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high, which enable him to assume easily the fashionable tiptoe attitude, and the social Adonis of the Eighteenth Century is before you.

His costume, it is very plain from this sketch, does not resemble very closely that of his father; the habits of the young squire differ from those of his father in a manner no less striking. He does not attend to plantation affairs, rarely visits the county courts, and considers fox-hunting an amusement only fit for country gentlemen, unskilled in the pursuits, and ignorant of the delights of good society. He dawdles in bed in the morning, takes three hours to dress, and makes his appearance at the breakfast-table when the rest of the world are getting ready to go to dinner. He takes snuff from a beautiful snuff-box with a picture on the lid, which had better not be spoken of further, and applies the aromatic dust to his nostrils with a delicate grace, which displays the diamond rings upon his fingers to the best advantage: he does not like snuff, and never partakes of it without sneezing with such violence that his peruke becomes awry. But it is the fashion among the London gallants and literary men, to smear the upper lip with it-it looks critical and knowing. He never visits Middle Plantation without his snuff-box and narrow-edged cocked hat, with its bright feather, and small muff such as the ladies used. He salutes his Lordship the Governor with ease and politeness, and will even dance a gavotte or minuet if he meets with some young damsel whose dress and style of conversation please his critical taste; though his oft-expressed opinion of the minuet is not favorable to the claims of that divertisement. Still he dances with much grace and ease, as he handles gracefully and with ease the small sword. These things are a part of his superior education. In addition to all these attractions and accomplishments, the youthful hope of his house plays well-and deep; often sitting up all night at tictac with his admiring friends, and rising next morning or afternoon with empty or full pockets, and that buzzing in the ears and swimming of the head which even the best Rhenish and Claret, taken in excess, are apt to visit on their votaries.

But enough of young Master Hopeful: the difference between himself and his sturdy sire is very plain. It remains, however, to be said, that these follies did not very long survive the return of the English-educated youths to their colonial homes. They were mere wild oats, such as young men have been engaged in sow

ing from the earliest ages of the world: once fairly scattered, these youths were "men again." Before, their very sex was doubtful, so completely had they disguised their manhood with those curls, and cheek colorings, and ladies' muffs; that all passed away soon, and they took their places as sturdy country gentlemen; honest planters with hard muscles and strong digestions; ruddy faces, not red with rouge but exercise; with " plantation talk" in abundance, when their neighbors came to chat with them over their wine; and a decided propensity for sitting in their great dining rooms as solemn Justices, and committing trespassers or other malefactors; and presiding "with beard of formal cut" at county courts, and laying down the law there dictatorially; their pompous, wordy discourses "full of wise saws and modern instances." Alas! the young blade soon became recreant to that splendid London circle, which had sent him forth like a missionary, to make civilized Christians of the barbarians of Virginia. He took off deliberately his Spanish leather slippers, and donned his father's old serviceable shoes, which he "stood in" thenceforth as the head of the house. Abjuring his former skepticism, he became an intolerant advocate and upholder of the union between Church and State; rode, to cover with his neighbors joyously; and nourished, in full force and vigor, that good old English contempt for common people which had been taught him as an article of his Creed of Gentle

man.

Master Hopeful in the third generation runs the same course, except that Virginia has now a college of its own, and he does not visit England. He is quite as extravagant, however, as his father was; and if the old gentleman, with fatherly seriousness, takes him to task for the heavy drains on the paternal purse his losses at cards occasion, the young man points to the portrait of a gay gallant on the wall, whose elderly original now stands before him, and asks with great interest the names of the chief wits and beauties of the time of good Queen Anne. But he, in turn, forswears his old companions, and horseracing and revelling, and settles down the same sturdy planter, with the same creed of gentleman but now spoken of. Then comes the Revolution, and the brave worthies rising everywhere like a single man against the oppression of England. These were the men who set in motion the ball of the Revolution, and ever propelled it onward with their stalwart shoulders, who poured out their blood as

freely as they gave their means; who, throwing aside all affection, as all fear for England, risked every thing in life, and gained by that devotion-what?

For us many things; and for themselves-what for their great self-sacrificing patriotism they deserve-a charitable view of their faults and failings. Not a concealment of their faults-not silence when after speaking of the bright portions of the picture, the shadows come to be adverted to in their turn. History based upon such theory were a mere party pamphlet, a mockery of what it should be. But at least we need not dwell bitterly on that conspicuous weakness, any more than on their religious intolerance, and

other narrow views of life and government. It was the fault as much of their fathers and the times, as of themselves. Dead and gone long ago, they may stiil speak to us from the dust, and teach us many noble precepts-as fidelity to the land, self-sacrificing patriotism, honesty in all things. Americans of the present day and hour are not pure enough to turn from such precepts, thanking God they are not as those men. Let the world take the lesson which those dead lives give it, thankfully; let it admire that great vigorous past wherever it is possible not seek to drag it down, rather endeavor to rise up superior to it.

