extorted. Minds, like theirs,
which had been nurtured on the principles of constitutional
freedom,--hearts, like theirs, which had caught inspiration from the
heroes and martyrs of liberty,--good right arms, like theirs, which
wielded the implements of war as readily as the implements of labor, all
scouted the very thought of such unutterable abasement. By the
patriotism which abhors treason, by the fortitude which endures
privation, by the intrepidity which faces death, they proved themselves
worthy of the great continent they inhabit by showing themselves capable
of upholding the principles it represents.

In passing from the sphere of politics to the serener region of
literature, art, science, and philosophy, there is an increasing
difficulty in estimating youth by years and an increasing necessity to
estimate it by qualities. One thing, however, is certain,--that the
invention of new methods, the discovery of new truth, and the creation
of new beauty,--intellectual acts which are among the most-important of
historical events,--all belong to that thoroughly _live_ condition of
mind which we have called young. In this sense of youth, it may be said
that Raphael, the greatest painter of moral beauty, and Titian, the
greatest painter of sensuous beauty, were both almost equally young,
though Raphael died at thirty-seven, while Titian was prematurely cut
off by the plague when he was only a hundred. These, of course, are the
extreme cases. But, it maybe asked, were not the greatest poems of the
world, the "Iliad" of Homer, the "Divina Commedia" of Dante, the
"Paradise Lost" of Milton, the creations of comparative old age? The
answer to this question is, that each was probably organized round a
youthful conception, and all were coextensive with the whole growth and
development of their creators. Thus, we do not call Milton old when he
produced "Paradise Lost," but when this mental growth was arrested; and
accordingly "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes," works produced
after his prime, are comparatively bleak and bare products of a
withering imagination and a shrunken personality.

But, confining the matter to the mere question of years, it may be said,
that, allowing for some individual exceptions, the whole history of the
human intellect will bear out the general assertion, that the power in
which great natures culminate, and which fixes fatal limits to their
loftiest aspirations, namely, that flashing conceptiv