What was Washington, for example, but an epitome of the steady and noble qualities combined of cavalier and puritan, which were then coalescing in the American character? And what more perfect correspondence could be conceived between the moral and intellectual and the physical outlines? What was Cromwell but _the Englishman_, not only of his own time, but of all times? And the testimony of all who saw him, what is it, but that a child, who looked upon him, could not fail to see, in his very lineaments, the great and terrible man he was? And Napoleon, was he aught but an abridgment of the French nation, the sublimate and "proof" essence of French character? Not one, of all the great men of history, has possessed, so far as we know, a physical constitution more perfectly representing, even in its advancing grossness, both the strength and weakness of the people he led. In tranquil times, these things are not observed in one individual more than in others of his class, and we are, therefore, not prepared to decide whether, at such periods, _the one man_ exists. The great Leviathan, the king of all the creatures of the ocean, rises to the surface only in the tumult of the storm; his huge, portentous form, lies on the face of the troubled waters only when the currents are changed and the fountains of the deep are broken up. Nature does no superfluous work, and it may require the same causes which produce the storm to organize its Ruler. If a great rebellion is boiling among men, the mingling of the elements is projecting, also, the Great Rebel: if a national cause is to be asserted, the principles upon which it rests will first create its appropriate Exponent. But when no such agitation is on the point of breaking out--when the crisis is not near, and the necessity for such greatness distant--national character probably retains its level; and though there be no _one_ whom the people will recognise as the arch-man, the representatives, losing in intensity what they gain in numbers, become a class. They fill the civil stations of the country, and are known as men of mark--their opinions are received, their advice accepted, their leading followed. No one of them is known instinctively, or trusted implicitly, as the leader of Nature's appointment: yet they are, in fact, the exponents of their time and race, and in exact proportion to the degree in which they possess the character, will they exhibit, also, the physical peculiarities. Thus it was at the time of which we are writing, with the class to which belonged the politician, and a description of his personal appearance, like that of any other man, will convey no indistinct impression of his internal character.