 | The sayings of Dr. Bushwhacker, and other learned men |  |
XVII.
A Literary Curiosity.[1]
MACAULAY in the Exordium to his History, proposed
to bring his narrative down “to a period within
the memory of men still living.” The phrase was doubtless
chosen for its ambiguity; so as to include or to ex
clude some notice of our Revolution. If the following
extracts be genuine (and for their authenticity I do not
vouch), they favor the former hypothesis. They purport
to be sketches for a future volume: stone, rough hewn,
for an edifice which, alas! the master did not live to complete.
Historicus.
Character of Washington.
“The post of Commander-in-Chief of the insurgent
armies was of vital importance. Yet, the man who, of
all men, was fitted to fill such a post adequately was at
hand. The Congress knew it; and with a unanimity
that rarely marked their proceedings, selected George
Washington—a delegate from Virginia. The reader will
naturally pause at the mention of a name which is regarded
with fond idolatry by a federation of great commonwealths;
which History has admitted into the company
of founders of empire with Romulus and Gustavus,
Frederic: and which is pronounced with equal veneration
on the banks of the Thames and on the banks of the
Ganges. Both the circumstances of his birth and the
circumstances of his education had fitted him for the part
he was called on to play. In his blood, of English origin,
there was blended something of the flery valor of the
cavaliers of Rupert, with something of the resolute energy
of the soldiers of Oliver. His form, in its matchless union
of vigor and grace, had foiled the pencil of Stuart and the
chisel of Chantry. He had known the salutary discipline
of early toil. With his stipend of a guinea a day as a
surveyor, he had acquired, in youth, the art of controlling
himself. In manhood, by the exercise of patriarchal
dominion over thousands of acres and hundreds of slaves,
he had acquired the art of controlling others. Equally
fortunate had been his public career. He had served in
the armies of the Crown, and against the natives of the
wilderness. He had thus learned something, both of desultory
and of disciplined warfare. At a later day, and
on a wider theatre, his knowledge of the one enabled him
to surprise the Hessians at Trenton; and his knowledge
of the other to entangle Cornwallis in the toils of Yorktown.
“His courage was of the truest temper. Stoic savages
told with wonder how he alone was calm when the soldiers
of Braddock were slaughtered like sheep; and Continental
veterans loved to narrate how his face shone with
His intellect was solid and comprehensive. The
natural ardor of his temperament was subdued by a judgment
of singular accuracy and prudence. His unaffected
piety showed itself alike on public and on private occasions:
when he drew his sword at Cambridge: when he
sheathed it at Annapolis: when he knelt alone in the
snowy solitudes of Valley Forge.
“And, indeed, all the strength of his intellect, and all
the resources of his character, were needed for the task
he had undertaken. For he had undertaken to confront
the finest infantry of Europe with an army of tradesmen
and farmers—half clad, half fed, and wholly undisciplined.
In the ranks, the spirit of patriotic ardor was but too
often allied with the spirit of turbulent freedom. At the
council board, there were officers to whom the precedence
of a colleague was more galling than the tyranny of the
common oppressor. He had to deal with deliberative
bodies that acted when they should have debated, and
with executive bodies that debated when they should
have acted; with an army that murmured at his activity,
and with a government that blamed his inaction; and he
was forced to exhibit, to both government and army, at
one time the reckless courage of Charles XII, and at
another time the serene patience of Marlborough.
“Nor must his claims to civic wisdom be passed unnoticed.
His style, founded, it is true, on the turgid masterpieces
of that period, was accurate and comprehensive.
He presided with commanding wisdom over that assemblage
of wise and ingenious statesmen, who framed a
system of government in imitation of a great system, in
which the centrifugal force of the separate Commonwealths
and the centripetal force of the Federal authority
were balanced with consummate skill. Nor did he
exhibit less wisdom when called on to put in motion
the machine which he had helped to frame. He resisted
the unjust rule of many men, as he had resisted the
unjust rule of one man; and saw with prophetic eye the
issues of that insane freedom that ended in the `carmagnole'
and the `guillotine.' Nor was the calm splendor of
his setting unworthy of the long day of glory. He beat
his spear into a pruning hook; and planted choice trees,
and reared rare breeds of animals with the same conscientions
energy, with which he had ruled armies and
governed cabinets.
