A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 87 



may be laid at their door, but they are not fairly to be 

 charged with fickleness. They are constant to whoever is 

 constant to his real self, to the best manhood that is in him, 

 and not to the mere selfishness, the antica lupa so cunning 

 to hide herself in the sheep s fleece even from ourselves. It 

 is true, the contemporary world is apt to be the gull of bril 

 liant parts, and the maker of a lucky poem or picture or 

 statue, the winner of a lucky battle, gets perhaps more than 

 is due to the solid result of his triumph. It is time that fit 

 honour should be paid also to him who shows a genius for 

 public usefulness, for the achievement of character, who 

 shapes his life to a certain classic proportion, and comes off 

 conqueror on those inward fields where something more than 

 mere talent is demanded for victory. The memory of such 

 men should be cherished as the most precious inheritance 

 which one generation can bequeath to the next. However 

 it might be with public favour, public respect followed Mr. 

 Quincy unwaveringly for seventy years, and it was because 

 he had never forfeited his own. In this, it appears to us, 

 lies the lesson of his life, and his claim upon our grateful 

 recollection. It is this which makes him an example, while 

 the careers of so many of our prominent men are only useful 

 for warning. As regards history, his greatness was narrowly 

 provincial; but if the measure of deeds be the spirit in which 

 they are done, that fidelity to instant duty, which, according 

 to Herbert, makes an action fine, then his length of years 

 should be very precious to us for its lesson. Talleyrand, 

 whose life may be compared with his for the strange vicissi 

 tudes which it witnessed, carried with him out of the world 

 the respect of no man, least of all his own; and how many 

 of our own public men have we seen whose old age but accu 

 mulated a disregard which they would gladly have exchanged 

 for oblivion ! In Quincy the public fidelity was loyal to the 

 private, and the withdrawal of his old age was into a sanc 

 tuary a diminution of publicity with addition of influence. 



Conclude we, then, felicity consists 

 Not in exterior fortunes. . . . 

 Sacred felicity doth ne er extend 

 Beyond itself. . . . 

 The swelling of an outward fortune can 

 Create a prosperous, not a happy man. 



