There were three periods in Washington’s life, and either of the two first would alone have placed him in the highest roll of the names of great men. The close of his military life (here represented) terminated the first period. His civil career in the presidency terminated the second; and here all comparison between Washington and any other man that ever lived ceases entirely. With a fame as complete as his, on his second retirement to Mount Vernon, a sincere and ardent wish to pass the remainder of his days in peaceful seclusion, and domestic ties and attachments of the strongest character; with all this around him, to come out once more from his tent of glory, and at his country’s call to expose his bright name again to the hazards of failure, and to the eagerness of human envy and misconstruction,—this seems to me the sublimest moment of the life of Washington. “You know, Sir,” he says in his letter to the President, accepting the office of commander-in-chief of the army, “what calculations I had made relative to the probable course of events on my retiring from office, and the determination with which I had consoled myself of closing the remnant of my days in my present peaceful abode. You will, therefore, be at no loss to conceive and appreciate the sensations I must have experienced to bring my mind to any conclusion that would pledge me, at so late a period of life, to leave scenes I sincerely love to enter upon the boundless field of public action, incessant trouble, and high responsibility.” It is singular how all the contemporaneous judgments of Washington’s character unite in ascribing the difficulty of drawing his portrait to the unity, harmony, and perfectability of his character. Chastellux says very forcibly, “If you are presented with medals of Cæsar, of Trajan, or Alexander, on examining their features you will still be led to ask, what was their stature and the form of their persons; but if you discover in a heap of ruins the head or a limb of the Apollo, be not curious about the other parts, but rest assured that they were all conformable to those of a god. Let not this impression be attributed to enthusiasm. I wish only to express the impression that Washington has left on my mind: the idea of a perfect whole, that cannot be the produce of enthusiasm, which rather would reject it, since the effect of proportion is to diminish the idea of greatness.” In a funereal eulogy pronounced by Mr. Ware at Hingham, occurs nearly the same sentiment.