Homes of American Statesmen; With Anecdotical, Personal, and Descriptive SketchesVarious
History
Homes of American Statesmen; With Anecdotical, Personal, and Descriptive Sketches
Various
Historic buildings -- United States; Statesmen -- United States; United States -- Biography
but because he is fond of books generally; secondly, that when his
favorite is, though of the highest merit, a very unusual one, he must
not only have read much, but with great discrimination: thirdly, that if
his favorite was in a special class (not a mere miscellanist) he was
well read in that class, addicted to it: fourthly, that he was enamored
of such a favorite for his matchless merits, both of matter and of
style; his sensibility to the former of which particulars implied
information, to the latter a well-formed taste: fifthly, that no mere
translation of Livy--especially not flat, tame old Holland--nothing short
of the golden original, could have inspired such a Livian affection. But
this is not all; when--coming to be put into the possession of the
scanty remaining body of Mr. Henry's papers (ill-preserved by his not
very wise progeny) and invited to write his life more authentically--we
ourselves began first to study his speeches and his mind critically, it
did not take us long to perceive, what is indeed easily seen, that Mr.
Henry's early passion for Livy--born of course of Livy's conformity to
his genius--had deeply tinged the peculiar style of his eloquence, the
peculiar character of his politics, was, in sooth, the immediate source
of both; that the harangues in Livy had been his models of discourse;
that the sentiments of public magnanimity, which Livy every where, and
we may say Livy alone breathes, were transfused into Henry's spirit, and
gave to his ideas of a state that singular grandeur, that loftiness,
that heroism, which fills and informs them. His love of freedom
even--his republicanism--was such as Livy's; popular, yet patrician: not
your levelled liberty, too low to last, which, to keep down the
naturally great, sets up the base on high; but a freedom consistent with
the eminence and the subordination of natural orders mutually dependent;
equal under the law, but distinct in their power to serve the state, as
bringing to its aid, this rank higher counsels and obligations, that,
force and numbers; in short, not merely a tumultuary, a mob liberty, but
a social and a regulated concert of all classes, the absolute
predominance of none; a republican, not a democratic aim. Less learned
than Milton, certainly, but of a highly kindred spirit, he was very like
him in his general political system; but was more practical, better
acquainted with men. The one had more of the poetical element in him,
the other more of the political. Both were deeply religious; without
which no man can be a safe politician. Each towered above all the men of
his day, except one, a warrior; and nearly such relation as Milton held
to Cromwell did Henry hold to Washington. Alike in the antique cast of
their minds, they were yet alike in being, withal, thoroughly English in
their notion of actual freedom: for Henry's mind was just as little
touched with any of the Jeffersonian fancies of Frenchified liberty as
Milton's own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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