WILLIAM SMYTH.

1840.

WASHINGTON died in December, 1799, after a short illness, resigning his spirit, with a calm and untroubled mind, to the disposal of that Almighty Being in whose presence he had acted his important part, and to whose kind providence he had so often committed in many an anxious moment, in the cabinet and in the field, the destinies of his beloved country. "He was not," he said, “afraid to die."

To the historian, indeed, there are few characters that appear so little to have shared the common frailties and imperfections of human nature; there are but few particulars that can be mentioned even to his disadvantage. It is understood, for instance, that he was once going to commit an important mistake as a general in the field; but he had at least the very great merit of listening to Lee, (a man whom he could not like, and who was even his rival) and of not committing the mistake. Instances may be found where perhaps it may be thought that he was decisive to a degree that partook of severity and harshness, or even more; but how innumerable were the decisions which he had to make! how difficult and how important, through the eventful series of twenty years of command in the cabinet or the field! Let it be considered what it is to have the management of a revolution, and afterwards the maintenance of order. Where is the man that in the history of our race has ever succeeded in attempting successively the

one and the other? not on a small scale, a petty state in Italy, or among a horde of barbarians, but in an enlightened age, when it is not easy for one man to rise superior to another, and in the eyes of mankind,

"A kingdom for a stage,

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene."

The plaudits of his country were continually sounding in his ears, and neither the judgment nor the virtues of the man were ever disturbed. Armies were led to the field with all the enterprise of a hero, and then dismissed with all the equanimity of a philosopher. Power was accepted, was exercised, was resigned, precisely at the moment and in the way that duty and patriotism directed. Whatever was the difficulty, the trial, the temptation, or the danger, there stood the soldier and the citizen, eternally the same, without fear and without reproach, and there was the man who was not only at all times virtuous, but at all times wise.

The merit of Washington by no means ceases with his campaigns; it becomes, after the peace of 1783, even more striking than before; for the same man who, for the sake of liberty, was ardent enough to resist the power of Great Britain and hazard every thing on this side the grave, at a later period had to be temperate enough to resist the same spirit of liberty, when it was mistaking its proper objects and transgressing its appointed limits. The American revolution was to approach him, and he was to kindle in the general flame; the French revolution was to reach him and to consume but too many of his countrymen, and his "own etherial mould, incapable of stain, was to purge off the baser fire victorious." But all this was done: he might

have been pardoned, though he had failed amid the enthusiasm of those around him, and when liberty was the delusion: but the foundations of the moral world were shaken, and not the understanding of Washington.

To those who must necessarily contemplate this remarkable man at a distance, there is a kind of fixed calmness in his character that seems not well fitted to engage our affections (constant superiority we rather venerate than love), but he had those who loved him (his friends and his family), as well as the world and those that admired.

As a ruler of mankind, however, he may be proposed as a model. Deeply impressed with the original rights of human nature, he never forgot that the end, and meaning, and aim of all just government was the happiness of the people, and he never exercised authority till he had first taken care to put himself clearly in the right. His candour, his patience, his love of justice were unexampled; and this, though naturally he was not patient,—much otherwise, highly irritable.

He therefore deliberated well, and placed his subject in every point of view before he decided; and his understanding being correct, he was thus rendered, by the nature of his faculties, his strength of mind, and his principles, the man of all others to whom the interests of his fellowcreatures might with most confidence be intrusted; that is, he was the FIRST OF THE RULERS OF MANKIND.

WILLIAM SMYTH was born at Liverpool in 1766, and died at Norwich, England, June 26, 1849. He was educated at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1787, and on March 11, 1807, received the appointment of Professor of Modern History in the University, a post which he retained until his death. His "Lectures on Modern History, from the irruption of the Northern Nations to the close of the American Revolution," from which we quote

(Lecture XXXVI), were published in 1840 in 2 vols., 8vo. London & Cambridge. Several English and American editions have been issued. The Preface to the Boston edition of 1841, (from the second London edition,) written by Jared Sparks, contains the following. "His character of Washington, is happily conceived and well delineated. In short it would be difficult to find any treatise on the American Revolution comprised within the compass of six lectures, from which so much can be learned, or so accurate an estimate of the merits of both sides of the question can be formed."

CHARLES W. UPHAM.

1840.

It is probable that it would be allowed by all truly liberal and enlightened men, that the Revolution of the North American British colonies, which resulted in the establishment of an independent, republican, and constitutional empire, is one of the greatest and most momentous events in the history of the world. It is, indeed, worthy of being regarded as a perfectly successful political and moral movement. The patriot and the philosophical statesman look back upon it with unmixed approval and unalloyed satisfaction. From the beginning to the end there seems to have been an overruling power guiding all things right, and bringing on the consummation steadily and surely. It is not often that human enterprises and efforts are crowned with results so completely auspicious. When we contemplate its incidents, and follow its vicissitudes to the issue towards which they all tended, we feel that never were the indications of the interposition of a favoring Providence more signal and unquestionable.

This great and glorious event was identified most distinctly with the character and influence of one man. There were many wise, enlightened, patriotic, and powerful spirits, scattered over every part of the country, and laboring most efficiently and nobly in the cause; but whoever traces the course of things, from the commencement of the War of Independence, to the final establishment of the nation 30 (233)