that he was a plain, sober, guileless gentleman, who would to the best of his ability fulfil his instructions, but could be induced to exceed them by no bribe of fame, or power, or flattery.

Few public characters have been so fortunate as Washington. The sympathy which men of generous natures throughout Europe felt for his cause took the form of enthusiastic admiration of the man; and when, his work accomplished, he returned to the position of a private citizen, in every quarter were resounded the praises of one who, with unprecedented magnanimity, had declined to seize a crown that he might (as it was erroneously imagined) safely have grasped. Lord Erskine said that he could not reflect on such a character without a sensation "of awe;" and Lord Brougham has spoken of him as "the greatest of great men.' The philosophic moderation, however, that elicited these eulogies, consisted solely in freedom from a foolish ambition, that could never have obtained its object.

SAMUEL M. SMUCKER.

1860.

THE personal qualities of this illustrious man have so often been delineated, that it seems almost a superfluous task to attempt a description of them. His best and most accurate portrait is to be derived from the examination of the actions which he performed, and of the results which he accomplished. The intellectual character of Washington was peculiar. Though he became the triumphant hero of a long and arduous war, his military talents were not of the highest order. In this respect he was inferior to many men who, in the career of arms, have achieved far less renown than he. He possessed little power of strategy, little of that promptness and intuitive sagacity which enables a commander to adapt himself to the sudden and unexpected emergencies which occur in the crises of great engagements. In this respect, if his plan of battle was once deranged by unforseen accidents, he was unable to readjust the machinery of his army, or to confront and confound the operations of the foe by new and instantaneous combinations adapted to the emergency.* In this respect Marlborough, Saxe, Prince Eugene, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, were all infinitely his superiors.

The chief military ability of Washington consisted in the prudence

* Compare Thomas Jefferson, page 168.—ED.

and skill with which he adjusted the details of an assault on an enemy who was posted in a firm position; and the energy and perseverance with which he persisted in the subsequent attack. Thus he was triumphant over the British at Boston and Yorktown, and achieved brilliant successes there, because he was enabled to prepare his plans of attack, and to adhere to them, without the possibility of having them disarranged by sudden and unforseen movements of the enemy. His personal bravery was unquestionable; and he faced danger and death with the most perfect fortitude and indifference, when honor and duty required him so to do. His most prominent characteristic as a military commander, was his prudence; and it is probable that this solid quality was more available, under the existing circumstances, in weakening the foe by long delays, by harassing evasions, by cautious postponements of decisive actions, than by those more brilliant and showy talents which would have risked the fate of vast and important interests upon the issue of a few rash and imprudent conflicts.

A prominent element in the greatness of Washington consisted in the fact that, with respectable military talents, he combined far higher and greater abilities for the administration of government. He was placed at the head of this Confederacy at the most difficult and perilous period of its past career; when a thousand hostile and rival interests among the States, and between the separate States and the Federal Government, and between the Federal Government and the continental troops, and between several political factions in the Government, rendered it impossible so to steer as fully to meet the views and satisfy the demands of all parties. Yet that result was

attained by Washington in a remarkable degree; and when, after an administration of eight eventful years, he retired from the Presidency, he left the Republic in a compact and united condition; the community at large flourishing and prosperous; and their reputation among foreign nations as a young and vigorous empire, unspotted, greatly respected, and destined to achieve with the lapse of time, a high and glorious position among the oldest communities on the globe. The triumphs of Washington as a civil and executive officer were far more honorable than even those attained by him on the battle-field.

Taken as a whole, therefore, his character was one of the most remarkable and estimable that ever existed among men. His predominating political attribute was Patriotism. His leading intellectual faculty was Sagacity. His chief social characteristics were Prudence and Self-control. His prominent moral qualities were Honesty and Conscientiousness. And all the several parts of his nature were combined together and proportioned in so admirable and equitable a measure, that he constituted a grand and harmonious Whole, such as is rarely exhibited in the chequered annals of this world's history. Many great and illustrious men have equalled George Washington in some one or other single quality; but scarcely any man of ancient or modern times possessed a mental and moral constitution of such admirable proportions, or of such beautiful, complete, and uniform development. Nature formed him truly great; but the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed-first of war and then of peaceconspired to render him, as possessing such faculties, greater still; until his position became at length firmly fixed among the few mortals

whose majestic forms loom up sublimely through all times and ages, as specimens of spotless, peerless and almost perfect Humanity.

SAMUEL M. SMUCKER was born at Newmarket, Virginia, January 12, 1823, and died at Philadelphia, May 12, 1863. He graduated at Washington College, Pa., in 1840, studied theology in the Gettysburg Theological Seminary, and in 1842 was licensed by the Lutheran Synod, to preach at Bloomfield. He afterwards preached at Lewistown, Pa., and in Germantown, 1845-48. He then studied law, and was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in January, 1850, but occupied himself chiefly in literature. His "Life of George Washington," from which we quote, was published at Philadelphia in 1860. 12mo.