, nor charm by humor, and we have too often to regret that
+tact seems to have been wanting among his natal gifts. In these respects
+he is himself one of the "plain people" in whom he seems always to be
+interested, and whose welfare he has always in view; and as the plain
+people, fortunately, make up the bulk of the world, the example of one
+of our own number rising, unaided by friends or fortune, to so high a
+position, has in it a great encouragement. In spite of political
+differences, which, after all, are largely fostered by politicians for
+their own advantage, the people at large are quick to recognize the
+sterling qualities of honesty, industry, and plain-dealing, and it is by
+these qualities that Mr. Cleveland's career has been determined.
+
+Although we Americans have--rather ostentatiously, it must be
+confessed--declared our indifference to ancestry; that
+
+  "Our boast is not, that we deduce our birth
+   From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;"
+
+yet we all have an innate conviction that there is something pleasant in
+knowing that we come of good stock; and indeed it would be strange if we
+valued that recommendation little for ourselves, as human beings, which
+we prize so much in the animals that serve us. And so, although it has
+been left for others to make the discovery, the fact is not without
+interest that the American branch of the family to which the president
+belongs, runs back to 1635, when Moses Cleaveland came to Massachusetts
+from Ipswich, in Suffolk County, England. The spelling Cleaveland is
+still retained by some of the collateral branches of the family on this
+side the water, but the form Cleveland was in common use in England, and
+it was so that John Cleveland, the Royalist poet, wrote the name. It may
+be said, in passing, that it would not be without interest to discover,
+if possible, if there were any connection between the family of John
+Cleveland and that of Grover Cleveland's English ancestors, for the
+resemblance between the characters of the two men is striking, and as
+honorable as it is striking. As we read John Cleveland's appeals to
+Cromwell for freedom and immunity after the death of the king, to whose
+cause the poet had so devotedly adhered until that cause was hopelessly
+lost, we seem to hear the prophecy of that boldness, that honesty
+fearless of consequences, that refusal to withdraw or apologize for
+sentiments honestly held and openly maintained, which are so
+characteristic of one who may easily be an offshoot of that vigorous
+stem.
+
+The President's grandfather, William Cleveland, was a watchmaker doing
+business at Westfield, Mass., but on his marriage with Margaret Falley,
+of Norwich, Conn., he went there to live, and it was there that his son,
+Richard Falley Cleveland, was born. According to the old system, it was
+decided by his family to make a clergyman of Richard Cleveland, and
+accordingly after making his terms at Yale College, and studying
+divinity at Princeton, he entered the ministry; and having made some
+preliminary trials, was finally settled in charge of the Presbyterian
+Church in the village of Caldwell, Essex County, N. J., and in this
+place his son, Stephen Grover Cleveland, was born, March 18, 1837. The
+name of Stephen Grover was given out of respect to the memory of a
+clergyman, Stephen Grover, who preceded his father in the charge of his
+new parish. When the boy was only four years of age, Richard Cleveland
+accepted a call to what was then almost the frontier-settlement of
+Fayetteville, Onondaga County, N. Y. Here the Cleveland family remained
+for eleven years making the most of life, and winning from the meagre
+salary of $600 earned by the father, a harvest of cheerful content, of
+homely comfort, and of unselfish mutual affection that might well be
+envied by many whose means are far greater. The children were blessed in
+their parents, and the parents were rewarded by the love and devotion of
+their children. Later in life, on the day of his election to the
+governorship of New York, in a letter to his elder brother, the Rev.
+William N. Cleveland, Grover Cleveland showed where his heart was, for
+his first words express a quiet regret that his mother's recent death
+had made it impossible to make her the recipient of his deepest
+feelings, of his hopes and fears on this important event in his life;
+and at the close of the letter he again recurs to the theme as if the
+memory of his mother were a part and parcel of his life.
