Cromwell, also, is described as having been of a wayward and violent temper in his youth--cross, untractable, and masterless--with a vast quantity of youthful energy, which exploded in a variety of youthful mischiefs. He even obtained the reputation of a roysterer in his native town, and seemed to be rapidly going to the bad, when religion, in one of its most rigid forms, laid hold upon his strong nature, and subjected it to the iron discipline of Calvinism. An entirely new direction was thus given to his energy of temperament, which forced an outlet for itself into public life, and eventually became the dominating influence in England for a period of nearly twenty years. The heroic princes of the House of Nassau were all distinguished for the same qualities of self-control, self-denial, and determination of purpose. William the Silent was so called, not because he was a taciturn man--for he was an eloquent and powerful speaker where eloquence was necessary--but because he was a man who could hold his tongue when it was wisdom not to speak, and because he carefully kept his own counsel when to have revealed it might have been dangerous to the liberties of his country. He was so gentle and conciliatory in his manner that his enemies even described him as timid and pusillanimous. Yet, when the time for action came, his courage was heroic, his determination unconquerable. "The rock in the ocean," says Mr. Motley, the historian of the Netherlands, "tranquil amid raging billows, was the favourite emblem by which his friends expressed their sense of his firmness." Mr. Motley compares William the Silent to Washington, whom he in many respects resembled. The American, like the Dutch patriot, stands out in history as the very impersonation of dignity, bravery, purity, and personal excellence. His command over his feelings, even in moments of great difficulty and danger, was such as to convey the impression, to those who did not know him intimately, that he was a man of inborn calmness and almost impassiveness of disposition. Yet Washington was by nature ardent and impetuous; his mildness, gentleness, politeness, and consideration for others, were the result of rigid self-control and unwearied self-discipline, which he diligently practised even from his boyhood. His biographer says of him, that "his temperament was ardent, his passions strong, and amidst the multiplied scenes of temptation and excitement through which he passed, it was his constant effort, and ultimate triumph, to check the one and subdue the other." And again: "His passions were strong, and sometimes they broke out with vehemence, but he had the power of checking them in an instant. Perhaps self-control was the most remarkable trait of his character. It was in part the effect of discipline; yet he seems by nature to have possessed this power in a degree which has been denied to other men." [15*5]