of this distinguished man; for I was no
Foxite. I regarded his policy in opposition as the pleadings of a powerful
advocate, with a vast retaining fee, a most comprehensive cause, and a
most generous and confiding client. Popularity, popular claims, and the
people, were all three made for him beyond all other men; and no advocate
ever pleaded with more indefatigable zeal, or more resolute determination.
But, raised to a higher position, higher qualities were demanded. Whether
they might not have existed in his nature, waiting for the development of
time, is the question. But time was not given. His task had hitherto been
easy. It was simply to stand as a spectator on the shore, criticising the
manoeuvres of a stately vessel struggling with the gale. The helm was at
last put into his hand; and it was then that he felt the difference
between _terra firma_ and the wild and restless element which he was now
to control. But he had scarcely set his foot on the deck, when he, too,
was swept away. On such brevity of trial, it is impossible to judge. Time
might have matured his vigour, while it expanded his views: matchless as
the leader of a party, he might then have been elevated into the
acknowledged leader of a people. The singular daring, ardent
sensitiveness, and popular ambition, which made him dangerous in a private
station, might then have found their nobler employment, and been purified
in the broad and lofty region of ministerial duty. He might have enlarged
the partizan into the patriot, and, instead of being the great leader of a
populace, have been ennobled into the great guide of an empire.

But the world never stands still. On the day when I returned from
moralising on the vanity of life over the grave of Fox, I received a
letter, a trumpet-call to the _melee_, from Mordecai. It was enthusiastic,
but its enthusiasm had now taken a bolder direction. "In abandoning
England," he told me, "he had abandoned all minor and personal
speculations, and was now dealing with the affairs of kingdoms." This
letter gave only fragments of his views; but it was easy to see that he
contemplated larger results than he ventured to trust to paper.

"You must come and see me here," said he, "for it is only here that you
_can_ see me as I ever desired to be seen; or in fact, as nature made me.
In your busy metropolis, I was only one of the millions who were content
to make a sort of a reptile existence, creeping on the ground, and livi