A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 85 



seen the mockery crown and sceptre of the exiled Stuarts 

 in St. Peter's 1 the medal struck so lately as 1 784 with 

 its legend, Hen IX Mag Brit bt Hib Rex, whose con- 

 tractions but faintly typify the scantness of the fact 3 



As the novelist complains that jur 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. Rel- 

 atively, the crusade of Sir William Pepperell was of more 

 consequence 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 de- 

 spatches to Governor Shirley. Relatively, the insurrec- 

 tion of that Daniel whose Irish patronymic Shea was 

 euphonized 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 



