In virtue and wisdom their coequal, he
vanquished on several occasions a force greatly superior to his own in
numbers and in discipline, by the courage and confidence he inspired,
and by his brotherly care and anxiety for those who were fighting at
his side. Differently, far differently, ought we to estimate the
squanderers of human blood, and the scorners of human tears. _We_ also
may boast of our great men in a cause as great; for without it they
could not be so. We may look back upon our Blake; whom the prodigies
of a Nelson do not eclipse, nor would he have wished (such was his
generosity) to obscure it. Blake was among the founders of freedom;
Nelson was the vanquisher of its destroyers. Washington was both;
Kosciusko was neither; neither was Hofer. But the aim of all three was
alike; and in the armory of God are suspended the arms the two last of
them bore; suspended for success more signal and for vengeance more
complete.

I am writing this from Venice, which is among cities what Shakespeare
is among men. He will give her immortality by his works, which neither
her patron saint could do, nor her surrounding sea.

II

NAPOLEON AND PERICLES

Two powerful nations have been vitally affected by natural calamities.
The former of these calamities was inevitable by human prudence, and
uncontrollable by human skill; the latter was to be foreseen at any
distance by the most ignorant, and to be avoided by the most unwary. I
mean in the first the Plague of the Athenians; in the second the
starvation of the French. The first happened under the administration
of a man transcendently brave; a man cautious, temperate, eloquent,
prompt, sagacious, above all that ever guided the councils and
animated the energies of a state; the second under a soldier of
fortune, expert and enthusiastic; but often deficient in moral
courage, not seldom in personal; rude, insolent, rash, rapacious;
valuing but one human life among the myriads at his disposal, and that
one far from the worthiest, in the estimation of an honester and a
saner mind.

It is with reluctant shame I enter on a comparison of such a person
and Pericles. On one hand we behold the richest cultivation of the
most varied and extensive genius; the confidence of courage, the
sedateness of wisdom, the stateliness of integrity; on the other,
coarse manners, rude language, violent passions continually exploding,
a bottomless void on the side of truth, and a rueful wast