CH. XXXII. subsided, along with the aversion on which it rested. English hatred of Spain has long been so obsolete a sentiment as to be virtually inconceivable. Not many care to thread the mazes of the plots he was alleged to have countenanced, or of those contrived against him. His acts have been relegated to a side channel of history. Yet for Englishmen his figure keeps its prominence and radiance. It is the more conspicuous for the poverty of the period in which a large and calamitous part of his career was spent. As the student plods along one of the dreariest wastes of the national annals, his name gleams across the tedious page. When from time to time he flits over the stage, the quagmire of Court intrigues and jobbing favouritism is illuminated with a sparkle of romance.

He is among the most dazzling personalities in English history, and the most enigmatical. Not an action ascribed to him, not a plan he is reputed to have conceived, not a date in his multifarious career, but is matter of controversy. In view of the state of the national records in the last century, it is scarcely strange that Gibbon himself should, after selecting him for a theme, have recoiled from the task of marshalling the chaos of his 'obscure' deeds, a 'fame confined to the narrow limits of our language and our island,' and 'a fund of Perplexities. materials not yet properly manufactured.' Posterity and his contemporaries have equally been unable to agree on his virtues and his vices, the nature of his motives, the spelling of his name, and the amount of his genius. No man was ever less reticent about himself; and his confessions and apologies deepen the confusion. He had a poet's inspiration; and his title to most of the verses ascribed to him is contested. He was one of the creators of modern English prose; and his disquisitions have for two centuries ceased to be read. He and Bacon are coupled by Dugald Stewart as eminent beyond their age for their emancipation from the fetters of the Schoolmen, their originality, and the enlargement of their scientific conceptions; and a single phrase, 'the fundamental laws of human knowledge,' is the only philosophical idea connected with him.

and Incon

His name is entered, rightly, in the first rank of discoverers, CH. XXXII. navigators, and planters, on account of two countries which he neither found nor permanently colonized. He was a great admiral, who commanded in chief on one expedition alone, and that miserably failed. He had in him the making of a great soldier, though his exploits are lost in the dreary darkness of intestine French and Irish savageries. He was a master of policy, and his loftiest office was that of Captain of the Guard. None could be kinder, or more chivalrously generous, and he practised with complacency in Munster treachery and cruelty which he abhorred in a Spaniard of Trinidad. He had Failures the subtlest brain, and became the yokefellow of a Cobham, sistencies. He thirsted after Court favour, and wealth, and died attainted and landless. He longed to scour the world for adventures, and spent a fourth part of his manhood in a gaol. He laid the foundation of a married life characterized by an unbroken tenor of romantic trust and devotion, by doing his wife the worst injury a woman can undergo. The star of his hopes was the future of his elder son, and the boy squandered his life on an idle skirmish. He courted admiration, and, till he was buried in prison or the grave, was the best hated man in the kingdom.

Had he been less vivacious and many-sided, he might have succeeded better, suffered less, and accomplished more. With qualities less shining he would have escaped the trammels. of Court favouritism, and its stains. With powers less various he would have been content to be illustrious in one line. As a poet he might have rivalled instead of patronizing Spenser. In prose he might have surpassed the thoughtful majesty of Hooker. As an observer of nature he might have disputed the palm with Bacon. He must have been recognized as endowed with the specific gifts of a statesman or a general, if he had possessed none others as remarkable. But if less various he would have been less attractive. If he had shone without a cloud in any one direction, he would not have pervaded a period with the splendour of his nature, and become its

CH. XXXII. type.

More smoothness in his fortunes would have shorn them of their tragic picturesqueness. Failure itself was needed to colour all with the tints which surprise and captivate. He was not a martyr to forgive his persecutors. He was not a hero to endure in silence, and without an effort at escape. His character had many earthy streaks. His self-love was enormous. He could be shifty, wheedling, whining. His extraordinary and indomitable perseverance in the pursuit of ends was crossed with a strange restlessness and recklessness in the choice of means. His projects often ended in reverses and disappointments. Yet, with all the shortcomings, no figure, no life gathers up in itself more completely the whole spirit of an epoch; none more firmly enchains admiration for invincible individuality, or ends by winning a more personal tenderness and affection.

INDEX.

D d