+
+In 1851, Richard Cleveland, with his wife and nine children, left
+Fayetteville, for Clinton, Oneida County, N. Y., where he was to act as
+the agent for the American Home Missionary Society, with a salary of
+$1,000 a year. But of more importance than this modest increase of pay,
+was the opportunity the new place offered for giving his children a
+better education than they had been able to get at Fayetteville. Grover
+did not leave Fayetteville with the rest of the family, because he had
+engaged himself for a year with the keeper of a grocery store in the
+village, where he was to receive the sum of $50 for the first year and
+$100 for the second. At the end of the first year, however, his father,
+ambitious for his boy's education, sent for him and placed him at the
+Academy in Clinton, where he was to be fitted to enter Hamilton College
+in due time. But this larger opportunity he was not to enjoy. His father
+received a call to take charge of a church at Holland Patent, a village
+near Utica, N. Y., and the whole family left their home in Clinton for
+this place; but only three weeks after their arrival the father died,
+October 1, 1853, and the wife, with so many of the children as still
+remained at home, were left to support life as their scanty means
+enabled them. The mother, evidently a woman of much force of character,
+remained on the rock where the waves of changing fortune last flung her,
+and by her own efforts and the willing hands of her children, kept the
+family together until, her loving duty done by all that remained to her,
+she died in 1882, living happily long enough to see the beginning of her
+high hope for her son Grover, fulfilled in his honorable career as Mayor
+of Buffalo.
+
+Grover Cleveland was now to exchange for a short time the quiet life of
+a country village for the more stirring experience of life in a great
+city. His brother William, after leaving Hamilton College, had obtained
+employment as an instructor in the Institution for the Blind in New York
+City, where he was the principal of the male teachers. After the death
+of his father, he secured for his brother Grover the place of
+book-keeper and assistant to the superintendent of the asylum. The boy
+came to his new place, not only with the good character given him by his
+brother, then as now a man much respected by his associates, but with
+the good word of all with whom he had been connected, whether as
+school-boy or as work-boy.
+
+Grover Cleveland left New York in the autumn of 1854, at the end of his
+year's engagement at the Institution for the Blind. He returned to his
+mother's home for a brief visit, and then, with the hope of making a
+beginning in the profession of the law, which he for some time intended
+to take up, he visited some of the towns where his family was known,
+Syracuse and Utica, in the hope of finding employment; but as no opening
+presented itself, he determined to visit Cleveland, a town named for one
+of his family. He stopped on his way at Buffalo, to visit an uncle,
+Lewis F. Allen, a well-known farmer, who published each year a
+compilation made by himself: "The American Short-Horn Herd-Book."
+Pleased with his young relative, Mr. Allen persuaded him to remain in
+Buffalo and assist him in his work; and thus it happened that Grover
+Cleveland found himself planted in a city with which in time his
+fortunes and his fame were to become closely associated; while, on the
+other hand, the results of that connection to the city itself were to be
+far-reaching and of great importance.
+
+By the recommendation of his uncle he obtained a place as office-boy in
+the office of Bowen & Rogers, one of the principal firms of lawyers in
+Western New York. It was thus that he began his legal studies, reading
+hard in all his odd moments; and in his spare time after office-hours
+assisting his uncle, with whom at first he lived, in the compilation of
+the "Herd-Book." Mr. Parker tells us that the first appearance in print
+of Grover Cleveland's name is in the "Herd-Book" for 1861, in which Mr.
+Allen expresses his acknowledgment of "the kindness, industry, and
+ability of his young friend and kinsman, in correcting and arranging the
+pedigrees for publication." Prompt to seize every opportunity for
+increasing his knowledge of the world about him, and feeling, perhaps,
+that his uncle's farm in the outskirts of Buffalo was too much like the
+village he had left, he took rooms with an old schoolmate from
+Fayetteville in the old Southern Hotel in Buffalo, at that time a resort
+for drovers and farmers, where his knowledge of their business, obtained
+in his uncle's employ, brought him into closer acquaintance with at
+least one division of the "plain people" than could have been gained
+without that experience.
+
+[Illustration: The ceremony at Grover Cleveland's marriage.]
+
+Grover Cleveland was admitted to the bar in 1859. He did not at first
+begin the practice of the law on his own account, but remained for four
+years longer with his teachers, until he had gained the position of
+chief clerk. In 1858, on coming of age, he cast his first vote, giving
+it to the Democratic party; but not content with the mere performance of
+this part of the citizen's duty, "he took his place at the polls and
+throughout the day distributed ballots by the side of the veterans of
+his party." "This habit," says Mr. Parker, "he kept up until his
+election as governor. He was never a partisan, but he believed in
+working for his party, and he not only worked for it at the polls,
+but he always marched in the procession whenever a great Democratic
+demonstration was made."
