ting blow at the Republic of Rome; and
Napoleon was only twenty-seven when, on the plains of Italy, he
out-generaled and defeated, one after another, the veteran marshals of
Austria.

Equal courage and resolution are often shown by men who have passed the
allotted limit of life. Victor Hugo and Wellington were both in their
prime after they had reached the age of threescore years and ten. George
Bancroft wrote some of his best historical work when he was eighty-five.
Gladstone ruled England with a strong hand at eighty-four, and was a
marvel of literary and scholarly ability.

"Your Grace has not the organ of animal courage largely developed," said
a phrenologist, who was examining Wellington's head. "You are right,"
replied the Iron Duke, "and but for my sense of duty I should have
retreated in my first fight." That first fight, on an Indian field, was
one of the most terrible on record.

Grant never knew when he was beaten. When told that he was surrounded by
the enemy at Belmont, he quietly replied: "Well, then, we must cut our
way out."

When General Jackson was a judge and was holding court in a small
settlement, a border ruffian, a murderer and desperado, came into the
court-room with brutal violence and interrupted the court. The judge
ordered him to be arrested. The officer did not dare approach him. "Call
a posse," said the judge, "and arrest him." But they also shrank with
fear from the ruffian. "Call me, then," said Jackson; "this court is
adjourned for five minutes." He left the bench, walked straight up to
the man, and with his eagle eye actually cowed the ruffian, who dropped
his weapons, afterward saying: "There was something in his eye I could
not resist."

Lincoln never shrank from espousing an unpopular cause when he believed
it to be right. At the time when it almost cost a young lawyer his bread
and butter to defend the fugitive slave, and when other lawyers had
refused, Lincoln would always plead the cause of the unfortunate
whenever an opportunity presented. "Go to Lincoln," people would say,
when these bounded fugitives were seeking protection; "he's not afraid
of any cause, if it's right."

Abraham Lincoln's boyhood was one long struggle with poverty, with
little education and no influential friends. When at last he had begun
the practice of law it required no little daring to cast his fortune
with the weaker side in politics, and thus imperil what small reputation
he had gained. Only the