A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 75 



1784 with its legend, HEN IX. MAG BRIT ET HIB REX, 

 whose contractions but faintly typify the scantness of 

 the fact ? 



As the novelist complains that our society wants that 

 sharp contrast of character and costume which comes of 

 caste, so in the narrative of our historians we miss what 

 may be called background and perspective, as if the events 

 and the actors in them failed of that cumulative interest 

 which only a long historical entail can give. Relatively, 

 the crusade of Sir William Pepperell was of more conse 

 quence than that of St. Louis, and yet forgive us, injured 

 shade of the second American baronet, if we find the 

 narrative of Joinville more interesting than your despatches 

 to Governor Shirley. Relatively, the insurrection of that 

 Daniel whose Irish patronymic Shea was euphonised into 

 Shays, as a set-off for the debasing of French chaise into 

 shay, was more dangerous than that of Charles Edward ; 

 but for some reason or other (as vice sometimes has the 

 advantage of virtue) the latter is more enticing to the 

 imagination, and the least authentic relic of it in song or 

 story has a relish denied to the painful industry of Minot. 

 Our events seem to fall short of that colossal proportion 

 which befits the monumental style. Look grave as we will, 

 there is something ludicrous in Counsellor Keane s pig being 

 the pivot of a revolution. We are of yesterday, and it is to 

 no purpose that our political augurs divine from the flight of 

 our eagles that to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with 

 an all-hail hereafter. Things do really gain in greatness by 

 being acted on a great and cosmopolitan stage, because 

 there is inspiration in the thronged audience, and the 

 nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster was 

 more largely endowed by nature than Fox, and Fisher 

 Ames not much below Burke as a talker ; but what a 

 difference in the intellectual training, in the literary culture 

 and associations, in the whole social outfit, of the men who 

 were their antagonists and companions ! It should seem 

 that, if it be collision with other minds and with events 

 that strikes or draws the fire from a man, then the quality 