“And yet, the truth is that characters of such perfection
excite neither the just sympathy nor the just admiration
of the great mass of mankind. The very foibles of
irregular greatness are a bond of sympathy and a source
of interest. Most readers will turn away from a ruler
who was never unjust, and from a general who never
swore, to follow the amiable amours of Henry IV, or
the picturesque passion of Hildebrand. So, also, do the
defects of imperfect natures serve to render, by the force
of contrast, their merits more striking. The eloquence
dark background of that timorous nature; and the glance
of Bacon, the philosopher, seems more comprehensive when
we compare it with the glance of Bacon, the venal judge,
lowered obliquely on a bride. The mental eye is misled,
as the physical eye is misled by the ruins of Palmyra or
the Cathedral of Cologne. The imagination outstrips the
reality, and bestows an unmerited grandeur on the restored
temple and the completed church. But the harmonious
adjustment of the mental and moral faculties of Washington,
prevent us, at the first glance, from duly estimating
the extent of those faculties. We are like the
traveller who stands for the first time in that splendid
structure which the genius of Michael Angelo has reared
for the Catholic hierarchy. He cannot at once justly estimate
the length of that endless nave, or the expanse of
that awful dome. And not until he discovers, by repeated
observation, that the baldaquin which covers the
altar is as lofty as a palace, and that the cupids that flit
about the door are as big as giants, will he feel assured
that he treads the floor of the largest building on the
earth.”
The Character of Franklin.
“The new ambassador was Benjamin Franklin, one of
the foremost citizens of the young Republic, and one of
the foremost citizens of the older republic of science. He
was of humble origin. Both in Boston, the place of his
he had wrought at that art, `preservative of all arts,' of
which the followers, like ships that bear spices and odors
from the East, retain something of the precious cargoes
they are employed to distribute. The clearness of his intellect
was equalled by the clearness of his perceptions.
Under the name of Poor Richard, and through the
humble medium of an `Almanac,' he put forth a system
of homely ethics, in which the virtues of temperance,
probity and industry were explained and commended in
aphorisms of ingenious terseness. Nor did he fail to
practice what he preached. He was speedily honored
with offices of trust, both from the Colonies and the
Crown. And when differences, that sprang partly from
criminal interference and partly from criminal neglect,
arose between the two countries, he exerted himself
strenuously, first to prevent, and then to remove those
differences. The hour for reconciliation passed away:
and he now stood up for war with the same placid courage
with which he had stood out for peace. He was one of
the Committee that drafted the great Declaration. He
was now sent to represent the good cause at the Court of
France, and at the bar of European opinion. An extraordinary
reception awaited him. He was widely and
justly known as an eminent man of science—as the Columbus
of electrical discovery. The French nation is,
beyond all other nations, fond of striking effect and
picturesque contrast. And nothing could be more striking
Quaker diplomatist was about to appear in the most
artificial of courts: a new Archimedes was to come from
the land of the Natchez and the Mohawk: the legate of
the latest republic was to recall the image of antique
wisdom and of antique virture—of the Grecian Solon and
the Roman Regulus. Haughty courtiers bent in emotion
before him: brilliant beauties struggled for a kiss; sculptors
and painters pursued him with merciless assiduity;
the Academy rang with applause when Turgot's adulatory
Latin described the sage as one `who had wrested the
thunder from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants:' and
upon a ship of war, that was sent on its mission of death
and destruction under the desperate Paul Jones, was
bestowed, with pardonable inconsistency, the name of
`Poor Richard.'
“The chief glory of Franklin lies in this—that he was
the greatest of the pupils of Bacon. And, indeed, he
was such a pupil as Bacon would have delighted to honor.
To both pupil and master, philosophy was not the mystic
goddess of Plato, or the impracticable vixen of the schoolmen.
She was an angel of beneficence and a minister of
merey; an Elizabeth Fry or Florence Nightingale. Her
mission was to relieve human suffering and to advance
man's estate. And, in truth, Franklin's long and successful
career was a triumphant application of these
principles. No sooner had the electric spark glided down
the kite-string than the lightning-rod was invented for its
devised not only for the household of the Quaker
mechanic and the dealings of the Quaker tradesman, but
for the government of States and the intercouse of nations.
Even the barren tactics of chess were made to
furnish lessons for the higher warfare of life. Nor did his
philosophy fail to bear her fruits to the philosopher
himself. The virtues of self-respect and self-reliance that
walked by his side, when he entered Philadelphia with a
loaf of bread under his arm, did not desert him when he
listened, amid the frowns of hostile statesmen, to the
pitiless sarcasm of Weddeburne; nor when he stood, the
centre of universal homage, in the brilliant court of Louis.
“Zealous theologians have attacked the orthodoxy of
his creed; casuists have evailled at the imperfection of
his ethics. But he was doubtless a good man; he was
surely a great man. And he richly deserves the title of
`the most useful of the children of men'—a title which
Franklin himself would have prized beyond all the gifts
of fortune and all the laurels of fame.”
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