They say of Giotto, that he introduced goodness into the art of painting; Washington carried it with him to the camp and the cabinet, and established a new criterion of human greatness. The purity of his will confirmed his fortitude; and as he never faltered in his faith in virtue, he stood fast by that which he knew to be just; free from illusions; never dejected by the apprehension of the difficulties and perils that went before him, and drawing the promise of success from the justice of his cause. Hence he was persevering, leaving nothing unfinished; free from all taint of obstinacy in his firmness; seeking, and gladly receiving advice, but immovable in his devotedness to right. Of a "retiring modesty and habitual reserve," his ambition was no more than the consciousness of his power, and was subordinate to his sense of duty; he took the foremost place, for he knew from inborn magnanimity that it belonged to him, and he dared not withhold the service required of him; so that with all his humility, he was by necessity the first, though never for himself or for private ends. He loved fame, the approval of coming generations, the good opinion of his fellow-men of his own time, and he desired to make his conduct coincide with their wishes; but not fear of censure, not the prospect of applause, could tempt him to swerve from rectitude, and the praise which he coveted, was the sympathy of that moral sentiment which exists in every human breast, and goes forth only to the welcome of virtue.

There have been soldiers who have achieved mightier victories in the field, and made conquests more nearly corresponding to the boundlessness of selfish ambition; statesmen who have been connected with more startling upheavals of society; but it is the greatness

of Washington, that in public trusts he used power solely for the public good; that he was the life, and moderator, and stay of the most momentous revolution in human affairs, its moving impulse and its restraining power. Combining the centripetal and the centrifugal forces in their utmost strength and in perfect relations, with creative grandeur of instinct he held ruin in check, and renewed and perfected the institutions of his country. Finding the colonies disconnected and dependent, he left them such a united and well ordered commonwealth as no visionary had believed to be possible. So that it has been truly said, “he was as fortunate as great and good.”*

This also is the praise of Washington; that never in the tide of time has any man lived who had in so great a degree the almost divine faculty to command the confidence of his fellow-men and rule the willing. Wherever he became known, in his family, his neighborhood, his county, his native state, the continent, the camp, civil life, the United States, among the common people, in foreign courts, throughout the civilized world of the human race, and even among the savages, he, beyond all other men, had the confidence of his kind.

GEORGE BANCROFT, son of the Rev. Aaron Bancroft, D.D., (page 154,) was born in Worcester, Mass., October 3, 1800. He entered Harvard College at the early age of thirteen, and graduated in 1817; he also studied at the German Universities, and held for a short time (1822) the post of Greek tutor in Harvard. Mr. Bancroft was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1845, his administration being marked by the establishment of the naval school at Annapolis, and during 1846–9 was minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain. As early as 1823 he began collecting materials for his "History of the United States," the first volume appearing in 1834, the seventh, from which we quote, in 1858, and the tenth and last in 1874, since supplemented by the "History of the formation of the Constitution of the United States."

* Aaron Bancroft, page 153.-Ed.

2 vols., 8vo., 1882. In a review by WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT of the third volume, (North Am. Review, January, 1841,) that writer says, "What Mr. Bancroft has done for the Colonial history is, after all, but preparation for a richer theme, the history of the War for Independence; a subject which finds its origin in the remote past, its results in the infinite future; which finds a central point of unity in the ennobling principle of independence, that gives dignity and grandeur to the most petty details of the conflict, and which has its foreground occupied by a single character, to which all others converge as to a centre-the character of Washington, in war, in peace, and in private life the most sublime on historical record."

HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.

1859.

THE world has yet to understand the intellectual efficiency derived from moral qualities,-how the candor of an honest and the clearness of an unperverted mind attain results beyond the reach of mere intelligence and adroitness,—how conscious integrity gives both insight and directness to mental operations, and elevation above the plane of selfish motives affords a more comprehensive, and therefore a more available view of affairs, than the keenest examination based exclusively on personal ability. It becomes apparent, when illustrated by a life and its results, that the cunning of a Talleyrand, the military genius of a Napoleon, the fascinating qualities of a Fox, and other similar endowments of statesmen and soldiers, are essentially limited and temporary in their influence; whereas a good average intellect, sublimated by self-forgetting intrepidity, allies itself for ever to the central and permanent interests of humanity. The mind of Washington was eminently practical; his perceptive faculties were strongly developed; the sense of beauty and the power of expression, those endowments so large in the scholar and the poet, were the least active in his nature; but the observant powers whereby space is measured at a glance, and the physical qualities noted correctly,-the reflective instincts through which just ideas of facts and circumstances are realized,-—the sentiment of order which regulates the most chaotic elements of duty and

work, thus securing despatch and precision,-the openness to right impressions characteristic of an intellect, over which the visionary tendencies of imagination cast no delusion, and whose chief affinity is for absolute truth,-these noble and efficient qualities eminently distinguished his mental organization, and were exhibited as its normal traits from childhood to age. To them we refer his prescience in regard to the agricultural promise of wild tracts, the future growth of localities, the improvement of estates, the facilities of communication, the adaptation of soils, and other branches of economics. By means of them he read character with extraordinary success. They led him to methodize his life and labors, to plan with wisdom and execute with judgment, to use the most appropriate terms in conversation and writing, to keep the most exact accounts, to seek useful information from every source, to weigh prudently and decide firmly, to measure his words and manner with singular adaptation to the company and the occasion, to keep tranquil within his own brain perplexities, doubts, projects, anxieties, cares, and hopes enough to bewilder the most capacious intellect and to sink the boldest heart. His mental features beam through his correspondence. We say this advisedly, notwithstanding the formal and apparently cold tenor of many of his letters; for so grand is the sincerity of purpose, so magnanimous the spirit, so patient, reverent, and devoted the sentiment underlying these brief and unadorned epistles, whether of business or courtesy, that a moral glow interfuses their plain and direct language, often noble enough to awaken a thrill of admiration, together with a latent pathos that starts tears in the reader of true sensibility. The unconsciousness of self, the consideration for others, the moderation in success, the calmness in dis