Part 12

When Plutarch was asked why he did not oftener select virtuous characters to write about, he intimated that he found the sinners more interesting; and while his judgment is to be deprecated, it can hardly be belied. We revere Marcus Aurelius, but we delight in Cæsar; we admire Sir Robert Peel, but we enjoy Richelieu; we praise Wellington, but we never weary of Napoleon. “Our being,” says Montaigne, “is cemented with sickly qualities; and whoever should divest man of the seeds of those qualities would destroy the fundamental conditions of human life.” It is idle to look to Claverhouse for precisely the virtues which we most esteem in John Howard; but we need not, on that account, turn our eyes reproachfully from one of the most striking and characteristic figures in English history. He was not merely a picturesque feature of his cause, like Rupert of the Rhine, nor a martyr to its fallen hopes, like the Marquis of Montrose; he was its single chance, and, with his death, it died. In versatility and daring, in diplomatic shrewdness and military acumen, he far outranked any soldier of his day. “The charm of an engaging personality,” says a recent critic, “belongs to Montrose, and the pity of his death deepens the romance of his life; but the strong man was Dundee.”

FOOTNOTES:

[14] _Literary Studies_, vol. ii.

Transcriber’s Notes

Page 12: “Marquis de Montmirail” changed to “Marquise de Montmirail” “to the acount” changed to “to the account”

Page 44: “La virtu n’iroit” changed to “La vertu n’iroit”

Page 60: “Jacque Roulet” changed to “Jacques Roulet”