Finally, as a ruler: “The king was naturally kind and indulgent to persons of mean estate, and hostile to all great men who had no need of him.... But this I say boldly in his commendation, that in my whole life I never knew any man so wise in his misfortunes.” To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate. We cannot easily or advantageously regard Louis with affection; but when Commines epitomizes history in an ejaculation, “Our good master, Louis, whom God pardon!” it rests our souls to say, “Amen!” We cannot easily love Swift. The great “professional hater” frightens us out of the timid regard which we should like--in honour of English literature--to cherish for his memory. But there is a noble sentence of Thackeray’s which, if it does not soften our hearts, cannot fail to clarify our minds, to free us from the stupid, clogging misapprehension which we confuse with moral distaste. “Through the storms and tempests of his [Swift’s] furious mind the stars of religion and love break out in the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds and maddening hurricane of his life.” One clear and penetrating note (“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came”) is worth much careful auditing of accounts. The picture of John Wilkes drawn by Sir George Otto Trevelyan in his “Early History of Charles James Fox,” and the picture of Aaron Burr drawn by Mr. Albert J. Beveridge in his “Life of John Marshall,” are happy illustrations of unpopular subjects treated with illuminating kindness. Wilkes was a demagogue and Burr a trouble-maker (the terms are not necessarily synonymous), and neither of them is a man whose history is widely or accurately known. Both historians are swayed by their political passions. An historian without political passions is as rare as a wasp without a sting. To Trevelyan all Conservatives were in fault, and all Liberals in the right. Opposition to George the Third is the acid test he applies to separate gold from dross. Mr. Beveridge regards the Federalists as the strength, and the Republicans as the weakness, of the young nation. Thomas Jefferson is _his_ test, and a man hated and hounded by Jefferson necessarily wins his support.