MEN OF CHARACTER.

THERE is nothing we more quickly recognize in an individual than character; and we hardly know of any thing, so palpable to the senses, that is so hard to define clearly. It is much easier to tell who have, and who have it not, than what it is. Great intellect alone, does not give it, nor great intellect combined with great moral worth. Goldsmith was almost wholly devoid of it; Bacon, Rousseau, and Sheridan, had but very little of it; Bolingbroke, Burke, and Pitt, a good deal. Chesterfield, the "perfect gentleman," and Dr. Johnson, the "respectable Hottentot," both had a large share of it. Bonaparte had much more genius than Frederick the Great; but, as we think, less character. The Duke of Marlborough had a fair share of it, but very much less than his extraordinary wife. The Tudors all had a good deal of it; the Stuarts were all wanting in it. Cæsar had it in an almost unprecedented degree; Brutus and Cicero had but little, especially the latter. The words Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Cæsar, give an imperfect idea of it.

"I could be well moved, if I were as you:

If I could pray to move, prayers would move me;
But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality,
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there's but one in all doth hold his place:
So in the world. 'Tis furnished well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet, in the number, I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank
Unshaked of motion."

Character is what involuntarily commands respect. It implies something more than great capacity and great learning. It is what makes itself felt, whether its owner be clothed in rags, or in purple and fine linen. It is sometimes associated with vanity, but generally separated from it. Pride and self-reliance almost always accompany it. Its possessor is not easily moved by either censure or applause, and is utterly indifferent to what Mrs. Grundy will say. He is not elated by little distinctions and honors that may be conferred upon him, and cares nothing for the loss of them. Character must be associated with great firmness and decision, and the man who has it will not be turned from his course by any amount of abuse, ridicule, or "paper bullets of the brain." "My people and I," said Frederick the Great, "have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please." And he suffered all sorts of lampoons and satires to be written upon him. Even the terrible sneers of Voltaire, when directed against him after their quarrel, he suffered to be sold by the booksellers, in his own city, with impunity. Bonaparte, on the contrary, was cut to the quick by the newspaper attacks of the English press upon him, and would suffer no jest at his expense to be published in his own king

dom.

The man who has character must be independent, fearless, and discriminating in his judgment. He is not influenced by the position a man holds, or the clothes

he wears, in forming his estimate of him. He looks quite through the "linen decencies," or the want of them, that environ a man, to the man himself. History informs us with what singular and extraordinary judgment great statesmen have sometimes selected men for important stations from among convicts and criminals. These statesmen, we suspect, almost invariably, had a good deal of character. Napoleon's selection of his marshals and generals evinced it. A man with a large endowment of it may be rich or poor, thrifty or unthrifty, lazy or industrious, discreet or indiscreet; but no peculiarity of circumstances or change in them, can produce any visible effect upon him. John Quincy Adams was rich, thrifty, industrious, prudent and discreet. Dr. Johnson was poor, unthrifty, lazy, imprudent and indiscreet; yet the latter had no less character than the former. Dr. Johnson was uncouth in figure, slovenly in his habits, awkward, rude, and ill-bred in his manners; but he felt such a conscious superiority, that these drawbacks did not annoy him,-in fact he did not seem to be conscious of their existence, although one of the sharpest of observers, where he was not himself concerned. He was the butt of every species of ridicule and sarcasm, but they fell as harmless upon him as rain upon a duck's back. He could not conceive, he said, how any body could be the worse for being talked uncharitably of, and did not see, for his part, what harm there was in calling a man nicknames. Chesterfield, as every one knows, was the exact opposite of Dr. Johnson, yet we think he had as much, if not more, character. His manner of treating the letter which the great lexicographer wrote him, is enough, of itself, to evince it. Call his conduct, on that occasion, affectation, if you will ;-there must have been character to have prompted such affectation. "Paint me as I am," said Cromwell to the artist, who evinced a disposition to smooth over a little the scars, deep wrinkles and pimples on his face. There was character in that expression. But what a testimony it was to the character De Retz possessed, when he said, "De Retz is the only man in Europe who despises me He could have been no ordinary great man who made Cromwell feel that he despised him. Character implies great self-possession, and the man who has much of it is not often impatient and irritable, but generally calm and cheerful; though it is found in persons both grave and gay, taciturn and talkative, social and unsocial. Beau Brummel and Count

D'Orsay were men of character, and so were Tecumseh and Davy Crocket.