+
+On January 1, 1863, Mr. Cleveland began his first independent work as a
+lawyer, and on leaving the office of the firm that had been his teachers
+and associates, he accepted the office of assistant district attorney of
+Erie County, to which he had been appointed. For this he give up a
+salary of $1,000, and took one of $600, but he did this because he saw
+that the training and experience of such an office would be worth more
+to him than money. It was while he held this office that he was drafted
+into the army, and being convinced that he was more useful in his office
+than he could be as a soldier, he sent a substitute, borrowing the money
+for the bounty from his superior, the district attorney. This money,
+says Mr. Parker, he was not able to pay back until the close of his term
+as assistant district attorney, and until the war itself was over. Two
+of his brothers entered the army in 1861, and served through the war.
+
+From this time Mr. Cleveland's rise was rapid, and made by great
+strides, each new position the result of the satisfactory way in which
+he had filled the one previously held. He was indeed defeated in his
+first contest, that for district attorney of Erie County. In 1870 he
+accepted the nomination of his party for the office of sheriff of Erie
+County. It was not usual for lawyers to accept this office, and Mr.
+Cleveland did not take it until after much deliberation and consultation
+with his party friends. He was finally moved to accept the nomination
+for the practical reasons that the place would give him leisure for
+much-needed study in his profession, and that it would also enable him
+to lay up a little money. He held the office for the full term, and
+returned to the practice of the law in 1874, becoming a member of the
+firm of Bass, Cleveland, & Bissell. Mr. Bass was the opponent who had
+defeated him in the contest for district attorney, and Mr. Bissell is
+now the Postmaster-General in the cabinet of his former law-partner.
+
+In 1881, Mr. Cleveland was nominated for the office of Mayor of Buffalo,
+and was elected by a majority of thirty-five hundred, the largest which
+had ever been given in Buffalo for that office. It was a time of great
+excitement, for the government of the city had fallen into very bad
+hands, and in the election of Mr. Cleveland party lines were disregarded
+to an unusual degree. His fearless and energetic administration of this
+office; his resolute refusal to give any support to those fictions of
+politicians and office-holders by which the citizens in all our great
+municipalities are robbed of their rights and their money; his obstinate
+vetoing of one proposed law after another by which these people hoped to
+gain their ends--vetoes for which he always gave his reasons in the
+plainest words, meant to be understood by the plainest people--his
+determination, in short, to be true to his principle declared on taking
+office, that the affairs of government were to be managed as a man would
+manage his private business--all this fixed the eyes of the people upon
+him as a man to be intrusted with still graver responsibilities.
+
+In 1882, Mr. Cleveland was nominated for the high position of Governor
+of New York, in opposition to Charles J. Folger, a man of high
+character, formerly chief justice of the Court of Appeals, and at the
+time of the contest, secretary of the treasury under President Arthur.
+For reasons into which we cannot enter here, but which, though purely
+political, gave good cause for public discontent, Mr. Folger's
+nomination roused the determined opposition of many of his own party,
+and this defection, added to the united enthusiasm of the Democracy,
+insured Mr. Cleveland's election by one hundred and ninety-two thousand
+eight hundred and fifty-four votes more than were cast for Mr. Folger.
+
+Mr. Cleveland administered the office of governor in such a way as
+greatly to strengthen the admiration of his party, especially of the
+better portion of it, in spite of the fact that partisan advantages were
+often lost by Mr. Cleveland's independent and patriotic action. Nor can
+it be doubted that his election to the presidency, which followed, was
+the fruit of the experience the people had had of his character while in
+the governor's chair. That campaign was one of the most interesting, and
+we may say, one of the most valuable morally, that has been waged in our
+day in this country. So far as mere votes were concerned, it was not
+such a victory as that for the governorship, but in its political
+meaning, and its influence on the course of our history, it was of the
+first importance.
+
+At the close of his first term of office as president, Mr. Cleveland was
+again nominated, but was defeated by his opponent, Mr. Harrison; yet
+when the time for choosing a successor to Mr. Harrison came round, Mr.
+Cleveland was again nominated, and was elected, defeating Mr. Harrison
+in his turn. The vote on this last occasion was so overwhelmingly in
+favor of the Democratic party as to have amounted virtually to a
+political revolution; but the limitation and character of this sketch do
+not permit us to go into a discussion of it. Our purpose has been to
+show the elements of character that have gone to make the truly
+extraordinary success that has marked Mr. Cleveland's political life.
+That success has not been due to genius, nor to social or personal
+advantages. It has been due to nobler causes; it is the result of
+sterling and well-tried honesty, of hard and unremitting labor applied
+to the understanding of every question coming before him for decision,
+and of a resolute independence; his fixed belief that
+
+  "Because right is right to follow right
+   Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence."
+
+[Signature of the author.]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8, by Various
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