The following is one of the paradoxes Emerson has hugged to his bosom, and we quote it as having some bearing on the subject we are treating upon.

"A man passes for that he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other peoples' estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is equally so. If a man know that he can do any thing-that he can do it better than any one else he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of judgment days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days, and stamped with his right number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed and temper."

If a man passes for that he is worth. why is it that

"Ten ancient towns contend for Homer dead, Through which the living Homer begged his bread."

Was not Cæsar looked upon by the Romans generally as a dissolute, prodigal youth, who was fast ruining himself? Did Shakspeare pass for all he was worth in the estimation of a single person who lived in the same age with him? John Hampden, we are told, was the only one who had any idea of the metal Cromwell was made of, until he began to distinguish himself; and he lived in comparative insignificance until he was upwards of forty. Alison says Dr. Johnson was the foremost man of the eighteenth century; yet it is well known that he lived more than fifty years in great poverty and obscurity, oftentimes in absolute want of enough to eat, and in the absence of better lodgings, obliged to find what rest he could on the ashes from a glass house. Who had any suspicion of the indomitable soul Cortez possessed during his residence of several years in Cuba, when he had nearly reached middle age? Why was every one at first so thunderstruck with the proposition of John Adams to make Washington Commander-in-Chief of the American forces, if he passed for that he was worth? His selection for that office was a compromise measure, like that of Pierce's nomination; a good many more eminent men, who thought that they had strong claims for the appointment, were induced to unite upon one who was not great enough to be thought a very formidable rival. What

are Gray's speculations in the Country Churchyard good for, if men always pass for that they are worth? If Wordsworth passed for that he was worth when a young man, he passed for a good deal more than he was worth when an old one.

John Adams once when in a room where a portrait of Washington was hanging, approached it, and laying his finger on the mouth, remarked to a friend, that if he had kept his lips as close together as that man did his, he might have been re-elected President. We have no doubt that the obstacles which prevented both the Adamses from being elected President a second time, were to some extent, expressed about their mouths (for the mouth is the feature most expressive of the disposition); but we suspect something else stood in the way of the elder Adams's re-election besides the want of tightness with which his lips adhered to each other. To be sure, the success of a statesman sometimes depends, in some degree, upon the skill with which he avoids committing himself to this or that measure on which public opinion may be decided; but a non-committal policy is not often the wisest-in fact, it is an exceedingly difficult matter to be non-committal at all; for those who know a man best, always know which way his sympathies tend on most questions. Jefferson did not keep his lips any closer together than John Adams did his. He was full as frank and imprudent in the expression of his opinions, as indiscreet and uncalculating in the manifestation of his anger and indignation towards his opponents, as his unsuccessful rival. Is a man any the less known for keeping his lips tightly closed? Is his real disposition any more concealed for being extremely prudent and reserved? Jackson was frank, impetuous, and headstrong in disposition; Van Buren cool, wary, and discreet. Was the character of the one any better understood than that of the other? Is there any enemy of the latter foolish enough to suppose that the numerous friends, who have adhered to him through all his life, have done so because he pretended to be what he was not, -because he concealed his bad qualities, and made pretensions to good ones he did not possess? How long was any virtue that was not real, ever known to be successfully feigned? "How can a man be concealed?" exclaimed Confucius, more than twenty-three centuries ago.

"How

can a man be concealed?" There is no such thing as concealment; nature revolts at it. A man may not pass for that he is worth, i. e., the full extent of his capacity may not be appreciated, but his good

or bad qualities cannot be hidden. A keen and artful politician happens to obtain high places and power. Those who look only at the surface of things, ascribe his success chiefly to his craft, when probably if the truth was known he obtained them in spite of it. His energy, liberality, and broad sympathy with his fellow men, quite likely, overbalanced the drawback which his craft may actually have made to his popularity.

Character is a much more rare article in the best society, even, than many suppose. We know of no better satire in fashionable society, or society generally, than that afforded by a slight sketch of Lord Chesterfield, drawn by one who knew him well, Lord Hervey. He said, "Lord Chesterfield was allowed by every body to have more conversable, entertaining table wit, than any man of his time. His propensity to ridicule, in which he indulged himself with infinite humor and no distinction, and with inexhaustible spirit and no discretion, made him sought and feared, liked and not loved, by most of his acquaintance. No sex, no relation, no rank, no power, no profession, no friendship, no obligation was a shield from the pointed, glittering weapons that seemed to shine only to a stander by, but cut deep in those they touched. All his acquaintance were indifferently the object of his satire, and served promiscuously to feed that voracious appetite for abuse that made him fall on every thing that came in his way, and treat every one of his companions in rotation at the expense of the rest."

A fine picture this of one of the most distinguished men of the time in which he lived. As a statesman, Chesterfield had but one or two equals; as a vigorous and polished writer, but few men surpassed him. He was the first gentleman of the age, the delight of every social circle, the "mirror of politeness," "the lord among wits and the wit among lords." what a sublime groundwork of faith and truth underlaid his whole character! and what a commentary upon the society in which he moved; though it was, probably, somewhat superior to that Mrs. Potiphar drew around her.

Yet

Notwithstanding Chesterfield's faithlessness and want of sincerity, but few men have had more character; and, compared with Lord Byron, whom we now propose to consider in that relation, it was fourfold greater, we think, in the former than in the latter.

Character necessarily makes a man something of a hero, though heroes oftentimes do not possess much character. Charles

XII. of Sweden lacked it, and not one in ten of Napoleon's marshals and generals had much of it. Byron certainly had but a small share of it. That he had unusual strength and acuteness of intellect, and almost unequalled abilities as a poet, no one presumes to doubt. But he had none of that fixed earnestness of purpose, that calm but resolute energy, that repose and self reliance which is the characteristic of him,

"That unassailable holds on his rank
Unshaked of motion."

Of real pride Byron had but little; but he had an intensely craving vanity.

Men who are really indifferent whether "courts and crowds applaud or hiss," seldom say so; and those who really feel such a profound contempt for their fellowmen as Byron pretended to, do not take the pains, in the most elaborate efforts to inform them of it two or three times a year, or oftener. His strong passions, which are held out as an extenuation for his outrageously immoral conduct, we confess that we have looked in vain for much evidence of. He was shamefully licentious, to be sure; but his licentiousness instead of proceeding, from an all engrossing passion for the "sex," like that which governed the Marc Antonys, the Mirabeaus, and such men, seemed to be more an offspring of the vanity. Steele somewhere says, “I have observed that the superiority among these coffee-house politicians proceeds from an opinion of gallantry and fashion." We suspect that Byron's licentiousness was to be attributed in no small degree to a desire of gaining the applause of "these coffee-house politicians." His intense vanity craved admiration from every class in the community,-from hard drinkers and pugilists up to every thing that was refined and great. It was this vanity that prompted him to be ever hinting at dark events in his life, which never took place out of his imagination. Moore tells us, that sometimes after dinner, when a little excited with wine, he would commence throwing out mysterious insinuations of dreadful secrets his bosom was the repository of;-if so inclined he "could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul;" but Moore, who understood him well enough to know that all the dreadful nonsensical revelations he might make, would be purely creations of the brain, gave him to understand that all that prevented him from laughing in his face was politeness. Being keenly sensitive to ridicule, Moore's reception of his marvellous fabrications prevented him

from attempting to palm them off upon him too often, but Moore suggests, that as his wife might have been more credulous, a belief in these silly self-disparaging stories, might in some measure have been the cause of their divorce.

Goethe's absurd conjectures about the double murder that he supposed him to have been implicated in at Florence, no doubt gratified his vanity, and he seemed to be anxious that Murray should give them all the publicity he could.

It is unpleasant to associate an idea of the greatest poet of the age, with such a pitiful weakness as this. From all the particulars that Moore and others have given us, we infer that he was a man of weak passions, i. e., feeling of any kind was not lasting with him. It took but little to make him intensely angry and indignant; but his anger and indignation were very evanescent. He had none of that calm and silent rage which betokens an indignation that will last as long as life. His anger was very violent while it lasted, and so was his love, but they both easily evaporated in a few verses. The "harems he in so melancholy a way hints at having broken up, in the first canto of Childe Harold, it appears consisted, in toto, of one maid of all work; and she very unsentimentally transferred her charms from her loving lord to a very ordinary, everyday sort of lover. She took in fact a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, for the young man to whom she made over the attractions that Byron had possessed, was either a servant of his, or employed in some capacity to work upon his estate at Newstead. This, very likely, was the best experimental knowledge he had for thinking men and women so little reliable, and for doubting whether, "two or one are almost what they seem."

When the public discovered that his licentiousness was not so great as he had pictured it in his poetry, he probably determined to give more reality to it, and for a short time in Venice did keep a "harem " of the worst possible description; but we are told that he often spent the night in his gondola on the water, to get rid of the company of this "harem." The Wilkeses and the Bolingbrokes were libertines of a different stamp from this. There was a good deal of affectation about his licentiousness, as well as every thing else relating to him. He was contending all his life against the laws of nature; he seemed to believe himself able by the force of his intellect and genius to compel water to run up hill. He was just discovering the impossibility of the thing when he died. If

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